Professed Libertarians: Actual Libertarians or Communitarians?

This post accounts only my perception.

Supposedly, the generation after mine is set to be the most conservative generation since the Reagan era.  The current conservative generation, though labeled "conservative," I believe that most are leaning more toward the libertarian strain of conservativism. They seem to be focused more on economic liberty than socially conservative issues; many are quite indifferent on issues such as abortion. I have talked to great many of them in my own generation, and indeed they view libertarianism favorably and seem to be fine with calling themselves libertarian.

But I question if libertarianism is an ideology they have made their own or a means to an end. I think that they envision a communitarian world as opposed to the libertarian world. By libertarian world I mean the kind of world and lifestyle envisioned by Ayn Rand. What they truly yearn for, I think, is a world where rich and poor alike can be knit into a community. In order to achieve that end, they seem to think that libertarian or libertarian-leaning economics is necessary.

The following, I presume, is their thought process.

Many dislike large corporations, but note that modern technology-driven industries cannot be run by small start-ups. However, they believe that each individual should be afforded the opportunity to start a business of one's own, cooperatively with a fellow community member if they require additional funds.

If we look to many hipster and country town restaurants and cafes, they are started not by corporations but by cooperation between community members, often of lower-class. Two or more close friends would combine the funds to start a business they envision and share the profits. The boon of a cooperative venture would be that inhumane treatment of workers and partners would be lessened due to the pressure of the community. For instance, owners of small-town BBQ restaurant would dare not mistreat its customers and workers, because they go to the Baptist church everybody in the town attends every Sunday.

This cooperative approach to economics is one of the principles of distributism, a strain of communitarian economics. Also, the emphasis of community is the core of communitarianism, as noted in its name. Yet proponents of views that sound more like communitarianism look to libertarianism. Why?

They think that cooperative ventures among community members need to be made easier in roder to achieve the end. In order to do so, there needs to be less government regulations and burdens on the employers. In the current political climate, they view libertarian approach to economics is the way to achieve the end they desire.

So, I wonder: Are professed libertarians actually communitarians at heart? I am attracted to think so.
I would like to ask whether socialists are actually communitarians at heart but with no economic sense. But I think I won't.

"Faking" as Maturing Process

Fake it until to make it - A common catch phrase associated with Alcoholics Anonymous

It has been a personal routine of mine to write to myself something about maturity through the present medium right around the current time of the year. The point is to organize the thoughts I have gathered throughout a school year and remind myself of shortcomings of either myself or others, or both (which is not explicitly stated), so as to be beneficial toward my hopefully progressing maturity, and, if anyone would even care to pay attention to my amateur writing, to others.

Last post was about humility as a sign of maturity, a character disposition that affect both thoughts and actions. The current post focuses not on personality dispositions that affect both thoughts and actions but on dispositions of actions alone, i.e. behavioral dispositions.

Many suffer from what we would call "immature" dispositions. No, I do not mean a father playing dumb with his toddler child, or a mother playing dolls with her daughter. They are rather mature examples of parenthood, neither would any reader assume such actions to be immature under a commonsensical standard. What I mean is habits that often bring about adverse social conditions as opposed to harmony.

I will use some examples. Hopefully they are based on the most common shortcomings to have everyone reading this see one's own shortcomings in them, be it present or past. Imagine for a moment a girl that broods over tiny things, exploding an issue that is not that big of a deal into larger proportions later on, the kind of behavioral disposition one might see in public high schools. It is quite common to see a "preppy" girl seek after allies to confirm her biases against a person she felt hurt by, gossiping against her perceived adversary. She would not reveal the full truth; her statements would be bloated, censored, and/or filled with lies. Later in the semester, the gossip would explode and many feelings would be hurt and many confusions would arise.

For we expect well-formed adults to quickly get over negative emotions and, as we like to say, "not give a shit," we consider such a brooding immature. Yet we see in many cases this sort of high-school drama queen immaturities carry over well beyond college sorority years into the professional and the married life. Many married women blatantly admitted to me that "girls talk." Indeed they do, often with quite a malicious intent. Women, on the other hand, quoting from a female friend of mine, "would go to sleep after a nice glass of chilled white wine and wake up not giving two shits about the petty dramas of yesterday."

It is now turn to imagine for a moment a boy that habitually seek to prove his masculinity. Imagine further that this boy is quite a nerd (for we have bashed on preppies already). Whenever a social conflict arises, however small it may be, he seeks to domineeringly assert his perceived superior intellect (within the virtual world and/or reality), ranging from pretending to know a subject he barely knows about, thinking that his brain power could deduce correct solutions on the spot with limited information and without properly knowing the subject, accusing someone of ignorance when he himself is the one that is ignorant, to imagining things in favor of his arrogant delusions.

