Book Review of “Explaining Postmodernism”, by Stephen R.C. Hicks

This is the best non-fiction book I’ve read in a decade. I highly recommend it. The over-all value of the book lies in tracing the origins of what I find to be a common tactic when debating a leftist. You present them with arguments, facts, and logic, and, at the end, they will say something like:

Well this is all just your white male prejudice,”; “that’s only logic, come down to reality,”; “those are just your definitions, and all definitions are ultimately arbitrary”; or, even, “I don’t feel that you’re right, and why is your logic better than my feelings?

Hicks has provided an explanation, lying in the history of philosophy, for why so many people seem to consider such responses to a logical argument to be persuasive. That explanation lies, mostly, in the ideas of dead, white, male philosophers who lived two-hundred years ago. Those notions have slowly “trickled down” to the masses, and infect the majority of people’s minds today -especially any college student with a “gender studies” or “black studies” degree.

The author expressly states his theme in his table of contents:

Thesis: The failure of epistemology made postmodernism possible, and the failure of socialism made postmodernism necessary.” (Table of Contents, Pg. i.)

Did I find this, in fact, to be his theme based on my reading of the book? Overall, I’d say, yes. I’ll start with Hicks’ definition of “postmodernism”:

Postmodernism rejects the entire Enlightenment project. It holds that the modernist premises of the Enlightenment were untenable from the beginning…” (Pg 14)

Postmodernism reject the Enlightenment project in the most fundamental way possible -by attacking its essential philosophical themes. Postmodernism rejects the reason and the individualism that the entire Enlightenment would depend upon.” (Pg. 14)

His definition of “postmodern” is basically a “negative definition”. He defines it as an attack on the Enlightenment. What does he think the Enlightenment stood for?

In philosophy, modernism’s essentials are located in the formative figures of Francis Bacon…Rene Descartes…, for their influence upon epistemology, and more comprehensively in John Locke…for his influence upon all aspects of philosophy.” (Pg. 7)

 “Bacon, Descartes ,and Locke are modern because of their philosophical naturalism, their profound confidence in reason, and especially in the case of Locke, their individualism. Modern thinkers stress that perception and reason are the human means of knowing nature -in contrast to the pre-modern reliance upon tradition, faith, and mysticism. Modern thinkers stress human autonomy and the human capacity for forming one’s character -in contrast to the pre-modern emphasis upon dependence and original sin. Modern thinkers emphasize the individual…“ (Pg. 7)

To sum up, Hicks sees three “types” of philosophical attitudes in the Western World:

The “Pre-modern”, as exemplified by the Christian Medieval, and, probably, the Ancient Greek worlds;

the “modern” attitude, which started around the time of Francis Bacon; and

the “postmodern”, whose origins he goes on to explain later in the book.

What was the “failure of epistemology” he says “made postmodernism possible”?  He doesn’t spend too much time explaining what “epistemology” is. He clearly is familiar with, and sympathetic to, Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. I assume he generally agrees with what she said in “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”. I also think he is assuming people reading his book will already have some general understanding of the subject of philosophy and its basic questions. But, early on, he defines what he views as the “Enlightenment epistemology”, which is:

If one emphasizes that reason is the faculty of understanding nature, then that epistemology systematically applied yields science. Enlightenment thinkers laid the foundations of all the major branches of science. In mathematics, Isaac Newton….developed the calculus….Linnaeus…a comprehensive biological taxonomy…Lavoisier…the foundations of chemistry.” (Pg. 9)

Hicks says there were:

“…philosophical weaknesses…” that had “….emerged clearly by the middle of the eighteenth century, in the skepticism of David Hume’s empiricism and the dead-end reached by traditional rationalism.” (Pg. 24)

But, he says that the real “counter-Enlightenment” started from 1780 to 1815 with a split between Anglo-American culture on the one hand and German culture on the other. (Pg. 24) In Germany:

Immanuel Kant is the most significant thinker of the Counter-Enlightenment.” (Pg. 27)

Kant’s priority was to defend religion from the Enlightenment:

I here therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.” (See Second Preface to the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant.)

How did Kant “deny knowledge in order to make room for faith”, according to Hicks?

The fundamental question of reason is its relationship to reality. Is reason capable of knowing reality -or is it not? Is our rational faculty a cognitive function, taking its material from reality…or is it not? This is the question that divides philosophers into pro- and anti- reason camps…the question that divides the rational gnostics and the skeptics, and this was Kant’s question in his Critique of Pure Reason.” (Pg. 28)

Kant was crystal clear about his answer. Reality -real, noumenal reality- is forever closed off to reason, and reason is limited to awareness and understanding of its own subjective products….Limited to knowledge of phenomena that it has itself constructed according to its own design, reason cannot know anything outside itself.” (Pg. 29)

In this way, reason was, according to Kant, limited to the “phenomenal realm”, while the “noumenal realm”, the realm of religion, was off limits to reason. (Pg. 29)

Since Kant posited his epistemic system to save religion, how did it come to be used by a bunch of largely, “irreligious”, if not atheistic, post-modern intellectuals? The rest of Chapter Two of Hick’s book lays out the “evolution” of Kant’s way of thinking by subsequent German philosophers, especially Hegel, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard. He sums these subsequent, pre-twentieth-century philosophers at the end of Chapter 2 in this way:

The legacy of the irrationalists for the twentieth century included four key themes:

1. An agreement with Kant that reason is impotent to know reality;

2. an agreement with Hegel that reality is deeply conflictual and/or absurd;

3. a conclusion that reason is therefore trumped by claims based on feeling, instinct, or leaps of faith; and

4. that the non-rational and the irrational yield deep truths about reality.” (Pg. 57)

In the Twentieth Century, Hicks sees this tradition as having been continued by most major philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, who “…agreed with Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer that by exploring his feelings -especially his dark and anguished feelings of dread and guilt- he could approach Being.” (Pg. 59)

According to Hicks:

Heidegger offered to his followers the following conclusions, all of which are accepted by the mainstream of postmodernism with slight modifications:

1. Conflict and contradiction are the deepest truths of realty;

2. Reason is subjective and impotent to reach truths about reality;

3. Reason’s elements -words and concepts- are obstacles that must be un-crusted, subjected to Destruktion, or otherwise unmasked;

4. Logical contradiction is neither a sign of failure nor of anything particularly significant at all;

5. Feelings, especially morbid feelings of anxiety and dread, are a deeper guide than reason;

6. The entire Western tradition of philosophy -whether Platonic, Aristotelian, Lockean, or Cartesian- based as it is on the law of non-contradiction and the subject/object distinction, is the enemy to overcome.” (Pg. 65-66)

Note that little has been said about the political views of post-modern intellectuals yet. Hicks observes that, in fact, most post-modern intellectuals are on the political left. (Pg. 84) Starting at Chapter 4, he addresses the connection between the epistemology and metaphysics advanced by German philosophers since Kant, and its political implications. The reason for the modern socialist’s rejection of reason lies in the failure of socialism in theory and in practice:

As modernists, the [early] socialists argued that socialism could be proved by evidence and rational analysis, and that once the evidence was in, socialism’s moral and economic superiority to capitalism would be clear to anyone with an open mind.” (Pg. 86)

Free market economists, such as Ludwig von Mises, Milton Freedman, and Friedrich Hayek, have largely won the debate when it comes to the theoretical case for capitalism over socialism. (Pg. 87) The moral/political debate is more “up for grabs”, but, even here:

“…the leading thesis is that some form of [classical] liberalism in the broadest sense is essential to protecting civil rights and civil society…” (Pg. 87)

