Even better, he’s finally fulfilled his life-long ambition to create a math curriculum that inspires the student by tying math with wonder, meaning, applications, & philosophy. He calls it “The Dance of Number.” Perhaps the myth of mathematics having no applicability to life and daily inspirition are finally over!
The Emotional Appeal of Socialism Despite Its Long History of Failure
From Milton Friedman’s Introduction to “The Road to Serfdom” by Frederick Hayek:
To understand why it is that ‘good’ men in positions of power will produce evil, while the ordinary man without power but able to engage in voluntary cooperation with his neighbors will produce good, requires analysis and thought, subordinating the emotions to the rational faculty.
Surely that is one answer to the perennial mystery of why collectivism [and socialism], with its demonstrated record of producing tyranny and misery, is so widely regarded as superior to individualism, with its demonstrated record of producing freedom and plenty. The argument for collectivism is simple if false; it is an immediate emotional argument. The argument for individualism is subtle and sophisticated; it is an indirect rational argument. And the emotional facilities are more highly developed in most men than the rational, paradoxically or especially even in those who regard themselves as intellectuals.
Experience has strongly confirmed Hayek’s central insight—that coordination of men’s activities through central direction and through voluntary cooperation are roads going in very different directions: the first to serfdom, the second to freedom. That experience has also strongly reinforced a secondary theme—central direction is also a road to poverty for the ordinary man; voluntary cooperation, a road to plenty. The battle for freedom must be won over and over again. The socialists in all parties to whom Hayek dedicated his book must once again be persuaded or defeated if they and we are to remain free men.
In a recent article, Matt McManus drew a valuable distinction between postmodern culture and postmodern philosophy. Postmodern culture, he argued, was first theorized by neo-Marxists to refer to what they saw as a new phase of capitalism, characterized by heightened skepticism and a preoccupation with subjectivity. However, one need not adopt Marxist social theory in order to agree with the basic point that the social conditions which characterize twenty-first-century liberal democracies make it difficult to take our beliefs for granted. The unprecedented degree of cultural and religious pluralism on offer in developed nations today undoubtedly has an impact on what we can take to be certain.
Charles Taylor in his masterpiece A Secular Age called this process “fragilization,” the basic idea of which is that it is more difficult to believe in something wholeheartedly when that belief is not shared by the people one is surrounded by (indeed, we might call this sociology of knowledge 101). So, there is a real sense in which we do in fact live in a post- (or what I would prefer to call “late”) modern culture, whereby our awareness of the existence of “other options”—made especially acute as a result of recent digital technologies—fragilizes our beliefs, leaving us without firm epistemic anchors. This illuminates a significant but seldom acknowledged reason why postmodern philosophy finds traction today.
So what characterizes postmodern thought? In The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Jean Lyotard defines postmodernism as “incredulity towards metanarratives.” According to Lyotard, postmodernism is a critical response to the presumption of ultimate truth embodied in modernist doctrines as wide-ranging as Enlightenment liberalism, Marxist Socialism, and Religious Fundamentalism. Postmodernists follow Friedrich Nietzsche in endorsing a radical epistemological skepticism embodied in what is often called a “hermeneutics of suspicion.”
While I think postmodern philosophy is interesting and even sometimes instructive, I am convinced that in practice it is often incoherent, not to mention politically self-refuting. But this raises the question: why, if postmodern philosophy has been shown to be so intellectually and politically confused (by observers on both the Left and Right), does it remain so popular?
“I Have No Worldview”
In the summer of 2017, I attended a conference on Science and Religion at Oxford University. In a session on the concept of the “secular,” I listened to a speaker give a paper that, in fine postmodern fashion, went about deconstructing all existing definitions of the “secular” within the academic literature. This speaker applied a hermeneutics of suspicion with great skill to these discourses, identifying how they were not only socially constructed but also how they served the nefarious ends of their various proponents.
It was a well-argued paper that left me impressed but also puzzled. The speaker had deconstructed all of these accounts but supplied no alternative account. After the session ended I approached him to inquire about this. But he just stared at me blankly, as if I had just asked him how to tie my own shoelaces. This was not his job, he told me. He seemed to believe an alternative account to be unnecessary. I wanted to know what underlying values and beliefs were motivating his critique so I asked him to describe his worldview. He responded, “I have no worldview.”
At the time, this response shocked me, but I generously took it to mean something like: the way I see the world does not fit neatly into your constructed categories, or, I won’t let myself be boxed in. However, having since read scores of books informed by postmodern philosophy and debated the topic with countless disciples of Foucault, I have come to think this speaker’s statement meant something quite different.
Postmodern Philosophy as Debating Strategy
It seems to me that postmodernism is popular—especially among academics—not merely because of the social and cultural conditions of late modernity, but because it is immensely powerful as a tool or strategy of argument. For how can you possibly refute a person’s position when they deny even having one? In turn, arguing with someone who subscribes to postmodern thought is like fighting someone who has nothing to lose. There is no winning.
