Natural Law, or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy - The Anarchist

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Natural Law, or Don’t Put a
Rubber on Your Willy
Robert Anton Wilson
RobertAntonWilson
NaturalLaw,orDon’tPutaRubberonYourWilly
1986
RetrievedonSeptember9,2010fromwww.libmansworld.com
theanarchistlibrary.org 1986
“wrong” answers in all cases, anymore than it provides hot and
cold running water before humans start tinkering with it. I feel
surethat,forthoseawakenedfromhypnosis,everyhourofevery
daypresentschoicesthatarejustaspuzzling(althoughfortunately
notasmonstrous)asthisparable.Thatiswhyitappearsaterrible
burden to be aware of who you are, where you are, and what is
goingonaroundyou,andwhymostpeoplewouldprefertoretreat
intoIdeology,abstraction,mythandself-hypnosis.
Tocomeoutofourheads,then,alsomeanstocometooursenses,
literally—tolivewithawarenessofthebottleofbeeronthetable
andthebleedingbodyinthestreet.Withoutpolemicintent,Ithink
thisinvolveswakingfromhypnosisinaveryliteralsense.Onlyone
individualcandoitatatime,andnobodyelsecandoitforyou.You
havetodoitallalone.
71
Ifwedonotwakeupinthatconcretesense—ifwearestillhypno-
tizedbyspooksandabstractions—nomanneroftalkandchatter
aboutindividualismandlibertyhasanyconcreteexistentialmean-
ing, because we are still walking around in a trance: zombies pro-
Contents
grammed by whatever verbalism in our head stands between us
andthethunderousastonishmentofeveryunpredictablemoment
inwakinglife.
Theseideascanbemademoreconcretewithaparable,whichI PoliticalMythandSelf-Hypnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
borrowfromJohnFowles’swonderfulnovel,TheMagus. TheWrathofRothbard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Conchis, the principle character in the novel, finds himself SmithExCathedra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Mayor of his home town in Greece when the Nazi occupation “Law”inScienceandTheology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
begins. One day, three Communist partisans who recently killed FaithandDeepBelief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
some German soldiers are caught. The Nazi commandant gives MetaphysicsWithout“God” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Conchis,asMayor,achoice—eitherConchiswillexecutethethree NaturalLawasVentriloquism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
partisans himself to set an example of loyalty to the new regime, OnSodomizingCamels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
ortheNaziswillexecuteeverymaleinthetown. Whatis“AgainstNature”? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
ShouldConchisactasacollaboratorwiththeNazisandtakeon WhyNot“Violate”Nature? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
himself the direct guilt of killing three men? Or should he refuse TheIndividualvs.theAbstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
and,bydefault,beresponsibleforthekillingofover300men? TowardaConclusionAlmost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
I often use this moral riddle to determine the degree to which Sleep-WalkingandHypnotism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
people are hypnotized by Ideology. The totally hypnotized, of
course, have an answer at once; they know beyond doubt what is
correct, because they havememorized the Rule Book. It doesn’t mat-
ter whose Rule Book they rely on — Ayn Rand’s or Joan Baez’s or
the Pope’s or Lenin’s or Elephant Doody Comix — the hypnosis is
indicatedbylackofpauseforthought,feelingandevaluation.The
responseisimmediatebecausemechanical.Thosewhoarenotto-
tally hypnotized — those who have some awareness of concrete
eventsofsensoryspace-time,outsidetheirheads—findtheprob-
lemterribleandterrifyingandadmittheydon’tknowany“correct”
answer.
Idon’tknowthe“correct”answereither,andIdoubtthatthere
isone.Theuniversemaynotcontain“right”and“wrong”answers
to everything just because Ideologists want to have “right” and
70 3
thanthesense-datareportingabottleofbeerandahamsandwich
onthetableorableedingvictimoftheIdeologylyinginthestreet.
TheIdeologyofNaturalLaw,Isubmit,mustbeclassedasaform
ofself-hypnosis.Ihaveargued,throughout,thatthePlatonicworld
of Natural Law and other abstractions does not interface at any
pointwiththespace-timecontinuumofordinarysensual-sensory
experience, the bottle of beer or the victim’s body. For this rea-
son, which they how, the more intelligent Natural Law theorists
attribute Natural Law to some other, allegedly “higher” world. I
suggestthatwhereNaturalLawexists—wheregodsanddemons
and faery-folk and pookahs exist — is in the hypnotized brains of
those who have invoked these ghostly entities by repeating hyp-
noticchantstothemselves,overandover,untilthismade-upworld
ismorerealtothemthattheworldofexperience.
