Quote from A Few Notes on the Culture, by Iain M. Banks

“Let me state here a personal conviction that appears, right now, to be profoundly unfashionable; which is that a planned economy can be more productive – and more morally desirable – than one left to market forces.

The market is a good example of evolution in action; the try-everything-and-see-what- -works approach. This might provide a perfectly morally satisfactory resource-management system so long as there was absolutely no question of any sentient creature ever being treated purely as one of those resources. The market, for all its (profoundly inelegant) complexities, remains a crude and essentially blind system, and is – without the sort of drastic amendments liable to cripple the economic efficacy which is its greatest claimed asset – intrinsically incapable of distinguishing between simple non-use of matter resulting from processal superfluity and the acute, prolonged and wide-spread suffering of conscious beings.

It is, arguably, in the elevation of this profoundly mechanistic (and in that sense perversely innocent) system to a position above all other moral, philosophical and political values and considerations that humankind displays most convincingly both its present intellectual [immaturity and] – through grossly pursued selfishness rather than the applied hatred of others – a kind of synthetic evil.

Intelligence, which is capable of looking farther ahead than the next aggressive mutation, can set up long-term aims and work towards them; the same amount of raw invention that bursts in all directions from the market can be – to some degree – channelled and directed, so that while the market merely shines (and the feudal gutters), the planned lases, reaching out coherently and efficiently towards agreed-on goals. What is vital for such a scheme, however, and what was always missing in the planned economies of our world’s experience, is the continual, intimate and decisive participation of the mass of the citizenry in determining these goals, and designing as well as implementing the plans which should lead towards them.”

Quotes from Lesbian Ethics, by Sarah Lucia Hoagland

“In general, the system of fathers designates as evil what it can tolerate and uses it as a safety valve. When things threaten to get out of hand, those in power can then scapegoat that which they designate as evil [ to explain why that which they designate as good- marriage, business, education, religion, medicine, for example- isn’t working. And this suggests that withdrawal from and change in central values, rather than evil, are the real threat to the traditional framework of ethics and politics.”

“It is heterosexualism which makes us feel that it is possible to dominate another for her own good, that one who resists such domination is abnormal or doesn’t understand what is good for her, and that one who refuses to participate in dominant/subordinate relationships doesn’t exist. And once we accept all this, imperialism, colonialism, and ethnocentrism, for example, while existing all along, become more socially tolerable in liberal thought. They become less a matter of exercising overt force and more a matter of the natural function of (a) social order.”

“[G]iven that a heightened concern with altruism and self-sacrifice indicates a general social perception of an underlying conflict of interests, it would seem that the focus on altruism and self-sacrifice in connection with women indicates that people generally regard the interests of men and children, in particular their alleged need of women, as essentially in conflict with the interests of women.
Further, it is significant that the individual self-seeking of men and children is not in question. That is, self-sacrifice is not a general (nuclear- or extended-) family virtue, even though other members of the family may engage in it. It is a feminine virtue…
In other words, the perceived conflict of interest between men and children, on the one hand, and women, on the other, has been resolved in favor of men and children to such an extent that self-sacrifice and altruism are feminine. The possibility of ethics in this case seems to rest on the willingness of women to devote themselves to men and children by acquiescing to male authority and by bearing and being responsible for children whether or not they choose to.”

“Basic myths behind capitalist motivation include ‘survival of the fittest’ and ‘advancement based on merit.’ And we are acknowledged as useful persons by being ‘allowed’ to work. However, in a dominant/subordinate hierarchy, of course, someone decides who is ‘fit,’ someone determines ‘merit,’ and someone is in a position to ‘allow’ us to work. By dangling jobs and ‘merit’ in front of us, those in power suggest that their recognition somehow means we’re a better person- that even if we can’t gain profit by participating in the system, at least we can gain ‘acknowledgement’ and hence meaning through our work and advancement. But that means, of course, that only those who are working have value; if we aren’t working, it is because we are lazy slobs. Yet even in theory, capitalism requires that there be unemployment to depress labor prices. When we aren’t working, it is in fact because the system requires it.
The protestant work ethic holds that if we work hard, we will ‘make it.’ But this implies that if we didn’t ‘make it,’ we didn’t work hard or hard enough. This is not true. What is true is that if we do ‘make it,’ we will have worked hard. But it is also true that in a system requiring a pyramid structure very few can ‘make it’- and only by beating out and exploiting others.”

“Men use violence when women don’t pay attention to them. Then, when women ask for protection, men can find meaning by turning on the predators- particularly ones of a different race or class.

