Truth vs Falsehood (35 page)

Blame: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Politics of Paranoia, Hate, and War

Because, as history has repeatedly demonstrated, the pen is mightier than the sword, it is crucial to determine the level of truth of prevalent philosophies, doctrines, and belief systems that often become naïvely parroted and popularized as being stylish and
au courant.
Their appeal is to narcissism, i.e., the ego inflation of being superior and “special.” In their effect on society, the hidden errors are like a hidden malignancy that results in catastrophe (e.g., Marxism alone cost the lives of tens of millions of people). Fallacies propagate via academia, the arts, and the media by their substitution of sophistry and conceptual relativism for verifiable truth.

The intent and thrust of relativistic philosophy is to discredit the very intellectual/philosophic basis out of which the great benefits of the modern world arose, i.e., science, antibiotics, electricity, transportation, hygiene, food production, ethics, morality, law, civil rights, the Constitution, and the economy. The recent French intellectuals, who were a primary source of the philosophical decline, as a group calibrate at 180-190, which is
far
below intellectual validity, much less excellence (cal. 460).

In America, a primary source of fallacious sophistry was the influence and writings of Herbert Marcuse (cal. 145), which were based on the Marxist dialectic and dualistic error that have resulted in academia’s and Hollywood’s promulgation of “newspeak,” political correctness, and elitism. The theories of Marcuse are termed “cultural Marxism” (Flynn, 2004).

Among the basic ideas Marcuse promoted are:

  1. Free speech should be controlled (and eliminate conservative reason, logic, or ethics).

  2. Freedom is totalitarianism.

  3. Democracy, ethics, truth, and morality are dictatorial.

  4. Fiction and fantasy are truth; reality is false.

  5. Violence is nonviolence. It is okay against governments and regulations.

  6. Lies are okay if they subserve ideology.

  7. Critical theory (cal. 145) deconstructs reason and its totalitarian restraints.

  8. Polymorphous sex is superior to working (anti-capitalism).

  9. Sensual gratification should be the primary ethic.

10. Science is a repressive political process.

11. The purpose of education is indoctrination.

12. All minorities are victims.

13. Cultural Marxism is superior to reason, ethics, and morality, which are repressive.

As is obvious from the above, the central focus of this philosophy is the infantile, narcissistic ego, as it resides in Freud’s primitive “Id.”

The complexities of “relativistic” intellectualization end up like the centipede that, when asked “which leg comes after which,” fell upside down in a ditch. At best, the relativistic rhetoric of postmodernistic deconstructionism, reconstrutionism, and similar theories is that it does not get past the observation made by a character in Lewis Carroll’s
Alice in Wonderland
(cal. level 420) that “a word means just what I say it means, nothing more and nothing less.”
Chapter 7
in Carroll’s great classic illustrates the basis for the confusion of current socio-political philosophizing that, in effect, tends to increase the problems that are meant to be solved, e.g., the now-familiar “unforeseen consequences” of faulty social and political theories (Charon, 2004)

The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party Amorality as the Morality of Non-morality

It is currently fashionable (and profitable) to misrepresent integrity and attack it with sarcasm and vilification. The trend is strongly expressed by the extremist editorialists, writers, moviemakers, and celebrity seekers who look for status via polemics. The ‘Howard Sterns’ of politics have a voracious appetite to be noticed and get public attention. They are willing to sacrifice truth and integrity for the payoff of narcissistic ego inflations of a false sense of importance, with its illusion of empowerment (Howard and Clark, 2004). Headlines become intoxicating and sought for at any price, even though they appear pathetic to the mainstream. The favored targets are the traditional American standards of morality, ethics, and personal responsibility. By rhetoric excess and relinquishment of logic, proof, or reason, any representation of integrity can be distorted and set up as the straw man for clever attack. Inasmuch as Divinity is the ultimate symbol of truth and integrity, God and spiritual, religious, or even scientific and historic truths are the enemy.