That the Ideologist “lives in the head” is familiar folk wisdom,
butitcontainsterrifyingimplications.
Ihavearguedthatmoralityderivesfromhumanexperience,hu-
man reason, human feeling, human intuition and human creative
energy generally. Other animals do now have “morality” for the
samereasontheydonothaveartorscience:theirbrainsdonotab-
stracthigher-orderinformationfromsensoryinformation,asours
do,andhencetheydonotperformcreativeactswithinformation.If
thisanalysishasanytruth,thenmorality,likeartandscience,isnot
afinishedproduct butalmostanevolving organism,towhicheach
of us can contribute if we “live with integrity” in Bucky Fuller’s
sense of that phrase — namely, if we come out of our heads, out
ofourabstractions,andlookconcretelyatourconcreteindividual
experiences in space-time as processed by our individual reason
andfeelingsandintuitions.Livingwithintegrityinthatsensewas
oncedefinedbyConfuciusas“respectingone’sownnose.”Tome,
thisiswhatindividualismandlibertarianismareallabout.“Smash,
smash, smash the old tablets of law and wake from the myths that
allgenerationshavebelieved!”
69
isenoughreverseracismandreversesexismaroundthesedaysthat ThelawsofGod,thelawsofMan,
Icanconfidentlyexpectallreadershavehadafewexperienceswith Hemaykeepwhowill,andcan;
deeplyhypnotizedsubjectsofthetypeIamdescribing.Evenifyou NotI:letGodandmandecree
arewhite,youhaveencounteredblackracismandobservedthatit Lawsforthemselvesandnotforme.
doesn’t reacttoyoursensory-sensualactivity inspace-time atall:
—A.E.Housman
itisarobotprogramthatreactsonlytoyourskincolor.Youmight
havelearnedfromthatwhatitislikeforblackpeopletotrytodeal
Political Myth and Self-Hypnosis
withthoroughlyhypnotizedwhiteracists.Andifyouaremale,you
haveundoubtedlymetafewdeeplyhypnotizedRadicalFeminists
Arosebyanyothername
bynow,andhavesomeclueastohowwomenfeelindealingwith
Wouldnever,neversmellthesame
malesexism.
Andcunningisthenosethatknows
Every Theology and every Ideology, it seems to me, is an en-
Anonionthat’sbeencalledarose.
deavorinhypnotismandself-hypnotism.Ifthereisonethingthat
—WendellJohnson,YourMostEnchantedListener
everybodyknowsincommonsense—whentheyarein“theirright
minds”andnothypnotized—itisthat“allgeneralizationsarehaz-
Nobodyeverwinsadebatewithaneditorinhisownmagazine,
ardous” and that individual cases are each unique. The function
for the same reason that nobody has ever persuaded the Pope of
of Theological and Ideological hypnosis is to forget the common
hisownfallibility.
senseandfollowtherobot-programthatevadestheresponsibility
Three years ago, Loompanics published The Myth of Natural
ofthinkingandfeelinganewineachuniquesituation.Itisnotjust
RightsbyL.A.Rollins.In1985,theNewLibertarianmagazine(1515
the other gang’s Theology or Ideology that is nefarious: all Theol-
W. MacArthur Blvd, #19, Costa Mesa, CA 92626) published exten-
ogyandIdeologyisnefarious.Itisaformofsleep-walkinginwhich
sive debate on the very interesting issues Rollins raised. I par-
we can do monstrous things because we are not alive, awake and
ticipated in that debate, and the experience was enlightening, al-
aware of who we are, where we are and what is going on around
though not in the Zen Buddhist sense. Briefly, the editor, Samuel
us.
