Know Nothing Party, Part Deux

Hi Kitty,

Good to hear from you again. I still need to explore more of you site, but self-ownership and an individual having unalienable rights are both things I hold dear.

Now, supporting both of your views, I can see the technicalities and the appropriate rhetorical use of said, “we.”

But, I'll have to disagree with Michelle on the “no man is an island.” From a biological and logical construct, everyman is an island, but it sure makes one happier to have friends and trusted loved ones around to gladly and willingly share islands with.

:)

M.J. Taylor
Publisher
from Reason to Freedom

Kitty Atonick [sic] Wakfer,
While I understand your opposition to collectivism in communication and agree with the social-cultural constructs that work to influence perceptions and/or relationships, I feel I must stand with my use of the inclusive (not collective, per se) wording.

I was (am) speaking in micro-vs-macro systems terms, for example; the United States goes to war collectively and our foreign and internal policies are viewed by other nations and cultures collectively. That is, when the US military perptrates a "Shock and Awe" on citizens of Baghdad, I find it extremely unlikely that the average citizen of that city would put the onus on Bush, Rumsfield, Cheney and the uniformed soldiers rather than the collective "Americans".

Hello Michelle,

The fact that (some, many, most or even all) others in Baghdad (or anywhere else) condemn USers (I eschew the term "Americans" since residents of Canada, Mexico and all the rest of North and also South and Central America are in essence "Americans") collectively for the actions there of US military personnel upon orders of their leaders does not make it correct. Instead of accepting such erroneous thinking in others, it would be beneficial to place the onus where it is due - the enforcers of orders being given by individuals who want force applied to others for some purpose. If the enforcers refused or there were insufficient numbers, the orders would never go beyond the words uttered or written. One can hardly imagine Bush and his associates enforcing their own orders.... (Additional thought to consider - there is little difference here between hit men for the mafia and enforcers of government.) Those who do not agree with what is being done in their name ("We Americans...") would best make it very clear - near and far - that they do *not* agree. In this age of the Internet, it is much more common than even 25 years ago for the average citizen of other countries to be informed of what the non-agreers elsewhere are saying/writing/doing.

It is the rather increasingly widespread tendency to lump individuals into groups and then treat this group as an entity that is at the root of many interaction problems in the world - now and in the past. This "us" and "them" viewpoint results from the fact that many individuals fail to develop themselves mentally/intellectually individually, but rather seek some identity in a group in order to unthinkingly *feel* complete. This collectivization of the self can - and often is - used by others who assume or are granted leadership authority to then order/lead/induce the group members toward some way of viewing, deciding and acting by reference to the outsiders as being "against us".

Another example would be the headline: "The United States gives $25 billion in aid to Saudi Arabia" ; I know I personally didn't knowingly contribute one thin dime, but my taxes (collected under duress and coersion) we appropriated thusly. Now, perhaps Saudi Arabia's enemies will be able to differentiate between me, and say, the bureaucracy that actually handled the transaction and other citizens who whole-heartedly supported it-but should they decide to do harm to the Saudi's supporters I think they might not make such distinctions.

What our country does as national policy, rightly or wrongly, is usually seen as a reflection of it's citizens. This is why it is so important to me, that we (all citizens of the United States) make damn sure that our government is a representative government and that we retain the right to petition for redress of grievances when elected leaders put financial profits and personal accolades ahead of what is right for the country.

It would be far better, in my opinion, for you (and other liberty-oriented writers who write similarly) to identify who is specifically included in the "we" when you use that word, since not all residents/citizens of the US think that government is the solution to an orderly society - no matter how "representative" its form may attempt to be (and it can never be so, since the only person who can possibly represent me on any complex issue is an agent to whom I have given sufficient detail regarding my wishes and clear limits on what the agent can do in my name, all of which is specified in contractual form). Were the US government form "optimum" (in quotes because that is actually a self-contradictory hypothetical), it would not have become what it is today; this can be said for any State that exists or has existed.

