We Are Not Born Small

What was carved on our foreheads that says "Cannot grow?" What was carved on our foreheads that says "Stay small - Stay little - Don't attract attention - Don't offend - Don't upset people - Don't contradict - Don't confront?" I don't believe that that's carved on my god damned DNA, and I don't believe that that's carved on your DNA either. I think that's just frightened people boxing us in because they're small, and I've had it with that...I've had it with that.

There is nothing in our DNA that says we cannot speak the truth because people will get upset. So they get upset, so what? So what? You don't want to go to your grave--I don't--I don't want to go to my grave saying to myself, "Well, I didn't ruffle too many feathers. People liked me. They didn't know me well, and I certainly didn't reveal my true self to them...didn't even know what it was. But I got along. I sort of passed through life like a javelin into a still pond with barely a ripple. That is my legacy." That about 18 minutes after I die people say, "Oh yeah that guy," and without the aid of photographs they can barely remember my face. And without the aid of letters and e-mails, they can barely remember my words.

That's not what I want for me. That's certainly not what I want for you. There is nothing written into anything within us, deep within us that says we must be small.

- Stefan Molyneux

A YouTube video on the lovely mammoth largeness that humanity can achieve:


(YouTube link)

This video by Nielsio contains audio from a podcast by Stefan Molyneux. Molyneux has an amazing way of picking out the perfect metaphors to describe ideas, which the writer in me loves. This video has no shortage, as he explains that humans are not naturally timid, but must be ground into submission. The way out of this seeming natural timidity, of course, is to deny those who would grind us down the opportunity--to instead sharpen our swords of virtue, reason, and integrity on their grinding stones. To save virtue in humanity, we must actively seek out what is virtuous and then live it. To bring reason to humanity, we must know logic and its consequences and then live it. To give the world integrity, and to preserve and foster our own, we must be willing to understand virtue and reason. And then...then we must be willing to live it. Fully, invitingly, publicly, we must live it.

I'm having a particularly heavy day from a cognitive dissonance standpoint. I hold a number of philosophical ideas in the abstract that I'm not living out as completely as I could. It's ironic, considering my history (and therefore length of preparation and amount of knowledge) on the topic. With aesthetic problems like a desire to lose weight, cognitive dissonance has always popped up but never motivated a change. With lifestyle choices like being drawn to video games when I feel like I might more productively use my time, it's only ever been a passing anxiety. But not living according to the logical consequences of a reasoned philosophy is completely crippling. I feel it all: confusion, doubt, anxiety, self-hate, depression. I feel it all, but I know these emotions are not my own, they have been inflicted on me by those who would grind me down.

I do not hate myself, but simply display the projected hatred others show in the face of my allegiance to rationality. It's not me who doubts myself, but teachers from the past who doubted me to stew confusion and uncertainty into my young, curious brain. I'm not confused. In fact, I've never been more certain of the definitions of virtue, integrity, and of the power and accuracy of logic and the scientific method. This confusion belongs to someone else, and it's high fucking time I give credit where it's due. If I don't, I'm stuck with all of this crippling scar tissue of depression, anxiety, and last night's late entrant to the race, insomnia. If my certainty is upsetting to some people, so what? They can either show me where I've gone wrong logically, or we can talk about the roots of their feelings, or they can be the ones to shut up for a change. It's high time I step beyond thinking and talking philosophy, and into the living, breathing, and doing of philosophy.

Living to the best of my ability does not mean doing the best I can given the social constrictions of the world. It means staying consistent with my values even when--especially when--it makes me uncomfortable. Philosophy can be a dangerous tool for those who know it and willingly misuse it, but just as dangerous is for those who know philosophy and still refrain from living it.

An Unfortunate Philosophical History (Now With Happy Ending)

When I was a senior in college, I had to write a final paper. The idea was that we'd choose a topic of study that had likely been covered before and then find an interesting or new interpretation of that idea. With the discipline of philosophy, this is a lot like trying to write a fresh and exciting episode of Friends about Ross and Rachel's complicated relationship. There's not much left for territory unless you expand into completely new ideas or study one idea in depth. I decided to study an idea in depth: The idea that being living proof was the best possible argument for your ethical system. It wasn't a complicated or ultra-specific idea, like some of the other students had chosen, but it was problematic to my adviser, all the same.

ME: I'd like to explore the idea that a system of ethics is invalid if it cannot be lived, and that actually living according to the logical consequences of your ethics is the best proof for its validity.

PROF: OK. I'm not quite sure what you mean. Can you explain in more detail?

ME: Sure. It seems to me that if you preach a system of beliefs with logical contradictions, it'll be impossible to live out its logical consequences, since reality conforms to logic. It seems to me that any non-obvious contradictions in the argument, or any mistakes in the facts of the premises will come to the surface of any ethics as soon as you try to actually live by it. It also seems to me that any philosopher who does not or cannot live by (or point to someone else who lives by) his or her own moral ideas has little or no business telling others what to do. [Note: It seems to me that I had to use the phrase "it seems to me" a lot throughout college. This makes sense as long as you realize that college as it exists today is partially designed to convince you that you can't really know anything for sure...and that you should somehow be sure of your uncertainty.] Like Wittgenstein tried to live by his philosophy and failed miserably and gave up philosophy for a while to teach kindergarten. It's because there was a fundamental flaw (it seems to me, lots of flaws) in his thinking.