Edward Konkin III, did not print my article as I wrote it; instead
In hypnosis, we “live in our heads” — i.e., in the “magic” ver- heprintedthearticleintercutwitharunningcommentarybyhim-
balismsthatinduceandperpetuateourtrance.Inhypnotism,ifwe self,intheformofnumerousfootnotesattemptingtorebutallmy
believepaindoesnotexist,paingoesaway,andifwebelieveadis- majorpoints.
ciplined German officer should not have normal human feelings, In the ordinary civilized decorum of debate, a gentleman is ex-
normalhumanfeelingsgoawayandwecanperformatrocities.In pected to wait until his opponent’s time is up before replying. In-
hypnotism, any verbal formula can become as “real” as or even terrupting your opponent continually is called “heckling” and is
more “real” than the sensory-sensual manifold of space-time. In regardedasboorishanduncivil.IcouldnotregardKonkin’sinter-
hypnosis,averbalabstractionsuchasRacialPurityorClassWaror polations in my article as anything else but literary heckling, and
God’sWillbecomesmore“real”andmore“important”tothebrain I was curious. Ordinarily, Konkin seems a civilized person. I won-
68 5
dered about the psychology of the heckler and why it can afflict stick his head in the window.” In five minutes, the subject looks
even the educated person if his or her prejudices are sufficiently startled and giggles, then reports that he saw a clown at the win-
affronted. dow. Advertisers have learned this trick, also. Most men have a
Basically,Ithink,thehecklerfearshisopponent.Hethinksthat favorite brand of beer which they insist tastes better than others,
the opponent’s ideas are a “clear and present danger”, as it were, but when blindfolded, as Packard documented in The Hidden Per-
andthattheymustbedrownedoutbeforetheyseduceanyone.You suaders, these men cannot identify their favorite brand from a se-
generallyknowwhenyouhavetroddenuponsomebody’sdeepest lectionoffive.Thesuperiortastetheyordinarilyexperiencemust
prejudicesbecausetheircivilitydesertsthemandtheybegininter- beconsideredahypnoticallyinducedhallucination.
ruptingexcitedlyandadoptingthe“heckler”persona. IhavealwaysdreadedbothIdeologyandTheology,becausethey
In thinking this over, and considering also the emotional and makepeoplecruel.Itnowappearstomethatordinarymen—and
almost hysterical nature of other responses during the debate on occasionallyordinarywomen—domonstrousthingsfortheirIde-
NaturalLawsparkedbyRollins,Ihaverealizedthatthereseemto ologiesandTheologiesonlybecausepoliticsandreligionfunction
bedeepreligiouspassionsinvolvedinthisissue,andthatmyarticle largely, like advertising, through hypnotism and self-hypnotism.
in New Libertarian only scratched the surface of the psychology ThisistheopinionalsoofColinWilsoninhisextraordinaryandter-
andneurologyoftheNaturalLawcult.Ihavethereforedecidedto rifyingCriminalHistoryofMankind.Examiningtheblood-curdling
rewrite my thoughts in more depth and publish them where the acts of both those who have always been called criminals (the
NaturalLawcultistscanonlydenouncethemafter theyhavebeen free-lance marauders) and those government officials who have
readandcannotheckleanddistractthereaderwhiletheyarebeing only been identified as criminals (that is, as “war criminals”) in
read. thelastgeneration,ColinWilsonconcludesthatineachcasethere
Curiously,whiletheNaturalLawdebatewasgoingforthinthe is abundant evidence that the perpetrators of atrocities were, not
New Libertarian in the United States, I was involved in two other metaphoricallybutliterally,hypnotizedorself-hypnotized.Thatis,
debates on Natural Law in Ireland, where I live. Dail Eireann, the theyhadlearnedhowtomakehypnoticwordsandsentencesmore
Irish parliament, had voted to submit to the people a referendum real to their brains than the ordinary testimony of the senses and
whichwouldhaveallowedcivildivorceifapprovedbyamajority; feelings.
youwillnotbesurprisedtolearnthattheproposedlegislationwas This seems hard to believe at first, as it is hard to believe that
violentlyopposedbytheRomanCatholichierarchyonthegrounds most people are hypnotized most of the time. But consider two
that divorce “is” against “Natural Law”. At the same time, a neo- of the outstanding forms of Ideology in the world — racism and
pagan Dublin magazine, Ancient Ways, was running two debates sexism. If you have observed a racist or sexist in action, you will
on whether machinery “was” or “was not” against Natural Law notethattheydonotseeorobservetheconcretehumanbeingbe-
and on whether anti-aging research “is” or “is not” against Natu- fore them; they “see” only the hallucination triggered by the hyp-
ralLaw.Iparticipatedinbothofthesedebatesalso,anditbecame noticwordsoftheirinternalracistorsexistscript,whichtheyhave
quite clear to me that the Natural Law mystique, in Catholic, lib- beenrepeating,bothaloudandsub-vocally,formany,manyyears.
