by Caleb Nelson
Preparing for the worst includes emergency preparation for economic and natural disasters. This includes the following:
· Prepare food, toiletries, and water storage. Start with a 3-day emergency supply, then a 3-week supply, then 3-months, then a year. Include garden seeds in your emergency supply. (There are many sources such as web sites and organizations available to assist in this preparation);
· Have equipment and clothing for outdoor survival; go camping;
· Keep hard copies of important books, instructions, and documents;
· Learn old practices such as mending, canning, hunting, and farming; keep physical instructions of how to learn important survival skills;
· Live within your means and keeping a supply of cash on hand in case of bank or ATM failures (ATMs were down for days after Hurricane Katrina); if you have a large reserve of cash in savings, consider diversifying part of it into something like precious metals that can retain its value in case of a currency crash;
· Live near people you can trust to work together in an emergency rather than turn on each other; build relationships with them; learn their skills and needs.
“We’re about to go through the crucible, but we’ll come out the other side. We always arise from our own ashes.” - film adaptation of Children of Dune (2003)
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THE GOLDEN PATH
In Frank Herbert’s masterful Dune universe, one of his key ideas is “The Golden Path.” In his novels, this means the path that humanity must take in order to ensure its survival, not just across decades, but over tens of thousands of years—true long-range thinking.
This concept can be applied to each of us. There is a path to freedom, prosperity, and happiness. The path is the same for individuals, families, states, and nations. This path is strict adherence to the principles that govern human life, happiness, and prosperity. We’ve discussed many of these principles in detail in this book.
[453] There is hope for humans to understand and embrace the philosophy of freedom because morality is a choice. The non-initiation of force against others is what paves this path into a bright future. Without a proper understanding and protection of individual rights, our path winds instead into stagnation, destruction, and misery.
The Founders knew they had laid the foundation for the most spectacular experiment in freedom in the history of the world. They also knew that they were limited in what they could accomplish in their day—which is why the pyramid on the Great Seal of the United States is left unfinished at the top. It was for later generations to perfect what they had begun. In 1786, George Washington said, “The foundation of a great empire is laid, and I please myself with a persuasion that Providence will not leave its work imperfect.”
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They also knew that it was dangerous to leave it unfinished. What Washington warned of during the War of Independence also applies to the future country that survived it, “To trust altogether in the justice of our cause, without our own utmost exertions, would be tempting Providence.”
[455] To know what is right is useless without working to accomplish what is right.
George Washington
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We are reaping the benefits of thousands of years of intellectual and heroic struggle. Let us not be as the Israelites who, upon being freed from bondage, longed to return to the security of Egyptian enslavement. Let us, instead, work to understand and implement the philosophy of freedom and the principles of prosperity. It won’t happen all at once. Freedom and the protection of rights must be won back by the same methods that they have been lost—via a cultural groundswell that pushes back progressively against the collectivism, rather than merely slowing it down through token resistance. We owe it to ourselves and our children to make a better world.
Review
Q1: What are some steps you can start to work on to increase your personal freedom?
Q2: What can you do to help your country take steps towards greater freedom?
Q3: Think of ways in which your family’s emergency preparedness may be lacking. Write three things you can accomplish in the next month to improve on this.
Appendix A: Philosophy, Dialectics, and Logical Fallacies
The purpose of this resource is to offer further understanding of philosophy itself, of rational thinking and logical fallacies, and a few ideas of how to communicate these things with others.
PHILOSOPHY SUMMARY
Most people have never considered that philosophy has a practical purpose, let alone that it might be useful to them. Yet, philosophy is an inescapable concern for every thinking human being. A rational philosophy is indispensable because it helps you discover and use a good code of values to guide your life, without which, it is impossible to achieve happiness and prosperity. Philosophy is concerned with answering the questions posed in each of its four main branches:
Metaphysics - What is the nature of reality?
Epistemology - How do I know it, or how do I gain knowledge?
Ethics - What code should guide my choices; how do I live morally?
Politics - How do I morally interact with others?
(Note: The fifth major branch of philosophy is esthetics, dealing with the nature of beauty, art, taste, and the creation of art, which is not directly discussed in this book. See Ayn Rand’s excellent book, The Romantic Manifesto, for a study of esthetics.)
