unqualified reservations

Unqualified Reservations

The Complete Archives

Mencius Moldbug

Contents

Foreword xxiii

1 A formalist manifesto 1

2 The case against democracy: ten red pills 13

3 Why do atheists believe in religion? 19

4 Plague of Dead Sharks, by Alan Dugan 25

5 My new comments policy 27

6 Jaroslav Haek and the kernel-monitor meme 29

7 Terminology and an open floor 37

8 What if theres no such thing as chaotic good? 39

9 The genius of the New Deal design 45

10 Two kinds of repeaters 47

11 Castes of the United States 53

12 Whats ominous is that this dreary world comes after years ofmeticulous planning 57

iii

iv CONTENTS

13 Bad Poem of the Week: "Vanitas Mundi" by Robin Ekiss 59

14 This richly colored medium square 63

15 Consider the true cost of living with Wiccaphobia 67

16 The Antisingularity 69

17 The iron polygon: power in the United States 73

18 Secularists for secularism! 79

19 Idealism is not great 81

20 The Laphroaig is unawarded 85

21 Our planet is infested with pseudo-atheists 87

22 "The evidence of such sheer dishonesty in science was hard toaccept." 93

23 The magic of symmetric sovereignty 95

24 Understanding racial idealism 101

25 Popularchy: rule of the People 105

26 The unlikely appeal of nonidealism 111

27 The Fnargland Grand Challenge 117

28 Good government as good customer service 119

29 L.E. Sissman: poet of the century 123

30 Five ways to classify belief systems 127

CONTENTS v

31 The Democrats: party of lies 131

32 The reconciliation of government with liberty 137

33 Hillary fires back 141

34 The generalists stone: a stable mind 145

35 Principles and platitudes 149

36 The mystery of the gray government 151

37 Why theres no such thing as "liberal media bias" 157

38 Separation of information and security 163

39 UR will return on Wednesday, June 20 167

40 Friction in theory and practice 169

41 Moderation 177

42 Why conservatives never quite catch the boat 179

43 Some objections to ultracalvinism 187

44 Why I am not an anti-Semite 191

45 The ultracalvinist hypothesis: in perspective 197

46 Cement 203

47 Cryptocalvinism, slightly tweaked 205

48 The Rawlsian god: cryptocalvinism in action 211

vi CONTENTS

49 Carlyle rages against the coming of the light 217

50 The mystery of pacifism 221

51 Why, when, and how to abolish the United States 227

52 I wonder if Jonah Goldberg talks about this 235

53 A typical moderate-liberal-constitutional-monarchist thought 247

54 UR-ICF #1: Carlyle, Montagu, Nock 249

55 My Navrozov moments 253

56 The Pigeon 269

57 Universalism: postwar progressivism as a Christian sect 271

58 Administrivia 279

59 Miscellaneous answers to unanswered comments 281

60 Democracy as an adaptive fiction 289

61 Conrad reviews Africa Addio 299

62 Samantha Power rules the world 303

63 Ten lines for Dorothy Parker 309

64 Universalism and original sin (guest post by Michael S.) 311

65 Whats wrong with CS research 315

66 The country that used to exist 329

CONTENTS vii

67 James Burnhams Dante: Politics as Wish 337

68 The secret of anti-Americanism 357

69 Be infinitely devoted to your beloved owners 369

70 Against political freedom 383

71 "Life is better without politics." 393

72 Rotary management: the next big thing 395

73 A landscape of bewildering contradictions 403

74 Uberfact: the ultimate social verifier 407

75 A reservationist epistemology 415

76 A brief terminology adjustment 421

77 The state is not a stable eleemosynary institution 423

78 Statistical analysis moons the bull 429

79 A general theory of corruption 435

80 Mediocracy: definition, etiology and treatment 443

81 The real meaning of diversity 453

82 Method and apparatus for safe and effective regime change 463

83 Further conversation on regime change 473

84 Since some people seem to still think Im exaggerating this stuff 485

viii CONTENTS

85 Is journalism official? 487

86 Overcome like a fiend by the urge to link 501

87 How Dawkins got pwned (part 1) 503


89 Duelnode: another free startup idea 531

90 Interstitial comments on Dawkins 537


92 Some quick meta-comments 553



95 Austria felix 595


97 Musharrafs rebellion, or: how to read a newspaper 605

98 URs advice for President Musharraf 625

99 Pakistani emigres on the Musharraf question 631

100 Nuclear neocolonialism: a formalist design for nuclear law 635

101 Who the heck is Benn Steil? 641

102 Five problems with Google Android 651

CONTENTS ix

103 Ian Smith: 19192007 659

104 Why I am not a white nationalist 661

105 The Jewish question and other links 673

106 Tryfon Tolides: an almost pure empty poetry 677

107 Matthew Yglesias: anatomy of an intellectual crackhead 683

108 Short administrative note 707

109 Why I am not a libertarian 709

110 Neocameralism and the escalator of massarchy 731

111 Benazir Bhutto: mob hit in Pakistan 747

112 Poem for the new year 757

113 A straightforward explanation of the present financial crisis (part1) 759

114 Not Ron Paul! 779

115 Questions for Arnold Kling, Megan McArdle, Will Wilkinson,and all other Beltway libertarians 781

116 How to actually defeat the US government 785

117 Revipedia: how to defeat the US government, reprise 801

118 How to defeat the US government: summary 817

119 How to actually restore the gold standard (or not) 823

x CONTENTS

120 How I stopped believing in democracy 837

121 URs endorsements for 2008 859

122 URs comment policy 863

123 How to read and enjoy bogus history 865

124 A theory of the ruling underclass 877

125 Democracy as a historical phenomenon 897

126 Return to Castle Goldenstein: the gold market in a nutshell 919

127 UR will return on Thursday, April 17 939

128 Sibyl Carlyle Moldbug, 3/18/08 947

129 UR returns 949

130 An open letter to open-minded progressives (part 1) 951

131 Open letter pt. 2: more historical anomalies 971

132 OL3: the Jacobite history of the world 995

133 OL4: Dr. Johnsons hypothesis 1017

134 OL5: the shortest way to world peace 1031

135 OL6: the lost theory of government 1075

136 OL7: the ugly truth about government 1091

137 OL8: a reset is not a revolution 1121

CONTENTS xi

138 OL9: how to uninstall a cathedral 1143

139 OLX: a simple sovereign bankruptcy procedure 1165

140 OLXI: the truth about left and right 1191

141 Gasoline 1211

142 OLXII: what is to be done? 1213

143 OLXIII: tactics and structures of any prospective restoration 1235

144 OLXIV: rules for reactionaries 1251

145 Grants Tomb 1287

146 Standards 1289

147 The Novelist 1291

148 Resartus: a social revision engine 1293

149 De gustibus non computandum: or, economics needs a divorce 1305

150 America: vampire of the world (part 1) 1317

151 Sarah Palin: the proletarian candidate 1323

152 How to occupy and govern a foreign country 1329

153 America: vampire of the world (part 2) 1345

154 A clean-slate accounting of the dollar (part 1) 1365

155 Odds and ends 1377

xii CONTENTS

156 Maturity transformation considered harmful: an unauthorizedbiography of the bank crisis 1379

157 UR will return on Thursday, November 6 1397

158 A regime-change signal: maturity crisis in gold? 1399

159 The Misesian explanation of the bank crisis 1405

160 Mxico 1415

161 Did Barack Obama go to Columbia? 1417

162 Another interpretation of Obama at Columbia 1423

163 President Obama, with a little perspective 1429

164 A quick explanation of "fractional-reserve banking" 1439

165 Barack Obama, for the last time 1443

166 Patchwork: a positive vision (part 1) 1447

167 Patchwork 2: profit strategies for our new corporate overlords 1465

168 Patchwork 3: what we have and whats so bad about it 1477

169 Patchwork 4: a reactionary theory of world peace 1493

170 UR will return on Thursday, January 8 1509

171 Translating Asif Ali Zardari 1511

172 Nosedive 1519

173 A gentle introduction to Unqualified Reservations (part 1) 1521

CONTENTS xiii




177 Halogen 1623


179 Puffs of smoke from the gold volcano 1631


181 Lycidas Bull 1651


183 From Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen (Yeats) 1681

184 Pearl Harbor (Jeffers) 1683

185 The Raven 1687

186 The Geithner plan, slightly demystified 1689


188 America: zombie nation 1729

189 Kendo 1745

190 Quadrumana 1747

191 From Luigi Barzinis The Europeans 1749

xiv CONTENTS

192 Democraphobia goes (slightly) viral 1761

193 Preston Brooks, the Palestine lobby, and the Nolan chart 1773

194 Res Gestae 1783

195 Futarchy considered retarded 1785

196 Professor Hanson responds 1805

197 A Short Note on Demons 1807

198 Judge Sotomayor: a reactionary exegesis 1809

199 Evidence in current history 1829

200 The crimes of James von Brunn and Marcus Epstein 1841

201 mile Faguet on legal realism 1859

202 UR succumbs to virology 1861

203 Secession, liberty, and dictatorship 1863

204 Wolfram Alpha and hubristic user interfaces 1891

