Category: Commentary, Critique, and Response

http://propertarianism.com/reading-list/CRITICISM 😉

While there are certainly good books on this list, the vast majority are produced under Critical Theory (“Critique”) rather than the reason by which the west dragged mankind kicking and screaming out of superstition, ignorance, poverty, starvation, disease, and tyranny – we did it for fun and profit.

If I cross the dependence upon Critical Theory off the list, and preserve the dependence upon the Domestication of Man, we will have a much smaller list.

I won’t get into the Personal Signaling involved or the Group Evolutionary Strategies involved, but I am not sure why any group of intellectuals would embrace critical theory except for signaling (status seeking) purposes under the pretense of intelligence and insight.

We did not drag man kicking and screaming into modernity for moral reasons. We did it for profit. And it just so happens that our method of profit produced moral ends.

We domesticated mankind by aggressively killing off the underclass just as did the east asians, and doing so by manorialism, aggressive hanging, ostracization, disease, and war.

The west evolved faster than the rest by cultural biases we barely understand, and the culling of the terrible drag underclasses place on civilizations.

Conversely, the civilizations having the greatest trouble with modernity are those with undomesticated, un-culled, underclasses. The reason being quite simple: the benefit of people above average is about 1/6 the cost of each person below average. It’s not complicated. it’s just math.

========

The Romanist Contrarian Chronicle

The Romanist Contrarian Chronicle What on earth did I just read, why does it have basically nothing to do with the actual list (most of the books are critical theory? Dafuq?) and since when does Curt Doolittle follow this page?

=========

Curt Doolittle

(I collect book lists, for use in comparison of underlying assumptions (biases, priors) and someone forwarded it to me, so I followed your page.)

Critical theory rests on an extension of the assumption of the Rousseauian vision of man as oppressed, and offers a criticism of western civilization from that assumption. All works of historical reference can be divided by the assumptions of the authors notion of mans nature and the possibility of action.

These assumptions can be categorized as the fallen angel vs risen beast; or dionysian vs apollonian; or Whig History vs Rousseauian; or Critical Theory vs Western Heroic Tradition; dysgenic advocacy vs Eugenic advocacy; or any other variation on the theme.

In reviewing your list there are a disproportionate number of fallen angel, dionysian, rousseauian, critical theorist, dysgenicist works.

From what I can gather, it appears that the sentimental bias of this group is optimistic and romantic in the literary continental enlightenment tradition, and preserving individualism.

We can work with meaning, method of argument, persuasion or discourse, or the underlying assumptions that meaning and method rely upon. By weighing the choices in the book list it’s rather obvious that the assumtpions, meaning, and method, are what they are.

This form of ‘survey’ is usually the most objective method of determining the political, moral, ethical, and personal biases of individuals and groups.

You probably don’t care but if someone finds this level of discourse interesting, its always worth a few words.

Why is it that of available books, one chooses the books one does?

(Its fascinating actually. because we self report very differently than we demonstrate.)

-Cheers

==========

The Romanist Contrarian Chronicle

The Romanist Contrarian Chronicle Like, you’re just so off the mark that its almost impossible to dispute your assumptions/interpretations because they feel like they’re being pulled out of thin air rather than an actual read through of the list. I’m just going to go ahead and assume you aren’t familiar with most of the books here if you think they’re mostly critical theory. Because objectively, that just isn’t true. Most of them don’t even deal with the question of oppression vs glorious rise or whatever your associate with critical theory.

But its fascinating to have direct confirmation of everything I’ve ever heard about you. =)

==========

Curt Doolittle

So you mean you don’t understand the point I was making, right? Because you clearly didn’t reference anything I said other than the original anchor. So, It’s not that I’m off the mark. It’s that we lack sufficient common ground for the discussion.

Easy experiment: take the first 16 books. For each book what is the statement it is making about western civilization? Given the number of positions and books written in that period, why would one choose those topics rather than the other topics that are available? Now, compare those with the books written prewar on the same subject. What’s the distribution of underlying theories?

That requires a good bit more knowledge than you possess I’m quite certain, but you can at least take a shot at it.

Here is my reading list. Look at the difference in the lists and the arguments.

http://propertarianism.com/reading-list/

Look at every faction’s reading list. Look at the form of arguments those books make.

Learn something that isn’t in the books, but is only visible by looking at the assumptions, methods of arguments that they are made in each book in relation to other books.

CLOSING

I go hunting for people. I find them. They find me. That’s the reason I do these things.

That’s why I collect the followers I do, and others the followers they do.

if you cannot make a strictly constructed argument in operational language and grammar and demonstrate consistency in every dimension, then you can’t follow the work, just like some people can’t follow the calculus, or programming languages.

It’s OK to go separate ways. But the only way for me to find people of that capacity is to ask questions in a structure that those people will understand and others wont.

But I can’t just let you get away with demonstrated incomprehension as if it’s my fault. That’s allowing you to lie in order to cover up your incomprehension. 😉 I”m not an apologist for the pretense of knowledge. That’s not my job. Truth is.

And that right there is what truth is all about…. Decidability independent of frames of reference.

Cheers. 😉