A Fourth Kind Of Conviction

     [The following piece first appeared at the old Palace of Reason on May 4, 2004 – FWP]

---

     Some years ago, PBS imported a series of made-for-television dramas from England, which were scripted from the magnificent murder mystery novels of Phyllis Dorothea James, Baroness of Holland Park, better known to the world as P. D. James. All those dramas starred the fine British actor Roy Marsden as detective Adam Dalgleish of New Scotland Yard, who is the central character of one of Baroness James's series of novels. For your Curmudgeon's tastes, the best of those dramatizations was that of A Taste For Death, which is also one of the very best of Baroness James's novels. Your Curmudgeon has purchased it on DVD, and has been enjoying it with the C.S.O. these past few nights.

     The production values aren't the best. The series having been made for television, the picture is rendered in NTSC 4:3 aspect ratio, and is below typical DVD standards. None of that matters. The story, the pacing, the setting and the acting are all as gripping as they were first time around. Marsden is superb as always, and Penny Downie, who plays his assistant, Inspector Kate Miskin, makes her nominally supporting part glow. The pleasure of this reacquaintance is even more remarkable when one includes that your Curmudgeon had read the novel first.

     Particularly striking is a sequence involving a minor character: Sarah Berowne, estranged daughter to the murdered man, Sir Paul Berowne, a Home Office subminister in a Conservative administration. As is usual in Baroness James's mysteries, she provides a wealth of possible suspects and motives for the crime. Sarah's plausibility is provided by two factors: she stands to inherit a substantial sum, though short of independent wealth, from her father's estate; and she's a doctrinaire Marxist who reviles everything about British society, most especially its government.

     When Commander Dalgleish interviews her in the aftermath of the murder, among the things he probes is the nature of Sarah's estrangement from Sir Paul. Sarah's comment on the matter is too revealing not to share:

     My father thought our political differences were something we could discuss politely around the dinner table. What he didn't understand was that my politics are a faith.

     Imagine the above words spoken in a tone that combines the passion of total commitment with the revulsion of utter contempt for anyone who dares to differ.

     Your Curmudgeon has written before about his tripartite classification of convictions:

• Mathematics: Theses that can be proved or disproved.
• Science: Theses that can be disproved, but not proved.
• Religion: Theses that can neither be proved nor disproved.

     After pondering Sarah Berowne's statement above, and comparing it to the utterances of other Marxists he's known, your Curmudgeon has come to believe that that scheme is incomplete. A fourth category is needed: convictions retained in the face of conclusive disproof.

     A one-word label for such convictions that doesn't imply lunacy on the part of the holder is proving difficult to find. For now, let's call them ideological cults, or ideo-cults and their adherents ideo-cultists.

     Politics is rife with ideological cults, according to your Curmudgeon's standards for evidence. This is not to say that all questions of politics and public policy can be settled one way or the other for all time. However, some theories about what the State must, may, or must not do have been so thoroughly riddled with holes by the fusillades of experience that to retain them even in the most tentative and conditional form should occasion questions about one's respect for objective reality.

     What's significant in this connection is the array of defenses erected around the failed theory, or more accurately, around the minds of those determined to remain loyal to it. Eric Hoffer spoke of the "fact-proof screen" that an ideological cult tries to impose between its communicants and the evidence that would undermine their faith. While there is no doubt that these exist and are important, there yet remain ideo-cults whose members have been made aware of facts fatal to their creed, but maintain their allegiance anyway. Explaining these is harder.

     Possibly, one can get no closer than to examine the reactions of someone whose religious faith is undermined by the assertion of a contrary fact. For example, what would happen to Christian belief if it were demonstrated to a high degree of confidence that the remains of Christ had been found? Since that would undermine the traditional account of the Resurrection, it would be a heavy blow to orthodox Christian creeds. But it is not necessarily the case that all Christians would accept the immediate implications of such a discovery:

• Some would reject the assertion's accuracy, claiming that the researchers who made it couldn't possibly be right;
• Some would impugn the motives of the researchers, claiming that the assertion was known to be untrue and had been made out of malice toward Christianity;
• Some would spin alternative theories that would cover both the Resurrection and the remains.

     A claim about the discovery of Christ's remains would move Christianity out of the category of religion and into the category of science. Those determined to retain the Christian creed in its traditional form would either have to react scientifically, by invalidating the evidence or its implications, or hyper-religiously, by closing their minds to the disproof offered.

     Political ideo-cultists tend toward the religious pole. In the usual case, they simply refuse to engage the implications of contrary evidence. Often, they attack the motives or character of him who presents it. Their resistance grows stiffer, not weaker, with each new bit of adverse evidence adduced.

     Outreach expert Marshall Fritz, founder of Advocates for Self-Government, has counseled freedom activists not to expend their energies trying to convert people who are "into world domination." Analogously, if Smith evinces case-hardened hostility toward evidence that his convictions might be wrong, Jones would do better to avoid the matter in Smith's presence. Offering facts and logic is one thing; deprogramming is quite another, and not terribly well paid at that.

The Natural, The Supernatural, And The Arguments

     I hadn’t intended to write anything today, but I just had an encounter with something both brilliant and concise. When you find those two attributes in a single package, applause isn’t just appropriate; it’s damn near mandatory.

     First, have a quote that’s rather popular among atheists:

     “I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” – Stephen F. Roberts

     Appended to that slogan is this summary of a particular pseudo-argument against belief in any god:

     As a dear departed friend liked to say, “It has a certain syrup, but it doesn’t actually pour.” He had a way with words, even if most of us didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, much of the time. But enough of that. What do Roberts’s statement and the appended image actually contend? Do they concern themselves with anything factual or logical?

     Of course not. They don’t offer an argument, but a rejection of argument. “These previous claims are substanceless; therefore all other claims that have certain specific similarities to them can be dismissed without examining the associated logic or evidence.” That looks a lot like “It never happened before, therefore it can’t happen.”

     Now on to the good part:

It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. If you don't keep your feet, you may end up regurgitating unhelpful slogans that obfuscate reality.

> The "absence of discriminating evidence" is the entire game. Taking me on this journey only gets us to where we already… https://t.co/8YKdXic0Fn

— Limit and Mind | Know the Times (@limitandmind) April 27, 2026

     Allow me to repost the really striking portion, as I don’t want my Gentle Readers to stop short:

     The "absence of discriminating evidence" is the entire game. Taking me on this journey only gets us to where we already were...evaluating the evidence for and against different god claims. Otherwise we are collapsing into the same boring mantra that we hear all the time "there is no evidence for god."
     Parsimony is misapplied if explanatory power is not equal. If you hold that the universe is brute, as many atheists do, the theist has an explanatory advantage, and I don't have to believe Zeus is real or treat his claim of divinity as equally serious as the Christian God to get there. Which feeds into the next point.
     All deities are obviously not in the same reference class. The slogan treats them as if they are. The Greeks never considered their deities to be the sufficient ground of their existence. Overall, I think it's clear how unhelpful to the conversation the slogan is.
     When both atheists and theists are saying it's time to retire this one, it may be time to retire it and move on.

     Extraordinary. I’m in awe.

     I’ve ranted before about the widespread misunderstanding of Occam’s Razor, alternately known as the “Principle of Parsimony.” (Please read that earlier essay if you’ve forgotten.) The universe is decidedly not simple. We probe for simplicities beneath the complexities we can see, but we’re not guaranteed that the understratum is any simpler than the layer of reality we can perceive. That’s why we keep probing.

     As the embedded tweet says, you cannot validly use “parsimony” to dismiss an explanation for a phenomenon without examining the evidence for it. It’s an especially egregious violation of logic to do so when no other explanation has demonstrated validity – even conditional validity. If we maintain that existence itself demands an explanation, we must be dispassionate in our consideration of any candidate explanations.

     Even those atheists who claim that no explanation is required continue to probe. They seek to reach and know that understratum as avidly as theists seek to know God. That makes their militancy against theism, especially Christianity, particularly ironic. If they could accept that our explanation is no worse logically or evidentiarily than their “it just is” dogmatism, and allow us to go our own way, an awful lot of bad feeling could be avoided.

