fare, posts by tag: argument - LiveJournal

Deuxième Loi du Désaccord selon Faré: J'ai raison, d'où il s'ensuit que ceux qui ne sont pas d'accord avec moi sont ou bien (1) malhonnêtes, (2) stupides, ou (3) fous (ces choix ne sont pas exclusifs). Cette loi universelle vaut pour toute valeur de "moi", y compris "vous".

J'ai beaucoup appris de François Guillaumat; nombreuses sont les confusions économiques qu'il a élucidées, les notions bancales qu'il a redressées, et les mystères qu'il a percés, grâce à sa précision conceptuelle aussi rare que remarquable. Et c'est parce que je respecte ses travaux et en recommande souvent la lecture que je tiens à éclaircir certains points sur lesquels je crois qu'il se trompe. Il se trouve que ces points semblent tous avoir pour origine la religion: François Guillaumat est catholique, je suis athée. Je prendrai comme point de départ cet entretien qu'il a accordé à l'excellent Grégoire Canlorbe (parties I, II, III).

François Guillaumat emploie fort à propos l'argument ontologique pour montrer l'existence d'une entité éternelle incrée; mais il a tort de critiquer Ayn Rand comme étant incapable d'appliquer proprement cet argument: il correspond exactement à ce que Rand exprime par l'expression "l'existence existe". Notons toutefois que l'argument est moins simple qu'il n'y paraît, vu qu'une notion d'existence non contrainte mène à de nombreux paradoxes comme le paradoxe de Russell, qui sont généralement résolus en introduisant des types, ou des hiérarchies infinies d'univers avec autant de notions distinctes d'existence — d'où la validité a priori de l'argument de régression infinie. Il existe sans doute d'autres façons d'éviter de tels paradoxes, mais charge est à celui qui avance un tel argument de montrer que sa méthodologie ne mène pas à une contradiction prévisible. Mais faisons pour l'instant abstraction de la façon dont de tels paradoxes sont évités, et supposons que l'argument mène effectivement à un concept valide.

Il n'est pas nécessairement incorrect de prendre cet argument comme définition du mot "dieu" (notons toutefois que l'argument ontologique n'établit pas d'unicité du concept dénoté). L'erreur, que Spinoza a fait bien avant François Guillaumat, est de définir plusieurs concepts, de les appeler chacun "dieu" dans le contexte de sa définition, puis de les identifier abusivement dans un autre contexte de par l'usage du même mot, alors même qu'il s'agit de concepts bien distincts faisant partie de catégories disjointes. Ainsi, identifier ce "dieu" qui existerait par définition au Yahveh des Juifs, au Kronos des Grecs, au Mummu des Mésopotamiens, au Aton égyptien ou à Amon dans une cosmogonie égyptienne rivale, au Yggrasil scandinave, au Ometeotl aztec, au Brahma hindou, etc., ou avec une autre entité hypothétique qui aurait des caractéristiques spécifiques comme une personnalité, le moindre souci pour la destinée humaine, le choix de certains prophètes, etc., est un abus qui n'est aucunement justifié.

L'argument de Guillaumat sur le changement ignore la notion d'entropie, qui peut augmenter localement dans un sous-système ouvert quand bien même elle décroît dans un univers fermé, par exemple, en profitant du soleil, source fossile et tarissable d'énergie et de néguentropie. Son argument ignore aussi la notion d'émergence dans un tel système local pompant énergie et néguentropie d'une source proche — lire les classiques de Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained) ou Douglas Hofstadter (I am a Strange Loop) pour une présentation du concept d'émergence. Ou voir des vidéos comme celle-ci pour la voir à l'oeuvre. Donc, oui le changement existe, oui l'information humaine est créée et est effectivement un phénomène primordial — mais cela n'implique pas l'existence d'un dieu personnel, etc. Le seul "dieu" nécessaire pour expliquer l'énergie et la néguentropie qui alimentent la vie terrestre, c'est le soleil (que de nombreux peuples ont effectivement adoré comme un dieu).

Je n'ai certes pas la prétension de convaincre François Guillaumat: "Il est inutile de chercher à détromper par la raison un homme d'une idée qu'il n'a pas acquise par la raison." ("It is useless to endeavour to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into", citation attribuée à Jonathan Swift, mais Google Books ne la trouve pas dans l'oeuvre de Swift, et la plus ancienne publication de la formule est dans "The Economist" du 12 avril 1856, Volume XIV p. 392, qui mentionne un "Dean Swift" qui est sans doute Jonathan Swift, mais qui semble être au mieux une paraphrase ou un résumé, et pas une citation). Comme la plupart d'entre nous, François Guillaumat a adopté la religion de sa famille, (moi la non-religion de la mienne), et comme chacun d'entre nous, il croit avoir la chance d'avoir été élevé dans la bonne, contrairement à la grande plupart des autres humains, et peut ratiociner pourquoi en effet il a raison (et moi de même). Qui a raison dans ces croyances reçues et leurs ratiocinations ultérieures? Qui reste prisonnier d'idées-virus? Comme tout le monde, il croit avoir raison. Comme tout le monde, je crois avoir raison. Comme dans chaque opposition d'opinion, au moins l'un de nous deux a tort.

Mais quant au libéralisme, ni l'un ni l'autre ne l'avons reçu de nos familles; comme un grand nombre d'intellectuels libéraux européens, nous avons dû le re-découvrir, le re-construire, par des efforts intellectuels indépendants, avant même d'avoir lu le moindre auteur libéral. Ceci écarte au moins cette suspicion de partialité atavique vis à vis de nos convictions libérales communes; et l'indépendance de ces reconstructions indique même qu'il y a sans doute une réalité commune sous-jacente à ces idées: nous affirmons que cette réalité est une description fidèle des principes de l'action humaine; d'autres, socialistes, pourront prétendre qu'il s'agit d'un dérangement mental commun — et là encore, entre libéraux et socialistes, au moins l'un deux groupes a tort et est victime ou d'idées-virus ou de problèmes structurels dans leur intellect voire des deux (l'un par l'autre).

Une des forces de François Guillaumat est sa volonté d'élucider non seulement les erreurs économiques et philosophiques qui contribuent à la destruction de la civilisation (ideas have consequences nous disait Ayn Rand), mais aussi les causes de ces erreurs, les mécanismes de leur transmission. Comme le disait Claude Bernard: «Il ne suffit pas de dire: "je me suis trompé"; il faut dire comment on s'est trompé.» Cela, François Guillaumat l'a bien compris — or cela représente pour la Philosophie la même révolution que la théorie de la preuve a apporté en Logique: ne compte pas tant une seule Vérité totale inatteignable que les moyens épistémologiques d'atteindre correctement des vérités partielles et les sophismes à éviter qui nous en détournent. Malheureusement, nul n'a encore découvert comment transformer la connaissance de ce mal en remède, sauf peut-être comme vaccin pour les lecteurs qui liraient ces explications avec un esprit sain avant d'avoir été victimes des idées-virus parasites. Mais je suppose que c'est déjà quelque chose.

As promised, here is a detailed rational refutation of the utilitarian concept of (Global) "Happiness Maximization" in general, and its specific variant that concludes in favor of wireheading, the cultivation of individuals in vats in a permanent state of artificially stimulated bliss.

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What always fascinates me when I meet a group of very intelligent people is the very elaborate bullshit that they believe in. The naive theory of intelligence I first posited when I was a kid was that intelligence is a tool to avoid false beliefs and find the truth. Surrounded by mediocre minds who held obviously absurd beliefs not only without the ability to coherently argue why they held these beliefs, but without the ability of even understanding basic arguments about them, I believed as a child that the vast amount of superstition and false beliefs in the world was due to people both being stupid and following the authority of insufficiently intelligent teachers and leaders. More intelligent people and people following more intelligent authorities would thus automatically hold better beliefs and avoid disproven superstitions. However, as a grown up, I got the opportunity to actually meet and mingle with a whole lot of intelligent people, including many whom I readily admit are vastly more intelligent than I am. And then I had to find that my naive theory of intelligence didn't hold water: intelligent people were just as prone as less intelligent people to believing in obviously absurd superstitions. Only their superstitions would be much more complex, elaborate, rich, and far reaching than an inferior mind's superstitions.

