The debate on anarchism and dualism (see here for all the relevant links) has shifted to a debate about strategies for bringing about (and maintaining) a libertarian-anarchic society. So far the discussion is largely being conducted on Chris’s blog here and John Kennedy’s No Treason (see the comments in Chris’s blog post for the particular link).

I agree with Chris that there are multiple strategies for bringing about such a society. Indeed, multiple strategies will be necessary. No single strategy will work by itself. I also agree with Chris that politics is one of them, albeit a limited one (particularly in today’s corrupt environment). Generally, to succeed in politics one must not only compromise one’s principles but become very good at it. The more statist the society, the more this is true. And even if you can get elected without compromising your principles, it is difficult if not impossible to get anything done (at least at the national level) that is moral and just. Texas Representative Ron Paul is arguably the only virtuous national politician, but even his vote is only 1 in 435. I’m sure he does some good, especially as part of the committee that oversees the Fed, but his influence and power are limited. Moreover, one must not overlook the danger of being co-opted as one begins to see success in politics.

Again, I agree with Chris that the battle is primarily a cultural one on the level of personal and socio-cultural (including business firms) principles and institutions. There are multiple avenues by which to approach this culture war. In academia, libertarians can continue to plug away with libertarian-themed journal articles and books as well as, and perhaps more importantly, providing an increasing number of students with an antidote to woefully inadequate and mistaken statist education (both in public and private schools). Outside of academia one can promote libertarian ideas in the media (op-eds, letters to the editor, tv news commentaries, documentaries, blogs and websites, etc.), in the arts and entertainment (fiction writing (from short stories to novels), comic books, cartoons, music, plays, tv shows, movies, etc.), having children and teaching them libertarian ideas, by ignoring the State as much as possible and creating and encouraging the growth of alternative societal institutions (such as homeschooling, fraternal societies, clubs, neighborhood committees, church-related organizations, charities, and new businesses). This is partly the rational evangelism that John disparages, but not entirely. Rational argumentation often has little effect by itself on those who are old and set in their ways, but the young are more open to new, radical, and true ideas. Moreover, what Chris and I advocate is not rational argumentation merely, but rational action. Different people have different talents and resources to bring to bear on this culture war and so will be better at different avenues of attack. You should do what you can. Rational argumentation will often play a role but it must be supplemented by, or rather supplement, a bevy of other strategies many of which I have already mentioned.

One important avenue that I have mentioned, and John emphasizes as well, is libertarian-run businesses. Yet business, while important, is only one institution of collective action that libertarians can use to ignore, avoid, and undermine the State. John also includes a related issue: invention. I certainly agree that certain new technologies can and will be used to help to create a libertarian-anarchic society. However, John’s argument that so-called “rational evangelism” won’t work and that “the state will have it’s [sic] way as long as enough people approve of it…is simply not the case” is wrong, and his focus on the role of technology borders on determinism. Are certain advanced technologies necessary in order to bring about and maintain a libertarian-anarchic society? John has not explicitly told us if this is the case, and if so, why; but his argument seems to imply that it is. Moreover, if certain technologies are necessary for liberty, then it appears that in a society without said technologies there is an inescapable gulf between the moral and the practical. Ultimately, what technologies are invented and how they will be used is determined by ideas. Email encryption won’t do people much good if people think that they are obligated to let the government through it, or if a majority of the people think the State has the right to punish those who don’t. It is the ideas that people hold that we need to change. Technology can be a useful tool, both for bringing about such change and for keeping out and ignoring the State. Libertarians with the expertise could work on inventing, promoting, selling, and defending new technologies that can serve the libertarian cause.

I think John and I are in agreement about the limited usefulness of collective political movements like the Libertarian Party, however, although I’m not sure he would agree with me that they are not entirely useless or counterproductive.

Update (8/27): Chris’s blog post, “The Rose Petal Assumption,” is also an important read on this subject.

Update (8/28): Walter Block’s recent essay “Austrians in Academia: A Battle Plan” is also useful reading, although it is primarily geared toward economics graduate students and professors. Also, some of the advice for graduate students depends on the character and temperament of their committee members. Luckily, mine, at least so far, have not held my radical libertarianism against me when it comes to grading papers and exams and evaluating my M.A. thesis.

Apparently Tolkien’s hobbits were to some degree influenced by E.A. Wyke-Smith’s The Marvelous Land of the Snergs. See Ken’s post at L&P for more info and a plenitude of links.

