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Courageous Individualism in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” and the Film “Cool Hand Luke” (2003) – Essay by G. Stolyarov II

Courageous Individualism in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” and the Film “Cool Hand Luke” (2003) – Essay by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
July 28, 2014
******************************
Note from the Author: This essay was originally written in 2003 and published on Associated Content (subsequently, Yahoo! Voices) in 2007.  The essay earned over 6,300 page views on Associated Content/Yahoo! Voices, and I seek to preserve it as a valuable resource for readers, subsequent to the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices. Therefore, this essay is being published directly on The Rational Argumentator for the first time.  
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~ G. Stolyarov II, July 28, 2014

**

“For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure,” writes Ralph Waldo Emerson in his renowned treatise, Self-Reliance. For nonconformity, the world also forces you to pave roads in the scorching heat, dig ditches only to fill them again later, and, of course, spend nights in the box. Both Emerson and the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke emphasize the repression and intimidation that a man of greatness encounters in a regimented, entrenched society. Yet both Emerson’s vision of the self-reliant man and the integrity of Lucas Jackson persevere through any and all barriers imposed upon them by the dictates of others. The lessons of individual dignity and the autonomy of one’s mind can be applied to the creator man who seeks to triumph amid the atmosphere of today’s world as well.

Through cultural norms and stigmatization, as well as outright coercive actions, certain societies seek to shackle the men of creativity and initiative. Lucas Jackson is imprisoned in a “corrective road prison” for the grievous crime of cutting off the heads of several public parking meters. The parking meters themselves are symbolic of societal restraint on individual freedom and choice. By arbitrary fiat of local government, the meters place a cap on the duration of time for which an individual can place his car at a particular location, thus limiting the amount of time an individual can spend going about his own business in the vicinity and diverting an individual’s funds into the stagnant coffers of bureaucracy. Luke’s destruction of the parking meters reflects the individualist’s attempt to defy societal restrictions. Though he is drunk and semi-conscious, he nevertheless directs his actions not toward some wanton spree of murder or theft but toward the elimination of a nuisance to individual liberty. In return, society lashes at him with the fullest extent of its brute force, as he is apprehended, arrested, and locked in a facility where his own liberty becomes virtually nil. Even had he murdered, Luke’s ultimate punishment would likely not have been as severe, for the totalitarian environment of the prison will eventually kill him for his adamant individualism.

Luke’s genuine trials begin when he no longer faces the law as applied to free citizens, but the petty whims of his prison bosses. Emerson’s work analyzes the consequences of such a transformation of environment. “It is easy enough for a firm man who knows the world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes. But… when the unintelligent brute force that lies at the bottom of society is made to growl and mow, it needs the habit of magnanimity… to treat it godlike as a trifle of no concernment.” Emerson’s statement was meant as a general social commentary. The dominant-paradigm-entrenched academic or big government advocate may treat the freethinker with aversion, stigma, and heated criticism, which amount to mere grumbling at the sidelines of the individualist’s path. But when the men who wallow and revel in ignorance, sloth, and brutality are invested with the capacity to direct a better man’s fate, the man of reason and initiative will encounter the most infernal conditions possible.

The prison bosses are the most uncultured and sadistic of men outside the Gestapo. Boss Godfrey’s hobby is, put plainly, to shoot things. After Luke’s first escape, Godfrey, with a grim equanimity, blows the head off a rattlesnake in the grass. In the final showdown of the bosses with Luke near the church, Godfrey will with a similarly unperturbed conscience launch a bullet through Luke’s chest. Boss Paul is a man who loves to bring about and witness the writhing and suffering of the prisoners; after Luke’s second escape, Paul orders him to dig a ditch only to conspire with another boss for the latter to periodically come by and inform Luke that forming the ditch is against prison rules. These frequent recurrences of contradictory instructions are accompanied by beatings intended to force Luke down on his knees in utter submission, pleading for mercy. They are ultimately aimed not at his body, but at his spirit, thrusting a rational, aspiring man into a realm of the chaotic, incompatible, unknowable, and savage. This is the lowest of the unintelligent brute force that Emerson addresses, worse than even the hollers and threats of the rabble that occasionally befall a free man.

The unlivable realm of the prison is rendered even more so by the Captain’s mocking friendliness, a façade, with the essence of despotism lying hidden not too deeply underneath. The Captain regularly speaks with a deliberately soothing voice, informing the prisoners that “We are trying to help you here. We are doing this for your own good.” Emerson, viewing the matter from the perspective of the individualist, realizes the gross fallacy of such a claim. He writes, “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.” The Captain is such a man, who holds that the ultimate good is the blind obedience of a regimented automaton to his social engineers. But the Captain’s philosophy on its own is a wobbly construct that would crumble upon meeting the first wind of greatness, were it not reinforced by the fist, the rifle, and the sweat and blood of its prey. When Luke objects to the Captain’s mentality, stating, “You shouldn’t be so kind to me, Captain,” thereby rejecting the Captain’s idea of “help,” he is struck violently to the ground. Then the Captain resumes his tone of mocking kindness, pronouncing, “What we’ve had here is a failure to communicate.” According to the Captain, the man of independence must either renounce it willingly or renounce it through the imposition of societally legitimized brute force. In any case, renounce it he must, and if pseudo-polite paternalistic exhortations fail, the growl and lunge of the worst elements possible in man will bring about the social engineers’ aim.

Few men less deserving than Luke had ever been thrust into such hostile surroundings, from which physical escape will be met with pursuit and mental dissent with the box or the fist. Yet even there, Luke, and Emerson’s vision of the independent spirit, are able to persevere. From the beginning, when Carl lists all the innumerable infractions for which one can be put in the box, Luke is not intimidated. He responds with a relaxed shrug and presents his characteristic Luke smile, then anticipates that Carl’s next sentence will end with “a night in the box.” Carl notices that Luke is not the typical “new meat” prisoner and asks with an authoritative voice, “Well, what have we got here?” Unflinchingly, Luke responds, “We got a Lucas Jackson.” Luke possesses a firm pride in his identity and inherent human dignity, qualities that he will not permit a regimented environment to shatter. Emerson writes: “I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.” Luke epitomizes this philosophy when he neglects to degrade himself to the level of the standard “new meat” prison novice. He refuses to subordinate the fact of his existence to Dragline’s decision to recognize him as a significant member of the prison community. He realizes that he needs not the recognition of others in order to exhibit his self-worth or actualize his potential, but rather that those characteristics flow from within himself.

Initially, Luke’s open defiance of a long-standing prison tradition is met with great indignation and outright aggression on the part of his peers and Dragline. Luke adheres to the expression of the truth as observed by his mind, no matter how controversial, displeasing, or unconventional such honesty may be. Emerson writes, “I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways,” and Luke agrees. When Luke does not hesitate to assert his reason in regard to Dragline’s needless lust-filled commentary concerning a woman he had spotted during a round of work, he encounters the climax of Dragline’s rage. Luke is challenged to a fight, and repeatedly pummeled to the ground. Yet he remains adamant and continues to stand every time, not intending to devastate Dragline so much as to assert that such tactics of brute aggression will not conquer him. Luke recovers from every failure, ever-ready to recover and fight another round. Like the Emersonian man of all professions and opportunities, Luke “always like a cat falls on his feet. He has not once chance, but a hundred chances.” And, using one of those chances, Luke wins the fight in a far more meaningful way than would have been if Dragline were physically subdued. He is able to earn Dragline’s deepest respect through his resiliency, as Dragline realizes that this man of persistence, conviction, and integrity is not a cynical upstart, but rather a valuable potential friend.

