The Mindcrime Liberty Show with Dobson and Patton

Ep 37. Is Moldbug's Ultracalvinism theory right?

The mindcrime liberty show discusses the work of Curtis Yarvin (also known as Moldbug) and whether his Ultracalvinism/super protestant theory is right.  The super protestant or ultracalvinism theory states that a certain form of Christianity which began in the reformation in parts of continental Europe then was transferred to England and then finally to the US is behind much of the social revolutions and change one has seen for better or worse.  Did Christianity cause all the social reform movements and revolutions which at times some conservatives and reactionaries dislike?   Did a certain form of Christianity cause/create the anti-slavery movement, feminism or  even forms of communism/socialism. Its worth pointing out that Engels was raised in a strict Calvinist family and Hegel and Kant had huge Christian influences or are outright Christians.  Cornel West (who is probably the English speaking worlds most famous "mainstream" public christian intellectual ) clearly is an example par excellence of what a modern day ultracalvinists looks like.  Even Slavoj Zizek considers himself a "Christian atheist."  Now West and Zizek of course  would reject Moldbug grand theory to explain it because of Moldbug's tone and some other views which won't be mentioned but nonetheless plenty of somewhat normie Christian evanglicals including NT Wright don't really differ that much in terms of social theory then say the then radical George Fox's Quakers when it comes to marriage or the then radical social democrats when it comes to politics or increasingly on theology.  Rothbard and Gary North for the most part agree with much of the moldbug framework of the ultracalvinists pipeline in there earlier writings.

Finally are conservatives, from NT Wright to William Buckley, that "conservative." What does NT Wright, William Buckley, and Barack Obama/Dave Cameron actually disagree about? What does a modern evangelical actually disagree about compared to a liberal Christian 30 or 50 years ago. Now it could be that these groups or persons aren't "true" Christians in the same way the Stalinists aren't "true" communists but nonetheless for better or worse certain forms of Protestantism has had a huge influence on topics ranging from democracy to family life.  Is Moldbug theory of social change being caused by certain forms of Protestantism which have spread indirectly or directly for better or worse almost everywhere right? 

Ep. 36 What is education for?

The mindcrime liberty show discusses education and what is it for?  Is there a difference between schooling and learning?  Is education in the mainstream state schools merely obedience training, signaling and an exercise in taking tests/writing papers to appease ones teachers or professors?  What ought an ideal education system's purpose be?  Swithun defines this as the cultivation of ones mind and body to do meaningful productive work and be a (good) whatever role one wants or is capable of (bus driver, father, mother, scientist, philosopher or electrician).  It is quite clear that the existing education system in the developed world does not provide many or all people with the opportunity described for development and meaningful work and worse still in-debts many persons in the US and wastes there time (opportunity cost) only to work at jobs which don't really need 4 to 8 years of formal education on top of the 13 years in primary/secondary schools.  The state schooling system doesn't even provide many people with community either and actually many boys in particular do not like school at all and are drugged in order to stay in school.  We then discuss homeschooling, deschooling and private  schooling and whether this provides a solution or a "less bad" solution.  Tim pushes back reluctantly at certain aspects of the deschooling and homeschooling movement as rather idealistic suggesting that considering how crooked society is at times you must learn to "play the game" (ie cheat, lie and appease a master such as a teacher or professor). It is quite clear that school sucks but is unclear whether it can be replaced.

Ep 35. What is the purpose of education? Money, class oppression, or indoctrination?

The Mindcrime liberty show discusses education, schooling, and the classroom. Why is it that the classroom at all levels is the least criticized institution in society? Is it because college professors and teachers have cushy and high status jobs and want to protect their privilege? Are professors and teachers prison guards? What is the purpose or telos of education? To make money? To achieve technical skills? Promote left wing ideas? Many historical universities were set up as “minister training” schools or theological schools of some variety which have changed far from this purpose. Is the purpose of education effectively obedience training to teach children and these new persons known as “adolescents” how to be good corporate slaves and good soldiers to fight in the states armies. Interestingly after their loss in the Franco Prussian war a Frenchman commented that the schoolmaster would win the next war. Furthermore, if you scrape away the idealist rhetoric of the civil rights movement one of the purposes of universal schooling, in particular for blacks, is to “Americanize” them in order to fight uncle Sam’s wars and be good citizens. So its quite clear that schools under traditional Christian or Socratic merits for the most part fallen far from the mark . Is schooling today merely ideological indoctrination and is there such a thing as “neutral” education free from ideology or theology. Is education merely sheepskin signaling as Bryan Caplan argues? What exactly is education’s purpose?

Ep.34 What is power? Who has the power? Is wielding power "bad."