This is my 100th post. Not very many for a lot of people in the blogosphere I know, but a milestone nonetheless. I thought I’d revisit my very first blog post, since the reasons I expressed in it for my starting a blog are unchanged, and link to some of my more notable posts.

From my first post:

The reader may wonder about the url for this blog: Veritas Noctis. It is Latin and roughly translates as The Truth of Night. What is the truth of night, one might ask? Why…it is the herald of a radical new dawn. Because it is always darkest before the dawn, or so the saying goes. I developed this catchphrase for an underground group of freedom fighters, called the Dawnbringers, for a fictional setting I created for roleplaying (and maybe a future novel or three). The radical new dawn will not come of its own accord, however. It requires a voice for liberty to speak up and spread the dream. It requires many voices. Edmund Burke once said, “Silence is golden but when it threatens your freedom it’s yellow.” And so I add my voice to the others already defending and promoting liberty in the hope that I will be able to make a contribution to changing our world for the better.

With that said, among my more notable blog posts are the four on libertarian anarchy, statism, and dualism: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4.

I think I’ll also plug the snippets of fiction writing I’ve posted: A Desperate Flight , Happy Slaves & The Seeds of Disillusionment.

And, to have them all in one place, my cooking recipes: Lime (or Lemon) Rice with Peanuts, Tamarind Rice with Peanuts, Geoffrey’s Bean & Salsa Chip Dip, Spicy Chole (A chickpea dish).

And finally, my “Against Idealism: Ayn Rand and Johannes Daubert vs. Husserl’s Ideas I.”

I plan on being around indefinitely so my readers – if there are any besides Chris! – can look forward to more recipes, probably more fiction, and definitely more on philosophy, politics, culture, and economics as well as the occasional personal tidbit. Lastly, thanks to Chris for tirelessly promoting my blog on his own.

I don’t know if the person whose post prompted this one will read it, but here goes. I feel the need to clarify my position anyway.

William J. Beck III over at www.two-four.net happened to read some of my exchange with Chris Sciabarra on anarchy and dualism. (See my posts here, here, and here.) For the most part I agree with what he wrote in his post (here), but there are two things about his post to which I wish to respond. First, is his assumption that in a libertarian-anarchist society all previously “governmental” functions would be run like businesses. Second, is his understandable confusion about what Chris and I mean by dualism and why it is dangerous.

1) I think the assumption that in a libertarian-anarchist society all previously “governmental” functions would be run like businesses is too hasty and most probably mistaken. It is conceivable that there might be many services that might be better provided or only provided by non-business institutions, perhaps in some cases instead of but also quite possibly alongside businesses. Take, for instance, unemployment “insurance.” Now, strictly speaking unemployment is not insurable. (See here (mp3 audio file) for why.) However, institutions like the family, the extended family, fraternal societies (like America had in the 19th century; see here), clubs, churches, neighborhood communities, and so forth, could provide support for the temporarily and unexpectedly unemployed while having the close proximity and knowledge of time and place necessary to prevent or minimize abuse of the service. Similarly for other services. Even security production need not be exclusively provided by businesses. In no way, however, do we need the State to provide all of these services and, indeed, it invariably does a poor job of providing them (not to speak of the other accompanying negatives).

2) I don’t have the time to provide a full explanation of what Chris and I mean by dualism and why we think it is problematic. A brief quote from Chris’s book Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism will perhaps suffice: “Emerging out of the strict-atomist emphasis on analytical isolation, dualism is an orientation toward analysis by separation of a system’s components into two spheres. The dualist identifies two mutually exclusive, externally related spheres. These spheres are expressions of two distinct principles, which the dualist often sees as irreducible and in logical opposition to one another. However, while dualists share with atomists a commitment to external relations, they share with organicists a tendency toward systematization, albeit one that depends entirely upon the classification of all factors along two fundamental axes of inquiry.” (166-167; emphasis in original) We’re primarily concerned with methodology and the errors to which a flawed methodology can lead. The most pervasive dualist metaphysic is the notorious mind-body dichotomy, but dualism has resulted in a vast number of other false dichotomies: fact-value, analytic-synthetic, impositionist-reflectionist, altruist-egoist, anarchist-statist, State vs. Market. Often dualists hold one sphere to be superior to the other and project an eventual and necessary monist resolution as, for instance, the Market absorbs all of the functions of the parasitical State in an anarcho-capitalist society. Often both sides of these dichotomies contain some kernel of truth. One of the most noteworthy aspects of Rand’s philosophy is her largely successful attempt at transcending many of these false dichotomies.