     What’s that you say? You want to know why they can’t allow us to go our own way? I wish I knew. But ultimately, it’s irrelevant. We all believe what we prefer to believe. Our respective choices in that regard are a great part of what defines us.

The Feminization Of The West

     I’ve had this article in my Future Columns folder for a week, and have just returned to it. I originally saved it both from admiration for its frankness and from a desire to think over what I might say to amplify its thesis. After a week’s contemplation, I’ve reached a conclusion: not much. It’s that good.

     The core of the thing is the general displacement of reason – decisions based on logic and evidence – by emotion. The author delineates a number of developments that brought about that displacement. It’s connected to the efforts to “diversify” various occupations, especially journalism, entertainment, education, and law. That gave rise to cadres of women in those occupations that would habitually make decisions and render judgments based on the consensus about how the matters under judgment made them feel.

     Emotion is a poor substitute for rational analysis, especially when it’s elevated above the facts. Thus, this feminization of critical specialties and institutions has resulted in many injustices. Author Helen Andrews is candid about this devolution. She does a good job at connecting feminization to the “wokeness” plague. However, she fumbles at the conclusion:

     Thankfully, I don’t think solving the feminization problem requires us to shut any doors in women’s faces. We simply have to restore fair rules.

     But wait just a second: The sexes differ on what’s meant by fair. Now that the feminization of so many important institutions is an accomplished fact, who will decide what fair really means? Will it be the logic-and-evidence, performance-oriented men, or the emotion-oriented, make-sure-everyone-feels-good women? And even should men prevail in the argument, is it likely that women will go along with it in practice? We can’t just flush them out of the power positions they’ve attained. Imagine the howls that would arise should the men start overruling the women repeatedly, even regularly!

     Men often give in to women simply for a little peace. It’s as commonplace in the boardroom as in the home. Women know that and use it. So the restoration of reason supreme over emotion will require men to “cowboy up:” to learn once again to stand firm despite the punishments women can inflict on men, and so endure them. It’s possible that the feminization of our society has progressed too far for that to happen without first suffering a rash of convulsive institutional failures.

     Please read the whole column and form your own conclusions.

Our Deadliest Weakness

     “Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal….The mind's ability to rationalize its own shortcomings is unlimited.” – Robert A. Heinlein

     From the moment I finished and posted yesterday’s essay, a phrase has been ringing in my head. It’s a familiar one; you’ve heard it many times and have probably used it as well. It refers to a tendency observable in nearly everyone, at least at some points in life. Whether it’s good or bad – that is, whether the characteristic it describes is beneficial or detrimental in any particular sense – is a matter of context and personal priorities.

     The phrase is “the path of least resistance.”

     Unpacking that phrase usefully requires contextualization. “The path of least resistance” isn’t always the path that demands the least effort, whether physical or mental. Neither is it always the path that incurs the smallest cost to oneself, whether material, social, or spiritual. The context is the determinant.

     Consider an old image: that of a prisoner on a chain gang, currently tasked to break rocks by the use of a sledgehammer. What is the path of least resistance for him? Depending on the consequences of not swinging his hammer, it might be to do as he’s been told until he drops from dehydration or exhaustion. That’s hardly a low-effort path.

     Consider the situation of a schoolboy whose parents have been warned that he’s failing. The path of least resistance for him will depend upon the foreseeable consequences of going on as he has, or of making just enough effort to pass, or of “going all out” to become an honor student. Note that one of those courses involves considerably more effort than the others…yet depending on the little snotnose’s parents, it might prove to be the path of least resistance.

     Or consider any First World woman of the years before World War II. As she confronts possible paths forward, which appears the path of least resistance? To allow herself to be courted, become a wife, mother, and homemaker, and settle into domesticity? Or to resolve upon spinsterhood, that no such web of obligations could ensnare her? Or to strike out boldly in some fashion, and strive to become a trailblazer of the intellect or spirit? Many contemporary women would say that in that era the first course would be the path of least resistance. Yet the same judgment would hardly be automatic today.

     The relevance of the Heinlein quotes above will soon become clear.

---

     Courtesy of Peace or Freedom comes the following:

     Read it from end to end; don’t skim it. Absorb it in its entirety. Take a moment to react to it.

     Then take another moment to think about your reaction.

---

     I am fairly well known for being personally indifferent to other peoples’ opinions. (Got plenty of my own, thanks.) That hasn’t kept me from taking note of how other people’s opinions, however they’re expressed in words or deeds, have shaped our behavior.

     Consider the opinions expressed in the image above. For the sentiments it expresses are nothing but one arrogant man’s opinions. Moreover, they’re as unjustifiable as they are harsh. To call them “false moralism,” while baldly factual, doesn’t condemn them adequately. I can well understand why their poster prefers anonymity.

     Now: Why do I, who (once I’m done with it) routinely return the shopping cart to the little stand designated for their repose, feel that way? If you, Gentle Reader, feel some other way, can you explain why?

     Were you aware that most supermarkets employ people to fetch the shopping carts from where they’ve been abandoned around the asphalt prairies? Were you aware that shoppers who personally return shopping carts inflict more damage, both to the carts and to shoppers’ cars, than those paid hirelings?

     No? Don’t be embarrassed; I had to research those things for myself. Add that many shoppers are obliged to shop in tightly constrained timeslices, whether because they have to return to their jobs or are accompanied by children who, even if well-behaved, probably need to pee. The minute or two it takes to return a cart to the designated stand might make a huge difference that no one else is aware of.

     But most persons will follow the path of least resistance, won’t they? Only where is that path, in this particular case?

     The typical shopper who lets his cart lie where he emptied it is following one sort of path of least resistance. The person who is intimidated by the sentiments in the image above is following another. My own path of least resistance is habit: I return shopping carts because I’ve been doing so for more than fifty years.

     Most people don’t arrive at their choices through a logical process. When called to explain them, we rationalize. That’s not a judgment on the choices, which may be as good as any. It’s a reflection on how we make most of our choices: usually, by a semiconscious (at best) process that selects a path that seems, according to one’s own convictions, desires, and fears, to be the path of least resistance. Oftentimes that path is determined by…drum roll, please…other people’s opinions.

---

     The miscreant who wrote the text of the image above isn’t just opinionated. He clearly feels justified to judge others according to his personal standards – and by “to judge” I mean to indict, try, convict, sentence, and execute. He wouldn’t be safe around me. I might let him pop off once without penalty. On the second incidence – which in the case of such persons usually occurs about five seconds after you’ve let the first one pass – I’d haul him up by the scruff of his neck. (Politely, of course; I never kill or cripple on first acquaintance. Well, hardly ever.)

     Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. [Matthew 7:1-5]

     Do you think “Anonymous” has ever reflected on the implications of that passage? Hasn’t every adult in the First World read or heard it at some point in his life? Haven’t we all had occasion to notice the equilibrium principle that governs the world of men? It says, most plainly:

As ye give,
So shall ye get.

     That’s not from the Gospels, nor from any venerable source. It’s from this novel, and this one. And it is the reverse of the coin whose face reads “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” which is both excellent ethical counsel and the only practical mind-reading technique available to us lowly humans.

     Don’t be like “Anonymous.” That particular fellow should reflect on his path of least resistance – i.e., to be a hyper-opinionated, loudmouthed, and rashly judgmental jerk – before it gets him hurt.

A Premise We Can’t Do Without

     I subscribe to a service that presents me with some inspirational Catholic reading each morning. It’s a “game starter” that’s served me well. (Among other things, it reminds me to pray.) This morning it led off with a quote that immediately got my gears turning:

     "I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but rather, I believe in order that I may understand." — St. Anselm of Canterbury

     This is more than merely a statement of faith. It goes to the heart of all human reasoning: the unavoidable requirement that we accept certain unprovable propositions as true, simply because without them we can do no reasoning at all.