These are basic and important questions which must be answered rationally if we are to have a happy life. There are real and practical answers to these questions. The world has a severe philosophy disorder.
METAPHYSICS
“Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.”
[456] Existence exists. Principles govern. When you close your eyes, the world doesn’t cease to exist. When the sun sets, it’s still there. You can’t make ponies materialize out of thin air by wishing for them. If you want one, you’ll have to work within the confines of reality to get yourself one. Nature abides by laws and functions according to principles whether we like it or not. We can profit by our knowledge of these laws, or be buffeted by the natural consequences of ignoring them. This truth is an irreducible primary, or axiomatic concept. Axiomatic concepts cannot be broken down into more basic components; they are the building blocks of all other ideas. Consciousness is one such an axiomatic concept; it must be accepted before one can attempt to disprove it. (You have to be conscious before you can argue that you aren’t, and you have to exist before you can argue you don’t exist.) The first section of this book dealt with this foundation.
EPISTEMOLOGY
“Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.”
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We discover the nature of reality by first taking in information through the use of our senses.
Sensations are automatically retained and integrated by the brain and bundled together into percepts which allow us to recognize entities.
By integrating two or more units, (aspects of reality such as “entities, attributes, actions, qualities, relationships, etc.”) we form concepts.
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This entire process of identification and integration is done by our faculty of reason.
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To be logical, this process must be done without contradiction.
Thinking without contradiction about concretes is fairly simple. We can easily identify the conceptual differences between “spaghetti sauce” and “platypus.” It is in the realm of abstract concepts where we struggle the most to make distinctions, such as with concepts like “fairness” and “justice” and “love.” Our difficulty here most often comes from not having a clear definition of the concept. For example, for many people today, the concept of fairness has lost its definition of “being in accordance wi
th relative merit or significance,” and instead conveys a vague idea that everyone should be equal in everything.
[460] We see the results of this when Little League trophies are not given solely to the winners who earned them by merit, but rather to everyone, regardless of achievement simply because they participated.
ETHICS
“Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.”
[461] We discussed this at some length in this book.
POLITICS
“The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism,” wrote Rand, “It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.”[462]
This is the philosophical basis for capitalism. It is the only rational political philosophy in existence because it is the only one which is based solely on observable facts organized by reason. The standard of value in capitalism is your life. Because life is the only thing common to every human on the planet, and because the facts that support the philosophy of capitalism are observable by every thinking human, it is the only universal standard by which humanity can interact with each other in a way proper to the purpose and nature of man’s existence.
WHAT AND HOW TO TEACH
DIALECTICS
As for principles governing the discussion of ideas with others, Rand again offered remarkable advice. “There are two principles on which all men of intellectual integrity and good will can agree . . . [without which] he is not fit for an intellectual discussion,” she said. “These two principles are: A. emotions are not tools of cognition; B. that no man has the right to initiate physical force against others.”[463] This should be the starting point of any intelligent, respectful discussion.
When two people disagree on a philosophical matter, they should use a process of rational deliberation to discover which, if either, of them is correct. This method of discussion with the aim of resolving contradictory ideas or facts is called dialectics. The aim of dialectics is to discover the truth. This is in contrast to debate, in which discovering truth is subordinate to appearing correct, persuading others, and relying on rhetoric and emotion. Dialectics is an advanced cognitive tool which can only be employed by those who think rationally. So as to avoid wasting time and energy, it is important only to use it where it will be effective.
Most people walk around thinking that everything they believe is true. Because of this, they think any idea contrary to their views is wrong by default. In such a state, no critical reasoning is happening, the mind is set to automatic, unthinking reaction, and the possibility of learning does not exist. It would be ridiculous then to believe that merely stating the truth plainly could convince anyone of anything. If there is any chance of getting them to engage their critical thinking skills, it will be done only by asking them questions.
THE SOCRATIC METHOD
The Socratic Method is a teaching technique “in which a teacher does not give information directly but instead asks a series of questions, with the result that the student comes either to the desired knowledge by answering the questions or to a deeper awareness of the limits of knowledge.”[464] Provided the person you are talking to values knowing the truth over saving face, it is by the Socratic Method that you can lead a person to discover contradictions in their beliefs.