Additionally, there is no "country" in the sense of "does" - only individuals can act. Also, a country does not possess attributes that are right or wrong. These can only be ascribed to individual people - not a group, no matter how large its size or in what territory its individual members reside. This aspect of groupism (collectivism in language spreading often and in many respects into behavior) has distorted the thinking of so many, liberty-oriented writers included, not just you. The growing trend in education - most of it controlled by government in the US and elsewhere - towards the superiority of the group has fostered this way of thinking by large numbers.

I do believe in individual rights and more importantly, individual responsibilites-however, we also all inhabit the same sphere in this universe and I think it's important to be willing to live together in relative harmony. I truly believe that no man is an island.

The concept of "rights" is incomplete and fraught with inconsistencies and therein lie the many problems that result from its usage as a basis of social interactions, the arbiter of which most people consider to be government. I recommend that you read "Social Meta-Needs: A New Basis for Optimal Interaction" that defines and develops Social Meta-Needs and argues "that rights should be replaced by Stipulations concerning Entitlements and Responsibilities within a Social Contract to facilitate the achievement of the Social Meta-Needs" (from the Abstract of the essay itself). http://selfsip.org/fundamentals/socialmetaneeds.html

I definitely agree that "no man is an island" and attempts to live completely isolated from all others for an extended period of time can actually only occur with assets previously obtained from interactions with others. Once an individual is in a prolonged isolation, I question what level and further development of and intellectual and emotional existence can occur with no interactions at all with other humans.

No disagreement that we (humans) "all inhabit the same sphere in this universe" at the current time. (As slightly aside, I think it is the actions of governments co-opting space exploration and decreeing everything beyond Earth as a commons - not open for individual ownership - that has had the major effect in keeping humans earth-bound.) Being able to "live together in relative harmony" is likely the wish of the vast majority humans on this planet. I think that few, if any, people really want the world to continue to be a place where they fear for their safety and/or cannot interact peaceably with all others they choose. However, such a desire, by itself, is not enough since human interactions, in order to be peaceable, need also to be mutually beneficial with respect to each individual seeking to optimize his/her (hir) own lifetime happiness, this latter only being possible when using wide-view, long-range thinking. The principles of Social Meta-Needs is the basis of a society in which such interactions are the norm, implemented by the Natural Social Contract together with Social Preferencing. http://selfsip.org/solutions/NSC.html and http://selfsip.org/solutions/Social_Preferencing.html A simple motto that sums up its viewpoint is the old rallying call: "All for one, and One for All" - but being careful to realize that the All always includes the One.

Lastly, after reading your attached essay, perhaps the reason for my sense of collective language stems from the fact that I am an identical twin; as the essay stated ..."Of course, this use of "we" and "our" is pure nonsense unless the "we" happens to be twins, triplets, etc. Each fetus is in its own unique environmentally affected uterine developmental situation and, in fact, the "about" is used particularly because the number of cells made and destroyed depends somewhat on both the environment and genetic makeup of the fetus. Neither were all of the readers of the above (the "us") within a given uterus either at the same time or even ever (again excepting multiple gestations)," and I can personally attest to the fact that, as a rule (but certainly not always) twins tend to be more collective in their outlooks than single-born.

First off, you have poorly referenced Paul's essay, "Collectivism in Language: Its Effects on Valid Reasoning" by not providing the referent in his quote for "this use" and later "the 'about'" and "the above", all of which refer to the following quote from elsewhere which is reproduced on the page directly above Paul's comment that you quoted here. The quote to which Paul's comment referred was:

From point 1) of Related Material on Programmed Cell Death in ScienceWeek Part A December 24, 2004, an adaptation from: Scott F. Gilbert: Developmental Biology. 6th Edition. Sinauer 2000, p.165.

"Within the uterus, during our fetal development, we were constantly making and destroying cells, and we generated about three times as many neurons as we eventually ended up with when we were born."