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“Imagine a parent with one flute and three children, each of whom wants the flute. The first child says ‘I made it’; the second says ‘I’m the only one who can play it’; the third says ‘I have no other toys.’ Who should get the flute?” – Amartya Sen

Ah, the typical neo-communist tales that my friends link to! All the more telling since Sen passes for a freedom-friendly philosopher amongst the general public. To top it all, the tale is meant as a metaphor of society, with government being the parent of the citizens, and the unwitting listener being tricked into emotionally identify with said parent, whereas in actuality he will be compelled to play the role of the kid. Of course, when you accept the State as parent, don't be surprised to see citizens treated as kids rather than adults, and deprived of all rights. Just as with the "free fox in the free henhouse" fable, the story is way more enlightening about the evil point of view of the storyteller than about the reality it purports to describe.

In the private discussion, one commenter to the link even suggests:

The parent asks all three the same question: "Do you mind if the other children and me share this flute with you?" If one says yes then the flute is handed to that one. If none say yes the parent says: "This is mine since none of you wants to share it with the others. I'll share it with you though."

She doesn't understand how evil is her proposal. Even when faced with my remark that "that's how, in a communist countries, the leaders keep everything for themselves, accusing the people to not be communist enough", she can see how said leaders are evil, but still wants to find excuses to the parent that would have genuine "good intentions", rather than be "lying". But "intentions" are just pretenses we broadcast to the world. Consequences are what matter. And her parent is just as evil as any communist leader. You judge a tree by the fruits it bears, and here are the fruits (my response to the tale):

The single parent is obviously overwhelmed by her kids and morally crippled.

After she abuses the first kid by confiscating the fruits of her labor, then “redistributing” it away, the kid stops making anything new that is worthwhile until she can leave the home; she can then start a productive life, but remains scarred by the abuse, with a deep emotional insecurity whenever she is creative.

The second kid eventually learns to sell her talents at performing, with the proceeds of which she buys a new, better flute (how did she learn to play, anyway?); but from her childhood she has acquired a twisted sense of morality in which the above abuse was somehow justified, and she spreads more of that evil around her.

The third kid, who already behaves as a beggar towards his own family, has no self-respect, and becomes a low life drug addict and petty thief. All money spent on him is utterly wasted. He eventually joins a sect that gives him the ersatz of a moral compass he failed to acquire from his dysfunctional family.

Ideas have consequences. Raising your children while depriving them from a sense of their self and their property is incredibly destructive. If instead the parent has solid moral foundations, here's what will happen:

The parent rejects with disgust the evil notion that she may dispossess one child for the sake of another one. She encourages the first child to create more things, the second child to develop her talents, the third child to learn how to create, perform or otherwise be productive. The first child grows up to be an inventive creator, the second a great performer, and the third learns self-reliance and eventually discovers his own talent.

Incidentally, the first child, having more flutes than she has use for, is happy and unafraid to share them with her siblings, out of her own free will, because she's not crippled by a sense of insecurity in her property. The flute is worth more to the fluteless player than to the flute-possessing non-player; therefore, soon, the children learn how they can mutually benefit from sharing and exchanging with each other, under formal or informal terms.

Why introduce violence, confiscation, and mutual enmity in what should be a peaceful family? That's how socialists are evil, seeking to destroy everything, from families to societies, in the name of their fanatic egalitarian utopia.

PS: Interestingly, Sen's answer to his fable-question is scarily typical of the totalitarian propagandist intelligentsia. Can you guess what it is? Just you remember that his is a metaphor of the rulers as parents and the ruled as children, and then recall what is the ultimate claim of the totalitarians...

"If AIs become better and cheaper than humans at EVERYTHING, humans will stop interacting with each other. Pan-human catastrophe!"

"If foreigners become better and cheaper than nationals at EVERYTHING, nationals will stop buying from each other. National catastrophe!"

Yeah, right. And if people outside your immediate family do everything better and cheaper than your family as far as you're concerned, you'll never talk to your spouse and kids again? Family-zastrophe!

Let's say I'm one of the persons with whom you admittedly share some close bond; now what if people other than the two of us satisfy our needs better and cheaper than the two of us can — we will stop interacting with each other, and will it be a catastrophe for the two of us as we'll both lose all the precious things we bring to each other? Pair-zastrophe?

The fallacy is that on the one hand, the denounced Third Party is supposed to better than anything, and at the same time, the lost relationship is supposed to be something so valuable that it's vastly better than anything else. But you can't have it both ways. As in the story of universal solvent that can dissolve anything and the universal container that can resist any solvent, one has to give way to the other. And as in the story, both claims are dubious at best.

If indeed the Third Parties are so good and cheap that we'll both refer to them and stop interacting with each other, then by definition, we're having more fun, more satisfaction, by interacting with the Third Parties rather than with each other. And for whom is it a catastrophe? For neither of us. By assumption, we're both better satisfied this way. Maybe I'll marry one of those beautiful, sexy, intelligent and agreeable strangers instead of marrying you; and you'll similarly marry one of them instead of marrying me. And by assumption, we'll both be happier than if we had been together. Yay, life!

Or is the bond between us so strong and so valuable that nothing that the Third Parties may offer is worth dissolving that bond? Then why are you afraid that we'll destroy this bond? Who are you calling stupid? Yourself, me or everyone else? Are you going to leave your family behind to starve to death because the Matrix is offering you a more pleasurable though virtual family? Why do you think anyone would and make that the premise of your catastrophic prediction?

Are you claiming that most people are stupid or evil, except yourself and the vis-à-vis you're trying to convince of your views with such arguments? Besides the remarkable conceit you display, you should realize the vanity of the attempt to save such stupid or evil people, especially when the strategy you choose would be to either convince them all through an appeal to their intelligence and morality that you deny exist, or to somehow make yourself their dictator.

And while you meditate at the impending doom of humanity or your nation, etc., you may consider the miracle by which this flock of stupid or evil people reached that state of affairs that you're so afraid to lose; here is a miracle you obviously can't fathom, and which should give you faith that some force is at work that you have failed to identify so far.

For this whole scare of machines, of foreigners or of any other third party is but an ingrained reflex of defiance against alterity and a defense of existing known or supposed relationships taken to the point of neurosis. Sadly, there is no shortage of crooks who will excite other people's neuroses to profit from them. Happily, however, the scare is wholly unfounded.

So what happens when machines or foreigners get better and cheaper at something? The general answer is: the law of comparative advantage applies. We get more of what the third party provides, in exchange for which we do more of what the third party requires; by hypothesis, this costs us less to produce than previous and/or other available alternatives, and we enjoy the fact that the third party offers us a better deal than we used to have before (or else we wouldn't have switched). Getting more for less, that's the only reason why we ever voluntarily switch from one arrangement to the next.

How did that work in the past? When washing machines, vacuum cleaners, gas stoves, etc., freed hours of housework for women (mostly), does that mean that women (and men) lost the ability to wash clothes, clean the house, cook a dinner, etc., and are now running the risk of going naked, dirty and famished? No, it means that in addition to having clean clothes, clean houses, and quick dinners, we have all that we can do with the free time gained: more gratifying jobs, healthy activities, cozy time with our families, etc. Or sure, getting stoned in front of the TV if that's what you're into. All that for the investment of a measly priced machine and for a little bit of cheap water, electricity, or gas. If you don't want to invest yourself, you can still enjoy the benefits of technology based on other people's investment: go to the laundromat, hire a cleaner or buy takeout.

Similarly, when we start getting cheaper clothes from here, cheaper robots from there, cheaper food from another place, etc., it doesn't mean we are losing anything to foreigners; we are gaining all they offer to us, in exchange from what we offer to them, which by very definition costs us less than it would cost us to get the same things ourselves. So we get cheap fruits from some southern country? It means we offer them some manufactured goods or something in exchange, that is cheaper for us to create than those fruits would be, and is more expensive for them to create than those fruits are. Both parties benefit and enjoy the additional free time from the trade.

And what if at some point, we become unable to pay them with something they desire? Then in this worst case scenario, we'd be back to the point where you'd like to force us to be now: we wouldn't trade, and would have to get the desired thing by ourselves. Really, what you propose to achieve through some liberticidal and onerous use of force — the prohibition of trade with some maligned third parties — is actually but the worst possible outcome of what would happen for free if everyone's freedom to trade was respected.