I have experienced this repeatedly in graduate seminars and at conferences. I will make a substantive judgment about history or some event, and some postmodern junkie will reply that I am merely reproducing a socially constructed discourse. In these moments, it’s hard to know what to do. I usually end up keeping quiet, but then I can’t help thinking the person who just deconstructed my truth claim doesn’t actually believe what they’re peddling. Because how could you possibly live a human life really believing that there is no ultimate truth?
Postmodern philosophy affords a position of power within the academy because it arms the scholar with tools to pick apart everyone else’s work, without leaving itself open to objections or refutations. By feigning a position of critical neutrality, the postmodern critic can stand back and deconstruct everyone else’s discourses, as if they occupy an Archimedean point.
But the postmodern critic has entered into a Faustian bargain: they have traded in their humanity—rooted in the need for meaning and coherence—in order to win arguments. I realize this sounds a bit over the top, but I can’t think of a better way to put it. Postmodern philosophy gives you the power to crush any intellectual opponent because it allows you to make the case that everything they believe is socially constructed, corrupt, oppressive, or all of the above.
As a result, a commitment to postmodern thought is likely to breed one of two things: severe existential angst and disenchantment or hypocrisy.
John Galton and his girlfriend Lily Forester had finally made it. On a March 2017 evening, the young American couple sat on their balcony above Acapulco, Mexico, counting their blessings. They’d recently moved into a big house on a mountainside and were eyeing an ambitious push into the artisanal bong business.
Galton and Forester were anarcho-capitalists who slipped U.S. drug charges worth 25 years in prison, they said in a YouTube video that night. They’d hopped the border and resettled in what Galton called one of the world’s “pockets of freedom,” a community billed as a libertarian paradise.
Almost two years later, Galton was murdered.
Last week, gunmen burst into the couple’s mountaintop home, killing Galton on the spot, and seriously wounding one of the couple’s friends. (Forester survived, badly shaken.) The killers are presumed to be a drug cartel; Mexican authorities say Galton grew marijuana at the home.
Galton was part of a small community of fellow anarcho-capitalists formed by Jeff Berwick, who promised a drug-friendly haven and hosts the annual “Anarchapulco” festival. Berwick says Galton and Forester should’ve known what they were getting into.
“They started up a competing conference to Anarchapulco, called Anarchaforko and John continued to be involved in one way or another with the production or sale of plants,” Berwick told The Daily Beast in an email. “Unfortunately, that is the one thing that is very dangerous to do in Mexico as the drug cartels will attack anyone they see as competition and that appears to have happened to John.”
Anarchapulco will go on as scheduled next week and might be even bigger due to the murder, Berwick says.
“We’ve received nothing but love from attendees and expect this will not affect attendance in a negative way at all,” he said. “In fact, it could increase attendance as more people are exposed to our message this week due to media coverage of this tragic event.”
Berwick is a Canada-born anarcho-capitalist podcaster, who moved to Acapulco part-time in 2009 and became known for a hard-partying lifestyle. In 2015, he launched Anarchapulco, a festival for anarcho-capitalists, some of whom relocated to Acapulco full-time.
“Every year, as people would visit, they would be attracted to the freedom, weather and culture of Acapulco and many people would stay or move there,” Berwick told The Daily Beast. “This was not anything planned and happened quite organically. But there are likely in the neighborhood of dozens or hundreds of voluntaryists who now live in Acapulco.”
A former member of the community told The Daily Beast the community’s membership fluctuates, but is likely around 50 to 60.
This year’s Feb. 14-17 Anarchapulco promises a nudist pool, psychedelics, sex counseling, and sessions on radical homeschooling—as well as big-name Republican figures like former presidential candidate Ron Paul and Fox News personality Judge Andrew Napolitano.
The conference is located in a ritzy Acapulco hotel. Attendees will have shelled out $545 for tickets, with options to pay an additional $495 for an “investment summit,” $255 for the “Infinite Man” summit with a pickup artist, $140 for “De-Mystifying the Occult,” and $250 each for various drug ceremonies like “Jaguar Vision,” an hour-long DMT experience.
Anarcho-capitalists (“ancaps”) believe in dismantling the state and allowing unchecked capitalism to govern the world in its place. Even within the small anarchist world, ancaps are fringe. Anarchists typically describe their movement as inherently anti-capitalist. Their philosophy describes anarchy as the rejection of hierarchical structures, which they say capitalism enforces. Anarcho-capitalists, meanwhile, see money as a liberating force. They promote a variety of libertarian causes like using cryptocurrency, legalizing all drugs, and privatizing all public institutions like courts and roads. The movement reveres the novelist Ayn Rand, whose work outlines a philosophy of radical selfishness and individualism. Her best-known character, an idealized capitalist named John Galt, appears to have inspired Galton’s name.
Berwick is an unofficial leader in this movement that eschews leaders. And Acapulco is only his latest attempt at building an ideal ancap society.
A native Canadian, Berwick made his fortune by founding and selling the stock promotion website Stockhouse, and by investing in bitcoin before the cryptocurrency boomed in value. Then his ventures took a more experimental turn.
