Zerubbabel

"All the territorial possessions of all the political establishments in the earth--including America, of course-- consist of pilferings from other people's wash. No tribe, howsoever insignificant, and no nation, howsoever mighty occupies a foot of land that was not stolen." Mark Twain .

Hitler and Stalin were sociopathic tyrants who rode to power by appealing to the common people's leftist or rightist desires. Hitler appealed to the rightist principle of chivalry (defense of home/tribe) misapplied to nationalism. Stalin appealed to the leftist desire for utopia ... just endure this one final conflict, and then utopia.

Yes, but it is his second to last sentence which establishes the premise which he builds this hope upon: "But more than that: the passion for justice and moral principle that is infusing more and more people can only move them in the same direction; morality and practical utility are fusing ever more clearly to greater numbers of people in one great call: for the liberty of people — of individuals and voluntary groups — to work out their own destiny, to take control over their own lives. We have it in our power to reclaim the American Dream." "morality and practical utility are fusing"??? Throughout the history of mankind morality and practical utility usually find themselves at odds with each other. But I do have to admit that sometimes a thing's great usefulness overpowers moral sentiments and creates a morality custom-made to justify the useful thing.

From the limited reading I have done here at FDR that is also my impression. I say as a compliment of the highest regard that Stephan is a passionate preacher of principles. Stephan's Disappointment with the World is explicit about this. That the means justifies the ends can be said as Fiat justitia ruat caelum (Let justice be done though the heavens should fall.) You make a lot of sense in your writing concerning uncertainty. In fact it might be the ultimate definition of utopia - the place without any uncertainty. (According to Hannah Arendt the classic Greek understanding of Hedonism was not the desire for pleasure but the avoidance of displeasure and the Leftist utilitarian seeks not the greatest happiness of the greatest number but the least unhappiness of the greatest number. This seems like merely stating the same thing in the negative verses the positive but I think we understand that one must know unhappiness before he can experience true happiness.) I would never trivialize the importance of man as creator. But creativity is not the only fundamentally human way to deal with uncertainty. Arendt suggests that: “The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises … binding oneself through promises, serves to set up in the ocean of uncertainty, which the future is by definition, islands of security without which not even continuity, let alone durability of any kind, would be possible in the relationships between men.” I think that this capacity to make and keep promises is what underpins all libertarian thought. Isabel Patterson's society of contract vs society of status comes to mind is a good spokesman for this.

Essence literally to be, is the one element about some thing that if it were changed the thing would cease to exist. For example enlightenment ideals such as Laissez-faire economics were the position of the Left against the Right’s defense of monarchy (see Edmund Burke as the first apologist of the Right). Those positions have inverted and now the Left are the statists against the Right’s defense of individual liberties. While these political positions have changed, the Left and Right still remain. Ideology as I use it here, is a sort of axiomatic premise held with conviction that may even seem to be innate to the holder. It is an overarching view (the root of idea is to see) of the world through which all other ideas and events are filtered, colored or judged. It is the greater ideology through which lesser ideologies are subjective. There is the idea that is influenced, there is the idea that influences. This relationship can occur at many levels. To find it’s essence we seek to find that highest level of idea which no other idea influences … or a ‘first principle.’ The true essence will be able to explain this ideological hierarchy, not only of current political positions, but also the evolution of these ideologies’ expression through history. Here are the essences: >>>The Right seeks principled means. The Left seeks perfect ends.<<< The Rightist first principle can express itself in the chivalric code (family, nationalism) or in adherence to religious principles (Feuerbach states, rightly IMO, that we created God as the repository of our highest principles), or most recently in the principles of individual liberty. The Leftist first principle has expressed itself first in the enlightenment, then romanticism (the reaction against the enlightenment’s child - industrialization), then anarchism - communism - socialism (communism light) - all different paths to utopia, and all using principles only as ad hoc means to an end.

The title, "lying to abusers," and the OP, posits the moral question whether it is moral to act immorally to an immoral person- to act in an unprincipled manner (lying) to an unprincipled person (abuser). That the overwhelming majority answers in the affirmative and wants to move on to argue the nuances of such unprincipled action (e.g. to practice one's lying or not) does not settle/remove the moral question thereby disallowing arguments which answer the question in the negative as unrelated/off-topic.