Are you now claiming that in a temporary deal like that, we'll have lost our ability to create and will eventually find ourselves poorer? Well, now you're calling others stupid or evil for their lack of foresight, but it's the same unwarranted conceit as above. You're claiming you can see further than anyone else and are demanding that others be submitted to your brilliant schemes, by appealing to superior foresight of the very people you're calling incapable of such. Yet, expectation of change in future scarcity is already counted in the price of goods and the price of investing in the future production of such goods. When it appears that the third party source of some good will dry up, people stockpile, the price starts going up before the source is over, and investment in alternative sources starts. Once again, at the very worst we'll be back to where we were before, after having enjoyed a free ride for the price difference while it lasted.

Is your claim that you can actually see further than everyone else? Well, put your money where your mouth is, then: invest at the time that you think other people are failing to, and reap the profits. You can then both rightfully boast of your superior foresight, be proud of having accomplished a good action (saving "your people" from a dirth of the misanticipatedly lacking good) and use the proceeds to advance more of your ideas. The more people you claim agree with you, the easiest such an investment should be.

Is your claim that the third party, once strong enough, will crush you? Well, said third party, by hypothesis, is interested in what you're offering for its services, and finds the trade useful. As long as the trade is useful, it has no interest in fighting you. And if for whatever reason it ever becomes stronger indeed, advocating as you're doing the forceful prohibition of trade with the third party is setting a very bad precedent for what will happen to you: since you accept the principle that might makes right, you'll soon enough be victim of that principle. Instead of calling for forceful prohibition by the central authority of whoever happens to be the strongest now, you should call for the respect for property rights. Where these rights are universally recognized, the third party won't attack you even when vastly stronger than you, for fear of having to respond to other similar third parties wary of the respect of rights. Where property rights are sacrificed to the altar of some collective welfare, you'll soon be the victim of a change in who controls enough force to claim unopposed to represent the collective.

Are you claiming that humans, once obsoleted by AIs, will disappear like draft horses did? But there are infinitely more horses in America now than before slave horses were introduced on that continent by white men. And those horses that exist now are probably happier than ever were their ancestors that toiled at the height of the horse enslavement racket. Moreover, horses are miserable precisely because they are animals without rights, without rights because they are unable to petition for the rights they are being denied, unable to make and respect covenants that delimit their and another party's respective rights, etc. Humans can negotiate, respect and enforce rights, and are therefore susceptible to be recognized mutual property rights.

Do you mean that ultimately AIs will acquire most resources in the universe, and leave humans with but what they have, that will only sustain them so long before they starve out and die? But if property rights are respected, then by very hypothesis, humans through voluntary trade will only ever but get more than they would have without machines. They may eventually starve and die out, but without the peaceful interaction with machines, by very hypothesis, they would have starved and died out even sooner: whatever extra resources they would have had, they would not have been able to make as good use of them, and would have extracted a shorter and less agreeable life from them — which is the very reason why they accepted to trade those resources with the machines. Of course, if interactions are not peaceful but warlike, then things could go wrong for humans, but the same is true when the war doesn't involve machines, and the damage is to be ascribed to war, i.e. the denial of mutual property rights, rather than to the advancement of machines as such. And once again, the proposed "solution" is to start now and for certain a war that you fear might happen in the future, making the worst imaginable outcome an effective certainty. Instead, the actual solution is in the universal acceptance of the principles of property rights as being most sacred.

In the end, what if machines actually become so good and ultra cheap that they replace us in about all the jobs we can do? Then by definition, at the cost of almost nothing (the cheap price in question, that we pay to them), we get all the free time in the world, to do whatever it is we really want: whether it's reading books, having sex with cyborgs, or raising actual human kids. And we'll keep exchanging services with each other, so that those few who are most able to get what the machines want will be those who produce it, while other people offer all kind of human services, from psychological support to massages to entertainment to whatever the hell we'll desire when we're free from all the hassles overcome through machines. More people doing agreeable human jobs, fewer doing horrible mechanical work, isn't that the essence of progress?

In an online discussion, Steven Feldman narrates:

I was asked last night by my best friend's girlfriend if "I'd sooner be President or King". After insisting that I'd pick neither and her insisting I had to pick one, I said "President, and then I'd shut down the government" to which I got a blank stare from my best friend and a questioning look from his girlfriend. MUAHAHAHAAHA! (evil laugh)

To which my friend Jim Davidson adds:

You can also pick king, and immediately abdicate. That'll show 'em.

However, Jim's second proposition is wrong. If given power, you can't abdicate. If you merely abdicate, the would-be slaves and masters will quickly nominate someone else to replace you as king. Or they'll hold elections for a president, which amounts to the same.

Moreover, if you're good enough to abdicate, your successor, who is bound to be someone worse than you are, will probably kill you because as long as you live you provide a Schelling point around which opposition may gather. Once you ride the back of the tiger, you can't just dismount it, or you'll end up inside. Kill the tiger, or be killed by it.

Abdicating kingship is the wrong thing to do for all involved. What you need to do is to uproot kingship itself. And that's much harder. "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." — Thoreau.

Therefore, when offered The Ring, you're given the responsibility not just to not relinquish it, but what more, to destroy it. Until it is completely destroyed, your sacred duty is to keep holding it, and to defend it with extreme force or extreme ruse against all those who lust for it, and will stop at nothing to get it. If you're unable to defend it, you may be the most honest of men, you'll end up like Pertinax or Didius Julianus. The Ring is no toy for wussies.

Which reminds me of yet another quote: "A true conservative is someone who explains to you that government doesn't work, gets elected and then proves it!" — Milton Friedman

More concretely, if offered Power, what should you do? First, you must destroy the superior Power that could put you into place. If the Praetorians acclaimed you, you must not just bribe the Praetorians, you must dissolve them, in such a way that they will not want to resist while they can. If you were elected, you must not just satisfy the voters for today, you must make the ballot irrelevant in the future; making taxes and monopolies unconstitutional may be a good start, but a solemnly signed piece of paper is only a temporary stop gap at best: you must uproot or subvert the democratic ideology itself. Destroying the other, lesser established powers is the easy part in comparison. You may just dissolve the bureaucracy, abolish privileges, etc., revoke charters and monopolies, and otherwise cancel all powers that were once delegated by the State. Where some people were enjoying personal advantages that they will cling to, you may formalize these advantages and pay those rational enough to be bought off. As for crazy profiteers who can't see their interest, there is nothing but to use force against them; actually, showing them that you are willing to use superior force will quickly make most of them reasonable again and accept the bribe.

What is harder, you must arm the citizens and allow them to organize, while at the same time controlling the army and defending the country against the would be invaders, usurpers, revolutionaries, until a culture of liberty has developed that covers defense, too. You may similarly bribe your rapacious neighbors with their claimed share of oil money, but only after having clearly displayed that you're able and willing to fight and not just capitulating to their claims — and only under conditions that preserve your and your wards' sovereignty if not your "national" riches. Meanwhile, you may have to crack down on those demagogues, fanatics and communists who actively conspire, often with foreign allies, to replace the Power you are destroying with their own. And you must repress those wannabe mass criminals without destroying anyone's freedom to spout nonsense that only calls for legitimate action within one's own property: may mystics live as they please in religious communities and kibbutzim.

Being granted Power is receiving a poisoned gift. You must hold on to it without actually using it. You must deploy force against force, and force against treachery, without ever falling into injustice.

But you haven't been granted Power. Odds are extremely low you will. What you can do, however, is erode Power by denying it your sanction, and spread this denial wide and large. And if you are successful in teaching the Truth about Power, maybe next time Power fails and falls into honest hands, those honest hands will know what to do with it.