ertarian or neo-pagan forms, remains basically a set of rhetorical This, of course, is easiest to observe when you are the victim of
strategies to hypnotize others into the state which Bernard Shaw racismorsexism,but,fortunatelyforourspecie’seducationthere
6 67
a neurotic is silently repeating these sentences sub-vocally — in called“barbarism”anddefinedas“thebeliefthatthelawsofone’s
the“interiormonologue”ofordinaryconsciousness—many,many owntribearethelawsoftheuniverse.”
times a day. This form of self-hypnosis is known as a Loser Script Theword“hypnotize”isnotusedlightlyintheabovesentence.
inthelanguageofTransactionalAnalysis. I shall endeavor to show, in these pages, that the Natural Law
Otherpeoplehypnotizethemselvesintootherreality-tunnelsby metaphysicscanaccuratelybedescribedasaverbalconstructthat,
endlessrepetitionofsuchmantrasas“Ilikeeverybody,andevery- like a hypnotist’s commands, creates a trance state in which ex-
body likes me” (the successful Salesman script), “All niggers are perience is edited out and the verbally-induced hypnotic revery
treacherous”(theRacistscript),“Allmenarebastards”(thereverse becomesmore“real”thatsensory-sensualstimuli.Inotherwords,
sexistorRadicalLesbianscript),“Ideserveadrinkafteramorning NaturalLawappearstobeamapthatdoesnotcorrespondtoany
likethat”(theapprenticeAlcoholicscript),“Ican’tcontrolmytem- real territory, but like other Idols it becomes almost “real” when
per”(theGoDirectlytoJailDoNotCollect$200script),“Canceris theworshipperstaresatitlongenoughwithpassionateadoration.
only mortal mind. Divine mind has no cancer. I am Divine Mind” LikeCatholicstatuesofMary,itwillevenSeemto“move”or“come
(theChristianSciencescript),etc. alive.”
Self-hypnosisneednotbedestructive,obviously.Like“faith,”it I shall also attempt to show that this kind of trance should be
can be a releaser of energy, a spur to creativity and a tool of self- consideredstatistically“normal”becausemostpeoplemostofthe
improvement (metaprogramming the human biocomputer) — as time are similarly entranced by word-and-symbol hypnosis and
long as you’re not a damned fool about it, to quote the immortal self-hypnosis. We appear to be a race, as Max Stirner said, with
W.C.Fieldsagain. “spooksinthehead.”
Uncovering the sentences that perpetuate self-hypnosis is a This claim is not intended as polemic, but as sober diagnosis. I
major goal in some forms of psychotherapy — such as Rational- shall demonstrate as we proceed that hypnosis occurs quite ordi-
Emotional Therapy, Reality Therapy and Transactional Analysis narily in human affairs and is easily induced by the repetition of
— and is acknowledged as important in most other forms of psy- metaphysicalchantsandothermeaninglessverbalisms.
chotherapy.Manyacceleratedformsoftherapynowinvoguerely A hypnotist tells you that now you are going away from this
largely on teaching people to abandon negative self-hypnosis and room, far away, and now you are in a lovely green field, and it
beginusingthepowersofpositiveself-hypnosis. is a warm sunny day, and the sun is all over your body…you can
CountKorzybski,thepioneersemanticist,saidthathumansare feelthewarmsunalloveryourbody,anditisveryrelaxing…very
thesymbol-usingspeciesandthereforethosewhocontrolsymbols relaxing…andnowyouhearthesoundofaverybeautifulbirdcall…
control human destiny. Stokely Carmichael, a Black civil rights And,ofcourse,ifthehypnosisworks,youdohearthebirdcall.
