Anchored to Reality

 

Life is better if you have a solid, sound, sure grasp of reality. It’s even better if you know you do. Prior to the advent of reason and science around 600 B.C., humanity was generally considerably ignorant and superstitious. Mankind’s contact with physical and mental reality was somewhat nebulous.

But when reason, science, and philosophy were invented, everything changed. It was a mostly personal revolution. The Holy Individual used and trusted his mind much more. Men comprehended the natural world and the intellectual world far better. They dealt with their fellow man, solved problems, and guided their lives on a higher level.

Then along came nihilism. Some relatively persuasive intellectuals claimed the universe was unknowable, knowledge unobtainable, and certainty impossible. They argued the human mind was incompetent to comprehend reality.

The anti-reason skeptics and sophists then saw to it that pre-reason polytheism was converted to post-reason monotheism. Mythology became religion. "God" was born.

And so the pandemic of ignorance and superstition was reintroduced to mankind, but in a more profound and deadly way. The universe, society, and life became more confusing, uncertain, hostile, and malevolent than ever.

Still, science continued to improve and rise. So too rational philosophy. But along with these two benefactors of mankind, the monsters of nihilism and religion also continued to exist, advance, and do terrible damage. Society, culture, and lifestyle suffered – but the Noble Individual suffered worse.

Then along came Newton, Locke, and the Enlightenment. Reason surged. Science and rational philosophy ascended too. Knowledge grew as superstition and irrationality declined. People used their thinking minds more and better, as quality of life rose. Mankind experienced more meaning, purpose, satisfaction, achievement, greatness, pleasure, and happiness.

But the nihilists, and destroyers of reason and man, soon returned. The skeptics and sophists Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Hegel devastated understanding, humanity, and life from the early 1700s to the early 1800s.

Of course, the men of reason fought back. Mainly the weak rational philosophers Reid, Beattie, Buchner, Moore, and Wittgenstein. Plus the quite strong reasonist Ayn Rand. The war between truth and falsity, good and evil, civilization and savagery, rages.

Reason and science need to be victorious. Nihilism and religion need to be defeated. Because life is better if you have a sound, solid, sure grasp of reality. And even better if you know you do.

Reality, Sensation, Reason, and Truth

 

The reality-sensation-reason-truth complex seems immensely sturdy and strong. It also seems wholly natural. Indeed, reality and truth are synonyms.

Objects and beings exist in nature and reality. These objects and beings naturally have various attributes and engage in various behaviors. Living beings have sensing nerves or organs which receive impressions from these things and their acts. The data which these sensing parts gather in is sent to the brain or mind of the living creature. The being then processes and organizes the information into a unitary and coherent perception or reflection of the object which generated the original sensations. This idea or mental reality is an attempt to closely represent, mirror, and copy the object or physical reality. An intelligent being can then exercise his free will and take this idea – located within his mind, and without external stimulus – and process and organize it with other ideas to form concepts or categories. He might then compare and contrast various ideas and concepts to form opinions, draw conclusions, solve problems, speculate, imagine, fantasize, innovate, or create. If he does this accurately, these coherent and integrated ideas and concepts will result in a certain amount of understanding, knowledge, facts, truth, wisdom, and goodness which he can use to achieve great things.

It’s all a matter of reality, sensation, reason, and truth. And it’s all so clear, clean, natural, and almost obvious. None of these four distinct things, or their relationships, seems difficult to identify or comprehend. None seems ambiguous, uncertain, confusing, or open to sincere, honest doubt. None clash with or contradict the others.

So despite the nonsensical, irrational, and malicious claims of Berkelely, Hume, Kant, and Hegel – and their evil attempts to separate, disconnect, isolate, alienate, ignore, or deny the existence of these four – the whole human thinking process and existential complex still seems extremely solid, sound, sure, reliable, trustworthy, undoubtable, and undeniable.

The Destroyer from Within

 

Ayn Rand turns everybody into a cultist. Unless you’re over 25 or so when you come across her, and your personality and character are already solidly formed, she converts essentially everyone into a type of religioso and cultist. It’s virtually impossible to resist her.

Ayn Rand simply has too much truth and virtue on her side. Too much intelligence and education. Too much speaking and writing skill. On top of which she's immensely, intellectually charismatic and seductive.

Ayn Rand attacks your current belief-system, and promotes her own, both high and low, hard and soft, quickly and slowly, overtly and covertly, directly and indirectly, obviously and subtlety, right away and over time. No matter how long, hard, and well you try to escape her entrapment and seduction, she virtually always gets you. And so, to a lesser or greater degree, you end up a mindless cyborg and pathetic loser cult follower.

Ayn Rand intellectually and personally bullies, hectors, manipulates, tricks, moralizes, and psychologizes. And very soon – so do you. You get turned into a soulless zombie. Some malicious, weird, fanatical jerk. A "second-hander" and "social metaphysician" to adopt her language. Not servilely dependent upon conventional society to determine truth and morality but – even worse – dependent upon her society and her dismal collection of fellow cultists. And compared to conventional folk, the Ayndroids are far more powerful and destructive.

Ayn Rand devastates your relationship with your family, friends, and society – not significantly improves it. She causes you to zealously, hatefully, morally condemn your fellow man – not find fun friends and hot chicks. She makes you "save the world" – not yourself.

And no prominent, current, Objectivist organization – such as The Ayn Rand Institute, The Atlas Society, or The Objectivist Standard – warns you against this terrible evil. Indeed, they silently lead you directly into it. Theirs is a policy of strict intellectual dishonesty and cowardice. When it comes to the seminal truth of Objectivist cultism, their evasions and lies never end.

Objectivism is great as a philosophy. But not as a religion. Ayn Rand is great as an intellectual teacher. But as a cult leader she's the worst ever.

Statue of Liberty

 

The world needs a new Statue of Liberty -- probably a new human figure of defiant and heroic liberty. A statue which is animated, dynamic, powerful, and vibrant. We need a figure which is a triumphant conqueror over slavery, barbarism, and evil.

The current, 1886, New York City statue is out of date and no longer up to standard. It's well past its prime and no longer gets the symbol-of-freedom job done. At this point, it's fairly close to an empty, meaningless cliché. And it certainly has a dreadful and entirely unacceptable poem closely associated with it. ("Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses... The wretched refuge...") The statue is going to need a new one of these too.

The current Statue features a modestly-clad woman, rather timidly holding aloft a torch or beacon, while clutching an ambiguous book. The new statue should maybe come from the world of comic-book heroics and feature a flashily-dressed male paladin boldly brandishing a sword or gun or his fists (to attack the bad guys), while also possibly holding a shield (to ward off evil). He might also be holding some formidable book/books such as from Aristotle, Cicero, Jefferson, or Rand.

Perhaps there should be 3 to 5 versions of it -- all outstanding works of art, if possible. This will likely help keep the idea and ideal of liberty fresh and new. 

Maybe one Greco-Roman, one Revolutionary Warish, one modern, one very stylized, and one cartoonish. Possibly holding the severed heads of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao in the left hand, and a Roman, Renaissance, or Samuri heavy sword in the right. Could also hold heads of Roosevelt, Johnson, and Biden -- or somewhat generalized and universalized versions of them.  

Probably it should be clear that this indomitable champion of freedom is ferociously fighting, and about to crush, a hated super-villain or horrific tyrant -- but not committing any sort of crime or act of aggression. The posture and attitude of the new Statue/Statues of Liberty should be vivacious, dynamic, defiant, and heroic.