205 Why Carlyle matters 1903

206 Carlyle in the 20th century: fascism and socialism 1927

207 Poem 1963

208 URs crash course in sound economics 1965

209 UR is on vacation 1987

CONTENTS xv

210 From Cromer to Romer and back again: colonialism for the21st century 1993

211 Kennedy 2027

212 A rare public appearance 2033

213 A gentle introduction to Unqualified Reservations (part 9a) 2035

214 The Honduran rebellionor, States invisible world displayed 2057

215 Young America 2075

216 UR: banned in San Francisco 2077

217 Seasteading, without that warm glow 2101

218 Ends and odds 2121

219 UR postponed due to BTD 2133

220 Robert Lowell on the Obama prize 2135

221 A gentle introduction to Unqualified Reservations (part 9b) 2141

222 South Africa: a message to Jenny 2163

223 South Africa: the solution 2175

224 UR will ship no wine before its time 2179

225 Alien Acid Beast 2181

226 The Dire Problem and the Virtual Option 2183

227 Hunting for whites after the cancellation of the release of money 2201

xvi CONTENTS

228 A gentle introduction to Unqualified Reservations (part 9d) 2209

229 Climategate and other correspondence 2237

230 Gold and the central banks: the game theory 2251

231 Climategate: historys message 2261

232 Shooting the alligator and other conversations 2311

233 Expiring liquidity facilities: bad plan, Stan 2315

234 UR will return on January 7, 2010 2323

235 Maxwells equations of software 2325

236 Public appearance 2327

237 Urbit: functional programming from scratch 2329

238 The Hanson-Moldbug debate 2331

239 The Mencius Moldbug Babysitting Fund 2341

240 MMBF: 2-day results 2347

241 MMBF: 2 days left to give 2349

242 On sovereign financial reconciliation 2351

243 MMBF: the kittens are saved! 2367

244 From Mises to Carlyle: my sick journey to the dark side of theforce 2369

245 Maturity transformation: cat, bag, out 2393

CONTENTS xvii

246 PIPE shorting and Professor Hansons head 2395

247 Horseshoe Pit in Golden Gate Park 2401

248 One-sided conversation with a headless professor 2403

249 UR postponed due to BTD 2411

250 Uncorrected Evidence 39 2413

251 Corrected evidence 2423

252 World War II: primary sourcebook 2431

253 The future of search 2435

254 Divine-right monarchy for the modern secular intellectual 2445

255 The true election: a practical option for real political change 2459

256 The credit-default swap and the bullion banks; a question anda statement 2477

257 Join the Froude Society! 2485

258 Professors young and old: an involuntary debate 2491

259 Unarmed combat in the digital armchair 2495

260 Solzhenitsyn, "As Breathing and Consciousness Return," 1973 2499

261 Strange rumblings in Dollarstan 2503

262 Please comment on Froude, Maine and/or Carlyle 2509

263 President Colacho makes you his bitch 2511

xviii CONTENTS

264 Comments 2513

265 Three homeworks for Professor Hanson 2515

266 Actual letter to a liberal friend 2527

267 Race: a modest proposal 2535

268 Open thread for all birthers 2541

269 Abecedarium Nordmannicum 2543

270 The rabble of Imperial Rome 2545

271 Henry Beckett Moldbug 2549

272 Henry (9/11/10) 2551

273 Slow history and the mysterious 20th century 2553

274 Robespierre 2571

275 Democracy, cis and trans; Maines law 2573

276 UR: the heard-it-here-first files 2591

277 The Lightworker wants to touch your junk 2593

278 Homage to Slobodan Milosevic 2599

279 Monetary reconstruction: presented without comment 2603

280 The 20th century in two short quotes 2609

281 Your goverment in pictures, 1954 2611

CONTENTS xix

282 Egypt: US foreign policy at the nadir 2615

283 On government employment 2621

284 Pictures from the human-rights empire: a prose collage 2623

285 Viscount Hinchingbrooke demurs 2633

286 Libya, the nadir achieved 2663

287 A small segue of subject 2665

288 Ivory Coast: are they going to come and kill my cat? 2669

289 On monetary restandardization 2673

290 Carlyle and Froude on monarchy and religion 2697

291 USG: more Russian than the Tsar, more Muslim than Osama 2703

292 Slow history extravaganza 2705

293 A century of academic sovereignty 2709

294 Right-wing terrorism as folk activism 2711

295 The indisputable humanity of Anders Behring Breivik 2715

296 Dispatches from the real America 2731

297 Petition against the reactosphere 2749

298 The Reuther memorandum, 1961 2753

299 Movers and shakers in sports & leisure 2769

xx CONTENTS

300 Choose empire 2771

301 The demons 2773

302 Occasional discourse on the hate question 2779

303 Thos. Carlyle on Steve Jobs 2783

304 Professor Krugman on maturity transformation 2787

305 Personal cloud computing in 2020 (or not) 2793

306 The Holocaust: a Nazi perspective 2807

307 Three poems of Weldon Kees 2831

308 Race relations in early New York 2835

309 The kiss: "Stalin was feeling extremely gay" 2843

310 BIL in Long Beach, Mar 34 2855

311 The year of jellyfish 2857

312 Prussifornia 2873

313 Dominion 2875

314 Romney! He sucks! 2877

315 Adore the river of meat 2881

316 Some perspectives from Prudentius 2891

317 Are we big in France? 2897

CONTENTS xxi

318 Noam Chomsky killed Aaron Swartz 2899

319 Christians have right to vandalize abortion clinics, Duke lawprofessor claims 2905

320 How Bitcoin dies 2909

321 Charles Stross discovers the Cathedral 2917

322 The greatness of Lawrence Auster 2929

323 Sam Altman is not a blithering idiot 2937

324 RIP Bitcoin, I think 2961

325 Jacques Ellul on the demand for propaganda 2963

326 Two words for Tyler Cowen and Ilya Somin 2973

327 The path to (dark) enlightenment 2977

328 Lawrence Auster, 19492013 2981

329 Felix Salmons Bitcoin FUD 2983

330 Bitcoin is money, Bitcoin is a bubble 2991

331 Bitcoin panic light flashing bright amber 2999

332 Civil liberties and the single reactionary 3003

333 Technology, communism and the Brown Scare 3027

334 Urbit demo Sep 25 in SF 3055

335 Mr. Jones is rather concerned 3057

xxii CONTENTS

336 Crocodile Prayer 3075

ForewordThis document, available online at http://bit.ly/UR-complete, contains the com-plete archives (as of February 1, 2014) of the blog Unqualified Reservations byMencius Moldbug. Due to its (rather formidable) length, the text has not beenhand-edited, so in some places the formatting doesnt meet the usual standardsof professional typesetting (though it mostly looks pretty good). It was pro-duced at the request of Foseti and is designed mainly for hardened UR addicts.Readers who would prefer a pithier and more polished introduction to Mold-bugs thought should instead read one or more of the following:

A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations

An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives

How Dawkins Got Pwned

Moldbug on Carlyle

Each of the above ebooks is relatively short and has been extensively edited forappearance (and lightly edited for content), which makes for a more pleasantreading experience.

Unqualified Reservations: The Complete Archives has been prepared withpermission from the author, but its being distributed samizdat-style, so Men-cius is not responsible for any mistakes introduced by the production process.For now Im content to leave minor cosmetic issues uncorrected, but you canreport any critical errors or omissions to @lexcorvus or [email protected].

xxiii
http://bit.ly/UR-completehttp://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/http://foseti.wordpress.com/http://bit.ly/GI2URhttp://bit.ly/UROLOMPhttp://bit.ly/HDGPwnedhttp://bit.ly/MBCRLYLEhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdathttp://twitter.com/lexcorvusmailto:[email protected]?subject=Unqualified+Reservations

xxiv FOREWORD

Chapter 1

A formalist manifestoThe other day I was tinkering around in my garage and I decided to build a newideology.

What? I mean, am I crazy or something? First of all, you cant just build anideology. Theyre handed down across the centuries, like lasagna recipes. Theyneed to age, like bourbon. You cant just drink it straight out of the radiator.

And look what happens if you try. What causes all the problems of theworld? Ideology, thats what. What do Bush and Osama have in common?Theyre both ideological nutcases. Were supposed to need more of this?

Furthermore, its simply not possible to build a new ideology. People havebeen talking about ideology since Jesus was a little boy. At least! And Imsupposedly going to improve on this? Some random person on the Internet,who flunked out of grad school, who doesnt know Greek or Latin? Who do Ithink I am, Wallace Shawn?

All excellent objections. Lets answer them and then well talk about for-malism.

First, of course, there are a couple of beautifully aged traditional ideologieswhich the Internet now brings us in glorious detail. They go by lots of names,but lets call them progressivism and conservatism.