---

     In response to the St. Anselm quote above, the scrap-lumber room of my often annoying but sometimes useful memory has just tossed up two fragments of unusual relevance. The first is from that perennial visitor to this site, the late, great Clive Staples Lewis:

     From propositions about fact alone no practical conclusion can ever be drawn. This will preserve society cannot lead to do this except by the mediation of society ought to be preserved. This will cost you your life cannot lead directly to do not do this: it can lead to it only through a felt desire or an acknowledged duty of self-preservation. The Innovator is trying to get a conclusion in the imperative mood out of premisses in the indicative mood: and though he continues trying to all eternity he cannot succeed, for the thing is impossible. We must therefore either extend the word Reason to include what our ancestors called Practical Reason and confess that judgements such as society ought to be preserved (though they can support themselves by no reason of the sort that Gaius and Titius demand) are not mere sentiments but are rationality itself; or else we must give up at once, and for ever, the attempt to find a core of 'rational' value behind all the sentiments we have debunked. [From The Abolition of Man]

     Long-time Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch have surely seen this quote before. It goes to the heart of human ratiocination, the process by which our conscious minds approach decision-making. We cannot reason without premises: statements of fact that, while not provable, are not disprovable and have survived attempts to contradict them in observation. Even completely formal systems, derived entirely from the mind of Man, require premises, despite Giovanni Saccheri’s refusal to accept it.

     The second fragment is from the late Dr. Clarence Carson, in discussing the effects on philosophy of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason:

     What Kant took away with one hand—the Pure Reason—he returned with the other—Practical Reason. What we cannot know—that is, God, freedom, immortality, moral imperatives, principles, ideals—must be assumed. To accomplish this intellectual feat, Kant resorted to the traditional distinctions between appearance and reality. The phenomenal world, the world accessible to the senses, the only world that can be known, is only an appearance. The real world is unknown and unknowable, as Kant had earlier demonstrated to his satisfaction. Yet it must exist. No, that is not quite right. We must act as if it existed.

     Kant affirmed the traditional morality, insisted upon the necessity of faith, and proclaimed that man participates in a moral order. Practically, Kant would have it, we do seem to know that there are moral imperatives. There may even be generally accepted beliefs about what many of these are. They can even be "proved" by the Practical Reason, by which Kant means reason operating upon assumptions about what reality must be like in order for appearances to be as we perceive them. Yet this kind of reason operates upon possibilities, not certainties, so far as philosophy is concerned. Kant said as much himself:

     It is just the same as if I sought to find out how freedom itself as causality of a will is possible; for, in so doing, I would leave the philosophical basis of explanation behind, and I have no other. Certainly I could revel in the intelligible world, the world of intelligences, which still remains to me; but although I have a well founded idea of it, still I do not have the least knowledge of it, nor can I ever attain to it by all the exertions of my natural capacity of reasons.

     This stolid German, this resolute metaphysician, this determined moralist, had left the house of philosophy in ruins: of this there should be no doubt. Let us review the "achievement." Kant had changed the meaning of "objective" from something which exists outside the mind to make it refer to a property of mind itself; he had brought it into the interior world of consciousness. He had taught that mind can only know phenomena. Reason can only deal with reason. Then he declares that phenomena is only appearance, that reality is unknown and unknowable.

     [From The Flight from Reality]

     In other words, Kant refused to treat the indispensable premise of the Christian Enlightenment – that the universe is inherently lawful, that its laws impose a moral order on us, and that this order is independent of human conceptions and norms — as sufficiently demonstrated and without counterexamples to be treated as a fact. He is unwilling to concede it the status of a fact, but mealy-mouths around the matter by claiming that “we must act as if it existed.”

     “Must act.” Must! Kant says so in letters of fire. But then C. S. Lewis, that inexorable debunker of intellectual pretense and twaddle, arises to ask the most fateful of all questions:

Why?

---

     “Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence.” – Charles F. Kettering

     Paranoid: A logician with a fractured premise. – Arthur Herzog

     Althea: How do my accomplishments, as you put it a moment ago, bear on this realm?
     Probe: You are Hope’s first metaphysicist, Althea. You alone have thought to alter the properties of space itself. It is how you constructed your superluminal vessel.
     Althea: Then to alter the permittivity of the vacuum is an act of meta-engineering?
     Probe: Yes. It requires an assumption realist physicists would dismiss out of hand. Their assumptions are wholly incompatible with it.
     Althea: What are those assumptions?
Probe: They pertain to the undefined term existence. If asked “does space exist?” the realist physicist would decline to give a definite answer. Space, he would say, is nothing: the absence of anything real. Therefore, the concept of existence does not apply to it. You, by contrast, have treated space as having existential properties. You have treated nothing as being something, and so have succeeded in making changes to it.
     Althea: Which of us is nearer to the truth?
     Probe: Surely that question answers itself.

     [From Freedom’s Fury]

     Kant’s obfuscation of reality as an objective matter was accepted by a number of later thinkers, including a few for whom I have some regard. Nevertheless his notion that reality is a matter of belief rather than fact is fundamentally unsound as a matter of metaphysics itself. Metaphysics is the study of what is prior and superior to our reasoning processes. If nothing is prior and superior to ratiocination per natura, then there can be no objection to solipsism and all the madness that follows in its train.

     In other words, we need to accept reality as an objective fact, prior and superior to our opinions and evaluations, to construct any sound notions about what to do in it and with it.

     The moral order inherent in the laws of this universe is completely consistent with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God and the Redeemer of Mankind. (You knew I’d get here eventually, didn’t you? I mean, I did lead off with a quote from a saint.) Thus, our indispensable premise of an objective reality that’s “indifferent to what you believe or disbelieve” (John Varley) is identical to Christ’s teachings. While one may choose to remain unconvinced by the evidence for His miracles, Passion, and Resurrection, one cannot rationally object to His prescriptions:

     And behold one came and said to him: Good master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting? Who said to him: Why asketh thou me concerning good? One is good, God. But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
     He said to him: Which? And Jesus said: Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. [Matthew 19:16-19]

     ...without denying reality itself.

     In this Saint Anselm was a forerunner to C. S. Lewis:

     “I believe in Christianity as I believe in the sun: not only because I see it, but because by its light I see everything else.”

     With this premise as its foundation was all of Western Civilization erected...and if deprived of this its foundation, all of Western Civilization will fall.

     Have a nice day.

Moral Fundamentals Part 2: Lexical And Contextual Considerations

     As I write in English (surprise, surprise), I frequently find myself grappling with one or more ambiguities built into that language. The English language is the largest currently spoken. According to various authorities, its vocabulary is larger than that of any other language known to linguistic history. That means an English speaker has many different ways of expressing a particular idea – and worse, many different ways of trying to express it, but missing his mark.

     (There’s the seed of an idea in there: “linguistic entropy,” the process by which a language’s lexical growth renders it ever more difficult to achieve precision in one’s statements. But that’s for another day.)

     English has two words, morality and ethics, that are commonly used to address the moral weight of the choices we make. The former is usually used to subsume the latter, which is how I intend to use it in this essay and subsequent pieces on this topic. However, strictly speaking they don’t mean the same thing. Moreover, the etymology of the words moral and morality casts a shadow over attempts to use them in a precise way.

     The root of moral is the Latin word mores, which means customs. When Cicero exclaimed “O tempora, o mores!” he was bemoaning what he saw as a deterioration in the customs of the Roman people, not their moral choices as we English speakers might have imagined. To English speakers, moral pertains to the rightness or wrongness of a given decision.

     To compound the damage, the societies from which America was germinated often confused matters of right and wrong with considerations of what “simply isn’t done.” The notion of behavior that’s morally neutral but “simply isn’t done” conjures up images of Victorian England and the straitlaced customs to which the upper classes were expected – and “compelled” by the prospect of social disapprobation – to conform. But here context matters; Victorian customs about what “simply isn’t done” involved the setting and the persons who would witness the deed in question. Many a thing about which the Victorians would say “That simply isn’t done” most certainly was done, by many persons and quite often, in other circumstances and with other participants.