By the 21st Century the:

“…empirical evidence has been much harder on socialism. Economically, in practice the capitalist nations are increasingly productive and prosperous…every socialist experiment has ended in dismal economic failure…Morally and politically…every liberal capitalist country has a solid record of being humane, for by and large respecting rights and freedoms, and for making it possible for people to put together fruitful and meaningful lives. Socialist practice has time and time again proved itself more brutal than the worst dictatorships in history prior to the twentieth century.” (Pg. 87-88)

The success of the capitalist world and the failure of the socialist nations created a “crisis of faith” for those on the left. As Hicks notes:

This is a moment of truth for anyone who has experienced the agony of a deeply cherished hypothesis run aground on the rocks of reality. What do you do? Do you abandon your theory and go with the facts -or do you try to find a way to maintain your belief in your theory?” (Pg. 89)

Hicks believes the modern left’s abandonment of reality and reason in favor of “post-modern thinking” is their effort to “have their cake and eat it too”:

Here then, is my second hypothesis about post-modernism: Postmodernism is the academic far Left’s epistemological strategy for responding to the crisis caused by the failures of socialism in theory and in practice.” (Pg. 89)

Hicks notes that just as religious thinkers faced a “crisis of faith” during the Enlightenment, in which it was widely recognized that there was no way to prove the existence of god on “naturalistic” and rational grounds, so to, by the 1950’s and 1960’s, there was no way for socialists to use naturalistic and rational grounds to justify socialism. It had failed in theory and in practice, and, with revelations about the brutality of the Soviet Union, it had very little moral standing left. (Pg. 89-90) If they wanted to hold onto socialism, they had to reject reason and reality:

Postmodernism is born of the marriage of Left politics and skeptical epistemology….Confronted by harsh evidence and ruthless logic, the far left had a reply: That is only logic and evidence; logic and evidence are subjective, you cannot really prove anything; feelings are deeper than logic; and our feelings say socialism.” (Pg. 90)

The rest of Chapter Four describes the evolution of modern anti-individualist thought, starting with Rousseau and moving on to Hegel and Marx.

Chapter 6 discusses Marxism in historical context. Hicks notes that classical Marxism believes socialism would arise in the more advanced capitalist countries, like England and the United States, first. In actual practice, it arose in semi-feudalistic countries like Russia, Eastern Europe, and China. As such, Twentieth Century Marxists, like Lenin, had to modify their thinking to rationalize the need for a violent and brutal aristocracy to bring about socialism. (Pg. 138 to 141)

By the 1950’s and 1960’s the failure of socialism to arise “spontaneously”, as predicted by Marx, resulted in several different strategies to be tried by socialists. Some subtly changed their ethical standards from “need to equality”, which could include the inequalities experienced by small businesses versus big businesses (pg. 151), or the inequality supposedly present between the races. (Pg. 152)

Other mid-twentieth-century Marxists said wealth was bad anyway, giving rise to the environmentalist movement. (Pg. 153).

A third group of Marxists turned to violence in an effort to move the proletarian revolution along in the First World. (Pg. 165-170) As Hicks notes, several international terrorist groups with ties to Marxist thought, including the Weathermen in the US, and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the Middle East, arose in the early 1960’s.

What does Hicks consider to be the motives of the 21st Century postmodern left? He notes that postmodernist thinking contains a whole host of contradictions:

On the one hand, all truth is relative; on the other hand, postmodernism tells it like it really is.” (Pg. 184)

On the one hand, all cultures are equally deserving of respect; on the other, Western culture is uniquely destructive and bad.” (Pg. 184)

Values are subjective -but sexism and racism are really evil.” (Pg. 184)

Tolerance is good and dominance is bad -but when postmodernists come to power, political correctness follows.” (Pg. 184)

There is a “…contradiction between the relativism and the absolutist politics…” of postmodernism. (Pg. 185)

Hicks sees three possible explanations for this seeming contradiction:

1. Postmodernists are “relativists” primarily and their absolutist leftwing politics are “secondary”. He rules out this possibility because, otherwise, there would be more “conservative” postmodernists, but they are all uniformly left-wing. (Pg. 185-186)

2. The use of postmodernism is a “Machiavellian” strategy to undermine their political enemies. (Pg. 186) When they loose an argument, they will respond with: “Of course you, a white, male, heterosexual, would say that. But we cannot know anything about ‘things in themselves’, so reason is limited.”

3. Postmodernism is ultimately a nihilistic world-view, so the contradiction doesn’t matter to a postmodernist:

The final option is not to resolve the tension. Contradiction is a psychological form of destruction, but contradictions sometimes do not matter psychologically to those who live them, because for them ultimately nothing matters. Nihilism is close to the surface in the postmodern intellectual movement in a historically unprecedented way.” (Pg. 191-192)

The biggest flaw of the book I see may lie in the author’s treatment and evaluation of Marxism, which I think he gives more credit than it deserves. At several points, he seems to suggest that Marxism is more “pro-reason” than I think it ever was, even in its original “classical” format, as  propounded by Karl Marx himself. Hicks makes an assertion about Marxist socialism that probably isn’t correct at page 86:

As modernists, the socialists argued that socialism could be proved by evidence and rational analysis, and that once the evidence was in, socialism’s moral and economic superiority to capitalism would be clear…” (Pg. 86, emphasis added.)

He implies that he is including Marxists in the above description of “socialists”, and not just the non-Marxist socialists of the 19th Century, since he goes on to discuss the claims of “Classical Marxist socialism” on the same page. Also, later, he says:

Beginning in the 1920’s and 1930’s there had been some early suggestions that Marxism was too rationalistic, too logical and deterministic…And early Frankfurt School theorizing had suggested that Marxism was too wedded to reason…” (Pg. 156 to 157, emphasis added.)

Hicks seems to say that Marxism, as originally conceived, is “pro-reason”, when I think it never was. Non-Marxists socialists, the so-called “utopian socialists”, would have been pro-reason, like Hicks said on page 86. The ideas of Marx probably won out over the “utopian socialists” precisely because Marx embraced the Hegelian dialectic, and didn’t depend on classical Aristotelian logic. Marxism is too “arbitrary”, or disconnected from reality, to really be disproved or proved. Any time someone tries to disprove it, a Marxist could just say that person was a “tool of the capitalist exploiters”, and, “of course”, the critic would say that:

Aware of the fact that communism cannot be defended by reason, the Marxists proceeded to turn the fallacy of ad hominem into a formal philosophic doctrine, claiming that logic varies with men’s economic class, and that objections to communist doctrine may be dismissed as expressions of ‘bourgeois logic.’ “ (Leonard Peikoff, “Nazi Politics,” The Objectivist, Feb. 1971, 12, found at: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/polylogism.html)

Overall, I consider this to be a minor flaw of the book, which deftly traces the “philosophic genealogy” of today’s “postmodern” left. It really helped me to understand the mind of the average leftist, and how she will dismiss reason and say, I’m engaging in a logic:  “…created by dead white men”. Now I see another reason why the average leftist, like some mindless automaton, will point out how I’m a white, male, “bourgeois”, heterosexual -its easier to say this than do any hard thinking about the merits of their political ideology.

(All page number references below are to the 2018, expanded hardcover edition of “Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism From Rousseau to Focault”, by Stephen R.C. Hicks, ISBN 978-0-9832584-0-7)

Who Is Responsible for Iran Shooting Down Ukraine Flight 752?