After moving to Acapulco in 2009, Berwick became something of an ancap pied piper, selling passports and real estate to non-Mexican anarchists who wanted to live in the city, according to a 2014 Wired profile. Today, Berwick’s real estate business appears dead. Its website, which advertised “paradise,” now redirects to the homepage for Anarchapulco.
“Jeff was always saying publicly that Acapulco’s not dangerous, that you can do anything, nothing will happen to you. People believed him.” — ‘Mike’
Berwick’s passport company, TDV Passports, also appears to have stumbled. The site used to sell “professional facilitation services for those seeking to establish citizenship in countries abroad.” In practical terms, that meant putting clients in touch with people who could fast-track immigration and citizenship applications. Various versions of the site charged from $12,000 for the Dominican Republic citizenship process to $40,000 in “legal fees” for U.S. citizenship. The company appearsfrequentlyon scam-reporting websites, where alleged TDV Passports customers complained of spending tens of thousands of dollars without ever obtaining immigration documents.
“Mike,” who spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity, is a former Berwick colleague who lived in Berwick’s Acapulco community for two years.
“The first Anarcapulco was funded by this passport scheme,” Mike said. “Essentially Jeff was selling Mexican passports to Middle Eastern people. I met Egyptians and a lot of Syrians… He promised to provide passports. I’ve heard of one or two who got them before the scheme collapsed.”
Berwick did not respond to The Daily Beast’s comment on TDV Passports.
Investors dumped millions into the project, which promised to be an ideal society of freedom-loving individuals. Instead, would-be Gulch residents found themselves part-owners of a mismanaged patch of desert. When investors visited the site in 2014 to pick out the plots where their homes and farms would go, they learned that the area had not been zoned for their habitation. One ancap investor defected from the project with a scathing blog post, accusing the Galt’s Gulch team of failing to secure water rights for the desert community. The project, now an outright failure, is the subject of lawsuits in Chile. Berwick, who is not a defendant in the lawsuits, claims he was duped by one of his colleagues on the project.
With Galt’s Gulch drying up, Berwick returned his focus to Acapulco, launching the first Anarchapulco festival in 2015. The event, a celebration of cryptocurrency, alternative health, and post-government politics, was a success, both in attendance and in establishing a year-round ancap presence in the city.
According to the forthcoming documentary “Stateless,” Berwick’s first festival “was designed to attract other ‘ancaps,’ libertarians, and crypto-anarchists to Acapulco, with hopes of encouraging many to become residents of the region and build a new community of government-evaders.”
If you believe that liberty is important for the future, you probably wonder how today’s kids are learning about it. You might quiz young children in your life to determine what they know. You could scan their social studies texts to see how liberty is described. Ultimately, you will probably decide you should instruct them about liberty yourself. But how?
Elementary and middle school-aged children are not developmentally ready to debate the border wall, the minimum wage, or the war on drugs. Much of the discussion about liberty that engages adults would confuse or even distress young children. When it concerns liberty, what is appropriate to teach young children? How can it be explained? Can learning about liberty be engaging for five- to twelve-year-olds? As a parent and teacher, these are the questions I pondered. I created the website Kids Learn Liberty to answer them.
If you have ever tried to teach a young child, you know that you must build on the child’s current knowledge one small step at a time. Care must be taken to avoid using words the learner does not comprehend. Since liberty is an abstract concept, children’s grasp of it is strengthened with narratives and hands-on projects. Keeping all that in mind, here is a sample of topics from Kids Learn Liberty.
Coach Them to Distinguish Voluntary from Forced
Children can learn to distinguish between cooperation and coercion. Both involve people interacting. Cooperation is voluntary. Coercion involves threats or actual harm.
Explaining that government generally uses violence to pursue its goals would be unsuitable for young children. It would encourage fear and mistrust. However, children can learn to distinguish between cooperation and coercion. Both involve people interacting. Cooperation is voluntary. Coercion involves threats or actual harm.
After learning about, and hearing examples of, cooperation and coercion, children can listen to the story The Queen of the Frogs by Davide Cali, which explores the issue of rulers vs. ruled, and The Arabolies of Liberty Street, by Sam Swope, which pits the forces of sameness against the joys of individuality. Both will set the stage for thought and discussion about cooperation and coercion.
To make cooperation and coercion more personal, children can write examples of human interactions on index cards and sort them into their proper categories. As world events and family and personal experiences present more examples, these can be added to the deck. When they are ready, children can learn—or better still, figure out for themselves—that most government activities are coercive.
Present Facts Proving that Liberty Is Preferred
The dangers and difficulties of their journeys show the importance of freedom to them.
Immigration is an appropriate and interesting topic for five- to twelve-year-olds. Most immigrants move from less free to more free locations, which demonstrates liberty’s widespread appeal. Kids first need to know what immigration means and that troubles like war, oppression, and poverty are the reasons people relocate. The dangers and difficulties of their journeys show the importance of freedom to them.
