Tradition, A-historical Positions and the Fallacy of Authority

April 4, 2013 8 Comments

A library itself is an embodiment of tradition.

A library itself is an embodiment of tradition.

By: Jay

If a legal case was considering a man charged with adultery, would all the prosecution’s arguments be ad hominem? Of course not.

Several interesting discussions recently erupted with friends of mine that concern an interesting question regarding gold, libertarianism and appeals to authority.  These all relate in regard to a debate about Bitcoin and virtual currencies.  But aside from the question of Bitcoin, the issue of debate is about humans and human praxis.  Is it possible to create new system or government or new way of humans acting, and then simply implement it?  Will humans eventually “evolve” to no longer care about gold, jewels or assets, and move on to some new medium of exchange?  Is human nature malleable and in flux, able to be determined or altered by external stimuli?  Is every appeal to the past or history or an authority a fallacy, strictly speaking?  I answer in the negative to all the above, and here is why.

Astute readers will notice that the above argumentation closely resembles a kind of argumentation we’ve seen in the past: it’s very similar to ideological trends that arose during the so-called Enlightenment, and it’s very close to Marxism and/or libertarian ideas.  I don’t say that as a fallacy of association, but because the root presuppositions of these ideologies are the same.  At base is the idea that humans do not possess a specific nature and that “natures” are socially constructed philosophical assumptions.  This is why these Enlightenment strands of thought led to the Marxist conclusion that humans do not possess any definite nature.  In fact, there are no natures, since, as the sons of the Enlightenment following Bacon decided, nothing in nature possess an objective telos.  Any idea of purpose or objective discovery of a meaning or plan for things in nature was only in the mind of man.  It was only and solely determined by social constructs.  Furthermore, the idea of telos in nature was bound up with theism and some form of ancient metaphysics, and since Aristotle thought rocks had the essential property of apparently “going down,” all of ancient metaphysics that dealt with natures and essences must be tossed out.

But does an error on Aristotle’s part somehow mean that there are no essences or natures?  Of course not, and I’ve argued at length on this blog why that is not so.  Bacon was correct that there needed to be a shift towards theorizing and experimentation, but the implementation of the scientific method as a tool in no way cancels out or destroys traditional knowledge derived from metaphysics or great works like Plato or the Bible.  No matter how many inventions or marvels the scientific method produces, it’s still only a tool, not a comprehensive descriptor of all reality.  Now, my friends debating me would probably agree with some of that, but they don’t realize how far they are in  line with impossible revolutionary philosophies.  While economics may seem like something disconnected from such obtuse questions, the reality is, one’s view of metaphysics and anthropology directly impacts one’s view of how humans operate and act, and one’s own worldview.

I think Mises and Ayn Rand are correct in regard to the fact that economically, humans operate for individual ends, and their ideas and products are their own.  In the sense of origins, ideas, and hence the architecture of economic production, emerge from individuals and their creativity.  But are we right to conclude from this that the atomistic individualism of modernity is correct?  This view, of course, is consonant with anarcho libertarianism in many cases.  In this sense, the individualism of the Enlightenment produced a lot of wealth, but also produces a breakdown of traditional cultures and borders.  Libertarianism is thus inherently globalist, and this is evident in the Memoirs of David Rockefeller, who learned his economics under Von Hayek: in Road to Serfdom, Von Hayek argues for the United Nations.  I’m not really concerned to debate libertarianism here, but to point out that it has always been a position of the oligarchy, it doesn’t represent a real ideological challenge to the power structure as many imagine – it is the philosophy of origin of the present system. Read more of this post

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Close Encounters of the Third kind – Esoteric Analysis

February 8, 2013 6 Comments

Film poster with pyramidal image of road leading to the light at the top.

Film poster with pyramidal image of road leading to the light at the top.