For we expect well-formed adults to recognize one's shortcomings and improve rather than falsely and with toxicity compensate, we call such an exertion of rather toxic masculinity immature. Yet we see in many cases of the said shortcomings carried, like the example above, well beyond high school years into the professional and the married life. A philosopher once warned me that such a behavior, in his experience, is prevalent among professors and philosophers themselves, the "nerds" and supposed masters of logic. Sadly, my experience has been reflective of his. On numerous occasions, I have witnessed intellectuals speak of matters that they clearly do not know about, pretending to be smarter. I heard somewhere that squires like complain about his defeated duel. A true knight, on the other hand, knows when to kneel and bow his head with honor and dignity, even in defeat.

So how, then, can we fix such immaturities at older ages? We could first talk about psychotherapeutic methods. Therapists seem to be the go-to solutions people (who are not mentally ill) think about nowadays, and many have been putting faith in psychotherapy in fixing behaviors. Indeed, prominent psychologists Ross and Nisbett noted in their book The Person and the Situation that, in our society, "psychotherapists fill the functions. . . that kin, kith, and coworkers fill" (183). In other words, people nowadays rely on psychotherapists to cure them of their problems as opposed to close relations like our ancestors have. The said problems are derived from stunted emotional growth, i.e. qualities our society commonly characterize as "immature." (It should be noted that I am speaking of this matter completely apart from mental illnesses; they are of quite different species to tame.) So, in a sense, psychotherapy serves in part as a parental substitution.

I myself think that psychotherapy can be a valuable companion to growth (the value of which is determined purely by how willing the patient is and how competent the therapist is). I subscribe to a sort of "fused" method that combines aspects of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and psychoanalysis (psychodynamics/PD). But I found myself not putting as much faith in therapy as many of my peers do. Each therapeutic method suffers from shortcomings. CBT alone may often not be sufficient, because the unconscious may not be healed. PD may often result in protracted search for the inner scars and the process of "coming to terms with them." The two methods has the potential to compliment each other, but they do not address physical actions in themselves.

Enter alcoholics anonymous. They are not a therapeutic organization specializing in psychology. Rather, they are a support group that focuses on the action of drinking excessively first and foremost through fraternal bonding. They are more in line with how people of traditional societies relied on close relations. They now have a catchphrase associated with them: "Fake it until you make it." The gist of the phrase does not mean that one should lie constantly. Rather, it means not doing something you want to. In other words, act contrary to your desires. In moral philosophical terms, such "fakeness" is called continence. Virtue ethics classify four stages of virtue in the following descending order: virtue, continence, incontinence, and vice. Virtue is of perfection where goods acts are accompanied by good beliefs and the pleasure of carrying out the said good acts. Continence does have the like belief and the acts, but it lacks the pleasure. In the instance of a recovering alcoholic, abstaining from alcohol would not be so pleasurable to him. Thus his abstinence is continence, falling short of true virtue, a "faking." But this "faking" is better than incontinence where only the good belief exists. Without saying much, it is better than pure vice also.

Let us now apply to the examples to hopefully paint how my thoughts will pan out in practice. The exampled girl lacked proper parental supervision growing up, so she lacks the visual memory of how to deal with conflicts. The limitations of pure CBT would not be touching on the potential loneliness she feels due to her lack of parental supervision, fueling her desire to gossip and feel accepted. The limitations of pure PD would be not touching on improving the cognitive habit of brooding that leads to the toxic gossiping. But neither really touches on the action of gossiping as an independent issue to address; it is approached in light of other factors.

The exampled boy grew up feeling weak, fatter, and less athletic compared to other boys, so he attempts to unconsciously compensate for his inferiority complex. CBT would not be touching on the underlying causes deep within his unconscious that give rise to his compensatory exhibition of superiority. PD would not address adequately the numerous ways the compensation can happen (false reliance on his intellect, toxic arguments filled with ad hominem, manipulation of perspectives of others, objectifying girls through habitual masturbation and pornography, etc.), and the equally numerous thought patterns that give rise to compensatory acts.

Valuable the methods surely can be. However, the shortcomings of the methods may not fully help the growth, the negation of immature behavioral dispositions. While the psyche is being formed, the actions should be guided, even when the thoughts and the unconscious brings about the desire to do the contrary. No, the continence we seek would not be the full virtue we ought to be attaining. But it is a step closer to being a mature, well-formed adult. Never have I heard, "pleasure of being mannered maketh man." But I have heard the old English proverb, "manners maketh man."

