G.K Chesterton thought that Indian priests should rule India

 In 1916, G.K Chesterton gave the following interview to an Indian journalist, Harendranath Maitra, (author of 'Hinduism- the World Ideal' to which Chesterton wrote the introduction) which was published in the NYT. 

It was a rainy afternoon when I went to see G. K. Chesterton at the country house where this great English writer dreams and writes the drama of the world. The very appearance of the man showed me that there was something uncommon about him- uncommon in the sense that he is beyond all commonplace. I was shown into the study. A delight-ful wood fire was burning on the hearth and the room had about it a soothing and wholly charming air of restful antiquity. But I had hardly sat down when Mr. Chesterton entered. We shook hands. There is certainly nothing ordinary about his appearance. His face is that of a thinker. His eyes are deeply penetrating, but his smile is full of sympathy and affection. I said to myself: "He is what we call in India a real sanvasín, one who has found the heart of things, with the simplicity that belongs to real greatness—a mystic living in the world."

Sanyasis renounce family ties. Chesterton was a married man.  One could say he was a mahatma or jivanmukta or something of that sort.  

The genuineness of his laughter is infectious, and takes an Indian into the atmosphere of his own country, where one often meets men of the mystical temperament who have the child-heart at the centre of their wisdom.

Chesterton was marvellously witty. But he could be very profound. A Hindu would think 'The Man who was Thursday' is Advaitic. A Muslim might think it represented Sufi Tawhid.  

Mr. Chesterton is that dignified, honest, straightforward individual man that any nation may be proud of. He is a unique man with a unique face and a unique smile. His continual struggle with his eyeglasses, which seemed to be constantly wanting to come off, humor- ously suggested to my mind the many difficulties encountered by a nature like his in adapting itself to the manifold petty conventions of "civilization." For he is a thinker, a thinker of an icono- clastic type. He is a rebel, in fact, but his rebellion is always constructive. He wants to see a new Britain, and along with it a new world.

As did G.B. Shaw. Sadly, the new world was fucking horrible.  

"The time has come," said Mr. Chester- ton, without waiting for a formal ques- tion from me, “when India and her people must be presented to the world at large in a truer light, and I respect the brave Indian soldiers who have brought about a very much stronger feeling of solidarity between England and India.

Gandhi was trying to recruit Indian soldiers for the British Army. He was a great admirer of Chesterton.

This war is going to bring about a wonderful imperial solidarity, that is, a greater feeling of brotherhood between the different races and nations within the British Empire.

This a war between Imperial cousins. It spelled the end of multi-ethnic Empires. Sadly, it also meant ethnic cleansing or civil war- as in Ireland.  

Each race or nation must not lose her own individual existence; on the contrary, she must be intensely nationalistic and be represented as a nation in the councils of the empire.

The Brits had made the settler colonies self-administering and self-garrisoning. Could this be extended to non-settler colonies? No. But few colonies could defend themselves. The British Navy would remain vital into the 1950s. Indeed, India had a British admiral till 1958.  

India must be thoroughly Indian.

It already was. British officials were required to know at least one vernacular and one classical Indian language.  

She must develop her very strong national characteristics.

i.e. being so utterly shit that a commercial enterprise from a distant island could take over the whole country and create a greater Empire than Akbar or Aurangazeb.  

This is the only imperialism through which Britain can maintain her influence as a world power. "I think we can do this, because on the whole we have understood the feelings of people. I do not say that we are blameless, but Britain has progressed with the times. British people are fond of liberty, and this principle they try to maintain wherever they step in. We are not very logical. More logical people would have been fanatical. "Germany would never have been able to understand India. For instance, if Germany had ruled in India she would undoubtedly have exasperated the people by imposing her so-called superior culture in regard to everything.

They would have committed genocide.  

They would have made a mess of the religious question. Germany would probably have taken sides with the Mohammedans or with the Hindus, to the exclusion of the others. But the way in which India has gathered to the side of Britain shows that British policy in India has not been vindictive; rather that Britain, with all her faults, has tried to respect the sentiments of the people.

That sentiment was love of money. The British Raj was successful because it turned a profit. 

"The great note of the moment is the real feeling about 'civilization.' The Prussians have very little thought of civilization. The Prussian is that man who does not know where he comes from.

Around this time Thomas Mann was saying that Germans weren't part of Western Civilization. It had its own culture which was authoritarian.  

He loves to despise the real art and life of other nations. That is why he has destroyed Rheims Cathedral, and said that he would build something of his own.

That was propaganda. At the time, it was widely believed.  

He does it like a schoolboy. It is common sense that the Prussian lacks. The alliance against Prussia is a very real thing. India has come forward so nobly in this war, not because of any sort of pressure on the part of the Government, but spontaneously and magnanimously. All old civilizations are of this type our Russian alliance is due to this. India saw very quickly, because of her intuitive faculties, the reality in this war, and therefore sided with the Allies. The Prussian is a person who believes intensely that it is only his own existence that is really necessary to the world; therefore he prepares to do what he likes, regardless of others; therefore he vulgarly knocks down what is beautiful and says that he will replace it by something better of his own. That is why all old civilizations are against him.

Austria-Hungary was pretty old.  

'I have great faith in India. When I look back to prehistoric times I see that glorious ancient land of the Hindus com- ing forth from a mighty past, mysterious and mystical, yet supremely natural and speaking a great message to the ma- terialistic civilization of the world today. India's men and women of the past have held a great light to the world, and I believe that the Indians of the present generation are also the true bearers of that light." "Do you not think," I interrupted, "that India should be given her own destiny?" Yes, I do firmly believe that, only I do not know just in what way it ought to happen. I thoroughly believe in the principle of representative government. The government ought to be controlled by the people. The government ought to be controlled in the way she likes. But who are the real representatives of a people? That is a great question. In Ireland it is the priests who are the real representatives of the people, who know them and understand their wants. I think, more or less, that is also the case in India.