By: Jay

Spielberg is in several senses, a master.  His 80s films constitute part of the very essence of what it was to grow up as a child of the 80s like myself.  Those of you who did have a keen sense for that 80s “feel” – a decade when it seemed simpler.  Reagan was a good guy leading the free West against a godless empire of commies and atheists, while yuppies could found businesses, and Jacko burned his curls at Pepsi-funded mega-concerts.  In the midst of this milder pop culture was a series of Spielberg and Lucas films, from Star Wars to Indiana Jones to Back to the Future that made the 80s even more enjoyable.  I recently did an analysis of Raiders of the Lost Ark, noting the esoteric elements found within, and this time we are going to look at that late 70s (1977) gateway to the 80s that was Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

One crucial element I’ve noticed in both E.T. and Close Encounters is a deeper esoteric theme that has been overlooked in all the analyses I’ve seen so far: the nature of symbols, language and communication.  This will become clearer as we progress.  As the film begins, we are shown mysterious ships that appear in the desert, the French scientist and the cartographer interview an old Mongolian man who says of the UFOs that “the sun came out and sang.”  There was a direct connection between the entities and music or sound, and they are directly connected with the sun.   Simultaneously, across the globe in India Hindu pilgrims and yogis had gathered to sing to the entities during the daylight, “Ah yah, Ah yah ye.”  This is close to the Tetragrammaton, the sacred Name of God in Scripture: Spielberg may be making a direct connection to the entities and the biblical notion of God as Lord Zbaoth, Lord of Hosts. In this instance, however, the “hosts” appear to be closer to the gods, possibly as demons or angelic.  Note also that over the old man is the Star of David, a symbol that would be very familiar to Spielberg.

Simulacrum.

Simulacrum.

When the “aliens” arrive at Barry’s house, what happens is more in line with supernatural phenomena surrounding the multitudinous accounts of possession.  Strange occurences like electrical disturbances and electronics going haywire mark their arrival, and it’s worth noting that the police cars, airplane and trucks go haywire, running in circles.  Immediately following the Barry scene, we are shown Roy and his son doing fractions over the family train set.  Roy, we notice, has this fascination with models and miniature versions of things.  In symbology or semiotics (which is key to unlocking Close Encounters and E.T.), the connection of a smaller image, icon or model with the thing itself is simulacra.

"33"

“33″

In semiotics, particularly in Plato’s Sophist, simulacrum is intended to fool the viewer into thinking the copy is the real thing.  The copy takes on a life of its own, yet viewed in scale it would clearly appear that the copy is not real.  This is a perfect analogy for the nature of film itself, as well as the role of the director.  The writer and/or film director is creating a simulacra of the real world with models and pictures, piecing and placing them together in a certain way, just as Roy does with the model train and city he has built. One may think of the simulated beings in Blade Runner or the simulated world of The Matrix here. Spielberg has mastered this art of simulation, and is presenting a simulated reality world – that of UFO-invaded America that is intended to produce a certain effect in the population.  Can this be taken to a larger scale, to which Spielberg and the director himself is a “toy” of the larger, galactic forces or entities of the cosmos?  Are we a Greek scale of being, being “played” and “directed” by the celestial hierarchy? Read more of this post

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Jay’s Analysis Tops Reddit’s Hot Philosophy Trend

January 12, 2013 2 Comments

A big thanks to readers out there who prompted Jay’s Analysis to top the philosophy trends section for almost two days, consistently beating out Peter Singer and David Chamlers, two of the world’s top philosophers.  Reddit’s philosophy trend has 109,000 followers and garnered a lot of attention for the article I wrote last year, “Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky Versus the Enlightenment Mythos.”

The Reddit trend brought almost 10,000 viewers in a 24-48 hour span.

The Reddit trend brought almost 10,000 viewers in a 24-48 hour span: a high number for a phiolosophy article.

Spread the word!

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The West, Russia, Eurasian Union and Esoterism

November 19, 2012 6 Comments

The Great Game: Britain’s Attempt to Keep Russia at Bay.