My beef with progressivism is that for at least the last 100 years, the vastmajority of writers and thinkers and smart people in general have been progres-sives. Therefore, any intellectual in 2007, which unless there has been somekind of Internet space warp and my words are being carried live on Fox News,

1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_Bride_%28film%29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism

2 CHAPTER 1. A FORMALIST MANIFESTO

is anyone reading this, is basically marinated in progressive ideology.Perhaps this might slightly impair ones ability to see any problems that

may exist in the progressive worldview.As for conservatism, not all Muslims are terrorists, but most terrorists are

Muslims. Similarly, not all conservatives are cretins, but most cretins are con-servatives. The modern American conservative movementwhich is paradox-ically much younger than the progressive movement, if only because it had tobe reinvented after the Roosevelt dictatorshiphas been distinctly affected bythis audience. It also suffers from the electoral coincidence that it has to de-spise everything that progressivism adores, a bizarre birth defect which doesnot appear to be treatable.

Most people who dont consider themselves progressives or conserva-tives are one of two things. Either theyre moderates, or theyre libertari-ans.

In my experience, most sensible people consider themselves moderate,centrist, independent, unideological, pragmatic, apolitical, etc. Con-sidering the vast tragedies wrought by 20th-century politics, this attitude isquite understandable. It is also, in my opinion, responsible for most of thedeath and destruction in the world today.

Moderation is not an ideology. It is not an opinion. It is not a thought.It is an absence of thought. If you believe the status quo of 2007 is basicallyrighteous, then you should believe the same thing if a time machine transportedyou to Vienna in 1907. But if you went around Vienna in 1907 saying thatthere should be a European Union, that Africans and Arabs should rule theirown countries and even colonize Europe, that any form of government exceptparliamentary democracy is evil, that paper money is good for business, thatall doctors should work for the State, etc., etc.well, you could probably findpeople who agreed with you. They wouldnt call themselves moderates, andnor would anyone else.

No, if you were a moderate in Vienna in 1907, you thought Franz JosefI was the greatest thing since sliced bread. So which is it? Hapsburgs, orEurocrats? Pretty hard to split the difference on that one.

In other words, the problem with moderation is that the center is notfixed. It moves. And since it moves, and people being people, people will try

3

to move it. This creates an incentive for violencesomething we formalists tryto avoid. More on this in a bit.

That leaves libertarians. Now, I love libertarians to death. My CPU practi-cally has a permanent open socket to the Mises Institute. In my opinion, anyonewho has intentionally chosen to remain ignorant of libertarian (and, in partic-ular, Misesian-Rothbardian) thought, in an era when a couple of mouse clickswill feed you enough high-test libertarianism to drown a moose, is not an intel-lectually serious person. Furthermore, I am a computer programmer who hasread far too much science fictiontwo major risk factors for libertarianism. SoI could just say, read Rothbard, and call it a day.

On the other hand, it is hard to avoid noticing two basic facts about theuniverse. One is that libertarianism is an extremely obvious idea. The other isthat it has never been successfully implemented.

This does not prove anything. But what it suggests is that libertarianism is,as its detractors are always quick to claim, an essentially impractical ideology.I would love to live in a libertarian society. The question is: is there a pathfrom here to there? And if we get there, will we stay there? If your answer toboth questions is obviously yes, perhaps your definition of obvious is notthe same as mine.

So this is why I decided to build my own ideologyformalism.Of course, there is nothing new in formalism. Progressives, conservatives,

moderates, and libertarians will all recognize large chunks of their own undi-gested realities. Even the word formalism is borrowed from legal formalism,which is basically the same idea in more modest attire.

I am not Vizzini. I am just some dude who buys a lot of obscure used books,and is not afraid to grind them down, add flavor, and rebrand the result as akind of political surimi. Most everything I have to say is available, with betterwriting, more detail and much more erudition, in Jouvenel, Kuehnelt-Leddihn,Leoni, Burnham, Nock, etc., etc.

If youve never heard of any of these people, neither had I until I startedthe procedure. If that scares you, it should. Replacing your own ideology isa lot like do-it-yourself brain surgery. It requires patience, tolerance, a highpain threshold, and very steady hands. Whoever you are, you already have anideology in there, and if it wanted to come out it would have done so on its
http://www.mises.org/http://balkin.blogspot.com/2006/12/fellow-liberals-be-legal-formalist.htmlhttp://www.amazon.com/Power-Natural-History-Its-Growth/dp/0865971137http://www.mises.org/books/liberty.pdfhttp://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/LFBooks/Leoni0151/FreedomAndLaw/0124_Bk.htmlhttp://www.amazon.com/Machiavellians-Defenders-Freedom-James-Burnham/dp/0895267853http://www.mises.org/books/nockmemoirs.pdf


own.There is no point in starting this messy experiment only to install some

other ideology thats the way it is just because someone said so. Formalism, aswell see, is an ideology designed by geeks for other geeks. Its not a kit. Itdoesnt come with batteries. You cant just pop it in. At best, its a rough start-ing point to help you build your own DIY ideology. If youre not comfortableworking with a table saw, an oscilloscope and an autoclave, formalism is notfor you.

That said:The basic idea of formalism is just that the main problem in human affairs

is violence. The goal is to design a way for humans to interact, on a planet ofremarkably limited size, without violence.

Especially organized violence. Next to organized human-on-human vio-lence, a good formalist believes, all other problemsPoverty, Global Warm-ing, Moral Decay, etc., etc., etc.are basically insignificant. Perhaps once weget rid of violence we can worry a little about Moral Decay, but given that or-ganized violence killed a couple of hundred million people in the last century,whereas Moral Decay gave us American Idol, I think the priorities are prettyclear.

The key is to look at this not as a moral problem, but as an engineeringproblem. Any solution that solves the problem is acceptable. Any solution thatdoes not solve the problem is not acceptable.

For example, there is an existing idea called pacifism, part of the generalprogressive suite, which claims to be a solution for violence. As I understandit, the idea of pacifism is that if you and I can not be violent, everyone else willnot be violent, too.

Theres no doubt in my mind that pacifism is effective in some cases. InNorthern Ireland, for example, it seems to be just the thing. But there is a kindof hundredth-monkey logic to it that consistently eludes my linear, Westernmind. It strikes me that if everyone is a pacifist and then one person decidesnot to be a pacifist, he will wind up ruling the world. Hmm.

A further difficulty is that the definition of violence isnt so obvious. IfI gently relieve you of your wallet, and you chase after me with your Glockand make me beg to be allowed to give it back, which of us is being violent?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacifism

5

Suppose I say, well, it was your walletbut its my wallet now?This suggests, at the very least, that we need a rule that tells us whose wallet

is whose. Violence, then, is anything that breaks the rule, or replaces it with adifferent rule. If the rule is clear and everyone follows it, there is no violence.

In other words, violence equals conflict plus uncertainty. While there arewallets in the world, conflict will exist. But if we can eliminate uncertaintyifthere is an unambiguous, unbreakable rule that tells us, in advance, who getsthe walletI have no reason to sneak my hand into your pocket, and you haveno reason to run after me shooting wildly into the air. Neither of our actions,by definition, can affect the outcome of the conflict.

Violence of any size makes no sense without uncertainty. Consider a war.If one army knows it will lose the war, perhaps on the advice of some infallibleoracle, it has no reason to fight. Why not surrender and get it over with?

But this has only multiplied our difficulties. Where do all these rules comefrom? Who makes them unbreakable? Who gets to be the oracle? Why is thewallet yours, rather than mine? What happens if we disagree on this? Iftheres one rule for every wallet, how can everyone remember them all? Andsuppose its not you, but me, whos got the Glock?

Fortunately, great philosophers have spent many long hours pondering thesedetails. The answers I give you are theirs, not mine.

First, one sensible way to make rules is that youre bound by a rule if,and only if, you agree to it. We dont have rules that are made by the godssomewhere. What we have is actually not rules at all, but agreements. Surely,agreeing to something and then, at your own convenience, un-agreeing to it, isthe act of a cad. In fact, when you make an agreement, the agreement itselfmay well include the consequences of this kind of irresponsible behavior.

If youre a wild man and you agree to nothingnot even that you wontjust kill people randomly on the streetthis is fine. Go and live in the jungle,or something. Dont expect anyone to let you walk around on their street,any more than they would tolerate, say, a polar bear. There is no absolutemoral principle that says that polar bears are evil, but their presence is just notcompatible with modern urban living.

We are starting to see two kinds of agreements here. There are agreementsmade with other specific individualsI agree to paint your house, you agree to


pay me. And there are agreements like, I wont kill anyone on the street. Butare these agreements really different? I dont think so. I think the second kindof agreement is just your agreement with whoever owns the street.

If wallets have owners, why shouldnt streets have owners? Wallets haveto have owners, obviously, because ultimately someone has to decide whathappens with the wallet. Does it ride off in your pocket, or mine? Streets stayput, but there are still a lot of decisions that have to be takenwho paves thestreet? When and why? Are people allowed to kill people on the street, or is itone of those special no-killing streets? What about street vendors? And so on.

Obviously, if I own 44th Street and you own 45th and 43rd, the possibilityof a complex relationship between us becomes nontrivial. And complexity isnext to ambiguity, which is next to uncertainty, and the Glocks come out again.So, realistically, we are probably talking more about owning not streets, butlarger, more clearly-defined unitsblocks, maybe, or even cities.