Irish priests were well educated. Indian priests were often illiterate. Still, Chesterton was right to think it would be religious symbols, not some modern political ideology, which would enable Indian political parties to mobilize the masses.  

I fear the men who receive titles from the Government, and are ambitious to make names for themselves, are not the real representatives of the¨ people;

Sadly those who really represented the people were as stupid and ignorant as them. 

they are afraid to speak the truth for their country, their mouths are closed. But the priests, who do really think with the people who are brothers and cousins of the populace-they know the people better than those who are far away from them. The people can only be represent- ed through some institution, and the re- ligious institutions appear to be the best vehicles in India. "I certainly hope that in all imperial matters India will be fully represented, represented, let me say again emphati- cally, by the real representatives of the people, the real preservers of Indian cul- ture and ideals. In peace, as in war, India's opinion ought to be represented in the settlement of imperial questions, not through government machinery, but through the people's institutions. "I was very much disappointed to hear of the South African trouble, but it was, I believe, due to a class of people who failed to understand India, and bet- ter feeling is now prevailing. Lord Har- dinge did understand, and showed true vision and statesmanship by letting the people of India see that the Viceroy was with them. <i 'India has no representatives in Par- liament, but she has her representatives on the battlefield. This is a new ro- manticism. Britain can never forget this debt. She will remember it for her own sake. 6. • This is a bad time for politicians, but a very good time for everybody else. Now we have an opportunity of coming face to face with a great many human realities. There is practically no party system; it has been broken off by the war; there is no longer room for a capitalistic Gov- ernment. The nation itself is going to be predominant, and India's cause, now that they know something about it, will re- ceive a sympathetic hearing from the British people." "But do you think, for instance, that Englishmen are willing to be thus treat- ed equally with Indians?" 16 Certainly! India must be governed by Indians for Indians. And I cannot be- lieve that the inheritors of so great a past would make bad administrators. On the contrary, they are great administra- tors; in fact, they are superior in many ways. 64 The King and the people of India ought to be one at heart. It would be a great thing for King George to spend a little time in India and go about among the people incognito-like the Sultan Haroun al Raschid in the ‘Arabian Nights.'

The King would have to apply boot polish to his face to pass for a native. 

The Viceroy of India should do the same. The Kings of Scotland used to do this in the Middle Ages, but they usually had a love affair of some sort mixed up with it, I believe; for instance, Robert Bruce was very much liked by his people for going about among them in disguise. "The romance of chivalry which is be- ing exhibited today by the Indian Princes and their people will have a tremendous effect in bringing India and Britain into closer touch. War is inglorious, but there may be a great romance and glory of war, too. I always picture an Indian soldier as the steel-clad Rajput warrior who fought for honor and glory in the old days. The Hindu ideals of warfare are the highest that have ever been known, and not only the men but the women, too, fought with these ideals. India has had not one but many Joans of Arc." Here we were interrupted by Mrs. Chesterton, who came into the room to ask us to have tea. A little later Mr. Chesterton had to go to his study to fin- ish some pressing work. As he was leav- ing us he said to Mrs. Chesterton: "What light are you going to give me?" She suggested a shaded lamp, but he said: "Oh, no! I should like candles candles like those that are ever burning in the Temple at Jerusalem! " Then, after shaking hands with me a his own heart-felt manner, he passed into his candle-lit sanctum.

Chesterton's fence & a defense of his Anti-Semitism

I'm not Jewish and have no Jewish friends or colleagues. Being as stupid as shit, it probably would make no difference to me if I was cut off from academic or artistic work produced by Jews. Also, I am a horrible human being. Under these circumstances should I endorse anti-Semitism just because it would be expedient for me to do so? The answer is no, if some other party can gain more by anti-Semitism gaining ground and that other party may soon want to fuck over me and my ilk but good. 

The Brits and the French and the Catholics had some very able anti-Semitic ranters. Sadly, it was Hitler who benefitted from their ranting. My point is, don't pretend to hate some harmless bunch of people if some other dude actually does hate them and will kill them and thus gain reputationally over you. This is the only reason I am not an anti-Semite. 

Even polities which were traditionally anti-Semitic should stop being so if the result is that an entity better at killing Jews gains power. In that case, after the Jews, it could be their turn. 

Chesterton's fence is the notion that it is unsafe to abandon a customary practice- e.g. hating Jews- which appears useless or mischievous till you have ascertained what purpose it served and may still serve.

The context was Chesterton's attempt to promote Catholicism (which lost ground as Hitler showed he was more anti-Semitic than the Pope) against the Protestant faith and thus was self-defeating because England had had anti-Catholic laws and perhaps still had strong anti-Catholic prejudices and yet had risen and risen ever since it broke with Rome. 

THE DRIFT FROM DOMESTICITY  

IN the matter of reforming things,

i.e. enabling them to serve their purpose better 

as distinct from deforming them,

so they cease to serve their purpose, though, arguably, the original purpose of Christianity was to fuck over Jews. 

there is one plain and simple principle;

ensure the effort you expend is more than commensurately rewarded by improved performance. Otherwise, find something else to do.  

a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road.

There had been fences against Catholics or Jews in the British parliament. Macaulay pointed out that it was irrational for Anglicans to deny themselves the best candidate to represent their interests just because of a religious prejudice. Good business practice is to buy where quality is best and the price is cheapest. Getting freaked out by foreskins or rosaries is silly. Anyway, there were always crazier, more anti-Catholic, or, if Catholic, anti-Jewish, factions. Why give them the opportunity to outflank you? 

If a fence is more useful to your neighbour, who also happens to be your enemy, knock it down by all means. 

The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

This is foolish. Fences belong to some specific person or institution. They have 'control rights' over it, though this may be limited by law. If the reformer's suggestion is accepted by those with 'control rights' and no law forbids it, then the thing should be destroyed. True, at a later point, some utility to it may be discovered. At that point, those with control rights might replace it in some cost effective manner. But that sort of 'discovery' process continually occurs in all aspects of life. 