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses power. Who has the power and what exactly is it? Does the "patriarchy," "matriarchy," "ruling class," "elites," "the state" "corporations," "white coat priesthood," "the deep state" or anyone have the power? Is wielding power "bad”? Who exactly gets to say what is "bad" and "good", or what is legal and illegal. Are there such things as powerless persons and does power flow both ways as Michel Foucault and Thaddeus Russell argued? Does the slave have more freedom in certain ways then the master as Thaddeus Russell has argued in his book Renegade History of the US and Michel Foucault's concept of the "shade." Even Christ and Paul in a way have a kind of inverted power hierarchy saying that the first shall be last and the last shall be first (Nietzsche of course argues that Christianity is a slave morality for weak people).

Isn't power a great thing? Man has the ability to turn buried fossils, running rivers, and atoms into productive energy. The population of the earth has exploded and if one is an honest humanist isn't more people a good thing? I know John Stuart Mill and Margaret Sanger  thought otherwise as well as many climate change fundamentalists.  Man also has come to some understanding of the way in which diseases and other ailments work and have reduced the infant mortality rate to the lowest in history and life expectancy still remains fairly high even with a recent slight drop off. After all classical Marxists believe that communism is superior to capitalism in terms of productive capability as a social organization and its not some sort of "anarcho-primitivism."  Marx himself praises capitalisms as breaking down the idiocy of ruling life and although complexities and nuances exist rural life tends to be quite "patriarchal" or backward.  So its quite clear that liberals, many conservatives, Marxists, and feminists (not merely randian objectivists,  misean libertarians or fascists) believe that exercising ones will or power upon nature or fellow man through social or material processes is a useful thing. Without industrialism its unclear that the feminist or Marxists would have anything to complain about.  Long live the bourgeoisie!  

 

"“The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life."  Karl Marx.

Ep. 33 A politically incorrect discussion about Abortion, Pro choice, Murder, and what is life.

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses abortion. We open up by pointing out that one of the world’s biggest boogieman especially according to the Left, as well as normie libertarians and conservatives, Richard Spencer, is pro choice for extremely politically incorrect reasons. It’s worth pointing out according to the CDC that in states that report by race/ethnicity whites and blacks both have roughly equal total numbers of abortions yet blacks only represent about 13 percent of the population. A large portion of this debate hinges on what exactly that thing is or isn’t. If it is merely a toothache or cow (animal rights activists aside) then we should kill it, trade it, experiment with it, sell it, or whatever one wants to do with “it.” If it’s a person then we should treat it as a person. One of the reasons why Tim is skeptical of the pro-life movement is the fact that much of the pro-life movement (including the pro-life woman who debated Walter Block) will disavow the “punish the mothers and doctors” position. Trump had a Freudian slip a while back and of course all the moderate Christians as well as the Left totally disavowed this viewpoint. I know prison abolitionists movement and crime is merely a social construction viewpoints exist but most people, in particular the Left/Left liberals/politically correct libertarian, think that school shooters should be punished. Effectively they are the same actions from an entity viewpoint (killing children). Swithun lays out what he describes as the anti-murder position quite effectively and its implications. We also discuss that pragmatically by allowing more free choices in particular when it comes to healthcare it would eliminate much of the supply. In a possible Ancapistan situation one could imagine that “Gary North Inc” will compete with “Margarat Sanger Inc.” for the right to control that entity. No solutions just tradeoff but its worth pointing out that depending on one's worldview things can be both features and bugs.  If your for the right for woman to choose that is a feature (and vice versa).  Ancapistan might allow for both in theory for better or worse.  

Ep 32. Mistaken, Evil, Ignorant or Good? Meno dialogue, human action, and choice.

The Mindcrime Liberty show discusses how Socrates/Plato’s concept in the Meno dialogue, as well as book one of The Republic, have wide ranging effects on ethics, theology, and what exactly is the good life. If you take the formalistic approach of ethics adopted by Plato it appears that no one really does evil and we discuss the implications small and large. Isn’t this the view that shows up in Misesian style economics where the choice you act upon by definition is the choice you thought was the best use of one’s time? The actions can vary from small things such as the small time thief to the murderer, or someone who wants to sit in bed all day smoking weed (or homeless on the street) and merely take advantage of charity or welfare from some benefactor. The actions can get comparatively larger such as going on a shooting rampage in a church or school, creating a party to hijack a state to kill certain ethnic groups, bomb Dresden, bomb Pearl Harbor, bomb Hiroshima, bomb the Federal Building or fly planes into the World Trade Center. In any of these cases do the various “theys” do these actions out of benevolence and for good in this formalistic way? Does malice as defined by Thomas Aquinas or evil as its colloquially known exist? Are any of the “bad men” in history truly evil or are they just making mistakes and have differing views about what the good life is and how to achieve it?