Last week, the Iranian regime shot down Ukrainian Flight 752 with two anti-aircraft missiles. (https://www.businessinsider.com/iran-ukraine-plane-crash-flight-752-timeline-unfolded-events-allegations-2020-1)  It was but a footnote in a long history of brutal disregard for human life by a vicious theocratic dictatorship.

The week prior, an Iranian General was killed in Iraq by the United States.  We can debate whether the Trump administration was wise or not wise to eliminate the Iranian General, but he was not a good man, and was known to be responsible for attacks on Americans. (https://www.businessinsider.com.au/trump-claims-us-killed-iranian-general-soleimani-to-stop-war-2020-1 )  He was a force-initiator.

Regardless of whether the Trump administration should have killed the Iranian General, and in the way that they did, I want to address a particularly perverse notion that is floating around out there: Some people on the far left are saying this is the fault of Donald Trump. They use the following sort of “logic” to arrive at this conclusion:

(1) Donald Trump killed an Iranian General in Iraq, where he was waging war against the United States.

(2) Iran had just retaliated for this with a missile strike, and they were nervous of an American counter-attack, so they got jumpy and shot down the commercial airline.

If we were examining any semi-rational western government’s actions in such a situation, we’d ask several tough questions, such as: Why didn’t Iran, which knew it was about to conduct a missile attack, ground commercial airline flights? Why didn’t it have systems in place to distinguish between commercial flights and non-commercial flights?

But, a “liberal” throws all of that out in her mind, because it would require her to actually examine the nature of the Iranian regime, which she prefers not to do. The “liberal” will fail to consider key aspects of reality about Iran:

(1) Iran is a theocratic dictatorship with a record of human rights abuses. It routinely machine guns people in the streets for protesting against the government.( https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/06/middleeast/iran-un-protest-deaths-intl/index.html )There is no evidence to suggest it would have any more concern for the passengers on a commercial flight than it does for unarmed people in the street.
(2) Iran sponsors international terrorism that targets civilians, and it has since the current regime took power in the 1970’s.( https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/02/politics/state-department-report-terrorism/index.html ) This makes Iran essentially an outlaw nation, and they know it. They’re highly paranoid as a result.

(3) A theocratic dictatorship, pretty much by definition, has no concern with the well-being of its people in the here and now. Their goal is to prepare the population for after they die, and will go to heaven. Human rights are irrelevant to this world view. The Iranian regime is what it would look like if Branch Davidians somehow took over the United States. (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Branch-Davidian)

All of this adds up to an unstable, paranoid regime that will “shoot first and ask questions later”, because it isn’t really that concerned about the rights or welfare of its own people -or anyone else.

For a Western “liberal” to say it’s Donald Trump’s fault that Iran shot down Ukraine Flight 752, and killed a bunch of it’s own people is a statement of almost willful blindness.

The essence of the Iranian regime is the violation of the rights of other people in the pursuit of a supernatural “paradise” after they die.  In fact, they believe they’ll go to that paradise if they kill the infidels.

I’ll leave you with an analogy. Imagine you encounter a mentally unstable homeless person at the bus stop. You momentarily make eye contact with that mentally ill person, and then they beat you senseless.  Now imagine the police come and say: “Well, you shouldn’t have made eye contact with him.”

Even if your momentary gaze did precipitate the lunatic’s attack, it’s clear to everyone  that the crazy person is just that -and anything could set him off.

The Iranian regime has a specific nature. Even if it didn’t murder anyone this, particular week, given enough time, that’s exactly what it will do.

Interracial Rape Statistics

I have been trying to find what the statistics say on inter-racial rape for quite some time. It is very difficult, probably because most people know what the results will show.

Today I found an article from a University of Chicago paper from 1982 that summarized some previous studies on the amount of interracial rape, that is, black on white rape, or white on black rape. The article is called:

Gary D. LaFree, “Male Power and Female Victimization: Toward a Theory of Interracial Rape,” American Journal of Sociology 88, no. 2 (Sep., 1982): 311-328.

Each of the rows in the above table is a reference to a study measuring the amount of inter-racial rape, and the results of those studies. The Table is titled: “Table 1 Frequency of Interracial Rape By Year of Offense”, from Pg. 313 of the LaFree Article.

The figures are about like what I suspected. That is, the rates of black men raping white women were much higher than the rates of white men raping black women. One study in particular, was astounding to me. The fourth row down is a sample taken in Berkley, California, where it was found that 60.8% of all rapes were a black offender and white victim, from 1968 to 1970.

The article is also interesting because it accepts the fact that black men are raping white women at much higher rates as a given, and then presents two possible theories for why that would be. That suggests to me that, at least in 1982, the fact that black men raped white women at an unusually high level was a known fact, that nobody questioned.

Parenthetically, the two theories presented in the LaFree article are the “normative” theory, and the “conflict” theory. The “normative theory suggests that the amount of black on white rape had gone up since the time of desegregation because more white women were interacting with black men socially, creating greater opportunities for rape. The “conflict” theory suggested that black men rape white women more frequently as a form of revenge for supposed “white male power”. The article finds that the “conflict” theory is more supported by its findings.

I had to pay ten dollars for the article, which I found here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu. I consider it worth the $10.

From there, I found another article that appears to be freely available online:

“The Racial Pattering of Rape”, South, Scott J., Felson, Richard B., University of North Carolina Press, “Social Forces”, September 1990, 69(1):71-93.
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=635F7907F6F07771D7C4D815160167BC?doi=10.1.1.839.5948&rep=rep1&type=pdf

This article posits another theory for the much higher rate of black on white rape than white on black rape. It seems to say that it is due to increased opportunity of black rapists to rape white women in a less racially segregated society than in the past. The article notes that cities with higher rates of racial segregation have less black on white rape. This seems plausible to me, and suggests a definite solution for avoiding becoming the victim of a crime…but I’ll leave that for another time.

“Beto” likes guns just fine…when HE decides who to use them on

At the recent Democratic Debates, Robert “Beto” O’Rourke attempted to demonstrate his “no compromise” attitude on guns by saying: “Hell Yes, We’re Going To Take Your AR-15”

https://reason.com/2019/09/12/beto-orourke-hell-yes-were-going-to-take-your-ar-15/

What it demonstrated was his willingness to have the state initiate physical force.

He does not mean: “Hell yes, if you are a force-initiator, we’re going to take away your AR-15”

This could easily be done with a law that says: “It shall be unlawful to possess an AR-15 with the intent to commit a felony.”

But, this wouldn’t accomplish what O’Rourke wants, since most owners of AR-15’s would continue to legally hold them. The government would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they had the weapon for the purpose of committing a felony, which most AR-15 owners would never do.

What O’Rourke wants is to remove this type of weapon from general circulation in the civilian world as a “prophylactic measure”. In other words, he thinks that by doing this, the number of murders in America will decrease. Never mind that the number of murders committee with so-called “assault weapons” is much smaller than the number of murders committed with handguns. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/expanded-homicide-data/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2010-2014.xls

So, what O’Rourke is actually saying is: “Hell yes, we are going to use the power of state force to deprive you of your property, even if you keep it for self-defense.”

In other words, he is saying: “The state can use physical force to deprive you of your values, and if you attempt to resist, the police will come to your house and attempt to arrest you. If you resist, you will be shot by the State.”

“Beto” wants to use the guns of government to kill anyone who wants to live.

“Give Me Freedom Or Give Me Death”

I am old enough to remember the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. (https://www.britannica.com/event/Tiananmen-Square-incident )

The student protestors were eventually wiped out by a brutal totalitarian dictatorship that is responsible for the death of millions of people.