It may not be wrong for some officious fellow to say 'go away and think some more' before you decide to do anything with what is your own but, the truth is, such scolding is likely to be irritating or could amount to a growing nuisance. 

This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense.

There is no paradox. Chesterton is simply saying 'don't do stupid shit. Think before you act. There's a reason your house has a door. Don't decide to take it off its hinges so that robbers can enter any time they like.' 

The gate or fence did not grow there.

Nor did buildings which are structurally unsound and which must be knocked down.  

It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable.

So we can't know what is reasonable until we know why our species, very long ago, decided that it was a good thing to reason about certain matters but not others. One thing we don't reason about is what people do with their own property. If the landowner finds a particular fence or gate serves no purpose of his own, he is welcome to dismantle it. He does not need to show that he understands medieval economic history or patterns of property ownership in the distant past.  

It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious.

But those human beings aren't like ourselves or, at least, they aren't like the type of human beings we are seeking to emulate or imitate.  

There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools;

they were ignorant of almost all recent technological and scientific developments and discoveries.  

but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease.

Idiocy may be heritable. However, for people who suffer no mental impairment, hereditary or otherwise, it would be foolish to believe our ancestors were as scientifically or economically advanced as ourselves. They cut their coat according to a meagre amount of cloth. We are not obliged to do so.  

But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution.

It is business-like to refuse to support, or to help fund the destruction of, bad social institutions no matter what hoary antiquity they may claim. If you don't make this your business, you may soon find yourself out of business.  

If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, or that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served.

People who are afraid of vampires may invest in crucifixes. But vampires don't really exist. Why not wear a crucifix as a symbol of your desire to live a Christian life instead?  

But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.

Because Vampires really do exist. Many of them work for the Post Office. Also, they are using the neighbor's cat to keep me under surveillance.  

We might even say that he is seeing things in a nightmare.

For Chesterton, that nightmare was that England had abandoned Catholicism. Why not protest instead against the abolition of serfdom or medieval strip farming not to mention Cromwell's re-admission of the Jews? 

This principle applies to a thousand things, to trifles as well as true institutions, to convention as well as to conviction. It was exactly the sort of person, like Joan of Arc, who did know why women wore skirts, who was most justified in not wearing one; it was exactly the sort of person, like St. Francis, who did sympathise with the feast and the fireside, who was most entitled to become a beggar on the open road.

Both liked calling attention to themselves. Joan was a patriot and helped rid France of the English. St. Francis founded a great monastic order. We may feel that they were masters of P.R to some good purpose. 

Even Chesterton might have objected to people who refused to wear skirts and who sympathized with the feast and the fireside, if- like the late Queen Mother as I was informed by my old friend Giraffe Patel- they made it a practice to defecate on his front stoop. 

And when, in the general emancipation of modern society, the Duchess says she does not see why she shouldn't play leapfrog, or the Dean declares that he sees no valid canonical reason why he should not stand on his head, we may say to these persons with patient benevolence: "Defer, therefore, the operation you contemplate until you have realised by ripe reflection what principle or prejudice you are violating. Then play leapfrog and stand on your head and the Lord be with you."

This is silly. A Duchess may gain a reputational benefit by being known to play leap-frog, as opposed to the more common practice of kissing frogs in the belief that they will turn into the Prince of Wales, while a Deacon who does Yoga may experience improved health and mental acuity.  

Among the traditions that are being thus attacked, not intelligently but most unintelligently, is the fundamental human creation called the Household or the Home.

which isn't that different from the den of the animal or the nest of the bird.  

That is a typical thing which men attack, not because they can see through it, but because they cannot see it at all.

The older type of multi-generational 'joint family' had disappeared in England some centuries previously. What could be seen was going to change quite drastically as, during the War, men had to go away to fight, while women had to go to work. The kids may have to be sent to stay with strangers in the countryside. But this did not destroy the family values of the British.  

They beat at it blindly, in a fashion entirely haphazard and opportunist; and many of them would pull it down with out even pausing to ask why it was ever put up.

It is obvious why families exist. Kids need a lot of care. Our species displays 'neoteny'- i.e. a prolonged infancy and adolescence- because this gives us a cognitive advantage and thus raises inclusive fitness.  

It is true that only a few of them would have avowed this object in so many words. That only proves how very blind and blundering they are. But they have fallen into a habit of mere drift and gradual detachment from family life;

more particularly if their spouse dies or runs away 

something that is often merely accidental and devoid of any definite theory at all.

Theories tend to be shit.  

But though it is accidental it is none the less anarchical. And it is all the more anarchical for not being anarchist.

In other words, it isn't anarchical at all.  

It seems to be largely founded on individual irritation; an irritation which varies with the individual.

Why did individual women get irritated if they were paid much less than men? Didn't they understand that even bachelors have to support their non-existent spouses and little kiddies whereas women just need a bit of 'pin-money' to keep themselves pretty?  

We are merely told that in this or that case a particular temperament was tormented by a particular environment; but nobody even explained how the evil arose, let alone whether the evil is really escaped.

Why did Annie Beasant convince the Byrant & May match-girls to go on strike? They should have been happy to die of phosphorous poisoning while earning a starvation wage.  

Much of this business began with the influence of Ibsen, a very powerful dramatist and an exceedingly feeble philosopher. I suppose that Nora of THE DOLL'S HOUSE was intended to be an inconsequent person;

Nonsense! She represents the 'New Woman' whose courage and enterprise would raise up her country by firmly rejecting feudal customs and mores. If Norwegian women could be independent, so could Norway.  

but certainly her most inconsequent action was her last. She complained that she was not yet fit to look after children, and then proceeded to get as far as possible from the children, that she might study them more closely.

What Ibsen meant was obvious to his audience. Norwegian children must be raised to be independent. Otherwise, the country would remain an appendage of Sweden under the control of a paternalistic official class. 