So be mannered and focus on your actions. If you feel the urge to gossip, hold it back first. You will have a chance to deal with inner-workings of your unconscious later. If you feel the urge to exhibit superiority, hold it back first. You will have a chance to deal with your childhood insecurities in your private meditations.

There are psychological concepts that I could write pages about, extrapolating further into the possible objections. But I shall not use up the time here to do so. The gist of this post is this: Try your utmost best to first detect the desires that run contrary to your conscience. Then, try as equally as hard to act contrary to the wrongful desires. This is nothing new. In teaching us to grow, educational sources ranging from our parents to Sesame Street have always focused on how to act first, not how to feel or desire. The focus ought simply to be focused throughout our adult years.

Brooding Can Crucify an Innocent

As I say through a Tenebrae service on Monday, I wondered, as I often do in that service, what drove the people to crucify an innocent man that is Christ, whose innocence was recognized even by Pontius Pilate and his wife. Each time I think of it, I get the same answer. Here, I merely commit to organizing my thoughts around it.

I do not think that one needs to be religious to see the evil side of humanity shown in the crucifixion narrative. Indeed, similar stories are told in numerous traditions. Christ's crucifixion narrative is compared to Socrates's drinking of hemlock often by scholars.

In the crucifixion narrative, Christ is innocent. He heals the sick, criticizes the sinner so that they may become better, and teaches others to love one another and live in harmony. And yet, the elders, the pharisees, the scribes, and all their followers plotted to kill Jesus. What drove them to such an unjust conclusion?

What drove them is rumination. In other words, brooding. Every word Christ spoke to them was done in good will. Instead of considering Christ's words as constructive criticism, a juncture for them to become better, they interpreted his words as offending them. The misstep they made was brooding over the perceived offense instead of confronting themselves. Through brooding without end, they have imagined an offense to be taken when there is none.

What brooding does to one's mind is that it prohibits objectivity the longer it goes on. The more we think of a negative perception of the past, the more things we think of to justify ourselves as the protagonist of the narrative, even when we are the clear villain. This was true of the Pharisees, the Sadducee, the elders, and the chief priests who drove the people to crucify Christ. Christ often criticized others of their wrongdoings. The difference between the disciples and those who accused him is that the disciples said, "How, then, can I be better, LORD?" while the accusers retreated to plot against Christ.

The chief difference, then, is that the disciples confronted the criticism by seeking a dialogue. The accusers retreated to their confines, talked among their allies, and brooded over the criticism. When the accusers would meet Christ, they asked sophistic questions designed to trap Christ and made snide comments to Christ in order to bring him down.

Dialogue can come to mutual understanding and create bonds. Brooding, however, creates distance. In brooding, the accusers interpreted criticisms made in good will as offense. A moral appeal made to convince the reason, to the accusers, were manipulations. A spiritual appeal made to move the spirit, to the accusers, were spiritual abuse. The brooding went so far as to seek allies that will affirm the accusers' unjust viewpoint, riling up the Jews against Christ, leading to his crucifixion.

As human beings, we brood over things often, do we not? Perhaps you, reader, have been in an argument with friends. You may also have distanced away from those friends and brooded over the argument instead of initiating a dialogue. In your brooding, you would have interpreted the narrative in your favor, making you the protagonist. Like the accusers of Christ, perhaps you interpreted the friends' good will as manipulations and abuse. Like the accusers of Christ, you may also have sought allies that will affirm your injustices against your former friends. And with their help, perhaps you spread false narratives about the former friends through gossip, without really knowing that such an evil has a compounding effect. And much like the accusers of Christ, perhaps you believed yourself the protagonist of the narrative.

Brooding may at first be only a venial sin. But at one point, it becomes mortal. We may not lead others to be crucified in this day and age. However, we are certainly able to lead the victim into deep depression and suffering. We hear of teenage suicides made by adverse social conditions time to time, do we not? False accusations is like a projectile of a rail gun; the lethality increases each time it passes through a rail.  We should take care, then, in interpreting others' motivations. If there is a doubt, start a dialogue. If there is hard feelings, talk about it with the other party until the problem is resolved.

Resolving Conflict vs. Pursuing the Truth: A Moral Dilemma?

Perhaps you have been in a situation I am about to describe before at one point in your life. It is one of a dilemma between resolving conflict as quickly as possible by lying to the wrongdoer who inflected injustice upon you, the injustice of which the wrongdoer is wholly responsible of causing, and pursuing the truth by having the wrongdoer recognize the fact that he is wholly responsible for the wrong and correct the situation through proper remedy. Here, I do not include situations where the injustices arise through faulty actions of both.

