Sean O'Connor

I disagree with your assertion for the following reason: those who would, let's say, deny that gravity exists, are the ones who think that philosophy is not a field of science, but rather, an ideology which can serve as their own reality, and which gives them no reason to respect another person's freedom, since their reality is open to their own ideological fantasies. They describe it as their philosophy, and some then credit "their philosophy" as "their contribution to the field of philosophy, which is, to them, not a field of science which studies existence, but rather, a field of science which studies the most influential ideologies in human history. Philosophy and ideology need to be taught and understood separately otherwise that which the masses refer to as "philosophy" will encourage irrationality and subjectivism.

“ON THE OFFICIAL ESTABLISHMENT OF UNITED STATES SPACE TERRITORY” What new fact will scientists discover about the universe that is as rich as Benjamin Franklin’s discoveries about the nature of electricity? What will be the next invention as rich as Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press? How will such advancements drastically enhance human life? When will humans finally explore, colonize, and terraform Mars and beyond? When will more Americans value exploration, discovery and invention? Once they do, the value of human existence will increase, and as a result we will enjoy a richer economy. Unfortunately communists are in an ideological war against exploration, discovery, and invention. Their tactic is deceptive and relies on lying about the nature of such acts; that they are not individualistic in effort, and thus, no private property exists as a result; only uncooperative, disruptive claims of private property. Everything, the communists claim, exists for the sake of the collective; even your thoughts, for if your thoughts disrupt society’s hypnotic state you are to be condemned and shunned. So long as an individual is altruistic, nothing he or she thinks and produces can be more valuable than anything anyone else thinks and produces. This means a communist economy is mediocre by nature. Note that even the Chinese government knows that pure communism makes for a disastrous economy and thus mixes their economy with a public and private sector. Among the facts which the Chinese government is yet to discover is that a mixed economy is likewise disastrous, and is still communist in nature, and preserves its control of the economy by hypocritical means. If you think the Chinese economy is booming, that is only in contrast to the declining, communizing, American economy which is psychotically obliterating itself with debt (some of which it owes to China). If the American economy was more capitalistic, and more Americans were pioneers, the mediocrity of the Chinese economy would be much more obvious to the superficial observer. Communists know that communist economies are mediocre. They believe in a mediocre economy; they just won’t use the word “mediocre”. Instead, they say they believe in an economy most suitable for the “average worker”; or in Karl Marx’s words: “the proletariat”. President Obama has so fierce a hatred for the individual, and private property, that he led an attempt to force every American to purchase health insurance. His hope was that by forcing everyone to purchase health insurance, they would think there was no time to waste searching for the best possible insurance policy, and would instead rush to a government sponsored policy, which would then cause the price of private insurance policies to skyrocket and repel consumers. He wants Americans to surrender their self-determination, their individuality, and their private property. Obama is even attempting to force Christian institutions to provide birth control as part of their health insurance policies despite their religious opposition to doing so and their first amendment right to act on that opposition. Ultimately, the president is attempting to force us to produce and consume what he wants us to produce and consume. The fact that he has been somewhat successful in his evil ambitions indicates that pioneering, i.e., discovering and/or inventing, in America has declined drastically. Despite what some people may say, the American economy is, in Herman Cain’s words “on life support”. This life support is made possible by the few unrelenting capitalists who vocally and actively oppose communism. Although this life support gives me confidence, so long as there exists a gang of communists supporting president Obama, we are being enslaved, and our economy will weaken. The best solution to this problem is communicating not only the ethical justification of capitalism; it also requires capitalistic action, specifically, actual pioneering, and articulating the value of pioneering and that which is pioneered. If enough people do this, our culture will thrive. In order to pioneer, one must have a rich, ethical value hierarchy. This requires the possession of rational principles, understanding the relationship between principles and values, and understanding the nature of values. The pioneer rationally evaluates his/her surroundings, and then introspects, based on his/her logical hopes and personal ideals, in search of something rational and new to produce. The pioneer is either a scientist or an inventor. The basic source of pioneering is an individual’s logical hopes. A logical hope is a logical, and passionate wish. Unfortunately logical hopes tend to be condemned by the apathetics. Apathetics not only condemn the logical hopes of pioneers, they condemn their own logical hopes. This is evident by how rare logical hope is. That is because logic itself is so widely condemned and incorrectly defined. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. The distinguishing characteristic of the concept “logic” is “non-contradiction”, i.e., identifying facts. Wikipedia, which exists to completely obliterate human intelligence, (and given its popularity is quite successful in doing so) has a disturbing article on logic. Wikipedia defines logic as “the philosophical study of valid reasoning”. What is valid reasoning? Blank out. Eventually the term “non-contradiction” appears but it is not mentioned as a fact. The law of non-contradiction, says Wikipedia, is ambiguous. There is nothing ambiguous about the fact that existence exists and a=a. So long as people surrender their reason to the evil of Wikipedia, logic and its psychological manifestation, logical hope, will remain rare. Actively feeling intense logical hope is the first indication that one is thriving or is on one’s way to thriving. It is one of the best emotional experiences one can have. Twelve years ago I read a novel entitled The Cage, by Ruth Minsky Sender, which is about Sender’s experience in Auschwitz. In the novel, she often repeated to herself, a very valuable mantra: “if there is life, there is hope”. It is worth noting that she survived Auschwitz. I should like to add to that: if there is logical hope, there is indeed a logical way to get that which is hoped for. When you have a logical hope, you constantly think about and discuss it. This does two things: 1) since you reiterate your logical hope to your subconscious at a higher frequency, you increase the efficiency of your consciousness getting you what you logically hope for. 2) You share your logical hopes with other people, and even if those among you are completely irrational, so long as they are conscious, regardless of whether or not they are receptive to what you suggest to them, their subconscious’s are at least open to your suggestion, i.e., it records your suggestion. If you make the same suggestion persistently enough, people persistently have to reject or accept your suggestion. The postmodern communists understand this and that is why they dominate the media: so they can reiterate the same evil suggestions over, and over, and over again, to an audience ill equipped to reject and refute their suggestions. But if truth, and evidence of truth is communicated more persistently, the postmodern communists will be incapable of countering all of it and will eventually have to either concede and face reality or attempt to evade it so consumingly that their ideological movement will become greatly weakened, if not obsolete. For example, the segregationists of the 1960’s were defeated, and speaking of the 1960’s, today far less people smoke now than they did then. The best illustration of this point is the fact that so many people use technology, i.e., they accept its high value. Why? Because those who promote the use of technology do so more persistently than those who do not. If scientists, i.e., people who believe in reason, are more persistent in arguing in favor of their beliefs than the postmodern communists, it will stimulate the culture and eventually incite a Renaissance. Consider a rational culture of scientists. People would be more productive not only in the sense that they will be busier but in the sense that they will be producing things which they live for, and which are of high value- this as opposed to resentfully producing junk exclusively for the sake of “paying the bills”. This means: a booming economy: everyone producing and consuming out of love for ingenuity. But currently, postmodern communism is the predominant ideology world-wide and continues to gain more traction. As communistic as the country has been throughout the decades, we were actually heading closer towards more capitalism than more communism courtesy of the technological boom that reached its prime and began declining in the early 2000’s. The technological boom was capitalism’s best defense. The technological boom said to all humans, “look what a human can do when a human is free to produce whatever he or she wants and keep his or her profit!”. Even despite the fact that tax rates were higher during the communistic Clinton administration, the 1990’s saw a stunning and beautiful technological boom. That is because the beauty of new technology still trumped the culture’s frustration with unethical high tax rates. Innovation took priority. I am so grateful to have witnessed, as a child, the contrast of life before and after the internet gained popularity and sophistication. The essence of that contrast was representative of the economy in general, which saw a massive leap in human ability, technological advancement and thus a new, rich, stimulating, life enhancing marketplace which included digital cameras, cellphones, websites, laptops, DVDs, video game systems, Viagra, iPods, digital cable with movies on demand, the International Space Station, et cetera. The innovators, however, despite their capitalistic tendencies, clearly had no understanding of complete metaphysical objectivity and thus surrendered their minds to the postmodern communists. I submit to you, lyrics of a song by a top selling music group which indicates the passionate irrationality of top selling producers, and the passionate irrationality of most consumers: “Science has failed our world Science has failed our mother Earth Science fails to recognize the single most potent element of human existence Letting the reigns go to the unfolding Is faith, faith, faith, faith… Spirit-moves-through-all-things” (“Science”; System of a Down; Doran Malakian, Serj Tankian, Shavo Odadjian, John Dolmayan) Each person who has bought that song or that belief is indeed part of a system bring down civilization. Science has not failed our world. Science tells you not to eat a poisonous berry and that if you do you will die. Science made possible the technology used by “System of a Down” to produce and sell that unethical song. Science reveals that the single most potent element of human existence is reason. Without reason “System of a Down” would not have words, i.e., names of concepts, to scream out. System of a Down is nothing but a group of psychotics screaming in a psychological mix of extreme anger and deep, thorough confusion; i.e., they are a bunch of men throwing a very disruptive tantrum. (It should not surprise you, by the way, that “System of a Down” is the psychological result of long term Soviet communism. Even though Russia is no longer “officially” a communist country, and Armenia -where the members of “System of a Down” come from- is no longer part of Russia, the psychological ramifications of living under the tyranny of complete communism do not disappear out of thin air.) This hatred of science is extremely dangerous to every aspect of human existence. When a large number of people pay brats to throw tantrums and throw tantrums with them, there is no question that the economy is in a crisis. We need a return to science. Do you notice that science does not make many news headlines today? There is a reason why. Because science is good for the economy and the communists do not want a thriving economy. If the economy is thriving nobody would cling to them for sustenance. Because science is capitalistic by nature, because if the people in the media reported on scientific discoveries, they could only give you the facts and rational commentary, which they do not want to do. Science must return to the news headlines. And by science I do not mean subjective speculations and bogus hypotheses. I mean logically proven facts and following the leads of the timeless pioneers; pioneers such as Aristotle, Johannes Guttenberg, Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Iassac Newton, Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, John Locke, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John D. Rockefeller, Anne Sullivan, Maria Montessori Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, the Wright Brothers, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Ayn Rand, Steve Jobs, Robert Zubrin, et cetera. We must study them, their curiosities, their methods, their efforts, and their ideals. You will note that even despite their ideological disparities, despite sometimes only being selectively rational, they were all, to extreme degrees, scientific. They were cultural leaders, and the amassers of tremendous wealth. A major consequence of the widespread rejection of science is the widespread belief in the lie that we have somehow drained all of our resources, or that we are severely limited in resources. Even if they do not say it, the fact that our economy is so poor is evidence that they believe it. Scientists and inventors know there are more resources in the universe than each of us could evaluate in a lifetime. There is only one basic resource and only one basic tool in existence: the universe, and reason. The universe is the domain of existence. That means anything that exists, exists in the universe. The nature of the universe is slightly comparable to how mystics regarded their mythological “God” in that it is to be worshipped however, worship is not engagement in a passive state of oblivious awe. To the contrary: to worship is to understand and optimize the use of. To worship the universe we must explore it, study it, and use it for the sake of thriving. Our knowledge of the universe is primitive. We do not know its magnitude. Many people speculate but they do so with a microscopic speck of evidence that is far too limiting. Given how ignorant we are about the universe, and how little of it we have had a glance at, it is illogical to assume that there are no useful resources hidden in rare Earth-like oases. It is furthermore, irrational not to at least search for them. Likewise, it is irrational to assume aliens do not exist, and even if they do not, it is irrational not to search for them, and then rationally conclude that Earth is the only planet in the universe which hosts life. If we explore, understand, and optimize the universe for human use, we will continually thrive, which is our ultimate value; our chief purpose. How do we know this? Our basic tool, reason, confirms it. For a brief elaboration on reason, I shall quote John Galt from Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged: “Man cannot survive except by gaining knowledge and reason is his only means to gain it. Reason is the faculty that perceives, identifies, and integrates the material provided by his senses. The task of his senses is to give him the evidence of existence, but the task of identifying it belongs to his reason; his senses tell him only that something is, but what it is must be learned by his mind. All thinking is a process of identification and integration. Man perceives a blob of color; by integrating the evidence of his sight and his touch, he learns to identify it as a solid object, he learns to identify the object as a table; he learns that the table is made of wood; he learns that the wood consists of cells; that the cells consist of molecules, and that the molecules consist of atoms. All through this process, the work of his mind consists of answers to a single question: what is it? His means to establish the truth of his answers is logic and logic rests on the axiom that existence exists. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. A contradiction cannot exist. An atom is itself, and so is the universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can a part contradict the whole. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict one’s self from the realm of reality. “Reality is that which exists. The unreal does not exist; the unreal is merely that negation of existence which is the content of a human consciousness when it attempts to abandon reason; reason, man’s only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth”. (p. 930) One of the universe’s basic properties is space, and it is within space which all aspects of the universe exist. There are three major types of space: outer space, mind, and media. Outer space is obviously the primary type of space. It is physical space, and consists of matter and energy. It is therefore, the content of human consciousness. Just like lungs need oxygen in order for a human to breathe, the mind needs to perceive physical space in order to think. The mind cannot advance if we do not further explore outer space. Instead, it will atrophy via depreciation. The mind consists of consciousness and subconsciousness. It operates via thought. A thought navigates the mind’s attention and the body’s actions. In order for one’s mind, and moreover, one’s self to thrive it must rationally evaluate outer space. Since no human is omniscient, in order to maximize one’s intelligence, one must trade evaluations via media. Media is published space, and consists of information. (I say information as opposed to knowledge because not everything in the media, in fact, much of the media, is not true. Information is distinct from knowledge or fact because information can be true or false and thus is defined as communicated, published thought.) The internet is the ultimate form of media since it is the most efficient network of mass communication. It is by evaluating contemporary media that we may evaluate our culture. Since most of contemporary media evades science it is extremely impoverished. Unless people rationally reevaluate outer space- the subject of science- their minds, and thus our media will continually atrophy. People must invest- in whatever way rationally suits themselves- more thought, action, and money in outer space. Specifically, the time has come to revive space exploration and begin space colonization and terraforming. To do this, we need a vision for the future. In the words of Robert Zubrin, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (The Case For Mars ;p. xvi) Robert Zubrin’s vision of the future takes us all the way to Mars! A terraformed Mars! He writes, “There are real and vital reasons why we should venture to Mars. It is the key to unlocking the secret life of the universe. It is the challenge to adventure that will inspire millions of young people to enter science and engineering, and whose acceptance will reaffirm the nature of our society as a society of pioneers. It is the door to an open future, a new frontier on a new world, a planet that can be settled, the beginning of humanity’s career as space faring species with no limits to its resources or aspirations as it continues to push outward into the infinite universe beyond.” (p.xvi) While Robert Zubrin sees a path to Mars, he does not, in his book The Case For Mars, identify how the United States government should be involved in the matter. He proposes several ways the government could be involved, however he is not committed to any single proposal. Furthermore, he makes no mention of property rights.... (to read the rest of the essay, visit http://seanoconnorliterature.com/2012/06/04/on-the-official-establishment-of-u-s-space-territory/ )