Owning a city! Now that would be pretty cool. But it gets us back to anissue that weve completely skipped, which is who owns what. How do wedecide? Do I deserve to own a city? Am I so meritorious? I think I am. Maybeyou could keep your wallet, and I could get, say, Baltimore.

There is this idea called social justice that a lot of people believe in. Thenotion is, in fact, fairly universal as of this writing. What it tells us is that Earthis small and has a limited set of resources, such as cities, which we all want asmuch of as possible. But we cant all have a city, or even a street, so we shouldshare equally. Because all of us people are equal and no one is more equal thananyone else.

Social justice sounds very nice. But there are three problems with it.One is that many of these nice things are not directly comparable. If I get an

apple and you get an orange, are we equal? One could debate the subjectwithGlocks, perhaps.

Two is that even if everyone starts with equal everything, people being dif-ferent, having different needs and skills and so on, and the concept of ownershipimplying that if you own something you can give it to someone else, all is notlikely to stay equal. In fact, its basically impossible to combine a system inwhich agreements stay agreed with one in which equality stays equal.

This tells us that if we try to enforce permanent equality, we can probably
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice

7

expect permanent violence. I am not a big fan of empirical evidence, but Ithink this prediction corresponds pretty well to reality.

But three, which is the real killerso to speakis that we are not, in fact,designing an abstract utopia here. We are trying to fix the real world, which incase you hadnt noticed, is extremely screwed up. In many cases, there is noclear agreement on who owns what (Palestine, anyone?), but most of the goodthings in the world do seem to have a rather definite chain of control.

If we have to start by equalizing the distribution of goods, or in fact bychanging this distribution at all, we are putting ourselves quite unnecessarilybehind the 8-ball. We are saying, we come in peace, we believe all should befree and equal, let us embrace. Put your arms around me. Feel that lump in myback pocket? Yup, thats what you think it is. And its loaded. Now hand overyour city / wallet / apple / orange, because I know someone who needs it morethan you.

The goal of formalism is to avoid this unpleasant little detour. Formalismsays: lets figure out exactly who has what, now, and give them a little fancycertificate. Lets not get into who should have what. Because, like it or not,this is simply a recipe for more violence. It is very hard to come up with a rulethat explains why the Palestinians should get Haifa back, and doesnt explainwhy the Welsh should get London back.

So far this probably sounds a lot like libertarianism. But theres a big dif-ference.

Libertarians may think the Welsh should get London back. Or not. I amstill not sure I can interpret Rothbard on this onewhich is, as weve seen, initself a problem.

But if there is one thing all libertarians do believe, its that the Americansshould get America back. In other words, libertarians (at least, real libertarians)believe the US is basically an illegitimate and usurping authority, that taxationis theft, that they are essentially being treated as fur-bearing animals by thisweird, officious armed mafia, which has somehow convinced everyone else inthe country to worship it like it was the Church of God or something, not just abunch of guys with fancy badges and big guns.

A good formalist will have none of this.Because to a formalist, the fact that the US can determine what happens on


the North American continent between the 49th parallel and the Rio Grande,AK and HI, etc., means that it is the entity which owns that territory. And thefact that the US extracts regular payments from the aforementioned fur-bearingcritters means no more than that it owns that right. The various maneuversand pseudo-legalities by which it acquired these properties are all just history.What matters is that it has them now and it doesnt want to give them over, anymore than you want to give me your wallet.

So if the responsibility to fork over some cut of your paycheck makes you aserf (a reasonable reuse of the word, surely, for our less agricultural age), thatswhat Americans areserfs.

Corporate serfs, to be exact, because the US is nothing but a corporation.That is, it is a formal structure by which a group of individuals agree to actcollectively to achieve some result.

So what? So Im a corporate serf. Is this so horrible? I seem to be prettyused to it. Two days out of the week I work for Lord Snooty-Snoot. Or FacelessGlobal Products. Or whoever. Does it matter who the check is written to?

The modern distinction between private corporations and governmentsis actually a rather recent development. The US is certainly different from,say, Microsoft, in that the US handles its own security. On the other hand, justas Microsoft depends on the US for most of its security, the US depends onMicrosoft for most of its software. Its not clear why this should make one ofthese corporations special, and the other not-special.

Of course, the purpose of Microsoft is not to write software, but to makemoney for its shareholders. The American Cancer Society is a corporation,too, and it has a purpose as wellto cure cancer. I have lost a lot of workon account of Microsofts so-called software, and its stock, frankly, is goingnowhere. And cancer still seems to be around.

In case the CEO of either MSFT or the ACS is reading this, though, I dontreally have a message for you guys. You know what youre trying to do andyour people are probably doing as good a job of it as they can. And if not, firethe bastards.

But I have no idea what the purpose of the US is.I have heard that theres someone who supposedly runs it. But he doesnt

appear to even be able to fire his own employees, which is probably good,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdomhttp://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2006/03/corporate-origins-of-united-states.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_prosecutor

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because I hear hes not exactly Jack Welch, if you know what I mean. In fact,if anyone can identify one significant event that has occurred in North Americabecause Bush and not Kerry was elected in 2004, Id be delighted to hear ofit. Because my impression is that basically the President has about as mucheffect on the actions of the US as the Heavenly Sovereign Emperor, the DivineMikado, has on the actions of Japan. Which is pretty much none.

Obviously, the US exists. Obviously, it does stuff. But the way in which itdecides what stuff its going to do is so opaque that, as far as anyone outsidethe Beltway is concerned, it might as well be consulting ox entrails.

So this is the formalist manifesto: that the US is just a corporation. It is nota mystic trust consigned to us by the generations. It is not the repository of ourhopes and fears, the voice of conscience and the avenging sword of justice. Itis just an big old company that holds a huge pile of assets, has no clear idea ofwhat its trying to do with them, and is thrashing around like a ten-gallon sharkin a five-gallon bucket, red ink spouting from each of its bazillion gills.

To a formalist, the way to fix the US is to dispense with the ancient mysticalhorseradish, the corporate prayers and war chants, figure out who owns thismonstrosity, and let them decide what in the heck they are going to do with it.I dont think its too crazy to say that all optionsincluding restructuring andliquidationshould be on the table.

Whether were talking about the US, Baltimore, or your wallet, a formalistis only happy when ownership and control are one and the same. To reformal-ize, therefore, we need to figure out who has actual power in the US, and assignshares in such a way as to reproduce this distribution as closely as possible.

Of course, if you believe in the mystical horseradish, youll probably saythat every citizen should get one share. But this is a rather starry-eyed view ofthe USs actual power structure. Remember, our goal is not to figure out whoshould have what, but to figure out who does have what.

For example, if the New York Times was to endorse our reformalizationplan, it would be much more likely to happen. This suggests that the NewYork Times has quite a bit of power, and therefore that it should get quite a fewshares.

But wait. We havent answered the question. What is the purpose of theUS? Suppose, solely for illustration, we give all the shares to the New York
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbusto_Energyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruspexhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_salutehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Hymn_of_the_Republic


Times. What will Punch Sulzberger do with his shiny new country?Many people, probably including Mr. Sulzberger, seem to think of the US

as a charitable venture. Like the American Cancer Society, just with a broadermission. Perhaps the purpose of the US is simply to do good in the world.

This is a very understandable perspective. Surely, if anything ungood re-mains in the world, it can be vanquished by a gigantic, heavily armed mega-charity, with H-bombs, a flag, and 250 million serfs. In fact, its actually ratherastounding that, considering the prodigious endowments of this great philan-thropic institution, it seems to do so little good.

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that its run so efficiently thatit hasnt balanced its budget since the 1830s. Perhaps, if you reformalized theUS, ran it like an actual business, and distributed its shares among a large set ofseparate charities, each presumably with some specific charter for some actualspecific purpose, more good might occur.

Of course, the US doesnt just have assets. Sadly, it also has debts. Some ofthese debts, such as T-bills, are already very well-formalized. Others, such asSocial Security and Medicare, are informal and subject to political uncertain-ties. If these obligations were reformalized, their recipients could only benefit.Of course, they would thus become negotiable instruments and could be, forexample, sold. Perhaps in exchange for crack. Reformalization thus requiresus to distinguish between property and charity, a hard problem but an importantone.

All this fails to answer the question: are nation-states, such as the US,even useful? If you reformalized the US, the question would be left to itsshareholders. Perhaps cities work the best when theyre independently ownedand operated. If so, they should probably be spun off as separate corporations.

The existence of successful city-states such as Singapore, Hong Kong andDubai certainly suggests an answer to this question. Whatever we call them,these places are remarkable for their prosperity and their relative absence ofpolitics. In fact, perhaps the only way to make them more stable and securewould be to transform them from effectively family-owned (Singapore andDubai) or subsidiary (Hong Kong) corporations, to anonymous public owner-ship, thus eliminating the long-term risk that political violence might develop.

Certainly, the absence of democracy in these city-states has not made them
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ochs_Sulzbergerhttp://www.gao.gov/financial/fy2006financialreport.html

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comparable in any way to Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Any restrictionson personal freedom that they do maintain seem primarily aimed at preventingthe development of democracyan understandable concern given the historyof rule by the People. In fact, both the Third Reich and the Communist worldoften claimed to represent the true spirit of democracy.