Through the firm exercise of his creativity and autonomy, Luke is able to beautify the social conditions of his circle of fellow inmates and earn a general, profound, lasting respect. In order to do this, Luke implicitly recognizes another Emersonian insight: “Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.” If Luke had merely fallen in line with “the way things had always been done” in the prison, he would have encountered the same arduous, scorching, monotonous routine, a condition deliberately intended to stunt his ambitions and aspirations. When the prison bosses “reward” Luke’s gang for exemplary work by delegating to it a colossal road tarring job, Luke encourages his comrades to labor to their fullest capacity and finish the endeavor at a far swifter pace than had been expected of them. He realizes that an intelligent approach that facilitates coordinated activity among the members of the group would both accomplish the task and frame it as a challenge to be aspired toward in the minds of the prisoners. Luke transcends what has been assigned to him and transforms the dull routine into a search for his own objective, leisure time that is immensely difficult to acquire in a road prison. One he establishes the tempo of work, all the other members of his gang gravitate toward his approach and undertake a lively, motivated effort. This is reminiscent of Emerson’s proposition that men will come to admire and uphold the man of intrinsic determination and self-reliance, that, in the grand scheme of events, every institution is but “the lengthened shadow of one man,” the man who dared to introduce a radical change in the way a given matter was approached. Ultimately, not only is the ardor of the assignment alleviated by the workers’ internal drive, but they receive additional leisure afterward to use as they please.

Even as prison conditions become intolerable, Luke does not surrender his will to freedom up to the inevitable climax of the life-or-death struggle between him and his totalitarian overlords. Upon the death of Luke’s mother, the bosses seek to amplify his misery by sentencing him to three nights in the box, intended to decisively strike at his mind while it was still recovering from a blow. Luke realizes that no amount of ingenious coping, no invention of lively leisure activities of poker games, road tarring races, and egg-eating events will conceal the grim realities of the inhuman, whimsical, arbitrary condition imposed upon him. He must, and he will, liberate his body and his mind. After a failed escape attempt, he does not hesitate to stage another, despite the increased vigilance of the bosses. Man of reason that he is, he is able to spot the deficiencies of every one of his plans. The first escape, he is apprehended by a policeman due to the suspicious appearance of his prison clothes. During the second escape, he largely evades “civilized” roadways until he is able to remove his chains and mislead the prison dogs. Nevertheless, he is unable to fully disable his abusers’ means of pursuit. His third escape, co-orchestrated with Dragline, is a brilliantly executed theft of all the prison vehicles’ keys and use of one of the trucks to drive considerably far away from the prison prior to continuing the journey on foot. Every time, Luke is able to, through his autonomous thought, revise his errors and fall on his feet once more. Had he grasped but one more key Emersonian insight, he might have survived in body. “It is only as a man puts off all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner.” Luke’s escape jointly with Dragline is his crucial mistake, for Dragline remains unable to fend for himself when necessity compels the two of them to split up. He lacks Luke’s tactical ingenuity and quickly falls into the hands of the search parties from the prison, leading them to Luke, misled into believing that Luke’s voluntary surrender, and the sparing of his life, could be achieved. Dragline, however well-intentioned, remains a follower, subject to the mercy of higher forces, be it the positive influence of Luke, or the soothing promises of the Captain. Dragline is not of the “class of great men,” in that his longings and hopes had all been derived from his admiration of Luke, not the products of his own mind.

Dragline does not expect his compliance to bring about Luke’s demise, but Luke, true to his nature, cannot bear to accept confinement once more. Instead of blindly subverting himself to the bosses, he proudly steps to the window of the church and announces, echoing the Captain’s one-time words, that “what we’ve had here is a failure to communicate.” Mr. Jackson recognizes that he is not to blame for not falling in line with prison impositions, but rather that the bosses had grossly misjudged his nature by seeking to stifle it “for his own good.” Yet the bosses come not in pursuit of communication, but of blood. Realizing that the individualist always shall overcome every form of degradation and every barrier, the bosses, with Godfrey as their agent, seek to render it impossible for Luke to ever rise again.

Thus ends the life of Lucas Jackson, but not the integrity that characterized it. Dragline realizes that no negotiation, no compromise, between freedom and submission are possible, and lunges at Godfrey, leading to the destruction of the boss’s grim and concealing sunglasses. Before he is imprisoned once more, Dragline at last rises to the level of grasping that, which is beyond persecution. “What the man acquires is living property, which does not wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, or revolutions, or fire, or storm, or bankruptcies, but perpetually renews itself wherever the man breathes.” The dauntless innovation and longing for liberty in the autonomous man cannot be dethroned by any physical means; it can only be diminished by a voluntary subordination of the individual’s mind to tyranny, which Luke had refused to accommodate. The legacy of Luke thus lingers on, as he remains, in Dragline’s words, “a natural born world shaker,” whose radiant smile and confident posture remain vivid in the prisoner’s minds. In its own characteristic way, Luke’s greatness has been released from the box and into eternity, as “the triumph of his principles” has at last granted him peace. What remains for the living prisoners is to discover on their own what Luke had known, and rely on his example as a steppingstone, but not a definitive standard, for their autonomous development.

The relevance of Luke’s example and Emerson’s message to the political situation today is of greater magnitude than it has ever been. Today, if parking meters were the only restriction placed on our autonomy, or if a mere widespread facetiousness in human interactions, of the manner that Emerson denounced, had afflicted our society, we would have been living in a comparatively promising and free world. Alas, the scope of our current confinement by far exceeds this.

The government of this country has usurped almost every sphere of human activity, shackling the creative entrepreneurial innovators through “antitrust” laws, restricting the amount of market share a business may through its owners’ skill and the quality of its product acquire. It has erected barriers to the advancement of thoughtful freethinkers by the imposition of affirmative action initiatives that prevent their attainment of education for faults not their own. It has presumed to dictate to businessmen and settlers what forms of land usage are permissible by standard of societal sanction, through laws of eminent domain and environmental preserves that force men to “absolve themselves in the reflex way” not only to their neighbors and the community, but the bureaucrats, the lobbyists, the endangered spotted slugs and numb lifeless rocks. It has imposed a quasi-prison environment on the young people of this country through the encouragement of forced volunteerism, in menial tasks similar to road tarring, within the schools, and the impending fear of the military draft that will make Godfreys of our officers and “new meat” of our boys, which the politicians implicitly advocate by maintaining draft registration. And all disagreement is reduced to virtually naught, since the freethinkers (often prosperous, industrious men) are extorted for gargantuan sums of their income to fund this socialist behemoth. Some of this income is expended in false philanthropy, becoming the “wicked dollar” that Emerson did not wish to give, that is used to uphold in a state of prison-like dependency hordes of welfare recipients who can be counted on to vote in their overlord incumbents and by the sheer volume of their holler overrule all dissent in the passage of the next statist subversion of liberty. And if any of these intelligent voices dissents by refusing to sacrifice his money for causes that will do him harm, the full weight of government retaliation is borne upon him. What can a man of independent convictions and self-reliant disposition do in such a setting, that grows more restrictive by the day?