In other words, the logic of protection is essentially the same as the logic of predation. Through predation, men do things to women and against women all of which violate women and undermine women’s integrity. Yet protection objectifies just as much as predation. To protect women, men do things to women and against women; acting “for a woman’s own good,” they violate her integrity and undermine her agency.

Protection and predation emerge from the same ideology of male dominance, and it is a matter of indifference to the successful maintenance of male domination which of the two conditions women accept.”

“It is no accident that just as the feminist demand for rights again achieved public recognition, those in power diverted ethical attention to biology- this time, sociobiology. Here, amid allegedly objective descriptions of animal behavior, E. O. Wilson claims that it is a ‘near-universal phenomenon that makes are dominant over females among animals.’ Nowhere does Wilson defend this claim; rather, it appears to be substantiated as he merely describes the facts. For example, he uses the word ‘harem’ to describe a hamadryas baboon society in which females are terrorized into submission and loyalty by a threatening male. However, he also uses it describe female-centered societies such as the mountain sheep. The mountain sheep herd is female-centered, females ‘inherit’ home ranges from other females, and the females allow only a few males to ‘associate’ with them- and then only during the mating season. Yet by Wilson’s use of the word ‘harem,’ the reader is left with the impression that males dominate females in that society…

Perhaps Wilson’s most revealing judgment emerges as he interchanges the phrase ‘female receptive posture’ with the phrase ‘female submissive posture.’ Through this equation, he implies that by merely engaging in heterosex, females are dominated by males. Wilson describes females who do not engage in heterosex as ‘maiden aunts,’ or as ‘anti-social’ if they try to escape (as did the anubis female baboons which, in an experiment, scientists put in a hamadryas society). Since females having sex with males is ‘natural,’ it logically follows that male domination is ‘natural.'”

“‘Femininity’ functions as a standard of heterosexualism. Standards or measures determine fact and are used to create (and later discover) fact; they themselves, however, are not discovered. An inch, for example, was not discovered. It was created and is used to determine boundaries. No amount of investigation into surfaces will ever confirm or disprove that inches exist or that inches accurately reflect the world. A standard is a way of measuring the world, of categorizing it, of determining its boundaries so men can act upon it. ‘Femininity’ is such a standard: it is a way of categorizing the world so that men can act upon it, and women can respond.

‘Femininity’ is a label whereby one group of people are defined in relation to another in such a way that the values of dominance and subordination are embedded in perceptual judgment of reality as if they were the essence of those involved. Under the feminine characterization, women appear naively content with being controlled to such an extent that resistance to domination ceases to exist- that is, goes undetected. Female resistance is rendered imperceptible or perceived as abnormal, mad, or of no significance by both women and men.”

“Notice that, if the situation is fully her responsibility, then she is not helpless, even though she may have felt helpless at the time. There is something she could have done differently to determine the outcome. If she is wrong in such a situation, then she can go on in the world without fear of random violence; she can be sure of sense and meaning in events. Taking the blame herself makes her an agent; it implies that she has power and that she could have avoided what happened. For the same reasons, in many rape cases the woman blames herself- she should have been somewhere else, wearing different clothes, and so on. One who blames only herself is, among other things, denying that her actions were irrelevant.”

“[A]s [Simone de Beauvoir]’s argument goes, nazism is not a choice of value but a fleeing of choice. That is, to be a nazi is to be a ‘subman’, as she terms it. The subman is one who loses himself in a label- ‘white supremacist,’ ‘antisemite’- for he seeks to have meaning determined for him. He is terrified of taking the responsibility to act in this world. Instead, he finds a scapegoat to blame for all the world’s ills and thus needs do nothing himself about changing them. He is one who is afraid of choice and so pretends he has none by becoming a fanatic and submitting to a higher order, one he pretends is outside himself.”

“When concepts such as ‘justice’ and ‘duty’ and ‘obligation’ are focal points of ethical theory, their primary function is to make us believe we have a way to ensure ethical behavior in ourselves and others. They are attempts at guaranteeing humane, “cooperative.” behavior among individuals who are considered egoistic, solitary, and aggressive, when otherwise there has been no basis established through personal interaction. In other words, these “cooperative” values presuppose antagonism among individuals. And it is my contention that in presupposing antagonism, these values thereby encourage it.”

“Recall the structure of acting from duty. It involves severing reasoning and emotions, regarding reason as controlling emotions (self-control), and attempting to rise above the boundaries of nature (rather than working within them). Focusing on duty severs reasoning from emotions, and totally discounts dreaming, imagination, humor, psychic faculty, playfulness, and intuition in the development of an ethical being. In other words, acting from duty undermines our ability to care by discounting the majority of our faculties.”

