Epistemic-Political relationship in respect to the 2006 elections.

Note: Although I certainly do it on rare occasions…. I don’t like to write entries which are mainly follow-ups or tangential or trendy. Over the past 2 weeks, much ado has been made by some lay Objectivists in regard to expert analysis of the impending elections. I’m not even going to make direct references to those comments ….for the simple reason that it’s not a priority now for me to do so nor is it particularly beneficial. Consider division of labor for one thing….

Synopsis: Part 1 indicates proper evaluative method. Part 2 indicates improper evaluative application. Part 3 indicates proper evaluative application. See prior posts for additional relevant information.

Part 1 Using the inductive method

What I have to say now amounts to this: Issues regarding knowledge are more fundamental than political issues, yet political issues are _easier_ to explain from an inductive standpoint. I’m actually trying to frame the general idea in a way that seems contradictory, but that is difficult to do since philosophy is so throughly integrated as a system by itself as well as it being substantially involved with myriad disciplines of a more immediately sensory and mechanical nature. In particular, philosophy includes politics (as a theory), but philosophy also guides political science (as a practical application.) My interest in seeking a contradiction comes from wanting to locate the most severe differentiation possible in order to best clarify the nature of the process. At this point in time, I have not found such a contradiction.

To personalize the above point, if you want to judge ideas, then you have to see how they effect people when those ideas are put into action. By the way, people must be judged both on their thoughts and actions. Thoughts without action can't be seen, and actions without ideological explanation can't make sense. You have to have both a person's thoughts (causes) and actions (effects) to truly understand how and why he does what he does. This goes for politicians and voters alike.

As Ayn Rand indicated, knowledge has two core dimensions, hierarchy and context. The Modern university professors wish to consider human behavior in terms of hierarchy without regard for context. This is why they want to perform Linguistic Analysis and use symbolic logic instead of operating more like a detective or a legal prosecutor from before the Red Decade.

Induction requires gathering large amounts of evidence about a subject to the point of saturation i.e. at a point of acquiring data redundancy. In turn, the scientific method must be applied when evaluating evidence. The more the evidence is cross-referenced in as many number and types of ways possible the more reliable the related evaluations can be.

This is why the various Objectivist essays on voting Democrat are important. It's why Dr. Peikoff's DIM hypothesis is important. It's why considering American history in order of forward sequence without skipping relevant events is important.

I happen to be among a very small group of people who personally attended both Dr. Peikoff's original publicly offered _Objectivism Through Induction_ lecture series and his 2 original lectures comprising an overview and application of his D-I-M hypothesis. I have to say that I find Dr. Peikoff's DIM hypothesis plausible. On the other hand, I think his general inductive theory needs to be further revised (even more than it already has been over the past several years.) For me as a guiding rule (and as a side note to you the reader), I suspect that Dr. Peikoff has a fairly reliable way of evaluating other peoples' abilities to think in essentials, but I figure that he has much more work to do before being able to throughly evaluate the culture of whole societies. I believe that he is motivated to find such an overriding method, and if such a method was reliable and easily applicable, then evaluating the prospects for the coming elections would indeed be a more straight-forward and scientific process.

Part 2 Assessing logical errors

I can’t write this without some level of anger and ultimately… disappointment. I swore to myself that I would not revisit the issue of how to vote in this month’s American elections, but what I wanted to avoid in specific is re-arguing the step-by-step process of drawing the relevant conclusions. Instead, what I will do is go to the underlying nature of the sort of mistakes that some of my fellow Objectivists are making.

Again, I think that there’s absolutely no reason whatsoever for people to vote for Republicans if these voters understand the issues that would motivate people such as Dr. Leonard Peikoff and John Lewis to make the arguments which they have made. Whether someone understands those issues or not, there is a universal solution which I will suggest for everyone regardless of their philosophy or their knowledge of politics if they want to double-check their thinking as far as selecting political candidates go.

Keep in mind, that the current differences of opinion among many Objectivists don't come down to traditional differences between political parties. Today's Democrats and Republicans are nothing as they were at the time of their parties' creation, they are nothing as they were before our American culture was inculcated with German philosophy in the early part of the 20th century, and they are fast becoming something wholly different from the days when Carter opposed Reagan a quarter of a century ago. I contend that the difference of opinion among Objectivists comes down to arguing the importance of hypothetical short-term consequences versus the importance of hypothetical long-term consequences. The Objectivists who argue for voting straight-line Democrat would argue that fighting to protect the long-term future outweighs any dangers for the foreseeable near future.

I certainly have not tried to read much of the commentary on the several of the more serious Objectivist forums, and I have no intention of reading much more for the following reasons: What I’ve read so far was generally quickly becoming redundant. Likewise, many arguments are also rife with logical errors. I would contend the major logical fallacies which people have resorted to using are:1) jumping to conclusions and 2) context-dropping. There’s another fallacy which has appeared less frequently, but the fact that it has been used as much as it has would indicate that it’s as much a major potential crutch as the previous two are. That fallacy is: 3) begging the question. Further, some lesser fallacies have been used more sporadically as well. These include (but aren’t limited to) argument from intimidation (and it’s utterly absurd that someone would suggest that Dr. Peikoff is guilty of this for the position he’s recently offered!!!) and appeal to authority.