Eiuol, since my response to your first question is quite thorough I shall first address your second question. Regarding the following: "philosophy studies existence; science is the study of the aspects of the universe; existence is an aspect of the universe."- What is the difference between existence and the universe? Existence is a state and is a "metaphysical-ontological concept". In other words, that which is in the state of existence is that which presently is. On the other hand, the universe as such is not a state or condition. As Nathanial Branden writes in the Objectivist Newsletter of May 1962, "the universe is the total of that which exists". The universe then refers to the content, the aspects, the things, where as existence refers to the state of being, i.e., the fact that all those aspects of the universe are, i.e., they exist. So, science as such studies the aspects. Philosophy studies the condition of existence, and thus the treatment of it and meaning of it. So, this is why we say morality is a philosophical branch. Because morality covers how we treat our lives, specificially how we determine our values. Economics is a branch of philosophy because it covers what specifically we shoudl produce and consume. These branches relate to existence as such. Again, the state of existence is a part of the universe in that it is the intellectual basis of conceptualizing, thinking about, and learning about the universe. This is why philosophy is a field of science. Now, as to your question regarding those people; the postmodern communist, I am referring to: I shall quote two sections from my essay. The idea to keep in mind is that both ideological theories (i.e., frauds claiming to be philosophers) discuss their ideas based on postmodern epistemology, i.e, dangerous, subjective word games; postmodern ideology could also be referred to as Linguistic Analysis. 3. THE POSTMODERN COMMUNIST SCAM: PHASE ONE On April 5th, The New York Times published an online article entitled “Philosophy Is Not a Science”, written by a con-artist named Julian Friedland. Not once in this article does Friedland define “Science” and thus he fails to identify that which he claims philosophy is not. If he is implying that we should assume philosophy is not science, and he does not define science, what is it that he wants us to believe philosophy is, or is not? Science, as I defined earlier, regarded as a whole is the study of the universe, a particular or special science studies a particular aspect of the universe. Thus, Friedland implies that philosophy is not, and has nothing to do with the study of the universe, or any aspect of it. This means that, according to him, philosophy means nothing and that the mind, i.e, consciousness and thought are not aspects of the universe. Again, philosophy is the study existence, which is indeed a particular aspect of the universe. Despite what Friedland implies, he contradicts himself and fabricates a definition of philosophy towards the end of his article. He writes that philosophy “employs the tools of logical analysis and conceptual clarification in lieu of empirical measurement. And this approach, when carefully carried out, can yield knowledge at times more reliable and enduring than science.” What is logical analysis? What is logic? He does not define either. Why not? Because then he can use it as a blank word to mean whatever he attaches it to. (This is comparable to fiat money which claims to have a specific value, but is based on nothing other than the public’s submission to it.) Logic, again, is the art of non-contradictory identification. This means “logical analysis” is the identification and removal of contradictions. Furthermore, what does one “logically analyze”? A particular aspect of the universe. Logical analysis is an element of science. When Friedland says “in lieu of empirical measurement” he evades a fact which philosopher Leonard Piekoff articulates perfectly: “There is no distinction between the ‘logically’ and the ‘empirically’ possible (or impossible). All truths…are the product of a logical identification of the facts of experience. This applies as much to the identification of possibilities as of actualities”. (“The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy”) What Julian Friedland is implying is worse than the false analytic-synthetic dichotomy. He is implying that the mind is not based on or in any way part of a knowable reality, and that science is unreliable because reality is, according to him, unknowable. He says “so what objective knowledge can philosophy bring that is not already determinable by science?”. Instead of answering the question he sloppily and unsuccessfully condemns the use of science as a means of knowledge, and he claims as his evidence: the fact that a philosopher named S.M. Liao “argued recently in the Atlantic that we begin voluntarily bioengineering ourselves to lower our carbon footprints and become generally more virtuous”. If Friedland honestly thought Liao’s proposal was illogical, it would be logical to assume that he would explain why. He does not explain why we should not bioengineer ourselves. And he does not explain how it furthers his false belief that philosophy is not science. He just utters an indirectly related sentence and evades his article’s theme. Friedland proceeds by condemning professor Colin McGinn for defining science as knowledge because such a definition, he claims, is muddled. How so? Blank out. What then does Friedland claim is the definition of science? Blankout. Instead he writes “for this definition we might as well brand every academic discipline as science.” No, we do not have to brand every academic discipline as science. We can brand some of them as technological. This would address what appears to be one of his deepest concerns, which is that the “Bachelor of Arts” will be renamed “Bachelor of Science” which would thus undermine the “subjective and qualitative standards” and replace them with “objective and quantitative knowledge.” Art is technological. What is technology? The New Oxford American Dictionary says “machinery and equipment developed from scientific knowledge.” Art is intellectual equipment, and without any scientific knowledge, i.e., retention of the facts of various aspects of the universe, there would be no art, for art, as perfectly defined by Ayn Rand, is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgements. (“The Pyscho-Epistemology of Art”) Although artists may choose to be subjective, they should not be, because that would be irrational, and thus psychologically detrimental, and furthermore art is not fundamentally subjective, for it is based on reality, a concept which Julian Friedman fails to comprehend. Later in his article, he says “We should underscore the fact that various disciplines we treat as science [as related to knowledge of reality], are at least- if not more- philosophical [which according to him is not of reality -a concept he doesn’t believe in- and is beyond definition]. Take for example mathematics, theoretical physics, psychology, and economics. These are predominantly rational conceptual disciplines. That is, they are not chiefly reliant on empirical observation. For unlike science, they may be conducted while sitting in an armchair with eyes closed.” Observe that he does not define “rational” or “conceptual” and that thus, when he describes something as rational or conceptual what he implies is that it is beyond definition, but should be associated with some ambiguous feeling of a discovered, undefined truth. That feeling is called “oblivion”. This oblivion is induced by first telling yourself that if you observe something, you can’t know it, because it’s mere, unreliable science, i.e., an illusion. You then attempt to rationalize this assertion via irrational word games which make you feel that it is futile to attempt understanding something. In essence, it is a premise designed to continually reiterate to your subconscious, by way of those word games, that your reason does not exist. Alas, Friedland fills his article with irrational word games. He does so by giving examples of what he claims “philosophy” and “logical analysis” and “conceptual”/”conceptual clarification” (all of which in his cryptic version of English means “undefined”) can prove. “One such example,” Friedman writes, “is Thrasymachus’ claim that justice is best defined as the advantage of the stronger, namely, that which is in the competitive interest of the powerful. Socrates reduces this view to absurdity by showing that the wise need not compete with anyone”. How does Socrates do this? Blank out. But we are somehow expected to take it as a given, without even the slightest explanation. Now, if you thought that I was merely being figurative and facetious when I accused Friedman of playing word games, you will see, when I relay to you his next point, that I was being quite literal. “Wittgenstein showed that an ordinary word such as ‘game’ is used consistently in myriad contrasting ways without possessing any essential unifying definition. Though this may seem impossible [it doesn’t seem impossible, it is impossible], the meaning of such terms is actually determined by their contextual usage [although neither ‘context’ nor ‘use’ can be be of much value since ‘contextual usage’ can allegedly be used without possessing any essential unifying definition, i.e., they’re meaningless]. For when we look at faces within a nuclear family, we see resemblances from one to the next yet no single trait need be present in every face to recognize them all as members of the family” (italics mine) Family members do not always resemble each other and if they did, the resemblance would be identified and thus would have an “essential unifying definition”. He proceeds: “Similarly, divergent uses of ‘game’ form a family. [How? Blank out] Ultimately as a result of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, [or rather, his demented ideology] we know that natural language cannot be invented in isolation. [How does language come about? Blank out].These are essentially conceptual clarifications. [Remember, he never defines ‘conceptual’, or ‘conceptual clarification’ so what he really means is these are essentially meaningless clarifications beyond comprehension], and as such, they are relatively timeless philosophical truths”. This means philosophy is the art of playing games with words until you’ve confused your mind so intensely that you render it useless. Ladies and gentlemen, this resembles the scene from George Orwell’s novel 1984 when Winston is forced to believe that “2+2=5”. No, we are not being directly forced to believe “divergent uses of the word ‘game’ form a family”, or that divergent beliefs form a reality, and but we are told to believe it, because it is true, even though Friedland never defines truth, and furthermore, note, that this is the product of a man who earned a Ph.D. in philosophy, which is pathetic. I am now convinced that a Ph.D in philosophy as such is meaningless. Since Friedland refuses to define “concept”, I will. A concept is the mind’s established recognition of a distinct thing existing in reality. A word denotes a specific concept. The word “game” denotes the concept of a competitive activity undertaken exclusively for the sake of amusement. (Monopoly, Hide-and-Seek, Scrabble, Tag, or in Friedland’s case, thought itself, et cetera…and no, the amusement, is not always moral)The word “family” denotes the concept of those who are related, either legally or biologically to a married couple. (Son, second aunt, sister-in-law, a great-great grandfather, etc). Friedland continues: “Though philosophy does sometimes employ thought experiments, these aren’t actually scientific [they have nothing to do with any aspect of the universe, only with undefined word games] for they’re conducted entirely in the imagination. [They’re entirely irrational]. For example, judges have imagined what might happen if, say, insider trading were made legal. And they have concluded that while it would…promote a degree of investor freedom [fraudulent insider trading does not promote investor freedom, it violates investor freedom, and thus Friedland plays word games here in such a way that he attempts to equate market freedom with fraud, and thus prompt the weak minded to think of ‘fraud‘ whenever they hear the term ‘free market- such is the practice of those who think without defining the word ‘conceptual’], legalization would imperil the free market itself by undermining honest security markets and eroding investor confidence. While this might appear to be an empirical question it cannot be settled empirically without conducting the experiment, which is naturally beyond the reach of jurisprudence”. This means, according to Friedland, that thought is ultimately supernatural, although he will not say it explicitly. Furthermore, he claims that considering the question of whether or not insider trading should be legal as based on reality, i.e., as an aspect of the universe, is “outside the reach of jurisprudence”, and yet if jurisprudence is not an aspect of the universe, but only of someone’s “supernatural” imagination, what do you suspect would be the nature of the laws such a person would deem proper? They would be irrational and if such a person ever was in a position of political power, we would be subjected to those irrational laws. Friedland does not stop there. He then attacks ethics by saying “science cannot necessarily tell us what to value” and that value is fundamentally subjective. What is his argument? That the study of human nature provides no information about what is good or bad [thus, according to Friedland, murder must be neither good or bad] because “evidence of how most people happen to be does not necessarily tell us about how we should aspire to be. How we should aspire to be is a conceptual question.” Ladies and gentlemen, he still fails to define “conceptual”, which implies that the question of how we should aspire to be is beyond definition. Also, he does not hint at a thought on how we should aspire to be (other than to evade the concepts “reality”, and “definition” and their derivatives) which implies that he does not think people should have substantial aspirations. What a perfect way to convince weak-minded people to judge nothing- to think only about irrational hypotheticals and treat their lives as meaningless- and live immorally. Phase one of the postmodern communist mind-trap complete, for in the words of Karl Marx “communism abolishes all religion, and all morality”. (“The Communist Manifesto”) 4. THE POSTMODERN COMMUNIST SCAM PHASE 2 The hard part-the complex word game- designed to tangle up your mind with undefined concepts, and have them subconsciously automated, and lead you to believe you some how grasp the oblivious nature of truth, is now complete. The second phase of the postmodern communist mind trap is revealed by Newsweek magazine (April 23, & 30, 2012) in a book review entitled “Everyone’s Got a Price” and subtitled “Hardvard’s rock-star moralist says capitalism is ruining America”. It is written by Michael Fitzgerald. It is a book review of What Money Can’t Buy by Michael Sandel. Fitzgerald claims that Michael Sandel is “probably the most relevant living philosopher”. (Fortunately, and interestingly I might add, he did not say the most “brilliant” or “profound” living philosopher) Michael Sandel says of American culture that “we are in the grip of a way of looking at the world and social life and even personal relations that is dominated by economic ways of thinking. That’s an impoverished way of looking at the world”. Considering the fact that the United States is in over $16 trillion of debt, and that even proposing we cut federal spending is considered controversial as opposed to logical and necessary, we, as a culture, are far from even a hint of an economic thought. Now, since Fitzgerald does not define any terms, [do you notice the trend?] let us do so here. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines “economic” as “of or relating to economics or the economy” and defines “economy” as “the wealth and resources of a country or region, especially in terms of production and consumption of goods and services”. So Michael Sandel accuses us of thinking too much about wealth and resources (which we, as a culture, unfortunately do not) and then condemns us for it. Why should anyone be condemned for thinking about “wealth and resources”? Because they are ambitious? Because they might make money? More money than those who do not think about wealth and resources? Because they might achieve something important- more important than something someone else might achieve? Because they want to lead their own, individual lives and thrive? Because they still have aspiration, which Michael Sandel’s partner Julian Friedland failed to steal from them? But here’s “the icing on the cake” so to speak: the notion that thinking about wealth and resources is “an impoverished way of looking at the world”. There are only two implications here: either Michael Sandel is an idiot, and so is the Harvard University administration, for allowing him to be their “rock-star moralist’, or Sandel is a postmodern communist who words things ever so carefully- perhaps with Friedland’s guidance-, in order to prevent himself from ever being explicitly and directly linked to terms such as “communist” or “Marxists”. But most importantly, ladies and gentlemen, Sandel and Friedland refer to themselves as “philosophers”, treat philosophy as the domain of the undefined, and use it for the purpose of advocating communist ideas. Fitzgerald proceeds: “[sandel] argues that the spread of market philosophy [what kind of ‘market philosophy’? Is Newsweek afraid to use the term ‘free market’ because it might sound too appealing to thoughtful readers?] has created what he calls ‘a consumerist idea of freedom’ as opposed to moral judgement.” What is a “consumerist idea of freedom’? Ever so consistently, it is not defined anywhere in the book review. Freedom is self determination. Consumerist freedom means the individual determining what he or she wants to consume, i.e., purchase. Sandel says that having the freedom to determine what you purchase is a value “opposed to moral judgement”. Who does he think should choose what you purchase? He does not say, and “moral judgement” is never defined. Moral judgement is the act of valuation, which is actually part of the process of determining what you want to purchase. So, Michael Sandel claims that the freedom to valuate, for the sake of determining what you will purchase somehow is not the act of valuation, i.e., moral judgement. That’s a major contradiction. And what is its consequence? The idea that somebody other than the individual, should valuate for that individual. Again, I ask, who is that somebody? And by what standards does that somebody valuate for the individual? And, why those standards? Although he will not explicitly say, we know that since it is freedom he is opposed to, it is thus government force he advocates, which means he advocates either communism, or fascism, or some integration of both. With all that being said in relation to his opposition to consumerist freedom, what are his thoughts on production? Fitzgerald says that Sandel thinks the production of skyboxes is a “metaphor for what’s wrong with our democracy [America is a Democratic Republic, not a Democracy] which ‘[now quoting Sandel] ‘requires that we share enough of a common life to think of ourselves as engaged in a common purpose. [And what is that common purpose?] I think that men and women from all walks of life, including those now inhabiting the skyboxes, can be attracted and drawn out of their skyboxes into the shared public space of the democratic life.’”. So Sandel’s thoughts on production are limited to skyboxes at university stadiums. Does he have any thoughts on invention? If he does, Fitzgerald fails to point it out. And regarding common life, and common purpose, the only “common purpose” he mentions is “our democracy”. Here is the climax of his word game. Sandel is so discontent with our Democratic Republic that he evades it and thinks only of a pure democracy, which is the unlimited rule of the majority. Unlimited majority rule is his only explicit standard. No, he will not say “the collective”, he will not say “the state”, he will not say “the commune”. This way you do not think he is a communist. But if you recall, Sandel believes in government run consumerism, as implied by the fact that he is opposed to a “consumerist idea of freedom”. If the production of “skyboxes” is a “metaphor for what’s wrong with our democracy”, if that is what is in the way of establishing unlimited majority rule, but “those now inhabiting the skyboxes [those who reject majority rule], can be attracted and drawn out of their skyboxes”, if they can be manipulated into accepting unlimited majority rule and submit to it, they will then achieve government run consumerism, and a pure Democracy, which is their common purpose. In the words of Karl Marx: “the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling as to win the battle of democracy” (“The Communist Manifesto”) How do you attract, and draw in those with strong, firm minds? You do whatever you can to weaken their minds, and there is no better way to do it than to pollute the culture with as much irrationality as possible, so much, that it seems chaotic and confusing, and you are then tempted to accept it. This, we are told, is the product of philosophy, however, ladies and gentlemen, we have exposed a scam. We have exposed an industry that is far more corrupt than the government, or oil, which Ayn Rand pointed out consistently: the universities. Michael Sandel is not a philosopher and neither is Julian Friedland. They are immoral theoreticians who tie together a bundle of contradictory theories and beliefs which when bound, become immoral ideologies which they call “philosophies”. They cling to the anti-concept “postmodernism”, and deceptively foreword the cause of communism.