     Many a writer of fiction has had some fun with this dichotomy. Have an illustrative snippet from one of the late Jack Vance’s wonderful novels, Araminta Station:

     “Why did you run from me as if I had a loathsome disease?”
     The question took Glawen by surprise, He stammered, “It seemed like a good time to be leaving.”
     Wayness shook her head. “Not quite. You left because you were furious with me. Why? I’ve been staring into the dark it seems forever, and I’m tired of being mystified.”
     Glawen groped for an answer which would leave him a few shreds of dignity. He muttered, “I was more furious with myself than with anyone else.”
     “I’m still baffled,” said Wayness. “Why should you be angry with either one of us?”
     “Because I did what I did not want to do! I had planned to be suave and polished, to charm everyone with my tact, and to avoid all controversy. Instead I blurted out all my opinions, caused a grand uproar, and confirmed your mother’s worst apprehensions.”
     “Come, now,” said Wayness. “It wasn’t all that bad; in fact, not bad at all. You could have done far worse.”
     “No doubt, if I’d put my mind to it. I could have become drunk and punched Julian in the nose, and called Dame Etrune a silly old blatherskite, and on my way out stopped to urinate in one of the potted plants.”
     “Everyone would have thought it simple Clattuc high spirits.”

     The behavior for which Glawen Clattuc, a youth of perhaps seventeen or eighteen, is berating himself, occurred at a dinner party held by the family of Wayness, his intended. He was invited by the host to express an opinion on a political subject – and he did so, to the discomfiture of two of the attendees. The host family was of a higher station in Araminta society than was Glawen, as were the attendees he upset. Yet the host approved of what Glawen said. Glawen is angry with himself for reasons of custom: for one of his station, an Araminta worker, to emit a contentious opinion as he did in the presence of “his betters” was “simply not done.” (Worse, it might have set Wayness’s mother against him.)

     I mention the above for two reasons. First, because there’s a great cleavage between what’s “not done” and what’s wrong on principle. By illustrating something that’s “not done,” I hoped to make the difference plain. Second, because context matters to what’s “not done” and what’s wrong on principle. Another useful illustration:

FWP: I saw something unusual earlier today. An old woman was tottering down the street when a young man tackled her to the ground, rolled her over a couple of times, and slapped her all over.
CSO: Horrible! Was he arrested?
FWP: No, not at all. The old woman’s clothes were on fire.

     That bit of extra context made all the difference, didn’t it?

---

     It might seem that this exploration is off to a slow start. Sorry about that; I felt a need to clear away some potential obstacles before plunging into the thickets. Language is often one of the problems, as people have a distressing tendency to distort the meanings of words in support of their own contentions. Context is another, as no decision nor action takes place in isolation from all else. Robinson Crusoe could do as he pleased without concerning himself with questions of right and wrong (or what’s “simply not done”)...that is, until Friday appeared. The rest of us aren’t that isolated.

     Yes, there’s more to come. For the present, be well.

Moral Fundamentals Part 1

     It has become ever more frequent an experience for me to start on an essay, get a few hundred words into it, and back away, muttering to myself that “I’ve said that before.” And, after some shuffling through my archives (which are quite voluminous after twenty-plus years of this lunacy), I usually find the piece that was knocking at the back of my memory, demanding to be acknowledged. Often, after I’ve read it, I discard the “new” essay I’d been writing and cast about for some topic I haven’t yet addressed. But on occasion I realize that what I wanted to prattle about remains true and important. Indeed, it might have grown in importance since I first wrote about it.

     I’ve just had exactly that experience. I’d imagine the title of this piece is an adequate indicator of the subject I have in mind. And so I present what follows: the first part of a five-essay series on evil, which first appeared at Eternity Road on September 20, 2010.

---

The Nature Of Evil Part 1: Beginning At The End

     Possibly the most provocative thing one can say in this age of Man is that there exists an absolute standard of any sort, independent of the preferences, perceptions, and aspirations of any particular observer.

     The gospel of our era is relativism in all things: cultural, moral, logical, even scientific. Claims of absolute truth are sneered aside as conclusively refuted without trial. Feminist author Sandra Harding referred to Isaac Newton's three laws of mechanics as "Newton's Rape Manual," nor is there any reason to believe she was being facetious. Physicist Alan Sokal revealed the extent to which relativists will descend with a facetious article our cultural glitterati took quite literally.

     So those of us who, with Samuel Johnson, kick a stone and proclaim "I refute it thus" are in a distinct minority. In consequence, a debate that requires that one's interlocutor accept the existence of evil, a concept relativists categorically reject, is problematic from the start.

     Which doesn't mean there's no such thing as evil.

***

     Regard well the following: a snippet of dialogue from a recent, great novel. Ryan Schell, an undercover operative in an anti-terrorism organization, is exchanging blows with Allison Garvin. Miss Garvin is a Marxist-Stalinist who managed to become a deputy chief of staff to the president and has been found complicit in the planning of a terrorist mass murder. She has just informed Ryan that her group can make use of Islamists as agents because "Islamic violence is a response to the decay of the bourgeois West," which her people can exploit to "get history moving again in accordance with the science of socialism."

     “Your certainty is impressive," Ryan said. "It allows you to justify your faith in mass murder."
"It's not murder," she said, "when the violence is justified by the revolution. The bourgeois regime being attacked is criminal and inhuman and all who are obedient to it are complicit in its interminable violence. In acts of revolutionary violence against the enemy anyone complicit with the enemy who is killed is guilty of the crime of the enemy. It is not murder."
     “So riding a subway train to work," Ryan said, "is a criminal act punishable by death?"
     “When seen in its true historical context, it certainly is," she said confidently.
     “Everyone on the subway is equally guilty," Ryan suggested.
     “No, not if you go person by person, a maid or janitor is not carrying the same level of guilt as a stockbroker or corporate executive, but revolutionary violence sweeps with an inclusive broom. The statement it makes is bold and absolute and is a warning to all...."
     “And what do you believe in, soldier boy? Gawd?"
     “In the individual and his liberty," Ryan said, rising to the bait."
     “Oh dear, an American. You people are so charming, so quaint," she said, "always the perpetual football players running onto the field to the roar of the crowd and the bouncing breasts of the cheerleaders."
     “You’re an American, aren't you, Ms. Garvin?" he asked.
     "Ah, no," she said. "I stopped thinking of myself as that, as an American when I was a teenager. That's what we call 'the normal maturation process' these days, soldier boy. Sorry you missed it."
     “So you're not an American," Ryan said. "What are you?"
     “I’m a citizen of the world," she said.
     “That’s a big concept," Ryan said.
     “It’s basic," she said. "You must have missed it while you were attending your ROTC meetings."
     “I guess I did," Ryan said. "That would explain why I'm still just an American with a silly belief in freedom."
     Garvin laughed.
     “Freedom? You think this America is free? You've got ninety percent of the people glued to their couches gazing like zombies into their televisions and eating non-stop. And then they jump off their couches for five minutes of history when a couple of tall buildings are knocked down in New York. That's the America I see. That's the America the revolution sees. This freedom thing you believe in, soldier boy, is a fairy tale, just like Gawd. History is unfolding right before your eyes and you're running in the opposite direction after the fairies of freedom and the goblins of terrorism. You should run in the direction of revolutionary violence, all of you should, get out in front of it, get off this America thing, because it is dead, a thing of the past. America no longer exists. You just haven't realized it. None of you have....
     “What you people refuse to understand," Garvin said, jumping into the silence that had fallen over the room, "is that this freedom of yours is no more than pitiful self-indulgence at the expense of others. What the revolution does is take the anger and frustration of those who hunger for justice in the world and shape that into purposeful violence. You try to deny that by calling it 'senseless violence' and "mass murder,' but I'm looking at your faces now and I can see those old defenses and the lies that support them draining out of you. You all look like children who have just been told that there is no Santa Claus, and you had really known that all along. You just needed an adult to make it official for you. Well, here I am, kids, giving it to you straight, what you already knew."

     [From Corpse In Armor, Copyright © 2010 by Martin McPhillips. Used by permission.]

     I dare anyone to come up with a proclamation more absolute than Allison Garvin's statement above -- and I dare anyone to come within arm's length of me and state that her notions are not evil. Yet there are many people who, rather than concede that Garvin's tirade is a defense of absolute evil, would attempt to justify her allegiances and intentions as "valid from her perspective," or some such. I've exchanged fire with a few myself -- and not always just in words.

***

     For reasons that would require a large history to delineate, Americans have been led away from the understanding of absolute truth. We've been treated to elaborate, amphigorical explanations of why "the cat sat on the mat" should not be taken as a statement of unchallengeable fact, even if we can see Kitty sitting on the damned thing with our own eyes. Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and the rest of their tribe literally made careers out of the campaign to destroy even the possibility that language, our vehicle for thought and for interaction with one another, can express truth. But without a trustworthy, serviceable conception of truth, there can be no knowledge, including knowledge of Man's nature. Since the understanding of Man's nature is the key to reasoning about right and wrong, without truth we can make no approach to moral and ethical standards.