As Dubai in particular shows, a government (like any corporation) candeliver excellent customer service without either owning or being owned byits customers. Most of Dubais residents are not even citizens. If Sheik al-Maktoum has a cunning plan to seize them all, chain them and make themwork in the salt mines, hes doing it in a very devious way.

Dubai, as a place, has almost nothing to recommend it. The weather ishorrible, the sights are nonexistent, and the neighborhood is atrocious. Its tiny,in the the middle of nowhere, and surrounded by Allah-crazed maniacs with asuspicious affinity for high-speed centrifuges. Nonetheless it has a quarter ofthe worlds cranes and is growing like a weed. If we let the Maktoums run, say,Baltimore, what would happen?

One conclusion of formalism is that democracy isas most writers beforethe 19th century agreedan ineffective and destructive system of government.The concept of democracy without politics makes no sense at all, and as weveseen, politics and war are a continuum. Democratic politics is best understoodas a sort of symbolic violence, like deciding who wins the battle by how manytroops they brought.

Formalists attribute the success of Europe, Japan and the US after WorldWar II not to democracy, but its absence. While retaining the symbolic struc-tures of democracy, much as the Roman Principate retained the Senate, thepostwar Western system has assigned almost all actual decision-making powerto its civil servants and judges, who are apolitical and nonpartisan, i.e.,nondemocratic.

Because in the absence of effective external control, these civil servicesmore or less manage themselves, like any unmanaged enterprise they oftenseem to exist and expand for the sake of existing and expanding. But theyavoid the spoils system which invariably develops when the tribunes of thepeople have actual power. And they do a reasonable, if hardly stellar, job ofmaintaining some semblance of law.
http://www.google.com/search?q=nazi+plebisciteshttp://www.google.com/search?q=%22people%27s+democracy%22http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/29/AR2006042901457_pf.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system


In other words, democracy appears to work because it is not in factdemocracy, but a mediocre implementation of formalism. This relationshipbetween symbolism and reality has received an educational if depressing testin the form of Iraq, where there is no law at all, but which we have endowedwith the purest and most elegant form of democracy (proportional representa-tion), and ministers who actually seem to run their ministries. While historydoes no controlled experiments, surely the comparison of Iraq to Dubai makesa fine case for formalism over democracy.

(originally posted at over at 2Blowhardsthanks, Michael! If you havecomments, theres already a thread there. . . )
http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2007/04/_trial_version.html#004052

Chapter 2

The case against democracy:ten red pills

Have you ever considered the possibility that democracy is bunk?I grew up believing in democracy. Ill bet you did too. I spent 20 years of

my life in democratic schools. Ill bet you did too.

Suppose you were a Catholic in 16th-century Spain. Imagine how hard it wouldbe for you to stop believing in Catholicism.

You are a Catholic. Your parents were Catholics. You were educated byCatholics. You are governed by Catholics. All your friends are Catholics. Allthe books youve ever read were written by Catholics.

Sure, youre aware that not everyone in the world is a Catholic. Yourealso aware that this is the cause of all the violence, death and destruction in theworld.

Look at what Protestants do when they get into power. They nail genitalsto the city gates. They behead their own wives. Crazy stuff! And lets not evenstart on the Turks. . .

Now suppose youre you. But you have a time machine that lets you talk tothis 16th-century Spanish Catholic version of you.

How do you convince this guy or gal that the answer to all the worldsproblems is not more Catholicism? How do you say, um, dude, this Trinity

13
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munster_Rebellion

14 CHAPTER 2. THE CASE AGAINST DEMOCRACY: TE. . .

thingthe virgin birthtranssubstantiation. . . ya know. . .So you see how hard it is to explain that democracy is bunk.Of course, I could be wrong. Who the heck am I? No one. And everyone

who is someone agrees: democracy is wonderful.So Im not telling you that democracy is bunk. Im just suggesting you

might want to consider the possibility.Or even just consider considering the possibility. The way you consider,

like, UFOs, or something. Put it down in the extremely improbable, but notinherently impossible category.

One way to consider this question is to look at an alternative. You cantbeat nothing with something. If you didnt believe in democracy, what wouldyou believe in? Heres my answer. (Warning: its long.)

Another classic approach, though, is just to write up a list of heretical the-ses. Red pills, you might say. It worked for Lutherwhy shouldnt it work forme?

I wont (in this post) attempt to explain or justify these theses. They are foryou, the reader, to analyze, to justify or refute.

For convenience, Ive matched each red pill with a blue pill. The blue pillrepresents the orthodox democratic perspective. If Im wrong and democracy isnot bunk, the blue pills are reality and the red pills are poisonous lies. Swallowat your own risk.

Ten pills:

1. Peace, prosperity, and freedom

blue pill:Democracy is responsible for the present state of peace, prosperity,and freedom in the US, Europe and Japan.

red pill:The rule of law is responsible for the present state of peace, pros-perity and freedom in the US, Europe and Japan.
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2. Democracy, freedom, and law

blue pill:Democracy is inseparable from freedom and law.

red pill:At best, democracy is sand in the gears of freedom and law. Atworst it excludes them entirely, as in Iraq.

3. Fascism and communism

blue pill:The disasters of fascism and communism demonstrate the impor-tance of representative democracy.

red pill:Fascism and communism are best understood as forms of democ-racy. The difference between single-party and multiparty democ-racy is like the difference between a malignant tumor and a benignone.

4. The nature of the state

blue pill:The state is established by citizens to serve their needs. Its actionsare generally righteous.

red pill:The state is just another giant corporation. Its actions generally ad-vance its own interests. Sometimes these interests coincide withours, sometimes they dont.

5. The power structure of the West


blue pill:Power in the West is held by the people, who have to guard it closelyagainst corrupt politicians and corporations.

red pill:Power in the West is held by the civil service, that is, the permanentemployees of the state. In any struggle between the civil serviceand politicians or corporations, the civil service wins.

6. The extent of the state

blue pill:The state consists of elected officials and their appointees.

red pill:The state consists of all those whose interests are aligned with thestate. This includes NGOs, universities, and the press, all of whoseemployees are effectively civil servants, and side with the civil ser-vice in almost all conflicts.

7. The danger of right-wing politics

blue pill:Right-wing politicians, and the ignorant masses who support them,are a danger to democracy. They must be stopped.

red pill:Right-wing politicians are a classic democratic phenomenon. Do-mestically, they have little power and are mostly harmless. Theirinternational adventures are destructive, but they are inescapableconsequences of democracy itself.

8. Democracy and nonpartisan government

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blue pill:True democracy is not merely the rule of politicians. For a democ-racy to succeed, a nonpartisan decisionmaking process is essential.Civil servants, especially judges, must be isolated from politics, orthey will become corrupt.

red pill:Democracy is politics. Any other definition is Orwellian. The ab-sence of politics is the absence of democracy, and apolitical civil-service government is indeed better than democracy. But this is alow standard to surpass.

9. The history of Western government

blue pill:The present system of Western government is the result of adapting19th-century classical liberalism to the complex modern world.

red pill:Western governments today are clones of the quasi-democratic FDRregime, whose best modern comparisons are leaders like Mubarak,Putin or Suharto. Its origin was the Progressive movement, whichbroke classical liberalism, then complained that it didnt work.

10. The future of Western government

blue pill:The Western world is moving toward a globalized, transnationalfree market in which politics is increasingly irrelevant, and tech-nocratic experts and NGOs play larger roles in fighting corruption,protecting the environment, and delivering essential public services.

red pill:Civil-service government works well at first, but it degrades. Its


limit as time approaches infinity is sclerotic Brezhnevism. Its justi-fication for ruling is inseparable from democracy, which is mysticalnonsense and is rapidly disappearing. It cannot survive without acaptive media and educational system, which the Internet will routearound. Also, its financial system is a mess and could collapse atany minute. The whole thing will be lucky if it lasts another tenyears.

Chapter 3

Why do atheists believe inreligion?

Not everyone these days believes in God. But pretty much everyone believesin religion.

By believing in religion, I mean recognizing a significant categorical dis-tinction between religious phenomena, and those that are nonreligious orsecular.

For example, the concepts of freedom of religion and separation ofchurch and state are dependent on the concept of religion. If religionis a noninformative, unimportant, or confusing category, these concepts mustalso be noninformative, unimportant, or confusing.

Since most atheists, agnostics, etc., consider the First Amendment prettyimportant, we can assume they believe in religion.

My question is: why? Is this a useful belief? Does it help us understandthe world? Or does it confuse or misinform us? Once again, our team of crackphilosophers is on the case.

Lets rule out the possibility that religion is noninformative. We can de-fine religion as the attribution of existence to anthropomorphic paranormalentities. This definition has its fuzzy corner cases, notably some kinds of Bud-dhism, but its short and itll do for the moment.

We are left with the question: is religion an important or clarifying cate-

19

20 CHAPTER 3. WHY DO ATHEISTS BELIEVE IN REL. . .

gory? Or is it unimportant and confusing?If you believe in God, obviously you have to believe in religion. Religion is

an important category because your religion is true, and all other religions arefalse. (As Sam Harris puts it, everyones an atheist with respect to Zeus.)