Henry David Thoreau, Emerson’s friend and fellow thinker, tried the tactic of civil disobedience in defiance of a tax that was used to fund what was in his opinion an unjustified Mexican War. Thoreau was thrown in prison and, though he demonstrated considerable fortitude of conviction, he did not defeat the tax. Emerson’s fellow abolitionist and friend John Brown attempted to, through an armed raid on Harper’s Ferry, unseat an institution of slavery, which was backed by the coercive hand of big government, with only a handful of arms and supporters. He was executed for the attempt, and, though he became a martyr for the abolitionist cause, he did not defeat slavery. Lucas Jackson confronted the nuisance of parking meters with the saw and the cruelties of the prison with escapes. He, too, received a bullet in the chest in the end and failed to eradicate the root of his sufferings. Though all three of those men preserved their dignity intact through their punishments, they did not accomplish their aims, for they overlooked the fact that the complete triumph of individualism requires another approach.

Of the individualist, Emerson writes that “the moment he acts from himself, tossing the laws, the books, idolatries, and customs out of the window, we pity him no more, but thank and revere him, — and that teacher shall restore the life of man to splendor, and make his name dear to all history. It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views.” Emerson advocates not an armed revolution, nor even overt disobedience of the law, but rather a mode of living that exemplifies a man who loves, and takes advantage of, the freedom to use his mind. Emerson did not go to prison for tax evasion; nor did he start a slave revolt; nor would he have decapitated parking meters today. Nevertheless, his ideas and influence have spread to the present day in precisely the manner that he intended. He did not wish to be worshipped as an idol or regarded as an unquestionable sage, but rather to give men a stimulus to more closely examine their habits and the capacities that only they can unleash from within. Rather, he is a thinker who should be analyzed with a critical intelligence, and whose views should serve as useful tools and steppingstones, but not finished products or ends-in-themselves.

Emerson’s key proposition in regard to self-reliance as a vehicle for reform is that voluntary persuasion and personal example can eliminate a societal peril. In a man’s every implicit gesture, he reveals a certain mode of function that is inextricably tied to his nature. “Your genuine action will explain itself and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing.”

A man who opposes the usurpations of government, or the spread of cultural decadence, or the increasing “faraway escapes” that many modern men seek from their lives, must speak firmly and act firmly for the establishment of a freer world where individual creativity is left unbridled. He should not cower for fear that the public will reject his claims simply because he does not hold two and half Ph. Ds in the subject that he addresses. The Ph. Ds themselves are too often handed out by the zealous guardians of the current political and cultural paradigm, the entrenched academic elites who endlessly cite Marx, Roosevelt, and Keynes, and preach “of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations.” If deference to authority and the miserable record of the ages in the political sphere is abandoned, and the clarity and logic of the advocates of freedom is exposed, then, as the fellow inmates reached toward Luke, the public will gravitate toward the new, original, promising thinkers who uphold as their highest value the individual’s intrinsic right to exist and to be let alone. The politicians will abandon their pragmatic give-and-take approach to matters where liberty is at stake, and will realize that only the triumph of solid, uncompromising principles within them will maintain them the support of a reformed constituency.

The Brotherhood’s Anti-Individualistic View of History in Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” (2005) – Essay by G. Stolyarov II

The Brotherhood’s Anti-Individualistic View of History in Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” (2005) – Essay by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
July 28, 2014
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Note from the Author: This essay was originally written in 2005 and published on Associated Content (subsequently, Yahoo! Voices) in 2007.  The essay earned over 11,500 page views on Associated Content/Yahoo! Voices, and I seek to preserve it as a valuable resource for readers, subsequent to the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices. Therefore, this essay is being published directly on The Rational Argumentator for the first time.  
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~ G. Stolyarov II, July 28, 2014

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In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, the Brotherhood subscribes to a view of history that inherently and deliberately disregards the individual personalities and interests of the Narrator and the people of Harlem whom the narrator seeks to inspire to action.

The Brotherhood’s theory of history is that of an impersonal force, in which individuals are mere actors fulfilling purposes far larger than themselves. Upon introducing the Narrator to the Brotherhood, Brother Jack explains this theory to him: “So it isn’t a matter of whether you wish to be the new Booker T. Washington, my friend. Booker Washington was resurrected today… He came out from the anonymity of the crowd and spoke to the people” (307).

According to Jack, the Narrator was speaking not for himself, but as a mouthpiece for Washington’s historical legacy, which “the people” continue to require under the present circumstances. The speech, suggests Jack, was made not with the narrator’s private interests in mind but as a response to “the people’s appeal” (307). Thus, the Brotherhood theory states that history is shaped by an enormous collective agent, “the people.” Somebody has to provide a “scientific” understanding of this determining force, however, and such a role is conveniently fulfilled by the Brotherhood itself.

Jack reveals the true implication of this role when he states of the Brotherhood committee’s purpose, “We do not shape our policies to the mistaken and infantile notions of the man in the street. Our job is not to ask them what they think but to tell them” (473). The Brotherhood defines history as a force shaped by the people’s will, while the Brotherhood defines “the people’s will” and thereby shapes history. Due to the strict hierarchical organization of the Brotherhood, its central committee, by this theory, is the principal definer and mover of history. Thus, the Brotherhood’s theory of history is doubly layered. On face, it seems to reflect the people’s desires, but, in its underlying essence, it is but a means of asserting the committee’s power over the people.

If history is whatever the committee chooses it to be, all others, be they working for the brotherhood or outside it, are mere instruments to this end. Once the Narrator dares challenge this view by taking initiative to organize Clifton’s funeral, Brother Jack unapologetically reveals the idea’s core: “For all of us, the committee does the thinking. For all of us. And you were hired to talk” (470). Jack and the committee do not permit their subordinates even a marginal degree of autonomy in actually determining the goals and purposes which the people, and thus history, will be animated by. The Narrator is only allowed to shape means, not ends, and only to a highly limited extent.

By inculcating the creed of sacrifice and denouncing “opportunists” and “petty individualists” (400-1), the committee hopes that its subordinates will voluntarily and systematically forego their personal ambitions and ideas, no matter how justified, in favor of the committee’s wishes, simply because the committee wished them. Since others are not allowed to shape history, the committee is thus able to hold firmly onto its reins and convince its Brotherhood minions that the only way to be “within history” is to follow the Brotherhood. The Narrator falls fully into this trap when questioning the motives for Clifton’s departure from the Brotherhood, asking, “Why should a man deliberately plunge outside of history and peddle an obscenity… Why should he choose to disarm himself, give up his voice and leave the only organization offering him a chance to ‘define’ himself?” (438).

The very notion that the only manner in which an individual can define his identity and act efficaciously within the context of history is to serve the Brotherhood can only follow from the Brotherhood’s own idea of history as defined by the Brotherhood. The irony that befalls the Narrator and other loyal Brotherhood subjects is that, in thinking that serving the Brotherhood’s idea is the sole way to preserve their historical agency, they in fact renounce the only true historical agency anyone can have, the agency of autonomous, self-directing individuals.