Bluecherry, You are correct when you say we all only have so much time. Indeed, the creation of a new dictionary would be extremely time consuming and extremely complex! This however does not change the fact that in time (centruries, most likely) an ideal dictionary ought to be created. The fact that something is an ideal means that it could and ought to be. As to the issue of which people such an undertaking ought to concern; the answer is: those who are most interested in doing so; those who recognize not only the ideal dictionary qua universal ideal, but those who discover that such an endeavor is one of their personal ideals. Regarding my own effors: there are several concepts I have been able to perfectly define (and there are others I am still sharpening). I most certainly do not expect to produce a dictionary in my lifetime (technically it is possible but even then, as Ayn Rand emphasized in the "Intrduction to Objectivist Epistemology": true definitions don't change fundamentally, but as new knowedlge is gained they may be enhanced, sharpened, clarified, expanded upon, et cetera. Now I don't blame you for not having the same personal ideals. Your ideals are yours; based on your reason and your personality. However, if someone presents you with a perfectly defined word- why wouldn't you accept it? If you claim that "it's not in the dictionary so it doesn't refer to a definition that most people use" that would be altruistic in nature since you would then be prioritizing the will of the vast majority over the truth; the accuracy of a specific identification and definition.

Apathy comes from any degree of belief in any of the theories which teach it, whether explicitly or implicitly. Ayn Rand writes “For some two hundred years, under the influence of Immanuel Kant, the dominant trend of philosophy has been directed to a single goal: the destruction of man’s mind, of his confidence in the power of reason. Today we are seeing the climax of that trend.” (“Philosophy: Who Needs It”) One example, she explains, in her essay “Causality Versus Duty” is Kant’s notion of “duty” which she notes is “intrinsically anti-causal” and that “a ‘duty‘ defies the principle of efficient causation-since it is causeless (or supernatural); in its effects, it defies the principle of final causation- since it must be performed regardless of consequences”. The idea that thoughts and actions are fundamentally inconsequential provide no reason, and no motive for an individual to care, i.e., to objectively determine values, and morals, or to identify one’s self as a rational, consequential, productive, valuable entity. How then is a person to determine his or her values, which theoreticians should one look to for guidance, which have been most influential and why? Obviously, given the fact that our political system is veering towards communism, and given the typical explanations claiming to justify our political direction, it is indeed safe to say that Immanuel Kant, as well as Karl Marx, have had a tremendous influence on the majority of people, whether they know it or not. A product of Immanuel Kant’s ideology, which Ayn Rand does not mention too often, is Friedrich Nietzsche, who ironically was unaware of how influenced he was by Kant. Essentially, four theoreticians progressively dismantled the value of the mind and the idea that there is either no reality, or no way of knowing there is a reality or what reality is, which is central to the propagation of apathy. David Hume initiated the atrocity by saying that the best the mind can calculate is probability, and thus, there is no absolute- which is of course a contradiction in terms, because then their could not absolutely be no absolute.).Hume served as Immanuel Kant’s greatest inspiration. As Wikipedia explains, “[Kant] also credited David Hume with awakening him from “dogmatic slumber” (circa 1771).[15] Hume had stated that experience consists only of sequences of feelings, images or sounds. Ideas such as ’cause’, goodness, or objects were not evident in experience, so why do we believe in the reality of these? Kant felt that reason could remove this skepticism, and he set himself to solving these problems.” (http://en.wikipedia....i/Immanuel_Kant; retrieved 4/21/12) He did so by establishing that we are to live for the sake of others out of duty, and that the mind does not indicate anything about reality- which is the evasion metaphysics. Immanuel Kant then served as Arthur Schopenhauer’s great inspiration. Schopenhauer essentially said that everything is an illusion called “maya” and anybody who tells you differently does so because he or she has evil motives, thus Schopenhauer is the quintessential pessimist. Schopenhauer was Friedrich Nietzsche’s great inspiration. Nietzsche said, in essence, that even the concept “evil” is an illusion, and that even the concept “illusion” is merely an indefinite word. Nietzsche did not believe in anything other than whatever served to empower him. The nihilism of Friedrich Nietzsche is the climax of David Hume’s skepticism, the product of which is the anti-concept “post-modernism”, which means truth is what ever each individual deems it to be, and that we must never judge what another person claims to be true because it would be offensive, disrespectful, and lead to conflict. The idea that one should not judge others, or proclaim that truth is absolute makes it quite challenging not to become apathetic. You are lost in a culture of intellectual chaos, and extreme uncertainty, and as I stated earlier, you are tempted either to become an apathetic nihilist or an apathetic altruist. The nihilist is an absurd, and pure whim-worshiper; a freak show, and tends to be an anarchist, not because he or she cares, but because he or she is a pure immoralist, and does not want to be hindered by philosophy, or law. “A rebel without a cause” so to speak. Now just as there are two forms of apathy (nihilistic or altruistic), there are also two forms of altruism. There is apathetic altruism, and there is manipulative altruism. Apathetic altruists simply don’t care that they subordinate themselves to the manipulative altruists- the ones who take complete advantage of the apathetic altruist. For example, John Nicholson is an apathetic altruist (A Nietzschean of sorts), whereas President Barack Obama is a manipulative altruist (A Kantian of sorts). To those of you who would say my characterization only describes the secularists within American culture, and that, to the contrary, those philosophers I mentioned are of minimal influence in contrast to Jesus Christ, I regret to say that Christianity has become obsolete in America. Approximately 78.4% of Americans claim to be Christian. ( http://en.wikipedia....e_United_States ; 4/21/12) but if we examine cultural trends, do they reflect fundamentalist Christians of pure conviction, i.e., absolutists, or liberal, pragmatic Christians, i.e., non-absolutists influenced by Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, and/or Nietzsche? In other words, regardless of what the majority of Americans claim to believe, to what extent do they actually care, fundamentally, about what they claim to believe? Are they “Christians” or “apathetics”? The 8th commandment says “you shall not steal” and yet theft is a major trend in this county which is supposedly dominated by Christians. This theft is committed by anyone who supports income taxes and demands government subsidy in any form. These thieves, most of whom claim to be Christian, certainly do not ask for forgiveness. Instead they demand more expropriation! Their latest demands, among the tamest of them, is that anybody who earns an annual income of $1 million or more pay higher taxes than everyone else, that the government allow people who get jobs to continue receiving unemployment funds, and that everybody be forced into purchasing health insurance. Now, in contrast, a Christian is a capitalist by virtue of the eighth commandment. It is obvious that most self proclaimed Christians and thus most of the U.S. population does not care about their philosophy and thus possess weak, apathetic, ever changing minds. These minds are the targets of communists and Islamists. Now keep in mind that today, America, a country where the majority thinks philosophy is ultimately irrelevant, is in an ideological war against Islamic terrorists. On what basis, since even the concept of a philosophical basis does not matter to most Americans, can those Americans firmly oppose the evil ideas of their enemies? They cannot. We see this inability explicitly articulated by President Barack Obama’s flimsy foreign policy, and extremely unstable staff. (His Secret Service, the GSA, et cetera). And yet, a firm ideology, or the semblance of one, and the ability to articulate it, at least within the menagerie of our government, in the midst of a war on terror and catastrophic debt, is now more crucial than it has been since Americans debated legalized slavery. In an ideological war. i.e, a war between nations of groups of different ideologies, if you are anti-philosophical/apathetic, you will be unable to defend yourself on intellectual grounds- you will lack conviction where as every terrorist has conviction- they know exactly why they’re fighting and can explain themselves. Furthermore, their conviction motivates them. What motivates the majority of Americans? Only the sedation of their apathy. Both the communists and the Islamist terrorists are competing for the role of sedation supplier for the American apathetic. (For eloquent, and detailed analysis of this, I refer you to The Glenn Beck Program). ((You may read the entire essay at http://seanoconnorli...25/hello-world/ ))

Also, you asked why you should buy into my definition. Do you mean "why should you believe that philosophy is a science?". If that is the question, the answer is, because philosophy studies existence; science is the study of the aspects of the universe; existence is an aspect of the universe.

Eiuol, here is what I mean by "postmodern communism": The belief that consists of the following theoretical metaphyical principle : what's true for you is true for you and what's true for me is true for me". The political consequence of this theory is: since everybody has his or her own version of truth, nobody's thoughts are worth more or less than anybody else's, thus nobody's productivity is worth more or less than anybody else's (since to say otherwise is to imply that your view trumps mine) and thus nobody has any claim to any propery; instead everything must be equally distributed by a government. It is true that communism was developed before postmodernism, but I postmodernism was taught and promulgated specifically by insane university professors who wanted a way to rationalize and popularize their sick communist political principle.

Bluecherry, you are correct about the enormity of the task of refining English. It will also take centuries! Throughout my life- a long, long, long and healthy one I hope- I can only propose x amount of definitions, and other philosophers can do the same, and throughout the centuries, a proper, epistemologicaly basedl English dictionary can eventually be created. The ultimate value is the achieved ideal which always outweighs the cost, since the cost of not rationally pursuing and achieving the ideal is: the non-ideal, i.e., not worth as much as the ideal, which is the best possible. I love your point about the inevitable frustration that comes when two people cannot have a constructive intellectual conversation because they don't know one another's premises and principles and worse, they don't define their terms. One of my favorite things about Ayn Rand is that in many of her essays she always said, towards the begining "I shall define my terms" and does so. The value of this is: when you use a word, we know what the hell she means. I mean, when Barack Obama uses the word "freedom" what the hell does he mean? Her certainly doesn't mean "self determination". I had an interesting experience with this frustration recently. I was discussing the moral justification of capitalism with somebody, and logic as well, and this person told me that when he meant "logic" he meant merely "ideological conviction and consistency- the idea that no principle contradicts the premise" but when I told him "but if the premise contradict's reality, then it isn't true, isn't purely non-contradictory, it isn't logical" he just quit and said "see, this is why we can't have a conversation. Because of our dfferent ideological "paradigms". Because he thinks in terms of paradigms he cannot comunicate in terms of "true" or "false", only in terms of "i want to think this" or "i don't want to think that". I want to make sure I addressed everything you said properly and so I want to conclude by reiterating that I agree that if I know what you mean/what you are referring to, and vice-versa, then we can have a constructive conversation. Part of the conversation may however, obviously consist of "and on that note I disagree with your definiton", etc. I appreciate your thoughts.

Dream, a specialization is not a "version" or alteration, it is merely a particular aspect of a field. An aspect is quite different than a version/alteration.

Ruveyn, "classical physics, quantum physics, thermodynamics, solid state physics ... etc. "- because I am not an expert on the organization of physics as a discipline I do not know specifically what is being reffered to in each of the examples you provided however I want to emphasize first what I mean, i.e, what I am referring to, in reality, when I use the term "version" in relation to science (i.e., what I mean when I say you cannot have a version of science). When I refer to "version" I mean "altered". When I refer to "science" the implication is "science as such" and when I say "science as such" I mean the study of the universe. And just for the sake of being as thorough as possible, when you "study" something, you are gaining knowledge, i.e, facts. So when I say you can't have a version of science I mean you cannot alter that which you study, which is : the facts, you can only learn them or not learn them. This means you cannot alter philosophy- you cannot alter the fudmental facts of existence. When Regarding your examples, you wrote "These are versions in the sense that there are differences in the underlying assumptions made in these fields...". My question is, "fundamentally, in each 'field' [and why would a field be considered a version/alteration, as aposed to a dilineated subject or class of subjects?] are theorists proclaiming on one field x=y is a fact, but in another it is somehow is not? Because if so, that is quite literally a contradiction in terms.