     Without truth, evil becomes not merely undefined, but undefinable.

     Yet we are required by our consciences and the densely woven texture of our society to make moral choices every day. Only a hermit in the midst of a vast desert, never approached by any other human being, could avoid such choices. If we must do so without standards of absolute right and wrong, absolute good and evil, by which to evaluate our choices, what chance have we? How likely is it that our society will continue and flourish?

     It's my intention in this series to explore evil all the way from its metaphysical roots to its manifestations in daily life. But this essay will begin at the end, with the depiction of what must follow if evil is permitted to take root in soil stripped of absolute truth and the standards of right and wrong truth makes possible:

     The door to the building opened and the General came in. He was by himself and he looked as if he had been watching the whole thing. I noticed that he was carrying a nine millimeter in his hand, hanging at his side, and I thought he was going to threaten Garvin with it, possibly because he'd found a problem with her statements about Beers and Spencer.
     His mouth was tight, and he shot only a quick glance Ryan's way, not looking at the rest of us. He walked straight to Garvin and she looked up at him.
     “You," she said, with shock in her eyes.
     “Yes, me," the General said. "let me shape some purposeful violence for you."
     He raised his nine millimeter about three feet from Garvin's head and pulled the trigger. The bullet entered above her left eye and exploded out the back of her head.

     [From Corpse In Armor.]

---

     The essay above is only a beginning, a “teaser,” if you will, for the wider subject of moral fundamentals. It is impossible to believe anything, or to reason about anything, without fundamental premises. Commonly, we maintain such premises in an unconscious state: i.e., without ever addressing them critically. We may acquire them early in life: “at our mothers’ knee,” as the old saying runs. The most important thing about them is our absolute reliance on them.

     As with any other subject, a discourse on the subject of morals and ethics – henceforward I’ll simply write “morals,” to save wear and tear on my fingers – proceeds from the premise that reasoning about them is possible. But it’s only possible if there are bedrock premises we can agree are beyond question. The elucidation of those premises has become so urgent as to be required for the continuation of a coherent human society. Yet today more effort is put to obscuring those premises, arguing in effect that a rational discussion of morals is impossible and pointless, than ever before in history.

     Over the centuries many others, some with doctorates in philosophy, have addressed the subject. Mostly they’ve spread confusion and discord. This cannot be permitted to continue.

     Please don’t think I’ve set myself above the many learned and articulate men who’ve addressed this subject. I know my littleness. Still, I feel a compulsion, in part due to some recent events, one of which I’ll now relate: A longtime reader recently asked me for my estimate of what percentage of us achieve God’s purpose for us. I replied in the affirmative, but with a caveat:

     I believe that every one of us achieves God's purpose for him. However, a great many of us don't do so consciously or willingly. We have to be cornered into it!

     It’s possible we’re not intended to know what purpose God has assigned us. I’ve never been sure of mine. I’ve been groping toward it for many years. This new journey is just one more stab in the dark.

     And yes, you guessed it: More anon.

A Shift Of Emphasis

     These past few days, readers have written to ask a common question, to wit: “Why all the oddball pieces, Fran, when there’s so much happening politically?” It’s fairly simple: Politics and public discourse have become monochromatic, even boring. I’ve been writing (mostly) about those things for more than twenty years. I’ve done it because I felt it was important that someone bring an actual functioning brain to important subjects on which the interchanges were dominated more and more by shrieking. But the current nadir of political interplay has numbed me; I can no longer give it my full attention.

     So earlier this week I sat back and reflected on what might detoxify the tides of venom...and I had one of those “Mishnory road” moments. If there is to be progress – the genuine article, not the bilge “progressives” spout – it’s time for a change of approach.

---

     In essence, one side of every political conflict is asserting that a certain proposition is true. The other is asserting that that proposition is false. They can’t both be right, though in some cases both can be wrong.

     Some of the propositions are of the this event happened kind. (Note the absence of the word “because.”) There is no possibility that such a statement is neither true nor false. Thus, one side or the other is factually incorrect: i.e., wrong.

     Certain other propositions in public discourse are of the form if we do this, then we can confidently expect that. These are more problematic, owing to the problem of “uncontrolled variables.” It’s effectively impossible to perform a repeatable experiment in public policy. Therefore, whoever is displeased by a test case can always argue that “other factors” intervened. The plausibility of such claims varies. Some are patently absurd, but they’re made nonetheless.

     Third, there are propositions of this kind: this is a right. These are massively annoying, in that the persons who make them usually have no BLEEP!ing idea what a right is, how to test whether some assertion concerns a right, or how to treat with the supremely difficult cases of “lifeboat ethics” in which genuine rights come into conflict. However, as rights is the most powerful word in all of public discourse, it will be misapplied and overused whenever the advocate for some bit of nonsense finds it impossible to argue for it with evidence and logic.

     And fourth...ahhh, fourth...we have the deniers of truth, the persons who use phrases such as “your truth” and “our truth.” In effect, they assert a property right over the conclusion to any argument. It’s theirs, and you can’t have it! If you reach a conclusion they dislike, you’re aggressing against them. There is no arguing with such persons, as any rational being can easily see. Yet those persons have come to dominate one side of virtually every conflict.

---

     In the essay I linked above, I cited an observation by criminologist Mike Adams:

     When I asked another feminist to debate me on abortion she said that she didn’t discuss such personal topics publicly. But then I read her biography. After talking about losing her virginity (including details about how she cleaned the blood off the couch afterwards) she dedicated countless pages to the issue of abortion and how a “lack of choice” adversely affects young women. After reading on, I realized why she didn’t tell me the truth. She revealed that she was a postmodernist who didn’t like to use the word “truth.”

     The next time I got into an argument with a feminist – over whether a female student who lied about a rape to get out of a test should be expelled – I understood the postmodern feminist position better. Feminists just can’t help but lie because there really is no such thing as the truth.

     Since so many feminists cannot tell the truth - because it doesn’t even really exist - I simply cannot take them seriously.

     You will find, Gentle Reader, that an increasing majority of those on the Left will take the “post-modernist” stance. They might not make it explicit. They might not employ phrases such as “your truth” and “our truth.” But they will refuse assent to the foundation of logical argument: the postulate that a statement about facts or causation can be true, and therefore reliable for use in decision-making. If you make a statement such as the following:

     “Regardless of how passionately attached we are to our respective positions, we can’t evade this: one of us is right and the other is wrong. We have to have some criteria to determine which is which, if our politics is to be beneficial rather than harmful. What criteria should we use? In other words, what evidence would persuade you to reconsider your position, and what evidence would persuade me to reconsider mine?”

     ...your “post-modernist” opponent will not, under any circumstances, agree. He will evade, waffle, change the subject, tell a joke, or accuse you of some moral failing. He cannot allow that he might be wrong. Rational argument that holds out that possibility must therefore be avoided.

---

     Ultimately, the core of the thing is a clash of values. When the two sides to a public-policy debate have common values and agree upon individuals’ rights, the conversation is about means: Will the proposed policy:

• Advance us toward the end we both seek,
• Without infringing on anyone’s rights,
• At an acceptable cost?

     Sometimes there will be relevant historical evidence. In other cases, a test case will be necessary. (Remember what I said above about “experiments” in public policy.) But beneath it all will be those shared values: the end being sought.

     Today, there is no agreement between Right and Left on individuals’ rights. The Right holds, in the main, to the traditional American concept of individuals’ rights to their lives, liberty, and legitimately acquired property. The Left persists in denying those rights in favor of invented “rights” that would override them. In a “post-modernist” framework, such a clash is irresolvable.

     There is also no agreement between Left and Right on the values we seek. The Right stands for Constitutionally limited government under the federalist structure, impartial and objective justice, prosperity, national sovereignty, and public peace. The Left...well, behind the great majority of their claims lies an unerring drive for absolute and unbounded power over all things. Brush aside the representations about “racism,” “the environment,” “climate change,” and the like, and that’s what you’ll find. The giveaway is that even when they get to implement one of their preferred policies and it sets back the objective they claim to be pursuing, they insist that it’s “the right thing to do” even so.