The Devastating Effects of Collectivism and Affirmative Action in India (2003) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

The Devastating Effects of Collectivism and Affirmative Action in India (2003) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
July 26, 2014
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Note from the Author: This essay was originally written in 2003 and published  on Associated Content (subsequently, Yahoo! Voices) in 2007.  I seek to preserve it as a valuable resource for readers, subsequent to the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices. Therefore, this essay is being published directly on The Rational Argumentator for the first time.  
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~ G. Stolyarov II, July 26, 2014

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In a milieu of collectivistic perceptions, the most thoughtful and aspiring individuals are always sacrificed to the demon of stereotype. India is plagued today by a system of reservations and affirmative action which, from the university to the workplace to the parliament, establishes quotas and preferential treatment for so-called “backward castes” and “other backward castes” (OBCs) for no reason but that of their caste status and their ancestors‘ oppression by the millennia-old caste hierarchy.

Caste-consciousness in the past had precluded aspiring lower-caste individuals from holding occupations beyond the menial and repulsive, such as street-sweeping, manual toilet-cleaning, and funerary work. Education had been withheld from them by force, and it was thought better, in the words of the god Krishna, “to do one’s own duty poorly than to do another’s duty well.”

This notion of deterministic duty, the opposite of self-determined volition, is the key to any collectivist system which seeks to ingrain an individual’s “place in society” into him. Today, the official direction of collectivist prejudice has been inverted, but its essence, rooted in caste-consciousness, remains the same. In the words of author Shashi Tharoor, in today’s India, “you cannot go forward unless you are a Backward.” The Federal Government reserves 50 percent of parliamentary seats and university positions for lower castes, while numerous state governments have raised the bar to 80 percent.

In 1992, when the affirmative-action system rose to that degree, tens of top university students born into “upper castes” but never personally conducting any crime of institutionalized discrimination committed suicide by self-immolation in outrage that their prospects for future prosperity had been robbed from them by collectivist quotas. Intellect, character, and determination are discarded in any system of institutionalized collectivism. Either one is barred from advancement as a member of a traditionally inferior group, or as a member of a traditionally superior group, in favor of the traditional “victim” group.

The only proper means of resolving India’s caste conflict, as well as the turmoil present within any culture of “reverse discrimination” is to abolish all institutional considerations of circumstantial collective identity, including race, caste, and socioeconomic background. If an individual’s education, career opportunities, and relationships with his colleagues are to be determined by personal qualities, such as industry and character, those shall become the emphasis of the individual’s attention, the jewels which he shall have to offer instead of the oppressor or victim status that would have elevated him in a collectivist society.

 

Ludwig Van Beethoven’s “Egmont”: A Celebration of Liberty and Limited Government (2005) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Ludwig Van Beethoven’s “Egmont”: A Celebration of Liberty and Limited Government (2005) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
July 26, 2014
******************************
Note from the Author: This essay was originally written in 2005 and published on Associated Content (subsequently, Yahoo! Voices) in 2007.  The essay earned over 2,100 page views on Associated Content/Yahoo! Voices, and I seek to preserve it as a valuable resource for readers, subsequent to the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices. Therefore, this essay is being published directly on The Rational Argumentator for the first time.  
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~ G. Stolyarov II, July 26, 2014

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Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his Egmont music in 1810 to accompany Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s play of the same name, a play about the struggle between liberty and tyranny, and a work that contains in itself expressions both of tragedy and profound triumph.

Count Egmont was a real historical figure, a Flemish nobleman who had loyally served the Spanish king Philip II in his earlier wars and who had received in return the administration of the city of Brussels and other parts of the Spanish Netherlands. Egmont, though a loyal Catholic, believed in religious toleration and, at the Council of Trent, openly expressed his disapproval of Philip’s persecution of Dutch Protestants.

In return, in 1568, Philip sent troops to the Netherlands under the cruel and tyrannical Duke of Alva, who ordered Egmont’s arrest and execution without a trial or clear evidence of any manner of treason. Egmont’s heroic final words in defense of the ideals of liberty and religious toleration, as well as the efforts of Egmont’s friend, William of Orange, in rallying the Dutch to resist the Duke of Alva, triggered a massive revolt against Spanish rule that eventually led to the independence of the Netherlands.

Goethe wrote a play in honor of Egmont between 1775 and 1787, in which he transferred much of his own philosophy and personality to the character of Egmont, in whom were especially prominent a devotion to individual freedom, a joy of life, and a hatred for arbitrary power. Goethe even made his Egmont twenty years younger than the historical one in order to bring the character even closer to the state of the young playwright.

Beethoven volunteered to write incidental music for the first public performance of Egmont in 1810, in collaboration with Goethe, with whom Beethoven shared the high ideals of individualism, toleration, and a government of liberty. Though the play features a tragic death and brutal oppression by Spanish troops, themes of the inevitable and coming triumph of freedom and justice permeate it.

Egmont’s death does not dull the power of the principles that he advocates and does not prevent the Duke of Alva’s defeat. Thus, when making instructions to Beethoven for the music to be written, Goethe emphasized that he wished Egmont to be a “Symphony of Victory,” and Beethoven delivered precisely that.

The Egmont Overture, itself a microcosm of the events of the play, features a constant conflict between two themes, a gloomy and overbearing minor that dominates in the beginning, symbolic of Spanish tyranny, and a powerful, radiant major, demonstrating the power of Egmont’s resistance to Spanish rule. Near the end of the overture, several harsh violin notes indicate Egmont’s beheading, but not the death of the principles for which he stands. The beheading is followed by the most triumphant fanfare of the entire work, and perhaps the most gloriously uplifting creation of Beethoven’s musical career. The rest of the incidental music was designed to be performed along with the actual recitation of Goethe’s play.

Egmont has a special significance due to its ability to capture in melody the ideas of individualism, toleration, freedom of conscience, and limited government. Beethoven’s music demonstrates in a most directly accessible form the dynamic, heroic, triumphant possibilities of a world built upon such principles, and a spirit of grandeur, dignity, and magnificence that today’s world urgently needs to restore in its art and general sense of life.

Ten Principles of Classical Liberalism (2009) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Ten Principles of Classical Liberalism (2009) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
Originally Published November 8, 2009
as Part of Issue CCXVI of The Rational Argumentator
Republished July 24, 2014
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Note from the Author: This essay was originally published as part of Issue CCXVI of The Rational Argumentator on November 8, 2009, using the Yahoo! Voices publishing platform. Because of the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices, the essay is now being made directly available on The Rational Argumentator.
~ G. Stolyarov II, July 24, 2014
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Fundamental Ideas in a Philosophy of Liberty

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I was recently asked to attempt a formulation of ten crucial principles of classical liberalism, the worldview which animated the American Revolution, the European Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the libertarian revival of free-market thought in the mid-to-late twentieth century. Classical liberalism – even when it is not explicitly espoused – still has considerable residual influence on the political and economic institutions of the Western world and is having an increasing impact outside the West as well. I see the principles of classical liberalism as primarily forward-looking. These ideas need not only characterize aspects of humanity’s past. They can also guide and ameliorate our future.