It's amazing how well official propaganda works. Dare to suggest that parliamentary democracy might not be the ultimate political regime, and you will have the same ready-made responses, that must have been endlessly repeated to turn out identically in the heads of millions of Westerners. These responses require no thought, quite the contrary: they are defensive reflexes and are used precisely to prevent any reflection; they are methods of Orwellian crimestop, allowing one to avoid any thoughtcrime against official orthodoxy. First, of course, among the semi-cultivated, there is the argument from authority, consisting in quoting Churchill saying "democracy is the worst form of government — except all the others". The advantage is that the quote being a joke, you'll be condescendingly accused of lacking a sense of humor if you dare to take it seriously enough to criticize it, but you will be part of the merry band of intelligent and witty people if you take it seriously as an argument from authority and abandon all critical thinking. In the tradition of Churchill, of course there is Godwin's Law. If you dare to criticize democracy, you are ipso facto a supporter of dictatorship, of National Socialism, of Communism, or of any other bogeyman that you'll have failed to profusely denounce as a prerequisite to any negative comment on democracy. It doesn't matter how such a denounciation, since it doesn't address a belief held by the other person, would therefore have been irrelevant to the debate. Any criticism of democracy that does not start with confirming in advance democracy as the pinnacle of political regimes is sacrilege. It will then be fashionable to dismiss any opinions that you may issue out of their supposed association to damned ideologies. However much you may deny any commonality with these ideologies, you will be convicted of being one with these Enemies of Democracy and of everything Good. Little does it matter if your opinions either are universal common sense ("you say that 2 plus 2 is 4? That's exactly what was taught in schools in the Third Reich!" — Sure, but...), or are in direct opposition to all these totalitarian ideologies ("Capitalism? Hitler supported it!" — oh, really?) for what matters in this slander is not any logical validity of the anathema, but the permanent outcasting of dissidents with a scarlet letter. Implicit in the reductio ad hitlerum of course, is the argument that "We (Western democracies) have fought the devil, therefore we're the good guys, whereas those who oppose us root for the devil." Now, of course, Hitler was not the devil, and his enemies were not angels. For instance, Stalin, his enemy (in the later years), slaughtered many more innocent victims than Hitler; his feud with his former ally didn't make an angel out of him. And if the lateness of this enmity disqualifies Stalin as a counterexample, then read the rather admiring (although reserved) words in Churchill's pre-war biography of Hitler. In short, as a logical argument, it is all worthless. Instead, it is an appeal to emotion, the purpose of which is to stifle any reason. It's all about using association to friends and dissociation from enemies to project a manichean binary framework between democracy and non-democracy, and to force the listener to choose sides via emotional blackmail. Equally implicit in the reductio ad hitlerum and its variants, is the criterion that since life is sweeter in modern Western democracies than in Nazi Germany, Communist North Korea or any other exposed regime, "democracy", a concept never clearly specified, is the best regime in the world. That's setting the bar very low for judging democracy and ascribing it political perfection, whereas at the very same time one seems to require of any rival idea that it should have already achieved heaven on earth before to grant it a hearing. Again, a double-standard typical of crimestop: all arguments are good to justify orthodoxy and to reject heterodoxy; and you should never apply an argument universally to all the positions in the dispute, but only eristically to those theses you want to either promote or defeat. Besides, if one looks deeper, is it indeed democracy that makes these western countries so free and prosperous? Or is democracy instead a parasite that preys upon the freedom and prosperity of these countries, and slowly destroys them? Could this explain why democracy is a clear failure in all other countries where it has been tried, that didn't possess a tradition of freedom and prosperity, that preceded or overrode said democracy? Such suggestions will horrify the true believer. In the era of anti-racism and cultural relativism, one might as well suggesting that these other countries are voting wrongly because they are populated with wogs, niggers and chinks. Yet, since genetic and cultural differences by a democratic axiom cannot affect the fate of a country, the only possible explanation for differences in outcomes is the abundance or dearth in these countries of Democracy, a rare and mysterious substance that has to be cultivated, or the intervention of some foreign power, whether beneficial or detrimental, whether overt or covert. To the faithful, if democracy fails everywhere it has been attempted outside of the West, whether in Russia, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Palestine, Venezuela, Malaysia or anywhere else, and if it isn't faring so well even in the West itself, this by definition can never be a problem with Democracy (always with a capital D), but rather must be a problem of lack of democracy. Maybe an American savior should come to bring actual democracy; or perhaps an anti-American savior; but anyway, we need a savior or some other providential man to stop the damages by seizing the reins of power despite the appalling outcome of the polls. If people vote wrongly, whether they are deemed to be either too far to the left or too far to the right, fanatically religious or fanatically anti-religious, overly racist or sold to foreigners, too partisan or too unprincipled, it cannot possibly be because democracy is based on absurd premises and perverse incentives; it must be because there is not enough democracy. I would like someone to give me a democrat-o-meter to measure the degree of democracy of a nation. Do you tally the frequency of elections? The rate of voter participation? The number of factions vying for power and the frequency of their alternation in power? Do you count positively the radical divergence in opinions between these opposing factions that reflects how conflicting interests tear the country apart, or rather the consensus of these factions by which voters are deprived of any real choice? Is it more democratic when the beloved leader has unanimous electoral support, or when there is a widely shared disgust towards the ruler who was just barely preferred to his defeated rival? Oh, suddenly I see some people measuring the degree of "democratic" health of a country by watching whether there is freedom of expression and action, or whether arbitrary political and administrative powers are oppressive to all when applied to all by the letter, and are corrupt when applied selectively against the weak while sparing the friends of the powerful. But what relationship does that bear with democracy as a political system? None whatsoever. Provided that such criteria actually measure the health of a country, they measure its degree of respect for individual freedom, of libertarianism, and not of "democracy" at all. If you can neither say what you think nor do what you want, then it becomes very important to determine who is in power, whether elected or unelected. But if you are free from any interference from them, what do you care for the titles of elected or unelected clowns? A country where the very same president is always elected, at the head of his party that controls the country, is very democratic. But it is not free. The Establishment of such a country has a closer grip on society than that of a western country, and uses that grip awkwardly and violently; this doesn't mean that this government does not result from an election "there", or that the Establishment does not firmly control all power "at home". Ultimately, what matters is not so much to know by what technical means a person got in office, but whether that person has the power to impose on you what you do not want; the problem is not the method to determine the holders of political power, the problem is political power itself. Then what magic does democracy bring to the table? And besides, what is it that we call democracy? For confusion abounds as to what democracy is. Democracy is Good by definition, by axiom. To be opposed to Democracy, is evil by the same axiom. Anyone who'd dare have a critical look at this axiom is ipso facto a dogmatic ideologist, who necessarily holds a variant of some nauseating ideology, all of which are universally condemned. (Note that when opinions differ from the official orthodoxy, they constitute an ideology; whereas the official orthodoxy is nothing like an ideology, it is simply the obvious truth that all sane people recognize as such.) And since no one is allowed to examine Democracy with a critical mind, what exactly Democracy is remains unclear: authoritarian axioms and ready-made sentences do not mix well with an understanding of what the familiar words may mean; constantly repeated in the right order, they make "sense" but as a mantra uttered to ward off Evil. Therefore, Democracy is a Good, let's admit it; but what kind of Good is it? Is it an electoral principle? Then if there are ballot boxes and they are properly used, according to one of the hundreds of variants listed, then a democracy it is... and if the result is that Robespierre, Napoleon, Hitler, Allende, some Islamic radicals, Putin, Mugabe or any other infamous ruler is elected, it will necessarily mean that someone has rigged the election, which was stolen, or manipulated the campaign, which has been distorted — because the people are infallible and democracy is working by definition; only a devious plot can lead to a bad outcome at the end of the polls. Or is Democracy a partisan principle? If the men in power are singing the praises of democracy, then a democracy it is. If instead they fail to avail themselves of the democratic ideology, then they are not authentic democrats. Even though a majority would vote for them, it would be the result of manipulation, a "false consciousness". Genuine democrats seek to satisfy the People, their opposition is made but of populists who casually appeal to the basest instincts of the rabble. If the people vote wrongly and the authentic democrats are not elected, therefore by definition there is not enough democracy. Long live the party that calls itself democratic independently from election results, and even whether or not there are elections worthy of the name, the Party's stranglehold on elections is but a remedy to the lack of democracy among the population. Or is Democracy a transcendental principle? By a quasi-divine mystery, the outcome of the polls transsubtantiates into the Will of the People. Not anymore is it the mere expression by a plurality of voters of a thin preference among a limited set of alternatives being presented to them; it has become the very Will of the People, a mandate by which the elected candidate is made the representative of all the inhabitants of his country or district, even those who feel betrayed by his decisions, even those who only voted for him by default, even those who voted against him, even those who did not vote, even those who do not have the right to vote, even those who arrived after the election, even those who are not "citizens". By this mandate, he possesses a power of attorney from all these people, and can make decisions on their behalf that will affect them all, and all their descendants and successors for aeons to come. The result is good and right and none of them has anything to complain about since it is "them" who elected him. If democracy has a bad outcome, then "the people" was being bad and deserves it. We can combine these principles: the people is never better served but by the People's Party, which though it sometimes loses against the party of populist demagogues, nevertheless expresses the genuine Will of the People, which it can read despite the electoral manipulations by the Anti-People. Thus, Democracy justifies the arbitrary power of the unelected irremovable bureaucracy of the Public Service, which power is unlimited since it reflects the Will of the People, transmitted by elected politicians, despite those from the wrong party, in a second Mysterious Transubstantiation. The authentic democrats are thus the experts with their heart on their sleeve who guide the people despite the inclinations of the outcome of the polls. In short, whatever you say, ultimately, Democracy is Good, all Good things are born out of democracy, all authentic democrats are good at heart, and all good people are authentic democrats. The enemies of democracy are all villains, and all villains (including voters from the wrong side) are actually enemies of Democracy (authentic Democracy); they should not be allowed to present such candidates, or remain unpunished as they repeat anti-democratic slogans, there should be limits to Evil. After all, democracy is the "government of the people, by the people, for the people", whatever that can possibly mean, and the people is Good. To pronounce oneself against democracy, is akin to declaring oneself against the people; it is therefore identical to calling for mass slaughter of the people in a vast genocide. The word "Democracy" of course not the only word to reign indisputable and undisputed among the labels of what is considered Good by definition, after dethroning the word "God" and religion. For example the word "Republic" is just as sacred. The book "The Republic" by Plato can and should be worshipped by the very virtue that its title (as traditionally translated into modern English) is this sacred word, regardless of its contents consisting in proposing a totalitarian, sexist, racist, rigid system of casts and slavery; if the name is Good, everything is Good. "Citizen", "Social", "Community" rank high as well. You can quite easily identify the keywords that axiomatically denote Good or Evil. Therefore, in conclusion, I refrain from criticizing Democracy at all. Democracy is Good. By definition. To suggest otherwise involves speaking a language as foreign to contemporary English as blaspheming against the One Church would have been alien to the English of not so long ago. No. I'm speaking English. I will not fight over words. I accept the words. Now I'm fighting on their meaning. And so, of course Democracy is Good. A Republic is Good. Any anti-democratic tendency is Evil. Fostering citizenship and social responsibility among our communities is Good. Now, I precisely find this entire electoral process quite undemocratic, you see; the world would be more democratic, the people would have more power, if each and every citizen could directly influence the decisions of society in direct proportion to his own contributions, without going through a monopoly of politicians and bureaucrats. What I'm fighting in the current regime is obviously not Democracy, which is Good, but a misleading appearance of democracy; it is of course not the Republic, which is above everything, but what only usurps the name "Republic". And that's why I am especially not proposing to fight democracy, but I am instead proposing to regenerate it and to promote citizenship. Long live democracy, authentic democracy, democracy with a small d! Note: I wrote this article in 2010, but it was published in a French libertarian webzine in May 2012, and I subsequently translated it from French to English, as prompted by this flamewar on Google+. Many thanks to my wife for her proof-reading.