Many outstanding children’s books describe immigrant experiences. Some are factual, such as L is for Liberty by Wendy Cheyette Lewison. A chapter book suitable for middle schoolers, Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse, weaves a compelling narrative about a Russian immigrant girl.
The immigrant experience can be made personal for young children by sharing with them the stories, photos, and heirlooms of their own immigrant ancestors. Children can also visit Meet Young Immigrants on the Scholastic website to hear the words of present-day immigrant children.
Introduce Champions of Liberty
Kids love heroes. Introduce young children to real people who championed liberty. Founders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson come to mind. Others can be even more powerful.
The beautifully illustrated book Words Set Me Free: The Story of Young Frederick Douglass by Lesa Cline-Ransome will astonish kids as they follow the twisting path Douglass trod to learn how to read. The Picture Book of Harriet Tubman by David Adler conveys the horrors of slavery and the risks people took to escape it. Tubman’s words describing how she felt to be free are breathtaking. Consider also Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai, a living young person who stood up for her freedom to learn.
Encourage Awareness of Liberty in Action
Something as commonplace as a grocery store produce department abounds with interesting examples of exchange.
Though the mathematics of economic freedom would lull young children to sleep (not a bad thing if you are an exhausted parent), adults can help generate kids’ interest in the economic activity happening around them. Farmers are plowing in their fields. Construction workers are putting up new buildings. Consider taking the children in your life on a tour of a local factory. The tag inside a new pair of sneakers will tell where they were produced. Why not help their new owner find that place on a world map? Trains and delivery vehicles are loaded with products heading to customers. What are they carrying? Where might they be going? Something as commonplace as a grocery store produce department abounds with interesting examples of exchange. Tomatoes from local farms, apples from Washington state, and grapes from Chile are all products of trade.
A surprising number of children’s books have economic freedom as a theme. Some are explicit, such as the classic story “I, Pencil” by Leonard Read. It cleverly describes how, without central direction, many specialists from all over the world work together to produce an everyday object. One Hen by Kate Smith Milway explains how entrepreneurship helped an African community become more prosperous.
Offer Real-Life Examples of Oppression
A powerful way to demonstrate the importance of liberty is to contrast free and unfree countries. Unfortunately, most nonfiction books for young children about nations such as North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela fail to explain the oppression and privation suffered by their citizens. Stories about developing nations focus on the ways that children all over the world are alike. Though this is good for nurturing understanding, getting children from wealthy countries to make the connection between liberty and lifestyle will probably require explanation.
The story The Water Princess by Susan Verde describes a young African girl’s daily walks to obtain water for drinking and washing. Children with indoor plumbing will benefit from hearing that dependable tap water is a benefit of living in a free and prosperous community. Narratives are what make the realities of lack of freedom come to life. For example, truthful stories about life in North Korea (N is for North Korea by Trevor Eissler) and Afghanistan (Nasreen’s Secret School by Jeanette Winter) describe the lives of oppressed children.
Hearing explanations, reading powerful narratives, and making personal connections will help young children comprehend and appreciate liberty. Then they will be better prepared for the onslaught of historic and political perspectives they will encounter in high school and beyond. The best way to preserve liberty for posterity is to make sure that those going into the future understand its importance.
For more concepts, dozens of literature suggestions, plus links and family activities for teaching liberty to children, go to the website kidslearnliberty.com.
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Synopsis: Creativity has everything to do with mindset – beware the zero-sum mindset.
Pause a moment longer to take a more considered look at it, and it’s easy to discern that creativity is always, always, always a multiplayer game too. Indeed this is fact doubly true. Not only are breakthrough creative ideas a result of an accumulation of many smaller ideas, but inevitably those many contributing ideas come from many contributors too, rather than some single, mythical, creative genius source. To punctuate the observation, consider that MacArthur Fellows, those famous creative folks who have the moniker of genius thrust upon them, are the quickest to tell you that, in the words of mathematician and Fellow Maria Chudnovsky, whatever they create rests on the broad shoulders of others before them, and that their greatest hope is that what they create will do the same for other people and other ideas yet to come. In short, the multiplayer nature of creativity is true both in any individual creation and across creations and time.
If all of this strikes you as somewhat self-evident, you might be asking yourself, why make the point? Considered in a thoughtful moment, the answer is just as clear, though in the current environment, all too easily missed. Our world is increasingly dominated by the short view, the quick answer, and the implicit goal of finality. On a growing list of subjects, we humans are also increasingly leaning towards not only an us versus them view, but strategy, a textbook zero-sum strategy where I must win, and you must lose, and together we fail to advance. At the very least, if our endeavor is a creative one, with this mindset we’re pretty much done before we even begin. But as zero-sum spreads to an ever-widening number of endeavors, it’s important to do the math. Inevitably, the conversation is about far more than pennies.
Over the holidays I moved education-related articles on McGillespie.com to a new website created for that purpose. OutliersAcademy.com is a new full-blown educational website with a tagline of “Inspiring the Next Generation of Outliers.” It’s built for students of any age interested in courses, articles, curriculums, etc. that enable one to thrive in the artificial chaos of today’s world.
