Difference between revisions of "Fallacies Of Ideology"
From Critiques Of Libertarianism
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{{DES | des = Ideology commonly makes a number of different mistakes than more ordinary philosophy.}} | {{DES | des = Ideology commonly makes a number of different mistakes than more ordinary philosophy.}} | ||
| − | ; | + | An ideology is a form of philosophy whose primary goal is to proselytize taking an idea to the extreme. Most libertarian writing is written by believers, not dispassionate examiners, and is written to promote the ideology. |
| − | : | + | |
| + | See also: | ||
| + | * [[Fallacies Of Philosophy]] | ||
| + | * [[Failures Of Libertarian Philosophy]] | ||
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| + | To put it bluntly, most ideological writing is [[wikipedia:Bullshit#In_philosophy|philosophical bullshit]]. That is a technical philosophical term, believe it or not. In short, the bullshitter does not care about the truth of what he is saying: he is concerned with other effects. In the case of ideology, the important effects are creating doubt in existing beliefs and creating or affirming belief in the ideology. Thus all the tools of rhetoric, propaganda and public relations are employed. | ||
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| + | ; Self ownership. | ||
| + | : Most libertarians presume self-ownership, but there is no good philosophy backing it. | ||
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| + | ; Presuming few goods. | ||
| + | : Most ideologies are founded upon few ideas of the good, such as "liberty" or "property" or "God". This creates a monotonic measure of good and bad that leads to extremism. In real life, most people have many ideas of what is good, for example Isaiah Berlin's octet: liberty and equality, spontaneity and security, happiness and knowledge, mercy and justice. No political philosophy is worth considering unless it is BALANCING many competing goods both of individuals and between individuals. Libertarians tend to presume liberty and property as the measure of good and bad. They scoff at people with different values. | ||
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| + | ; Exalting the few goods above all others. | ||
| + | :This fallacy is easily understood by means of the [[Why the asshole is the most important organ]] joke, which is derived from Aesop's [http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/oxford/66.htm the stomach and the body] fable. Libertarians exalt liberty and property, just as Christians exalt their biblical morality and Marxists exalt the proletariat. All have their merits, and if somehow any one of them was to be completely eliminated, we would be worse off. But none of them are unitary. (This part is weakly presented, needs rethinking and restatement.) | ||
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| + | ; Pretending that the few goods do not conflict. | ||
| + | :This provides mysteries for the faithful to focus upon, providing internal repetition of the ideas so necessary for belief. We see such pretend mysteries in Catholic doctrines such as the three in one god. Libertarians pretend that liberty and property do not conflict, despite the fact that property restricts liberty of all the non-owners. This gives huge opportunity for repetition of the ideological fundamentals (necessary to propaganda) in the course of the inevitable disagreements on how to harmonize the apparent conflicts. That is why libertarianism is so schismatic despite the proclaimed unity of fundamentals, much as in Christianity. That is why G. A Cohen can come to radically opposite conclusions to right-libertarianism, starting with the same fundamentals, in his [[Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality]]. | ||
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| + | ; [[Joint Production|Ignoring joint production]]. | ||
| + | : The vast majority of economic production is jointly produced. It is only by ignoring this fact that libertarians can pretend that producers (such as entrepreneurs) [[Desert|deserve the full amount of money they can extract]]. | ||
| + | <!-- DPL has problems with categories that have a single quote in them. Use these explicit workarounds. --> | ||
| + | <!-- normally, we would use {{Links}} and {{Quotes}} --> | ||
| + | {{List|Fallacies Of Ideology|links=true}} | ||
| + | {{Quotations|Fallacies Of Ideology|quotes=true}} | ||