Spontaneous emotive reaction - passion - is the common human experience. Reason must be cultivated. Seldom are negative passions accompanied by regret if they can be justified by the conflict in which they were couched. The Ratio of Reaction-to-Regret might be 1000-1. In fact the more common response is Resentment (to emote again), by both parties. No better example can be found than right here. When the reader, in the context of helpless children, reads the word "parasite" (Nietzsche's or mine) they have a negative spontaneous emotive Reaction. The after-effect is not Reason. Nor is it Regret. The after-effect is Resentment ... and my heaping up of lots of red coins.

My idiosyncratic love of using words with clear meaning yet negative emotive connotations seems to never work-out. I wonder if anybody actually understood what Nietzsche was saying in those 2 aphorisms (?). Yes, "Dependent" is a more politically correct word, yet inaccurate. E.G. Interdependent has no corollary inter-parasitical. America did not consider themselves dependent on Britain when they declared independence. >>> "children provide more and more value to parents as they live and grow" <<< Absolutely true - or at least it was absolutely true at one time. Throughout history the family was the central economic unit - the family farm, the family trade, the family's cottage industry. Economic interdependence is now entirely external to the family, it is negotiated in employment contracts in absolutely individualistic terms. >>> "people who abuse children care more for utility in the moment ..." <<< To accept this I would have to imagine such a stream of consciousness where the options are weighed out and a course of action arrived at whereby the abuser slaps a child as the most useful action at the moment. I think such an individual would be clinically diagnosed as a sociopath. The slap, the yell is a spontaneous emotive reaction, it is a crime of passion. The word passion understood by it's etymon meaning suffering, or the total accumulation of stress (one of which is the child's unceasing dependence ;) beyond the ability/strength (see Nietzsche quote) of that certain individual to handle stress. Some people "snap" easily. Some people have no discipline in controlling their emotions. Some people are too lazy to even try. Then there are strong people who never "snap." To recognize this is not to make white knight excuses for the weak, nor is it an to appeal to some moral equivalency where the weak are "doing the best they can." It is an attempt to objectively understand the human condition. Shirgall, this is more for my censors than it is for you: I was MGTOW long before the acronym was ever coined. The reality of it is that leaving the weak to their own devices is going to yield a lot of problems. The only thing left for the M is to insure the principledness of their OW.

Oh. Good. I need not feel guilty then that I didn't grasp your argument "related to the thread topic," because you didn't make one. And I thought you were reprimanding me for "derailing" the thread.

If I were to accept the premise of utilitarianism, and I were to put on blinders and ignore other extenuating conditions, to focus solely on seeking to help stop the abuse in this specific family - then I would offer two points of critique. Our human farmers have long understood some basics of how to influence and control people. When the Farmer's Straw Boss, or some one who might consider themselves a professional in human resources, reprimands one of the slaves (employees) they do so only for the reason to effect behavioral change. Standing rules have always been to "Praise in public. Reprimand in private." To reprimand someone before his/her peers is counter-productive and usually serves to galvanize the undesirable behavior. Public ridicule is never a means of restoring an individual to productive wholeness. My point about parasitism was not a value-judgment against children. It is to recognize the unique and profoundly important institution of "family" which by right ought to be, and by necessity is host/parasitic. When in that public setting we should not see two individuals; one a victim and one an abuser. We should see a strongly bound family where the smaller is entirely dependent on the larger and only finds strength through unity because he has no strength of his own. An attack on one member should be considered an attack on all members, yet the child feeling impotence in defending his mother against public ridicule is also damaged. To address the child directly to inform him that his mother is a violent bitch, etc. is foundationally and unavoidably an action which attacks the bonds of the family unit. If the goal is to alter the behavior of the individual parent then a complete stranger in a public setting is at a sever disadvantage. A friend or a mentoring life-coach (psych-pro) can privately council and have strong guiding influence to change the parent's behavior. The stranger's public ridicule damages relationships as noted above, and can only change outward behavior in public settings. It serves to create a space where family ties are temporarily suspended - where the child has momentary autonomy while protected by strangers (surely we have also witnessed this autonomy in public) and the abusive parent whispers in the child's ear "wait till we get home." .