C'est fou comme la propagande officielle est efficace. Osez suggérer que la démocratie parlementaire pourrait ne pas être le nec plus ultra des régimes politiques, et vous aurez les mêmes réponses toutes faites, qui ont dû être inlassablement répétées pour rentrer ainsi identiques dans les têtes de millions d'occidentaux. Ces réponses ne nécessitent aucune réflexion, bien au contraire: ce sont des réflexes défensifs; ils servent justement à interdire toute réflexion; ce sont des méthodes d'arrêtducrime orwellien, permettant d'éviter tout crimepensée contre l'orthodoxie officielle. Tout d'abord, il y a bien sûr, chez les semi-cultivés, l'argument d'autorité, avec la citation de Churchill "la démocratie est le pire des régimes — à l'exception de tous les autres". L'avantage est que la citation étant une boutade, on pourra vous accuser avec condescendance de manquer d'humour si vous osez la prendre au sérieux de façon critique; mais vous ferez partie de la joyeuse bande des gens intelligents et spirituels si vous la prenez au sérieux comme argument d'autorité pour abandonner tout sens critique. Dans la lignée de Churchill, il y a bien sûr le point Godwin. Si vous osez critiquer la démocratie, vous êtes ipso facto un partisan de la dictature, du national socialisme, du communisme, ou de tout autre croquemitaine que vous aurez omis de critiquer profusément comme préalable obligatoire à tout commentaire négatif sur la démocratie. Peu importe qu'une telle critique, ne s'adressant pas à une croyance que possède l'interlocuteur, aurait été par là non pertinente au débat. Toute critique de la démocratie qui ne commence pas par confirmer d'avance la démocratie au pinacle des régimes politiques est sacrilège. Il est alors de bon ton de rejeter toute opinion que vous émettrez de par son association supposée aux idéologies damnées. Vous aurez beau nier partager ces idéologies, vous serez taxé de participer de leur dérive anti-démocratique. Et peu importe si vos opinions sont d'un bon sens universel ("vous affirmez que 2 et 2 font 4? Mais c'est bien ce qu'on enseignait dans les écoles du troisième Reich!" — certes mais…), ou ont été en opposition directe avec toutes les idéologies totalitaires ("le capitalisme? Hitler était pour!" — ah bon, vraiment?) car ce qui importe dans la calomnie, ce n'est pas tant la validité logique de l'anathème que l'entachement par la marque indélébile de l'hitlérie vaincue. Implicite dans le point Godwin bien sûr, est l'argument selon lequel "Nous (les démocraties occidentales) avons combattu le diable, donc nous sommes du bon côté, et ceux qui sont contre nous sont pour le diable." Or, bien sûr, Hitler n'était pas le diable, et ses ennemis n'étaient pas des anges. Ainsi par exemple, Staline, son ennemi (sur le tard certes), a massacré bien plus d'innocents qu'Hitler; son inimitié avec son ancien allié n'en a pas fait un ange. Et si c'est le caractère tardif de cette inimitié qui disqualifie Staline comme contrexemple, lisez donc les mots plutôt admiratifs (quoique réservés) de Churchill sur Hitler dans sa biographie d'avant guerre. Bref, en tant qu'argument logique, tout cela ne vaut rien. C'est au contraire un appel à l'émotion dont le but est d'étouffer toute raison. Il s'agit, à coup d'associations et dissocations entre amis et ennemis, de projeter un cadre binaire manichéen entre démocratie et non-démocratie, et de forcer l'interlocuteur à choisir son camp par un chantage affectif. Tout aussi implicite dans l'argument ad hitlerum et ses variantes, le critère selon lequel le fait que la vie est plus douce dans les démocraties occidentales modernes que dans l'Allemagne nazie, la Corée du nord communiste ou tout autre régime honni, fait de "la démocratie", concept jamais précisé, le meilleur régime au monde. C'est mettre la barre bien bas pour juger de la démocratie et lui attribuer la perfection politique, alors même que l'on semble exiger de toute idée rivale qu'elle ait déjà réalisé le paradis sur terre avant de lui accorder voix au chapitre. Encore une fois un deux poids, deux mesures caractéristique de l'arrêtducrime: tous les arguments sont bons pour justifier l'orthodoxie et rejeter l'hétérodoxie; et il ne faut jamais appliquer un argument universellement à toutes les thèses en présence, mais seulement éristiquement à celle que l'on veut favoriser ou contrer. D'ailleurs, si on creuse, s'agit-il bien de la démocratie qui rend ces pays occidentaux si libres et prospères? Ou la démocratie ne serait-elle au contraire qu'un parasite qui se repaît de la liberté et de la prospérité de ces pays, qu'elle détruit lentement? Cela pourrait-il expliquer pourquoi la démocratie est un échec patent dans tous les autres pays où elle a été essayée, qui n'avaient pas de tradition de liberté et de prospérité antérieure et supérieure à ladite démocratie? De telles suggestions horrifieront le bon croyant. À l'ère de l'antiracisme et du relativisme culturel, autant suggérer que les autres pays votent mal parce qu'ils sont peuplés de bougnouls, de nègres et de chinetoques. Or, les différences génétiques et culturelles n'ayant par axiome démocratique aucune incidence sur le sort du pays, la seule explication possible est celle de la prévalence ou non dans ces pays de la Démocratie, substance aussi rare que mystérieuse qu'il faudra cultiver, ou encore l'intervention faste ou néfaste, patente ou occulte, d'une puissance étrangère. Pour le bon croyant, si la démocratie ne fonctionne nulle part où on l'essaie en dehors de l'Occident, que ce soit en Russie, en Algérie, au Zimbabwe, en Palestine, au Venezuela, en Malaisie ou ailleurs, voire si elle ne fonctionne pas si bien que ça en Occident même, cela n'est par définition jamais la faute de la Démocratie (forcément avec un D majuscule), mais au contraire d'un défaut de démocratie. Peut-être faut-il qu'un sauveur américain vienne apporter la vraie démocratie; ou peut-être un sauveur anti-américain; mais enfin, vivement un sauveur ou autre homme providentiel tout de même pour arrêter les dégâts en prenant les rênes du pouvoir malgré l'effroyable issue des urnes. Si les citoyens votent mal, qu'on les juge soit trop à gauche, soit trop à droite, soit trop religieux, soit trop anti-religieux, soit trop racistes, soit trop allophiles, soit trop partisans, soit trop dénués de principes, ce n'est pas parce que la démocratie est fondée sur des prémisses absurdes et des incitations perverses; c'est parce qu'il n'y a pas assez de démocratie. J'aimerais bien qu'on me donne un démocratomètre permettant de mesurer le degré de démocratie d'une nation. Cela se compte-il à la fréquence des élections? À leur taux de participation? Au nombre de factions qui se disputent le pouvoir et à la fréquence de leur alternance au pouvoir? À la divergence radicale d'opinion entre ces factions opposées témoignant d'intérêts conflictuels déchirant le pays, ou au contraire leur consensus par lequel les électeurs sont privés de tout choix véritable? Au degré de soutien électoral au leader bien aimé, ou au contraire au dégoût avec lequel il est à peine préféré à son rival malheureux? Ah soudain, j'en vois mesurer le degré de santé "démocratique" d'un pays en regardant s'il y règne la liberté d'expression et d'action, ou si on y subit l'arbitraire politico-administratif qui opprime quand il est strictement appliqué, et par la corruption duquel les multiples détenteurs de ce pouvoir rackettent les citoyens quand ils acceptent sélectivement de les épargner. Mais quel rapport y a-t-il là à la démocratie en tant que régime politique? Strictement aucun. Pour autant que ces mesures mesurent effectivement la santé d'un pays, c'est qu'elles mesurent en effet son degré de libéralisme, de liberté individuelle, et non pas de quelconque "démocratie". Si vous ne pouvez dire ce que vous pensez ni faire ce que vous voulez, alors il devient très important de savoir qui sera au pouvoir, élu ou non élu. Mais si vous êtes libre de toute intervention de leur part, qu'importent les rigolos qui se parent de titres qui ne vous concernent pas, élus ou non élus? Un pays où se fait toujours élire le même président à la tête de son parti qui contrôle le pays