The (Self-) Corruption of Critique
This is a lightly edited excerpt from my book/pamphlet The Hegemony of Psychopathy. * * * Hegemony is the spread of ideas (such as values and beliefs) that support and maintain the socio-political status quo. Alternative sources of ideas can (at least in principle) undermine hegemony, but if hegemony is effective, then alternative ideas are often not taken seriously, or may even undermine themselves. If hegemony is effective, then the belief that there is no alternative becomes common sense, turning proposed alternatives (i.e. alternatives for common sense) into obvious non-sense. This is how hegemony undermines critique: by making it โirrational.โ...
No, youโre not entitled to your opinion
Nearly everyone seems to believe that they are entitled to their opinion, but it is not exactly clear what that means. This commonly claimed entitlement is some kind of supposed right, but neither the action it is supposed to allow, nor the duties it entails are clear. All rights imply duties. Often these are negative duties โ that is, duties not to do something. For example, if you have a right to free speech, then the government has the negative duty not to arrest you for speaking your mind. And if you have a right to life, then everyone else...
Anarchism as Metaphilosophy
Near the end of the prologue of Platoโs Republic, Socrates says to his opponent Thrasymachus that what they are discussing is โno ordinary/insignificant matter, but how we ought to liveโ (1.352d). As in many of Platoโs writings, Socrates here played the role of his mouthpiece: โHow we ought to liveโ was indeed no insignificant matter for Plato, but the starting point and ultimate purpose of his philosophical investigations. Relegating the pre-Socratic philosophers to the disciplineโs prehistory, it is sometimes suggested that Western philosophy started with Plato. Alfred North Whitehead even claimed that the history of Western philosophy โconsists of a...