The Essence of Education
The essence of education is transformation and learning to live in ways that leverage the power of those transformations. The categories of materials on OutliersAcademy.com are centered around the theme of transformation: Education, Entrepreneurship, History, Creativity, Productivity, Economics, Legal, Alternative News Commentary.
New Focus for McGillespie.com
With OutliersAcademy.com to house educational materials, the focus of McGillespie.com will be shifted to Writing, Technology, Family, Health, Personal Experiences, Politics, and news commentary unrelated to my other sites.
By the way, if you’ve signed up for the McG newsletter for educationally related materials, there’s no need to do anything. I’ll re-tag your email so you’ll have access to the new resource library in OutliersAcademy.com (where I’ll be uploading lots a great new material!)
DivineCouncil.org at the Center
DivineCouncil.org is devoted solely to spiritual matters as I believe the essence of human nature (and the origin of physical reality) is spiritual.
DivineCouncil.org is a fully-featured website with a regularly updated article blog, an infrastructure to distribute theological materials to a large subscriber base, and a private forum that could run a large church.
The private forum on DivineCouncil.org provides extensive resource-sharing capabilities. The forum, alone, could serve a large mega-church with dozens of ministries (in fact, many websites with such a forum devote the entire site to the forum.) However, DivineCouncil.org’s forum is devoted to sharing and distributing theological resources, supporting missionaries, and facilitating conversations searchable by keyword & category.
Private threads are also available on the forum for planning, article critique and collaboration, and for matters not appropriate to the entire forum readership.
In short, DC’s forum is everything Facebook is not.
What They Have in Common
There are three things that all three websites have in common: a course library, a private forum, and a store.
Course Library
Given that all courses, regardless of subject, will be housed on OutliersAcademy.com the categories for McGillespie.com and DivineCouncil.org will inevitably spill over to OutliersAcademy.com when courses become available in their respective areas of focus.
Private Forum
The forum on DivineCouncil.org is expensive and requires considerable administration. For that reason, I’ll be leveraging the forum to support OutliersAcademy.com and McGillespie.com, as well. Please see the bottom of the forum on DivineCouncil.org to discuss articles or courses related to OutliersAcademy.com and McGillespie.com.
Online Store
The “Store” button on the menu of all three websites will take you to the online store for that website.
The store was installed to make it possible to sell digital downloads without having to update expiring links for security. However, there are lots of possibilities I’m looking forward to exploring.
Life Admin & Web Cockpit
I have two large computer screens in my office formed into a kind of life-administering cockpit. Between logos, writing tools, and all sorts of apps and gizmos that make it easier (read possible) to administer life and three fully-blown websites there’s usually something interesting on the screen.
Every once in a while a friend is in my office to discuss something in private, and they see something on the screen that prompts them to ask what I’m working on. While answering their questions I become aware, again, how extensive is the infrastructure that keeps my life on track, websites administered, and materials published for their respective purposes.
Everything is Easy?
Far from complaining, I find my work to be thrilling and a joy. However, I also know something about websites that most people don’t: the “cockpit” and tools on my screen are similar or identical to those on the desks of thousands of other website administrators. There are many great choices for tools “out there”, but the best of the breed are usually obvious. Equally well-known is how many tools (dozens or more) are necessary to accomplish the work and still carry on something of a normal life. And those knee-deep in using them know something else that need rarely be mentioned or discussed: The oft-heard advice that “having a website is easy” or “just throw it up online” or “my friend makes $10k a month on his blog and does almost nothing” is worse than bad; it’s defeating and destructive.
Just recently, I learned of a good man who was lured into a one SAS-(software as service)-does-all program for administering the totality of his business website needs. As of 2019, no such automated service can fulfill this promise. Such a promise can only be made (let alone fulfilled) by an actual person (or persons) doing the work. Yes–even in 2019– actual people still have to do the grunt work to keep a good website going; piece-by-piece, update-by-update, integration-by-integration, codemod-by-codemod, glitch-by-glitch, support-call-by-support call.
Automations like drip marketing are awesome, spreadsheets can do wonders, google drive is cool as long as it’s free, and there are lots of great courses out there to help. My new favorite beast(s) are Zapier integrations to take the drudgery out of inter-app coordination! But, don’t be fooled: there’s still a SWAMP of technology to wade through to keep everything in place for a functional website that fulfills its purpose well.
Pro Tip: Before you start a website for your business (or pay for an automated do-all-service) ask, beg, or purchase the advice on everything it really takes from someone already doing it. . . .successfully.
Library on McG Will Remain
The free-resource Library on McGillespie.com will remain and another one created on OutliersAcademy.com for resources related to the OA categories listed, above.
3 Websites for Life!
In retrospect, the unfolding of these three websites (over ten years) was natural and inevitable. Now with the “birth” of OutliersAcademy.com, I have the same feeling with regards to websites as when our second child was born. There is an indescribable feeling of “completeness of platform.”
In 2019, I’m more committed than ever to nourishing my family … and these three websites … for life!