     Perhaps the situation arose in conflicts between your spouse or other type of intimate partner, your friends, your family members, or other sort of loved ones. The benefit of lying when the conflict is wholly the other's fault is that you do not risk for the time being deteriorating the relationship, creating further conflict. In many cases, demanding the wrongdoer to recognize one's own wrongs will often sprout dormant arrogance out of the wrongdoer. The arrogance then would turn into anger toward you and distance oneself from you. The con, however, is that you are lying, a principally wrongful act. Another con is that you are enabling the wrongful acts of your loved one by not sifting through the warped perceptions and the sophistic arguments of the wrongdoer. If you truly care about the loved one at hand, it should displease you that the moral character of the wrongdoer will not be fixed for that person will not properly repent.

     Pursuing the truth, on the other hand, is one of the moral imperatives as human beings. Further, pursuing the truth in conflicts will help the wrongdoer recognize the wrongs, repent, and fix the wrongful disposition. In turn, you can grant sincere forgiveness. However, the result is uncertain for there is a risk of losing the relationship by triggering prideful actions, refusing to admit the wrongs.

     In between risking losing a valuable relationship and pursuing the inherent good that is the truth, there is thus a moral dilemma. Which of the two should one choose? I personally cannot balance the two through arithmetic means. Thus I, from a personal perspective, decided in recent years to pursue the truth in all cases and put my faith that a moral resolution will occur. So far, my faith in it has yet to be proven to be misplaced, all the ones involved in conflicts with me ultimately being resolved with me. In such cases, I strike two birds with one stone in that I do the principally correct act and the conflict becomes resolved. I do hope that my faith will never be proven to be displaced.

The Need to Find a Virtuous Community

Do not be deceived: "Bad company ruins good morals." - 1 Cor. 15:33

I think there are only a handful of more heartbreaking instances than when one can do nothing while his loved ones get washed away amongst bad influences. In some cases, a father watches his daughter give her dignity away for attention, too stubborn to listen to his advice. In other cases, a girlfriend watches her high school sweetheart of a boyfriend plunge into a culture of objectification and barbaric hedonism amongst his "brothers." In some other cases, a friend would watch one of his best friends swept away by her new set of friends, being turned into one of the most judgmental and spiteful person he knows, the kind the public would love to hate.

     In all these cases, the ones watching their loved ones corrupted by bad influences would be powerless in that they cannot hope to break the stubbornness of those being corrupted. The efforts to convince those who are being morally corrupted increases as they further plunge into the abyss. The more morally corrupt one gets, the more does one deprived of good conscience. How can a person judge one's own actions to be bad when one is deprived of correct conscience? In all these cases I have mentioned, the root cause is a vicious community.

     Through a vicious community, a daughter becomes rebellious to a point where she distances herself from one who gave her flesh and blood. Through a vicious community, a thought-to-be-soulmate turns into a deadend heartbreak. Through a vicious community, a friend who was one of the kindest person on earth turns into a spirit of hate. However, the biggest tragedy in these cases is perhaps the fact that, through deprived conscience, these individuals being corrupted cannot determine what is giving cause to their corruption.

     To avoid such tragedy, therefore, it is critical to have a knowledge of certain situations. To be situationally aware, one must let go of individualistic desires and start seeing the relationships one has as a whole. A daughter ought to see herself in relation to her father, a boyfriend to his girlfriend, and a friend to one's own closest friends. When one can do so, one will see just how much certain communities bring higher fulfilment than others, thus creating a heightened motivation to resist the temptations of other less adequate communities.

     In recognizing such superior  - virtuous - communities, a person is able to seek after better situations.

Fallacy of Disqualifying Another's Argument on Lack of Credentials

Imagine the following scenario:

Four people were talking about the economic consequences of a Congressional bill: A, B, C, and D. B said that the bill does X. C, however, challenged that the bill is only a smoke screen, that it achieves Y instead of the promised X. A, quite mad about how the conversation is going, texts privately to D about how C is acting knowledgeably on economic matters. D replies not to consider C's arguments because C does not have a degree in economics.

What D said to A is a fallacy. Just because someone does not have a degree does not necessarily mean that the other is incapable of talking about a subject at hand. For all D knows, C had a private economics tutor. Heck, for all D knows, C had the privilege of having a free private tutor for history, philosophy, psychology, and mathematics while pursuing his literature major. After all, there's only so much a university allows you to learn.