“Now in challenging the concept of ‘duty,’ I do not mean to suggest that care can’t be used as a means of control. For example, most of us have heard or exclaimed, ‘If you really cared, you would…’ And many of us have been told we must care about others when we really have no feelings for them at all. Notice, however, such ideas don’t really address the judgments of our caring but instead operate in a context of duty and obligation- only now it is caring itself which has become our duty.”

Reductress on: the stupid argument that men needs mothers, wives and daughters in order to be against rape

From Reductress: Amazing! This Daughter Is The Reason Her Daddy Thinks Rape Is a No-No

Clickhole on sexual harassment in Hollywood

From Clickhole: Taking Action: The Academy Has Built A Well In Hollywood That Young Actresses Can Whisper The Name Of Their Harasser Into Without Fear Of Having Their Careers Ended

Analyzing the cultic nature of the transcult by analogy with Synanon

Whether it is deliberate or not Synanon’s “Game” can be seen at work both directly and indirectly in the more extreme elements of the transgender community. For those familiar with the trans community, they will know that the vast majority of trans identified people fall under the category of “fragile, emotionally vulnerable, and confused.” I have certainly observed this in my many years in the community, and younger trans suffer from the same personality traits. Thus a young detransitioning woman I communicated with (@gnc_centric on Twitter) told me that among the young trans she has known, almost every one “had depression and/or anxiety. A significant number of them also seem to have PTSD or BPD too.” We are thus dealing with troubled minds.

Many, perhaps most, young trans are social outcasts, as I myself was when I was young. As social outcasts, many of these individuals have been subjected to non-stop insults and profanity from their peers in their daily lives (in some cases for years), thus that part of the transgender “Game” has already been completed by proxy. Transgender leaders and activists can thus just parachute into the lives of these troubled, wounded minds and start rebuilding them with their new “trans identity,” and they tend to become as dedicated to the trans cult as any Synanon member ever was. Although it should be noted that with all of the non-stop propaganda and pro-trans coverage in the media and Hollywood, “parachuting in” is not even required, because brainwashing and suggestion are constantly being broadcast on almost every TV channel. The rebuilding of the personality thus can be done by a form of electronic correspondence, without ever coming into physical contact with an actual recruiter. The use of incredibly slick multi-media presentations, the likes of which Dederich et al. could only dream of, makes this kind of programming even more effective.

It should be noted that some people have personalities that make it quite possible for them to “Game” themselves without any outside intervention needed. Some people are obsessively self-critical. When I was young nobody was harder on me than I was on myself. My experiences with female born transgenders (FBT) has suggested girls that do not fit the “Barbie Doll” image of femininity are highly prone to attacking themselves in this way. In these cases outside intervention is not necessary to break down the ego, the person has already attacked and broken down their own sense of worth. Synanon expert Paul Morantz spoke to this in his essay “The Devil and John Walker”: “Those who already had a negative self-image or identity confusion, plus inclinations toward all-or-nothing emotional alignments, were most susceptible [to the influence of cult brainwashing]. And the most vulnerable, often, were teens and young adults whose identities were still taking shape, who were still idealistic and emotionally polarized, and who were dissatisfied with” society at large. All of these characteristics of course are ubiquitous in trans identified individuals.

While much of the gaming has been performed either externally by society at large or internally by the individuals attacking themselves, there are also what appears to be more overt attempts at using Game-like tactics, specifically against opposition from less radical elements in the community. When I, as a transgender person opposed to child indoctrination and the destruction of women’s safe spaces and programs, began speaking out, I was immediately attacked quite viciously by numerous trans activists, who engaged either knowingly or unknowingly in a textbook example of “The Game”. They hurled non-stop insults at me, insulted every aspect of my appearance and identity. They said I was fake, pathetic, just a dirty old man, and pounded me relentlessly with one personal insult after another – classic gaming. When it became clear to them they had finally upset me emotionally and that I did not appear to be resisting anymore, they then suddenly changed tone and assured me that if I just came to a realization that I was wrong and they were right, that I too could be a real, beautiful, genuine trans and we could all triumph against trans oppression together. This latter stage of rebuilding is standard in Synanon-styled behavior modifying cults. It was when they began rebuilding me after tearing me down, that I realized that I was in fact being “gamed” by these people. When my tone changed, the insults came at me fast and furious again. This type of temporary break-through was common in Synanon when “gaming” somebody. A person might initially be broken down but then get a second wind of defiance and reassert themselves. Thus many days or weeks of gaming attacks and surrenders might be necessary to finally break a particular individual down.