The political attack on integrity, which is vociferously pseudomoralistic, is based on the most glaring falsehood of all—that morality is immoral. The “righteous indignation” of political polemics (that usually calibrate at 130-180) is inflamed by public examples of responsible integrity, and, therefore, they are under attack by attempts to discredit them. These are frequently biased by taking actions out of context and thereby subjugating them to historical distortion.

The political extremists who calibrate far below 200 have an unerring eye for integrity, and therefore, their selected targets characteristically calibrate very high. A list of the targets for hatred and vilification is like a “Who’s Who” of rationality.

Political and philosophical criticism and biased judgmentalism are based solely on moralistic presumptions; therefore, negation of the reality of moral truths removes any basis for opposition to traditional values. One cannot attack morality from the morality of non-morality. Therefore, all such positionalities calibrate far below the level of truth at 200. This leaves no rationale for political hatred and exposes that such behaviors are essentially the expression of personality disorders associated with loss of reality testing. Psychiatrically, they are classified as oppositional, defiant, or narcissistic personality disorders (American Psychiatric Association’s DSM IV).

The primary targets of contentious political attack calibrate well above 200 (from 355, on up to Infinity; the average is at 455). Thus, the conflict is not really political but represents the social clash of collective levels below 200 with those above 200, i.e., between the emotionality of lower mind and the logic and reason that represent higher mind (see
Chapter 14
). It also reflects the hostility of the less evolved mind toward erudition itself. The underlying fantasy is that by attack, the playing field can be leveled, which is transparently fallacious since the impact of truth and integrity stems from its nonlinear source, which is immune.

Falsity can be rationalized but it represents only force (persuasion, emotionality) from which truth, like gravity, is intrinsically immune. Whereas emotionalism can distract, truth itself silently survives because force necessitates agreement, whereas truth, like gravity, stands on its own and its laws are inviolate.

The fallacy of the philosophic/academic discrediting of rationality and the inherent order of logic and truth were exposed by two revealing demonstrations. The first was the famous production of a “Postmodern Essay Generator” computer program of fictitious essays, and the second was the notorious “Sokal Affair,” in which a physicist wrote a pseudoscientific article made up of pure hokum but in fancy terminology, which was published in
Social Text
, a publication of Duke University (details on the Internet).

The end result of the “question authority” bumper sticker is regression to immaturity. The denigration of science is at best an intellectual pose—nobody wants a relativistic auto mechanic or a brain surgeon who operates at consciousness level 180-190.

The source of philosophic error was the failure to appreciate that “postmodernism” and other intellectualities were meaningfully valid when applied to the
arts
(Stravinsky, Picasso, Dali) or to the study of semantics, but were grossly inappropriate when misapplied to the world of the intellect, social reality, nature, or spiritual reality (e.g., see Olson,
Zen and the Art of Postmodern Philosophy
).

The inability to differentiate the Kantian categories or levels of abstraction results in the substitution of emotionalized wishful thinking for the strict dialectic requirements of higher-mind intellection and logic. When separation of the levels of abstraction versus the concrete breaks down, there is a collapse between
res interna
(mentalization) and
res externa
(the world as it is), resulting in confusion, disorder, and incapacitation (as in schizophrenia). The hallmark of higher mind and maturity is the capacity for the discernment that differentiates between reality and emotionally motivated fantasy. While all understanding of communication entails hermeneutics (i.e., interpretation), interpretation itself is based on logical premises and the rules of syllogistic logic in contrast to emotionalism.

The successful integration of reason, science, and logic with spiritual, personal, humanistic, and environmental issues is demonstrated by the success of the rapidly growing segment of the population in the United States (estimated at approximately 25 percent) termed “cultural creatives” (Ray and Anderson, 2000). Described as a “movement with a heart,” the overall philosophy transcends traditional political positions rather than joining in the fray. It avoids chocolate
versus
vanilla, or even chocolate
or
vanilla, and instead chooses chocolate
and
vanilla. The movement, which calibrates overall at 335, incorporates integrity and optimism, with emphasis on growth and responsibility in spiritual and personal as well as social and environmental matters.

