John C. Wright's Journal

During my recent interview by RJ of Fourth Age, I mentioned that I was once mesmerized by the sophomoric allure of Libertarianism, a political theory of admirable logical self-consistency, but, alas, one too optimistic for fallen man to follow.

A reader asked to me expound on these comments, which I here will, too briefly. An entire book could be written on any one of these points, and many have, so I hope I will be excused in the space of this short column if I fail to lay out the argument in a nuanced and rigorous fashion.

I submit Libertarianism it is a perfectly apt political philosophy for young and healthy men in times of peace, for they have no need to have Caesar do more, and they rightly suspect that he will abuse whatever powers are given him to do good.

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The Ontological proof of the existence of God as propounded by Saint Anselm is one that should be familiar to all serious students of philosophy, of which I endeavor to be one.

It is famous, if not notorious, for being devout and deep while being equivocal and absurd.

Schoolmen and savants, including the famed Emmanuel Kant, accuse it of containing a classical blunder of logic, which is sometimes called the Existential Fallacy, namely, that one cannot define something into existence.

What is often forgotten is that equally famed philosophers, from Descartes to Hegel, including great schoolmen like Alexander of Hales and Dun Scotus, supported it.

I confess I had forgotten, or, rather, never knew of further arguments in St. Anselm’s favor.

Hence, I was taken quite by surprise, when I was reading St. Anselm’s Proslogion to my youngest boy as a bedtime story, to find the argument far more gripping and convincing than when I read it in my callow youth, as a college sophomore.

I am now no longer convinced that we critics of St. Anselm are correct.

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We were discussing Campbell’s conception that a wheel-shaped pattern called the Hero’s Journey underpins folk tale and myth for all foundational heroic stories, across all cultures and generations.

I admit to be deeply unimpressed with Joseph Campbell’s writing, after reading three or four of his books. Allow me to say why.

His conceit is that “The Hero’s Journey” begins when some difficulty, a curse or pollution, arises within the safe walls of the home or ordered community where the young hero resides. The hero is reluctant to quest for a solution at first; then goes along the road to adventure; along the way, he receives wise counsel from a mentor, perhaps a wizard or supernatural animal; he enters the perilous realm of the unknown as if entering a cave; he encounters allies and enemies; he suffers a supreme challenge, or death; he is reborn anew; he walks the road of return to find again the known world, now armed with the magic sword, special wisdom, or elixir of life needed to cure the curse; he benefits the community, restores order, and becomes king.

As our own Mary Catelli observes, the problem is that every story could be tortured into the Hero’s Journey.

Please note that, if read in a sufficiently loose way, these steps are not any particular portrayal of human psychology. These steps are the rising action, climax, falling action of any drama.

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There is a paradox to mortal life: We are eternal beings trapped in the tyranny of time.

In this life, we cannot outrun Father Time’s iron sickle. At best, we can speculate on how it would be to slip the chain of time, to visit the future, change the past, revoke irrevocable decisions, take the path not taken.

As oddly often happens, two films dealing with the selfsame theme have appeared in the theaters at the same time, neither one copying the other. In this case, both are multiverse stories. One I have not seen and one I have.

The first is DOCTOR STRANGE AND THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and the second is EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE starring Michelle Yeoh.

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A reader with the binary but cartomantic name of “The Deuce” remarks:

“Darwinism is actually a philosophical claim dressed up as a scientific theory. Specifically, it’s a philosophical claim that teleology in biology can be explained and accounted for via the fully mechanistic and non-teleological.”

Hear, hear and bravo.

I think of Darwinism as the first case of an epidemic disease of skilled scientists acting as unskilled philosophers, and spreading confusion and self-contradiction into the minds of the common man, using prestige in one field, to spread nonsense in another.

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A reader reports he came across the following argument, and solicited my opinion of it:

” It seems clear to me that beauty must have a total explanation in evolutionary theory. A beautiful forest scene? Simply a sign of a bio prosperous environment likely to contained resources needed for human survival. Human beauty itself? A combination of objectively attractive traits that indicate genetic health or reproducibility, mixed with ones subjective tastes (which are likely controlled by some form of genetic selection for any individual person, looking for someone with proper genetic compatibility). People who claim they find certain buildings aesthetically pleasing are simply confusing their appreciation of the role of the building with how they feel about its design”

This may be a crackpot argument. But frankly, I am not sure what the argument is trying to say.

I do not know what he means by “beauty”; nor what “total explanation” means in this context; nor is it clear what, if anything, evolution theory has to do with anything. It does not seem to be a related concept.

However, assuming he means those words in their ordinary sense, his comment has seven obvious flaws. Let me count the ways.

The first obvious flaw with this theory is telling us where something comes from does not tell us what it is.

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