Ep 31 Why no one including Marxist and left anarchists (not merely H. Hoppe) believes in Democracy

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses Hans Hoppe’s criticism of democracy and why no else really believes in Democracy including various groups of the left: Left libertarians, Marxists, left anarchists, social democrats, and other factions who often times hide behind the word democracy when they in fact have other goals than just majority decision making. For all the criticism that Hoppe’s book the Democracy the God the Failed got, we subject that criticism toward the left. For example if a 51 percent group in a given area votes to outlaw homosexuality or no “fill in the blank group” allowed, would Kevin Carson, Richard Wolff, Cornel West, or you average leftists think that is legitimate even if it’s done “democratically”?

 

What if an elected party or person (and does so while campaigning) intends to abolish democracy and create a personal dictatorship? It is highly unlikely in either case the left or left-liberal groups would support these parties. Another problem about democracy is the existence of power, truth/science, division of labor, and class/gender/ethnic divisions. There is the classic 1984 line about the state saying that 2+2=5 whereas everyone would clearly say the answer is still four even if a democratic state did so. Whatever the actual “truth” of the matter on origins of the species, it is the case that in plenty of areas if the matter was put up for election intelligent design would be taught in school for better or worse.

One could always take the Foucauldian version of truth and say it’s merely power and that truth doesn’t exist which then you wind up with the Foucauldian critique of science as well as scientific imperialism (destroying traditional teachings on the grounds that they aren’t true...although if you read Stephen Meyer or watch him debate I am unsure if that is actually proven). which interestingly even itself ends up falsifying democracy as well.

There is also the classic elitists position as Michael Malice and Moldbug puts it that the “idiots who need leaders don’t have the ability or the right to pick them.” This dovetails with the classic claim that the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. Finally the hardcore Marxists, just as the hardcore libertarians, think of there are socio economic theories as being true regardless if they are elected and of course actual existing socialism/marxism tends to be quite undemocratic. It’s not like minorities under Fidel Castro or Stalin got treated well (just see the treatment of Afro-Cubans
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/26/1604234/-Fidel-Castro-s-Racist-legacy).

 

 

Finally we end with a discussion of why workplace democracy is a flawed idea which if executed needs work. This is what someone like Richard Wolff tends to argue for but as David Friedman points out the small dictatorship model (i.e. a restaurant or business run by a boss) with the right for employees to leave and start their own firm or get a different job is actually more effective, and as pointed out above, actual existing socialism is a dictatorship too where workers do not have very good choices. The advocates of workplace democracy and trade unionism also have to deal with the problems of outsiders and innovation. Do unions represent the interest of the consumers or foreigners or merely the workers? Arguably in the US, cops and teachers are too protected by trade unions. As far as technology is concerned trade unions can also promote backwardness by forcing higher prices and inefficient modes of production merely because workers are protected.

Episode 30: Sean Gabb on how the UK became subservient to the US.

The Mindcrime Liberty Show interviews Sean Gabb on the relationship Britain has had with its former colony from once mighty empire to arguably a lapdog of that colony in the Blair administration. The British Ruling Class has lost the will to power and has failed to assert its interest since Suez crisis to the Americans but arguably earlier. When and why did this happen? Was this decline inevitable or was it avoidable? Was it all due to the First World War or were there other events which were important? Would the British people be better off if it just entered the US as states considering that at times it’s a lapdog for the Americans? Is there any truth to the special relationship? Are the Americans and British people “foreigners” to one another despite them sharing for the most part a common language and similar historical events/movements? Finally would Britain be better off under Biden/Harris since there is no pretense of a special relationship?  Sean Gabb himself is the author of over 40 books including the novel the Churchill Memorandum, , a translation of the Aeneid and the piercing political work: Cultural Revolution, Culture War.
You can find more of his work here https://www.seangabb.co.uk/

EP 29 The absurdity of reparations. Tying together development, third worldism, and western history.

We discuss reparations and why outside of an extremely narrow area of interest they are an absurd idea (in particular state mandated or state funded reparations). We interviewed on one of our earlier shows one of the prominent libertarian intellectuals Walter Block on the topic of reparations who advocates a narrow view of reparations for property which can be clearly demonstrated. Even within this narrow view, as we pointed out previously in our episode with Block, that plenty of typically considered “masters” or “whites” or westerns could in theory be owed wealth/land too. Plenty of land wasn’t stolen or was merely taken by what is basically is hunter gatherers and plenty of the genocide was merely an environmental inevitability which even Jared Diamond would point out in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel (ie germs).