By not quoting the referent of Paul's comments, the reader of your comment who had not also read and remembered exactly what Paul wrote, would likely not be able to follow Paul's logic at all. (http://selfsip.org/fundamentals/we.html)

While you may have a predisposition toward thinking in a collective manner because of being raised as one of a pair of identical twins, this is not "the *reason* for [your] sense of collective language". Likely you were treated by many (?most) people with whom you interacted from a very early age as one of a pair, in a sense interchangeable. However, since there are many identical twins raised together who think of themselves as individuals, granted with many similarities, rather than a collective, it would not be correct to use the fact of "identical" multiple birth as a reason for thinking in a collectivist manner. As Paul wrote in the quote you gave above, even those in a multiple birth with identical starting DNA are not completely identical because of their individual location in utero and actual small genetic variations (look up the word "epigenetic" sometime); and the differences become greater the further in time from birth. Being one of an "identical" multiple birth does not mean that those individuals are clones of each other ("clones" in the vernacular meaning of completely identical rather than in the technical sense of merely having the same starting DNA); and even cloned (technical sense now) animals will not necessarily be identical with the donor since environmental differences will enact different results, although these are likely not great when viewed in animals where the conditions of raising are purposely aimed to be the same.

But even if you and your twin think of yourselves as a single individual (not really the same as a collective) because of your many similarities - I and Paul are so close that we think of ourselves as one in many respects - there is no logical reason for that to extend to your views of others. It certainly does not with us (I and Paul) and it also does not so extend to a pair of identical twins one of whom we know well enough to number them among our relatively few friends. There are clear differences to us between them physiologically and in their thinking and, in fact, they readily acknowledge this themselves.

So why do you tend to be more collective in your outlook? If you really want to know, you will need examine the interplay for you of your environment/situation, feelings, thoughts, behavior and physical reactions. And after - or as part of - this analysis you can change what ideas, behaviors, feelings, physical reactions and environment/situation you determine to be not in your best interest - that do not promote the optimization of your lifetime happiness. For more on this concept of human psychology, I suggest readings in cognitive behavioral therapy.

Thank you for taking the time to respond and I look forward to reading your website.
Sincerely,
Michelle L

My delayed response to your comments was first because I didn't see them until over 2 weeks after they were written - I didn't see a mechanism by which to indicate desire to be notified of a response - and since then I've been enmeshed in numerous other writings, most of which had been previously begun. Once down to it, my reply here was completed in 2 days, still in between doing other things.

I hope, Michelle, that you will, by this time, have begun to read SelfSIP.org. The ideas there are novel and require concentrated reading and deliberation in order to fully understand. If the principles and implementation methods were simple, they would have been discovered and written about years ago, and society would not be in the mess that it is. The Social Meta-Needs Theory essay is an attempt to introduce a newly discovered paradigm to describe human Relationships by the use of which approach Paul (and I too) is convinced a way forward to a less restrictive Society with far more Liberty and Available Actions for all is possible. I and Paul welcome critiques of our works, either at MoreLife Yahoo or any public site, the writer at the latter having giving us notification so that we can respond.

Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive.

I don't know quite what to make of this included sentence. If it is to indicate to me that you think I "take life too seriously", I can only ask how you come to this conclusion? and what is "too seriously"? As for the last part, apart from its tautological nature ("out of life" equals "not alive") I and Paul have contracts in place by which we both will be cryopreserved upon legal death with the hopes that some time in the (far) future we will be returned to the state of being fully functionally Alive. In the meantime, we are ardent practitioners of life extension methods, including calorie restriction. For information on all of what we do and our physical conditions, see http://morelife.org/personal/ On the other hand, maybe this closing line (part of a regular sigline?) may only be an attempt at humor...

This has been a rather long reply to your response, but Michelle, you wrote so many things that I think warranted comment that it just couldn't be shorter. Moreover reasoned discussion should never be abbreviated merely for the purpose of taking less lines. ;>)

**Kitty Antonik Wakfer

MoreLife for the rational - "http://morelife.org
Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality
Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org
Self-sovereignty, rational pursuit of optimal lifetime happiness,
individual responsibility, social preferencing & social contracting