In 1989 George HW Bush did almost nothing to stop it or to register any sort of protest.  It was one of a large number of foreign policy blunders made by a president with few principles:

Though President George H.W. Bush initially denounced the crackdown, suspended arms sales to China and announced some other sanctions, the administration decided early on that it wasn’t going to allow Tiananmen to become a turning point in U.S. policy. It became clear that the official response would be essentially to pretend that nothing had happened.” (https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-1989-the-u-s-decided-to-let-beijing-get-away-with-murder-11559311545)

Instead, our government continued on with “business as usual” with the vicious dictatorship of mainland China, which continued to steal our technology, our wealth, and our nation’s moral integrity. All the while, Red China continued to build itself up militarily, and now may be too big for us to easily defeat. We have created our own monster.

Then, we allowed Hong Kong to be handed over in 1997, ceding people, wealth, and territory to the Communist looters. They claimed it would be “one country, two systems”.  But, it’s impossible to combine freedom with “a few controls”. In time, one or the other must give way:

A mixed economy is a mixture of freedom and controls—with no principles, rules, or theories to define either. Since the introduction of controls necessitates and leads to further controls, it is an unstable, explosive mixture which, ultimately, has to repeal the controls or collapse into dictatorship.” (Ayn Rand, “The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus”, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/mixed_economy.html.)

The Chinese government’s modus operandi with respect to Hong Kong has been: “One country, another slave-pen”.

But, the people of Hong Kong aren’t going to go quietly. With the advent of an extradition law that would allow the city-state’s residents to be tried on mainland China, thereby destroying any chance they might have of legitimate due process, Hong-Kongers decided they had had enough.

The student protestors, as well as the older residents of Hong Kong, have been admirably engaged in numerous protests, fighting for their lives and liberty. Some of the protestors even waive American flags, and British Union Jack flags, in reference to the common law system of government we all share. (See this video from a Hong Kong resident, at about two minutes in, were he says Hong Kong is under common law.)

America and Great Britain now have a chance to redeem themselves after they stood by silently and watched the student protestors of Tiananmen get slaughtered in 1989 and handed over H.K. without a shot being fired in 1997. Our governments should do everything they can to bring diplomatic and economic pressure to bear on the Chinese government, to honor its promise of a free Hong Kong. If there should be a repeat of Tiananmen Square, there should be serious economic and political consequences for Red China. I am no expert on diplomacy, or what is in the realm of the possible in foreign affairs, short of all out war. But, some things to consider would include:

(1) Instant recognition of Taiwan as an independent country by the United States, and a commitment by the United States to defend Taiwan militarily, if China should attempt to use force against that nation. Also, consider providing the Taiwanese with enough nuclear weapons to defend themselves against China.

(2) Encourage Japan to amend its constitution to allow for the creation of an army and navy, and provide the Japanese with nuclear weapons capable of reaching mainland China in the event of a conflict. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/anderscorr/2017/04/30/why-north-korea-cannot-have-nuclear-weapons-but-japan-and-south-korea-should/#4f2cca5d3943)

(3) Provide nuclear weapons and missile technology to India, already a nuclear power, so that they are capable of reaching Chinese targets.

(4) State that any attempt by China to annex islands or other territory in the Pacific will be considered an act of aggression. (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13748349)

(5) Massive Economic Sanctions On China, including prohibitively high tariffs on the import of all Chinese goods into the United States. Normally, I am for free trade, but China is a totalitarian state, and as such, an outlaw nation, as sure as any group of pirates or other gang would be. America should consider itself at war with any totalitarian nation, even if no shots are being fired due to other, practical, considerations. We should boycott all such countries economically, diplomatically, and morally. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/foreign_policy/3.html

This is our chance, as Americans, to stand with a people who stand with the spirit of Patrick Henry. Don’t let the people of Hong Kong go unheard.

 

The “Hot Button Issue” of Abortion

I wanted to write a little about this because I rarely do. I am also hoping that I can bring a somewhat “nuanced” viewpoint to a discussion that tends to be driven by pure emotion. Right off the bat, I will state that I do think there should generally be some legal right to terminate a pregnancy, with a recognition that there may be some legal “line drawing”, which I think reasonable parties can disagree on. If you disagree with me, please at least hear me out.

Biological evidence seems to show that a fetus does not have a rational capacity. In fact, it may be that even a newborn infant does not have a rational capacity, which develops some time after birth. This is because the cerebral cortex appears to be underdeveloped, even at birth. This feature of the human brain is responsible for most of what we think makes us human. It also appears to be the physical structure involved in what philosophers would call “the rational faculty”. The reason for this late development of the cerebral cortex has to do with how the fetal body and brain develops, which follows the path of evolution. For instance, human fetuses have gills and a tail at a very early stage. Since the cerebral cortex developed last in the our pre-human ancestors, it makes since this feature comes about last. It’s also necessary to keep brain size fairly small so thet the baby can pass through the mother’s birth canal. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100712154422.htm

The fact that a cerebral cortex is not fully developed even at birth is significant to me because rights are based in the fact that human beings can deal with each other on the basis of reason and persuasion, making the use of physical force against each other unnecessary:

“The source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind…” (Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand.)

However, the point at which a baby develops a rational faculty in biology is probably not fully understood, and I will move forward with the rest of my argument on this issue without reference to whether a baby or a fetus has a sufficiently developed cerebral cortex or not. My argument for some legal right to abortion for some period of time during pregnancy doesn’t stand or fall on the issue of when the cerebral cortex is sufficiently developed.

How are rights violated? Rights are violated by other’s use of force to deprive you of a value against your will.

“Man’s rights can be violated only by the use of physical force. It is only by means of physical force that one man can deprive another of his life, or enslave him, or rob him, or prevent him from pursuing his own goals, or compel him to act against his own rational judgment.” (The Virtue of Selfishness, “The Nature of Government”, Ayn Rand)

This does not mean that force can never be used. It just means the times that force can be used are limited to those in which you are not trying to deprive another person of a value. For instance, force can be used in retaliation or self-defense.

Of special note in this context, is that there are times a person can use force against others, and it isn’t just when they are defending themselves or using retaliatory force.

There are at least two types force you can use to protect yourself:

1. Self-defense from intentional murder or other crime.
2. Use of force to prevent an unintentional collision with another person. For instance, if you use force to stop someone who has tripped from falling into you and knocking you over.

My position is that terminating a pregnancy is like this second type of use of force. It’s not force used in self defense. It is force used to stop the purely reflexive act of a fetus in attaching itself to a mother’s body during pregnancy, or the act of removing it once it has reflexively attached itself to the mother’s body.

Why would a woman need to terminate a pregnancy? All pregnancies are inherently risky for a woman. Women still die in child birth in the first world.

If she becomes pregnant and decides that she doesn’t want to take that risk, then she cannot reason with the fetus to explain why she wants it to detach itself from her body. It’s a purely reflexive act, regardless of how developed a fetus’ brain is.

Abortion is analogous to self-defense. The minimum of force is being used to detach the fetus, similar to how the minimum of force is used to prevent someone from killing you.

Does it matter that the mother chose to have sex, while In the above scenario of someone tripping and falling into you, you didn’t choose to have someone fall on you?

I would note that this would still justify abortion in the cases of rape. Since a woman who is raped didn’t choose to have sex in that scenario, my analogy is “spot on”.

At this point we are dancing around whether the fetus has any rights. What are rights? Why do we need them? This is where I and a religious advocate of rights part ways. We have fundamentally different definitions of “rights” and their basis.