leader of the 1960s, said it this way: “The power to define is the Similarly,theNaturalLawtheorist(oranyothermetaphysician)
powertocontrol.” tellsyouaboutabstractionswithcapitalletters,andhetalksabout
Hypnotism can induce people to shut off pain at the synapse, these marvelously transcendental entities, and he talks, and he
and surgeons can operate on them as if they were anesthetized. talks…and if the hypnosis works, the abstractions suddenly seem
Hypnotismcanstopbleeding.Hypnotismcaneveninducehalluci- as“real”as,orevenmore“real”than,ahamsandwichandacupof
nations:“Infiveminutes,”thehypnotistsays,“youwillseeaclown coffee. The process of going away from the sensory-sensual expe-
66 7
rience into verbally-induced fantasy works the same way in both Ifyouarearguingforracialequalitywithamanwhokeepsus-
formsofhypnosis,asweshallsee. ing the word “nigger,” you will eventually discover that you are
makingnoheadwayandthatsomebarrierpreventsclearcommu-
nication. If you are discussing censorship laws with a lady who
The Wrath of Rothbard
keepsusingtheword“smut,”youwillexperiencethatsamesense
ofbangingyourheadagainstabrickwall.Ifyouattempttoreason
Truth!Truth!Truth!crieththeLordoftheAbyssofHal-
withaMarxist,theword“bourgeoisie”willeventuallybeinvoked
lucinations
tobanishanycoherenceorlogicinwhatyouhavebeensaying.
—AleisterCrowley,TheBookofLies
Itisatruisminsocialsciencethathumanbeingscanbedefined
asthelanguage-usingclassoflife.Buddhists,semanticistsandhyp-
In New Libertarian, Vol. 4, No. 13, Prof. Murray Rothbard pub-
notistshowthatwenotonlyusewordsbutarealsoeasilymesmer-
lished an article called “On the Duty of Natural Outlaws to Shut
izedbythem.Hypnotistsinreallifeseldomhavetouseglittering
Up.”Init,Rothbard“replied”toRollins’sTheMythofNaturalRights,
jewelsorshiningmirrorsastheydoinfilms;theordinarydomes-
moreorless,althoughhedidnotansweranyoftheverytellingcrit-
ticated primate can be hypnotized quite quickly and easily with
icismsRollinshadleveledagainsthis(Rothbard’s)claimthatsome
words alone, spoken in proper cadence and with abundant repeti-
sort of metaphysical entity called a “right” resides in a human be-
tion.Advertiserstrytohypnotizeusallthetime,andjudgingbythe
inglikea“ghost”residinginahauntedhouse.Nevertheless,Roth-
feestheycollectfromsatisfiedclients,theyaredoingverywellat
bard’s article seemed to me a very forceful polemic and had the
it.Havingusedhypnosisinmypsychologicalseminarsfornearly
sameemotionalpower,andindeedthesamelogicalstructure,asa
20yearsnow,IamquitepreparedtoagreewithG.I.Gurdjieffand
marveloussentenceattributedtoRingLardner:
Colin Wilson that most people can be said to be hypnotized most
“Shutup,”heexplained. ofthetime,andthattheprofessionalhypnotistonlyswitchesthem
fromtheirhabitualtrancetoadifferenttrance.
The persuasiveness of such “explanations” can be considerable, In fact, when I first started using hypnotism I was astounded
especially if they are delivered in a loud voice and accompanied that so many people went into deep trance quickly when I was
byathreateninggesturewithabaseballbat.InRothbard’sarticle, onlyattemptingtoinducelighttrance.ItwasmanyyearsbeforeI
however, they are accompanied only by the literary equivalent of understoodfullyGurdjieff’sinsistencethatmostpeoplearesleep-
suchnoiseandthreat,i.e.,bywhatsemanticistscall“snarlwords” walking in a deep trance state most of their lives. Now I am only
—wordswhichexpressmammalianragebutdonotcontaininfor- astonishedthatmanypeopleactuallycomeoutoftheirtranceoften
mation. enough to remember, occasionally, what they intended to buy at
It seems part of our glorious primate heritage that such noise thesupermarket.
