Random observations, quotes, excerpts, and stuff

TMI RE: QE’s MO. Alas, poor QuestEon finds his disorganized mind literally buried under half- and sometimes three-quarters-written drafts for FDR Liberated. He is feeling the pressure to finish at least one of them, even there is every reason to believe his audience is almost non-existent and his blog little more than a pimple on the ass of the internet.

And suddenly–on top of all that–he feels he must set aside even those efforts long enough to put out a March Quickies! even though it technically isn’t a monthly column and the aforementioned non-existent audience wouldn’t care one way or the other.

All of which is simply to explain why this particular Quickies! is shorter than usual. Off we go!

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The Passive-Aggression Principle. Ah, the NAP (non-aggression principle). Where would we be without it? Certainly a wide range of anarchocapitalist possibilities presuppose such a thing must exist.

The non-aggression principle is good, good stuff. It’s easy to see how one could easily create an entire world full of peaceful people with just that one idea. Practically the only thing left to argue about would be what constitutes property. If we can just figure out a way to keep from proactively harming each other, we’re good to go. No wonder Molyneux (along with any libertarian worth his/her salt) mentions the NAP so often.

Why am I going on about all of that? Well, it’s just a little thing I noticed. It may not be anything. Just a harmless bauble of a thought, really. When Molyneux is (or at least appears to me to be) encouraging his followers to defoo, it all sounds very NAP. He uses phrases like “you don’t defoo your family; they defoo you.” Or he may describe you as being a ghost to them–a representation of yourself your family created that isn’t truly you. (So why stay at all?)

Molyneux uses quite a lot of rhetoric to convince his followers that they are walking away from a situation in which they barely exist. It’s no big deal and it’s pretty good for your mental health.

But then I listened to an Ask-a-Therapist podcast (FDR 724, Christina’s Resistance). This podcast (one of several that were purged as a result of scrubbing all traces of Christina’s involvement from FDR) was recorded just before Molyneux took on FDR as his full-time, sole source of income. It was a conversation between Molyneux and his wife about her last-minute resistance to the idea. At several points in the podcast, Molyneux mentions what appears to be one of his own “emotional benefits” in defooing.

15:56 …The ultimate vengeance is to not confront people. The ultimate act of revenge for a wise person is to not confront the unwise with their unwisdom.

Christina: Go on.

It’s something that I’ve noticed as a younger brother as well as a son. That the people that I hate are the people that I don’t confront and that’s exactly the opposite of what people experience…

17:50 …And so those I hate, I don’t confront and I leave them to simmer in the living hell of their own false self.

18:43 …And that’s when you know you really hate someone…

Christina: Uh huh. (agreement)

When you really hate someone is when you will not confront them.

See what troubles me? He’s saying that he hates his family and visited what he consider to be the ultimate act of vengeance upon them. And the pain they feel–the most pain he can imagine inflicting–is a result of forcing them to simmer “in their own living hell.” It’s almost as if he…likes it, a little. And because he encourages defooers to absolutely cut off all communication, his followers rarely recognize any of this–what must be the most intense pain their parents and family will ever endure.

Like I said, it may not be anything. Just a curious and funny example of a man who demonstrates that passive aggression apparently doesn’t fall under the umbrella of the NAP. When it comes to emotional harm, bring on the hell. Still, I wonder why he then characterizes the act in a completely different way for his defooers? Why does he never truthfully tell them that they are simply replicating the ultimate act of hate he showed his own family?

In short, what is defooing to Molyneux? A personal path to mental health? Or simply a way to deal out hate and vengeance?

And (if you want to toy with the bauble a bit more) I wonder–when someone defoos as a result of Molyneux’s encouragement, who’s getting the biggest emotional benefit?

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Godless crimes against UPB. When I wrote the series about The Promise and Failure of UPB, I focused on responses from notable folks in the ancap community. I didn’t consider the potential impact a work like this might have on atheists in general. Silly me. As a visitor to Liberating Minds pointed out in this conversation, “…most (if not all) Athesists would welcome such a monumental proof of secular ethics. If they had any bias at all, it would be in favour of UPB, not against it.”

So you’d think.

But then the visitor offered a link to this thoughtful review of UPB by atheist Luke Muehlhauser who took a sledgehammer of logic to the more popular UPB chestnuts: “the act of arguing against UPB actually validates it” (See Muehlhauser’s dissection of Proof 1) and the ever-popular “yes, I really did get an ought from an is,” argument (See Proof 3). Muehlhauser’s summary is similar to most of the thoughtful reviewers I’ve read: “…after reading the book, I still have no idea what a Universally Preferable Behavior (UPB) is.” He gives a good college try toward finding something comprehensible before ending with this conclusion:

I get the impression that one day Molyneux was impressed by a book with many sections of numbered statements, the last always beginning with “Therefore…”, then decided to write his own book just like it, without first learning anything about how logic or argument works.