Rights imply an autonomous actor who needs to take action to gain the values necessary for living. A fetus, by its very nature is physically attached to the mother. Choice doesn’t play a role in its existence.

If the mother could somehow transfer the fetus to an artificial womb, with no health danger to the mother, that would be something to consider, but we don’t have that technology yet. That means, for now, abortion is the only option for a woman who doesn’t want to risk her health with a pregnancy.

Parenthetically, I think a woman shouldn’t be able to force a man who isn’t her husband to pay child support. If a woman wants the father of her child to pay for her child, she should enter into a contract with him. I also think a man should have no right to see a child or be a part of its life without a contract with the mother. This “contract” is basically what marriage is about -or should be under an ideal political system. (That, and the sharing of one’s finances and property with the other person.)

At this point the more wild-eyed will go with the ‘reductio ad absurdum ‘ argument: “If abortion is okay, then you must think killing newborn babies is okay, since they cannot take care of themselves and there is a health-cost imposed on the mother by that too. Furthermore, maybe science will show that the rational faculty doesn’t fully develop until age 2.”

My response is: 1) the baby is detached, biologically, from the mother after birth. 2) Given that fact of biological detachment, it makes sense to “draw the line”, legally, there and presume a baby is capable of rational thought, even if such capacity may not still arise for some time. These are the minimum criteria I hold for an organism being accorded individual rights: 1, A biologically distinct organism, that, 2, has a rational faculty or capacity of some sort, necessitating that you can deal with it on the basis of reason and persuasion, unlike the lower animals that you can only deal with by means of force.

Should the “line” for when abortion is legal be drawn somewhere before birth? Say, at seven months, or even six? Should some regulation of the types of abortions, or when abortions are allowed prior to 9 months, be in place? I am willing to entertain those sorts of arguments. (Assuming no unusually high level of health threat to the mother, or some massive birth defect is discovered, after the general prohibition date, in which case there should be a judicial exception of some sort.)

Would I personally want my wife or girlfriend to have an abortion? Assuming that: One, she hadn’t been raped, two, she had no unusually high level of health risk, and, three, the fetus had no birth defects, then I wouldn’t want her to do it. I’d ask her not to, and try to talk her out of it. But, at the end of the day, I recognize it’s not my body, it’s not my health risk, and it’s not my decision.

The Fundamental Flaw of Environmentalism

People will tell me that the “science” of “Climate Change” is settled.

First, what they mean by “climate change” isn’t clear. Do they mean we’ve had ice ages and sustained warming periods where average global temperatures have gone up?

If that’s what they mean, the geological evidence for past ice ages seems pretty strong to me.

On the other hand, if they mean human beings are generating more CO2, and this is causing average global temperatures to go up more than they would without this activity, then I want to know how they know this. Ultimately, they’re going to say that this knowledge is based on observations and measurements, such as measuring the temperature of sea water on a daily basis. This knowledge is combined with what we know about the nature of CO2, which is that more of it seems to trap more sunlight than if there is less of it.

However, even if this is true, when you suggest any sort of solution that involves the use of technology and voluntary human cooperation, they will say that will not work. For instance, if sea levels are rising due to increasing average global temperatures, maybe the best solution is to just build dikes and reclaim land like the Dutch have done in the past. We could also put giant mirrors in orbit around the Earth to reduce the amount of sunlight entering the Earth’s atmosphere, thereby reducing average global temperatures. (https://www.livescience.com/22202-space-mirrors-global-warming.html )
An even simpler, and presently available, solution is nuclear power, which seems to have a very small “carbon footprint”. (https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/co2-emissions1.jpg)

If you start suggesting any of these solutions to an Environmentalist, however, they will always say that these scientific and engineering solutions will fail. For instance, they will say the dikes will break, the giant orbiting mirrors will trigger another ice age, and nuclear power plants will melt down. Why do they always see failure in every technological and engineering solution?

Because they believe human beings are so limited in their mental capacity that they are incapable of producing a viable technological solution, much less in engaging in voluntary, non-coercive and non-governmental projects to solve any actual problem.

This points to a fundamental aspect of the Environmentalist ideology. They believe human beings are not capable of the production of the values we need to survive. And, why do they believe we cannot produce the values we need to survive? Because they believe the human mind is impotent, which means they believe that the human mind is not able to understand or comprehend reality. Human reason is impotent to the environmentalist.

But, if the human mind is not able to understand or comprehend reality, then how can they be sure that “climate change” is real? That involves the use of human reasoning, which they’ve said is impotent to solve any actual problem.  (Or, they simply think human reason is inherently bad, and that we should live at stone-age levels of technology, which is functionally the same: anti-reason and anti-science.)

It’s one or the other. Either science and the human mind are capable of recognizing and solving problems, or it is not, in which case they should stop making proclamations about how “the science is settled” on man-made climate change.

This is the fundamental flaw of the ideology Environmentalism: They want to have their cake of science and reason at the same time they’re eating it.

The Riddle of Gun Control; the Even Bigger Riddle of Open Borders

Friends who are left of center have asked me about my position on gun control in light of the shooting in New Zealand. (I’ve titled this blog entry based on a podcast by Sam Harris called: “The Riddle of the Gun”)

As I’ve said before, I think no one, including the State, should initiate physical force against other people. The purpose of the state is to stop force-initiators by using sufficient physical force to stop that initiation, or to stop subsequent initiations by the same person(s). A person who commits murder should be locked up (or executed, depending on your view on capital punishment). A person who robs, rapes, or commits assault is a force initiator, and the state should use retaliatory force to stop them. Without getting bogged down in minutia here, a person who starts planning to murder, and takes objective steps to carry out the plan is also a force initiator. So, a person who buys bomb-making material, and says that he plans to blow up someone has already initiated physical force, and the State, if it has probable cause that was the bomber’s intent, can arrest and prosecute him for that. If the State shows that was the bombers intent beyond a reasonable doubt, he should go to prison for a time.

I’m consistent. I think people should be free to immigrate to this country. Stopping them from crossing the border, absent some objective knowledge that they intend to initiate physical force once they are here, would be an initiation of physical force. (If the state sees a known terrorist crossing the border, that is different, just like the bomber I already discussed. The mere crossing of the border, combined with the terrorists’ past actions, constitutes an initiation of physical force, and he can rightly be arrested. I won’t get bogged down in the minutia of that, either, here.)

I am okay with the statistical fact that immigration of Muslims leads to more Islamic terrorism in a country, because: (1) I think there are more narrowly-tailored social and law-enforcement options that don’t violate the rights of people who just want to live in America and have peaceful, productive lives; and, (2), it is just the price we pay for a free society. It’s the same as having a free press, which leads to copy-cat killings, or having a 4th Amendment right to be free from arbitrary search and seizure causes some criminals to go uncaptured. These facts don’t mean we should eliminate the First Amendment or the Fourth Amendment. Similarly, the right to own and carry guns for self-defense shouldn’t be abrogated on the mere fact that, statistically, someone will commit a crime with a gun.

But, most of my left-of-center friends are not that consistent. They are fine with allowing large numbers of Muslims to come into the country, even though, statistically, a certain number of those Muslims are certain to commit acts of violence in the name of their religion, once they get here. (Don’t talk to me about how there are more domestic terrorists in America than Islamic terrorists. That is dropping context. We could still stop *some* terrorism by completely closing our borders to Muslim immigration, even if the domestic variety continued at the same rate or level as before.)

When it comes to guns, my left-of-center friends say: “If we save even one life, it’s worth it.” When it comes to Muslim immigration, they say: “Don’t be racist.” This is because it’s easier than trying to reconcile the contradiction between their belief in free immigration and their opposition to the right to self-defense.