For atheists of the all-around varietyincluding methe question remains.Why do we believe in religion?

One obvious answer is that we have to share the planet with a lot of reli-gious people. If you are an atheist, there is no getting around it: religion, as perDawkins, is a delusion. Deluded people do crazy things and are often danger-ous. We need to have a category for these people, just as we have a categoryfor large, man-eating carnivores. Certainly, religious violence has killed a lotmore people lately than lions, tigers, or bears.

This argument sounds convincing, but it hides a fallacy.The fallacy is that the distinction between religion and other classes of

delusion must be clarifying or important. If there is a case for this proposition,we havent met it yet.

Peoples actions matter. And peoples beliefs matter, because they motivateactions.

But actions in the real world must be motivated by beliefs about the realworld. Delusions about the paranormal world are only relevantat least to usatheistsin the special case that they motivate delusions about the real world.

So, as atheists, why should we care about the former? Why not forgetabout the details of metaphysical doctrine, which pertain to an ethereal planethat doesnt even exist, and concentrate our attention on beliefs about reality?

If you believe that nine Jewish virgins need to be thrown into Mt. Fuji, youare, in my opinion, deluded. Whether you believe this because you are receiv-ing secret messages from Amaterasu Omikami, or because its just payback forthe dirty deeds of the Elders of Zion, affects neither me nor the virgins.

If you believe partial-birth abortion is wrong because its against Godslaw, or if you think its just unethical, your vote will be the same.

If you are tolerant and respectful of others because you think Allah wantsyou to be tolerant and respectful of others, how can I possibly have a prob-lem with this? If you stab people in the street because youve misinterpretedNietzsche and decided that morality is not for you, is that less of a problem?

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Lots of people have delusions about the real world. People believe all kindsof crazy things for all kinds of crazy reasons. Some even believe sensible thingsfor crazy reasons. Why should we establish a special category for delusions thatare motivated by anthropomorphic paranormal forces?

A reasonable answer is: why not?Certainly, religion is an important force in the world today. Certainly at

least some forms of religionfundamentalist, one might sayare activelydangerous. No one is actually stabbing people in the street because of Niet-zsche. The same cannot be said for Allah.

How can it possibly confuse or distract us to recognize and protect our-selves against this important class of delusion?

To see the answer, we need to break Godwins Law.Suppose Hitler had declared that, rather than being just some guy from

Linz, he was Thors prophet on earth. (Some people would have been positivelydelighted by this.) Suppose that everything the Nazis did was done in the nameof Thor. Suppose, in other words, that Nazism was in the category religion.

This is by no means a new idea. Many writers, including Eric Voegelin,Eric Hoffer, Victor Klemperer, Michael Burleigh, etc., etc., have describedthe similarities between Nazism and religions. But Nazism does not fit ourdefinition of religion aboveno paranormal entities. This is the definition mostpeople use, so most people dont think of Nazism as a religion.

The Allies invaded Nazi Germany and completely suppressed Nazism. Tothis day in Germany it is illegal to teach National Socialism. I think mostAmericans, and most Germans, would agree that this is a good thing.

But if we make this one trivial change, turning Nazism into Thorism andmaking it a religion, which as weve seen need not change the magnitude ordetails of Nazi crimes at all, the acts of the Allies are a blatant act of religiousintolerance.

Arent we supposed to respect other faiths? Shouldnt we at least haverestricted our unfriendly attentions to fundamentalist Nazism, and promoteda more moderate version of the creed? Suppose we gave the Taliban the sametreatment? What, exactly, is the difference between Eisenhowers policy andAnn Coulters?

It gets worse. Another one of Voegelins political religions, which by our
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definition are not religions at all (no anthropomorphic paranormal entities) isMarxism. Lets tweak Marxism slightly and assert that the writings of Marxwere divinely inspired, leaving everything else in the history of Communismunchanged.

Marxism, unlike Nazism, is still very popular in the world today. A sub-stantial fraction of the professors in Western universities are either Marxists, orstrongly influenced by Marxist thought. Nor are these beliefs passivemanyfields that are actively taught and quite popular, such as postcolonial studies,seem largely or entirely Marxist in content.

This is certainly not true of Nazism. It is also not true of Christianity orany other religion proper. Many professors are Christians, true, and some areeven fundamentalists. But the US educational system is quite sensitive to thepossibility that it might be indoctrinating youth with Christian fundamentalism.Creation science, for example, is not taught in any mainstream university andseems unlikely to achieve that status.

If Marxism was a religion, Marxist economics would come pretty closeto being the exact equivalent of intelligent design. But, again, Marxism asreligion and Marxism as non-religion involve exactly the same set of delusionsabout the real world. (Of course, to a Marxist, they are not delusions.)

Should non-Marxist atheists, such as myself, be as concerned about sepa-rating Marxism from state-supported education as we are with Christianity? IfMarxism is a religion, or if the difference between Marxism as it is in the realworld and the version in which Marx was a prophet is insignificant, our wallof separation is a torn-up chainlink fence.

But there was a period in which Americans tried to eradicate Marxism theway they fight against intelligent design today. It was called McCarthyism.And believers in civil liberties were on exactly the opposite side of the barri-cades.

As non-Marxist atheists, do we want McCarthy 2.0? Should loyalty oathsbe hip this year? Should we schedule new hearings?

This is why the concept of religion is harmful. If trivial changes to hy-pothetical history convert reasonable policies into monstrous injustices, or viceversa, your perception of reality cannot be correct. You have been infected bya toxic meme.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcolonialismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mccarthyismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

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If memes are analogous to parasitic organisms, believing in religion islike taking a narrow-spectrum antibiotic on an irregular schedule. The Dawkinstreatmentour latest version of what used to be called anticlericalismwipesout a colony of susceptible bacteria which have spent a long time learning tocoexist reasonably, if imperfectly, with the host. And clears the field for anentirely different phylum of bugs which are unaffected by antireligious therapy.Whose growth, in fact, it may even stimulate.

In the last two centuries, political religions have caused far, far moremorbidity than religious religions. But here we are with Dawkins, Harris, andDennettstill popping the penicillin. Hm. Kind of makes you think, doesntit?

(Update: before commenting on this post, please see my new commentspolicy.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_delusionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_delusionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticlericalismhttp://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/my-new-comments-policy.htmlhttp://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/my-new-comments-policy.html

Chapter 4

Plague of Dead Sharks, byAlan DuganMost people these days think poetry is shite.

Certainly our glorious educational system generates a vast supply of Soviettoilet paper, coarse on the tenders and stamped with pure nothing. Certainlyour glorious publishing industry seems to delightIm thinking primarily ofthe New Yorkerin selecting the blandest and most vapid plums from this greatbrown smorgasbord, and presenting them to the educated elite as though theywere offering a silver bowl of egg-sized pearls to the Shah of Iran.

In fact there is just as much good poetry from the late 20th century as fromany other period. Possibly even more. Its just extremely difficult to find. Ifanyone has any pointers, please dont hesitate to leave them in the commentssection!

Heres a nice bit from a poem by Alan Dugan:

Plague of Dead SharksWho knows whether the sea heals or corrodes?The wading, wintered pack-beasts of the feetslough off, in spring, the dead rind of the shoesleather detention, the big toes yellow hornshines with a natural polish, and the wholeperson seems to profit. The opposite happens

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http://www.amazon.com/Poems-Seven-New-Complete-Poetry/dp/1583225129/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103--5118522--7287805?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177646987&sr=8--1

26 CHAPTER 4. PLAGUE OF DEAD SHARKS, BY ALAN. . .

when dead sharks wash up along the beachfor no known reason. What is more builtfor winning than the swept-back teeth,water-finished fins, and pure bad eyesthese old, efficient forms of appetiteare dressed in? Yet it looks as if the seadigested what it wished of them with viral easeand threw up what was left to stink and dry.

Now thats some damned prosody for you. And Dugan, thoughI get the impression he was a bit of a Marxist (something nomore objectionable in a poet than Christianity), is utterly freefrom the noxious Hallmark-hippie sentimentality, out of Whit-man by M. Valdemar, dead for at least fifty years and reekingof committee, that fills your little magazines today. If you careat all for this sort of stuff hes worth a gander.

Chapter 5

My new comments policy

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the link. Andrews was one of the first blogs Iread regularly, although that was a few years ago. My politics have since be-come less mainstream and his, I think, more. But for someone who (I assume)spends most of his time in DC, he is still remarkably independent-minded andoften has interesting things to say.

I had assumed this URL was more or less restricted to a few marginal ec-centrics, but if A-listers are going to link to it (and why shouldnt they? Whoam I, Jonathan Franzen?), Im afraid it is going to need a comments policy.

My policy is that all comments must be interestingto people who areneither me, nor the author of the comment. When you comment, please try tokeep in mind that your goal is to inform or entertain others who may be readingthe comments section. I will decide what is informative or entertaining. Thepenalty is deletion and there is no appeal.

