I have so many thoughts I need to explicate. Recently my life has consisted of fairly rote, routine behaviors. I have decided that I am alright with this. Initially I would assume that such days are simply lost, never able to be retrieved again. But then I think to myself how important it is gain some distance with thoughts now and again in order gain additional appreciable perspective on them.
That’s not what I really want to talk about though.
I want to discuss my culture.
I never really feel at home in my culture. I don’t really like participating in the mundane activities of the herd. I have a tendency to want to critique and criticize everything. Denis Diderot once said “Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.” I believe this, and it’s comforting to know that this man agrees with my modus operandi.
Society. I miss writing. I miss possessing clear and coherent thoughts that burst forth in stream from my cranium in brilliant displays of imagination. Or, that’s how I like to believe my thoughts gush anyway.
My mind is whithering and warping with every passing day. But I am no drone. I am a critical thinker, capable of inquiring about the most assuming questions. My task is to dig deeper, to delve and probe into the fathoms of reality, of social reality, the one true reality.
Language has been provided to us. It provides a mental scaffolding for ideas. These ideas are none other than concepts, the architecture of will, but the semantics of these concepts cannot be captured with mere propositions. There need be procedural knowledge, demonstrable modeling of the intention, in order to capture the true meaning of words. When the ligatures binding language to meaning have been cut, there is no more utility in the symbolic representation of our words. It is essential to inscribe these words into the world and into the minds, but even more essential is that these words, these concepts of our will, of our moral action, be inscribed into the hearts of men, lest they become trite and meaningless barbara, or fulsome foreign noise.
Power is represented economically. This word: economics, the “law of the home” or the “management of the home” is fitting, but it doesn’t contain the convey pecuniary interest of our material society. Money is law. It produces law. But yet, money is fictitious. It simply codifies and carries out a symbolic incentive, an incentive that drives man to work for others out of necessity, rather than sufficiency.
Swahili, the African trade language, is similar to the mainstay English tongue of today. The disparate tribes possessing their own language reflect a tongue born from the struggles afforded by the geographical demands of necessary survival. Within our country today we have many tongues, yet they all fall under the same “language”, under the same syntax that we call English. Can you speak in the language of physicists? Or perhaps cognitive neuroscientists? Or biologists? Or computer scientists and information technologists? Unless you were raised or socialized using these domain specific languages, or cultivated the tongue through many years of schooling, you would not be familiar with the terminology of these domains. You would be a foreigner. This is the specialization of labor. And each labor produces a unique vocabulary because each labor possesses unique demands, just like geography produces unique demands. In our current society, the division of labor has produced the specialization of language. And each language possesses its very own economic utility. But every language is born out of a people, and the closer you can come to gaining access to a network of people, the sooner you can learn and utilize their language, and in turn capitalize on the economic privileges it affords. But learning the language is not enough. No amount of schooling will provide you with experience, and just because you know Spanish doesn’t mean you know the traditions and customs and practices inherent to it. As a result, you must network, socialize, and mentor under these economic demigods.
The common culture that unites us all is no longer religion, like it once was in Ancient Greece with its pantheon of Gods and deities. Today it is television, social media, entertainment, news. Depending on your values, your world view affiliation, you identify with different cultural outlets. They become the constant structure of your experience. They organize your life, they create regularity, they provide hope and something to look forward to: the weekly TV show, the seasons next fashion line, the next big movie, the final in the trilogy, etc, etc.
Freedom only exists when people are free to survive on their own free will, assuming free will is, of course, a responsibility to our selves. As such, freedom can only exist when we own our own property, when we own the means necessary to guarantee our own survival. I do not want to rent my labor to someone else, no more than I wish to rent my mind, my thoughts, or my desires to another. This is why I refrain from cultural indoctrination.
Property ownership and government power are inversely proportional. The more property owned by people, the less intervention is required of the government. This is because government should serve only to protect the people from each other, and when a man possesses all that is required for his survival, why does he need the resources of another man? You might reply with greed, and that would be correct, and the government’s sole role and responsibility is to curtail that very tendency in man.
John Locke said that the only function of government should be to protect an individuals property because, he believed, that property was essential to the number one prerogative of man: self-preservation. Without property, man cannot preserve himself. He relies on others to preserve him as he grows dependent upon their property, their capital.
The less property owned by the people, the greater need of a government power. The reason? To curb or mollify or prevent exploitation.
The more property owned by the people, the greater freedom they possess and the less they need to rely on others for their survival.
I always know the weak, because they are the most sensitive to the opinions of others. They will always react in hasty retreat, or lash out in desperate defense. Yet their defense is always degrading, a weak attempt to lower themselves back into their ways, rather than rise above. They are ruled by emotions that know no reason. Character is passion made reasonable. Their character contains flaws, and they are unwilling to reconcile this reality. I’m not sure I want a reasonable character, do I? Only if it is made by my reason, by something universal in me.
You are always better than you believe you are. You do not need the opinions of others to sustain your identity. You need only yourself.
I was reading a chapter from Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, specifically on the Greek Themistocles. He was a powerful and persuasive politician and strategist. In his youth Plutarch noted that Themistocles cared little for the past times of his peers, and instead devoted his time to reading and writing on political and legal matters that he contrived from observation and imagination. He studied wisdom, probably of the philosophical school past down from Solon, of the kind that praised common sense and pragmatics as opposed to pure theoretical, speculative studies. I relate a great deal with Themistocles.
The illusion of choice gives rise to the illusion of freedom.
William Dare 