Bluecherry, thank you for your response. Regarding the dictionary definitions, I wish to refer you to Ayn Rand's theory of concept formation, which essentially says "to hell with the present dictionaries as epistemological gospel!" You wrote: "so if multiple meanings for one word is unaceptable then you'd probably have to just about demolish the English language and start over from scratch to follow the one-meaning-per-word thing to its logical conclusion." I do not believe the English language has to be demolished (it is such a beautiful language) but indeed it must be refined. Obviously definitions, throughout history have in some instances been refined/clarified, and in other instances they have been severely muddled. Clarity for the purpose of allowing ideal reasoning...perfect identification and integration (or as best as possible) is essential! I want to be emphatic about a particular example about why this is so. Here is another short passage from my essay that sheds light on this issue: "postmodern communism is deceptive, for the anti-concept “postmodernism”-which is the belief that anything could be temporarily true- is deceptively taught as “a philosophy” that promotes freedom and tolerance for contrasting ideologies. But here in essence, is the nature of the deception: postmodernism holds that there are no absolutes, not even in the definitions of words, for what means “word” to you, can mean “zebra” to me, if I want it to, and that is all that matters. This means, even the word “freedom”, which denotes the concept of “self determination”, can be made to mean, “communism” or, “servitude to the collective”, and can be taught as such via public education, and reiterated via mainstream media thus postmodernism and freedom are incompatible. You can observe this crusade in action by noting that people disguise their political identities under labels such as “Liberal”, “Leftist”, “Democrat”, “moderate Republican” or “Progressive”. (Glenn Beck, Ron Paul, and Ayn Rand, among others, have consistently pointed this out) These deceivers are relentless in their attempts to stifle us, communize America, and ever so subtly silence us, not by repealing the first amendment- which would be too obvious (one should hope)- but by disabling our reason." And this actually leads to my final point: in response to your comments on truth. If you want to be clear, when you speak to somebody, about what you mean about truth: you have to begin by saying "reality exists as an objectivie absolute" as this is the most fundamental fact about existence. There can be no "matrix confusion" if somebody understands this fundamental metaphysical principle. I want to thank you again for your comment; it was polite, intellectual, etc and I quite appreciate such comments.

Dormin, The fundamental issue here is the definition of philosophy and propper application of the term. Philosophy is a field of science. You can't have a "version" of a feild of science, that is by fact 1) subjectivism and 2) misuse of the term. That means you can't say, of any feild of science, that you have a private version of it and the example I provided was meteorology. It would be illogical to say "my meteorlogy, xism". You would say, "the following meteological principles...." and you may name those principles. As regards your comment on those who describe science as rationalism- that is 1) a waste of time (obviously science is rational) and 2) in this case doesn't apply to the same issue as the one I have raised, since you would not say "my science, rationalism". You would just say "rationalism" which again is more or less an extraneous word since you can just say "rationality", "reason", "logic". And this is not mere semantics, it is epistemology and crisp communication. Thank you by the way, for your comment.

Eiuol- thanks for your help. Justin, thanks for explaining

Eiuol, thank you for commenting. I regret to confess that I am not quite internet savvy or forum savvy so I do not know what it means to enable HTML. I merely copied text from my website and pasted it onto a post here. Strangely, for me, my post shows up without any problem.

Justin, thank you. What does TL;DR. mean?

Please forgive me, whilst typing the title I either accidentally pressed delete and thus lost half the title, or it was too long for the space.

From "A Brief On The Definition of Philosophy for the Purpose of Advancing Philosophy" The nature of philosophy as you can see, is not to be left as a trivial debate between bored, evil obscurantists, but rather, is essential to correctly judging and evaluating perceptions, and choosing the correct actions to take, for the purpose of thriving. You must identify philosophy as a science, otherwise, your judgement will be tainted, you will fail to identify contradictions, you will fail to define “identity”, i.e., you will fail to properly conceptualize, and thus your self-preservation will be endangered. Speaking figuratively, your actions will be guided by a blurry, poisonous vision; a mental fog, which you constantly regenerate. There is another essential distinction which the postmodern communists purposely obscure, and which in fact, most good people innocently fail to realize: the distinction between “philosophy” with “ideology”. Philosophy, as I have said, is the field of science which studies existence. In contrast, an ideology is a system of theories and beliefs in themselves, regardless of their validity. (Validation or invalidation of such theories and beliefs being the function of philosophers) All too often people are taught theories but are being told they’re being taught philosophy; e.g, when a mystic says that what we see is an illusion, and that his or her claim his philosophical. Such a claim is not philosophical. It is ideological and fraudulent. Many of Ayn Rand’s essays reveal instances of this type of fraudulence. Her essay “Philosophical Detection” is in fact a perfect guide for detecting counterfeit philosophy. She writes “The Best way to study philosophy is to approach it as one approaches a detective story. A detective seeks to discover the truth about a crime. A philosophical detective must seek to determine the truth or falsehood of an abstract system and thus discover whether he is dealing with a great achievement or an intellectual crime.” So deeply rooted is the confusion between philosophy and ideology, that even Ayn Rand made this error. This is why, in all my reverence for Ayn Rand, I do not refer to myself as an “Objectivist.” (Before I elaborate, I wish to make a brief personal aside out of respect for Ayn Rand, for she is my idol, and without her rare genius, philosophy would be frighteningly obscured, and primitively defined. If a person fails to improve upon the genius work of his or her idol with devotional ingenuity, the person never idolized and meanwhile a rich resource is yet to yield its best elements. Additionally, as Ayn Rand wrote in her notes: “A man of unbreached consciousness is one who has never allowed the opinions of others to become an epistemological issue, that is, to shake his confidence in the validity of his own perception and of his rational judgement”. (Journals of Ayn Rand; p.670)) Ayn Rand contradicts the definition of “philosophy”, as well as her own definition of “concept”-“a mental integration of two or more units which are isolated according to specific characteristics and united by a specific definition” (“Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology”; p.10) and her perfect definition of logic -the art of non-contradictory identification- when she refers to the concept “objectivism” as “a philosophy”, or “her philosophy”. To be precise, her use of the word “Objectivism” is purely ideological, i.e., it refers to her system of beliefs based the principles of objectivism. The specific definition of an ideology, as I have said, is an identified system of fundamental beliefs; the uniting characteristic is being: “systemized beliefs”. A belief is the acceptance of idea- whether it is true or false. Keeping in mind that philosophy is a field of science, observe that in any other field of science, for example meteorology, one does not say: “my meteorology, x-ism”. That is because a person cannot hold a “personal version” of meteorology, only a personal discovery, i.e, science is not subjective. It is objective. It is the theories, and discovered principles, as well as ideologies, which an individual claims as his or hers and names, e.g, Einstein’s theory of relativity, et cetera… There are two general uses of the concept “objectivism” that are logical: 1) “Ayn Rand’s principles of objectivism” and/or 2)”the ideology of objectivism”. It is with the understanding of these definitions and clarifications which I have just provided, which one must keep in mind, when judging the nature of the threats against our freedom, and as I explain in my essay “In Condemnation of Apathy”, the perpetuation of the economic- and furthermore cultural- depression we’re suffering from. Far too many people refuse to think rationally and far too many people condone it. This is because our culture is polluted with botched, gaping, indiscriminate, atrophied, flimsy and fantastical beliefs which are bound together by one major ideology: postmodern communism. “What’s true for you is true for you, and what’s true for me is true for me”: this is the postmodern communistic device brilliantly disguised in the name of “tolerance”. What it really means is “Regardless of what you think, it is neither true nor false, and it is no more or less valuable than what I or anybody else thinks, for it is based on nothing, thus what you produce is no more valuable than what anybody else produces. Why? Because I say so!”. It is an attempt to lull people away from the absolutism of reality so that they are intellectually defenseless against communism and mediocrity. It is quite ironic to me that a philosophy professor I once had explained post-modernism as a rejection of the power claims of the dogmatically scientific modernists. Note how contradictory that is! Postmodernism, i.e., postmodern communism, is, in essence, antiscientific, subjective, chaotic collective hedonism and culturally imposes its power on every objective mind by insulting it, and politically imposes its power on every objective mind by imprisoning it and stealing from it. As Karl Marx says, they the communists direct their attacks “against the instruments of production themselves”. (“The Communist Manifesto”)The basic instrument of production is reason, and it is reason which postmodern communism seeks to destroy. I will demonstrate for you, precisely how this is being done today, and how cleverly this method is being advanced, in the universities and through mainstream media, with the hope that we cannot and purposely will not keep up with it. It is a two-part mental trick. The first part of the trick is complex. The postmodern communists attempt to convince you that no word can be objectively defined and that therefore, words you associate with determining the truth, such as “logical analysis” and “conceptual”, must mean “that which in truth cannot be defined”, then they tell you that via “logical reasoning”, i.e, in their sense, rationalizing how a given thing can not be defined, they have determined that philosophy is not a science, capitalism is absurd and foolish, and that nobody knows what a proper aspiration is. The second part of the trick is to continue playing the word game you’ve accepted, and use it to convince you, that above all, capitalism, i.e., economic freedom, is evil, that the collective is the sacred sanctuary of your atrophied, oblivious mind..... (you may read the entire essay at http://seanoconnorli...m-and-thriving/ )

Hairnet, thanks for commenting. Would you explain what you mean when you say "format your posts so they are readable"? I am new to this site so if I have posted improperly I apologize and was not aware.

I do want to address my fundamental disagreement with you. I identify myself ideologically as a scientist (not to be confused with a Scientologist)[i have since decided to refer to myself as an Optimist], i.e., I believe in the rational study of the universe’s aspects, which is incompatible with Christianity, thus I reject it, along with all other religions, and ideologies. Christianity’s fundamental contradiction is monotheism.[More fundamentally, theism] Gods do not exist. I shall elaborate. To quote Ayn Rand’s primary axiom: “existence exists”, thus a god. i.e., a supposed supernatural creator of existence cannot not exist in a nonexistent non-dimension of nonexistence where it creates existence, for such an assertion is loaded with contradictions. Existence either exists, or it does not, and if it does not exist than nothing exists, which is obviously not the case. There are some serious consequences to holding a Christian premise. For example, when you say, in the event of peril or feeling hopeless, that we should get down on our knees and beg “god” for forgiveness, that’s not true, for that is a complete renunciation of the mind, and the self. To the contrary, we must command our subconscious’ to logically provide us with confidence and a solution. Also, when you condemn people for being selfish, you are using the word incorrectly; selfishness is a good thing. As Ayn Rand explains in her essay “The Virtue of Selfishness”: “When one speaks of man’s right to exist for his own sake, for his own rational self-interest, most people assume automatically that this means his right to sacrifice others. Such an assumption is a confession of their own belief that to injure, enslave, rob, or murder others is in man’s interest- which he must selflessly renounce.” Obviously, it is not in a human’s interest to violate another human’s self determination, it is destructive to life, and promotes destruction of life, increasing the likelihood that the violator’s own life will be injured. The proper word for one who sacrifices others to his whims, and violate’s a person’s self determination is “violent”. Despite our ideological differences we both appreciate the fact that freedom is a universal ideal. When differing ideologies share a common belief an ideological alliance is established. Our ideological alliance, which I call The Absolute Freedom Alliance, upholds two beliefs: that truth is absolute, and that thus, the right to freedom for every individual is absolute. Unfortunately Christians are carrying the weight of this alliance. By this I mean that most of the people who speak to the public for the purpose of preserving and advancing our freedom are Christian. If more non-Christians spoke to the public about freedom, freedom would reach a much wider audience, and thus more people would likely be receptive to it. Although freedom is not the only ideal I write about, it is one I write about quite often, and one I hope to convince people to appreciate. As you have said, Americans today are being divided, and a divided America is key to the communist movement, for as Karl Marx writes in “The Communist Manifesto”: “Communism abolishes religion and all morality”. (Thus it abolishes reason, absolutism, and objective evaluation). There are two major ways which the communists are attempting to divide us that merit more discussion. You have mentioned that public education as one of the institutions where this is occurring. What is especially disturbing is how universities are using their philosophy departments to foreword this attempt at dividing us. Given the fact that most people do not think much about philosophy, who among the anti-philosophical masses, would ever think to consider how ideas and beliefs are circulated? Who would ever think to consider where they originate? Ideas and beliefs are produced by fraudulent theoreticians posing as philosophers, and subtly lacing what they teach their students with their deranging theories. Their theories spread to the other academicians. These theoreticians are working to divide us by invalidating the definitions of words, then redefining those words to subtly inculcate communist beliefs. A con-artist named Julian Friedland wrote in an online New York Times article that “[The word] ‘game’ can be made to be a family” (“Philosophy Is Not a Science”) (Italics mine) They teach that what “reason” means to me, is right for me, and what “reason” means for you, is right for you. The varying definitions of reason are members of the “reason” family. Their ultimate goal is to redefine “freedom” from “self determination” to “the balancing of competing interests”. (Which is how communist congressman Rush Holt defines freedom, or claims to be his guiding political principle) They are programming minds to submit to coerced equality, mistakenly believing that it advances their individuality and freedom. Those poor minds will resent anyone who claims anything to be absolutely true; anyone who claims that some people are correct, and other people are wrong; anyone who says some services or products are worth more than others and that thus, some people should make more money than others. I know and encounter many, many people are victims of this “public education”. You asked one night, how many people we know who think, or talk like President Barack Obama. You asked, who among us is he really representing. I know an American citizen who has said that Obama is “not communist enough”. He is a victim of this postmodern word game which is taught by public educators, not only in America, but throughout the world. This “public education” will make the free exchange of ideas purposeless. More so than divided, we will be isolated. This is why I urge people to debate. Debate prompts the free exchange of ideas and beliefs. It promotes the value of discussing truth, convincing people to believe in the truth, and caring to discover more about the truth; it promotes the virtue of integrity. Debate strengthens one’s reason, one’s ability to interact with others selfishly. Debate today is being attacked, avoided and, in the media it is virtually forbidden, and replaced with superficial debates among pragmatists, i.e., people who believe in immoral, short term solutions to fundamental problems. Even Fox News, the media corporation which claims to be capitalistic, has never, so far as I have seen, broadcasted metaphysical, or epistemological debates. (There may be a few exceptions in which a metaphysical or epistemological comment or two are squeezed when an objectivist such as Yaron Brook is invited to speak. I am extremely grateful that you have invited him on your Fox News show.) In other words, nobody in the media is checking their premises and nobody is being held accountable for their premises. This makes for terrible television, and a dying culture. (This is why I emphasized the value of your ideology-conscious commentary.) Today’s debates do not even touch on reason or explanation although some may claim they do. Instead people cling to such comments as “it is constitutional therefore it is good” as opposed to saying “it’s good that it is constitutional because…”. Another example is when people complain about politicians being “political”. To say that being political is problematic is an equivocation. “Political” means, of or relating to policy. It is a politicians job to be “political”. This nonsense comes from the same people who complain about “partisan politics”, i.e., integrity. The fact that integrity is often described as a bad thing is extremely problematic. This is a point that needs to be addressed so that people can see through the muck on their television screens, their magazines, their blogs, their newspapers, et cetera; in defense of reason, freedom, and thriving. The second way we are being divided is what will serve as the alleged justification for perpetuating the aforementioned tactic: the atheists versus the Christians; which is contrived to infuriate the already mentally weak. Here I must point out that most so called “atheists” are not atheists by rational conviction. They’re angry communists who want to obliterate absolutist beliefs, since absolutist beliefs lead to absolute (although not necessarily objective) value, specifically, an absolute hierarchy of values, since any acknowledgement of an absolute hierarchy of values is the antithesis of communism. Furthermore, if values are non-absolute, then those minds which attempt to evaluate and valuate will ultimately malfunction and thus they will then need the government to determine their values for them. That is what the Federal Reserve and its fiat money does. A perfect representative of this evil brand of atheism is Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA) who implies that Christianity is a threat to “public education”, i.e., communist indoctrination, i.e., the disabling of evaluation skills. He says this in the name of atheism and reason. ( “Dem. Rep. Pete Stark Praises Atheists‘ ‘National Day of Reason‘ Against ‘Day of Prayer‘ on House Floor”; 4/30/12;http://www.theblaze....on-house-floor/) Furthermore these irrational atheists, like congressman Stark, claim that Christianity is a threat to their free speech! That is an illogical claim. What they are deceptively implying is, as you have virtuously exposed, that actually, they do no want Christian ideology to be freely expressed in public. It is, they claim, okay, for them to omit “under God” from the pledge of allegiance but not okay for a Christian (or any other monotheist) to say “under God”. That is just as evil as forbidding an atheist to omit “under God”. It is an insult. A logical atheist would enjoy a courteous debate; a free exchange of ideas. It demonstrates confidence, righteousness, and integrity. Furthermore, this propped up conflict misrepresents both Christianity, and science. Jesus says: “forgive them of their sins, they know not what they do”, and science says: “be courteous with those you disagree with and persuade them to accept the truth if you can.” The worst misrepresentation I have ever seen of Christianity, and non-Christianity was in the video you showed of “It Gets Better”’s spokesman Dan Savage blaming gay bashing, and sexual policing, on the Bible. The Holy Bible is not to be blamed for either. What is to blame is the failure to recognize the fact that every individual has the right of freedom. It is not coincidental that gay bashing is being falsely attributed to an absolutist, pro-freedom ideology. It is when insults are exchanged between Christians and atheists that the communists will claim this is their proof that people should never condemn another person’s beliefs. It arouses hate, they’ll say. They’ll say, whenever people discuss their beliefs it leads to civil unrest which the government must resolve. They are the ones who live by the principle “no consequential discussions about sex, religion, or politics at the dinner table”. This division between Christians and atheists is also a serious problem within the Republican party. A perfect example here is Rick Santorum. He used the “attack on Christianity” to further this division, especially by framing America’s foundation as exclusively Christian influenced. To the contrary, America’s foundation was logical. I shall cite the “The Declaration of Independence” as my evidence. “To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world”. (Italics mine) The Holy Bible does not require of its followers to believe anything based on “proof”. Instead, the writers of The Holy Bible expect readers to have faith in the literature. The fact that America’s founders proved why their independence from England was justified indicates that America’s independence is not founded with only Christian principles in mind.... (If you are interested in reading the entire essay, you may do so at http://seanoconnorli...-to-glenn-beck/ )