Whereas Synanon would break down the recruit and then “build up a new personality not drug oriented,” trans activists break down potential recruits and then “build up a new personality not traditionally gender (or what they call “cis gender”) oriented.”

NRA – Sunday with Lubach

Chomsky on Trump

There is a diversionary process under way, perhaps just a natural result of the propensities of the figure at center stage and those doing the work behind the curtains.

At one level, Trump’s antics ensure that attention is focused on him, and it makes little difference how. Who even remembers the charge that millions of illegal immigrants voted for Clinton, depriving the pathetic little man of his Grand Victory? Or the accusation that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower? The claims themselves don’t really matter. It’s enough that attention is diverted from what is happening in the background. There, out of the spotlight, the most savage fringe of the Republican Party is carefully advancing policies designed to enrich their true constituency: the Constituency of private power and wealth, “the masters of mankind,” to borrow Adam Smith’s phrase.

These policies will harm the irrelevant general population and devastate future generations, but that’s of little concern to the Republicans. They’ve been trying to push through similarly destructive legislation for years. Paul Ryan, for example, has long been advertising his ideal of virtually eliminating the federal government, apart from service to the Constituency—though in the past he’s wrapped his proposals in spreadsheets so they would look wonkish to commentators. Now, while attention is focused on Trump’s latest mad doings, the Ryan gang and the executive branch are ramming through legislation and orders that undermine workers’ rights, cripple consumer protections, and severely harm rural communities. They seek to devastate health programs, revoking the taxes that pay for them in order to further enrich their constituency, and to eviscerate the Dodd-Frank Act, which imposed some much-needed constraints on the predatory financial system that grew during the neoliberal period.

That’s just a sample of how the wrecking ball is being wielded by the newly empowered Republican Party. Indeed, it is no longer a political party in the traditional sense. Conservative political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein have described it more accurately as a “radical insurgency,” one that has abandoned normal parliamentary politics.

Absurd Being tries to disprove the Asymmetry, part 2.

I previously posted a rebuttal to an argument by Nathan Hohipuha, of the blog Absurd Being, which proposed to show that the Asymmetry argument gets morality wrong, basically. His claim was that pain and pleasure have nothing to do with morality, and therefore the Asymmetry is not about morality. I found this argument to be unconvincing, to say the least. In answer to this, Hohipuha did something that I don’t think any other critic has ever done: he actually corrected his article on the basis of my criticism! Unfortunately, the soundness of the argument did not dramatically improve.

The beginning is the same: he summarizes the Asymmetry and then makes the difference between a personal preference and a moral statement (I don’t think he makes any distinction between morality and ethics, so for the sake of discussion I will not do so either). Those parts were already correct, so that’s fine. After that is when the new stuff starts (written in blue in his article):

Let’s put this information to use by considering how we are supposed to read the words ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in Benatar’s (1) and (2). Are they moral pronouncements (concerning right and wrong) or preferential ones (relating to the satisfaction/frustration of an individual’s desires)? I argue that they are the latter. Why? Because the presence/absence of pain and pleasure just isn’t the kind of thing that is morally bad or good.

If feeling pain were a moral bad in the same way that stealing is a moral bad, it would make sense to say, ‘feeling pain is wrong’ in the same way that we say, ‘stealing is wrong’. The former doesn’t work because we understand that pain (like pleasure) is just a human experience. It is neither right (good) nor wrong (bad), in and of itself.

This is a complete non sequitur, because the Asymmetry is not based on an evaluation that “feeling pain is wrong.” Feeling pain is not wrong or right, it’s a subjective experience which results from having a complex nervous system which is affected in certain ways. Hohipuha is equating “the presence of pain is bad” with “feeling pain is wrong,” which is just incorrect: the presence of pain can be the result of human action (as in “person A shoots person B”), while feeling pain itself is not (as in “person B felt pain because of the trauma of the gunshot”).

To make an analogy relevant to antinatalism, we cannot say that the growth of a fetus in a woman’s body is the result of human action, but we can say that the fact that a fetus is born or not is the result of human action, insofar as the fetus could be aborted. To use that comparison to say that there cannot be any morality in the issue of abortion would be silly.

The reason why “stealing is wrong” is a coherent sentence is because “stealing” designates an area of human action, while “feeling pain is wrong” does not. But the Asymmetry is not about “feeling pain” in isolation, it is about the existence of pain, with all that it implies.