I answered both questions in Post #61 Stephan touts FDR as the webs largest philosophical talk show - or site, whatever. What is philosophy if not the analysis of the abstract? While the new-born fowl can run away from predators with-in hours of birth, the new-born human is entirely defenseless for years and it takes over a decade for him to become fully-functional yet still not fully mature. The new-born human is radically dependent on the care of a host, his mother. His mother is burdened by the additional demands of caring for her child. It is difficult for her to run away while carrying her child. She and her child, in-turn requires help from others to survive. This relationship is unilateral. It flows from the group (or the father as it once was in our society) to the mother, to the child. It does not flow in the opposite direction. This is an anthropological fact of the human condition and this is what makes us radically social animals. This anthropological fact is most acutely experienced in the relationship between mother and child. "Entirely inappropriate"? You have searched the net to come back with a definition which excludes parasitism in any same-species relationship. Did you seek out such a definition for the conclusion it would yield? . The "it" was the movie. The movie is not an unrelated tangent. It is germane. And it is good. Someday watch it. Kevin I have to apologize. I have not made the effort required to understand your argument. In fact as I think about it, I have no idea what your argument, related to the thread topic, is. I hope I haven't trampled any pearls into the mud. I hate that when it happens to me. Sorry. .

"one who eats at another's table" is the etymological root. Suggestion: When you look up a word in the dictionary you will find many, sometimes dozens, different usages of the word with different connotations. And every dictionary will also give the word's origin, it's etymology. Go first to the etymon. While the word may be abstract and difficult to understand the etymon is usually based on clear easily understood actions or real objects. While the abstract word is pulled away from reality, the etymon gives the connection point of return to reality. This gives the basic, the essential, the actual, real, true meaning of the word (the word "etymon" stems from Greek etymos "true, real, actual," Armed with the essential meaning of the etymon we then proceed to the various usages of the word and we see clearly the underlying thread which connects all the various usages. This understanding can also shed light on cognates. If two words share roots they, at some level, they also share meaning. Most philosophically-minded people reject the importance of etymology and instead focus on Wittgenstein's "Meaning is Use." But I say let's not forget that we move in the world of Received Ideas, we cognitively sit in the shade of a tree we did not plant. >>> "it's impossible for most children to be parasites" <<< Only you could answer this, and it requires introspection, but did you set-out to find a meaning for the word parasite which would in the end yield this conclusion? >>> "their future behaviors could provide more benefit than their earlier neediness created" <<< Most analysts estimate the average cost to get a child through high school graduation (not college) at about 250K. Now you're 4 years past MMX. You plan on paying that back? No. The popular opinion is that we pay it forward. After having been a parasite we are to become well-adjusted to then becoming a host. The parasite/host relationship is at the ideological core of our society. It is expected that your generation should experience no resentment in paying for my SS. And your grandchildren will be just fine paying off the little-bit of debt our generations have created. No? .

To be clear I do not characterize the people, only the arguments. I have learned long ago to deal only with ideas. Even this is dangerous for many people cannot separate the two. And I do not assume that this woman has been accused of being evil -that her soul was evil to it's core. Only her actions were on trial here. So reciprocate with clarity - and this is not a rhetorical question - Is child-abuse evil? .