est tout à fait démocratique. Mais il n'est pas libre. L'Establishment d'un tel pays a une plus étroite mainmise sur la société que celui d'un pays occidental, mainmise dont il use violemment et maladroitement; cela ne veut pas dire que le gouvernement ne résulte pas d'une élection "chez eux", ou que l'Establishment ne contrôle pas fermement le pouvoir "chez nous". En fin de compte, ce qui compte n'est pas tant de savoir par quel moyen technique une personne au pouvoir y est arrivée, mais de savoir si cette personne possède le pouvoir de vous imposer ce que vous ne voulez pas; le problème n'est pas le mode de détermination des détenteurs du pouvoir, le problème est le pouvoir politique lui-même. Alors qu'apporte de magique la démocratie? Et d'ailleurs, qu'est-ce donc que la démocratie? Car la confusion règne sur ce qu'est la démocratie. La Démocratie, c'est le Bien par définition, par axiome. Être opposé à la Démocratie, c'est le Mal par le même axiome. Quiconque voudrait jeter un regard critique sur cet axiome est ipso facto un idéologue dogmatique, qui se rapproche forcément des idéologies nauséabondes que tous condamnent. (Notons que quand des opinions ne relèvent pas de l'orthodoxie officielle, elles constituent une idéologie; quant à l'orthodoxie officielle, elle n'a rien d'une idéologie, car elle simplement la vérité évidente que toutes les personnes saines reconnaissent comme telle.) Et comme nul ne jette de regard critique, ce qu'est précisément la Démocratie n'est pas clair: axiomes autoritaires et phrases toutes faites se conjuguent mal avec la compréhension de ce que peuvent bien vouloir dire les mots familiers que l'on ânonne sans cesse dans le bon ordre, et qui n'ont par là de "sens" que comme mantra répétée pour éloigner le mal. La Démocratie est un Bien, convenons-en, mais de quel Bien s'agit-il donc? S'agit-il d'un principe électoral? S'il y a des urnes qui sont proprement employées, selon l'une des centaines de variantes répertoriées, alors il s'agirait d'une démocratie... et s'il en sort que Robespierre, Napoléon, Hitler, Allende, le FIS, Putin, Mugabe ou tout autre personnage infâme est élu, ce serait forcément que quelqu'un a truqué l'élection, qui a été volée, ou manipulé la campagne, qui a été faussée — car le peuple est infaillible et la démocratie marche par définition; seule une infâme machination peut donner lieu à un résultat mauvais au sortir des urnes. La démocratie est-elle un principe partisan? Si les hommes au pouvoir chantent les louanges de la démocratie, alors il s'agirait d'une démocratie. Si au contraire ils manquent à se réclamer de l'idéologie démocratique, ils ne sont pas d'authentiques démocrates. Quand bien même une majorité voterait pour eux, ce serait le résultat d'une manipulation, d'une "fausse conscience". Les authentiques démocrates cherchent à satisfaire le Peuple, leur opposition n'est faite que de populistes qui en appelent aux bas instincts du vulgum pecus. Si le peuple vote mal et que les authentiques démocrates ne sont pas élus, c'est donc par définition qu'il n'y a pas assez de démocratie. Vive le parti qui se dit démocrate, quel que soit le résultat des élections, et même qu'il y ait ou non des élections digne de ce nom, la mainmise du Parti sur les élections palliant à l'insuffisance sinon de démocratie parmi la population. La démocratie est-elle un principe transcendental? Par un Mystère quasi-divin, l'issue des urnes se transsubtantie en Volonté du Peuple. Il ne s'agit plus de la simple expression par une toute relative majorité d'électeurs d'une mince préférence parmi un nombre limité de choix qu'on leur a présentés; il s'agit de Volonté du Peuple, d'un mandat qui fait de l'élu le représentant de tous les habitants de son pays ou sa circonscription, même ceux qui s'estiment trahi par ses décisions, même ceux qui ont seulement voté pour lui par défaut, même ceux qui ont voté contre lui, même ceux qui n'ont pas voté, même ceux qui n'ont pas le droit de vote, même ceux qui sont arrivés après l'élection, même ceux qui ne sont pas "citoyens". Par ce mandat, il possède une procuration de la part de toutes ces personnes, et peut prendre en leur nom des décisions qui les concerneront tous, ainsi que leurs descendants et successeurs pour l'éternité à venir. Le résultat est bon et juste et nul parmi eux n'a rien à redire puisque c'est "eux" qui l'ont élu. Si la démocratie a de mauvais résultat, c'est que "le peuple" est mauvais et l'a bien mérité. On pourra combiner ces principes: le peuple n'est jamais si bien servi que par le Parti du Peuple, qui s'il perd parfois contre le parti des démagogues populistes, exprime néanmoins la véritable Volonté du Peuple, qu'il sait lire à travers les opinions électorales issues des manipulations de l'Anti-Peuple. C'est ainsi que la Démocratie justifie le pouvoir arbitraire de la bureaucratie inamovible non élue du Service Public, pouvoir illimité puisqu'il traduit la Volonté du Peuple, transmise par les politiciens élus, malgré ceux du mauvais parti, en une seconde Transsubstantiation Mystérieuse. Les authentiques démocrates sont donc les experts à la main sur le coeur qui guident le peuple contre les vélléités de l'issue des urnes. Bref, quoi que vous direz, en fin de compte, la Démocratie, c'est Bien, toutes les choses Bien naissent de la démocratie, tous les démocrates ont un bon fond, et tous les gens bien sont démocrates. Les ennemis de la démocratie sont tous des Méchants, et tous les Méchants (notamment les électeurs d'en face) sont en fait des Ennemis de la Démocratie (la vraie); on ne devrait pas laisser se présenter de tels candidats ni laisser répéter leurs slogans anti-démocratiques, il devrait y avoir des limites au Mal. Après tout, la démocratie c'est le "gouvernement du peuple, par le peuple, pour le peuple", quoi que cela peuve bien vouloir dire, et le peuple c'est bien. Se dire contre la démocratie, c'est se dire contre le peuple; c'est donc identique à en appeler au massacre du peuple en un vaste génocide. Le mot "Démocratie" n'est bien sûr pas le seul à régner incontestable et incontesté parmi les étiquettes axiomatiques du Bien, après avoir détrôné le mot "Dieu" et la Religion. Ainsi par exemple le mot "République" est aussi sacré. Le livre "La République" de Platon peut et doit donc être vénérée au seul titre que son titre (tel que traditionnellement traduit en français moderne) est ce mot sacré; peu importe le contenu totalitaire, sexiste, raciste ou esclavagiste du rigide système de caste proposé; si le nom est bon, tout est bon. "Citoyen" se place bien haut aussi. Vous n'aurez aucun mal à trouvez les mots clefs dénotant axiomatiquement le Bien et ceux affublant axiomatiquement le Mal. C'est pourquoi, en conclusion, je me garde de critiquer le moins du monde la Démocratie. La Démocratie, c'est Bien. Par définition. Prétendre le contraire implique de parler une langue aussi étrangère au français contemporain que de blasphémer contre l'Église aurait été étranger au français d'il n'y a pas si longtemps. Non. Je veux parler français. Je ne me battrai pas sur les mots. J'accepte les mots. Maintenant je me bats sur leur sens. Donc, bien sûr la Démocratie, c'est Bien. La République, c'est Bien. La dérive anti-démocratique, c'est Mal. L'action Citoyenne, c'est Bien. Et justement, je trouve que tout ce processus électoral n'a rien de démocratique, voyez-vous; le monde serait plus démocratique, le peuple aurait plus de pouvoir, si chaque citoyen pouvait influencer directement les décisions de la société à hauteur de ses propres contributions sans passer par l'intermédiaire d'un monopole fait d'hommes politiques et de bureaucrates. Ce que je combats dans le régime actuel, ce n'est évidemment pas la Démocratie, qui est Bien, mais une trompeuse apparence de démocratie; ce n'est forcément pas la République, qui est au-dessus de tout, mais ce qui n'a de république que le nom. Et c'est pourquoi je ne propose surtout pas de combattre la démocratie, mais je propose au contraire de la renouveler et de la rendre plus citoyenne. Vive la démocratie, la vraie, la démocratie avec un petit d! Note: une version de cet article a été reprise par Contrepoints.