As described in my last post, there are many great uses for transcripts, and I’ve started creating them for video and audio I’d like to have in text format.
This first transcript is of a documentary interview with Jordan Peterson conducted by David Fuller for Rebel Wisdom.
I recommend this documentary as a starting point for Peterson’s material. David Fuller does a masterful job of capturing and distilling many of Peterson’s key insights.
The transcript is 21 pages. The excerpts, below, are two of many exchanges between David and Jordan worth watching (and reading.)
The Principle at the Heart of Western Civilization
RW is Rebel Wisdom (David Fuller Interviewing Jordan & Narration)
RW: Peterson thinks we have to discover these timeless truths, but most of all, the idea of transcendental truth itself: the logos.
JP: There’s a principle at the heart of western civilization and it’s older than Christianity and it’s older than Judaism, although both Judaism and Christianity developed it to a great degree. It’s the idea of the logos, and logos is also the root word of logic, but it means something like coherent interpersonal communication of the truth. And from an archetypal interpretation, it’s the action of the logos that extracts order from chaos. It’s the fundamental proposition and we’ve lost it. And, we will not survive without it.
JP: The West will die without the rebirth of the logos because the West is that. So, with that gone, it’s gone and we’ve seen what’s arisen to replace it. There’s fascism, there’s communism, and then there’s the New Age mess, because it’s a mess, and most of it is wish fulfillment and fantasy and inability to, there’s creativity in it, but there’s no capacity to edit, whatsoever. There’s no coherence and so that stuff is so weak that anyone with any commitment can just push it aside. And there’s no justification for the Marxism and or for the fascism. It’s like, we already had that experiment.
Archetypes vis-a-vis Human Biology, Mythology, Psychology, Morality, Religion, and Science
RW: Peterson is reviving Jung and grounding his discoveries in the latest neuroscience, explaining how these mythological archetypes are encoded in our brains and bodies, tying together mythology, psychology, morality, and religion, with science.
JP: You’re adrift without it. You have to you have to have a conscious relationship with the archetypes. There’s no way if you don’t then you’re susceptible to possession, that’s basically, or to despair so and no wonder.
RW: Well, you’ve got to have axioms so the right axioms are the archetypes?
JP: Yes, that’s why they exist.
RW: You see archetypes as biological structures?
JP: They are at least that, yeah. They’re preexisting. They’re pre-existing categories of perception in the Kantian sense, that’s a good way of thinking about it, is that, you know, that the pure empiricist thinks that you get all your information from the outside world. But that’s not true because you bring on a priori interpretive framework to the world and that’s instantiated biologically but then it’s also enculturated. So, separating the archetype from the underlying biological reality isn’t easy. So you have the snake, you have the propensity to perceive reptilian predators, the manner in which those things are represented in the culture fill those holes essentially and so that can summarize…
RW: It’s the same thing for language instinct so yeah …
JP: That’s right, exactly. It’s the same thing, it’s the same thing. Like, the archetypes are manifestations of the universal grammar of emotion and motivation, that’s a good way of thinking about it. Now, they may be more than that …
In a world of information overload, whoever appears to be the most reasonable can influence or control the overloaded.
There’s no historical precedent for the amount of information the average person has at their fingertips, today. Anyone with a phone can bring libraries of information to bear on each and every decision.
But information is not knowledge. And knowledge is not wisdom. Without wisdom, it’s hard to tell what information applies to which decision.
This challenge, to the average person, is an opportunity for:
Those who would seek to influence.
Those who would seek to control.
Influence vs. Control
Whether influence is good or bad can only be determined by context and discernment. For now, I’ll confine “influence” to that with no destructive intent.
Control, on the other hand, is the desire to obtain consent for the purpose of domination. I’ll explain why consent is necessary, later in this article.
How can you tell whether someone is seeking benevolent influence or destructive control?
Those Seeking Influence …
… behave like vendors in a marketplace. They present the pros and cons of an idea or product and leave you to decide for yourself.
Those Seeking Control …
… bully, rather than inform or persuade. For example, any one of Schopenhauer’s 38 stratagems might be used to give the appearance of being right; with little or no interest in actually being right:
The Extension (Dana’s Law)
The Homonymy
Generalize Your Opponent’s Specific Statements
Conceal Your Game
False Propositions
Postulate What Has to Be Proved
Yield Admissions Through Questions
Make Your Opponent Angry
Questions in Detouring Order
Take Advantage of the Nay-Sayer
Generalize Admissions of Specific Cases
Choose Metaphors Favourable to Your Proposition
Agree to Reject the Counter-Proposition
Claim Victory Despite Defeat
Use Seemingly Absurd Propositions
Arguments Ad Hominem
Defense Through Subtle Distinction
Interrupt, Break, Divert the Dispute
Generalize the Matter, Then Argue Against it
Draw Conclusions Yourself
Meet Him With a Counter-Argument as Bad as His
Petitio principii
Make Him Exaggerate His Statement
State a False Syllogism
Find One Instance to the Contrary
Turn the Tables
Anger Indicates a Weak Point
Persuade the Audience, Not the Opponent
Diversion
Appeal to Authority Rather Than Reason
This Is Beyond Me
Put His Thesis into Some Odious Category
It Applies in Theory, but Not in Practice
Don’t Let Him Off the Hook
Will Is More Effective Than Insight
Bewilder Your opponent by Mere Bombast
A Faulty Proof Refutes His Whole Position
Become Personal, Insulting, Rude (argumentum ad personam)
Personal Favorites
Declaring as “over”, debates that have hardly begun.