     When one side of a conflict is concerned only with power, the struggle can be about nothing else.

---

     The above discourse might seem rather abstract to persons embroiled in typical public-policy debates. It is, in most senses. However, as prosecutors like to say in comparable circumstances, it “goes to motive.” First come our motives:

What are the objectives?
What are the constraints?
What are we willing to pay?

     Then come theirs:

What do they want for us?
What do they want from us?
Are we willing to go along with it?

     If these things cannot be harmonized, then argument isn’t just unproductive; it’s flatly impossible. And I submit that at this time, they cannot.

     For this reason I maintain that a shift in emphasis is required. When it’s possible, ignore the Left, or perhaps ridicule them. When it’s not possible, destroy their moral basis. Attack their sincerity. Attack their motives. Permit not one moment of their drivel to escape contradiction.

     Americans are a moral people. They’ll get the idea. At least, if they don’t we’ve already lost and might as well just amuse ourselves until the flood destroys us all.

     More anon.

Motivations, Strategies, And Politics

     A few informal definitions of important motivational states to lead off what’s likely to become a rather...impassioned column:

1. Charity: When you actively desire that another should do well, irrespective of the effect on you.
2. Indifference: How another is doing is of no importance to you, apart from any effect on you it may have.
3. Jealousy: When you regard another’s gains as properly yours and work to take them from him and secure them for yourself.
4. Envy: When you actively desire that another come to harm even if that should mean that you, too, will come to harm.

     There are circumstances in ordinary life that will bring us into contact with each of these four states in other persons. Recognizing the other person’s controlling motive is critical to adopting the proper strategy for oneself. I’ve made use of this in my fiction:

     He reached for his wallet and drew out a dollar bill.
     “We’re going to play some games.” He held up the bill as if to study it. “One dollar equals one hundred cents. Let’s suppose we have an auctioneer here, who’s trying to sell this dollar bill, this particular one and not another. Let’s suppose that only you and I are here to bid. All bids must be multiples of five cents. How much do you bid?”
     She smirked. “Ninety-five cents.”
     He nodded. “Very good. Now explain.”
     “Any lower bid can be profitably topped. Any higher bid yields no profit.”
     His smile was subtle, but there was definite pleasure in it.
     “Doesn’t that imply a particular objective?”
     “Well, yes, but what other reason could there be to bid on a dollar bill?”
     “Think hard, Christine. Give me three.”
     She pondered.
     Now I know where Louis got his style from. So acquiring a dollar’s not the objective. What, then?
     “It’s a collector’s item, so it’s worth more than a dollar.”
     “Good. Another.”
     “There’s a code written on it that would allow me to open a safe full of money, or diamonds, or something.”
     “Very good. One more.”
     She thought hard.
     “My objective is not to gain something for myself, but to deny it to you. And if you get hold of that dollar bill, I won’t be able to stop you.”
     His face went slack, and she wondered if she’d said something foolish. He stepped to her side, bowed, and proffered her the bill with a slight flourish.
     “You take this home,” he whispered, “and have it mounted in a fancy frame, and put it on your wall, some place where you’ll see it every day. Louis chose well.” There was a hint of exasperation in his voice. “Even in this, he has surpassed me.”
     She hesitated, then took it from him. Even with his stony face, there was no concealing his pleasure.
     “You’re already a fighter. You will be a warrior.”

     The core art of strategic planning is determining your opponent’s motives. Since he’s unlikely to email them to you, you must deduce them from his moves – his tactics. Tactics reveal objectives. Over time, objectives reveal motives.

     Take hold of the panic handle and hold on tight, Gentle Reader; I’m about to execute a series of sharp turns.

---

     Introductory game theory classifies the possible outcomes of two-player games into three types:

1. Positive-sum: Outcomes in which both players profit.
2. Zero-sum: What one gains, the other must lose, but no more than that.
3. Negative-sum: Both players must lose.

     If we regard the decision to play a particular game as voluntary, what sort of motive is consistent with each of the above outcome types? No, I’m not going to answer that question for you. It’s not hard; think about it.

     But what if playing the game is involuntary, a consequence of a compulsion the player cannot resist? What’s the most important item of information he can possibly acquire?

     Exactly: his opponent’s motives:

     “Of all the musts and must-nots of warfare, this one is paramount: you must conceal your motives. Unless he is insignificant in comparison to you, once your opponent knows your motives, he’ll be able to defeat you. He’ll probably even have a choice of ways to do it.
     “You must move heaven and earth, if necessary, to discover your opponent’s motives. His tactics will be determined by them. If his motives change, his tactics will follow. There lies your opportunity, if you can get him to adopt tactics unsuitable to the conflict. Of course, he could try to do the same to you.”
     “What’s the countermeasure?”
     “Constancy. Refusal to let yourself be diverted. Of course, that can be a trap, too. Motive is partly determined by objectives. If your adversary’s situation changes but his objectives remain the same, he could find himself committed to paying an exorbitant price for something that’s become worthless.”
     “And that’s the time to stop playing with his head?”
     His grin was ice-cold. “You have a gift.”

     Your opponent’s motives – what he wants to do to you and what he’s willing to “spend” to do it – will determine everything about his objectives, strategy, and tactics. The same is true of your motives, so you’d bloody well better be sure you’re aware of them...sincerely.

     This acquires amplified force when his entry into the game is voluntary but yours is not.

---

     If you’ve ever played Dungeons & Dragons, or any similar role-playing game, you’ll be familiar with the following four player types:

• Rational moral: The player is consistent in his actions and adheres to moral constraints.
• Rational amoral: The player is consistent in his actions but recognizes no moral constraints.
• Chaotic moral: The player is unpredictable in his actions but adheres to moral constraints.
• Chaotic amoral: The player is unpredictable in his actions and recognizes no moral constraints.

     Before a D&D session begins, each player is required to choose one of those four orientations, and to keep it to himself. If he’s sincere about it, it will condition his moves throughout the game. Of course, playing D&D is voluntary. (At least, I don’t know of any involuntary cases.) So the players usually keep their orientations in mind as they choose their moves in the game.

     However, understanding the orientations, and noting those of other “players,” can be of great value in a game one is compelled to play, as well. This is especially the case with regard to the power an economic outlook can have on a player without his knowing it. Such an outlook is best captured in the following plaint:

“Why is he doing this?
What can he possibly get out of it?”

     He who says this when studying his opponent’s moves has assumed rationality on the part of that opponent. That assumption has proved incorrect in a number of important historical cases.

---

     Unfortunately – and I mean that most sincerely – we’re all compelled to “play the political game” to some extent. That is, even he who chooses not to participate in political events will be affected by the moves of others in the political game. Whether or not Smith votes, the votes of others can affect Smith, whether he likes it or not. Moreover, in our current post-Constitutional milieu, the effect can be enormous.

     Politics is a game whose possible outcomes include positive-sum, zero-sum, and negative-sum combinations. At any given time, some “players” will be playing for gain and will be either benevolent or indifferent as regards the results that accrue to other “players.” But there will be players whose highest priority is to harm others. Some of them will be willing to accept harm to themselves as the price.

     Which of the D&D orientations would best describe a “player” whose top priority is to harm others, even at cost to himself? He might be rational, but is it even thinkable that he consider himself moral?

     Now recur to the opening segment of this tirade. Which of the motivational categories would apply to such a “player?” We can immediately strike charity and indifference from consideration. Jealousy would require that the “player” be avid for gain. What’s left?

     That politics is a multimillion-player game doesn’t much alter the motivational calculus, does it?

---

     We’re about fifteen hundred words from where we started. I hope you regard the trip as worthwhile. Perhaps by now you have a sense for what I’ve been contemplating. The current political scenario – specifically, the behavior of Democrats in either house of Congress – invites inquiry into their orientations and their motivations. All of them are in politics voluntarily. We who are affected by their antics are not.