As far as the British Empire is concerned it created plenty of positive externalities which if you take the expansive view of reparations it should be included too. Some examples of this are railroads, the abolishment of the slave trade, spread of literacy and Christianity, and modern institutions such as parliaments (for better or worse) are left behind thanks largely to the British Empire which was funded mainly by home British taxpayers who in some cases were not that much better off then subject peoples (read Road to Wigan pier by Orwell). This is the other absurd half to the reparation absurdity that reparations' will mainly fall upon working class citizens of the developed societies which is THE least libertarian or even left libertarian thing one could think of. It’s also worth pointing out that immigrants to the US didn't exactly come in the nicest of conditions and many came over in what is known as Coffin ships, weren't considered white at the time (almost black by the scientific racists at the time), and were drafted to fight in a war between states. Are these people owed money?

As far as ADOS persons or former subject persons living in Britain are concerned, we point out that functionally many of them not only have integrated they are full members of the dominant society and now in positions of power. The richest black in terms of per capita income (they would either be 44th or 15th richest nations depending on what metric one uses and year) and about ¾ of the black billionaires live in the US. So if you really want to take certain Chomskyite and Carsonite arguments about the West (or for that matter being wealthy while everyone else is much poorer) seriously these persons are functionally just as “Western” (i.e. exploiter class or imperialist using the Third Worldist terms) and owe money or reparations to the developed world supposedly. We don’t of course think the West created its wealth through exploitation which we tried to lay out in last week’s episode but nonetheless why would this group want this money if it’s so tainted according to the left and considering that many of them have integrated ? If ex slaves like descendants like Frederick Douglas and Martin Luther King Jr want to integrate into a "common America" they have to in theory own up to America’s “greatness” or “genocide” depending on one's view. The back to Africa program never happened to any large scale for better or worse and the ones that did emigrate there ended up being a minor “colonial” elite themselves in Monrovia Liberia still to this day. Do these colonial elite in Monrovia owe reparations' to Liberians?

Reparations will only occur in developed/wealthy societies (like the UK, Germany, and US) that are even remotely capable and willing to do it. Poor societies will never pay reparations. The Soviet Union (now Russia) is never going to pay Ukraine in any fashion close to what the Ukraine famine cost it. Western intellectuals barely talk about it without couching it within hundreds of qualifiers and the USSR denied it for years. Germany; even after getting its scientists stolen, cities bombed, many of its ex-soldiers used as crop pickers for years by France and Russia, patents looted by the Americans, and half of it turned into a jail by the Soviets. The German taxpayers still pay Israel and the victims of holocaust a payment and arguably German taxpayers themselves should might be owed reparations too! Finally the West to a large extent has withdrawn from Africa but who is moving in and building new bases and buying up ports? China. We highly doubt they will ever pay any reparations or that Noam Chomsky or Carson will critique them as hard as they do the British or the Americans. The Chinese have no trouble treating blacks poorly in China itself or Muslims in certain provinces and most intellectuals and for that matter the NBA don’t seem to care. The UK and the US (as well as much of the other west including Spain and Germany) is the cleanest dirtiest shirt. Reparations are absurd.

Ep. 28 Economics of slavery...Did slavery make the west rich? Is the 1619 project/Chomsky correct?

The Mindcrime liberty show discusses arguments about the economics in favor and against slavery. If you take the 1619 arguments seriously, as well as some Third Worldist and Chomskyite ones, the “West” is primarily rich thanks to this institution if one really gets to the bottom of their arguments. We think this argument has a ton of holes in it and lots of special pleading definition aside.

We try to at first define slavery noting that the institution is not merely a white on black scenario: Christians were enslaved by the Romans and the Ottomans enslaved Europeans. It’s also worth pointing out that Africans local were a key cog in the slave trade itself and it was the British who ended it. That aside, why is it that even though the Ottomans, the Chinese, the Russian tsar, as well as many Africans and South Americans practiced a form of slavery did not industrialize or are comparatively less rich? Why was the American South less industrialized then the American North? Why was the comparatively freer western Europe ahead of the less free tsarist system of serfdom in Russia? These are the cases that must be answered by the Chomskyites, the third world Carsonites, as well as the 1619 project people.

We at the Mindcrime liberty show do hold there is no universal argument in favor of slavery as profitable. It may be profitable for the slave holder to hold slaves but it’s not profitable for the slaves themselves. The West got rich materially thanks to the Nuclear family, some form of markets or capitalism (depending on ones parlance and in spite of the crony capitalism not because of), IQ, Christianity, and the demystification of the environment. Slavery largely harmed the West on balance (hence its not in the long run economically effective) and its worth pointing out the only two forms of “slavery” today either occur in failed states like post Hillary Clinton and Nobel prize winning Barack Obama intervention Libya or its merely taxation by progressive governments, which as Robert Nozick would point out almost no one thinks the former is legitimate (buying and selling slaves) but still thinks the latter is. We do touch on the idea that taxation might be slavery or that living in East Germany might be a form of slavery but recognize there is a sliding scale.