Book Review: Coolidge by Amity Shlaes

Coolidge" is one of those books the political establishment would prefer that you not read. Amity Shlaes does a masterful job of demonstrating the fundamental issues that consumed America during Coolidge's time and she shows Coolidge to be one of the few men whose ideas would have prevented or mitigated the damage done by the "Great Depression". In a time when most politicians clamored for spending as a solution to economic problems, Coolidge averred that austerity was the solution. By the time of his death the "spenders" had won the day and the defenders of economic freedom stood virtually silent. This book should be read by every high school or college student to remind him or her that there were times when men actually believed in not spending the people's money.

Is Philosophy Good For You?

A book review of The DIM Hypothesis – Why the Lights of the West are Going Out by Dr. Leonard Peikoff.

Many people think that the study of philosophy is the least important endeavor among all the things man can do.  Many people consider it boring and impractical.  They think that few men of action would ever waste time on philosophy. 

I would like to point out that these ideas about philosophy are themselves philosophical views developed by philosophers, the pragmatists to be precise.

These negative views encourage you to avoid ideas and, as a consequence, they harm your life and your ability to thrive as an autonomous human being.  Certainly, philosophy is not an easy area of study; but, the rewards can be highly beneficial.

The person who most eloquently convinced me of the above perspective was Dr. Leonard Peikoff in his lectures on the history of philosophy and his new book, The DIM Hypothesis – Why the Lights of the West are going out.

I also learned from Dr. Peikoff that if you study the consequences of philosophical premises, you can identify the sources of the world-shattering events that have affected human life throughout history, some positive, but most negative.  The clear conclusion is that philosophy determines the course of human events. It is the most impactful study of man, life, science, ethics and political systems. If you want to change the world, you must change the dominant philosophy.  You do this through persuasion.  You convince people about the wrong premises they hold.  You show the practical consequences for individuals of holding the right ideas -  and you fight for a new philosophy that corrects past mistakes. 

As I like to put it, philosophy could be the biggest future long-term growth industry in history – if men begin to practice it correctly.  Or it could devastate life if the present trends continue.  This appears to be the basic premise behind The DIM Hypothesis.  Although Dr. Peikoff did not make that point in precisely those terms, it is implied by his analysis of the major philosophical movements in history.  His conclusion is that present trends will eventually lead to the triumph of mysticism and the next Dark Age for man.  But he leaves open the possibility of the triumph of reason over mysticism.

To illustrate the positive influence that a proper philosophy can have on man’s life, let’s look at one of the major victories of philosophy over the last few hundred years. 

The largest single example of the power of philosophy was the scientific revolution.  Spurred largely by the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo and Newton to name a few, this revolution dealt a death blow to the idea that the universe was a realm of miracles and divine intervention in the affairs of men. 

Before science began making its life-enhancing discoveries, it was assumed that all metaphysical questions had been settled.  The world was created by God in six days and God had placed the earth in the center of the universe.  This was considered fact because it was declared by God in the Bible.  Scripture was sacrosanct and any statement to the contrary could produce death.

Slowly at first, with Galileo’s discovery of the moons of Jupiter, many “truths” accepted on faith were put into doubt by philosophers and scientists; and it did the Church no good that it put to death and tortured men whose discoveries were putting the Church’s dogma into doubt.  Eventually, men saw first-hand that experience and inductive science was the key to understanding the world and that such understanding could yield important benefits. 

The consequence of the scientific revolution is virtually everything you see around you: electricity, life-saving medical devices, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, airplanes, computers, HDTV and five-speaker sounds systems, to name only a few.  These products have improved the lives and pleasures of millions of people; yet only a philosophy that considers reality amenable to human thought could create them.
 

Dr. Peikoff’s hypothesis is that cultural products express accepted fundamental ideas as they are found in the dominant philosophies of any given age.  His analysis reveals the essential struggles between three fundamental concepts which he explains in the book. These concepts, because they represent the fundamental conflicts of history, have made our world what it is today. 

The Acronym, DIM, encapsulates the three essential methods of integration as they have influenced culture.  D = Disintegration, I = Integration and M = Misintegration.  These concepts refer to the essential process of human integration.  The book discusses each of these fundamentals in detail and shows how they have influenced cultural development and even how they may influence the future.  Dr. Peikoff holds that man has volition and, if he chooses reason,  the future can be bright.  Otherwise, not so bright.

The key chapters in the book require a thorough grounding in philosophical concepts and even an understanding of the development of key concepts in philosophy throughout history.  Dr. Peikoff effectively uses the widest abstractions to identify the philosophical movements as they have come down to us today.  I highly recommend this book if you are interested in ideas.  It promises and delivers on its goal of providing a new and valuable perspective on philosophy as it is reflected in culture. 

