PatrickC

The trouble with left minded thinking is that they always assume that any other kind of thinking is inherently 'selfish', or 'me first' as you put it. Ayn Rand played rather well with the term in her book, 'The Virtue of Selfishness'. Of course many from the left never bothered to read it and just took the title on face value, as if some how it proved their point. Private charities, mutual associations and friendly societies abounded throughout the 19th century and even into the early part of the 20th century too. These organisations were born out of a 'me first' mentality, as people sought protection from unemployment, sickness and death. On the flipside these organisations brought greater value to the wider communities as doctors and hospitals had to compete much harder with better and cheaper services. Fast forward to the future and we now have a dreadful NHS system which just ends up costing more and more with a service record that gets worse and worse. The left needs to really answer to this turnaround, since they were the ones insisting the state takeover. And as an aside they may also want to reflect on their incessant accusation of everyone else as being selfish. I find it a rather redundant term given the history.

Hey Josh, you make some good points, but our time and our lives are limited.. I'm just suggesting of course (from xp), but if you feel you have some traction that I have overlooked, then you should indeed ignore me.

My gut (and opinion) tells me that Tadas would be unlikely to accept an apology. He would merely see it as an affront to himself.. I say keep that empathy for those that would benefit from it.

Welcome to the boards Josh.

Yes, I broadly agree with you here. Sometimes people misconstrue that i want to go back to some ancient time, which clearly isn't possible, practical or even useful. The qualities I see in the concept of the tribe are 'bonding' and 'honour'. Not exclusively, because I also ascribe to the NAP and UPB as well. Anyway, I'll take a look over your blog sometime. These are very new ideas for me at the moment, but I find them rather fresh and interesting all the same.

I must admit that the more I have been developing my own interests and improving my relationships, that politics becomes far less of interest for me. The pursuit of happiness just doesn't seem to have any logical reason to be on that particular path. I do enjoy the occasional foray into political history and how ideology indoctrinates and warps people's beliefs and better natures. Abstractions like that can have some interesting insights within a broader context. Intellectually speaking, I can enjoy the fun of swash buckling with a worthy and respectful opponent in debate on occasions too.

Hi Roger, Welcome to the boards. I enjoyed your summarisation of the state, compared to the tribe, which made a lot of sense to me. I was curious what your thoughts might be (if any) about what you might consider as the benefits of the tribe. Just to give you a backdrop on my own interest in this topic, I've been enjoying a book recently by Jack Donovan called, 'The Way of Men'. He talks a lot about how men can thrive together and their families in a tribal atmosphere. His ideas suggest that within this atmosphere that we can create relationship bonds of real and lasting value, compared to the neutering men have recieved via the state.

Mystics are never straight forward

Holy Mary mother of Fido!

Here's a helpful blog post, that breaks down UPB rather well in my opinion. http://www.economicsjunkie.com/universally-preferable-behaviour-a-rational-proof-of-secular-ethics/

Tell me Tadas, you're a reporter for the Onion right? Sent to disprove UPB with the argument from Sci Fi..

Bring something new to the table dude and we'll listen.. Passive aggressive insults we will ignore of course.

Yes he suffered much the same fate i did in private school Britain. Which only began to break out of that pattern until the mid 80's. Touching up boys and canning was rife back then. Maybe not with every teacher or every pupil, but it was ubiquitous frankly. So I can see why he normalises it, because I did too, in fact everyone did. He is a big exponent against child abuse in almost every other situation. In this particular instance he is in denial of course. But the Left rather predictably want to paint him as a victim blamer, which is their stock & trade response to things like this. Rather than saying, 'I'm sorry that happened to you Richard, but you are wrong for these reasons'.

Just wanted to point out that freedom of speech is an entirely statist led idea. It has nothing to do with voluntaryism.

Hi Lians, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think you touch on something here that is interesting for me, which might take us to the heart of the matter. Insofar as we have seen great social changes take place over the last 50 years, with technology, ideology and more importantly State intervention. These have all contributed to the questioning of traditional gender roles. In my opinion technology has had a positive contribution to that debate. Whereas the state has managed to corrupt it. Ideology has tended to have had both positive and negative effects on it and it's arguable of course, that it is ideology that has informed the State into destroying those roles. So we know that changes needed to occur within the gender roles. It's just that the changes that actually happened managed to overturn gender roles that had been largely working rather well for centuries. In other words the baby was thrown out with the bath water. I touched on this earlier on in the thread. My theory is that a mans role traditionally was to help his family survive. But since we live in a world of plenty the masculine goal has now changed from survive to thrive. However, I am open to better and more well thought out ideas. But I'm of the opinion, with substantial evidence that it has to embrace those male traits of mastery and skill.