Upon examination, the basic defect of arguments put forth by even the most esteemed intellectual proponents of anarchy is the ignoring of the rudimentary postulates and rules of logic known as “non-sequitur,” “post hoc ergo propter hoc,” “begging the question,” and the “undistributed middle.” Thus, biased views are cited as purportedly supportive evidence so that the result is like a house of cards merely supported by other cards, e.g., America is evil because its government is evil because its politicians are evil because capitalism is evil because profit is evil because …, etc. The resultant paradox is that in the process, anarchy itself became a totalitarian ruling force to be slavishly served. Anti-authoritarianism is the new totalitarian ‘authority’, and inquiry degenerates into iconoclasm (cal. level 175). Success is ridiculed and victimology promoted because the victim role brings with it a false sense of empowerment and, importantly, ‘entitlement’.

The self-defeating dilemma of circuitous intellectualism is that all of nature, including animal and human societies, is expressed as form, which represents condensed information. The ‘meaning’ of form is a derivation of the interpretation of perceived ‘relationship’, which, in turn, is a mentalization projected by the observer onto the observed. Intention predetermines the content of what is found (e.g., the search engine) which, even by circularity, confirms the original positionality. This is a naïve process.

By analysis, it will be discovered that the common term “relationship” is itself an illusion that originates solely within the mind of the observer. It is an arbitrary viewpoint set up by selection of what is to be compared to what (i.e., a mentalization). To select two points for mental focus and attention does not magically change what is ‘out there’ that now have a ‘relationship’, just as selecting stars to look at does not cause a ‘constellation’ to be a reality in the sky. Connecting the dots is imaginative but all ‘constellations’ are within the observer’s imagination. They are not facts about astronomy nor do they have reality as
res externa
, i.e., nature. (See Hawkins, 1995,
Power vs. Force
, Chapter 19.)

All structure and perceived relationship can therefore be arbitrarily viewed from any point one selects. Perception is thus linked to projection, and life is viewed like a Rorschach inkblot. The politics of what is basically just adolescent rebellion is languaged as intellectualized rationalizations in order to make claim to respectability. From an immature viewpoint, all integrous truth and wisdom are seen as parental. If the political/social/intellectual positions that ensue from such discourse were verifiably superior, then they would calibrate as such, but they do not, and instead, they collectively reflect the segment of society that calibrates from 130 to 190, or even lower, which includes considerable reliance on another defect of reason called ‘teleologic’ reasoning, which is the presumption that things occur and are what they are ‘in order to’ achieve some purported goal. This is also a defect of some biological sciences. In reality, all occurs solely by virtue of potentiality’s becoming actuality in order to fulfill its own intrinsic design, e.g., the rich don’t get rich ‘in order to’ oppress the poor. In evolution, some species as well as their individual members are simply more adept.

Inasmuch as spirituality historically as well as by calibration represents the highest truth available to man, integrous scripture contains proven guidelines. Thus, in Proverbs, there are repeated stern warnings against allowing wisdom to be seduced by the “pretty woman of sophistry that whispers in one’s ear.” The true nature of the hidden predator beneath the sheep’s clothing is quite openly revealed by its expressions as hatred, vituperation, and vilification. Significantly, the philosophies of the Far Left (Popper, Chomsky, et al.) are admittedly atheistic.

All of the theories that demonize success, the big corporations, and the country of America are examples of dualistic mentation based on the perpetrator/victim fallacy of an external ‘cause’ (demonized) of a lamented, selected condition. Therefore, the ‘cause’ of poverty is wealth or capital, and America is the evil cause of the world’s poverty stricken, etc. All such postulations ignore the historical reality that war, poverty, cruelty, and famine preexisted before the emergence of the country of America or even the concept of capitalism.