Turning to Chesterton & Belloc's anti-Semitism, can any of us, at this late hour, remain on the fence about this? Surely, both were good men who had been infected by a paranoid hate-ideology of a wholly un-Christian type? 

The answer, I think, is that both Belloc and Chesterton were patriots. They were aware that the Tzar's scapegoating of Jews and the subsequent pogroms and vast waves of emigration (which the Brits restricted by the Aliens Act of 1905) would cause many British Liberals to recoil in horror from a Russian alliance. Yet, Belloc- who had served in the French Army- well knew that France needed a Russian alliance. Chesterton, as a young journalist had been alarmed and appalled by the poor performance of the British Army in the Boer War. As a leading light of London's Fleet Street, he would have heard that Kitchener had little faith in the British Indian Army. He thought 60,000 Russian soldiers on the Afghan border would pose a very serious challenge to the Raj. In other words, Britain too needed to keep the Russians sweet. If the price was an utterly deranged type of anti-Semitism, so be it. After all, British Jews were just as patriotic as Anglicans or Catholics. They too saw the need for the Russian alliance. Thus, though the thing might be immoral, un-Christian, and utterly mad, there was a pragmatic reason to support it. After the Bolshevik revolution, it obviously made sense to say 'all the Communists are Jews. What's more they are in cahoots with the Jews on Wall Street who financed Japan in the 1905 War. A lot of these supposedly Feminist 'women' are actually Jewish men who have cunningly covered up their long beards and side curls. I had a friend who married a Suffragette. On the honeymoon night he discovered his supposed 'bride' had a large, circumcised, dick. What the 'bride' did with that dick does not bear relating. Incidentally, Oscar Wilde, who converted on his deathbed to Catholicism, told his confessor that he only took up sodomy after Ada Leverson got him to stroke her pussy- except it wasn't a cat at all! It was a Jewish dick! On the other hand, Dreyfus didn't have a dick. He was actually a German woman named Mata Hari whom the Freemasons were able to get into a senior position in the Army. At an earlier point, he'd had an affair with the Kaiser and thus became the mother of Trotsky who, I need hardly say was Rabbi Hitler's Lesbian lover. '

Still, the fact that 'the Socialism of Fools'- i.e. anti-Semitism- was useful at one time is no reason to stick with that odious program. The real reason we should all hate Jews is because some 'Zionist' Jews are allowing pesky Palestinians to occupy Gazza's football strip. That's a diabolical liberty, mate!

England's Secret Poets & Ind's occult soul

We are Hammersmith's stammering widsiths whom the Muses wouldn't kiss on a bet
Not St. Paul's precocious pundits in thrall to a Paideia more puerile yet
Not Chesterton, nor Aurobindo, nor tossers more turgid or arcane
Savants, who Simplicity to the Simple, more tortuously must explain

We are England's secret poets theodicizing Ind's soul occult
Not Bloody Mary as Theotokos nor Kali as meretricious cult
What 'Gnostic Being' could we, more caustically, be seeing?
In, to all Intelligence, a too common Elitist insult!

Daniel A. Kaufman predicts the next great scandal of the Trump era

Is Philosophy useless to Economics?
Positive Economics replied with a resounding 'No!' a long time ago.
Philosophy can help us become better housekeepers.

Good housekeeping, that is Economics, concerns itself with Choice under Scarcity while Philosophy concerns itself with parsimonious tools to demarcate 'embedded' or 'conventional' quid juris decision situations from alethic, ergodic, quid facti decision situations. Consider my decision to eat a biscuit just now.  It might have got me thrown in jail for violating the law applicable to fasting during Ramadan in some jurisdictions. However, in the country where I live, it is classed a wholly private self-regarding act without any signalling or strategic function.
Nevertheless, some actions which are legal can come to be regarded as repugnant- because they violate something which we feel has the moral force of a law- and Philosophy plays a role in illumining why this should be which in turn enables Economics to frame a theory of repugnancy markets.
A similar point may be made regarding data used as inputs for Economic models. Philosophy objected to 'interpersonal comparisons of Utility' and Economics found that new, more fecund, vistas where opened by complying with what initially appeared to be a purely epistemological scruple.

On this view, Philosophy is complementary to Economics and supplies it with a demarcation criteria.

It turns out, I'm behind the times.

Apparently, while I was watching Netflix, a new type of Philosophy has arisen.

It is called 'mainlining' (as opposed to free-basing)  philosophy'

But first let me introduce Daniel A Kaufman who sued the University which employed him for barring him from campus because of his disability which he describes as 'depression with psychotic features'.

This circumstance alone lends a melancholy interest to a recent article of his from which I quote.

In “Excessive Reason,” an essay I published in these pages last year, I argued that mainline philosophy is characterized by a pervasive and systematic rationalism, the main characteristics of which I summarized as follows:
1) The acceptability of a belief, activity, practice, institution, etc., rests entirely on whether or not it can be rationally justified.
The rational justification of beliefs is comprised either of empirical evidence or of inductive or deductive proof. The rational justification of activities, practices, and institutions may include appeals to utility, where this notion is grounded in a scientific conception of human nature (like Bentham’s), or to duty, as long as it is grounded in some clearly definable, logical conception of reason (such as Kant’s).
Rational beliefs and actions are the logical and causal products of rational intellection.
Rejected categorically are those beliefs, activities, practices, and institutions grounded in the authority of individuals, classes, customs, or traditions—the collective sources of what Burke called “prejudice”—adherence to which is broadly identified with pre-modern civilization and is considered intellectually and behaviorally atavistic.
Also rejected are those beliefs, activities, etc., which are grounded in common sense, intuition, or sensibility, obedience to which, inasmuch as they do not constitute rational grounds for obtaining knowledge or motivating action, is also treated as regressive; the province of children or of incurious or otherwise unreflective adults.
Truth is the end of all inquiry and belief and trumps all other intellectual ends. The fulfilment of one’s duty (service to the Good, the Right, and the Just) is the end of all activity and consequently, supersedes all other practical ends.