Related – See Russian/Chinese Geo-political Strategies Versus the West

By: Jay

There has always been a close relationship between secret societies and covert affairs.  Both are concerned with secret information, and both form societies of those “in the know.”  These relations are ancient, as the history of state affairs and the cultus of the polis often intersected.   Nieztsche wrote about the ascendancy of the cunning priestly power over the barbaric power of the warrior class, which then gave rise to what we call “morals.”  While that itself a unique form of conspiracy theory, what we call “conspiracy theory” is really just espionage or deep politics.  As long as there will be been court intrigues, the world’s second oldest profession will continue, and thus conspiracies will continue.

Traversing the modern geo-political sphere, one becomes aware of the conspiratorial toponymy very quickly.  I have often observed these deeper truths somewhat between the lines in standard geo-political works, yet clearly present nonetheless.  A presistent example of this kind of “between the lines” deeper truths and “buzzwords” can be found in the patterns that emerge in studies on espionage.  For example, mainstream researcher A of covert affairs will often refer to terrorists X being tracked by western intelligence prior to Y terror event.  Y event occurs, and other resaercher B will type up exposes of other details of the events that researcher A failed to mention.  Combining these two works with the mainline news analysis will then shed tremendous light on X event.    Yet it seems many within the system itself tasked with the job of analysis and monitoring of said events, don’t even do this, which I presume is a result of compartmentalization.  We will see an example of this below.

When analyzing Russia, for example, a host of positions arise, from the Neo-cons who feel Russia is a great danger together with the older cold warrior analysts who argue the communists simply went underground (and perestroika was a deception), to the more open approach of a “multi-polar” world and globalism.  The neo-cons, of course, have their own particular version of globalism, but the recent Obama victory could signal the ascendancy of the more internationally-minded leftists/socialists, exemplified in the European Union-style socialism that is now being implemented in California.  Having once lived in California years ago, in the U.S. it very evident that California is a test tube preparation for the rest of the country.

The multiculturalism and corporate-run “green” environmental tyranny are to be expanded, as Obama promises “carbon taxes” levied on the already overtaxed populace intent on completing the process of deindustrialization (the lesser Great Bear – California!).   This process is an extension of the older eugenics programs, which eventually allied with Socialism and communism.  Fascism’s racial population control has morphed into a top-down socialist/Fascist model where the Western elites have the upper hand, having installed the same agenda worldwide.  The talking heads on TV blab all day about “government spending” and “terror attacks” which all pale in comparison to the overall 25-50 year globalist goals.  The longterm goals are not centered around “free market capitalism”or “American Imperialism”  (like leftists foolishly think), but on global governance. Read more of this post

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Jay’s Analysis-In Defense of Capitalism

August 16, 2012 Leave a comment

*Note: I misspoke and meant to state that Austrian school investors are bullish* on Asian markets.

In this installment, I deal with an overview of other systems, including Marxism/socialism and its variants, mixed economies, Catholic distributism, and Austrian Economics, as well as analyzing the arguments of collectivist positions in general, laying the groundwork for the biblical basis for capitalism, private property, human action and prosperity. I also look at theology in the history of the West and its relationship to religious systems, focusing primarily on the philosophic basis for market capitalism. I chiefly answer the criticisms of a distributist friend.

Recommended reading:
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal By: Ayn Rand
How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes By: Peter Schiff
Meltdown By: Tom Woods
http://www.mises.org
http://www.jaysanalysis.com

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Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky Versus the Enlightenment Mythos

March 13, 2012 4 Comments

“Dis shit’s hype, right? Hype like de enlightenment!”

By: Jay

      In the course of what is now titled “Continental Philosophy,” three figures stand out as preeminent thinkers able to probe the innermost depths of the human psyche in a way previously unknown since perhaps Shakespeare: Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.   These three were more or less contemporaries, and all shared a similar fascinating interest—that of tearing down the ideological idols of their day, and in particular, the facade the individual post-Enlightenment “modern man” conceived himself to be.  While these men certainly had differing worldviews and would likely have debated such grand topics as the precise meaning of God and man’s relation to Him in the universe, they shared a similar distaste for hypocrisy, lies and falsehood, and made it partly their authorial iconoclastic goal to unmask such veils.