Addendum: Chris has chimed in with a post of his own in response to mine. In it he expands somewhat on what I have said here. The only thing I would disagree with him on is his belief that “the anarchist resolution is not dialectical.” I say it depends on what kind of anarchist you are whether one’s “anarchist resolution” is dialectical or dualist. A Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist may indeed be a dualist, but libertarian anarchism as I have described it does not seem to be dualistic; indeed, it seems positively dialectical!

Update (08/21): Billy Beck responds to our posts, clarifying his position as well and taking me to task on my attempt to salvage the word ‘government’ from ordinary and corrupted usage. It seems he was using business terminology for market and non-market exchanges, transactions, and cooperation, much like Rand’s Trader Principle and her general talk of exchanging values. Okay, it seems we have no disagreement there. To head off any misunderstandings, I am a capitalist in the Randian, Misesian, and Rothbardian sense of that word. I’m also very much an Aristotelian/Randian natural rights theorist, and not a utilitarian. The crux of the issue seems to come down to my attempt to salvage the word ‘government’ from traditional identification with State politics. In short, the issue is primarily terminological and definitional. That’s fine. I don’t need to use the word ‘government’ and I may eventually decide that it isn’t worth salvaging. However, I can’t help but wonder why the terms ‘government’ and ‘governmental’ can’t be used to refer to a vast interconnected, overlapping web of polycentric legal, security, insurance, surety, assurance, and other institutions. Did not Thomas Jefferson talk about the “blessings of self-government“?

…and it looks like I’ll have a lot on my plate this semester and in the Spring as well. I’ll probably be taking my comprehensive exams toward the end of the Spring semester, while I’m taking what will probably be my last graduate-level class: a philosophy seminar.

As for this semester: I’m teaching Intro. to Political Theory again. Here’s the syllabus. This semester I’m focusing on social contract theory and constitutional republicanism in theory and practice, and its proponents and critics (read: Thoreau, Spooner, Long, Rothbard). It should be interesting. I’m aiming to improve my teaching skills, shock my students out of their complacency, and get them thinking about important philosophical, ethical, and political issues from a fresh perspective.

Also this semester, I will be taking three classes. I’ll be taking Intensive Latin (4001) and, simultaneously, a graduate seminar on Roman political philosophy. ::rubs hands together gleefully:: Excellent! I’ll also probably be taking an independent study on Aristotle’s metaphysics, epistemology, and psychology/philosophy of mind. This last is partly in preparation for delving into Aristotelian-libertarian autonomy, the subject on which I hope to write my (delayed) M.A. philosophy thesis. Unfortunately, I have to find a new thesis advisor, as my previous one – James Taylor – received a great but unexpected job offer and left me all alone!

This semester I will also be working on a book review of Negotiating the Good Life: Aristotle and the Civil Society by Mark A. Young for the Journal of Value Inquiry. When I’m done with that I plan to get back to work on my “Ayn Rand, the Austrians, and Aristotelian Apriorism” article. And when I’m done with that I plan to get to work on my “Is Libertarianism Only a Political Philosophy?” One thing at a time though. Meanwhile, I think my “Life, Death, and Harm: A Neo-Aristotelian Account” is almost ready to be submitted (somewhere) for publication.

On a side note: Wow! That Negotiating the Good Life book is awfully expensive ($80!) for a mere two hundred or so pages. Academic publishers… sheesh! Am I glad I got a free review copy!

Steven Horwitz has an interesting post at L&P that discusses the distinction between parental socialism and paternal socialism, and the roots of the former, in the light of work done by James Buchanan. Ayn Rand even gets a favorable mention and credit where credit is due. Chris Matthew Sciabarra chimes in in a comment to the post. I left only a brief comment as well, but I’ll probably be blogging on this subject more in the future as it bears a strong relationship to my research into autonomy.

This is a little late, but for those who haven’t yet heard of the sci-fi/western tv series Firefly, the Serenity movie, or the new trailer for the movie, here it is. Here’s the Serenity movie website, where you can find an earlier trailer and a blog. Here are two Firefly, the tv series, websites: 1 , 2.

I first saw Firefly when it aired on Fox, although I only saw a few episodes. A couple of months ago I bought the DVD set and, I must say, loved every single episode. I am very much looking forward to September 30th when the movie comes out. Fans may want to get in line for the book adaptation of the movie, and check out the visual companion, and this anthology of essays about the tv series.

Roderick Long has posts on Firefly and Serenity here, here, and here.