I also suggested that these ideas support an ethos or conception of the Ideal that is also characteristic of mainline philosophy and which is defined as a conjunction of the following

A. Disinterestedness (impartiality) in belief and conduct: one must eschew bias, prejudice, and any other form of pre-judgment, in everything that one believes and does, and go wherever the evidence, logic, cost-benefit analysis, or other rational calculus leads.

B. Dispassion in belief and conduct: one must believe and act solely on the rational merits of the case at hand. One should never believe because of appealing rhetoric or wish-fulfilment or act on the basis of critically unexamined sentiment.

C. Autonomy: The ideal person is a free agent, both in belief and in action, but this freedom must be rigorously defended: from the forces of nature, by having one’s reason sit in constant judgment over one’s inclinations and sensibility; and from the forces of social conformity, by maintaining one’s independence from the influences of others and especially from the often unconscious influence of habit, custom, and tradition.

D. Consistency and Fairness: As inconsistency is the most obvious manifestation of irrationality, consistency is a bedrock rationalist virtue. Fairness is a manifestation of both consistency and dispassion, so it too is a rationalist virtue.

E. Purity of Purpose and Perfectionism: Absolute fidelity to the supremacy of truth, goodness, rightness, and justice in everything that one believes and does, over the course of one’s life. 

Kaufman's paradigmatic 'mainline philosophers' are Peter Singer & ditto Unger.

However, they are not generally considered to be doing philosophy any longer.

They are merely engaged in polemics of a silly but bien pensant kind.

If philosophical activity uses up scarce resources, their sort should be banned- and, indeed, it is all too obvious, they no longer make a pretence of taxing their brain cells before dashing off articles. So what? Lots of philosophers give up even the pretence of thought and take to writing stupid nonsense as they grow older. Why is Kaufman working himself up into a lather over senile Singers and Ungers?

The answer is Kaufman has been reading that master of paranoia, GK Chesterton, who anticipated UKIP by visualising an England where Muslims would ban Pubs and the Edwardian equivalent of the NHS would lock us all up as lunatics.

Kaufman, warns-

If there is a general characterization of what is wrong with rationalistic philosophy it is that it represents a rebellion against our humanity; one that has played and in my view will continue to play a negative role in the lives of individuals and in the civilization of the modern West. 

Oh dear. Did those naughty rationalistic philosophers rebel against our humanity again? Whatever are we going to do with them? I know! Let's just ignore them. After all, rationalistic philosophers don't have any power. Also they tend to be stupid as shit and teach a worthless subject. They can rebel against plants or atoms or our humanity or anything else and it still won't make any difference to anyone. 

Philosophy does not matter unless it changes the incentive structure- i.e. it has some means to inscribe itself as Polanyi type 'embedding' or else can change behaviour in an ergodic manner. But, in that case, there is always an Economic path to put down its anti-human rebellion. We don't need Philosophy to fight Philosophy when only Economics can do the job.

 This rebellion ranges from rationalism’s hostility to our natural and customary beliefs, sensibilities, and inclinations, to its outright rejection of our humanity, if conceived of as an integrated, organic unity of mental and bodily capacities that is only fully realized in a social and cultural context and which possesses a complex and heterogeneous good. 

Irrationalism and the conviction that my neighbour's cat is talking to me are equally hostile to our natural and customary belief that cats can't talk and that people who speak of  the 'integrated, organic unity of mental and bodily capacities' are either stupid careerists or mentally ill.

 Rationalist philosophy rejects this on behalf of a wholly abstract personhood which, in “Excessive Reason,” I identified most strongly with Descartes, Locke, and Kant,

why not Grotius, Spinoza and Lessing? All philosophers say silly things. It is child's play to show that Grotius was actually more Cartesian than Descartes or that Locke is more Spinozan than Spinoza and so on.

 but which I traced back to Plato and even earlier, to the Pythagoreans and the Orphic mystery cults. 

Orphic mystery cults! What's next? David Icke's theory about Lizard people from Planet X?

 Two significant areas in which modern mainline philosophy has persistently urged resistance to our natural and customary beliefs and inclinations, in the service of rationalist perfectionism, are ethics and epistemology.

All philosophy resists customary ethics and folk epistemology. So does all Jurisprudence, all Economics, all Science, all Medicine- every useful Art or Science begins by showing that one's knee jerk reaction is wrong. There is a Techne here which is initially counter-intuitive and which it takes patience and perseverance to master.

With respect to ethics, modern mainline moral philosophy’s perfectionism — particularly, its requirement that one adopt a disinterested, dispassionate, and impartial stance, in identifying and carrying out one’s moral duty, and its rejection of sentiments such as love, hatred, sympathy, attraction and aversion as morally legitimate motives — far from advancing the cause of goodness and justice, in fact constitutes an obstacle to it.  

Nonsense. I love my son and hate Maths. I still should send my son to School to learn Maths because my hatred of Maths is irrelevant when it comes to determining  what's best for my son's future. In fact, I would be easily persuaded to do the right thing  if a successful man in my neighbourhood came to me and said 'My friend, like you my father loved me and hated maths. Yet he made me study maths. The result is that I am now rich and happy. If you want the best for your son, you may please emulate my father in this respect.'

No doubt, there are philosophers who said stupid things like - 'don't kiss your baby coz you love him but act dispassionately.' However this is the reason philosophers are a laughing stock. 

On the epistemological front, the rationalist’s rejection of nature and custom as legitimate sources of belief and insistence that every belief be rationally justified do not serve the cause of liberal, democratic politics, as mainline political philosophers have liked to claim, but instead create intellectual conditions conducive to totalitarianism, by leaving a vacuum at the foundations of social, civic, and political belief and thereby exposing the public to the manipulations of propagandists and demagogues.