Dear readers, I must ask you for your help. I must also tell you I passionately hate that I should be in need of help, for I take tremendous pride in my independence. I have never applied for food stamps or any other form of government assistance because I am opposed to any form of subsidy obtained by coercion; whether governmental or criminal, and thus refuse to be a beneficiary of any such subsidy. The reason I am in need of help is because on January 31st, my girlfriend and I will lose our room, and at present, are unable to find a new room which we can afford. I am confident that we will find one however this very unfortunate circumstance has led me to address the more fundamental problem that is troubling me; my poverty. Since I am petitioning for your assistance it would be logical for you to wonder why; and furthermore, why and if there is any reason for you to help me. I shall explain myself thoroughly and succinctly. I am a 26 year old writer and philosopher. I write stories and essays. At present, my literature has not made me a financial profit. It is true that three years earlier I self published a book- a book I am extremely ashamed of and embarrassed by-and a few copies sold, but I did not earn more than a few hundred dollars, and eventually- quite thankfully- I discovered how irrational, inarticulate, and disgusting it was. To pay for rent, food, television, internet access, and an occasional movie (and yes, a few things here or there such as a newspaper, or magazine) I work as a cashier, and sometimes a cashier supervisor, at a grocery store. I get paid $8.80 per hour, and I work anywhere from 32-46 hours a week. (I only work 46 hours on weeks that are expected to be unusually busy, the week of Thanksgiving, Christmas, an oncoming storm, et cetera). I am grateful for my job and the money it pays me. Some people are far worse off than I, either making less money, suffering the hell of unemployment, or some other unfortunate tragedy. That being said I am obviously unsatisfied with more than just the low wage I earn at the grocery store. I would rather devote my time to writing my literature and studying and do so with the comfort of knowing that I can afford everything I need How I ended up as poor as I am is actually a rather unusual and interesting story. By that I mean I did not grow up poor; I am not a high school drop out; my poverty is not the result of struggling to pay an outrageously expensive college tuition. (I attended three colleges and my family paid all of the expenses. I left each college-never earning a bachelors degree- and I left each one for different reasons. I decided never to earn a bachelors degree for yet another reason.) It was an interesting combination of excellent and terrible decisions which brought upon my present circumstances. For example, I once wasted over $40,000 on a psychic who said via the power of her prayers I would have everything I wanted- an absolutely terrible, and extraordinarily humiliating decision!- and due to my decision to think logically I have successfully transformed myself from a depressed, constantly anxious, extremely confused, socialist, marijuana obsessed, aimless, mystical fatalist into a, happy, logical, organized, capitalist, confident optimist. To illustrate this more concretely: I used to have a big beard, a mustache, and dress in tie-dye clothing. Now I have no beard or mustache, and-when I am not working at the grocery store where I must wear the uniform they give me- I wear suits. My fundamental mistake was not quitting college. It was also not that I have been pursuing a profession that only pays those who are lucky, as opposed to those who are talented. There are two mistakes I have made which have caused me more misfortune than all the others. The truth is, I had terrible priorities! What were they? Well, let me preface this by saying: they are not what I believed they were. I believed my priority was reading and writing. Throughout my freshman year of college- at Kean University- since I was essentially anti-social (with the exception of a few people I had pseudo-intellectual conversations with) all I did during my free time was read and write. That, and cultivating a sense of identity as a hippie, were my only priorities. What do I mean by cultivating a sense of identify as a hippie? I mean, I grew infatuated with the hippie image: the “peace and love” mantra, the long hair, the facial hair, the folk and psychedelic music (John Lennon, The Doors, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Jimi Hendrix, et cetera). I was infatuated with this image, this style, because I thought it was based on the cultivation and preservation of psychological and cultural peace. I was so disgusted with the Kean University campus that I made it another priority to find a more attractive college. So I applied to and was admitted to Florida Gulf Coast University. Here my priorities drastically changed and I set myself up for psychological hell. Throughout my childhood, adolescence, and first year of college, I was vehemently opposed alcohol and drugs. In fact, I had earned the nick-name “Fake Hippie” because I dressed like a hippie, spoke like a hippie, and acted like a hippie, but did not smoke marijuana like a “real hippie”. One day a guy who I considered a friend asked me if I wanted try marijuana. He- and several others- had asked me on other occasions and I always said “no”. On this occasion however, a thought arose: how do I know for certain that marijuana is bad for me? The more fundamental, ideological principle at hand was “how do I know anything for certain?”. I decided to try marijuana once specifically for the purpose of having a credible opinion on whether or not it is harmful and to what degree. I regret to tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of being “high”. Why? My awareness of the beauty of existence was intensely heightened. I wanted to feel that intense existential love again, so a few days later I smoked marijuana again. This time the experience was the complete opposite. I felt pure paranoia; in fact I felt certain that I was dying. I believed I was dying because existence seemed suddenly too beautiful and wonderful. I believed that it was a level of sentimentality that one could only be capable of feeling upon the knowledge that he is seconds away from dying. I thought I would never smoke marijuana again, however, despite the almost unbearable paranoia and depression I felt, words came to me quicker than they ever had before. I was completely connected to my subconscious. Smoking marijuana, I believed, helped my writing tremendously. Thus, I decided to begin smoking habitually for the purpose of enhancing my writing. The consequence was twofold. My writing was no longer my priority; my psychological dependency (as opposed to a purely physiological addiction) on marijuana became because my priority, and I was destroying my mind, torturing it with extreme paranoia and completely irrational thinking. Smoking marijuana remained a priority for the following three years and it caused me serious intellectual, and psychological damage as I grew more and more oblivious to everything. In fact, oblivion became yet another priority throughout those three years. The state of oblivion, I believed, was the state of complete enlightenment. One of the worst consequences of my oblivion was that at one point I was nearly homeless. Had it not been for the charity of a man- the innkeeper of a hostel- I may have starved to death on the streets of Tampa. What had happened was this: I had planned to visit a friend of mine in Tampa. During the week I spent with her I told her I was horrified by the prospect of returning to New Jersey, where I lived with my mother and stepfather, for we were not getting along well. She told me I could stay with her and her family for awhile, so long as I got a job, saved money and promptly moved into an apartment. Unfortunately, after about a month or so, we had gotten into an argument. She was upset about something- I forget what- and I suggested to her that she not worry about it; that she not let this concern consume her. This suggestion angered her. She believed that I was quite disrespectful for not allowing her to experience her feelings. She then told me, that due to an earlier disagreement we had (She quoted William Wordsworth who had once written that “The World Is Too Much With Us” and I said that the world is not too much with us and that Wordsworth’s pessimism is contemptible) she had been unable to write (like me she was a writer) and that that made her very angry with me. For these two reasons she said that I was no longer welcome to stay with her and her family. She dropped me off at a hostel. Oh, how ashamed I am of the way I handled this situation. At the time, living at the hostel, I believed, was the best thing that possibly could have happened to me. If you will recall, I told you I was infatuated with the hippie image and lifestyle. The ambience of the hostel appealed to that infatuation of mine. It was decorated with pictures of classic rock artists, classic rock was constantly playing in the back ground, there was a small, out door BYOB bar where people sat, it seemed sometimes all day, smoking cigarettes, drinking, and talking, and most of the visitors were European which was quite exciting for me as I hadn’t met many Europeans before. I had enough money saved to live at the hostel for a month. Because I wanted to live at the hostel for an indeterminate amount of time (in fact, I believed ideally I might eventually get a job there and live there until I became a famous poet) I looked for a job almost every day….at first. Unfortunately I couldn’t find one. I got myself two interviews. At the first interview, the hiring manager took one look at me and said “shave, get a hair cut, buy a nice button down shirt, and then come back. Goodbye”. I told him I couldn’t afford a haircut or a button down shirt and he said that was my problem, not his. (Sadly, the truth is I could have afforded at least a hair cut but, you see, sadly indeed, I spent my few remaining dollars on alcohol and marijuana so that I could get high and write poetry) The second interview- which was for a cafe- went well; I got the job. Unfortunately, towards the end of the first day the hiring manager scolded the woman who had hired me for hiring without his permission. He told me that he was very sorry but he wasn’t hiring and that the woman who had hired me didn’t actually have the authority to do so. I could not find another job and I ran out of money. The innkeeper, quite fortunately, was sympathetic to my ambition to become a famous poet, and so he allowed me to stay there for free, under certain conditions. I had to keep looking for a job, and I had to share my poetry with him every night. He told me that my poems comforted him. I shan’t tell you here all the details of my experience at the hostel (perhaps another time and in another context), however what I will say, as to stick to my point about the consequence of my oblivion, was that on my walks through Ybor City, searching for a job, and jotting down obscure poetry lines whilst walking, and walking aimlessly unfortunately due to the intense states of oblivion I fell into, I would stare at the homeless people I passed, thinking, I may soon live and die with these people, as there is nothing on this Earth for me but my exotic poems (that was how I described them to myself ultimately) and my burning desire to do nothing but write, get paid for writing, and get high. Little did I know that the surrealism of an oblivious consciousness was a trap; a trap woven by ignorance. It was only because the innkeeper, and eventually my older brother, sympathized with me, that I did not end up on the streets, starve and die with the homeless. (After a few months I wrote an email to my brother, and he agreed to loan me enough money for a plane ticket back to New Jersey, and a room in a woman’s house in Trenton) Now in retrospect, what should my priorities have been at that time? I should have been studying philosophy and the major ideologies that different people subscribe to so that I could discover for myself what my fundamental principles ought to be. Since I wanted to be a writer, I also, obviously, should have been teaching myself how to write, and discovering for myself what I ought to write, why, and how to get paid for my writing. I also should have learned about current events. I should have learned about the Bush administration, and what the actions of the United States government were more widely, and I should have learned to evaluate their actions morally. Now I did educate myself, but not properly. With very few exceptions, I studied the literature of those who wrote in a state of oblivion. (Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche) I studied these men in great depth. I used to be proud of myself for getting drunk in the bathtub, whilst reading Friedrich Nietzsche’s Will To Power. I thought I was beautifully intellectual for enhancing my mind whilst numbing it. I was of course, wrong. When did my priorities change? A few months before my twenty fifth birthday; just about two years ago. What changed? I realized that I was quite literally a mess. I was extremely poor. I was confused. I was depressed. I realized I had no conviction about anything other than my ability to eventually make money either writing or pursuing some other form of artistic expression. I suspected that there were two major causes to my being a complete mess. That I had the wrong priorities, and that I was disorganized. So I began writing a list of everything I considered a priority and then I began eliminating those which I considered unnecessary. It is a fair question to ask “necessary according to what standards, or what principle?” but unfortunately at the time I had no concrete standard. Not to say I “guessed”. I was subconsciously attempting to think logically. By that I mean, I asked myself “for what reasons should this or that be a priority?” I decided that my priorities included my relationship with my girlfriend Ashley, getting the news every day, reading and writing every day, and introspecting every day. Since then my priorities have become much more defined. My top priority is thriving, i.e., functioning optimally which requires thinking logically as consistently as possible and constantly improving myself by identifying, pursuing and achieving all of my ideals. This encompasses my relationship with Ashley, my writing and getting paid for it, constantly learning, eating well, exercising, et cetera. My second major mistake is also quite humiliating to confess. I misspent over a hundred thousand dollars. To be fair to myself not all the money I inherited was misspent however most of it was. Four years ago my father passed away and I inherited slightly over $100,000. At first I was perfectly frugal. That was because I knew exactly what I wanted to do with that money and I knew how to make it last for a long time. My plan was to move from New Jersey, to Oceanside, California, live in a cheap room, read as much as I could, and write, self publish and sell a book. That was exactly what I did. Ashley and I moved into a room in somebody else’s condo. It only cost $625 a month. I was a light eater so groceries didn’t cost me much at all. I dined out at restaurants often, but never fancy, expensive ones. I did buy myself a television, but not a large, expensive one. I bought myself a cheap, tiny camcorder and a new laptop as well. Other than those things, I only spent money on books and movies and almost all of my time on reading and writing. To understand why I ultimately misspent so much money you have to understand my ideological and psychological confusion. My severe ideological confusion caused me to be depressed. My depression was accompanied by a sense of purposelessness and no awareness of my ideals. I had no idea what my guiding principles should be because I had no idea how to determine what is true and virtuous and what is false and evil. Throughout most of the time I spent in California, I was a polytheist. I believed every man was a God and every woman was a Goddess. I believed each God or Goddess’ purpose was to create, but what was it each of us should create and why? I knew humans possess free will but I found the luxury of freedom to be quite troublesome. If I am free to do whatever I want, how can I know what I ought to do with my freedom? I had no idea. After four months in California, for the purpose of evading my depression, Ashley and I moved back to New Jersey. (It is a shame we left California because it is such a beautiful state. I was always profoundly inspired by its geography) The reason I want to emphasize the fact that I evaded my depression is because of the following: considering the amount of money I had at the time (I had spent very, very little of it) I could have afforded an excellent psychologist, if only I had been honest with myself about the fact that I was indeed depressed and that the roots of my depression were indeed beyond my comprehension and that it needed to be addressed. Our return to New Jersey didn’t make me any happier. In fact my depression and my confusion only intensified. Then one day a strange thing happened to me. I thought I had a vision of Jesus Christ and another of Satan. My thinking in those days was so arbitrary that my fantasies were likewise, quite arbitrary. I took these two fantastical visions to be some kind of sign from God; that “He” was trying to tell me that “He” existed and that “He” wanted to cure my severe depression and confusion. I began reading into the Bible more deeply but it offered me no solace; only stories I was beginning to believe were true. I believed that I needed guidance. I should have searched for a psychologist however the notion of admitting to myself that I was suffering from severe psychological illness brought me such shame that I refused. Instead I went to visit a psychic. I decided to visit a psychic because I was profoundly curious: could my mind be read? More fundamentally I wondered, “can the future be accurately predicted?” If the future can be predicted, could I acquire that skill? The psychic’s name was “Miss Pat”. I was skeptical of her tarot