The following ten principles are not exhaustive, and they have been formulated broadly to account for differences in opinion on particulars within classical liberal circles. Although different people may apply and interpret these principles in somewhat different ways, a general agreement on even these ideas would go a long way toward advancing liberty, prosperity, and peace in the world.

Principle 1. The life of each individual is an absolute and universal moral value. No non-aggressive individual’s life, liberty, or property may be legitimately sacrificed for any goal.

Principle 2. Every individual owns his body, his mind, and the labor thereof, including the physical objects legitimately obtained through such labor.

Principle 3. Every individual has the right to pursue activities for the betterment of his life – including its material, intellectual, and emotional aspects – by using his own body and property, as well as the property of consenting others.

Principle 4. The rights of an individual to life, liberty, and property are inherent to that individual’s nature. They are not granted by other human beings, and they cannot be taken away by any entity.

Principle 5. The initiation of physical force, the threat of such force, or fraud against any individual is never permissible – irrespective of the position and character of the initiator. However, proportionate force may be used to retaliate and defend against aggression.

Principle 6. The sole fundamental purpose of government is to protect the rights of individuals by engaging in actions specifically delegated to the government by its constituents. Government is not the same as society, nor is the government entitled to sacrifice some non-aggressive individuals to advance the well-being of others.

Principle 7. Every individual has the absolute right to think and express any ideas. Thought and speech are never equivalent to force or violence and ought never to be restricted or to be subject to coercive penalties. Specifically, coercion and censorship on the basis of religious or political ideas are not acceptable under any circumstances.

Principle 8. Commerce, technology, and science are desirable, liberating forces that are capable of alleviating historic ills, improving the quality of human life, and morally elevating human beings. The complete freedom of trade, innovation, and thought should be preserved and supported for all human beings in the world.

Principle 9. Accidents of birth, geography, or ancestry do not define an individual and should not result in manmade restrictions of that individual’s rights or opportunities. Every individual should be judged purely on his or her personal qualities, including accomplishments, character, and knowledge.

Principle 10. There are no “natural” or desirable limits to human potential for good, and there is no substantive problem that is necessarily unsolvable by present or future human knowledge, effort, and technology. It is a moral imperative for humans to expand their mastery of the universe indefinitely and in such a manner as will reinforce the survival and flourishing of all non-aggressive individuals.

Read other articles in The Rational Argumentator’s Issue CCXVI.

The Human Rational Faculty and the Necessity of Property Rights (2005) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

The Human Rational Faculty and the Necessity of Property Rights (2005) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
July 20, 2014
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Note from the Author: This essay was originally written in 2005 and published on Associated Content (subsequently, Yahoo! Voices) in 2007.  I seek to preserve it as a valuable resource for readers, subsequent to the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices. Therefore, this essay is being published directly on The Rational Argumentator for the first time.  
***
~ G. Stolyarov II, July 20, 2014
***
Each individual is, by his fundamental and inextricable identity, a rational being, with a means of accurately identifying and analyzing reality with his mind. The individual’s rational faculty is his sole gateway to knowledge, and the sole means by which he can direct the application of his knowledge to the external world.
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Nobody else’s activity of any sort can substitute for the individual’s own thinking, just as nobody else’s activity can substitute for an individual’s own digestion. Each individual is also fundamentally a volitional being, and can choose to default on the responsibility of thinking for himself, thereby also choosing to bear the consequences.

However, whatever he chooses, it remains irrefutably true that he still possesses the capacity to be rational. From this capacity it is implied that he ought to be allowed to be rational, i.e., that he has a natural right to use his reason and benefit from the applications thereof.

Nobody should be permitted to intervene with another individual’s use of reason, nor to substitute his reasoning for another’s and force another to agree with or accept the consequences of his reasoning unless the other explicitly consents.

When two individuals come to an agreement, each has used his own reasoning to embrace it. When, however, such a clear, unambiguous agreement is not present, the individual who presumes to place his thoughts in the stead of another’s is committing the initiation of force, which is the opposite of reason.

Since all natural rights are derived from the human capacity to reason, all violations of natural rights are derived from the initiation of force by some individuals against others.

The only manner in which reason can have any concrete, material expression is by means of property, i.e., those material entities which belong to an individual as a consequence of his use of reason. Even the very capacity to reason itself is dependent on property, as the individual mind is a material entity, and, were it not for the concrete biological mechanisms of the brain, there would not be abstract thought.

Thus, to be able to reason, the individual must have a property in his physical mind. In order for his physical mind to function, an individual must also have property in his physical body, since, not only is the mind part of the body but, without the proper functioning of the remainder of the body, the mind would not be able to survive. In summation, the right to the use of one’s reason implies the right to property in oneself and, as a corollary, the right to use one’s reason to determine what shall happen to one’s mind and body.

Celebrations of the Creator-Individual in Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (2007) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Celebrations of the Creator-Individual in Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (2007) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
July 19, 2014

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Note from the Author: This essay was originally published on Associated Content (subsequently, Yahoo! Voices) in 2007.  I seek to preserve it as a valuable resource for readers, subsequent to the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices. Therefore, this essay is being published directly on The Rational Argumentator for the first time.  
***
~ G. Stolyarov II, July 19, 2014
***

Few books offer as resounding a manifesto of the individual’s value and potential as The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. The image of Howard Roark, the serene architect who refuses to build anything that does not meet his criteria of esthetic excellence, who takes on the culturally prevailing attitudes of collectivism, compromise, and mediocrity, and wins, is a tribute to one man’s determination in resisting the gargantuan pressures exerted by his society to render him just like everyone else.

The Fountainhead presents a masterful philosophical exposition of the mind of the creator-individual as the root of all human accomplishments, and as a treasure that one must not allow to become tarnished by the impulse to conform. It additionally provides a model for how rational men can interact with one another, as value-traders who seek from each other, rather than blandness and conventionality, the profoundest and most impeccable work their minds can produce.

The Fountainhead teaches that the source of man’s productivity lies within himself, and Roark’s struggles have demonstrated that adhering with integrity to the desire to be productive and independent often involves overcoming great obstacles. Nevertheless, with the proper fortitude, consistency, and resolve, the creator-individual will have his way.

The journey of the creator-individual from struggle to ecstatic accomplishment is, too, reflected in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Beethoven’s monumental, dynamic, and logically intricate passages are capable of conveying both struggle and tension in the first three movements and an outpouring of joy, benevolence, and triumph in the fourth.

The symphony is a tribute both to Beethoven in particular, as he had written this ultimate of compositions a time when he was wrestling against crippling cases of deafness and disease, and to Man in general, for man’s proper occupation, in his life and in his work, is to struggle and to prevail. The vigor of man’s resistance against gloom, chaos, and decay will bring about a directly proportional result of glory, happiness, and accomplishment.

The works of Ayn Rand and Ludwig van Beethoven celebrate those creators and creations which affirm the highest possibilities open to man, and provide the intellectual fuel for audiences to pursue them. What Roark built with steel and concrete, what Ayn Rand captured in words, is also what Beethoven expressed through music. Using his or her medium of choice, the creator-individual strives to transform the world in an ennobling, enlightening, life-affirming manner – inspiring other creators to further heights of accomplishment.