Is this guy serious? GK Chesterton had some very odd ideas about the Jews. Nazis claimed these ideas were 'natural and customary' and rejected rational arguments, such as those Fredrick the Great employed, to refrain from robbing and killing patriotic citizens of Jewish origin.

There is no 'vacuum' at the 'foundations of social, civic and political beliefs'- there are people. If we get the mechanism design right, then those people have proper incentives to ensure proper preference and information aggregation and Hannan consistent checks and balances on Social Choice.

Philosophers are too stupid and crazy to be allowed anywhere near the foundations of anything unless, like Radhakrishnan, Philosophy was just their day job- a way to pay the bills, nothing more.

Kaufman must know that Singer & Unger don't represent philosophy as opposed to virtue signalling. He approvingly quotes Bernard Williams who did have some influence as a member of the 'great and the good' when I were a wee lad.

'Some writers aim to increase a sense of guilt in their readers. Peter Singer is an example, and in his book Practical Ethics he is evidently more interested in producing that effect than he is in the theoretical basis for it, which gets very cursory treatment. As moral persuasion, this kind of tactic is likely to be counterproductive and to lead to a defensive and resentful contraction of concern. This can be seen in research and, at the present time, all around us.'

Of course, Singer & Unger's arguments fail immediately because of information asymmetry. They still make them anyway because that is their brand in a globalised market for nonsense. If Kaufman's philosophy is too stunted mathematically for him to see why what he calls 'mainline philosophy' is mainlining the intellectual equivalent of heroin, Economics can come to his rescue. There is no need to jump to some extreme Pyrhhonist scepticism about even sense data.

Skepticism, when understood as a position rather than as a method, is the product of a frustrated rationalism — the result of the rationalist being convinced that the high epistemological standards to which he adheres cannot be met — and would seem, therefore, to entail that we should suspend all of our beliefs and activities and adopt the posture of the Pyrrhonist or at least, the Pyrrhonist of popular legend. 

I tell you that I am your mother and that you owe me Rs. 123 for my breast milk because the neighbour's cat said so and cats are well known to be perfectly rational. What do you do? Do you say to yourself- 'Oh no! Since cats are perfectly rational it must be the case that this fat and ugly black man is really my own Mumsy-wumsy!' Do you become frustrated with rationalism and become a sceptic? Let us suppose you do. Now set fire to your foot. You can see your foot is on fire, but can't be sure it is really on fire. You feel a lot of pain but don't know if it is your own pain. You burn to death because of your scepticism all because I told you a stupid lie about a perfectly rational talking cat.

Perhaps I'm being unfair to Kaufman. Judge for yourself-

 Now, on first glance, the risk here, would appear to be purely theoretical: even though Hume warned that such a person would suffer “pensive melancholy” and would receive a “cold reception” from others and Reid thought that “a man who did not believe his senses, could not keep out of harm’s way an hour of his life” , both were convinced that the rationalist-skeptical stance was unsustainable; that the force of natural belief and inclination and inherited habits and customs would always overcome even the most hardnosed rationalist philosophy and that consequently, neither rationalism nor skepticism posed any real danger to individuals or to mankind as a whole. 

Hume & Reid were shrewd and canny Scottish. They had a sense of humour. They never endorsed the notion that if some worthless philosopher made a ridiculous claim then any sensible person was obliged to go completely bonkers. Yes, at the time, the Established Church did require a certain mental elasticity, or outright hypocrisy, of the clerisy. But, there has never been a tradition in these Kingdoms of believing the absurd claims of psilosophers. 

By contrast with Hume, Chesterton was actually mad- not in his personal life but in his writings. It is to him Kaufman now turns, having first shown that Hume & Reid did not endorse his claims at all.

He quotes 'Orthodoxy'-

“Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea,” he wrote, “so one set of thinkers can prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought.” 

This is nonsense. Thinkers don't engender other thinkers in the same way that humans give birth to babies. It may be that a particular School gains complete control over a Society and so a subjugated and brutalised clerisy pretends that they don't have any valid human thoughts. Maybe that could happen. However, we can point to no such Society extant today. Why? They get invaded or overthrown or sink back to the stone age.

Chesterton, poor booby, had a theory of Economics.

It was shite.

So what?

Everybody had a more or less shite Economic theory back then.

He never claimed to be a Philosopher, but did claim to be a Christian.

Since he was charitable in his personal life and bore no malice to Jews or infidels, his claim stands.

His intellectual mistakes were those of his age.

His affectionate and convivial nature was entirely his own as was a brooding demon of psychosis.

What is imperishable in his wit, if not all his works, is the former's victory over the latter.

Oddly, Kaufman doesn't move on from Chesterton to Voegelin and shiter gobshites yet in order to stake a claim to being an Alt Right Guru. This suggests that his character is better than his intellect.

Unfortunately, he believes that Heidegger helped the Nazis. This isn't true. Heidegger didn't know from Math. He couldn't have helped anybody. He was engaged in something wholly worthless. So was Hannah Arendt. Still, there is a globalised market for nonsense and they built up their brands and made a bit of money- so let us leave it at that.

Why pretend they had any influence at all?

One answer is- we have even less, in so far as we waste our time writing worthless shite like this blog post. Why not just pretend that the neighbour's cat has achieved Nirvana and is dictating the New New Testament to us? We might actually make a bit of money out of that scam. 

Another, sadder, answer is that it may be that philosophy can serve a therapeutic function if one is suffering from psychosis. However, failure to understand Economics can lead a Philosophically inclined person to adopt a Paranoid Hate ideology- like Chesterton's anti Semitism. 

Diminished Rationality leads us to take shortcuts. Financial Markets become personified as 'the Capitalist' who in turn can turn into 'the Jew' or 'the Arab Sheikh' or 'the gnomes of Switzerland' or 'Marwari industrialists' etc.

Kaufman invokes Jung to mourn the 'disenchantment' of the World and the end of 'embedded' Social processes.