cards and told her so. I told her I was miserable and she said she could help; that she could pray for my happiness with special crystals, blessed by a mysterious church. I believed her. I believed her for the following reason: thoughts exist. Since thoughts exist, they must emit some form of energy. What the nature of that energy is, I could not say. But the fact that thoughts emit energy is extremely obvious. If you need proof, note the fact that this letter I have been writing to you didn’t appear out of nowhere; it is the product of my organized thoughts. So, I thought, since thoughts emit energy, and prayers are thoughts- deeply concentrated thoughts about a burning desire- if prayers are passionate enough, constant enough, and clear enough, they can be answered by God. Miss Pat gave me a set of candles, each a different color; white for purity, red for love, green for wealth, yellow for happiness, et cetera. She also gave me bath salts. She instructed me to speak to God via the candle flames, and pray, and to pour the bath salts into a bathtub and soak in it for at least fifteen minutes each night. She then said, for five hundred dollars she would go to her church and pray for me. Again, I regret to inform you: I believed her. I returned to her several times; in fact, for several months. I would vent about my depression, and my loneliness, and she would say that it takes time, and that she would continue praying for me. I began visiting her consistently, twice a week, and she would tell me the same thing, except it would suddenly get more and more expensive for her to pray for me. Instead of $500 for a week of her prayers, it grew to a thousand dollars, then to five thousand dollars, then ten thousand dollars. She told me the reason it was getting more expensive was because the candles she prayed beside were rare, and very expensive. At this point, if I were you, I would think “this guy is a hopeless idiot!”; I was, however today I am not. What was going through my mind, each time I would drive to the bank, and withdraw $5,000 or $10,000 from my account? I thought various things. I thought, if I was wrong, and her prayers didn’t do anything for me, then I had given money away as charity. And what did it matter who I received my charity? I thought to myself, “I’m so fortunate, I have more money than some people do… I don’t have to get a job, where as there are people working really, really hard, who hate their jobs, who don’t even earn enough money to save up for something; giving money to somebody else is virtuous because it is giving and giving is virtuous since it is unfair that some people have more than others. And anyway, I didn’t even earn this money. I inherited it.” This continued for four months; then I finally told her “if you ever contact me again, I will call the police”. She never did contact me again. I finally stood up to her because I had given her nearly half of my inheritance, and it occurred to me that the notion of paying somebody to pray for you is absolutely insane. My confusion about metaphysical and moral truth continued to intensify. One of the only things that gave me any sense of spiritual pleasure was a CD I owned; it was a recording of a “Dire Straits” concert. I was infatuated with guitarist Mark Knopfler and when I would listen to his guitar solos they would inspire within me, these deep and very pleasurable feelings of wonder; a very vague, abstract yet passionate wonder about the nature of human life and the universe, accompanied with a sense of numbing oblivion. It was that feeling I had always been infatuated with and confused for exultation and intuitive metaphysical-existential knowledge. Unfortunately, I would listen to this music and feel this feeling while I was driving, and because I was disconnected from everything but the feeling Mark Knopfler’s guitar solos inspired within me, I tended to drive quite poorly and speed. Within the period of one month I managed to get five traffic tickets. Two for speeding, one for tailgating (a false accusation! One thing I never did while driving was drive too close to another car. I liked my space, even when I was spaced out!), one for not having re-registered my vehicle (the fact that a driver ever has to re-register, let alone “register” his or her vehicle is immoral. First of all, the government has no moral right -as opposed to a legal one- to regulate commerce as the only moral function of government is to advance freedom, i.e., protect the individual’s self determination. I didn’t know this at the time of course; and not that it would have mattered.) Due to the other four traffic tickets, my license was suspended but unfortunately, I had never opened the letter indicating that this was so. I found out that my driver’s license was suspended because a cop- in the town I lived in- told me so, after pulling me over, not more than a mile from where I was living at the time. So I then had five traffic tickets. (This situation is still a problem today. While two of the fines have been paid, I have to pay over a thousand dollars on accumulated interest because it took two and a half years to pay my fines. Two more fines have to be paid, along with whatever interest has accumulated) Throughout this period of time, despite my subconscious preoccupation with my self destruction (I say subconscious because I was, quite honestly, deeply confused about everything and so could not say that I consciously sought to destroy my life) I was none the less quite productive- I was often reading and writing and eventually I decided, after nearly five years of writing I had finally written enough to self publish. For the last eight months I have wanted to write a harsh but necessary review of my first book specifically because I completely disavow it. I shan’t overload you with a full review but there are some things I must explain to you as to make it quite clear why paying for the publication of this book was indeed a waste of money. I wrote in my preface, the following: “I do not believe any philosopher has taken up Nietzsche’s great challenge- to create a philosophy, which surpasses absolutism to a point of an ever expanding universe of unlimited possibility…a kind of way to reject any logic or idea which stunts one’s creativity…”. There are several problems with this premise. First of all, reality exists as an objective absolute. To think in terms of surpassing absolutism is to think, essentially, that the human mind is incapable of possessing knowledge, and that every assertion is a lie, but that I can’t prove it and thus maybe it’s not, i.e., complete uncertainty might be inevitable but maybe humans are capable of knowledge. To make such an assertion is to evade the fact that the individual perceives, and can identify, and integrate what he or she perceives, i.e., to completely evade the existence of reason and essentially lie to one’s self that one can evade reason and yet somehow be capable of some kind of pseudo knowledge. To be more succinct, the ideological basis of Lovers, Other Stories, And Words was the evasion of reason as such. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates sensory data) was substituted with the belief in “unlimited possibility”. Is it possible that a thing, say my pen, is in fact not my pen? I might use a different word, but I am still referring that thing, with ink, that I use to write. The belief in unlimited possibility is a false, illogical belief. And while we are discussing the prospect, note the consequence of a belief in unlimited possibility. It is possible that I could become a tyrant and commit mass genocide. It is possible that I could pretend it is moral, and convince my fellow comrades to agree that it is moral. “Unlimited possibility” is not plausible metaphysically or morally. But I didn’t know that. Most of the stories I wrote in this book were written so spontaneously, subjectively, and obscurely that they are not worth mentioning. Regarding those stories which were concrete and comprehendible: they mainly dealt with the issues of drug use, and monogamy. Drug use is ultimately portrayed as destructive, and monogamy is ultimately portrayed as good. To this extent those stories can claim at least some moral redemption, but in each case the characters I created are deeply troubled. For example, even though Jim, from the story “Devon Renald” is theoretically very passionate about sobriety, monogamy and self respect, he gets drunk, smokes marijuana, and is infatuated with a woman whose priorities contradict his. In the story “Despite The Things They Often Say” a young man forgives a woman who cheats on him the night she tells him. He should not have forgiven her but he blames himself for her infidelity and relinquishes his anger very easily because she seduces him. This reveals that he is weak and caters only to the sexual attention his slutty, nihilistic girlfriend gives him. There are many problems with this book, but I have explained to you the general problems. Nonetheless, when I finally received a copy of it, and read it through, I thought it was brilliant, and that it would make me a millionaire. It cost me about $1,000 or $2,000 to self publish. That included 500 copies of the book. I had the money to promote the book and I used that money. Now at this point I could have gotten a part time job, even if only one day a week, so that I was earning an income but I was determined to promote this book online, elsewhere, and make myself a millionaire doing so. I built a website (it was free) and then spent several thousand dollars advertising that website on Facebook. Those ads were a waste of money because they didn’t work. But I had a better plan. My book publishing company iUniverse offered, for a fee of $4,000: a seat under a tent at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. I believed, with complete conviction, that this “festival of books” would make me famous; that all it required to make my book popular was the opportunity to look people in the eyes and take a moment to tell them about my book. I was quite wrong. I invested everything I had in this trip. It cost $1,000 to ride a train to Los Angeles, another $1,000 to stay there for the week, and another $1,000 to travel back to New Jersey. I also spent a lot of money on promotional material. Ashley and I were not left with much money to eat at this point but we managed. I had one goal while in Los Angeles: make this book popular! I failed tremendously. Despite my failure I worked very hard. I tried several things. I wrote a new short story, along with a self interview, and combined them into a little booklet. I made many photocopies, and then distributed it at the book festival. I went to Venice Beach with two suitcases full of copies of the book, sat on the boardwalk and tried to sell the book there. I thought that even though none of this had managed to spark anyone’s interest, my opportunity to meet a lot of people, and speak briefly with them at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books would make me tremendously successful. I thought all I had to do was explain to them that this book was about a new and better way of thinking; a revolutionary way of connecting concepts and gaining better insight into the nature of our thoughts. I added that the stories were extremely erotic and offered an uplifting view of romantic relationships. Unfortunately I was lying and didn’t know I was lying. My seat at the Los Angles Times Festive of Books was a complete waste of money. The reason being that my publishing company didn’t take me seriously. I had tried in the many months prior to this event, to speak with the woman in charge of showcasing my book, and explain to her its cultural importance and that since they make money if I make money, it would be in both of our interests to promote the book as effectively as possible. I sat with representatives of the self publishing company under a tent, for thirty minutes, beside many copies of my book, big posters with my name and the title of the book, copies of the booklet I made, and flyers for a showcase I was going to have at the hotel I was staying at. The wrong title was written on the posters promoting my book. It read “Lovers, Other Stories and Poems” but the actual title was “Lovers, Other Stories, and Words”. This was extremely humiliating as people came to grab an autographed copy of my book only to see that my publishing company didn’t even take me seriously enough to write the correct title of my book on the posters. It made me look like an idiot (which I was anyway) and it made iUniverse look like a bunch of idiots as well. A day or two after the book festival, I rented a private lounge from 4 p.m. until 1 a.m. at the hotel we stayed at, so I could showcase and advertise the book all evening and chat with interested readers. To promote this event, on the days prior to it, I handed out flyers wherever we went to anyone who would take one. I bought huge poster boards and hand-wrote upon them, my favorite passages from the book, and leaned them against the wall, presenting them as if they were paintings. Only five people showed up. One was a young poet. A young couple interested in philosophy came. Someone I used to consider a friend- who lived in nearby Riverside- came, and my girlfriend came. She spent the entire day with me there. I was, as you would probably guess, extremely disappointed. It is an interesting thing to reflect on since in hindsight it was of course a terrible book that should never have been written, and certainly should never have been published, let alone self published. It was a disastrous waste of money. Now that being said, people sell junk all the time, and do so quite successfully. (For example, J.K. Rowling’s completely irrational Harry Potter and president Barack Obama’s boring, racist and insulting memoir Dreams From My Father_) While the content I was selling was terrible, and thus a major mistake -a major waste of money- I had nonetheless put a great deal of effort into selling something I made myself, and with almost no help (Ashley was the only one who helped, and she helped me tremendously; she offered me both moral support, and joined me in each attempt to promote the book). That is something to be proud of: to come up with an idea, produce it, and do everything in your power (and within reason) to sell it and do so because you love your product, because your product projects your ideals (or in my case, what I thought my ideals were). Despite the fact that my content was terrible, it was the first time in my life I was ever proud of something I was doing: trying to sell my work and devoting myself to it. Unfortunately, not a single person I met during my week in Los Angeles, (nor anyone we met on the train rides to and from) took any genuine interest in the book. What happened next was absolutely terrible. At that time Ashley and I were living in a small room in someone’s house. One man owned the house, and another man lived in it and rented the rooms out to other people. Well, it turned out that the man who was renting the room to us had hid from us the fact that his landlord was actually selling the house that month. Ashley and I had to find somewhere else to live as soon as possible. Unfortunately I was almost completely broke, and I didn’t have a job as I had spent all my time trying to sell the book, with the illogical conviction that it would become a best seller very quickly. I immediately got a job at a grocery store I used to work at before I had inherited the $100,000 from my father. With quite literally all of the money that remained in my bank account, Ashley and I got a tiny room in a disgusting, poorly kept rooming house. We lived there for six months, then found a master bedroom in somebody’s house that we could afford. That lasted only seven months. The man who owned the house- a very generous man- decided to sell it. We then spent six months in the very disgusting basement of a very disgusting condo. What happened next is quite interesting but I must preface it my emphasizing something very important about investing in one’s self, and I must also emphasize that by this point in my life I was a fundamentally transformed young man. First, on investing in one’s self: to invest in one’s self is to put all of your resources- intellectual, spiritual, and financial, into the rational pursuit of your ideals. An ideal is a condition or circumstance which enables one to thrive. There are thus, many different kinds of ideals. For example, if traveling somewhere would make you extremely happy, and you have the means to do so, and it won’t cause you any harm, if traveling there is a logically held priority, than you ought to pursue that ideal. If you hold your freedom (I mean freedom in the political sense, i.e., right to self determination) as a priority, then, you ought to take whatever moral means you can strive towards the preservation and advancement of that freedom. If you have founded a company or have invented a product or made a discovery, and you want to get paid for it, than you ought to do whatever you can, again within reason, to make as much money as you can for it. You might fail and run out of resources, but failing to achieve an ideal is worth much more than never trying. To try but fail is an investment in one’s self. Many of the greatest business man in history have gone bankrupt several times before finally making a profit for themselves. Henry Ford is one such example. To evade your ideals is to cheapen your life and surrender your self esteem to pessimism and live either as a selfless servant to others, or suffer the rottenness of apathy. Now regarding my fundamental transformation: as I told you earlier in this letter, I discovered, just prior to my twenty-fifth birthday that I was a mess, that my priorities were poor, and that I was disorganized. I then told you what my new priority was. I said: “My top priority is thriving, i.e., functioning optimally which requires thinking logically as consistently as possible and constantly improving myself by identifying, pursuing and achieving all of my ideals.” This, to some of you, may come across as extremely abstract, ambiguous, and theoretical so for the sake of making it more concrete for you, I shall offer you some context. My