Let's not confuse sexual orientation with gender. We are discussing heterosexual men primarily, although not exclusively. I have known homosexual men that can and do understand maleness in quite the same way. The assets and attributes they bring to the table, is what matters to other men, not their sexual orientation. This is true despite the rhetoric that most heterosexual men are said to want to exclude homosexuals from their group. This underscores the deep value that men tend to place in mastery and skill. I haven't much to add to Kevin's rebuttal of gender as a 'social construct'. Other than it's that kind of ideology, for half a century, which has been wrecking havoc upon the relationships of men and women and importantly men with men.

Here is an interesting discussion that took place in Toronto yesterday, which I think has some context within this thread. EDIT - As an aside Stefan or Michael, a great interview possibly.

I really have no idea what this means frankly. Language is certainly something we share collectively with groups of people, but this has little to do with my earlier definition of the term. Communism, theocracies as with monarchies have all been pretty much discredited. Which is why it only ever occurs in the most economically backward economies. But collective ideology is still very much the swinging mantra of the day, that we learn in our schools, parents, churches and indeed the state. If you don't see it, then that doesn't surprise me, because most people believe it to be 'self evident' or instinctive even. It's only when people recognise that they have no moral authority to dictate what another person most do, that the blinkers begin to peel off. At the moment most people absolutely believe that the majority can enforce it's beliefs onto the minority or individuals.

Hey Josh, very sorry to hear about your experience man. Having come from a deeply religious family myself your story kind of resonated with me. In answer to your question about whether you should give him another chance. I would say that when closure comes, it's fairly swift and impenetrable. However, just because a large part of you might feel that way, doesn't mean you might not need further questions answered. Always be respectful to those parts of you that might wish to explore the relationship more fully. So if you were going to revisit him again, just prepare your thoughts and feelings as well as you can beforehand. I would suggest trying to record the conversation if you can (with a phone). That way any fog you get during the conversation you might be able to unravel better at a later time. I hope that can ease the tension of feeling the need to give him a second chance. It's really more about giving yourself the best possible answers. Best wishes.

Marxist thinking is just an extension of the religious thinking that proceeded it (at least the Abrahamic ones). They each come under the umbrella term collectivist thinking. Ayn Rand did a fairly good thesis on this topic, which whilst I might find to be self evident, is also a rather compelling argument, even if you don't. The reason I consider most people to be in the dark about their 'collectivist' leanings, is not necessarily because of Marxism or religion even. Although it's difficult to ignore the cultural Marxist ideas that abound these days within political correctness. But that these ideologies hold the same values to be true. That primarily the collective always trumps the individual. People simply consider that demoting or sacrificing their person-hood for the greater good as a moral and just action. This of course has played rather well into the hands of despots that would like to laud it over everyone, whether they be Kings, dictators or Presidents. Trying not to get too off topic with Wesley's opener, but I see collectivist thinking as keeping us in the mindset of remaining utterly dependent upon a single provider. Rather than negotiate with our neighbours we must seek permission from this central agency before we can decide on our own individual actions. This is wholly analogous to the parent child relationship, which statism means to keep us in a state of perpetuity with itself, for its own ends. As children we answer to our parents, as adults we answer to the state. Thankfully our parents let us go, the state however does not. Whilst I believe TZM is attempting to loosen those shackles. It's hard not to see some similarities with the collectivist thinking we have all been indoctrinated with.

Ha, yes I've heard the same, except +7 years.. Yes I dated a lady at 30 in recent years, but mostly they have been 39+. However, even at 32 women can take on a significant health risk at having babies, which TT was kind of alluding too I think.

I've thought about this topic a lot, given my age (44). Given that I'm getting to that stage in life when maybe relating to ladies of a fertile age might just be beyond me. Perhaps not, but I understand it could very well be. In which case I think adoption is an entirely productive thing to consider regardless of my own reasons.

I'm not sure I want to psycholgise individuals, since I don't know them of course. But TZM bares a lot of resemblance to Marxism. Both ideologies refer to a central resource processor, except TZM's belongs to a computer, which exponents see as quite benign compared to that of the state. Marxist ideology has progressed and changed itself over the years. But it still sits under the belief of the greater good for the greater number. I'm of the deep opinion that many folk are unaware of their collectivist leanings. TZM is susceptible to these leanings and I would agree that broadly speaking that it's all about a child's need for a benevolent provider. A benign computer seems like the most logical progression for otherwise unprocessed Marxist thinking.

Good for you man.. and yea, it isn't easy I grant you.

To be fair Stef has always said that the state was an affect of the family. Which implies that violence has it's root causes in childhood. However, in this particular debate the discussion tended to hover exclusively around the state as the main perpetrator of violence for the sake of the debate they were both having. Anyway, for the most part neither of us are ever likely to see either of these ideas come into fruition within our life time. Thus leaving me with the much bigger challenge of finding personal fullfilment and long term happiness within the current system. I think it's fair to say that the future will decide what works and what doesn't and so be it.