Now this obviously isn’t to say that the presence/absence of pain and pleasure is irrelevant in moral deliberation. The point is that it isn’t the presence /absence of pain and pleasure in itself that is right or wrong. Therefore when Benatar talks about the presence of pain being bad and the presence of pleasure being good, he must be using the words ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in my (A) sense, that is, as something disagreeable to an individual; i.e. not morally wrong.

At least Hohipuha did not hold on to his silly position that pain and pleasure have nothing to do with morality, so again I applaud him for changing his position. But he does not specify here how pain and pleasure are relevant to morality, in his view. He does not think that pain or pleasure are, in themselves, good or bad. If that’s the case, then how else are they relevant?

I specifically ask this because Hohipuha seems to be pitting the Asymmetry’s implicit premises (e.g. “pain is bad,” “pleasure is good”) with his own premises, which are unspoken, so we can’t make an evaluation of how these two premises stack up. Hohipuha does not tell us how he’s determined that his views are more valid, so his entire enterprise is based on something we are not privy to.

Let’s now turn to the second half of the Asymmetry argument. As with (1) and (2), we need to ask the same question of (3) and (4); i.e. are the words ‘good’ and ‘bad’ moral pronouncements (e.g. ‘stealing is bad’) or merely expressing a preference (e.g. ‘it’s bad I missed my bus’). Since I have already argued that the mere presence of pain and pleasure isn’t moral (because pain and pleasure aren’t, in themselves, moral), it follows that the absence of pain and pleasure also can’t be moral.

As I have already shown, he has not argued this at all. He has asserted that pain and pleasure aren’t in themselves moral, but has presented one argument, which was a non sequitur, and no alternative view. In short, we have nothing so far.

Benatar’s (4) says the “absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom that absence is a deprivation.” [emphasis added] Now, because of the additional highlighted clause, “not bad” in this proposition is coherent as a preferential term. The absence of pleasure is not ‘bad’, which is equivalent to saying, the absence of pleasure is not ‘a frustration of an individual’s desires/goals’. In what state of affairs? As Benatar clearly states, in the state of affairs in which there is nobody for whom that absence is a deprivation. This is trivially true. How can the absence of pleasure be a frustration of an individual’s desires/goals in a state of affairs in which no individual exists to experience that absence? (3), like (1) and (2) is coherent as a preferential proposition.

Hohipuha has jumped to the conclusion that premise 4 is a preferential statement because it makes sense as a preferential statement. I am confused as to why he thinks that’s a valid argument. Many moral statements also make sense as preferential statements, and many moral concepts can be described in preferential terms: that does not make them any less moral in nature.

For example, consent is an important factor in moral discussions, because the presence of consent ensures that an action tends towards (to quote Hohipuha) “the satisfaction of an individual’s desires/goals” instead of someone else’s desires/goals. A simpler example is the common moral argument of the type “you should be against murder because you yourself wouldn’t want to be murdered.” This is a way to argue morality with someone else by appealing to their own preferences as a standard.

Clearly, the fact that no one is affected by an absence of pleasure means that no one’s desires or goals are being hindered. But it is also true that this situation is morally not bad, which is what concerns the Asymmetry. There is no contradiction between these two facts.

He then explains that (3) cannot be framed in preferential terms (which is true), and then concludes:

This is why the asymmetry arises between (3) and (4). Because, “not bad” in (4) is getting through as a preferential term (not bad ONLY in the state of affairs in which no one is around to experience the absence) but “good” in (3) is (invalidly) getting through as a moral term (good, in itself, EVEN IF no one is around to enjoy it).

Since the terms in (3) and (4) aren’t being treated equally (symmetrically), it’s hardly surprising that our intuitions here yield unequal (asymmetrical) results.

I have no idea what “getting through” is supposed to mean here. The Asymmetry clearly is a moral argument and all its premises are moral statements. The fact that some of them also can be viewed as preferential statements, and some of them cannot, has no relevance to the argument. Hohipuha is unable to show that (3) and/or (4) are invalid moral statements, so he has to resort to this red herring. The terms in (3) and (4) are being “treated equally” and symmetrically, because “good” and “bad” are used in the moral sense in both cases.

The conclusion of his entry didn’t change significantly, so I won’t review it, since I already did this at the end of my first refutation. Suffice it to say that his arguments fail again, albeit for totally different reasons this time around. It’s still sloppy logic and sloppy reasoning, although not quite as sloppy as the first time around, so maybe Hohipuha will continue to improve his arguments with time and get to some point where we can both agree, although I am not holding my breath.