PROF: These are interesting ideas... [Then, after a few minutes of tapping a pen on the desk and stroking the philosopher beard...] I'm not sure you'll find much source material for reference. I don't really remember coming across those ideas anywhere.

ME: [Blank stare] You're kidding, right? It's just...well this is the whole purpose of philosophy, right?

PROF: Well, I guess some people might call that the purpose of philosophy. But, nope. Not kidding. Weird, huh? It's an interesting idea, but you don't really have enough room in such a short paper to present an idea so fresh. It's more something that you'd do in a graduate thesis, or even doctoral.

ME: I understand about the length, but I thought there'd be all sorts of writing on this stuff. Like I said, isn't this the whole purpose of ethics? To understand the logic of right living and then actually live it?

PROF: Maybe there's something for you in here...[takes a book off the shelf by some obscure philosopher] this would be a good counterpoint to Being and Time by Heidegger, which has some sections on the concept of genuinity, and might hit on the ideas you're talking about.

It didn't come close to what I was talking about, but by the time I got partway through my research, I had to commit to using Heidegger and all sorts of other obscure sources to argue a point I didn't even really want to make. It's a thirty page disaster, and is on file in my college library for posterity. It's proof that even when you pay thousands of dollars, education by others is always limited by their self-interest. If philosophy were actually simple, accessible, and understandable, then philosophy professors would have precious little time to explore irrational and non-functioning philosophies of the past. Plato, anyone? There are entire courses of study in college philosophy where at the end they say, "But everything we've taught you so far is bullshit and here's why." I wish someone had just passed out the bullshit detector on day one.

My paper was basically incomprehensible, and was ripped apart by my professors on presentation day. At first I couldn't believe they gave it a passing grade, but then realized that they were the same people who set me on the path to this complete nonsense. I considered myself an academic failure, and my idea as one that was either totally wrong or outside its time.

After college I studied up on rationality, and eventually found the novel The God of Athiests, by Stefan Molyneux. In this novel, there is a character who is a graduate student proposing a big new philosophical idea. His advisers respond in a similar way to mine. It's a lovely read otherwise, but contains an amazing breakdown of how and why postmodernist thought has disintegrated any hope of actually receiving a decent higher education in most modern universities. I learned more from this book for the price of a couple of DVDs than I did from thousands of dollars worth of credentialed and certified professional education.

It's amazing, the money you can save just by deriving your philosophy from first principles, using logic and the scientific method to test your ideas. It's lovely, the life you can live if you're tenacious about adjusting your actions to match that same philosophy...I'm only a fraction of the way there, but infinitely better off for it. It's astounding how few people attempt or accomplish this in life, and how infectious their disease can be.

Post number ones are never interesting...

...Until now! Oh wait, no. This one probably won't be too terribly interesting either. I'd just like to offer a bit of background before I get into all the this and that of my ideas. My name is Jason McLaughlin. I'm currently 26 years old and I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA. In college, I majored in literature and philosophy. This qualifies me to write a blog on my thoughts and ideas. The diploma certifies me to do little else (like make millions of dollars), I've found. I'm not explaining my education to give you a reason to trust everything I say, but just so that you can feel a bit more comfortable lending me your brain if you haven't pursued a similar course of study. After college, my senioritis continued for a year or two. I've picked philosophy back up in the past couple of years, and found some amazing new ideas that we didn't seem to touch on in enough (or any) detail while I was in college. It turned out to be exactly the sort of stuff I was trying to study, but was discouraged from pursuing by my professors. Hm...weird! But more on that later.

I try my best to work with logic and evidence of my senses to understand the world around me. In philosophy, this is traditionally called rational empiricism. This means I use logic and the scientific method to determine what is true. This way, I can be more sure that what I say is actually objectively true, and not simply a projections of my opinions as "truth." If you ever have any disagreement with my ideas, I'm perfectly willing to correct myself as long as I'm wrong in my understanding of the empirical facts or have made a misstep in logic. Thinking like this has led me to some interesting conclusions about life. I hope you stay along for the ride.

Any discussion of my understanding of philosophy would be lacking if I didn't mention Freedomain Radio. This is a podcast/vidcast/online discussion hosted by Stefan Molyneux. It's the most exciting discussion I've ever come across, and it's not only limited to philosophy! It's about philosophy, psychology, relationships, governments, religion, literature, human interaction, family...basically everything core to life. It's a lovely community of thoughts, and just so happens to be the best use of my time I've ever come across. Wow. What a ringing endorsement.

I have an interest in movies, television, video games, technology, and music which I'll bring my philosophy to bear on. And in a way more interesting way than in this first post. Post number ones are never interesting...