     The several gambits aimed at removing President Trump from his office have followed a clear pattern: find someone willing to lodge an accusation against him that implies that he’s illegitimately in the White House. Puff it up through their media handmaidens. Don’t worry about the validity of the accusation; just give it as much air time and as many column-inches as you can squeeze out of the friendly media. Should the accusation be debunked, as all of them have to date, pass on without acknowledging it. Find some new accuser / accusation and try again.

     Inasmuch as the accusations have become steadily weaker, and the accusers ever less credible, as the game has gone on – a series that converges on zero, so to speak – it is appropriate to question the rationality of the Democrats’ strategy. They’re doing the same thing over and over and expecting a change in the result! Didn’t someone say something clever about that sort of behavior?

     The matter becomes even cloudier when we add the consensus of intelligent onlookers that the Democrats’ latest sally – the drive to impeach Trump on the grounds of the laughably feeble Ukraine accusation – will seriously harm them come Election Day. The Democrats might not accept that assessment...but what if they do? What if they agree that their drive to impeach Trump has only a tiny chance of removing him from office but is likely to cost them the House of Representatives and additional seats in the Senate? What would that say about their motivation – whether or not any of them would ever admit it, even to himself?

     I dislike the thought that roughly half of the persons on Capitol Hill are of chaotic mentality and are consumed by envy. I’d imagine that my Gentle Readers would view it the same way. But it’s awfully hard to reach any other conclusion.

     “Presidential authority is confirmed for change of test procedure. Dummy warheads will be replaced by a W-80 thermonuclear device. Have a nice day.” – Never Say Never Again

     Yes, by all means do have a nice day.

The Nature Of Proof

     There are days I want to throw up my hands and write off Mankind in its entirety. Too many people think with their wishes – or their ambitions – rather than with their faculty of reason. Too many people substitute their tastes for rational argument. And far too many people are willing to ignore the plain meanings of words if those meanings obstruct their purposes.

     You can’t advance on any goal a man has some chance of reaching by doing such things. Moreover, it doesn’t take a lot of smarts to see that. So why?

     Motivation, according to Robert C. Townsend, is “a door locked from within.” Smith can’t motivate Jones to clean up his ratiocinative act. But it’s possible, on occasion, to jar a man out of his mental habits by asking an unpleasantly pointed question: “How’s that working out for you?”

     So your Curmudgeon is off on another hopeless quest. Blame it on my inner Jeremiah.

---

     Proof is a difficult concept for many persons, being mathematical in nature. Its definition admits of no compromises; to prove a proposition, one must follow the rules of proof strictly and unbendingly. Unless all the requirements of proof have been satisfied, no assertion can be regarded as proven.

     Every proof, regardless of the proposition at issue, has certain mandatory components:

1. The established, previously agreed-upon postulates of the formal system within which the proposition is to be proved.
2. One or more statements of initial conditions.
3. One or more statements of deduction or induction that couple the initial conditions to the postulates, leading toward the desired conclusion.

     A sound proof establishes that its conclusion is true beyond all possibility of dispute – that if it were untrue, one or more of the postulates of the system would perforce be false! That would contradict the requirements of a formal system.

     (A quick tangent: Induction is a chancy thing outside the realm of purely mathematical reasoning. For non-mathematical purposes, we can omit consideration of it. There have been too many black swans to make use of induction as a method of proof in ordinary, non-mathematical life.)

     But actual life in our spatiotemporal universe, in which time passes and things happen, is not a formal system. There are no postulates upon which everyone agrees. Even the statement that there is such a thing as objective reality, independent of anyone’s opinions about it, is disputed by some – and if that be so, then what prospect is there for proving anything else?

     Proof, therefore, does not apply to propositions about non-mathematical matters. What does apply is another, almost equally misunderstood concept: confidence.

---

     The investigative technique by which we acquire knowledge, or something akin to it, about the real world is called scientific method. It was first formalized by Francis Bacon some four centuries ago and has been shown to be a reliable – indeed, the only reliable – method for acquiring new knowledge about the spatiotemporal world.

     Scientific method is nicely, if casually, depicted by the graphic below:

     Note that there is no termination – no “escape from the loop” – to the method. Regardless of the proposition(s) at issue, nothing is ever regarded as “proven.” The gathering of relevant data and the comparison thereof to the predictions made by the proposition(s) continue without limit...because a single false prediction is enough to falsify any proposition.

     Predictions that come true increase our confidence in the proposition being investigated. The more such predictions we make, and the more varied our techniques for observation, testing, and measurement, the greater our confidence rises. But it never attains certainty.

     Isaac Newton’s “classical” law of gravity acquired more and more confidence over the three centuries that followed his original formulation. The arrival of unprecedentedly sensitive observational and measurement techniques in the early Twentieth Century called it into dispute. The dispute could not be resolved until a certain young physicist, at that time employed by the German postal service, proposed a new formulation that would:

1. Replicate the predictions of classical gravity with equal precision;
2. Outperform the predictions of classical gravity around objects of very large mass.

     General relativity equaled classical gravity in those realms of measurement where classical gravity held firm. However, it produced results classical gravity could not match in the newly explored realms of very large mass where measurement had previously been unable to go. Thus, general relativity superseded classical gravity as the dominant conception of gravitation. At this time it remains dominant, which is to say: scientists’ confidence in it has not been disturbed by contradictory results in any sphere.

     However, no scientist regards general relativity as having been proved. There remain realms to which Mankind’s investigative powers are unequal, at least for now. Perhaps some far-future experiment will reveal that at masses beyond what we can currently investigate, general relativity’s predictions don’t hold true. But for the moment that’s only a hazy possibility.

---

     There’s more to be said about the concept of proof and why it fails to apply to the spatiotemporal or “real” world. But this is enough for starters. The salient point here is that human ability is limited: far too limited for us to be certain about very much. Indeed, justifiable certainty is confined to personal things: personal observations, personal emotions, and personal experiences. All else is within the domain of the legitimately disputed.

     And so we come back to the virtue it’s currently most fashionable to slough: humility. Or as Josh Billings put it, “It’s better not to know so much than to know so many things that aren’t so.”

     More anon.

Mala In Se

     Human beings have this annoying habit of asking “why?” when they hear some pronouncement that displeases or discommodes them. This is particularly observable among the younger set: “Why do I have to go to school?” “Why can’t I play in the mud?” “Why can’t I stay up and watch more cartoons?” Many adults become impatient with such questions, which can lead to a peremptory declaration: “Because I said so!” To be candid, such an issuance is often preferable to the real explanation: “Because it’s the only time I get any peace and quiet,” “Because I’m tired of buying you new clothes,” “Because Nude Supermodel Charades is on next.” But the most annoying “why” is the sort that denies the possibility of moral premises:

     Why is murder wrong?...

     Christians have an answer (“it violates the Fifth Commandment”), and so do legal positivists (“it breaks a clear law promulgated by a legitimate legislator”), but since modern people wouldn’t know the Bible if King James slapped them upside the head with it, and even fewer people know what “legal positivism” means, those answers are no good. I’ve actually asked undergrads about this, and the answers are… interesting, by which I mean horrifying:

     Lots of them want to get hypothetical. They want to know just why Person X murdered Person Y. This, they think, will let them off the hook for making a moral judgment (moral judgments are of course always and everywhere wrong on campus). If I say “Because X wanted Y’s new pair of Air Jordans,” for instance, the students come back with “Then it’s wrong because a human life isn’t worth a pair of sneakers.” If I say, “Because X is a psychopath who thinks Y is Hitler,” then they come back with NGRI — it’s wrong because Y isn’t Hitler. But neither of those is a satisfactory answer, I point out. In the case of the sneakers, by saying “they’re not worth a human life,” we’re implying that

• human life has a value; and
• we all know exactly what that value is; and
• there’s some threshold above which “murder” IS worth it.

     Let’s be as clear as the English language allows: Murder is the deliberate killing of an innocent. It’s an intentional act committed in full knowledge of its gravity. Moreover, the victim has done nothing that would justify killing him. These characteristics distinguish murder from other varieties of homicide.

     (WARNING: Quibblers beware: I shan’t allow you to muddy the waters with “whatabout” questions about “human shields” or “collateral damage” in wartime. You know perfectly well that those are lifeboat-ethics contexts, so don’t think to fluster me by posing them in the comments. End of warning.)