Leading the way implies you know where you’re going. You must understand your opponent’s position better than they do so you can know how to lead them out of the darkness of misconception. As boring as it sounds, memorizing definitions of words like “rights,” “altruism,” and “value,” are indispensable because it is the ambiguity of concepts that causes most misunderstanding in the first place. But definitions are also useless without the cognitive ability to grasp what, in reality, the essential meanings of words are referring to.
To guide effectively, you will have to be proficient at some basic skills:
· The ability to verbalize concepts with precision and clarity;
· The ability to identify the premise underlying an argument;
· The ability to ask focused questions in a logical order.
All disagreements will stem from philosophical differences. When you chop down a tree, you don’t worry about cutting off every branch first, you go right to the trunk. Arguing about the branching issues is a distraction from the point, and a useless endeavor if the tree remains intact.
The vast majority of your conversations may be with collectivists—in varying degrees. Their philosophical disorder in politics is the result of the idea that the initiation of force is moral. To trace this idea to its roots, simply ask, “Where does someone derive the authority to force his fellows?” They will generally answer that it comes from a vote by the electorate or some sort of nebulous “social contract” for the greater good or less fortunate.
Notice that tracing the political belief of statists leads to their ethical beliefs—man is property of the collective. Each branch of philosophy is predicated on the one that came before it. Questioning their ethics will lead to epistemology, how they know what they know (other people told them), and from epistemology to the root of all—metaphysics, what they believe about reality and how it works (there is no such thing as an individual, we are a collective organism).
“The guiding principle for the testing of any argument is to find and evaluate the generalization upon which the argument is based.”
[465] - The Debater’s Guide
The general pattern to use is:
· Ask questions until you reach the underlying philosophical belief;
· State the belief as a principle, using definitions of key words;
· Identify the true principle they misunderstand;
· Ask questions which will illustrate to them the flaws in their thinking;
· Ask questions to lead them, step by step, to see the truth.
For example, you may be talking to a person who says education is a right. There isn’t one set way to get to the underlying belief. You might summarize their argument and say, “So you believe it is okay to use the threat of violence via taxation to make people pay for the education of their fellows?” Since many people you speak with will be unacquainted with thinking in principles, it is helpful to state their belief as a principle so it can be seen in isolation. This is also a vital step because it allows them to tell you if you’ve made a correct assessment and ensures you are both talking about the same thing. This principle should sum up their belief in a specific branch of philosophy, as in the political example above.
Now let’s say the person tells you that you’ve made an accurate summation, you might then ask, “Where does person derive the authority to force his fellows to pay for his education?” Or you could ask, “Where do rights come from?” The answer to either question would likely be “the people voted on it,” revealing their belief in subjectivism. This leads directly to epistemology because subjectivism is the belief that truth and morality are nothing more than social conventions, or creations of the mind.
After you have stated their belief as a principle, you can begin to ask questions which show it to be contradictory—false. For example, “You believe that truth is a changeable creation of consensus, is th
at correct?”
“So if the majority agrees that slavery or genocide is okay, then it is?” If they agree with this statement then your work is cut out for you and you may want to pursue a line of questioning which explores where the collective would gain authority over the lives of distinct individuals with volition and point out the 0+0=0 formula: if individuals have no worth in and of themselves, how could a group of worthless people have value? If one man has no moral authority to dictate the lives of a million others, why would those million have the moral authority to dictate the life of one man?
It is very tempting in the midst of questioning to instead switch over to making simple statements which seem like they could not be misunderstood. When we begin to comprehend true principles and their application, we typically forget what it was like before we understood. Understanding seems almost instinctual and we wonder, “How do people not see this? It’s so simple!”
But what is clear as crystal to us is not to them. Their cognitive framework has no place for the principles they lack. They cannot simply assimilate new information, they must accommodate it; they must rebuild their mental structures by throwing out the old to make room for the new. Trying to add a true principle to an irrational schema is like trying to make a puzzle piece fit into a puzzle it does not belong to. If it did fit, they wouldn’t have rejected it in the first place. So it is vital to stick to questioning, and not merely rhetorically either. Ask questions that can be answered simply, that lead in a premeditated direction, and allow the person to answer them. If they are not required to answer the question, they will not have had to perform the thinking necessary to understand the principle. Understanding is not something that can be given; it must be earned through work.