heroine; my greatest source of inspiration, is the genius novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand. Although she is my heroine I am not a follower of her ideology: Objectivism. I am an Optimist. An Objectivist agrees with every principle Ayn Rand upheld. I do not, as I have discovered a few contradictions in Ayn Rand’s literature. By identifying myself as an Optimist, I mean that I believe, absolutely, in the rational pursuit of ideals- for Optimism, as defined by the New Oxford American Dictionary is: “the doctrine, esp. as set forth by Leibniz, that this world is the best of all possible worlds; the belief that good must ultimately prevail over evil in the universe”. It is essential to add, that speaking morally, and assertively, indeed, good must ultimately prevail over evil, and that is only possible if one believes in the rational pursuit of ideals. The fact that I do not agree with Ayn Rand on every single point does not mean I think less of her. While Aristotle gave philosophy a foundation (that consciousness perceives reality but is not reality as such, the law of non-contradiction, causality, etc) Ayn Rand succinctly organized philosophy as a field of science; into definite branches (metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and esthetics), each with a fundamental principle (existence exists and thus reality is an objective absolute, we know reality is an objective absolute via our reason, one exists only for one’s own rational self interest, the ideal political system is capitalism, the ideal form of art is to project what could and ought to be). Ayn Rand eloquently applied her principles to events that occurred throughout her lifetime, and via her novels she gave humanity its first glimpse of ideal people (Howard Roark and John Galt) and the ideal society (Galt’s Gulch). Ayn Rand’s philosophical contradictions are very technical but essential to address. She did not consider psychology or economics branches of philosophy however they are. By her own definition- and it is the correct one- philosophy is the field of science that studies existence. Both the study of the navigation of one’s mind and the study of production are fundamentally existential, i.e, they concern how one, as an individual person ought to live/treat one’s life. Strangely Ayn Rand misused the term “philosophy” in certain instances. While Ayn Rand defines “philosophy” as the field of science that studies existence, she confused the term “philosophy” with “ideology” when she said things like “my philosophy, objectivism” or “his philosophy”, or “their philosophy”; she uses the term “philosophy” in such contexts which explicitly refer to a belief system (or belief systems), which is contradictory to the definition “field of science that studies existence” since, if philosophy is a science, one cannot claim to have a version of it. (For more on this I refer you to my essay “A Brief on the Definition of Philosophy for the Purpose of Advancing Freedom and Thriving”) Ayn Rand also misdefines a few other terms. Ayn Rand defines “value” as that which one acts to gain or keep, but this contradicts the more general use of the term value which is a thing’s place within a particular hierarchy. She defines “ virtue” as an action one takes in order to gain or keep a value but the virtues she proposes, such as independence and rationality, are ideals, not virtues, if one refers to the dictionary (satisfying one’s conception of what is perfect; most suitable), popular usage of the term (the best possible) or application of her own theory of concept formation which is “uniting two or more things according to a specific characteristic by a specific definition.” (Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology; p.10) With all of this mind (I mean my statement on investing in one’s self, and the summary of my ideology) I shall now reveal to you how I came across $29,000, used it to invest in myself, and sadly failed to make a financial gain. You will then understand how I ended up living under such unfortunate circumstances and that unlike the last time I inherited money, I did not, this time, misspend it. I profited spiritually just not financially. In fact, my spiritual gain was tremendous! The $100,000 I originally inherited from my father upon his death came from his life insurance policy. It turned out that he had also left money for me in his will- $17,000- but it had taken some years for that money to get sent to me. I found this out via an email from my older brother one evening while Ashley and I were living in that disgusting condominium I told you about. I used this money to invest in myself. I did not quit my job at the grocery store. At the time I was writing very brief philosophical essays, posting them on a blog site, as well as on youtube, hoping to build an audience for myself and eventually get popular enough for some publisher to offer me a book deal, knowing there would be a market for my essays. The first thing I decided to do was take Ashley and I on a vacation. Allow me to explain why. Ashley and I had endured a year and a half of extreme, and very miserable poverty and we did nothing but work and study. We both agreed that it would be very good for our psychological health to travel somewhere beautiful for a week and just read, write, and enjoy being somewhere beautiful. We did just that. We traveled to Naples, Florida. We stayed at the “Waldorf Astoria Naples” hotel. It was neither the most nor the least expensive hotel in the area. I must tell you, it was the most amazing week of my entire life! I got to spend almost the entire week reading and writing, while siting at a table, on a spacious balcony overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. It was an achieved ideal as I had fantasized about an experience similar to that for years. While Ashley and I stayed in Naples we ate very well. I bought us some books and I bought Ashley a shirt or two. There are many things I could tell you about that idyllic week however I shall save them for other discussions. What I will tell you is that of all the places I have ever traveled to, Naples is my favorite, and if I had the means today, to live anywhere in the universe, I would live in Naples, Florida, and devote myself to two things: writing, and doing research with Ashley on beach front property in the Caribbean. (Ideally I would live on a mountain in the Caribbean with a path down to my own private beach, but it will take time to find that property and I would like, for that time, to have a home in Naples) Naples is my favorite town because it is beautiful, clean, there are many thriving businesses. The people in Naples obviously take pride in their community. Even the garbage trucks there looked relatively clean. There was a street in Naples filled with beach front mansions. This was the closest I had ever been to my vision of my personal ideals. (To live in a luxurious home on the beach). I could look at a sample of my ideal home, or what was very close to my ideal home, not just in a picture, but in person. I couldn’t touch it, but I could look at. That was one of the best experiences of my life. I did spend a lot of money on this trip but it was absolutely worth it! In full I spent about $4,000. (Taxis, air fare, one week at a beautiful hotel, a week of full and healthy meals, and a little bit of shopping ((the books and clothes that I mentioned))). I had wanted to rent a car but decided not to since I believed and hoped it wouldn’t be the only time we ever traveled to Naples and that we would thus have an opportunity to drive around the area some other time; that and it would have made the trip much more expensive. I also bought myself a new lap top. I did this to give myself a real sense of “a new start”. I didn’t want to type on the same lap top I typed on as an idiotic, contemptible man. I wanted to detach myself, psychologically, from my old self as much as possible, as you can probably understand. The lap top cost nine hundred dollars. Throughout the year and a half of extreme poverty Ashley and I endured we never had our own television. I bought us one, (not an expensive, big screen television. It is in fact a relatively small one) along with a dvd player (not a fancy one), and I bought “The West Wing” series on dvd since we had been watching it on the internet and had become fans. Since the condominium we were living in was disgusting- (we didn’t even have our own bathroom. The tub that we showered in had thick mold in it that we couldn’t remove, no matter how hard we tried. The room we lived in was extremely dusty, etc.) we found ourselves another room in another person’s condominium. (The one we live in at present, but will have to leave as of January 31st.) We paid $750 a month for it. The room isn’t ideal, but it is very clean and we have our own bathroom. I spent hundreds of dollars on books for Ashley and I. I did this because I wanted to learn as much as possible about Ayn Rand, and everything else that interested me (such as Aristotle, space colonization, George Washington, Ludwig van Mises, more on grammar, to name a few examples) and I wanted Ashley to learn as much as possible about everything that interested her. Also, to be a writer, and more specifically, a philosopher, you have to learn as much about philosophy, and other ideologies as you can. If you are not studying at a university, you damn well better be teaching yourself; and doing so effectively! I spent $1,000 on new clothes for Ashley and I. ($500 for me, and $500 for her). Remember, I told you I wanted to psychologically detach myself from my old self as much as possible. Remember also, what I told you about my old self. At one point, I dressed like a hippie. And even when I got over my hippie phase I dressed very casually. I wanted to present myself in as professional, serious, and formal a manner as I could. So I bought myself a suit, a tie, and several other dress shirts. Whenever I wasn’t working at the grocery store, I wore a jacket, a dress shirt, and dress pants. I took Ashley and I out to eat very often, but certainly not every meal and certainly not every day. We never dined out more than three times a week, and we never dined at expensive, fancy restaurants. I did this because it is one of my favorite things to do. I love dining out because I love that people cook and take pride in what they cook and take pride in the ambience of their restaurants. Ashley and I never overstocked on groceries, and we were never gluttonous. By that I mean, I never bought, in a given week, three types of ice cream, two types of syrup, two kinds of cheese, two bottles of fruit juice, et cetera. I have, however, always gone by the principle “buy the best I can afford” so when I bought fruit juice for example, I would buy the $8 organic fruit juice, not the one that was on sale; when I bought eggs, I would buy the cage-free, organic, veggie fed eggs for $4 instead of the cheap, non organic eggs. I bought Haagen-Dazs ice cream because it was the best tasting, not Turkey Hill ice cream, because it was cheap, et cetera. Within a few months I had roughly $6,000 remaining. One of the most interesting things about life is that we have free will. An interesting thing about a human’s free will is that while we can make certain choices for ourselves, we are subjected, to a degree, to the choices of others, and subjected, completely to the laws of nature. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. This is the only extent to which there is such a thing as being lucky or being unlucky. On the one hand there are acts of violence, disastrous storms, earthquakes and tsunamis, bad genes, et cetera. On the other hand, there is love, and there are acts of virtue, sometimes even the kindness of a complete stranger, winning the lottery, good genes, being born to wealthy parents, et cetera. It was unfortunate that I have been unable to get paid for my literature. It is, always was, and always will be fortunate that it is possible that I can, possibly, one day, become a best selling writer. It was unfortunate that I have made as many mistakes as I have but it is fortunate that I identified them and learned from them. It was extremely fortunate that my great grandfather had invested in my grandfather’s company, and in my name, and that I received a $12,000 check as result of that investment. I now had $16,000 in my bank account. This meant I could invest yet even more in myself, and in Ashley. I did. It is an extraordinarily unique circumstance to be in the possession of $16,000, which you inherited, and yet only earn $8.50 an hour at your job. What makes it unique is that you feel the comfort of not having to worry about how you are going to pay rent, and eat, but you didn’t earn that money, and you can’t quit your low paying job. (You can if you want to, but not if you want to be logical; not if your only goal is to get paid for your writing.) At this point what I wanted more than anything was to quit my job at the grocery store and move with Ashley to a small, cheap apartment in Naples, Florida. We considered this. We considered moving to La Jolla, CA , or to Naples, or Miami, FL (Ashley had discovered a school in Miami, that at the time, interested her) We decided, however, not to move. The reason we reached this decision was because we weren’t confident enough in the economy. We could have moved, and found a cheap apartment anywhere, but there was no guarantee we would find ourselves new jobs and as I have learned several times: money, no matter how much money you have, can only last so long without any income. Instead, I bought Ashley a new lap top. She had been using my old laptop, and…I must condemn myself on this point. It is one thing I am very ashamed of. I should have bought Ashley a new lap top when I bought myself a new one, because I had the money, and because I wanted her to enjoy the pleasure of having one that had never been used before; the pleasure of feeling that her lap top was completely hers, always had been hers, and for so long as she chose, would always be hers. I also bought her a kindle. I bought Ashley and I each $500 worth of more new clothes because neither of us had actually had much clothes. I had one suit jacket, (the black one my mother had given me a few years earlier broke- ) one pair of black dress pants, one pair of grey dress pants, and eight dress shirts. Now, you might argue that “that’s enough” but it is up to each individual, within the context of his or her means, to determine what he buys, how much he buys, et cetera. As I said earlier, one’s moral principle is “rational self interest”. The idea of more clothes for Ashley and I made me happy. It was unwise for us to leave New Jersey, which is what we would have taken over new clothes, and neither of us were free to work our ideal jobs. It was a logical decision. It gave us the opportunity to express ourselves; to indulge in our personal fashion tastes; to be, more so than we could previously, ourselves. I bought the original “Star Trek” series on dvd because I could think of no other television program/movie that I wanted to see more. I shall, in another piece of writing, express how valuable “Star Trek” is but I shall say here, that it was money logically spent. I have always been fascinated with the prospect of space exploration and the political, biological, psychological and economic implications of it. What it depicts is close to humanity’s ideal future (there are philosophical flaws with “Star Trek” however, again, I shall address those another time) and any person who can come across such a depiction, and has the financial means to own a copy of it for him or herself, ought to, as to have something concrete and aspirational to look at. (For that reason I bought a few other movies however, quite literally, only a handful) I bought myself a mini-dvd player so that I could study movies more intimately, while at my desk, without interrupting Ashley, whose desk is close to mine, in our room. (the dvd player in my laptop doesn’t work) Now, I want to reiterate that I am not arbitrarily listing things I spent my money on. I am demonstrating how I invested in myself, and in Ashley, and how, unfortunately, it resulted in our living paycheck to paycheck, with barely enough money to find ourselves a new room to live in. I bought Ashley and I more books, we continued to dine out often, I bought a one year subscription to Glenn Beck’s new news network (then called “GBTV), I bought myself a domain name: seanoconnoressays.com, I donated money to Dr. Ron Paul’s presidential campaign (which I now deeply regret), I donated money to Mark Violi’s production of a play entitled “Roebling” (about the Roebling bridge), and then I finally decided to start paying my old traffic tickets. My traffic tickets cost me more than I had expected. It cost me nearly $2,000 just to pay bail for two tickets (there were warrants out for my arrest because I had failed to attend court appearances), the actual fines and then get my license reinstated (because of three years of accumulated interest) just for it to be re-suspended, because I had still failed to pay for my other two traffic tickets. I decided it would be best if I found a lawyer who could help me address this problem efficiently and that I would wait until I got paid for my writing to do that. I decided to wait because it is a time consuming project and I have very little time these days: all of which is devoted to working at the grocery store for food and rent, and my writing. One day, while we were watching “The Glenn Beck Program” Glenn Beck spoke about a political activism event he, and “Freedomworks” were putting together called “Free Pac”. The event was going to be held in Dallas, Texas. I thought that attending this event would lead to my “lucky break” (as the saying goes). I shall explain. Not all of my writing is political, but some of it is. I value my freedom very, very much. If I had to, I would fight for it. (I hope I never have to do that). Here in New Jersey, where Ashley and I live, very few people seriously value their freedom. Our Republican governor, Chris Christie has no moral right to refer to himself as “fiscally conservative” and a supporter of freedom. He opposes gay marriage (he has no moral right