tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post7021926943906405601..comments2024-03-28T09:59:13.754-07:00Comments on bionic mosquito: The Treesbionic mosquitohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12002548958078731031noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-71513174076380771692018-03-18T09:20:30.232-07:002018-03-18T09:20:30.232-07:00Hoppe also acknowledges the role of envy in relati...Hoppe also acknowledges the role of envy in relation to the effects of Democracy: <br /><br />"By opening entry into government, anyone is permitted to freely express his desire for other's property. What formerly was regarded as immoral and accordingly suppressed is now considered a legitimate sentiment. Everyone may openly covet everyoe else's property in the name of democracy". <br /><br />This complements rather well Schoeck's idea, with the century of democratic expansion being associated with a dysfunction of society's mechanisms for regulating envy, leading to a dramatical expansion of State power. <br /><br />Interestingly, we can also infer that ancient societies were aware of the role private property had in civilization and the danger of envy, considering the big religions specifically highlight envy and agression to property as major sins (shalt not steal, murder, or covet)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01546400737083634354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-32466734723226216242018-02-25T20:14:32.865-08:002018-02-25T20:14:32.865-08:00Thanks, Nilo. I have read others point to envy as...Thanks, Nilo. I have read others point to envy as a destructive factor. Far worse than jealousy: "jealous" just wants what you have, but doesn't get violent about it; "envy" will happily destroy what you have so that the two of you are even.bionic mosquitohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12002548958078731031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-45060886471107912332018-02-25T16:16:40.708-08:002018-02-25T16:16:40.708-08:00I've been reading Helmut Schoeck's "E...I've been reading Helmut Schoeck's "Envy: a theory of social behaviour", and he has what I feel to be the missing piece of the puzzle of conservatives' and libertarians' inability to land a resounding moral blow against egalitarianism.<br /><br />In one passage which I can't seem to find, he puts forth the rather obvious point (once he makes it) that material equality by itself is absolutely hollow as a moral imperative, if you refuse to acknowledge the validity of envy and guilt as a result of inequality per se.<br /><br />According to him, it's this modern unwillingness to confront the "envy-motive", the loss of the ability to suppress pathological resentment (envy) and ignore unwarranted guilt (fear of envy), that's eating the West from the inside. (Notice that the guy is writing BEFORE 1968!!!)<br /><br />It may sound simplistic, but he makes his case throughout the book by examining the link, which turns out to be a rather close link, between different societies' degree of success in regulating envy, and the level of coherence and prosperity that they managed to reach.<br /><br />He also establishes logical causal links (praxeologically, you could say) between unrestrained envy and social/economic dysfunction.<br /><br />A couple of gems:<br /><br />"Under a portentous misconception as to what had really happened when, in the West and for the first time in human history, envy had been successfully mastered, socialist thinkers in the nineteenth century again began to popularize concepts on the nature of inequality and, indeed, to make them morally binding. These corresponded exactly to the concepts of primitives. Since then, however, literary left-wing sentimentalists and their ideas of values have taken things to a point where even people who in no way consider themselves socialists, Marxists or ordinary progressives, among them sincere Christians genuinely concerned with ethical imperatives, no longer know how to deal with primitive emotional complexes, nor are they able to comprehend the irrationality of those complexes. Hence they grope desperately and endlessly for 'social' solutions, which in fact solve nothing."<br /><br />"[T]he twentieth century has gone further towards the liberation of the envious man, and towards raising envy to an abstract social principle, than any previous society since the primitive level, because it has taken seriously several ideologies of which envy is the source and upon which it feeds in precisely the degree to which those ideologies raise false hopes of an ultimate envy-free society. And in the twentieth century, too, for the first time, certain societies have grown rich enough to nourish the illusion that they can afford the luxury of buying the goodwill of the envious at ever steeper prices."<br /><br />I say again, this guy is writing BEFORE 1968. Doesn't sound like the underlying problem has changed much, does it? It's just (much) further along now.<br /><br />It's not light or flowing reading, as you can see from the quotes... but I highly recommend it. This is what sociology/psychology ought to look like.<br /><br />I wonder if Rothbard was aware of Schoeck. Unfortunately reading footnotes isn't a habit of mine.<br /><br />Cheers and keep up the good work!cosmic dwarfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16562864681773374828noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-55069635089100855412018-02-24T20:25:26.597-08:002018-02-24T20:25:26.597-08:00Rothbard says tabula rasa is of the egalitarian le...Rothbard says tabula rasa is of the egalitarian left- it is also a major part of Objectivism and left-libertarianismTabuLa Razahttp://stinkyholloway.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-8712257804652319742018-02-24T09:57:43.372-08:002018-02-24T09:57:43.372-08:00I will certainly cover several of the essays. I c...I will certainly cover several of the essays. I can't say "all," as I won't know if I can add anything of value to each one until I read it and think about it.bionic mosquitohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12002548958078731031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-37582917099937076892018-02-24T06:07:12.682-08:002018-02-24T06:07:12.682-08:00This is one of the essays I read early on in my po...This is one of the essays I read early on in my post-school education. I think it is one I've kept close the surface. I quoted that line about theory and practice last week but didn't recall my own origin of the idea. I hope you provide posts on all the essays in the collection. They're great.P Szarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09298180391605451618noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-75361671024190105202018-02-23T10:51:38.655-08:002018-02-23T10:51:38.655-08:00The only input I have in Rothbard's, Rush'...The only input I have in Rothbard's, Rush's and your excellent observations is to distinguish between "inalienable" or "natural" and God Given "rights", which indeed are equal and mans attempt to regulate some kind of totalitarian "equality". <br /><br />As always, I enjoy your thoughts which allow me to expand my own. <br /><br />TahnAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com