To Molyneux and everyone else, I recommend Weston’s A Rulebook for Arguments and Copi & Cohen’s Introduction to Logic.

Ouch. Looks like mainstream atheists aren’t buying UPB, either.

In Molyneux’s defense, one commenter–who called himself “Nathan”–attempted to demolish the review with this comeback:

“So what you are saying is that in order to be valid, Stef’s theory should contain logical arguments?”

I am not making this up.

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Yes, that’s right, against you. I think that Molyneux’s insights about contemporary politics and the economy, etc., can be so clarifyingly brilliant.

But there’s a very popular one that I’m going to be contrarian about, which surprised even me.

It’s all about Molyneux’s “Against me” argument. I don’t get it.

As far as I know, this is a rough example of how “Against me” is supposed to work:

Dope: Abortion should be illegal.

Molyneuvian: OK. Am I free to disagree with you?

Dope: Sure.

Molyneuvian: Then you won’t mind if I (and any one else who feels the way I do) refuse to pay taxes to support babies that people are being forced to have?

Dope: I sure would! We have to support the gov’nment.

Molyneuvian: If I don’t pay taxes, are you OK if they arrest me using any means necessary?

Dope: Of course. We have to support the gov’nment.

Molyneuvian: Well, then. Doesn’t that mean you advocate violence against me if I disagree with you about abortion? And doesn’t it follow from that I am not free to disagree with you?

Dope: Your impeccable logic has caught me out, sir! I shall now vote for anarchocapitalism in all future elections!

As I understand it, the alleged beauty of the “Against me” argument is that you can stun statists into hopeless submission by taking their abstract positions on state issues and make them very personal. In virtually every case, that means “do you support having policemen shoot me if I don’t pay taxes to support whatever it is you’re arguing for?” This argument works wonderfully well in the world inside Molyneux’s head, where all statists and religious-types are dopes.

But does this argument get people any closer to the truth? Or is it simply one more Molyneux rhetorical trick–like so many others already identified here–that simply helps him win a debate in the moment, truth be damned?

How many of those so stunned by this sudden, personalized rhetorical trick realize (on their way home, after losing the debate) that nearly any argument–statist or not–can be reduced to an “against me” argument?

Dope: I have learned that Senator Porkbottom has inserted a $1,000,000 line item into a highway bill for the study of the fuchsia-breasted titwillow. We should call our representatives at once to support the increased taxes this bill will require!

Molyneuvian: Am I free to disagree with you?

Dope: Only in principle.

Molyneuvian: So I take it you would mind if I (and any one else who feels the way I do) refuse to pay taxes to support the study of the fuchsia-breasted titwillow?

Dope: I sure would!

Molyneuvian: If I don’t pay taxes, are you OK if they arrest me using any means necessary?

Dope: Of course.

Molyneuvian: Well, then. Doesn’t that mean you advocate violence against me if I disagree with you about taxation for the fuchsia-breasted titwillow study?

Dope: Isn’t that obvious?

Molyneuvian: Then I will refuse to continue this conversation with you. You are violent and therefore beyond reason.

Dope: Really? Did you not know the fuchsia-breasted titwillow is an irreplacable and indispensible link in the food chain in my state? That without it our state’s agriculture would collapse?

Molyneuvian: No, but that doesn’t matter. We’re talking about violence against me.

Dope: My family eats. I eat. Without agriculture, we will starve. Since you are against this legislation, you are advocating starvation, and therefore violence, against my family. Against me.

Molyneuvian: That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever hea–

Dope: Release the hounds!

Now, the fact that the dope’s argument fails from a libertarian perspective isn’t the point. The point is that even the average dopey statist can blow up the first silly “against me” argument with one of us his own. You see, the flaw is that the so-called abstract positions are never really abstract. You beat the “against me” argument by revealing the “against me” on the opposite side. There almost always is one.

For a serious example, there’s no way to stop US misadventures in Afghanistan by straw-manning the war’s supporters as people who love violence and killing. They support the war because they believe it will prevent future murders by terrorists. And they firmly believe that if you withhold support then you are ultimately advocating violence. Against them.

And believe me–they will release the hounds.

So, good intentions, Stefan, but not the greatest argument. Let’s move away from rhetorical tricks and back to logic, shall we?

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That’s it for now. More stuff when I think of it.

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