Study on Military Sexual Assault and Race of the Perpetrator

The issue of sexual assault in the military has been in the news a lot this past week. I suspected I knew a major reason for the majority of sexual assaults in the military, but I was concerned that I might be making unfounded assumptions or generalizations without sufficient evidence to support it. I did a couple of hours of Internet research today, and found a study published with the National Center for Biotechnology Information, a government-sponsored web site. My “uninformed assumption” on the subject appears to have data to support it, in the form of a study called “Predicting Sexual Assault Perpetration in the US Army Using Administrative Data“, NIHMSID: NIHMS917120 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5683072/)

In this study, the researchers obtained data from several Army databases that kept track of service personnel arrested for some sort of sexual assault:

This study investigated administratively-recorded sexual assault perpetration among the 821,807 male Army soldiers serving 2004–2009.”  (“Predicting Sexual Assault Perpetration in the US Army Using Administrative Data”, NIHMSID: NIHMS917120,  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5683072/)

The study looked at what were considered only “founded cases” of sexual assault, i.e., cases for which the Army found sufficient evidence to warrant a full investigation, even if there was no conviction:

Six HADS databases were used to obtain information on date, type, and judicial outcome of all reported crimes occurring over the study period. Crime types were coded according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP) classification system.24 Qualifying sexual assault crimes included (Appendix Table 2): rape (i.e., forcible vaginal intercourse), forcible sodomy (i.e., attempted or forcible oral or anal sex), and “other” sexual assault (i.e., attempted rape, fondling, indecent assault). The outcomes were founded cases; that is, cases for which the Army found sufficient evidence to warrant full investigation regardless of whether the investigation resulted in a formal conviction.” (Id, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5683072/)

The sample size of the persons studied seems to be described here, although I am no expert on statistics:

A total of 4,640 men had records indicating an occurrence of sexual assault perpetration against non-family adults, 1,384 against non-family minors, 380 against intra-family adults, and 335 against intra-family minors. All four outcomes included perpetrations against both opposite-sex and same-sex victims, though data were not available to distinguish between the two.” (Id, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5683072/ )

If I understand it correctly, the study looked at what are known to be common predictors of sexual assault in the military world:

Predictors
As mentioned in the introduction, there is a rich civilian literature on risk factors for sexual assault perpetration,9–11 but few studies have examined these risk factors among military personnel.12,13 A considerably larger literature has examined predictors of any (physical or sexual) violence perpetration among military personnel.27–34 As reviewed by Elbogen and colleagues,35 four broad classes of predictors have been identified in these military studies: socio-demographic and dispositional predictors (e.g., sex, race-ethnicity, personality); historical predictors (e.g., childhood experiences, military career experiences, prior violence); clinical predictors (e.g., mental and physical disorders); and contextual-environmental predictors (e.g., access to weapons).”” (“Predicting Sexual Assault Perpetration in the US Army Using Administrative Data”, NIHMSID: NIHMS917120,  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5683072/ , emphasis added.)

In other words, the above says that gender (presumably being male) and one’s race are predictors for committing sexual assault. I’m sure you’ve already guessed which race if you are at all honest with yourself. The article sums this up here:

“Non-family adult predictors Unmarried, racial-ethnic minority, and combat support or service support soldiers had elevated odds of perpetration against a non-family adult.” (“Predicting Sexual Assault Perpetration in the US Army Using Administrative Data”, NIHMSID: NIHMS917120,  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5683072 , emphasis added.)

In other words, non-white males who are single, and are not likely to be involved in combat, are the most likely to commit rapes against adult people (likely women) that are not family members.

The study’s Table 2 seems to give the odds that a member of a particular category will commit a sexual assault, although I’m not certain of this, because I’m no expert on statistics. The percentages don’t add up to 100%, so I’m not sure what these mean exactly. But, it lists “Race/ethnicity – Non-Hispanic Black” at 18.2%, and “Race/ethnicity – Non-White” at 34.7%.

Essentially, what seem to be the predictors for persons who commit rape in the civilian world are the same in the military. Black people commit a disproportionate share of the rapes in the civilian world, and they appear to also commit a disproportionate share of the rapes in the military world.

None of this will be addressed in the news media or in Congress, of course. Recognizing reality on this topic isn’t conducive to keeping one’s job as a reporter or getting elected to public office in the society we live in today. It would call into question too many sacred cows.

 

 

 

 

Barack Obama: Tribalist-In-Chief

In my previous blog entry, I described the “tribalistic mindset” and showed that it is the “anti-conceptual mindset”. I also opined that the possible reason for this uptick in discussion of the concept of “tribalism” was due to the election of Donald Trump. Commentators on the left seem to have seized on the idea to explain his rise, and also seem to be blaming Trump for what they see as more “tribalism” in our society and political system.

However, if we are going point fingers at politicians, then we need to take a look at Trump’s predecessor. The Obama administration fanned the forces of tribalism like no other President, and he severely damaged race-relations in the United States.

The intellectual groundwork of the Obama administration’s facilitation of tribalism lies in key aspects of the leftist ideology.

First, most leftists admire or tend to follow the ideas of Karl Marx. So, his ideas on the nature of the human mind, logic, and reason are important in understanding how leftist thinking tends to encourage the anti-conceptual, tribal mindset.

The Marxist epistemology is “polylogist”. (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/polylogism.html). He thought your class determines your consciousness. For Marx, what class you are born into determines your logic, which is unique and distinct from other classes. The proletarians have their method of thinking, the bourgeoisie have theirs, the aristocracy theirs, etc. For Marx, there could be no reasoning with those who control the factors of production, because they fundamentally don’t think like proletarians. Only violence could bring about socialism. You couldn’t reason with members of the bourgeoisie any more than you could reason with a species of lower animal. (See my previous blog post for more on this: https://deancook.net/2018/08/16/karl-marx-polylogism-and-utopian-socialism-how-fundamental-philosophy-drives-history/ )

Marxist polylogism is not very different from those who believe that your race determines your method of thinking, and that other races fundamentally cannot understand you. An example of racial polylogism can be seen in an article discussing how the author believes a policy of “colorblindness”, i.e. *not* treating people differently because of their race is morally bad:

Colorblindness creates a society that denies their negative racial experiences, rejects their cultural heritage, and invalidates their unique perspectives.” (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culturally-speaking/201112/colorblind-ideology-is-form-racism)

Note how the author of this article focuses on “cultural heritage” (i.e., tribalism), and how black people have “unique perspectives…”, thereby giving the article a distinct whiff of racial polylogism. (But, that’s apparently okay when the author is black.)

Marxism appears to have either “set the seeds” for racial polylogism, or it has the same philosophic basis as racial polylogism.

According to Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff, the ideas of Marx were an outgrowth of the ideas of the philosophy of Hegel, who was in turn the intellectual progeny of Immanuel Kant. I haven’t studied Marx, Hegel, or Kant enough to know if this assertion is correct. (I take nothing on faith, even when Ayn Rand or Leonard Peikoff said it.) I note it here as a possible “lead” on the “philosophic roots” of the ideas of Marx and how those same ideas also led to racial polylogism:

There are two different kinds of subjectivism, distinguished by their answers to the question: whose consciousness creates reality? Kant rejected the older of these two, which was the view that each man’s feelings create a private universe for him. Instead, Kant ushered in the era of social subjectivism—the view that it is not the consciousness of individuals, but of groups, that creates reality. In Kant’s system, mankind as a whole is the decisive group; what creates the phenomenal world is not the idiosyncrasies of particular individuals, but the mental structure common to all men.