to prevent anyone from marrying anyone) and while he takes great pride in challenging the teacher’s union, he is obsessed with public education (public, as in government run, as in, financed via forced taxation, as in, financed via theft,) and is thus teaching children that theft is okay so long as the majority of society want what is to be stolen from all of society. I realize that this a global problem, and that states like California are far worse off than New Jersey, however, the point is, Ashley and I are surrounded by people we profoundly disagree with politically, and an opportunity to meet other capitalists, just to see their faces in person, and speak with them, and enjoy the pleasure of being surrounded by those virtuous people…it would be amazing! To have the opportunity to meet people who share my political views (even if not completely, and even if they do not agree with other aspects of my ideology) meant an opportunity to promote my writing to people who would be more inclined to take interest in it than those who disagree vehemently and completely with my political views would be. Tickets to the event only cost $25. We were going. Quite like the trip Ashley and I took to Los Angeles to promote Lovers, Other Stories and Words, I invested heavily in this opportunity. Also, quite like the trip to Los Angeles, I did not achieve what I set out to achieve. This was my opportunity to shake hands, exude my confidence, my charm, and suggest to people that they take a look at the political blogs I was writing at the time. If I could get one person interested enough to take a look, and if that one person was impressed, that one person could tell a lot of other people, and it could land me an opportunity to get paid for my writing. I took this opportunity very, very seriously. Unfortunately I made a few major mistakes, but it was not a mistake to go, and it was not a mistake to promote what I had written. By that time I was, I am proud to tell you, an excellent, logical, eloquent, honest writer. My only writing flaw was that I wrote too much too fast which meant I didn’t methodically plot out my points and take my time on anything. Still, I was an excellent daily, extemporaneous writer. (A few months prior I had taken my time to write several lengthier, and much better, more concentrated essays; ones I am very proud of) The biggest mistake I made was that Ashley and I drove to Texas. (Well, she drove, and in return she got a free vacation. She didn’t have to pay for anything) We should have flown. It cost me over $1,000 to get our car fixed up for the long drive to and from Texas. On our last day in Dallas we had driven to a restaurant for lunch. When Ashley turned on the car, set to drive us back to the hotel, it wouldn’t move. We called AAA, and I gave them my mother’s membership number but they said I had to have my own membership number so I paid for one. We used the services of AAA to get the car towed. It cost $1100 to get the car repaired and I had to pay for an extra night at the hotel, and I had to pay for an extra day of food. I bought myself a cheap white suit because I wanted to present myself as uplifting, confident, and unique (most people don’t wear white suits). I bought Ashley clothes because I didn’t like buying something for myself (with money I didn’t earn) and not buying something for her. I bought audio books for Ashley and I to listen to while she drove so that we could enhance our minds. To save money we only made one stop before getting to Dallas. (We stopped in Tennessee) Hotel rooms (stops and Dallas together) cost less than $2,000 (I forget exactly how much) and I was quite liberal with dining expenses because, after all, Ashley drove me all the way to Texas, and was going to drive me back, just as a show of support for my writing. I was going to treat her to the best meals I could. That’s not to say we ate at expensive, fancy restaurants, but I wasn’t frugal. It just so happened that there was a store that sold custom made business cards, and it was only a few blocks away from the hotel we stayed at so I paid for 500 business cards. This way, when I shook peoples’ hands, and suggested my website to them, I could also give them, as a reminder, my business card. The event didn’t play out as I had expected it to. I imagined that everybody there would be a political activist, and that everybody (I say everybody, but I mean it figuratively, I mean….most of the people there) would want to meet as many like-minded individuals as they could and would exchange information with each other, et cetera. By that I mean, I thought the people there would be a lot more serious about their activism. Quite to the contrary. Most of the people there came in large groups and spoke amongst themselves before the event’s speakers began. One of the speakers took questions from the audience. This I believed, would be my big opportunity. All I had to do was come up with the most profound question, ask it eloquently, with charm, almost as if I were screen testing for a part in a movie, and leave an impression on everybody who heard me; an impression that I was smart, thoughtful, interesting and worth meeting. So I raised my hand and the speaker called on me. Here is the essence of what I asked (I do not recall what I said verbatim): “My girlfriend and I drove here from New Jersey, which is a heavily democratic state, and the town we live in is almost completely democratic. I attended one town hall meeting and raised the issue of taxes, insisting that they had to be lowered, and that we need to stop spending money if for no other reason because the country is broke, it is in over $16 trillion of debt, which effects each of us, no matter where we live. Nobody cared. Everybody there ignored me. So my question is: what can I do when everybody I am surrounded by is opposed to capitalism?” The speaker did give a very decent answer, and indeed, several people did approach me, tell me I asked a good question, told me a little about themselves, and I got the opportunity to give them my business card, tell them about my website, et cetera. In fact, some days later, at a hotel where Ashley and I phone banked for congressional candidate Ted Cruz, I saw Buck Sexton, (a former member of the CIA, and an analyst for The Real News on Glenn Beck’s network The Blaze) I gave him my card as well. Unfortunately, if anyone did visit my website they were not impressed. My website continued to get very few views. I honestly expected that at least one of them would have taken a look at my website, that night, or the next day, found it impressive, sent me an email saying so, and tell his or her friends they ought to read my blog posts. This was extremely, extremely disappointing and I grew severely depressed. So when my car broke down, and I was going to have to pay another thousand dollars, my depression was grew more intense. After seeing how exhausting the drive was from Dallas to Kentucky for Ashley (on our way back to New Jersey) I realized it was immoral of me to have allowed her to go so long without sleep. So the next day I suggested that she call her boss and request an extra day off. Her boss agreed to give Ashley the extra day off so we stopped early in West Virginia, and just enjoyed the evening. It only cost me $100 for a room (in fact it was a suite, with a jacuzzi!). We ate at a decent Mexican restaurant, bought cheap champagne, and watched the Olympics together. Despite my intense depression, it was an extraordinary, romantic, peaceful, relaxing, and spiritual night. Despite how delightful that evening was I did something stupid. By stupid I mean irrational. By irrational I mean, motivated purely by emotional whim. I was so disappointed in my failure that I needed a high…so I bought myself a digital camera. When we returned to New Jersey I decided I was done with politics, done with writing, and would find some other form of artistic expression for myself: photography. But after a week or two of taking pictures, I was bored, so then I bought my self a camcorder and decided I would make short, artistic moving pictures, promote them on youtube, and become successful this way. Plus….I thought: this will be easier than selling literature, it will be subtle; there will be nothing explicitly, blatantly political or philosophical or controversial so people will be more likely to find it interesting; more likely to pay me for it. So I made short little movies for about two months but then, one night, I couldn’t sleep because my mind was filled with so many thoughts. I didn’t have to write, I didn’t have to make movies, but I could create a video blog series, and just talk extemporaneously, every day, about everything that’s on my mind. I named this video blog series “Thrive”. Unfortunately throughout the photography-movie-video blog phase I spent a lot of money on taxis. In fact, it “ran me dry” (as the expression goes). I spent the last of my inherited money on that. As you may recall, I didn’t have a license and sometimes Ashley had to be at her job before I had to be at mine and that meant, either I would have to get a ride from her to my job early (which meant I wouldn’t be able to work on photography, filmmaking, or video blogging) or I would have to take a taxi to get to the job on time. I chose the latter because I did not want a day to go by in which I was not working, for as long as I could, on these projects, both the content and the promotion. After spending a month on “Thrive” I realized I was gaffing too much, and thus making an idiot out of myself in front of the few people who watched the video blog, and that it would be better if I wrote out everything I wanted to say. Yes, t’was back to literature. As I wrote to you a little earlier, sometimes when we invest in ourselves we fail to achieve our ideals. Sometimes we lose a tremendous deal of money. Some people in fact, die, in the pursuit of their ideals, such as some of the men who fought for America’s independence and freedom. Some people realize those who they thought were their friends, are in fact, not their friends. Some people, in the rational pursuit of their ideals, have to cut all ties with their family members. In any event, the measure of success in a person’s pursuit of his or her ideals is neither how much money was earned, nor how much popularity was gained. The measure of a person’s success is in the degree of over all enhancement of his or her life. Is my life today, despite my poverty, and my lack of readers, worse than it was when I was nineteen? Absolutely not! Is my life better now- with almost no money- than it was when I had still had thousands of dollars? Yes! Yes! Yes! Here is why: because with the exception of the five hundred dollars I spent on a digital camera, and a camcorder, I invested all of my other resources- all my time, all my money, all my effort, all my thought, all my soul- in my success as an artist and a philosopher. It is not my fault if others do not enjoy my literature and thus, my poverty is not entirely my fault. The fact is: it is possible that I will be poor for the rest of my life, and like Edgar Allen Poe (a most disturbing, unpleasant writer) my literature may only reach a large audience after my death. I accept that. But it is also possible that you, readers, throughout the course of this letter, have gained a degree of respect for me, and thus deem me worth helping. If, in your judgement, I am worthy of your assistance, would you please give my stories and essays a read, share my literature with your friends, co-workers, and family? If you do, and enough people read and furthermore enjoy my literature, and discuss it, and want to read more, it could very likely land me a book publishing deal which could give me the opportunity to quit my job at the grocery store and devote myself to writing and studying. I am open to other forms of assistance: your donation or sponsorship, a place to live; maybe something you have in mind which I have failed to consider. I would be most grateful. (If you would like to contact me you may at [email protected]) For the purpose of eloquently concluding this letter to you, I want to convey to you what you can gain a great deal by offering me assistance. By gain, I mean, what I hope, in your life, can be enhanced by my literature. This gain, I confess, will not be possible unless you passionately care about humanity’s future. I say that, not in an altruistic sense but rather for your own sake, since the state of the universe and the fate of humanity affects us all. (For example, if a psychotic dictator managed to get a hold of nuclear weapons and detonate them all it would obviously affect every or nearly every living human) I hope you hope that humanity never goes extinct. I hope you love to contemplate what humanity might, could, and ought to achieve, develop and enhance. I do not suggest that you should demand of yourself that you somehow, single handedly save the world. What I am suggesting is that you acknowledge that things are far from ideal. I shall offer you just one example, as to keep this conclusion succinct. The United States federal government is in over $16 trillion of debt. That is a very, very serious cultural and political problem. A country’s debt reveals a lot about it’s culture; a lot about it’s individual citizens. If the majority of citizens of a particular country pursued their ideals and knew the importance of pursuing those ideals, their government would never, ever accumulate $16 trillion of debt! Debt isn’t ideal. When a democratic government is in that much debt it reveals that a lot of its citizens are worse than merely “unproductive”. It reveals that they are wasteful, ungrateful, decadent, lazy, and that their only means of survival is violence; a type of violence that is sanctioned by a political principle of unlimited majority rule, i.e., democracy that is based, not on freedom but rather, whatever the majority wants, even if the majority wants violence and theft. Consider what it is that causes people to be unproductive, wasteful, and violent. It is not arbitrary. It comes from their ideology; their fundamental principles; their priorities; and how they spend their money, their time, their thoughts, their values. I demonstrated that throughout the course of this letter; specifically the first part of it, where I explain my major mistakes, and what I was thinking when I made those mistakes. The root of today’s federal debt and the violent behavior of those most responsible for the constant increase of that debt consists of: irrational principles, poor priorities, and no awareness of their ideals. My literature is all about the rational pursuit of ideals. My stories are visions of ideal circumstances: a genius artist getting paid twenty five million dollars for his pictures of humanity’s ideal future, a restaurant owner being condemned by a former employee for silencing and degrading his employees, a young and happily married couple seducing each other on a spacious balcony under a full moon and overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, a young and intelligent twenty seven year old capitalist running for congress. My essays explain why a particular ideal (or ideals) is (or are) in fact ideal, and what is either preventing or helping those particular ideals from being achieved. To name a few examples: apathy is condemned, a proposal for a Capitalist U.S. space exploration and colonization policy is offered and explained, the difference between “ideology” and “philosophy” is explained, Glenn Beck is praised for producing cultural commentary, as well as a news network that is superior to all the other major media corporations but he is condemned for preaching altruism and critiqued for preaching Christianity. Readers, the quality of life in this world will continue to decline if people continue to be apathetic, lazy, wasteful, and violent; if they do not consider the things I write about. History shows exactly how such societies turn out. Perhaps one of the most profound examples (and thus one that is very often cited) is what happened in Germany as Hitler rose to power. We must keep in mind- as many virtuous commentators constantly point out- that Hitler’s rise to power was the product of a democracy. The economy was bad. The country was in tremendous debt. The currency was inflated. People were apathetic, lazy, violent, hateful, envious, and wasteful. A very psychotic, clever, deceptive, determined man took advantage of their ignorance; it led to many, many, many unnecessary tragedies. It is a culture’s literature, education, media, and more broadly it’s market place, that defines its direction. I am offering you literature; a product that can help enhance our present culture; that can make it more pleasant; closer to the ideal; literature that is a pleasure to read. I have one concluding point to make. There are three reasons why I haven’t written a conventional query letter to publishing companies and literary agencies. First of all: the conventional query letter, at least in the context of today’s culture- as I have just illustrated- is altruistic: the goal is to try and guess what a publisher or agent would like to read (if they even bother to read your query letter), not explain to them why the writer’s manuscript is an essential read. Secondly: my literature is controversial and could not be published by conventional publishers. Only the pioneers will find me interesting and worth selling. I believe pioneers in the publishing industry are bored of query letters and are bored with the literary industry’s conventions and lack of intriguing, intellectual content. I envision someone extremely ambitious who is searching for literature to publish that is profoundly different from and better than everything else in the market. Third: even if I sent my literature to a publishing company or literary agent who could offer me a book publishing deal; it isn’t as important as gaining readership. I can reach more readers more quickly by promoting this letter online and elsewhere than by merely sending it to publishers and agents who sometimes don’t even read what they are sent, let alone comprehend its value and meaning. Readers, thank you very, very much for your time. I wish you achieved ideals. Sincerely, Sean O’Connor