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To take five and return four, isn't giving — it's stealing. To take five by force, and return four under condition of obedience, is worse than stealing — it's enslaving. When most of these four are "returned" in the form of monopolized "services", charged a hefty price despite their inferior quality, and mixed with a large dose of propaganda — it's Government. And you demand, to boot, that the victims be grateful? It's so funny I'll cry!

Prendre cinq et rendre quatre, ce n'est pas donner — c'est voler. Prendre cinq de force, rendre quatre sous condition d'obéissance, c'est pire que voler — c'est asservir. Quand de plus ces quatre sont "rendus" sous la forme de "services" monopolisés, facturés au prix fort malgré leur qualité inférieure, et mélangés à une grande dose de propagande — c'est l'État. Et tu voudrais qu'en plus, les victimes soient reconnaissantes? Mais c'est drôle à en pleurer!

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Having argued the relevance of political reasoning, I'd like to illustrate how this reasoning may be conducted.

While my friend Nasreddin Hodja chastises me for daring to take sides in conflicts that he thinks I should avoid, I think that he brilliantly uses himself the very proficiency that I'm trying to illustrate and encourage with my previous propositions: when others arbitrarily compare two abstract alternatives of a choice unavailable to anyone according to a few criteria of which they presuppose the relevance (often in a mystic quest of purity) while ignoring infinitely many other potential criteria, hodja precisely finds an objective holistic criterion to compare the relative overall goodness of two countries — the massive revealed preferences of migrants and non-migrants between these countries, migration being a concrete choice actually available to many.

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Mon ami Bernhard m'envoie un lien vers un article prétendant dénoncer le prix de l'anarchie par des modèles mathématiques.

Cet article est tellement faux que j'ai du mal à imaginer comment un auteur apparemment intelligent et capable de raisonnement logique peut amonceller autant de sophismes. Comme quoi, le formalisme logique détaché du réel n'est pas la raison, mais la ratiocination des superstitions irrationnelles.

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At a recent talk at BU about Consciousness, Steven Horst, a professor of philosophy at Wesleyan advanced an apparently well-known argument by Frank Jackson. The argument uses the thought experiment of a woman named Mary, kept in a controlled environment of black, white and grey, and at the same time made to know everything that the most advanced future (omni)science of the physical world can possibly tell her about the brain. Now, argues Jackson, when she is made to see something red at last, she learns something new that could not be contained in such knowledge. And thus, concludes Horst with Jackson, there is something beyond the physical world that is necessary for this experience to happen.

Of course this vulgar mystical argument is based on a typical confusion between object and representation — the ultimate source of insanity according to Korzybski.

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It's never as much fun bashing conservatives as it is bashing socialists (or their mini-me incarnations as social-democrats or liberals as they are called in the USA). Indeed, conservatives are rather openly irrational and anti-rational and have simpler absurdities, whereas socialists hide their irrationality under false claims of rationality, and build intricate network of lies to cover their absurdities. The battle of conservatives against socialists is really the battle of stupidity against evil. The zero against the negative: Whichever side wins, we lose - though admittedly not as much at once. And these two aspects of Statism feed each other.

Nevertheless, it is time for me to tackle the conservative argument, or lack thereof. I'll do my best to do it in the randian tradition of reduction to clarity. If my argument doesn't satisfy you, you can still peruse Hayek's classic Why I am not a Conservative.

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Voici en avant-première le tout dernier article de François Guillaumat et Georges Lane sur la fameuse Loi de Bitur-Camember.

Pour rappel, La loi de Bitur-Camember fut originellement publiée dans le Tocqueville Magazine du 21 mai 2002. J'en ai fait l'exposé dans le billet de mon blog: Redistribution = Dissipation. La BD de Christophe d'où provient le nom est aussi disponible sur mon blog: On ne pense pas à tout.

Pourquoi la loi de Bitur-Camember

François Guillaumat et Georges Lane

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Oui, la responsabilité individuelle est une "fiction". Tandis, que "la société", "l'utilité publiique", "l'intérêt nazional" (socialiiiste), le "paradiis communiste", c'est quelque chose de tout-à-fait concret, de parfaitement défini, et de merveilleusement incarné par notre glorieux État et sa bienveillante Administrazion, -- sous condition toutefois que ce soit mon parti, ma faction, mes opinions, mon autorité, qui y prédomine -- sinon, ce même État est un instrument d'oppression aux mains de l'ÉnemydeklaSS. Bon, il y a malheureusement peu de chance que mon avis personnel soit pris en considérazion -- c'est pourquoi je soutiens pleinement la candidature de X..., chef que je me suis désigné, qui est un homme parfaitement droit et honnête, compétent et intellligent, bon et courageux, et surtout, qui ne possède aucun préjugé (différent des miens) (à ce que je sache) (d'après ce qu'il ressort de sa campagne) (du moins en comparaison de toute autre personne) (si l'on restreint le choix aux candidats engagés) (voire à ceux qui ont une chance de passer) (oops, ça ne fait plus grand monde) (merde alors, il ne reste plus qu'à voter Chirac).

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Petite question à nos amis les bêtes: socialistes, communistes, fascistes, gauchistes, alter-mondialistes et autres collectivistes sous quelque nom que ce soit. Admettons un instant que Robespierre, Lénine, Staline, Hitler, Mao, Kim Il Sung, Castro, Pol Pot, et autres joyeux drilles, n'étaient pas de vrais socialistes, dès lors qu'ils sont unanimement condamnés comme dictateurs sanguinaires (faits historiques sur lesquels nos z-âmes-il-est-bête sont par ailleurs des négationnistes jusqu'au-delà de l'indécence). Admettons donc un instant. Admettons aussi que des socialistes célèbres comme Marx ou George Bernard Shaw se soient légèrement emportés en appelant au génocide systématique des races et autres masses impropres au paradis socialiste, et que ce faisant, ils soient ipso facto (quoique momentanément) sortis du socialisme. Veuillons bien admettre. Soit. Et pendant qu'on y est, mettons de côté la ruine, la famine, la misère, le délabrement, la pollution, la bureaucratie, la corruption, l'injustice, la peur, l'oppression et la bêtise qui règnent systématiquement là où le socialisme est censément appliqué — admettons qu'à chaque fois, ce n'était pas là le vrai socialisme. De même, oublions l'appauvrissement, le marasme, la crise, l'inflation, le chômage, la violence et autres problèmes de société qui adviennent quand on applique un peu de socialisme dans une société encore relativement libre. Veuillons bien accorder que ces tentatives ne relevaient pas non plus du vrai socialisme. Je suis d'humeur conciliante aujourd'hui, et je veux bien concéder tout cela, et bien plus encore.