and threat is often mistaken for argument, even though it should Ifyouhavetodealwithneuroticsregularly,youwilleventually
moreproperlybecalledquarrel.Politicians,advertisersand,above observe that most of them say aloud once or twice a week some-
all,therev.clergyhavebeenveryindustriousinspreadingtheno- thingtotheeffect,“Theywon’tgiveusachance,”“Youcan’twin,”
tionthatthereisnodifferencebetweennoiseandinformationand “The smart boys have it all sewed up,” etc. The odds are that such
8 65
found one way of organizing energy into signals — one model — that the loud noise is itself informative. It is no surprise, in this
whichhasbecomehisorherfavoritebrainprogram.Thismodel,be- mammalian context, that Rothbard actually includes in his piece
ingabrainproduct,retainsautobiographical(subjective)elements, thehelpfulsuggestionthattheappropriateresponsetocertainan-
and the Absolutist is deluded in projecting it outward and calling noyingquestionsistohitthequestionerwithachair.
it “reality.” The “modern” view seems more “objective” in saying, As I say, I do not deny the vigor of such rhetoric, but I find it
at each point, “Well, that model may have some value, but let’s lacking in intellectual coherence. I do discern a kind of a trace of
lookbackattheenergycontinuumandseeifwecandecodemore anadumbrationofahintofanargumentinthemidstofRothbard’s
signals,andmakeabiggerorbettermodel.”TheAbsolutist,insist- territorial howls, but I cannot be perfectly sure I have grasped it,
ingthathis/hercurrentmodelcontainsalltruth,appearsnotonly sincethenoiseofRothbard’sragetendstodrownoutthecontent
moresubjective,but unconscious of his/her subjectivity,and thus ofwhateverheistryingtosay.
“bewitched”orhypnotizedbythemodel.Ininsistingthathis“one IhavegivenyouthedateandplaceofRothbard’spublicationof
true model” or Idol should be satisfactory to all other brains, and his thesis; you can look it up for yourself to see if there is more
especiallyinthefavoriteAbsolutisterrorofassumingthatallother contentinitthanIhavefound.Meanwhile,itseemstomethathis
brains which do not accept this “one true model” as the only pos- major assertion is that stupidity is the best and quickest way to
siblemodelmustbeillogicalordishonestandsomehownasty,the political success, and that those who are not really stupid should
Absolutistalwaystendstowardtotalitarianism,eveninsailingun- atleastpretendtobestupid,sincedishonestyisalmostasgoodas
dertheflagoflibertarianism. stupidity if you practice it long enough and hard enough. Now I
Blakesaid,“OneLawfortheLionandOxistyranny.”Buteven donotdisagreewiththisatall;indeed,myownanalysisofpolitics
more,one“truth”fortheLionandOxisimpossible.Therewillal- and political Ideologies appears to be exactly the same. The only
waysbedifferentlanesfordifferentbrains,differentscenesfordif- differenceseemstobethatIhavejuststateditasbluntlyandcyn-
ferentgenes,differentstrokesfordifferentfolks. ically as possible, whereas Rothbard states it with a great deal of
Wecannegotiatemeaningfullywhenweunderstandthoseneu- unctionorlubricatingoil,tomakeitgodownmoresmoothly.
rological facts. When we think we have the “one true model,” we WhatRothbardactuallysays(inpart)is“Whatmovesmenand
cannotnegotiatebutonlyquarrel,and,inpolitics,usuallywefight womenandchangeshistoryisideology,moralvalues,deepbeliefs
andkill. and principles” and “moral passions and ideology work and prag-
matism doesn’t,” and that one who is not a moralist in this sense
should“pretendtobeamoralist”sincethisisgoodPublicRelations.
Sleep-Walking and Hypnotism
Idonotthinkmysarcasticparaphraseabovewasunjustified.Some
ofus,however,agreewithJohnAdamsthatIdeologyshouldmore
Allthatweareistheresultofallthatwehavethought.
properlybecalledidiocy:weharbourthesuspicionthatthe“deep
Itisfoundedonthought.Itiscreatedbythought.