     I wonder if “Severian,” the writer cited above, knows how to respond to his own question. (Note that word: respond. It’s not a synonym for “answer.” There’s your first clue.) Most people would fail that test. Then again, most people are pretty dim when it comes to organized reasoning and the foundation of moral thought. (Note that word: foundation. Of what is such a foundation constructed? There’s your second clue.)

     The proper response to “Why is murder wrong?” is “Sit down and shut up, you moral imbecile. You don’t ask ‘why?’ about a moral premise.”

     Premises are the foundation of reasoning. They cannot be reasoned to; they can only be reasoned from. Moral reasoning differs in no way from the other sorts in this regard.

     Douglas Hofstadter, in his marvelous book Godel, Escher, Bach, tells of an incident in which a student asked the Buddhist monk Joshu “Does a dog have a Buddha nature?” Joshu replied “Mu.” That’s a response, not an answer. It’s neither a yes nor a no. It’s a declaration that the question itself is illegitimate. This is also the correct response to “Why is murder wrong?” You cannot demand the reasoning beneath a premise; premises are the foundation for reasoning, not one of reasoning’s products.

     To question a premise is to demand to go outside the system of reasoning founded on it. In the abstract, it can lead to fascinating alternative realms whose properties differ from the ones we know well. Such realms are properly the province of specialists who dwell in ivory towers. If you don’t believe me, ask Nikolai Lobachevsky.

     To question a moral premise is to imply that if we disapprove the answer, we are free to discard the premise itself. The end of that road is strife, bloodshed, and social chaos. Why was it wrong for Cain to murder Abel? It was. End of discussion.

     He who is interested in the processes by which we recognize and acknowledge moral premises must delve deeply into matters such as the immutabilities of human nature, social flourishing, the codification of moral premises in law, the history of variant polities, and so on. He’ll find much there to think about. However, that need not concern us here. What matters far more is the nature of a moral premise – and here I must quote Ayn Rand:

     “I could say to you that I have done more good for my fellow men than you can ever hope to accomplish—but I will not say it, because I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to exist, nor do I recognize the good of others as a justification for their seizure of my property or their destruction of my life. I will not say that the good of others was the purpose of my work—my own good was my purpose, and I despise the man who surrenders his. I could say to you that you do not serve the public good—that nobody’s good can be achieved at the price of human sacrifices—that when you violate the rights of one man, you have violated the rights of all, and a public of rightless creatures is doomed to destruction. I could say to you that you will and can achieve nothing but universal devastation—as any looter must, when he runs out of victims. I could say it, but I won’t. It is not your particular policy that I challenge, but your moral premise. If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and I were asked to immolate myself for the sake of creatures who wanted to survive at the price of my blood, if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own—I would refuse. I would reject it as the most contemptible evil, I would fight it with every power I possess, I would fight the whole of mankind, if one minute were all I could last before I were murdered, I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being’s right to exist. Let there be no misunderstanding about me. If it is now the belief of my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their good requires victims, then I say: The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!”

     Murder is wrong. There is no “because.” End of discussion.

A Deadly Allergy

     WARNING! The following piece contains not merely facts and logic, but also the correct uses of the words datum and data. (Also, persons who find the word whence offensive to their sensibilities might want to seek out some lighter reading.)

---

     Once upon a time I was a scientist. Back then, one of the jokes slung around among my colleagues went roughly like this: “If the data contradict your hypothesis, discard the data! Your grant may depend on it.”

     I must emphasize that it was a joke. It cross-cuts the central tenet of all the sciences:

Hypotheses are cheap.
Data are sacred.

     This has been honored as the core of scientific thought since Francis Bacon first propounded the scientific method.

     But what is a datum? Whence does it come? What makes it sacred? Can there be legitimate differences of opinion about such things?

     A datum is not an opinion. It is not an evaluation. It is not an interpretation of something someone has written or said. It is a fact provided by objective reality: i.e., by the world outside our heads. It is some object or event that any two persons whose relevant senses are unimpaired could confront simultaneously and agree on.

     All else – i.e., all that is not data – is open to dispute. Data are sacred.

     A world in which data are not agreed to be sacred is one in which no proposition can be verified or falsified, and no argument can ever be settled. It is the world of Berkelian subjective idealism – the world of the solipsist.

     Be certain that you understand that before proceeding further.

---

     Get an eyeful of Esteemed Co-Conspirator Dystopic / Thales’s latest encounter with a leftist, which I have reformatted somewhat for ease of reading:

Dystopic: Should the Left gain power again, they will surely desire revenge on the Right. They will want to punish us. And some number of them want us dead.
Leftist: Telling me that “it could happen” is not evidence that something WILL happen. We could all die tomorrow. That could happen. But something tells me you still won’t spend all your money today.

Dystopic: Poor analogy. I have historical evidence to tell me that this scenario is at least as likely as not. [Lists a series of revenge revolutions gone wrong, starting with the obvious French Revolution.] You have no likely historical scenario that all human life will be extinguished tomorrow.
Leftist: I do have historical info that all human life can go tomorrow. It happened to the dinosaurs.

Dystopic: The likelihood of humans butchering one another over political differences is hugely more likely than a meteor wiping out all life tomorrow. If you can’t see that, you’re a moron.
Leftist: Instead of calling me a name, why don’t you give me evidence supporting this contention, other than you just saying it?

Dystopic: When was the last time humans butchered each other over political differences? Probably fucking yesterday. Hell, probably as we were typing this. When was the last time a meteor caused a major extinction event? Now math that shit and get back to me. Humans killing each other over politics. More likely than a meteor wiping out all life tomorrow… yes or no? If you don’t answer this one right, we’re done.
Leftist: Who knows? You certainly don’t but you act like you do.

     Before anyone clucks at Dys’s incivility or profanity, allow me to say that I don’t think I could have maintained my gentlemanly aplomb half as long as he did. He was “arguing” with someone to whom facts – data — are irrelevant, not worth bothering one’s head over.

     There’s no profit to be had from such an exchange. Sadly, it can take a while before the nature of such an interaction becomes clear.

---

     The Left is monstrously allergic to facts. The examples are beyond enumeration. A few recent cases:

• Pielke and Lomborg Accused of “Fact-mongering”
• What Tucker Carlson gets about men and women that the rest of the media do not
• Hint: It Ain’t You
• "Shut up! shutup! shutup!"
• DNA pioneer James Watson, 90, is stripped of the last of his honorary titles after doubling down on his 'reprehensible' views that genes cause a difference between black people and white people on IQ tests

     If you have the time, please read the linked articles. They’re an education all by themselves. Note in particular, in the cases where it’s observed and reported, the Left’s reaction to being confronted with facts. Dracula never retreated from a crucifix any faster, though he usually refrained from calling the crucifix-bearer a lot of insulting names. (Old World manners, don’t y’know.)

     The Left’s hypotheses / claims / narratives stand contradicted by the data. Therefore, the data must be discarded...and along with them, anyone who dares to assert them.

---

     Allergies induce avoidance in the sufferer. An allergy to data is a guarantee that the allergic one will never learn anything he doesn’t already know. Worse, he’ll remain securely in the grip of “what he knows that ain’t so.” That latter observation is the key to the Left’s behavior, for why would anyone want to remain deluded about a proposition he (at least) believes to be important?

     The answer lies in Eric Hoffer’s observations about the “fact-proof screen” the Left interposes between its desperate-to-belong “true believers” and objective, verifiable data:

     A rising mass movement attract and holds a following not by its doctrine but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness, and meaninglessness of an individual existence....it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole....

     All active mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ....

     Thus the effectiveness of a doctrine should not be judged by its profundity, sublimity, or the validity of the truths it embodies, but by how thoroughly it insulates the individual from his self and the world as it is.

     [Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements ]

     In that insulation lies the explanation for another pattern of note:

     There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations doubts, and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgement. [Ibid.]

     Something to bear in mind should you be minded to cross swords, whether rhetorically or in fact, with a Leftist on some future occasion.

---

     The Left’s allergy to data is the key to defeating its lies and distortions. Therefore the prescription for us in the Right should be clear...but there’s that word again. Suffice it to say that data are much like guns: Regardless of whether you ever need them, you’re far better off for having them.