Later philosophers accepted Kant’s fundamental approach, but carried it a step further. If, many claimed, the mind’s structure is a brute given, which cannot be explained—as Kant had said—then there is no reason why all men should have the same mental structure. There is no reason why mankind should not be splintered into competing groups, each defined by its own distinctive type of consciousness, each vying with the others to capture and control reality.

The first world movement thus to pluralize the Kantian position was Marxism, which propounded a social subjectivism in terms of competing economic classes. On this issue, as on many others, the Nazis follow the Marxists, but substitute race for class.” (_The Ominous Parallels_ Leonard Peikoff, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/kant,_immanuel.html)

The second aspect of the leftist mindset that tends to foster tribalistic thinking is modern philosophy’s rejection of reason. This modern rejection is summed up in an Encyclopedia Britannica article:

As indicated in the preceding section, many of the characteristic doctrines of postmodernism constitute or imply some form of metaphysical, epistemological, or ethical relativism. (It should be noted, however, that some postmodernists vehemently reject the relativist label.) Postmodernists deny that there are aspects of reality that are objective; that there are statements about reality that are objectively true or false; that it is possible to have knowledge of such statements (objective knowledge); that it is possible for human beings to know some things with certainty; and that there are objective, or absolute, moral values. Reality, knowledge, and value are constructed by discourses; hence they can vary with them. This means that the discourse of modern science, when considered apart from the evidential standards internal to it, has no greater purchase on the truth than do alternative perspectives, including (for example) astrology and witchcraft. Postmodernists sometimes characterize the evidential standards of science, including the use of reason and logic, as ‘Enlightenment rationality.‘” https://www.britannica.com/topic/postmodernism-philosophy (Accessed on 12-15-2018)

As a result, post-modern intellectuals tend to believe that reason is nothing more than a “tool of oppression” over the non-white races:

A philosophy and religion professor at Syracuse University gave an interview to The New York Times Thursday in which he critiqued the notion of pure reason as simply being a ‘white male Euro-Christian construction.’” (https://dailycaller.com/2015/07/03/professor-reason-itself-is-a-white-male-construct/)

I’d note that this attitude about reason serves as great “psychological cover” for a leftist because any time they loose a debate, they can just say your logic, evidence, and reason is nothing more than a “tool of oppression” by the “white, male, heterosexual patriarchy”, and disregard it.

The third intellectual basis of leftism that tends to promote tribalism is its promotion of collectivism. It is a core tenant of leftism that groups are more important than individuals. Quoting from the Encyclopedia Britannica Article on “Collectivism”:

“The earliest modern, influential expression of collectivist ideas in the West is in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Du contrat social, of 1762 (see social contract), in which it is argued that the individual finds his true being and freedom only in submission to the “general will” of the community. In the early 19th century the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel argued that the individual realizes his true being and freedom only in unqualified submission to the laws and institutions of the nation-state, which to Hegel was the highest embodiment of social morality. Karl Marx later provided the most succinct statement of the collectivist view of the primacy of social interaction in the preface to his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy: ‘It is not men’s consciousness,’ he wrote, ‘which determines their being, but their social being which determines their consciousness.’

Collectivism has found varying degrees of expression in the 20th century in such movements as socialism, communism, and fascism.”(https://www.britannica.com/topic/collectivism , last accessed on 12-16-2018, emphasis added.)

For Marx, the father of modern collectivism, it was not (individual) men’s consciousness which determines their “being”, but their “social being”, which determines their consciousness. In other words, the individual is nothing, and the group, the collective, is all.

These systems of thought held by the Obama administration, the modern rejection of reason and the promotion of collectivism, create the proper “psychological attitude” for tribalistic thinking to flourish. This is because if reason is impotent, and if service to the group is considered as all-important, then an individual will consider his mind incapable of choosing what group he should serve. He’ll simply seek to join a group based on concretes like the fact that they look like him and talk like him:

Now what are the nature and the causes of modern tribalism? Philosophically, tribalism is the product of irrationalism and collectivism. It is a logical consequence of modern philosophy. If men accept the notion that reason is not valid, what is to guide them and how are they to live? Obviously, they will seek to join some group -any group- which claims the ability to lead them and to provide some sort of knowledge acquired by some sort of unspecified means. If men accept the notion that the individual is helpless, intellectually and morally, that he has no mind and no rights, that he is nothing, but the group is all, and his only moral significance lies in selfless service to the group -they will be pulled obediently to join a group. But which group? Well, if you believe that you have no mind and no moral value, you cannot have the confidence to make choices -so the only thing for you to do is to join an unchosen group, the group into which you were born, the group to which you were predestined to belong by the sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient power of your body chemistry.

            This is, of course, racism. But, if your group is small enough, it will not be called “racism”: it will be called ’ethnicity” (“Global Balkanization”, Ayn Rand, _The Voice of Reason_, https://www.amazon.com/Voice-Reason-Objectivist-Thought-Library-ebook/dp/B002OSXD7I/)

As we have seen, the philosophic roots of the Obama administration’s facilitation of tribalism lie in the ideas of mostly dead, white male philosophers, like Karl Marx. However, many previous leftist presidents have ascribed to similar philosophies. The Obama administration went further and actively promoted tribalism.

This promotion of tribalism started even before Barack Obama was President, although it has only become common knowledge in recent months, because the news media actively suppressed the information. In January of 2018, a photo surfaced showing a then-Senator Obama smiling and posing with Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam. (http://www.tampabay.com/news/nation/Decade-old-photo-of-Obama-with-Louis-Farrakhan-surfaces_164857663) (Farrakhan is a tribal mentality through and through. I recommend doing an Internet search and reading some of the things he has written and said if you are unfamiliar.)

This photo was taken during a 2005 Congressional Black Caucus meeting with Farrakhan on Capitol Hill, which demonstrates where the loyalties of the entire Congressional “Black Caucus” lie.

If this photo had come out prior to the Presidential election of 2008, it is opined that Obama would not have been elected. The photo is the moral equivalent to a white Presidential candidate posing and smiling with the leader of Aryan Nations. (http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/01/27/obama-farrakhan-photo-dershowitz-says-he-would-not-support-him-if-he-knew-about-picture)

Obama managed to hide his promotion of tribalism pretty well until a later event in 2012. This was the shooting of a black teenager, Trayvon Martin, by George Zimmerman, a homeowner living in Florida. (Zimmerman was subsequently acquitted at trial.)

Obama chose to inject himself into a purely local matter of criminal law. (http://whitehouse.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/23/president-obama-statement-on-trayvon-martin-case/) He aided and abetted the news media in doing its best to ensure that George Zimmerman wouldn’t get a fair trial.

But, more than that, Obama made a statement that I think did more damage to race relations than possibly anything else he said before or since. When commenting on the shooting, Obama noted:

If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” (https://www.yahoo.com/news/obama-had-son-hed-look-trayvon-171805699.html)

This was like saying: “I am with black people because you look like me. I’m not the President of the United States, who serves abstract, and important, concepts like justice, rights, and the rule of law. I am the mouthpiece of a racial pressure group, and I will do everything I can to promote that racial group’s ‘collective good’, at the expense of the individual rights of people who don’t belong to that racial group.”