'More serious still is the alienation effected by the withdrawal of the conscious self from its body, its world, and its history, on which Carl Jung hung the ongoing and currently metastasizing pandemic of neuroses, afflictions that arise not simply from a sense of distance from the world, from others, and from one’s past, but from the horrible over-awareness of self that results.

Freud and Jung et al. discovered it paid better to treat healthy people who thought they were ill than to treat ill people who couldn't work and thus couldn't afford bogus treatment. Neuroses don't exist. Psychoses do. Jung started by treating psychoses but shat the bed in predictable manner. Still, he had some personal experience of schizophrenia and so was probably less dangerous to his patients- unless they were wealthy or sexually attractive- than his peers. 

 “Whenever there is established an external form, be it ritual or spiritual, by which all the yearnings and hopes of the soul are adequately expressed, then no spiritual problem, strictly speaking, exists,” Jung wrote. 

This is not the Hindu view. The Ashtavakra Gita teaches that the spiritual problem only becomes acute enough to be addressed when such external forms become full fledged and thus recognisable as as duality.

 The modern man, however, “has become ‘unhistorical’ and has estranged himself from the mass of men who live within the bounds of tradition,” the consequence of which, he explained, is that we have “suffered an almost fatal shock and fallen into profound uncertainty.” Indeed, the very need for clinical psychology, Jung believed, “is symptomatic of a profound convulsion of spiritual life.”

Clinical psychology can improve outcomes as part of a Care Plan, but the need for it was delusive- a case of advertising creating a market for a bogus product. Modern man has experienced 'no profound convulsion of spiritual life'. He has been fucked over by stupid politicians and worthless economists. I recall older people, in Baghdad, discussing the impact of the televised moon landing on the Bedouins of the desert. Would they rise up and destroy every vestige of modernity in their path? No. They were cool with it. They did however show a shrewd appreciation of cross border arbitrage opportunities. That's all that rationality is. Arbitrage. Trade. Swapping your camel for a pick up truck.

Economics at one time was about substantive solutions to macro problems. However, thanks to its mathematical basis, it was able to see it couldn't be any such thing. Rather, its role was in facilitating co-ordination games (which, since David Lewis, is the Philosophical explanation of Conventions and 'embeddedness') and arbitrage through discoordination games. Some philosophers have made contributions to Econ but it is the latter's mathematical foundations which have made such 'distinctions without a difference' useful in motivating open research programs. However, it is John Muth's notion of Rationality, coupled with Schelling on focal points, which shows the way out of 'mainlining' Philosophy's cul de sac. Put briefly, 'moral properties' are a Muth Rational solution to a Co-ordination game. One can't be sceptical that such games exist. However, evolutionary game theory predicts that, under Knightian uncertainty, Hannan consistency requires hedging- i.e. arbitrage on dis-coordination games. This is not a scandal for current Economics. Why should it be one for mainline Philosophy?

Kaufman, who believes 'moral scepticism' has special standing, is innocent of any such notions. If he ever starts thinking about the money in his wallet, or the fact that Banks create credit he'll probably turn into a Chartalist nutjob because he doesn't get that Human beings have to be good at spotting focal solutions to Co-ordination games and that Muth rationality, too, is pretty much hardwired which is why we don't contantly bump into people in the street but either keep right or left by some unconscious mimetic process. Actually, full disclosure, I do bump into people a lot on the street coz I tend to be drunk off my head. Still, most other people don't, and that's what's important.

Kaufman, being untroubled by any such reflections, is able to end his essay with this fine rhetorical flourish-

There is no one more enslaved to his nature then one who is unaware of it or who was once aware of it, but has denied it to the point where he believes his own lies and has forgotten it. 

WTF is this supposed to mean? Kaufman is saying two types of agent are equal with respect to a property x. One is unaware of it. The other was aware of it, denied it, then lied about it and then forgot about it. What can we reasonably say about property x? The most parsimonious thing is that property x is meaningless. It is similar to 'being a gfullis hoxxjw'. The predicate is nonsensical. 
 If someone says 'you don't even know you are a gfullis hoxxjw', and you go crying to Mummy what she will say to you is 'Just ignore that silly boy. There is no such thing as a gfullis hoxxjw. It is a meaningless word.'

Suppose, years later, at your Senate confirmation hearing, that silly boy shows up and accuses you of having denied that you were a gfullis hoxxjw, and then lied about it,  what should you do? Clearly you should masturbate vigorously. 

Why?

Well, as Kaufman explains-

' For the person who accepts the fact that his every act of reasoning is ultimately grounded in the uncritical acceptance of his world, his faculties, and his inclinations and habits, reason remains a real, active force for sound behavior and thought. But for the person who insists on the rationalist’s rarefied conception of reasoning, reason is no longer a real, active force for soundness in his life, but at best an empty proceduralism, taking place in a vacuum; a void that will be filled either by his own unreasoned, unrecognized nature or that of others. In either event, he is controlled.'

You were being controlled when you masturbated vigorously and jizzed in Mike Pence's eye.

How it happened was this.

Your parents sent you to College and, stupidly, you studied mainline philosophy.

This caused you to start insisting on the rationalist's rarefied conception of reasoning.

This created a void inside you.

The void was quickly occupied by some evil person who wanted to jizz in the Vice President's eye.

Something similar happened to Trump when he went to Moscow and ended up getting a golden shower from various prostitutes.

Mainline Philosophy is aiding and abetting the fake news of the mainstream media.

Sad!

 The greatest irony of all, then, is that a philosophical movement that for two and a half thousand years preached the rational ascendance of man over nature and the wills of others may very well be responsible for effecting his utter subordination to both.

That's the greatest irony?

Really?

You come up with a theory which states that 2500 years of Western Philosophy can lead to a Supreme Court nominee jizzing in the Vice President's eye and your biggest worry is that Man will continue to be subordinate to nature and the wills of other men?