beliefs” and “moral passions” associated with Ideologies tend to
—GotamaBuddha,TheDammapada
makepeoplebehavelikelunatics(orlikebadly-wiredrobots)and
Istatedatthebeginningthatthisbookletconcernshypnosisand thatstrongdosesofskepticismanddown-to-earthpragmatismap-
self-hypnosis;Ishallnowexplicatethatremark. pear to be the only factors that have ever produced any relative
64 9
sanityorrelativepeaceanywhere.Weagreethatpassionateideol- one synergetic gestalt); and it does not “abandon reality” in some
ogy and “deep” belief (i.e. deliberate blindness) indeed makes for madsurrealistexcessofsolipsismbut,moreconcretelyandspecif-
politicalsuccessandhascreatedhistoryasweknowit,butthatis ically, redefines “reality,” not as a block-like entity “outside” is in
preciselywhywefindpoliticsandhistorysoterribletocontemplate. Euclideanspace—wenowknowEuclideanspaceitselfisonlyone
JohnAdams,lookingattheeffectsofIdeology,saidhecouldnot modelamongmany—butasanongoingtransactioninwhichwe
consider history without either laughing or weeping. Most of us, areinvolvedasintimatelyasinsexualintercourse.
thesedays(excepttheIdeologists),feelthatway;likeJamesJoyce, Theintimateinvolvementmayormaynotbeascientificequiv-
weregardhistoryasanightmarefromwhichwearetryingtowake. alentoftheOriental“danceofShiva,”assomepopularizersclaim,
LikeJoyce,wehavelearnedto“fearthosebigwordsthatmakeus but it smashes down what Dr. J.A. Wheeler calls “the glass wall”
sounhappy.”Wehavelookedatthevictimsof“moralpassion”and which Aristotelian logic tacitly assumes between “me” and “the
“deepbelief”(whichwearemorelikelytocallfanaticism)andwe universe.”AsDr.DavidBohmpointsoutinWholenessandtheImpli-
have become agnostic, somewhat cynical and very, very cautious cateOrder,leaving“me”outofthe“universe”nevercorresponded
aboutthatkindofpassionandthatkindofbelief. toexperience,evenwhenitwasafashionableformofthought,be-
So, then, if I were interested in entering ordinary politics, in causeexperienceconsistsofwholetransactions(synergies)which,
the framework of the rules of ordinary history, I would follow inexperience,areneverbrokenbutformaseamlessunity.Myex-
Rothbard’s advice, “shut up” (as he urges) about my philosophi- perience ismy experience.
caldoubts,andpretendtothekindofpassionanddogmaticbelief Absolutists of all sorts — not just the Natural Law theorists
thathistoricallyalwaysleadstopoliticalsuccess.Inmyview,how- — have always wanted to abolish disagreements by finding “one
ever, such passionate dogmatism usually makes people stupid — truth”validforallparticipantsinthelifeexperience.Becauseeach
Koestlercalledit“deliberatestupidity”—anditoftenmakesthem brainmakesitsowntransactionswithenergy,turningenergyinto
blindly cruel. It even appears to some of us that passionate belief such“signals”asitcandecodeinitshabitualgrid,thistotalitarian
canjustlybecalledtheprinciplereasonpoliticsremainssuchade- dream of uniformity seems neurologically impossible. Each of us
pressing,paleolithicandmurderousspectacle.ThatiswhyIamnot “is” the Master who makes the grass green, and each of us makes
interested in entering politics at all, but only in satirizing and un- itbrighterordullergreendependingonhowawakeweareorhow
derminingit,sothatothersmayseeitasIdo,cometotheirsenses, deeplywearehypnotizedordepressed.Thecaseforindividualism
andgrowreasonablypragmatic,abitmoreskepticalandrelatively restsentirelyonthefactthat,eachindividualbeingneurologically-
saneandpeaceful;hence,Iwillnot shutup.Sorry,ProfessorRoth- experimentally unique, each individual, however “queer” or “per-
bard. verse”or“alien”theymayseemtolocalprejudice,probablyknows
Of course, Prof. Rothbard has written elsewhere, e.g. in his For something that no other individual has ever noticed. We all have
a New Liberty, a detailed argument for Natural Law in the moral somethingtolearnfromoneanother,ifwestoptryingtoramour
sense.Rollinspointedoutsevereflawsinthatargument—anditis dogmas down everybody else’s throat and listen to one another
odd that Rothbard does not offer a rebuttal of any kind, except to occasionally.
urgeRollinsandpeoplelikehimtoshutup—butIthinksomething “Subjectivism,”then,appliesmoretotheAbsolutiststhattomod-
of Rothbard’s case is worth mentioning here. Basically, Rothbard ernpost-relativityandpost-quantumthinkers.TheAbsolutisthas
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