Even if it were not the case, anyone with resources can subscribe to scholarly journals and keep up with the scholarly world of any type. We also have a beautiful gift of internet also. There are many gratuitous health-tip websites where we can learn about various health issues, both physical and mental. There is a wealth of videos where top scholars give succinct lectures on how certain things work.

Perhaps in the middle ages it was true that a person without a particular certification lacked credibility. Not in our day and age, however. People are equipped with eyes to read, ears to comprehend, brains to comprehend, and thinking skills to absorb a variety of information.

So before you are tempted to attack your opponent's intellectual authority on a contended matter, remember that an argument is won through sound reasoning, not credibility. Even Supreme Court justices make the simplest logical fallacies in their opinions. To do otherwise and shut down conversations with accusations of lack of understanding would be unduly prejudicial.

Politics of Empty Charity

We have but to open our CNN or Facebook app to see an opinion piece filled with emotional epithets accusing a political faction of idiocy. Such articles would be filled with ideology-specific jargon that is meant to rally those who already agree, and rhetoric with unsubstantiated and unreasoned thoughts. When shared on Facebook, the one sharing the opinion piece would double-up on ideology-specific jargon and her friends would wrap her in a narcissistic, self-affirmative bubble made of 'likes.' On the comment section, some one would comment, "A well thought-out article!" when there is no cohesive thought to extract from; only emotional babble. The one who shared such an article, after seeing what she considers to be positive reactions, would feel politically aware and "smart." When the article takes a moral position, she would feel morally superior too. And when there are people opposing her, she would consider the opposition anathema, being liable to have negative labels hurled at them.

     We see what has been mentioned too often, do we not? Perhaps you are guilty of it. Perhaps you're the one going around affirming people by "liking" others' statuses and comments based solely on your impulse as opposed to meditated thoughts.  Perhaps you are guilty of hurling negative labels at others for supporting a politician or that politician's policies. Perhaps you justify doing all these things with a moral cause, that you are doing such things out of charity. If you are are guilty of the assumptions I've made, and if you have not caught on to my cynical tone yet, I am highly doubtful that you are actually driven by charity.

     In a society requiring us to be politically engaged, the whole point of sharing our thoughts is to convince people. The primary motive for trying to convince others that a particular policy is better should be for the betterment of our society. In wishing the betterment of our society, we exercise charity. But I have found that some people are not sharing their thoughts to convince others. Rather, they do so to prove themselves.

     It is a dogmatic psychological principle that human reactions often reveal wherein their affections lie. Where there is a calm and civil discourse, we know that there is charity and respect for others involved. For the love of others, they desire the best idea - the truth - to come out on top regardless of who is right. Where there is anger and obscenity, however, we know that the primary motive is not charity but rather pride. For the love of self, they desire their own idea to come out on top, regardless of the truth. The expressed charity would then be empty like a shell without its meat.

     Allow me to use real life examples. I am against travel ban President Trump has, and is continuing to, support. But this will not blind me from realizing some sense in the other side's argument. It is statistically proven, from what has been gathered from Europe, that letting in refugees en masse from the seven war-torn areas is a big risk to take. Crime rate, especially rape, has skyrocketed in countries that allowed a mass of immigrants in from those countries. Further, the frequency of terror attacks have risen also. Considering all this, I do not think it's "Islamophobic," "bigoted," or "irrational" to support temporary travel ban. It's a legitimate moral dilemma: Should we take no risk for the love of our own or should we take the risk for the love of others?

     In light of this, hurling negative labels and resorting to angry protesting with ludicrous signs like "White KKKonservatives are More Violent than Muslims" is not indicative of charity at all. Instead, it becomes apparent to others that such a protesting method is more indicative of the fact that the protester is out to prove oneself as opposed to prove one's opinion on the matter. No sensible person thinks that "White KKKonservatives are More Violent than Muslims" will convince the other side, neither will they see love in such a sign. Instead, they will see hate. They would not be wrong.

     Another example is the Women's March. I am supportive of women's dignity. However, let me assure you that, allowing obscenities such as a parade of nude women and vagina costumes do more harm for the cause and will convince no one. In fact, such obscenities will draw people away from whatever Women's March stood for. No rational person will think that such obscenities will convince the other side. What a rational person will think is that those who acted with obscenity are out to prove themselves as opposed to prove their cause to others.

     The challenge I make to you is thus: When you are expressing your opinions, are you fueled by your own vainglory or are you doing so for the sake of charity? And if you think that you are doing so for the sake of charity, ask another question: Are you fooling yourself that you are?