The Genesis

The genesis of this blog is the election of 2012. The leader of our nation has been given a mandate, he thinks, to further enslave the productive in society. In the coming years, he will take many actions that will have terrible consequences for independent individuals. Each of us has to ascertain, not only how to survive, but also how to thwart oppressive government. There is still much that can be done; but the effort takes more than blind activism; it will take a philosophical battle, an effort to develop the intellectual arguments that will save human lives and enable more people to be happy. 

I submit that no American can have convictions about a proper society, nor can he have a passion for life, unless he is willing to take a stand for his right to be selfish.  To defend himself against government coercion, he must have an intellectually defensible love for high values.  He must be so ambitious for life that he will righteously dissent when told that he should sacrifice his values for sake of the collective.

In an age of rising taxes, increasing regulations, government entitlement programs and "shared sacrifice"; the rational individual must arm himself with the tools necessary to survive. Yet, the factors that enable survival are more than merely understanding economic principles gone awry. A whole host of philosophical issues impinge on the individual today and these issues, when answered by reason, will arm men with the tools necessary to achieve success. This will take a long-term approach, but the struggle must begin now.

Being selfish is not something one can do easily.  It is not about striving to win over others.  It is not about treachery and deceipt.  It is not about hating others and seeking to win at their expense.  Those are easy things to do and require no thought.  Being selfish is about using reason and being convinced that the best way to achieve values is by honest living.  Being selfish is about understanding what knowledge and integrity demand, what justice demands and how survival depends upon the virtues of rationality and production. Being selfish is about the mind and doing the thinking necessary to develop a solid foundation of metaphysical and epistemological premises.  Being selfish is about enabling effective action in the pursuit of high values.  Being selfish requires a lot of work.

As we watch events in other parts of the world, it is becoming increasingly clear that bad times are ahead for the USA.  How can you protect yourself, your money, your energy and your rights?  What can you do to ensure that your freedom to live and thrive can be maintained or recovered?  The solution I suggest is that every American should be selfish in the highest meaning of the term and that means he should seek the highest use of his mind.

There are essentially two obstacles to the proper exertion of individual self-interest among Americans.  They are skepticism and mysticism.  These two fundamental movements have had devastating impact on the lives of individuals.  Skepticism keeps men bound by the ropes of concrete-bound thinking and makes them incapable of drawing the wider abstractions necessary to ascertain reality.  Mysticism is infected with rationalism and imprisons the mind by insisting that all ideas be deduced from floating abstractions.  These "bad" philosophies leave the field of human thought vulnerable to the deadly consequences of altruism and collectivism.

Why do I use a title such as “On Being Selfish”?  One goal is to help remove the stigma associated with the idea of living for oneself.  I’d like to show that being selfish is good and that it represents some fairly fundamental issues such as reason, survival, morality and thriving.  Secondly, the idea of being selfish has been denigrated to the point of nearly destroying society and it must be reclaimed if society is to avoid the coming abyss.

I think Ayn Rand gave the perfect answer when she was asked “Why do you use the word “selfishness” to denote virtuous qualities of character, when that word antagonizes so many people to whom it does not mean the things you mean?"[1]

Her answer:

“It is not a mere semantic issue nor a matter of arbitrary choice. The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word "selfishness" is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual "package-deal," which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind.

In popular usage, the word "selfishness" is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment.

Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word "selfishness" is: concern with one's own interests.

This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one's own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man's actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions.”[2]

If you’d like to learn more about the writings of Ayn Rand, click here: Amazon's Ayn Rand Page and Amazon's Leonard Peikoff Page.

Finally, I’d like to say that this blog is a private endeavor, an effort to organize my life around my values in a time when political events are daily making it more difficult to live for those values.  I’m not going to create an organization and ask you to join a community.  I’m not going to ask for donations or spend lots of money creating services that might (or might not) make me rich.  I am only going to write about ideas and the actions that I will take to protect myself against those who are encroaching upon my individual rights. 

Below is a list of general topics with some ideas for future articles that I’d like to develop.  If you want to be notified when I post a new blog, you can friend me (Robert Villegas) on Facebook.  https://www.facebook.com/.

General Topics

·         Being Selfish – How to Survive the Possible collapse

o   What is Dictatorship?

o   History of Dictatorship

o   Going on Strike

·         Literature and Philosophy – Creating a Library of Liberty

o   Book Reviews

·         The Next Election

o   Was the election stolen?

o   How did Philosophy Destroy Freedom?

·         Boycotts and Economic Warfare

o   How to eliminate Shortages and Long Gas Lines

o   Get out of the Stock Market, Get out of the Dollar

·         Checks and Balances – Political Opposition

o   Investigations and Impeachment

o   Keeping Obama too busy fighting for his job

·         The Future

o   Ideas and Freedom

o   Understanding How we got here

Stay Tuned

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[1] Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness

[2] Ibid