Declaring as “debunked”, valid concerns yet to be addressed.
Declaring as “discredited”, persons of integrity.
Declaring as “concluded”, discussions that have hardly begun.
Threats in lieu of persuasion.
Imposing artificial deadlines for a decision.
Declaring that “everybody does it” while providing no specific examples.
All of the above are attempts to deceive, rather than inform or persuade.
The Debate is Over!
Whenever I hear someone say, “The debate is over”, I know an end has been pronounced by someone desperate to avoid a beginning. I also know that the one making the pronouncement has made an investment, either monetary or emotional, that debate would put in jeopardy.
Global/Climate (Cooling | Warming | Change)
The first time I heard the phrase “Global Cooling” was in a sentence declaring the debate about it to be over. The phrase was then changed to “Global Warming” in the same sentence declaring that debate to be over, as well.
Finally, the phrase was changed to something for which no debate is necessary: “Climate Change”. Indeed, climate is 100% guaranteed to change, forever!
The debate is over on a lot of things: ocean waves, morning dew, childish innocence. If the debate about something is declared to be over before it’s even begun, the one making the declaration has something to hide.
The Information Advantage
Due to the amount of information available, those who seek control must compete in the “marketplace” of ideas. They must not only to appear reasonable, but the most reasonable among competing alternatives. This “most reasonable” appearance must persist for as long as it takes to obtain a lasting form of control. The best of these is a binding contract, either signed or opted into.
Consent is Required for Lasting Control
Without consent, control is temporary. It lasts only as long as you remain fooled.
With consent, however, control lasts for the length of the contract.
The Jurisdiction of Reasonableness
Mere opinions, and the bullying tactics used to get them accepted, don’t matter unless there’s a valuable jurisdiction to be gained, and a judge to decide who gains them.
Those who don’t seek control rarely think about things like jurisdictions and judges. Those who do seek control, however, think about little else. They spend most of their time campaigning for appointment, by you, to be a judge in one of the most important jurisdictions of all: your mind.
Your mind is not only a jurisdiction, but the deciding jurisdiction of all others.
Agreement Types
Contractual opt-ins are becoming more and more subtle. For example, the mere breaking of a plastic seal on the box for a TV or appliance, is the opt-in for many EULAs (End-User License Agreements).
Still, an actual signature “on the dotted line” of a contract is the best legal mechanism of control.
The Debt-Contract Example
Only a handful of contracts, spread across the 7 Matters of Life, are needed to control most aspects of life. Three debt-contracts illustrate the point:
Student loans — 10 Years.
Car Loan — 5 Years.
Mortgage — 30 Years.
One of these three contracts enslaves a large percentage of the world. To avoid that fate, consider two questions, before signing one of them:
Are you fully aware of the educational, transportation, or housing alternatives that would fill these needs without going into debt?
Do you not know that, if you present yourselves to anyone as an obedient slave, you are a slave of the one whom you obey? (Romans 6:16)
Most liberties are not “lost” or “stolen”. They are surrendered, voluntarily, through legal contracts. It’s worth understanding some legal terms around such contracts.
To bear witness v. — To solemnly assert something, offering firsthand authentication of the fact; often concerning grave or important matters.
Truth (quality) n. — Conformity to reality or actuality; often with the implication of dependability.
Message — truth n. — A message that conforms to reality or actuality; whether historical (in space and time) or supernatural.
The Usual Campaign Sequence
The campaign to become an appointed judge in the jurisdiction of your mind follows a usual sequence. Think of it as a sales pitch, because that’s what it is.
I am the most reasonable and provide the best options.
You are less reasonable with limited options.
“Those who love the truth hear my voice”1, and sign my contract.
Conclusion
Your mind is the deciding jurisdiction of all others, and you are its primary judge. The cost of retaining this position is choosing the highest source of truth, exploring all options available, and solving problems with a commitment to remain debt-free.
Pay whatever cost necessary to remain the primary judge of the jurisdiction of your mind. If you forfeit that position, all that isn’t immediately lost, is exposed to loss.
In a world of information overload, whoever appears to be the most reasonable can influence or control the overloaded.
After more than two months of prayer, council, and “counting the cost” over on the FaithLife forum, the DivineCouncil.org website and forum is up and running!
We hope DC will be the first, and a role model sister-site, around the territory mapped out by Michael Heiser in his recent book, the Unseen Realm.
Facebook is fun, but if you’re tired of conversations scrolling off the screen (and other FB pitfalls) the forum part of the site is built on a wonderful platform that enables the best means of discussions, fellowship, resource sharing, and live chat, available, today.