Please feel free to be as offensive as you want, though, whether to me or toothers. One of the great things about the Internet is that it routes packets, notsticks or stones.

(Update: Ive been blogging for four days and I already hate deleting com-ments. It makes me feel like Hitler. I may have my own crazed ideology, but Iam seriously not cut out for world domination. If its obvious to me that you be-lieve your comment is informative or entertaining, I am very unlikely to deleteit. However, Ill respond only to comments that I myself find informative orentertaining. I also discourage drive-by commentingplease comment only if

27
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/formalist-manifesto-originally-posted.html

28 CHAPTER 5. MY NEW COMMENTS POLICY

youre interested in discussion.)

Chapter 6

Jaroslav Haek and thekernel-monitor meme

The other day I suggested that religion is a useful concept only if youreinterested in theology, which Im not.

The post was probably too long, and it certainly confused some. So let metry and summarize.

First, I argued, religion is the study of the thoughts or actions of paranor-mal entities. If paranormal entities were observable, they wouldnt be paranor-mal. Beliefs about paranormal entities (Baal hates Jews) are only relevantto the observable world inasmuch as they imply beliefs about the observableworld (To please Baal, we must burn the Jews), and thus motivate actions inthe observable world (burning the Jews).

So why do we categorize others beliefs first and foremost by their positionson the paranormal? Why not focus on beliefs about the real world, which arewhat actually affect us?

Second, I argued, this irrelevant categorization is dangerous, because it im-pairs our ability to recognize patterns across the categorical boundary. Whencomparing two delusions, when one is religious and the other is merely fal-lacious (i.e., it purports to be derived from pure reason but in fact is not), wehave a hard time deciding which of the two is more dangerous.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, said Burke, is for good men

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http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/why-do-atheists-believe-in-religion.html

30 CHAPTER 6. JAROSLAV HAEK AND THE KERNEL-. . .

to do nothing. Well, technically, he was right. But in practice evil will do a lotbetter if it can get the good men to side with the greater evil, and fight againstthe lesser. Being, of course, evil, it seldom overlooks this device.

This is a nasty situation. And I think it calls for a remedy which is too dras-tic for most household uses, but which has to be retained as the philosopherslast resort: inventing new words.

I actually prefer to borrow words from other fields. As a computer program-mer, I have an enormous stock of gobbledegook to choose from, from which Ichoose kernel and monitor.

(Its a waste of time to go into the technical meaning of these words. Thereis an analogy, but its very loose.)

Lets say that a religion is a kernel and a church (the institution, not thebuilding) is a monitor. But lets try and define these words without referenceto the paranormal world.

Your kernel is your set of received beliefs about the real world. A belief isreceived if you got it from someone else, if it is not something you observedor decided yourself. I always hate using the word meme, because it makes mesound like an asshole, but theres no denying that it says received belief witha lot fewer wiggles of the tongue.

A kernel has two parts: the set of statements (about the real world) that youconsider true or false, and the set of actions (in the real world) that you considerrighteous or wrongteous. The Greek words logos and ethos are handy here. Wecan speak of a logical kernel and an ethical kernel.

(I believe these concepts are human universalsthat is, the words trueand false, right and wrong translate into all languages. If you disagree,youre welcome to, but I wonder how you can function at such a refined philo-sophical level.)

The interesting question is: where do you get your kernel? How is it, as itwere, installed?

Installing memes is a privileged operation. It requires trust. Some peoplebelieve everything they hearor, worse, read on the Internet. But most of usare a little sharper than that.

You have three basic classes of trusted party: your parents, your friends,and the monitor or monitors which you credit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

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A monitor is a trusted institution. You apply some intrinsic credibility tothe memes this institution distributes. Trust may not be boolean. It just meansthat you are more likely to install a meme into your kernel if you get it from amonitor to which you ascribe some trust level, than if you, say, read it on someanonymous blog. If you ascribe any trust at all to any monitor, well say youcredit it.

For example, I am not a physicist. So if I have to believe something aboutphysics, I may turn to Lubo Motl or Peter Woit. I trust these peopleon thesubject of physicsnot because I know them personally, but because Harvardwas willing to hire the one and Columbia the other. This is pretty strong evi-dence that Harvard and Columbia are in the monitor business, and that I creditthemat least on the subject of physics.

You may find it interesting to try to describe the kernels and monitors yousee in the world around you. Discuss. (I always wanted to say, discuss. Andnow, thanks to Blogger, I can.)

But all this philosophy is thirsty work. I could certainly use some Laphroaig,and as a matter of fact I think Ill have some. Who says its too early in themorning? Id share, but unfortunately the Internet, series of tubes though itmay be, isnt very good at routing Scotch.

So instead I thought Id appropriate a bit from the Great Czech Novel:Jaroslav Haeks The Good Soldier vejk (1923). As youll see, its highly per-tinent. However, it cant really be described as philosophy, so if your onlyinterest in Unqualified Reservations is in the deep-thought department, class isdefinitely over.

From page 136:

In the evening they received a visit from the pious chaplain whohad wanted to serve the drumhead mass for the sappers that morn-ing. He was a fanatic who wanted to bring everyone close to God.When he had been a catechist he had developed religious feelingsin children by slapping their faces and there had appeared fromtime to time in various journals articles about the sadistic cat-echist, the slapping catechist. He was convinced that a childlearns the catechism best with the help of the birch.
http://motls.blogspot.com/http://www.math.columbia.edu/%7Ewoit/wordpress/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaroslav_Hasekhttp://www.amazon.com/Good-Soldier-Svejk-Fortunes-Classics/dp/0140449914/ref=sr_1_1/103--5118522--7287805?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177790714&sr=1--1


He limped a little on one foot, which had been caused by a visitmade to him by the father of one of his pupils, whose face he hadslapped for having expressed certain doubts about the Holy Trinity.He got three slaps on the face himself. One for God the Father, asecond one for God the Son and a third for the Holy Ghost.

Today he had come to lead his colleague Katz on to the right pathand to have a heart-to-hard talk with him. He began it with theremark: Im surprised that youve got no crucifix hanging there.Where do you say your breviary prayers? And theres not a sin-gle portrait of the saints on the walls of your room. Whats thathanging over your bed?

Katz smiled: Thats Susanna and the Elders, and that naked womanunderneath is an old friend of mine. On the right theres somethingJapanese, depicting the sexual act between a geisha and an oldJapanese Samurai. Very original, isnt it? The breviarys in thekitchen. vejk, bring it here and open it on the third page.

vejk went away, and from the kitchen could be heard the sound ofcorks being drawn from three bottles of wine.

The pious chaplain was aghast when the three bottles made theirappearance on the table.

Its a light sacramental wine, brother, said Katz, of very goodquality, a Riesling. It tastes like Moselle.

Im not going to drink, said the pious chaplain stubbornly. Ivecome to have a heart-to-heart talk with you.

Thatll dry up your throat, my dear colleague, said Katz. Havea drink and Ill listen. Im a very tolerant fellow and can listen toother views.

The pious chaplain drank a little and rolled his eyes.

Its a devilish good wine, my dear colleague, isnt it?

The fanatic said sternly: It has not escaped me that you are swear-ing.

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Thats habit, answered Katz. Sometimes I even catch myselfblaspheming. Pour the chaplain out some more, vejk. I can assureyou that I also say: Himmelherrgott, krucifix and sakra. I thinkthat when youve served in the army as long as I have youll findyourself doing it too. It isnt at all difficult or complicated and itsvery familiar to us clergyheaven, God, the cross and the holysacrament. Doesnt that sound marvellously professional? Drink abit more, my dear colleague.

The former catechist sipped mechanically. It was obvious that hewanted to say something, but could not. He was collecting histhoughts.

My dear colleague, continued Katz, cheer up! Dont sit there somiserably, as though they were going to hang you in five minutestime. Ive heard about you, how once on a Friday by mistake youate a pork cutlet in a restaurant, because you thought that it wasThursday, and how you stuck your finger down your throat in theW.C. to get rid of it, because you thought God would obliterateyou. Im not afraid of eating meat in Lent and Im not afraid ofhell-fire either. Excuse me, please go on drinking. Are you betternow? Or do you have progressive views about hell and keep upwith the spirit of the times and the reformists? I mean, instead ofordinary cauldrons with sulphur for poor sinners, there are Papinspots and high-pressure boilers. The sinners are fried in margarine,there are grills driven by electricity, steam rollers roll over the sin-ners for millions of years, the gnashing of the teeth is producedwith the help of dentists with special equipment, the howling isrecorded on gramophones, and the records are sent upstairs to Par-adise for the enjoyment of the just. In paradise sprays with eau decologne operate and the Philharmonic Orchestra plays Brahms solong that you prefer hell and purgatory. The cherubs have aero-plane propellers in their behinds so as not to have to work so hardwith their wings. Drink, my dear colleague! vejk, pour him outsome cognac. I dont think hes feeling well.