Why did Obama do this? Probably because:

The case resonates with many black Americans, a key voting group during Obama’s 2008 election, who see it as an example of bias toward blacks.” (https://www.yahoo.com/news/obama-had-son-hed-look-trayvon-171805699.html)

I suspect so many black Americans were convinced George Zimmerman was guilty because many of them hold the tribal premise to some greater or lesser degree, although I obviously don’t have statistics to back that up. I’m not sure how one would even measure “tribalistic impulse” of a particular group of people, but I would like to see such a study. I suspect the results on the level of “tribalistic impulse” of American blacks, compared to American whites or Asians, would be stunningly high.

I believe Obama thought he had to say “If I have a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” to appease black Americans, but it was more than appeasement. It was active endorsement and promotion of the tribalistic impulse. It was encouragement to unleash some of the worst tendencies amongst some black Americans.

This pandering by Obama gave aid and comfort to the group known as “Black Lives Matter”, a group that always assumes if a white cop shoots a black man, then the shooting was unjust. For instance, when Michael Brown was shot by Officer Darren Wilson in Missouri, it was determined by the United States Department of Justice that Officer Wilson did nothing wrong:

Based on this investigation, the Department has concluded that Darren Wilson’s actions do not constitute prosecutable violations under the applicable federal criminal civil rights statute, 18 U.S.C. § 242, which prohibits uses of deadly force that are “objectively unreasonable,” as defined by the United States Supreme Court. The evidence, when viewed as a whole, does not support the conclusion that Wilson’s uses of deadly force were “objectively unreasonable” under the Supreme Court’s definition. Accordingly, under the governing federal law and relevant standards set forth in the USAM, it is not appropriate to present this matter to a federal grand jury for indictment, and it should therefore be closed without prosecution.” (https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_brown_1.pdf)

Despite that, there was a rush to judgment by what the media portrays as the “black leadership”. Jessie Jackson called it a “Crime of Injustice”. Al Sharpton, another tribalist, also shilled for Michael Brown in the face of the facts. (https://www.businessinsider.com/al-sharpton-denounces-darren-wilsons-excuse-michael-brown)

Always taking the side of a black person over a white person, without knowing any of the facts, demonstrates that the slogan “Black Lives Matters” is nothing but a statement of tribalism by the “black leadership”. (The notion of a “black leadership” is tribalism too, but the news media seems to believe Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton speak for black people, so that is how I refer to them.)

Despite the tendency of “Black Lives Matter” to always take the side of a black man, even when the facts didn’t support it, Obama expressed solidarity with the “Black Lives Matter” movement, and even went so far as to accuse police of widespread racial discrimination himself:

“’As a young man, there were times when I was driving and I got stopped and I didn’t know why,’ he [Obama] said.” (https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/257811-obama-defends-black-lives-matter)

I don’t think Barack Obama is, himself a tribalist, but I think his philosophy, ideology, and method of thinking drives him to pander to those who *are* tribalists. Another example of that pandering could be seen when it came to Obama’s policies on immigration.

When it comes to issues of immigration policy, Obama supported open borders, which I, more or less, also support. I believe that policy is consistent with freedom and free markets. (https://ari.aynrand.org/blog/2017/02/07/ayn-rand-on-immigration) But, Obama didn’t support the policy because he’s committed to Capitalism. He supported it because of the need to appeal to Hispanic voters, who, to the extent they are concerned about open borders, are likely concerned out of feelings of tribalism, rather than concepts of justice, freedom of movement, and the free market. This tribalism is why you will see people flying Mexican flags at pro-immigration rallies in the United States:

“‘Native-born Americans suspect that it is they, and not the immigrant, who are being forced to adapt’ to social changes caused by migration, he [Obama] said….’When I see Mexican flags waved at pro-immigration demonstrations, I sometimes feel a flush of patriotic resentment…’ (https://dailycaller.com/2014/11/16/shock-flashback-obama-says-illegal-immigration-hurts-blue-collar-americans-strains-welfare-video/

Flying Mexican flags at pro-immigration rallies shows that, rather than being primarily about the abstract concepts of freedom and free markets, most of the “pro-immigration” sentiment of the Democratic Party is an expression of “Latin-American nationalism”, i.e., tribalism. They care less about the abstract concept of freedom of immigration than they do about ensuring that members of their racial and ethnic group can come and go as they please, into and out of, the United States. Would the “Hispanic leadership” in the Democratic Party care so much about immigration if most of the immigrants were German, or Chinese? (I doubt it.) Obama’s policies on immigration were another appeal to a tribalistic pressure group, just like his support of “Black Lives Matter”.

The tribal mentality discards reason because he is, fundamentally, the anti-conceptual mentality. (https://deancook.net/2018/12/15/what-is-tribalism-it-is-the-anti-conceptual-mentality/) This means tribalists will be strongly tempted to use force and violence when dealing with others outside their own ethnic group because they have no other recourse:

Warfare -permanent warfare- is the hallmark of tribal existence. A tribe -with its rules, dogmas, traditions, and arrested mental development- is not a productive organization. Tribes subsist on the edge of starvation, at the mercy of natural disasters, less successfully than herds of animals. War amongst other, momentarily luckier tribes, in the hope of looting some meager hoard, is their chronic emergency means of survival. The inculcation of hatred for other tribes is a necessary tool of tribal rulers, who need scapegoats to blame for the misery of their own subjects.

            There is no tyranny worse than ethnic rule -since it is an unchosen serfdom one is asked to accept as a value, and since it applies primarily to one’s mind.” (“Global Balkanization, Ayn Rand, _The Voice of Reason_ https://www.amazon.com/Voice-Reason-Objectivist-Thought-Library-ebook/dp/B002OSXD7I/)

So, the consequences of Barack Obama’s pandering to the tribal mentalities in our country was predictable. Here are a few examples:

(1) Riots in Ferguson Missouri and elsewhere. (“Ferguson riots: Ruling sparks night of violence” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30190224)

(2) “Occupations” of College Campuses by leftist thugs.

A couple of these “occupations” have been memorable for their totalitarian tendencies. A journalism professor at the University of Missouri was so enamored with the little totalitarian “no go zone” she and other campus minority groups had created on campus, that she, and the brutes following her, sought to exclude journalists from the area. When one journalist defied her, she famously yelled out: “Who wants to help me get this reporter out of here? I need some muscle over here!”( https://www.yahoo.com/news/mizzou-professor-some-muscle-protests-resigns-143632236.html)

Deep down in this professor’s soul, and in the soul of every leftist academic, “muscle”, i.e., naked force, is what matters. This is because reason is an illusion to them, thanks to “post-modern thinking” and Marxism.

At Evergreen College in the Pacific Northwest, a college professor was forced to resign after he questioned the wisdom of asking white students to “voluntarily” leave the college campus for a day. ( https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/evergreen-professor-plans-to-sue-college-for-385-million/ )

Given the violent nature of the “anti-conceptual, tribalist mindset”, it won’t be long before the “voluntary” aspect of Evergreen’s “ethnic cleansing dry-run” is dropped in favor of the use of force.

But, the riots and the “college occupations” at least had the virtue of not leading to the loss of human life. The bloody climax of the Obama administration’s race policy was seen in my hometown of Dallas, Texas. In July of 2016, a sniper shot twelve white police officers, specifically because they were white, in what was described as the deadliest day for law enforcement officers since the September 11 attacks in 2001. (https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2016/07/07/shots-fired-during-downtown-dallas-protests/ )

Ultimately, I believe that much of our recent history has been driven by mostly dead, white, male philosophers, like Karl Marx. However, if we are going to start looking at political and social “conduits” for the philosophy driving tribalism, then our 44th President was one such conduit. If we’re going to point fingers at politicians for the uptick in tribalism in America, then we need to start with the villainous Presidency of Barack H. Obama.