We love the new forum, and yet DC is a full-blown website, blog, etc. It’s a multi-author website (with three contributing writers, so far). If there are any believing writers, artists, photographers, small group leaders, etc. looking for a place to share, DivineCouncil.org could serve as an outlet for you.
We pray it may fill a need for the Kingdom, empower small groups, and be a worthy site for the Church.
Over 50 people have already signed on to the forum in the first week!
A few months ago, there was a 60-day preview of Unseen Realm on LOGOS and Michael Heiser asked some of his more veteran readers to help shepherd newcomers to the material on the FaithLife Forum.
Growing out of those discussions has been what I hope to be the first sister website and forum for writers, artists, and those looking to interact with others on the material: DivineCouncil.org.
What is it?
It’s a full website & forum with three writers contributing to the front page blog. I hope the site may also serve as an outlet for others. So, if there are any believing writers, artists, photographers etc. Looking to contribute, this might be a good fit for you.
The forum part of the site is structured around the Unseen Realm in terms of the overarching missions of Jesus.
So What?
There’s a special resource manager setup to disseminate materials to small groups and make it easier to find things to bring to your church. Each resource can be reviewed, and have discussions formed around them, so people know how they can be used, the ideal audience, attributions, etc.
There’s also a live chat area, so you might be able to catch fellow listeners online for a brief chat while you’re on the forum.
Better than Facebook!
Facebook is fun, but if you’re tired of conversations scrolling off the screen (and other FB pitfalls) the private forum environment is more conducive to organized and focused discussions that can be searched later by yourself and others.
So, if you’re looking for a more private and trusted environment for discussions around this material you have another option available in which to do that.
What Next?
Over 50 people have signed-up to the forum in the first week, and the platform will scale up to as large as it needs to be.
Nathan, Terence, and Zechariah hope DivineCoucil.org will fill a need for the Kingdom, empower small groups, and be a worthy site for the Church.
Over 50 people have already signed on to the forum in the first week!
Now, it seems to me, that if evolution did occur, then it would’ve had to have been a miracle. In other words, evolution is literally evidence for the existence of God.
The debate, before nearly 8000 people, took place on June 27, 1993 in Buffalo Grove, Illinois and aired live on radio in the greater Chicago area.
Transcription of William Lane Craig
“Now, what about the question of evolution? Let me submit to you that is a complete red herring. The theory of evolution is irrelevant to the truth of the Christian faith. Genesis 1 permits all manner of different interpretations and Christians are not necessarily committed to special creationism. Howard Van Till of Calvin College, a Christian school, asks, “Is the concept of special creation required of all persons who trust in the creator God of Scripture?”
An Unnecessary Component of Christian Belief
“Most Christians in my acquaintance, who are engaged in either scientific or biblical scholarship, have concluded that the special creationist picture of the world’s formation is not a necessary component of Christian belief.”
“And, I want to emphasize, this is not a retreat caused by modern science. St. Augustine, in the 300s in his commentary on Genesis, argued that the days needn’t be taken literally nor need the creation be a few thousand years ago. He didn’t even envisage special acts of creation. He said the world could have been made by God with certain potencies that unfolded in the progress of time. This interpretation was enunciated 1500 years prior to Darwin and, therefore, this is a position consistent with being a Christian.”
Scientific Doubts
“Any doubts that I might have about the theory of evolution really are not biblical, but scientific. Namely, what the scenario envisages is just so fantastically improbable. In their book, “The Anthropic Cosmological Principle”, Barrow and Tipler lay out 10 steps necessary to the course of human evolution, each of which is so improbable that before it would occur the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and would’ve burned up the earth.”
“Now, it seems to me, that if evolution did occur, then it would’ve had to have been a miracle. In other words, evolution is literally evidence for the existence of God.”
The Only Game in Town
“In fact, the Christian has an advantage over the atheist, here. We can be open to what the evidence shows us. But, as Alvin Plantinga points out, for the atheist, evolution is the only game in town. So, he’s stuck with it no matter how fantastic the odds, no matter how poor the evidence. He’s got no choice. but the Christian can be open to follow the evidence where it leads and, therefore, I think, can be more objective.”
20 Years Later
While answering a student’s question at the Veritas Forum, Craig makes a layman’s comparison between the theory of common ancestry and theories of evolution.
The Metaphysically Modest Role of Science
After deciding on the title, “The Miracle of Evolution”, for this article, I found another of the same title, by Stephen M. Barr. As a theoretical physicist at the Bartol Research Institute of the University of Delaware, Stephen writes …
The proper ”and ultimately most effective” response is (as I have written before) to distinguish sharply the actual hypotheses of legitimate science from the philosophical errors often mistakenly thought to follow from them. We must draw as clear a line as possible between science and philosophy, not to elevate science above philosophy, but to restore science to its proper “metaphysically modest” role, to use the fine phrase Cardinal Schönborn employed in First Things last month, replying to criticisms I had made of his earlier writing on evolution.
This metaphysical modesty means not allowing philosophical systems to masquerade as science.