The Rejection of the Practical-Moral Dichotomy in Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” (2004) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

The Rejection of the Practical-Moral Dichotomy in Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” (2004) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
July 19, 2014
******************************
Note from the Author: This essay was originally written in 2004 and published on Associated Content (subsequently, Yahoo! Voices) in 2007.  I seek to preserve it as a valuable resource for readers, subsequent to the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices. Therefore, this essay is being published directly on The Rational Argumentator for the first time.  
***
~ G. Stolyarov II, July 19, 2014
***
Howard Roark was never a man to conform to “mainstream” attitudes. At the Stanton Institute of Technology, Roark refuses to design Tudor chapels and French opera houses, instead exercising his individual reasoning in the creation of aesthetic features that fortify the individual integrity of his buildings. Upon entering the professional field, Roark signs building contracts on one crucial condition; that he be permitted to erect his structures exactly as he had devised them. At first, it seems that Roark is treading a path destined to ruin his career and prospects for success, for his acts counter the conventional “wisdom” that man can either be practical or moral, “flexible” or principled, fulfilled in body or in spirit, but not both. He is expelled from Stanton, and attracts few clients to his office. However, in Ayn Rand’s novel, The Fountainhead, Roark’s ultimate triumph demonstrates a staunch rejection of the practical-moral dichotomy and the possibilities that liberation therefrom can bring the individual creator.
***

Roark’s success is rooted in a proper identification of practicality and morality. Roark refuses to superfluously ornament his buildings at the expense of structural efficacy. He recognizes unique qualities to every building material and refuses to make “copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood,” not wishing to blindly follow the obsolete techniques of the past like sacred doctrine (24). When Roark develops the Heller House, he endows the building with elements that blend together its function and appearance, including no false pillars or deceptive facades. Roark thinks that “a house can have integrity, just like a person, and just as seldom” and Heller agrees that every slightest routine performed in such a consistent dwelling is filled with “dignity and honesty.” (136) Roark’s notion of practicality is one of strict purpose and reason. He crafts his buildings giving objective consideration to all the facts and tools at his disposal. His Monadnock Valley Resort, for example, seems a natural extension of its landscape. Roark employs his brilliant skills in mathematics and structural engineering to bring forth sensible structures that captivate their residents. Though the Monadnock Valley Resort had been intended to fail by the firm that contracted Roark, from its very opening, it is filled for a year in advance. Despite initial difficulties, Roark’s perseverance enables him to find clients who appreciate his love of coherence and principle. Jimmy Gowan and John Fargo request that Roark create a gas station and store, buildings which would attract consumers as a result of their originality and convenience. Roger Enright, a self-made businessman, offers Roark to construct his home, and is immensely pleased with the results. Eventually, even the great newspaper magnate, Gail Wynand, selects Roark to build those structures that represent Wynand’s actual values and individual character, his home, which is meant as a tribute to Wynand’s wife Dominique, and the Wynand Building, “a monument to [his] life” (593).

Roark’s architectural career is ultimately a grand triumph due the fortitude of Roark’s moral principles and approach toward work. Roark is a staunch egoist and individualist. He summarizes his philosophy: “I’m never concerned with my clients, only with their architectural requirements.” (578) He builds not for the sake of appeasing the public, or gathering prestige, or riding the accomplishments of others as does the second-hander, but rather due to his ardent devotion to the creation itself. He recognizes that “to get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences. The work, not the people. Your own action, not any possible object of your charity.” (578) In his moral quest, Roark pursues the fulfillment of his ego’s designs; everything else is a means to this end. Thus, Roark refuses to modify his designs for the sake of pandering to others’ petty whims and blind tradition-worship. When the government initiates a low-rent housing project for the poor, Roark sees no inherent nobility in sacrificing public funds for such an endeavor. However, he is interested in the problem of cost-efficient homes and yearns to see his solution materialized. He therefore strikes an agreement with his ex-competitor, the second-hander architect Peter Keating, in which he allows Keating to turn in Roark’s work as Keating’s own, if Roark is promised that Cortlandt Homes will be designed exactly as planned. Despite Keating’s best efforts, however, the arch-collectivist Ellsworth Toohey, who informally controls the project, transforms it into a “cooperative job,” allowing two more architects to meddle with Roark’s design and rob it of much of its efficacy by adding costly, useless ornamentation. This is a colossal moral infraction that Roark cannot sanction. He responds to the desecration of his work by detonating the entire building complex.

Justifying his action at his trial, Roark states that “the form was mutilated by two second-handers who assumed the right to improve upon that which they had not made and could not equal.” (683) He is outraged at those who would sacrifice a creator’s autonomy for any “greater purpose,” who would turn a mutually profitable exchange into the enslavement of one for the sake of others. His entire prior career, his selective approach toward clients preserved his freedom to build intact, but when the pseudo-morality of altruism attempts to turn him into a vehicle for the whims of collectives, Roark responds with a forthright affirmation of his right to exist for his own sake and no one else’s. He is exonerated and, because of his unequivocal, firm approach to both practicality and morality, able to win in both matter and spirit. Enright purchases the Cortlandt site for Roark so that Roark’s design can indeed come into existence. The book ends with Roark atop the Wynand Building, at the highest point in New York, symbolic of his triumph over all obstacles and his attainment of the most exalted success and happiness possible, standing upon the work of his own mind.

For Roark, practicality is reason and morality is egoism; the two are compatible and mutually reinforcing. This unity does not exist in the minds of most of the other characters in the book. Peter Keating believes that practicality is conformity. He surrenders his personal aspiration to become an artist to his mother’s urgings that he enter architecture. His entire career rides on borrowing others’ borrowed elements for his buildings or borrowing Roark’s originality. Keating’s greatest “accomplishment”, the Cosmo-Slotnick Building, is built in the Renaissance style (to please Ralston Holcombe, one of the judges, who appreciates only Renaissance buildings) and employs Roark’s structural features. Keating is autonomous neither in his engineering nor in his aesthetics. While with Roark, these disciplines are an inseparable alloy drawn from his mind, with Keating, they are a haphazard mix of something from everything and nothing in particular. At the twilight of his architectural career, the defeated Keating confesses that he has never built anything original in his entire life. Whereas for Roark, morality is forthright pride, for Keating, it is guilty appeasement. Whereas Roark knows his own worth, Keating must constantly find it in the reassurance of others, especially his confidant, Ellsworth Toohey. He is glad to hear that he as an individual is unimportant and that his true purpose is servitude to others and a sacrifice of everything, including his own happiness. For Keating has, through his endless pandering and borrowing, surrendered his ego for absolutely nothing, to be brushed aside by the collectives to whom he paid tribute as soon as “modern architecture” replaces his classical eclecticism. When Toohey finally bares the monstrous essence of altruism before Keating and reveals his true intent to rule the world and crush the human spirit, Keating is horrified, but can do nothing to oppose Toohey or resist his manipulations. While Keating, the “practical” man in the conventional sense of the term, has given up his convictions for fleeting prestige, he left the field of the moral to the sadists of the soul.