Mais alors, voici la question, portant sur un point que j'avoue avoir quelqu'hésitation à concéder: chers zamilébettes, qui nous dit que vous êtes de meilleurs socialistes que ne l'étaient vos éminents prédécesseurs, que vous vous comporterez mieux, et obtiendrez de meilleurs résultats?

Ah, j'oubliais: il n'y a que l'intention qui compte. Ne réflichissons pas. Émouvons-nous. Et haïssons ensemble l'ÉnemydeklAASSSS! (Note pour les retardataires: aujourd'hui, cet ennemi n'est plus le juif (quoique), c'est l'américain.)

Citation du jour:

Ne considérez pas les Collectivistes comme des idéalistes sincères mais fourvoyés. La proposition de réduire certains hommes à l'esclavage au profit d'autres hommes n'est pas un idéal; la brutalité n'a rien d'idéaliste, quel que soit son objet. Ne dites jamais que le désir de faire le bien par la force relève d'une bonne intention. Ni la soif de pouvoir ni la stupidité ne sont de bonnes intentions. — Ayn Rand

While in the States, I had an argument with, of all persons, a French man. He argued for relativism, that true and false do not matter, and might not exist at all, that every situation is unique, etc. Yeah sure! His example went that everytime he heard that same Opera was unique. And my reply was that everytime he'd have to listen to the noise of a jackhammer for two uninterrupted hours would be just as unique. He was an extreme example of what Ayn Rand called the anti-conceptual mentality.

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Jeudi 20 janvier 2005, j'étais de par ma réputation de libertarien invité de Henri de Lesquen dans son émission Le Libre Journal des idées politiques sur Radio-Courtoisie, face à André Bonnet dans le rôle du catholique-traditionnaliste et à Henri de Lesquen lui-même (en l'absence du troisième invité initialement prévu) dans le rôle du libéral-conservateur. Henri de Lesquen avait articulé son émission en trois partie, définies par les questions suivantes: Un état laïque peut-il avoir une morale?, les droits de l'homme peuvent-ils tenir lieu de morale?, Faut-il avoir peur de l'ordre moral?. J'ai été je l'avoue très mauvais: j'ai tenté sans cesse et trop rigidement de revenir au plan que j'avais établi, au lieu de m'adapter aux interruptions et digressions de l'animateur; aussi, j'ai trouvé les bonnes répliques après l'émission plutôt que pendant, et c'est vous qui devez subir maintenant ce que je n'ai pas su dire alors.

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The guys from the Libertarian Party, including their presidential candidate, and those who follow their line of non-interventionist nightwatchman government fail to be libertarians in quite an important way.

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Dans une discussion rationnelle, chacun explore la structure conceptuelle de l'autre -- mais aussi la sienne propre, qui restait souvent implicite jusqu'à être révélée par la confrontation. Cette structure est caractérisée par ses distinctions et ses identifications, c'est-à-dire par la façon dont on distingue ou identifie les situations en leur appliquant le même concept ou un concept différent. L'interlocuteur rationnel tente de comprendre ces distinctions et identifications, avant de pouvoir juger si oui ou non elles lui sont pertinentes -- c'est-à-dire propres à faciliter et améliorer le processus de décision et d'action humaines.

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Juste parce que j'affirme que Chirac est mieux que Le Pen (ou que Le Pen est moins mauvais que Chirac) ne fait pas de moi un chiraquien (ou un lepéniste). D'ailleurs, je n'ai voté ni l'un ni l'autre. Une préférence, affirmation descriptive, n'est donc pas une action, pas un engagement de ressource. Je n'ai "soutenu" ou "défendu" ni Chirac ni Le Pen. Face à l'alternative proposée, je ne réponds ni oui, ni non, mais Mu. C'est-à-dire que je rejette l'alternative et je refuse de cautionner l'un ou l'autre, comme je suis (heureusement) encore libre de le faire. En fait, je ne cautionne même pas l'élection: je boycotte les urnes par principe.

Et pour rendre la chose plus claire encore: entre Hitler et Staline, si on me forçait à choisir, je choisirais bien l'un des deux. Cela ne fait de moi ni un hitlérien ni un stalinien. Et d'ailleurs, ma préférence marginale pour l'un n'empêche pas que je n'ai rien fait pour soutenir l'un ou l'autre. Mu. Bien au contraire, j'engage ma part de ressources dans la recherche thérapeutique contre le national- et l'international- socialisme. (Si ce cas-là vous paraît trop difficile à trancher, remplacez l'un des deux par un méchant "évidemment" moindre mais toujours néanmoins monstrueux à vos yeux, que ce soit Mussolini, Roosevelt, Napoléon, Barbe Bleue, etc.)

Ceux qui forcent d'autres à choisir sont des criminels. Ceux qui interprètent une préférence comme un engagement sont des imbéciles.

J'aime bien cette cinglante de Tom G. Palmer:

I'm sure that I'll get the usual share of you're objectively pro-war email from the usual crackpots. I'm not. (I'm amazed that so many people assume that if you criticize a bad argument against the war, that makes you pro-war, rather than anti-bad argument and therefore pro-good argument.) But anyway, screw 'em; I've got better things to do than to worry about that sort.

Aux ceusses de tous bords (j'en rencontre surtout mais pas exclusivement des anti-guerre) qui ont du mal à vouloir comprendre mon mu comme réponse aux questions sur la guerre en Irak, voici une n-ième clarification, élaborée suite à une discussion sur liberaux.org (quelques précédentes clarifications, entre autres: 1, 2, 3).

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Do you prefer X or Y?

Mu. The question is irrelevant to me, because it's not a choice I have or am ever likely to have.

OK, but what if you could make this choice?

How so?

For instance, imagine you had a magic wand that you could wave either way, to achieve either X or Y?

You mean a device possessing a great power capable of achieving either X or Y?

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In his practice, Albert Ellis, inventor of the Rational-Emotional Behavioral Therapy, traced down most psychological trouble to irrational demands of 100% guarantees of success -- or at least of non-failure -- that people make out of themselves, out of other people, out of future natural events: thinking in turns of MUSTs and SHOULDs instead of CANs and MAYs. Teleological normative discourse versus purposeful descriptive discourse. Well, once again, and quite unsurprisingly, this is perfectly in concordance with my claim that belief in the State is a mental pathology.

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Ideas matter. There are correct ideas, and wrong ideas. This is the agreement implicit in any sincere debate. Without this agreement, the content of any debate is irrelevant. (Of course, there are also social interactions where content doesn't matter -- but they are not debates, precisely.) Of course, the debate itself is only considered useful if there is a mismatch of knowledge between participants. If they think the same, they have nothing to learn but the fact that they think the same. And if they think differently, it means that at least one has something to teach to the other, that the other doesn't know, or currently disagrees with.

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Dear Roderick,

in your blog entry Are We All Consequentialists Now?, you argue against consequentialism. What a joke! Your opposition between consequences and principles is a false dichotomy. The objective world is one and does not depend on the point of view taken. When you consider things up to isomorphism, you realize that consequentialism is but the requirement that theories be logically coherent. Denying consequentialism is denying that logic applies in philosophical matters. Deontics and utilism (to reuse the term by Hazlitt instead of the over-ended "utilitarianism" -- but then why not usism?) are but different points of view, and can but coincide in their conclusions. As Bastiat would put it, there are Harmonies in Nature. These harmonies are but the correspondances between various points of view due to the fact that they all valid points of view but describe the very same underlying structure from various different angles. Any possible contradiction is but a mistake in whoever reaches an absurd conclusion, and not an indictment of the coherence of the universe. There is no contradiction in the universe. Let's leave philosophical dilemmas to absurdists.

Roderick replied:

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