When the pious chaplain came round he started to whisper: Reli-gion is a matter of rational reasoning. Whoever does not believe inthe existence of the Holy Trinity. . .

vejk, Katz interrupted him, pour out one more cognac for thechaplain, so as to bring him round! Tell him something, vejk!Humbly report, sir, said vejk, near Vlaim there was a dean whohad a charwoman, when his old housekeeper ran away from himwith the boy and the money. And this dean in his declining yearsstarted studying St Augustine, who is said to be one of the HolyFathers, and he read there that whoever believes in the Antipodeswill be damned. And so he called his charwoman and said to her:Listen, you once told me that your son was a fitter and that he wentto Australia. That would be in the Antipodes and according to StAugustines instructions everyone who believes in the Antipodesis damned. Reverend sir, the woman answered, after all myson sends me letters and money from Australia. Thats a snareof the devil, replied the dean. According to St Augustine thedevil doesnt exist and you are just being seduced by the Anti-Christ. On Sunday he anathematized her publicly and shouted outthat Australia didnt exist. So they took him out of straight out ofthe church into the lunatic asylum. More people like him ought tobe put there. In the Convent of the Sisters of St Ursula they havea bottle of the Holy Virgins milk with which she suckled the babyJesus, and in the orphanage at Beneov, after theyd brought themwater from Lourdes, the orphans got diarrhea the like of which theworld has never seen.

Black spots were dancing in front of the pious chaplains eyes andhe only came to himself after another cognac, which went to hishead.

Blinking his eyes he asked Katz: Dont you believe in the Immac-ulate Conception of the Virgin Mary? Dont you believe that thethumb of St John the Baptist, which is preserved in the Piaristsmonastery, is genuine? Do you believe in the Lord at all? And if

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you dont, why are you a chaplain?

My dear colleague, answered Katz, patting him familiarly on theback, until the state recognizes that soldiers who are going totheir death at the front dont need the blessing of God for it, thechaplaincy remains a decently paid profession, where a chap isntoverworked. It was better for me that running around on the drill-ground and going on manoeuvres. Then I used to get orders frommy superiors but now I do what I like. I represent someone whodoesnt exist and myself play the part of God. If I dont want toabsolve anyones sins then I dont, even if they beg me on theirbended knees. But youd find bloody few people nowadays whodgo that far.

I love God, declared the pious chaplain, beginning to hiccough.I love him very much. Give me a little wine. I respect God, hecontinued. I respect and honour him very much. I respect no oneas much as I respect him.

He struck the table with his fist until the bottles jumped. Godis an exalted being, something unearthly. Hes honourable in hisdealings. Hes a radiant revelation, and no ones going to convinceme of the contrary. I respect St Joseph too, I respect all the saints,except St Serapion. Hes got such an ugly name.

He ought to apply to have it changed, observed vejk.

I love St Ludmila and St Bernard, continued the former catechist.He saved many pilgrims in St Gothard. He carries a bottle ofcognac around his neck and looks for people caught in snow drifts.

The conversation took a new turn. The pious chaplain started get-ting completely muddled. I honour the Innocents. They have theirSaints day on the twenty-eighth of December. I hate Herod. Whenthe hens sleep, you cant get any new-laid eggs.

He gave a guffaw and began to sing Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord Godof Sabaoth.


He broke off at once, and turning to Katz and getting up asked himsharply: You dont believe that the fifteenth of August is the dayof the Assumption of the Virgin Mary?

The fun was in full swing. More bottles appeared, and from timeto time Katz could be heard saying: Say that you dont believe inGod, otherwise I wont let you have a drop! It was as though thetimes of the persecution of the early Christians had returned. Theformer catechist sang a song of the martyrs of the Roman arenaand yelled out: I believe in God. I wont forswear him. You cankeep your wine. I can send for some myself.

Finally they put him to bed. Before he fell asleep he proclaimed,raising his right hand in a solemn oath: I believe in God the Father,Son and Holy Ghost. Bring me the breviary.

vejk put into his hand a book which was lying on the night table.The pious chaplain then fell asleep with Boccaccios Decameronin his hand.

(If anyone is having trouble with the es, please pop by the comments sectionand let me know what browser and OS youre using. . . )

Chapter 7

Terminology and an openfloor

The other day I tried to design a paranormal-independent terminology for talk-ing about the phenomenon we call religion. I suggested calling a receivedbelief system a kernel and an institution that transmits received beliefs amonitor.

On further reflection I dont like monitor. Too many things are calledmonitors. (In case anyone cares, what I meant was not the square thing thatsits on your desk and shows you my blog, but a virtual machine monitoranancient, rather mainframey terminology.) But Id rather go with a hardwareanalogyrepeater. (See the Wik.)

If any of my readers (perhaps two or three have stuck around after the An-drewlanche) has any better suggestions, I am certainly open to them. (Unqual-ified Reservations is not a mere outlet for my deranged, extremist rants. It is acommunity of individuals whose goal is to learn, grow, and change together.Please let me know if Im layin it on too thick.)

So a religion is a kernel, and a church is a repeater. But not all kernels arereligions, and not all repeaters are churches.

The interesting question then becomes: how do we separate repeater andstate?

The floor is open for your comments. Also, in case you have any large

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http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/jaroslav-haek-and-kernel-monitor-meme.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machinehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeater

38 CHAPTER 7. TERMINOLOGY AND AN OPEN FLOOR

chunks of text from obscure Eastern European novels to paste into the window,this is not only allowed, it is encouraged.

Chapter 8

What if theres no such thingas chaotic good?

There are some people who as teenagers were normal. Then there are somewho were so socially maladjusted, so personally pathetic, and so lame in anyway they can conceivably now imagine as adults, that they played D&D. Thenthere are some who were actually even more maladjusted, pathetic, and lamethan that, and so were too socially inept to even get it together to play D&D,except on a computer which does not, Im told, count.

Since I was in group C, I am lame enough that I know a little, but not a lot,about D&D. I suppose I could probably look it all up on La Wik, but I havesome dignity.

At least as I remember it, there were two major versions of D&D. Therewas the original one that came in the box and the second one that was sold asbooks. Or something like that. Im sure they have real names. Because you,the reader, also have some dignity, Ill just call them 1.0 and 2.0.

In both 1.0 and 2.0, your character had to have an alignment. This wasone of several valuesif you were a programmer, youd call it an enumeratedtypewhich basically said what kind of a guy (or elf, or dwarf, or my favorite,half-orc) you were.

Its my recollection (I swear I am writing entirely from memoryany kindof research, on any subject, is really beneath the honor of Unqualified Reser-

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40 CHAPTER 8. WHAT IF THERES NO SUCH THING . . .

vations) that in D&D 1.0, alignment was one of three values: lawful, neutral,chaotic.

By D&D 2.0, however, Gygax and/or his henchmen had realized that thisdidnt really span the plane of desires with which their customer base mightconceivably identify. So they added another dimension: good, neutral, evil.And you could have one of nine alignments, from lawful good to chaotic evil.

Typically, of course, your average roleplayer went straight for chaotic good.At least this is my recollection. I have no numbers. (And if I did, I would deletethem immediately.)

I do not have a little altar with a pewter figure of Gandalf on it. Nor am Ia major consumer of incense. But I do still kind of think of myself as a lawfulneutral.

(Of course, if chaotic good is the most popular alignment, lawful neutralhas to be the least. This probably has something to do with my preferencefor it. Its an unfortunate fact that genuine unpopularity is always somehowintentional.)

As a lawful neutral, my suspicion is that its actually not the D&D 2.0alignment system thats a better reflection of the real world. Actually, I think,the 1.0 system may be more accurate.

Suppose theres actually no such thing as chaotic good? Suppose that itsjust that law is good, and chaos is evil?

Lets call the D&D 1.0 alignment system (as remembered by me), and asapplied not to elves and dwarves, but to the real world and the people in it, whoare certainly not identical but must at least be regarded as a single species, thelinear model. Lets call the D&D 2.0 alignment system the planar model.

Obviously, the linear model is a dimension-reduced subset of the planarmodel. If you believe the linear model is more accurate, therefore, you canonly do so by believing the extra dimension of information added by the planarmodel is somehow meaningless, that it is noise, that its only effect is confusion.

How could the linear model be sufficient? How could there be no suchthing as chaotic good or lawful evil?

Well, one possibility is that chaotic good just maps to evil, which mapsright back to chaos. That is, the only practical definition of evil is that evil isthe same thing as chaos.

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Since good is the opposite of evil, as chaos is the opposite of law, thisanswer also says that good is identical with law. Thus, lawful good andchaotic evil are tautological.

Under this hypothesis, the reason that there is actually evil in the world isjust that evil consists entirely of the actions of those who consider themselveschaotic good. These presumably regard their enemies as lawful evil, whenin fact they are just plain lawfulthat is, good.

Here is the linearist narrative:Evil is not the same thing as malevolence. Nor is good the same thing as

benevolence. Evil and good are results, not volitions. There are people whoactively pursue evilpsychopathsbut psychopaths, as an almost invariablerule, act alone. Most people spend most of their time pursuing good, and alllarge organizations are organized around some concept of good.

Since most of the large-scale phenomena in recent history which most ofus would consider evil have been the result of actions of people acting withinorganizations, evil must be the result of actions which someone consideredgood.

By conflating evil with malevolence, planarism derives the logic

unqualified reservations

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