Give yourself some credit, Kaufman.

Your theory predicts the next great scandal of the Trump era.

The paradox of parrhesia

Parrhesia.

A Greek word taken up by the Quakers to mean 'Speak Truth to Power.'

Following Foucault, its modish meaning is- how like Power speaks to void all that is True and Good and Just so just give me tenure already.

Still, the question remains, how can we have a Just Society if ordinary people can't speak freely and openly to the High and Mighty and that too with no more substantive defense against retribution than the conscious knowledge of having spoken the truth?

The answer, obviously, is there is no Justice if shitheads can bite your ear off. 

Still, is it not mischievous nonsense to suggest that Parrhesia, the plainest type of speech, could not just harbor but be founded upon paradox?

Indeed, what is with this modern obsession with aporias and paradoxes and logical fallacies and other such clever-too-clever word games?

Isn't it a fact that where Paradoxes most lushly flourish- as in the prose of Oscar Wilde, G.B.Shaw, G.K Chesterton- something has gone wrong with Society? It has become decadent. Wilde's mother, like Chesterton's mother, was a 'Radical'. Both women were against the injustices perpetrated by the Ruling Class. They demanded things like Freedom for Ireland, Equal rights for Women and the Working Class and an end to the Aristocracy of Vested Interest's perpetual program of wasteful Wars abroad and repressive Retrenchment at home.

Wilde may have caught the contagion of lapidary antinomy from his tutor at Trinity College, Dublin, J.P Mahaffy - arch-apologist for the Primrose League, but under the influence of his Mother, the redoubtable Irish Nationalist, 'Speranza', Oscar smote his old mentor hip and thigh- but then lost himself and was lost to his mother's cause, walking the Primrose path of paradox.

Chesterton's case was worse. He could have been a Christian. He should have been a Christian. Indeed, in all probability, he would have been a Christian if his immodest method of converting to Christianity hadn't turned him into a raging Anti Semite.

Dr. Bill Oddie disagrees. He thinks  Chesterton, now a nominee for Sainthood, was pro Jewish and cites the following passage, which Chesterton wrote after his return from a visit to Palestine in 1919- '…if the Jew cannot be at ease in Zion [a reference to Amos 6:1: "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion”] we can never again persuade ourselves that he is at ease out of Zion. We can only salute as it passes that restless and mysterious figure, knowing at last that there must be in him something mystical as well as mysterious; that whether in the sense of the sorrows of Christ or of the sorrows of Cain, he must pass by, for he belongs to God.'- i.e. the Jew is a homo sacer, too lowly even to be killed, whose primal sin relates to having once enjoyed wealth in Zion.

Incidentally, back in 1919, the Establishment view was that the Arabs would slaughter the Jews but not before having some fun with them first.

I live about halfway between the house where Chesterton was born and that in which Oscar Wilde welcomed his sons into the world. In between, where once were slums, all is salubrious because Socialism, it seems, so long as it is content to not, too stridently, call itself so, Socialism works. One way it works is by providing work for even worthless scum like me.

Is that the paradox of Parrhesia I wanted to talk about in this blogpost?

Perhaps.

I'd have to reason it out...

Just tried.

Fuck it.

Could we get back to something I genuinely excel at- like Anti-Semitism?

The Jews said to Christ, 'speak plainly- speak with parrhesia-  are you the Messiah?'

The problem here is that the word Messiah means different things to different people. Indeed, Zephanaiah 3.8 and 3.9 indicate that it is only after the dies irae, the day of wrath, when God chastens all the nations with His jealous fire, only then will God purify human speech such that all may call upon the name of the Lord and serve Him with one accord.

But that dies irae has not come to pass.

So, what is happening here?

Are the Jews, though appearing to speak with parrhesia, actually laying a parrhesiac trap for our Lord?

Is this the Gospel's parallel to the Quranic episode where the Jews say 'Ra'ina'?

To say yes, we must believe that the Jews were acting in bad faith.

They didn't believe Christ could be the Messiah.

But where is the proof of this?

Had Christ said, 'Yes. I'm the Messiah. I command you to rise up against the Romans.' might not those  same Pharisees have followed Christ though it cost them their lives? The fact is, the Pharisees- like Josephus- did rise up and were all but annihilated.

From the philosophical point of view, the Jews are demanding  from Christ a univocal answer to an equivocal question. This would be illicit, it would be bad faith, if Christ were not a Rabbi. But Christ was a Rabbi. He knew every word of the Bible- all of which possess literal truth with regard to the Unseen. Indeed, how could any text have a metaphorical meaning with respect to that which is beyond our ken? A beautiful orchard garden- pardes- can be a metaphor for Paradise because we have all seen a garden. Paradise, we have not seen. It can't be a metaphor for anything. God is not a person like any person we know. His commandments can't be metaphors for the commandments of some human person. 

Christ, answering the Jews, can only do so with parrhesia if he uses the language of the Bible, because he has knowledge regarding the unseen which ordinary mortals lack. This seems paradoxical. Surely to speak with parrhesia can't mean speaking of that which we can not, as mortals, know? 

However, perhaps, Christ resolves this paradox by speaking of something which, as an 'emergent' on mortal discourse, could exceed, without breaking, the mortal net of words.

Notice the phrase he uses, in answering the Jews, comes from Psalm 82.6

Psalm 82

A psalm of Asaph.

1 God presides in the great assembly;
    he renders judgment among the “gods”:

2 “How long will you[a] defend the unjust
    and show partiality to the wicked?[b]
3 Defend the weak and the fatherless;
    uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
4 Rescue the weak and the needy;
    deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

5 “The ‘gods’ know nothing, they understand nothing.
    They walk about in darkness;
    all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

6 “I said, ‘You are “gods”;
    you are all sons of the Most High.’
7 But you will die like mere mortals;
    you will fall like every other ruler.”

8 Rise up, O God, judge the earth,
    for all the Nations are your inheritance.