     Francis Bacon had made it his goal as an early Enlightenment luminary to tear down what he perceived to be idols in his Novum Organon—idols of the tribe, cave, marketplace and theater.  Idols of the tribe meant the destruction of abstracted social ideals foisted upon reality; idols of the cave referred to  myopic interpretations of reality according to a particular fancy of some individual academic; idols of the marketplace refers to the misappropriation of word and thing, assigning an undue identification between the two, assuming that out talking an opponent has then caused the reality of the topic under discussion to actually exist as such; and idols of the theater, where ideas are erected on a false presupposition of theology or metaphysical speculation, becoming ensconced in the public discourse.1 This tractate encompasses the impetus of the Enlightenment and its obsession with what Rene Guenon called the “reign of quantity.” Everything is measured and classified according to some quantitative stricture of man’s reason.  Scientific knowledge, or more specifically, scientism, becomes the dominant paradigm by which all things are measured, be it religion, politics, economics and the marketplace, all things are in potentia capable of rational formalization and, like a big algorithm, all of humanity’s ills simply await the solution of the academy and its laboratory calculators.  Read more of this post

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The Epistemology of Dogmatic Sciencey Skepticism

March 5, 2012 10 Comments

"I am the hierophant of epistemic autocracy! Behold my labcoat and collective groupmind scientifically melded to all other scientists past-present-and future!"

Or, The Enlightenment rationalist laid bare

By: Jay

An interesting discussion/debate recently transpired.  A friend who is a scientific “skeptic” discussed his dubious demeanor in terms of there being advanced secret technology for two reasons.  First, such ”conspiracies” are doubtful because they are “theories” and come from persons who want to promote a certain worldview (namely a conspiratorial one).  Evidence is gathered, so the theory goes, that is interpreted in a certain fashion to back up the said theory.  Pause for a minute: doesn’t that sound a lot like the modus operandi of those who utilize the “scientific method” to “prove” a certain theory?  Why, yes it does!

Second, he made the argument that the process of scientific advancement is such that whatever advances occur, occur because “someone contemporary to said person would eventually discover the same thing.”  Scientific advancement and discovery happens (so this narrative goes) in a community of objective, non-biased “scientists” committed to the use of “reason” and the building up of human knowledge and progress.  Communities of scientists don white lab coats and thereupon, like Mormon underwear, become sacramentally endued with a sciencey force field that shields them from bias, groupthink, deception, forgery and other nasty human tendencies.

Let’s examine both of these arguments philosophically.  The business of philosophy is the questioning of assumptions and presuppositions, and all the sons of the Enlightenment gloat to no end about their forebears who exalted “reason” above and all “revelation.”  The operant assumption at work here is that there is a universally shared international discourse of egalitarian scientific rationale that men are nobly committed to.  The warrior souls have long battled religionists, only to wrest control of the university and the social arena from “God talk” and letting “science” have the free reign.  These enlightened ones are the true Promethean heroes who distilled the superstition of the middle ages and brought about the dawning of the new age of evolutionary progress into computers, cellphones and the Xbox.  Do you notice that this is starting to look like a religious mythology?  There is a narrative developing, you see, that encompasses past, present and future, and the fittest (namely, those who have sufficiently mastered this reductionist quantification of all reality) press on to inherit the future.