In the beginning of the novel, Dominique Francon does not believe that the moral and the practical can be reconciled. She tells of a time when she destroyed a beautiful statue because she thought it incompatible with the essential nature of existence-pain, distortion, and suffering. She appreciates genuine talent in Roark’s buildings, but deems them “too perfect” to exist in a world where every tainted member of the multitudes would desecrate them with his presence. Therefore, she prefers to side with Roark’s persecutors, as she views ultimate power to be in the hands of the immoral. She attempts to sacrifice herself to Peter Keating, the man she would love least, by intentionally marrying him and performing physical favors for others in order to get him commissions. Then she surrenders herself to Gail Wynand, a man who is a moral egoist in his private life but a vehicle for mob sentiments in his public. Though she does not love Wynand, she finds in him an appreciation for her as a woman who recognizes true beauty and morality, even if she views it to be doomed to defeat. Dominique’s outlook changes as she witnesses Roark’s perseverance in the face of societal pressures. Though Wynand loves to break men of integrity for sport, Roark eventually wins Wynand’s devotion, his quest for the right to use his mind, and Dominique’s hand in marriage.

Just as Dominique recognizes that both the moral and practical can triumph in a man of firm convictions, so does The Fountainhead demonstrate the insight that Rand would later express as a groundbreaking discovery in Objectivist ethics: “The practical is the moral.”

Collectivism is Ancient; Freedom, Reason, and Progress Are New (2010) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Collectivism is Ancient; Freedom, Reason, and Progress Are New (2010) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
Originally Published April 23, 2010
as Part of Issue CCXLV of The Rational Argumentator
Republished July 18, 2014
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Note from the Author: This essay was originally published as part of Issue CCXLIV of The Rational Argumentator on April 23, 2010, using the Yahoo! Voices publishing platform. Because of the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices, the essay is now being made directly available on The Rational Argumentator. The arguments in it continue to be relevant to discussions regarding reason, individualism, and liberty, and therefore it is fitting for this publication to provide these arguments a fresh presence.
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~ G. Stolyarov II, July 18, 2014
***

Irrational, illiberal collectivism had its beginnings along with the beginnings of the human species. How else could it be the case that the overwhelming majority of the history of our species took place with virtually no progress whatsoever? Indeed, even the advent of basic agriculture and the written word occurred quite late in our history, considering that humans virtually identical in body and mind to our contemporaries appeared circa 50000 B.C.E., whereas the beginnings of agriculture occurred circa 10000 B.C.E., and writing emerged even later. How could this have been the case? Surely, with the proper freedom-respecting, individualistic mindsets and institutions, our remote ancestors could have accomplished noticeable progress every generation. Instead, about 80% of human history passed without any progress whatsoever, and another 19% passed with minimal progress and centuries where previous progress had been reversed and nearly eliminated (e.g., the Dark Ages and the 14th Century in Europe, and the era of Mongol conquests in Russia, the Middle East, and the Far East). And yet superbly intelligent, capable people existed in every generation, and would, if placed in our time or the recent past, have become great innovators.

The sensible explanation of these otherwise perplexing facts is that absolutely stifling mindsets afflicted the majority of human societies during the majority of history. Although they left no written records, most Paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies can be safely assumed to have held ultra-tribalist, collectivist views of the world – in addition to a persistently animistic, superstitious view of the inanimate world and a violently intense xenophobia. Moreover, in a small nomadic tribe, an “us versus them” attitude would have been quite easy and tempting to adopt; one relied on one’s fellow tribesmen to protect one against aggression by other humans, wild animals, and myriad miscellaneous perils. Departure from the norms and societal structures of the tribe, through either material or intellectual innovation, would likely have resulted in ostracism from the tribe or worse.

What is relatively new in human history – dating back to ancient Greece – is early true liberal, pro-freedom thinking; I still believe that we are in the early stages of the development of liberal thought, considering how illiberal the majority of human societies today are and how the majority of human progress (and, indeed, of human sanity altogether) can be attributed to only a handful of forward-thinking individuals. Free the human mind just a little, give even a few reasonably intelligent people just a small amount of material and intellectual space to decide how to live and to think – and you get all that human civilization has accomplished thus far. Free humans completely, and astonishing accomplishments would be possible, even from the “average” person.

Of course, the reverse is possible, too: such a severe degeneration of human thinking and institutions as to produce a relapse into barbarism. This would be the worst, most tragic outcome to befall mankind.

Particular, Principled, Context-Specific Justice (2010) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Particular, Principled, Context-Specific Justice (2010) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
Originally Published April 11, 2010
as Part of Issue CCXLIV of The Rational Argumentator
Republished July 18, 2014
******************************
Note from the Author: This essay was originally published as part of Issue CCXLIV of The Rational Argumentator on April 11, 2010, using the Yahoo! Voices publishing platform. Because of the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices, the essay is now being made directly available on The Rational Argumentator. The arguments in it continue to be relevant to discussions regarding justice, natural law, and a merit-based society, and therefore it is fitting for this publication to provide these arguments a fresh presence.
~ G. Stolyarov II, July 18, 2014
***

Here, I will briefly outline the fundamental features of a new approach to justice that departs radically from the egalitarian view typical of our era. A departure from egalitarianism may appear to some to be reactionary – with the alternative being a reversion to the older, class-based systems of justice, where different individuals were afforded different treatments on the basis of membership in rather arbitrarily defined groups. However, the approach of particular, principled, context-specific justice is in fact highly progressive in that it rejects the collectivism and suffering of innocents inherent in both class-based and egalitarian systems of justice. If we use an analogy to medical evolution, class-based justice could be compared to the pre-scientific treatments of bleeding and leeches; egalitarian justice could be compared to a mass-marketed pill that helps some people, but not in all ways, and also causes substantial adverse side effects in others; particular and context-specific justice is like an army of tiny nano-machines, repairing specific instances of bodily damage cell by cell without damaging healthy tissues. What nano-medicine promises to accomplish for the principle of health, particular and context-specific justice can accomplish in advancing the principle of merit.

The best way of encapsulating particular, principled, context-specific justice is to say that justice should not be blind. Indeed, justice should see as much as possible about the situation which is being judged and use all relevant information to arrive at a remedy specifically tailored to that situation. Any simplification of this principle – including the invocation of group- or class-based stereotypes, inflexible norms, and binding precedents – leads a departure from the just outcome.

It is a necessary component of justice that no innocent person should be harmed by its application – and that no guilty person should be harmed by it beyond the extent specifically warranted by his guilt. To hold otherwise is to embrace not justice, but pseudo-pragmatic trade-offs, where the suffering of some innocents is weighed against the perceived greater or lesser suffering of other innocents. To enforce such trade-offs is not within the legitimate power of any human being, nor is it necessitated by the natures of things or genuine practicality.

Unfortunately, “justice” as conceived by many of our contemporaries – egalitarian justice, or, phrased less generously, one-size-fits-all justice – necessitates the making of trade-offs that harm innocent people in virtually every case. Egalitarian justice is based on the premise that all persons must be treated in the same manner, irrespective of their individual qualities, context, and the consequences of a particular treatment. The uniform treatment is intended to produce the “greatest good for the greatest number” – but it often results in the lowering of the manner in which people are actually treated to a mediocre level, or even to the level of the lowest common denominator. Egalitarian justice typically imposes mandates or prohibitions deemed to improve the position of the “average person” or the majority of people; in reality, such impositions hamstring the above-average individuals while providing only slight, if any, benefits for the others. Indeed, many egalitarians, after the failure of their attempts to elevate the majority through one-size-fits-all measures, resort to insisting that everyone must “share the burden” equally – i.e., suffer by the same amount in situations where, before, no suffering was necessary.

