EveryJoe Column: End of Unreason
Here are some snippets from my weekly EveryJoe column:
I propose a New Year’s Resolution, not for myself, but for the world.
Let us, all together, make 2016 the Year of Reason, when logic came back from its long exile in human affairs and was restored to its proper throne in the human soul.
Let emotion, passion, hysteria, wishful thinking, be reduced, once again, to their proper subordinate station, no longer running wild, but domesticated.
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Any feminist reading these words must be elated, yet doubtful, for no doubt she thinks, “But feminism, the doctrine that holds men and women to be equal in the eyes of the law, is as conformable to reason as the opening of the Declaration of Independence! A return to reason would not just favor our cause, but coronate it with instant victory, would it not?”
No, miss. What is called feminism these days is Cultural Marxism …
To defend [feminists] shibboliths from contradiction, they must be defended from examination, and pondering outlawed.
This is done by coining a meaningless term, “sexism” which is some sort of race hatred alleged to exist between the sexes (despite their obvious affection for each other), and by asserting that all examination into the differences between the sexes, and all thought and debate about how best to arrange a society to accommodate two sexes that are as nearly opposite as one can be and still be members of the same species, are merely declared to be “sexist” which is, for some reason, is held to be a sin.
Unlike, say … envy.
Meanwhile envy, especially female envy of all things masculine, is held not to be a sin, but to be laudable.
…Would a return to reason usher in an age of libertarian Capitalism, where everything, from baby organs to harlot’s sexual services, could be bought and sold?
Much as I admire libertarians (and I do admire them a great deal!) I notice they claim reason to be on their side more than any philosophy, and yet they too from time to time have recourse to this same name-calling technique to rule certain questions out of bounds, and not open to reason: those who oppose Ayn Rand are looters and moochers and vampires, particularly we so called ‘Mystics of the Spirit’ who believe in God and who think the main problem in the world is lack of sanctity, not lack of greed.
…Again, any socialist reading of our proposed New Year’s Resolution to Reason must likewise be elated, for he deems socialism to be the very paragon of scientific and rational thinking.
However, the errors inherent in socialist schemes have been known since at least the days of Aristotle, who remarked that when a state holds all property in common, or when men as a group raise all children in common, no man cares for what is not his, and no child is reared…. By fiat, by axiom, in socialism, all criticism of socialism is decreed to be beyond the pale. But what is really driving socialism is a gluttony for material goods…
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The word ‘homophobia’ places all discussion of marriage and chastity, decency and perversion, mental health and mental illness, beyond the pale. Anyone who reasons on these issues is disqualified without a hearing on the grounds that no legitimate difference of opinion can possibly exist….What is really going on, of course, is that the unchaste, adulterous and porn-addicted wretches cast up as the flotsam and jetsam of the so-called Sexual Revolution cannot logically ask homosexuals to be chaste when they themselves, the unchaste, are not. Lust, not reason, is the main driver of this absurdity.
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The word ‘racist’ places not only questions of race beyond the pale of discussion, but any political or economic issue whatsoever… What is really going on is that the same party that supported slavery and supported Jim Crow now creates, sustains, and milks hatred, wrath and ire between the races for political advantage … Wrath, not reason, is the main driver of this absurdity.
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The word ‘Islamophobia’ places all rational discussion of the best way to fight the rising tide of Islamic terrorism and open of covert Jihad beyond the pale. It is not that the politically correct actually want to see their women in trash bags, and their gay voters thrown off rooftops; it is just that they have no concern for spiritual reality at all.
They cannot see a holy war when they are in it. Sloth, not reason, is the main driver here, and by sloth I do not mean laziness, I mean indifference to spiritual reality.
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Finally, my atheist friends are also no doubt caught halfway between elation and dismay, for they no doubt also are saying, “But, surely Mr. Wright, surely it is you who are guilty of acts of blind faith! Surely our doubt of things perfectly obvious even to a child is the paragon and epitome of reason rightly understood, and your supernaturalism is irrational, blind faith!”
No, my friends. The first part of the New Year’s Resolution of returning to reason shall be the call things hereafter by their right names, and to draw conclusions based on the logic and logic alone, not on emotions. This includes the emotion of pride, including intellectual pride.
The atheist cannot account for the origin of the universe, if it has an origin, and cannot account for its eternity if it does not. … The atheist cannot account for the objective nature of morality… the atheist worldview cannot account for the nonatheist save by dismissing the vast majority of all men for the vast majority of all time as suffering atrocious lunacy…
No, the reason why atheism is and always has been the province of antisocial and unempathic social outliers and outcasts, is for the same reason that the Flat Earth Society has fewer members than the National Geographic Society: theism explains more of human existence than atheism. It is robust, it is elegant, it requires no absurdities like assuming all history is false and all men are mad…
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So, the sad news for the New Year to all my feminist, libertarian, socialist, sexually liberated, racially progressive, and multiculturalist, and atheist friends is this: reason is not on your side. On your side are envy, avarice, gluttony, lust, ire, sloth and pride.
On your side is blindness.
On your side is an argument, or, rather, an eructation, that only proceeds by ruling thought out of bounds via magic words and magic name-calling. It is an argument whose only tactic is to escape rational question by attacking the questioner rather than addressing their questions.
Reason is on our side.
It is one of my better columns, and I am proud of it.
Read more: http://www.everyjoe.com/2016/01/06/lifestyle/new-years-resolution-end-unreason/#ixzz3x38x8v6D
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