“But wait!” comes the cry from the army of lab coats, “you now reveal yourself as a Luddite!  Nietzscheanpostmodernisthorkheimeradornoist!  You are refuted by the very computer you type on!  Unenlightened fool! You’re no philosophe, you’re a philo-oaf!”  I say no such thing.  I reject the mythology of the Enlightenment just as much as what I believe to be the false mythology of the postmodernists, Marxists and existentialists. I still hold to the rationality of religious revelation and tradition, but that is another argument.  For now, we are examining whether it is “rational” to take our doubting to a deeper degree than the Enlightenment thinker above did.  He doubted his religious views of youth and so adopted what he saw as a freeing, “scientific” worldview.  This then inducted him (so he would think) into the glorious association of the communion of saints of “science” and lab-coated genii.  But wait–the foundation of all this is the “scientific method.”  This great building block of all modernity is now what grounds our many theories upon a certain and firm basis – trial and error, which then confirms our theories, or conversely falsifies them.  Read more of this post

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From Theology to Geopolitics and Economics

January 20, 2012 9 Comments

Oswald Spengler's classic, The Decline of the West

By: Jay

I am frustrated.  For years, I have dedicated a large portion of my time to research, and am constantly lectured by the clueless on topics of which they are clueless. This is especially true if you are in academic circles.  However, I understand that this is part of learning the world and how it works.  Nevertheless, though I spent years studying theology and religion, which was then supplemented with philosophy and history, I have branched out into espionage and tradecraft, geo-politics, race and economics.  The last few years have been spent immersing myself in those last four, and to be perfectly honest, I am particularly adept at gaining mastery of subjects very quickly.  I would in no way claim to have mastered these last four, as they are immense subjects.  Within three years, though, I have already read several key works in all four, and so I’m comfortable discussing them openly.

The point of this post is not to brag: I don’t have to. The point here is to mention that, as a remedy to frustration and as a means of growing in knowledge and interaction on more pertinent subject matter than merely films (though the film analyses will continue), I’ll be discussing new issues.  I am going to write more freely on my thoughts on a variety of issues, expanding that title “analysis.”  I do not at all profess mastery of these subjects, but I am becoming fluent in them.  On top of that, I am sick of being lectured by those who haven’t even branched out of their own narrow field of study.  All things are related, and all these subjects, as well as life experience, are interrelated.  Modern education is fragmented and no longer teaches a “worldview,” which was the whole meaning behind the word “university,” as Newman wrote.  Because all things are related, analysis should therefore include as much as one can fluent write about.

As I dove into geo-politics and race, I began with standard libertarian and conservative works back as far as 12 years ago, but in the last three years branched out into much more technical and numerous classical works on statecraft and civilization studies.   Aldous Huxley was instructive, insofar as The Perennial Philosophy makes lucid the kind of globalist philosophy he envisions.  Also relevant was Hegel’s work on the state, which point to a monolithic positive theory of absolutism wherein the individual is an atom of the whole to such a degree that personhood is not accorded to those outside the state.  Philosopher Charles Taylor has some good assessments of Hegel’s political theory, which can be seen as the precursor to modern absolutist fascism, as well as Marx’s statist stage of communism.  Marx was, of course, a Young Hegelian.  Collectivism seems ingrained in the mass man.  Indeed, Mussolini wrote defining “fascism” in regard to this “positive” action on the part of the state (as opposed to the Enlightenment liberal idea of the state’s existence being “negative,” merely restraining forces): Read more of this post

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Exclusive Talk w/Reuters’ Senior D.C. Economics Reporter: Pedro da Costa

June 15, 2011 1 Comment


In this exclusive interview with Reuters’ award-winning D.C. economics correspondent, Pedro da Costa, we explore the Federal Reserve system, economic and philosophic history, “free markets,” the “third position,” the bail out and derivatives, Max Weber, and much more, as well as his award-winning report, “Club Fed: The Ties that Bind at the Federal Reserve.”

Mr. da Costa’s bio is as follows:

“Pedro da Costa has been covering economics and financial markets since 2001. He recently relocated from New York to Washington to cover the Federal Reserve and macroeconomic policy. Da Costa earned a Master’s in international relations at the University of California San Diego and studied sociology and political science as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics. He grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.”

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