Egalitarian justice is misguided, because it is premised on the idea that justice applies fundamentally to collectives of people, as opposed to individuals – who are the basic units where human perception, thinking, creation, and decision-making are concerned. Egalitarian justice seeks – at least in its best-intentioned variant – to bring about societal improvement by imposing the same rules and treatments upon all of society.

By contrast, reason and morality – natural law – require that every individual be treated in accordance with the merits or demerits of that individual’s own actions. Individuals who act rationally and morally, to the genuine benefit of themselves and others, should be rewarded, and individuals who act detrimentally – by harming others or themselves – should suffer the naturally ensuing adverse consequences of their actions. Individuals who harm only themselves are already punished sufficiently by the harm they inflict; there is no need for an external entity to disproportionately magnify that harm. However, individuals whose actions also adversely affect innocent others will not always be thwarted in time to prevent the harm. Hence arises the need for societal institutions, external to a particular situation where harm to others can be caused, to prevent or remedy such harm. This is the function of justice.

Thus, to have true justice in a particular case, it is clear that the harm to innocent persons in that case must be prevented or remedied – and, just as importantly, no harm must be caused by the process of justice itself. This is impossible to accomplish without a finely targeted approach: one that attempts to fathom the particular situation in all its relevant details, to establish the harm being committed or threatened, and to develop a way of neutralizing that harm which will punish only the guilty, and only in proportion to their guilt. A simplistic rule, conceived to apply to a myriad of diverse cases, apart from the context of these particular cases, is not adequate to this task.

It may seem at first glance that the attainment of particular justice precludes the application of any principles whatsoever. After all, are principles not themselves general rules that are developed apart from any given particular case? Yet it is not possible to reach a non-arbitrary decision on any matter without having some standards on which to base that decision. And there are indeed standards which are universally applicable to all human beings – derivable from the desirability of human life and flourishing, and from the mechanisms by which such values can be preserved and expanded. Among these standards are the natural rights of all humans: the right to act in the furtherance of one’s life, the right to acquire and keep property by naturally legitimate means, the right to interact with consenting others, and the right to be free from aggression, expropriation, and unwarranted punishment.

Indeed, the very definition of what constitutes an unjust harm is dependent on the principles of natural law. For instance, it is not an unjust harm if a person becomes displaced from a particular field of work because technological advances by others rendered that field of work obsolete. Because the technological advances and their creators did not rob, injure, kill, threaten, or defraud anyone, they are in complete accord with justice. The people displaced from their jobs may be worse off temporarily, but they always have an opportunity to retrain themselves in a society that respects their rights. Moreover, because they did not have the right to hold a particular job in the first place – as such a job was the result of an agreement that requires the continuing consent of two parties – they lost nothing to which they were entitled. On the other hand, it may be salutary from the standpoint of voluntary, private morality for the employers of such displaced individuals to offer to support their re-training or to aid them in finding alternate jobs.

But the universal standards of natural law are not the standards used by egalitarian justice; rather, egalitarianism tends to develop highly concrete criteria that are applied irrespective of whether they satisfy the abstract universal principles of justice. According to the most widespread embodiments of this philosophy, everyone must be subjected to the same minutiae, in an attempt to approximate just outcomes on a society-wide level. By contrast, in true justice, universal principles are not tied to any specific set of objects, procedures, or prescriptions for concrete behaviors. Rather, each principle can only be properly applied by considering the context in which it is relevant. To say, for instance, that honesty is a universal principle does not translate into concrete mandates or prohibitions for every situation; while it may not be justified to lie in most situations, in some – including situations where an aggressor demands the truth so as to inflict harm on its basis – lying may be morally necessary. It is an unfortunate characteristic of the egalitarian thinking of our era that abstract principles often become reified into a laundry list of byzantine particulars, whose “uniform” imposition then becomes seen as synonymous with justice – to the detriment of the very principles of justice that were supposed to be advanced in the first place.

While universal moral principles do not change, there are two important aspects of the world that do change continually: (1) our knowledge and understanding of these principles and (2) the specific concretes of our existence, to which those principles need to be applied. Moral philosophy is, and should be, an ever-evolving discipline, not because there are no truths to be found, but because no one can claim to have found all the truths or to have developed all of the facets of any true idea. At the same time, new discoveries, inventions, and societal changes raise new questions and dilemmas regarding how moral principles ought to be applied. The attempt of egalitarianism to set uniform concrete norms that apply to all people in all cases stands in defiance of the dynamic context in which we live and strive to fathom justice and reality. Egalitarianism, even based on the best effort to integrate the most advanced knowledge and the most rational thinking currently available, freezes justice in time and cuts off the prospects for a variety of innovative approaches that often occur simultaneously with one another within different subsets of any given society.

Because of the complexity of individual circumstances, every concrete norm, applied too broadly, will harm some innocent people. Particular, principled, context-specific justice would avoid this problem by being flexible with respect to concrete norms. For this, the discretion of the entity that dispenses justice is of foremost importance. Without discretion, no deviation from a concrete norm is possible – and, consequently, there is no way to avert innocent suffering. Discretion by a reasonable intelligent person, however, can avoid all of the obvious harms of a given norm – and the most competent and scrupulous dispensers of justice can even structure remedies so as to avoid subtle and indirect harms. Discretion should not be unlimited, and its exercise should be allowed in such a manner as would not extend the authority of the dispenser of justice beyond its intended sphere. Moreover, every care should be taken to prevent such discretion from resulting in draconian outcomes. But the limits imposed upon discretion should never prevent contextually warranted leniency or experimentation with remedies that are more palatable to all parties involved than those suggested by precedent or tradition.

To apply a general principle properly to a given situation, knowledge of the situation is crucial. The difference between true justice and egalitarian justice is akin to the difference between two applications of the principle of healthy eating: one approach makes choices regarding the nutritional value of every particular item of food one encounters, in the context in which one encounters it, while the other approach develops in advance a “diet” that consists of context-independent prohibitions on certain foods and requirements for certain other foods. Following a sub-optimal strategy for healthy eating may still make one healthier on net and, in that case, is not perilous. But this is because the individual is the basic moral unit; actions that benefit an individual on net while causing some discomfort, inconvenience, or inefficiency to that individual are therefore acceptable. But there can be no legitimate consideration of what benefits “society on net” which disregards harms to any individuals that occur in the process. Society is not a moral unit, and harms to its “components” cannot be brushed aside as necessary to advance an ostensibly greater goal.

Of course, for particular, principles-based justice to be applied to any systematic extent, both prevailing legal systems and moral understandings would need to change; the latter change would most likely need to precede the former, at least among the people who can affect the legal systems. Egalitarian justice attempts to treat particular situations independently of context or consequences; such treatment cannot be reconciled with the principles of justice. True justice encounters reality directly and infuses into it improvements – protections for the innocent, punishments for the guilty, and a closer approximation of a society where natural law is obeyed and the principle of merit is reflected.

Read other articles in The Rational Argumentator’s Issue CCXLIV.