It is certainly true that some fallacies are related to each other; in fact, some are variations of others. Further, many fallacies can be placed into general groups. For example, some fallacies inappropriately reference people instead of central facts e.g. appeal to authority, appeal to popularity, and ad hominem; on the other hand, some fallacies depend on inappropriate attempts at forming conceptual relationships (ignoring the nature of concept-formation) e.g. non-sequitur, slippery slope, and context-switching. Ultimately, what most fallacies come from is the failure to think in essentials. That is, the core concepts have not been identified, and an argument has been offered _as if_ it uses the core concepts when it does not. Of course, sometimes an argument will include more than one fallacy ….sometimes even within the same premise.

Part 3 Comparative analysis of systems

(As a side-note and to avoid confusion, arguments depend on core principles. Still, those principles depend on core concepts. Those concepts are often taken for granted, but the fact that their importance is often ignored does not change the fact that they are _necessary_ for a proper argument to be made.) The underlying principle for judging political candidates comes from a statement of normative ethics which Ayn Rand made: “Those who practice their philosophy the most consistently will win….” Just as Dr. Peikoff was correct in highlighting that the Christians have been putting their philosophy in the practice of politics for thousands of years, it is also worth noting that the opposition of ideas is happening in ONE DIRECTION predominantly. Republicans overwhelming ignore Nihilism; they simply haven’t taken much of Modernism seriously at all. The exception is Socialism. Why this exception? Out of the canon of modern philosophy, it is Socialism which is most compatible with conservative Republican philosophy. As Dr. Peikoff has already noted several times, Socialism is dying, it is on the way out even while people of various political stripes attempt to revive it.

Simply put, Socialism is treated by Americans as a particular polar opposite to Capitalism; they do this while making simultaneous partial use of both systems. Capitalism only exists as theory at best; it doesn’t exist in a mostly purified way as far as the practice of American politics is concerned. Obversely, Socialism controls American politics for now, but it has been widely discredited among new intellectuals. (Note what Dr. Andrew Bernstein stated in _The Capitalist Manifesto_, the economists are not the problem… they appreciate the practical aspects of applied Capitalism.)

Now consider both Christianity and Socialism together. Flatly, which party is best suited to and most interested in using both religious and secular altruism in politics? There’s no contest; it’s obviously the (conservatives in the) Republican Party who have the greatest interest in altruism in the wholesale sense.

Did you notice where the similarities and differences exist? It’s true that both the Democrats and the Republicans are altruistic in some way in essence, and it’s true that both parties are interested in using both types of altruism. There are two points of distinction though i.e. that is there are two critical differentiating points. 1) Capitalism can only exist in opposition to altruism, and that means that freedom can only exist if no form of political self-sacrifice is codified and employed. 2) It is the Republican Party which is on the ideological warpath. Conversely, the Democrats neither have the quality of ideas in substance which the Republicans have, nor do they exercise the passionate will to invoke their ideas to near the degree that the evangelical Christian Republicans do.

What does this boil down to? It means that in both quantity and quality, the Republicans are poised to take over the mind-set of the American body politic. That is, they're are the ones who will win by being the most consistent, and as I and others have already stated the opposition to this employment of religion in politics does not exist in current political discourse. In point of fact, the only opposition to Christian politics which can exist can only come from Objectivism put into political practice. In turn, this means that the only way to really stop the Christians is to get laissez-faire Capitalists to oppose them.

Some would say that what Objectivists are now searching for isn’t so focused on how to offer ideological opposition to conservative Republicans; they might say that the difference among Objectivists is in the debate over the execution of the particular required logistics. In fact, Objectivists are already arguing whether it’s better to support the Democrats or the Republicans for the whole reason that they want to find a host party to inculcate with laissez-faire ideology. The problem is people aren’t robots; candidates have their respective psychologies. A person’s thinking is a volitional matter after all. Even Objectivists can not and should not try to force their ideas into the minds of politicians.

What this amounts to is that all voters including Objectivists need to come to terms with how politics is and how it will be regardless of what any one desires. (No amount of whim-worshipping will make the Republican Party better, nor will that make the conservatives voluntarily leave politics.) I have stated that ideas can not be forced into the minds of citizens, and at the same time taking the wait-and-see approach has already failed. ....so then what to do? Objectivists are already doing the best thing anyone can do viz. they are trying to infuse the American culture in as many substantial ways possible with the core philosophical ideas required for the growth and survival of a free culture.

Given the respective motivations of politicians within their respective parties, it’s the conservative politicians who are already offering evidence of real ideological conviction. They are the ones who need to be stopped if America is to survive. Since it’s the Republicans who 1) are willing to change their respective ideology first 2) are willing to politicize religion first and ultimately 3) fight for their values, it’s the Republicans who Objectivists most desperately need to stop _first_.