MMX, (I'm MCMLXXV) these may indeed be better questions. But they first require the acceptance of 2 premises (or maybe it is only one basic premise). But I do not accept these basic premises. Everywhere on this forum, everything I have written, has been against it. Your questions make sense if one accepts utilitarianism, or using efficacious means to achieve more-perfect ends. I do not. I reject that premise. I accept following principled means regardless of what ends one prognosticates that they may lead to. It is the foundational ideological choice to be made before proceeding. >>> Principled Means or More-Perfect Ends? <<< Choose one or the other. Choosing both is choosing neither. (If you notice, the question I asked does not depend on first making that choice.) I entered this thread polemically against the maxim "Mean to mean. Nice to nice." Being mean to mean is justified because being mean is morally wrong. But this maxim advocates acting through morally wrong means (methods) in the expectation that it will yield a society of a higher net mean-lessness, IOW the greatest happiness of the greatest number. I reject that. That is the utilitarianism which underpins all statist arguments (and it is the current which floats consumerism, but that's another argument) as well as being logically absurd. The other premise which one must accept before answering your questions - which is really part of the first premise - is that one must jettison the principle of not "controlling" (your word) another person's life. The guiding principle which underpins all of libertarianism is that of: 1 person - 1 life ... by virtue of being born you own that 1 life. You do with it whatever you want. You do not own another person's life. You will not control another person's life. And you can not make another person responsible for your life. 1 person - 1 life. (BTW the goal of a child is to take ownership of his/her life.) That principle is of highest importance. After that one may consider secondary principles such as self-defense - of resisting force with force - "controlling" one's attacker, etc. Then we might argue the tertiary principle of intervening on another's behalf. That is this thread's principle - down at least on the third rung of importance. And if we are going to intervene on behalf of others then that opens-up Pandora's box of - Statist military intervention (?), welfarism (?), etc. Why intervene for the abused child of a stranger? Why not bomb the abortion clinic? or computer-hack the IRS? or tax the rich to feed the poor? This thread is functioning on the Tertiary rung of principles and treating it as if it were prime, IMO. .

Parasite = "one who eats at another's table." ​Nietzsche's tastelessness (and my tastelessness as I mimic him) is a test. It tests our ability to conceive this abstract idea objectively - that is to avoid the subjectivity of the emotive connotations of the word. "Parasite" is like "fascism." Orwell tells us as early as 1946 that “The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable."” But these words do have meaning. They are intrinsically connected to abstract ideas which do not fade away because we find it too tasteless to acknowledge them. Here's another Little tasteless Truth: "Fascism" = bundle symbolizing the strength of a united group. At a nationalist level it can go awry as the 20th century Fascists obviously did. But at a family level it is embraced whole-heartedly by most everybody (just like communism in my other Little Truth). The Straight Story is an awesome movie which displays the virtue of Family Fascism. @ 4:00 in Part 4 of 10 begins an interaction between the main character and a young run away girl. This short dialog makes a passionate and powerful portrayal of the family ... and the short exchange has a surprising and profound end with a powerful symbolism. It's a great movie (and a great sound-track by Angelo Baglamenti). Don't disregard it because of my tastelessness. .

Kevin, I'm not sure what this comment means. If it is a reinforced critique of my tastelessness (and Nietzsche's ?) it is not needed because my tastelessness is not at all in dispute. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but I am surprised that you don't recognize this snippet you quoted as my summary answer to the question you posited about priorities. Which is lesser/greater? The acute pathos/sickness of the individual in a singular event? Or the chronic and systemic pathos/sickness of the entire social structure? Am I not the only one in this thread to have even acknowledged the latter? .

Some member of this forum, I don't remember who, has a signature quote which I find profound. It goes something like this: "Being well-adjusted to a social structure that is sick to it's core is no virtue." Our complete fall into wage-slavery has seen both the disintegration of the family and the transformation of children from economic assets to economic liabilities, i.e. absolute parasites vs minimally parasitic. Although we have robustly won the battle for survival we work and consume at a frenetic pace greater than when survival wasn't so secure. This shows no stronger than in the cultural pressure to properly provide for our children. It is too long an essay to touch upon how each and every aspect of our lives as consumers has escalated in just my lifetime. It is the household with children which has the highest standards of affluence. And this also produces the next generation of entitlement-minded consumers/citizens. Add to this the concomitant transformation (or confusion) of women's place in the world. In one lifetime divorce has grow from rare to ubiquitous. The basic family structure was once clear, strong, extended and stable. Now it is incredibly confusing. Have you ever had the relationships with-in a family explained to you and it makes your head spin? Today's family structure is weak with family members routinely moving in and out of it. It is shallow with few deep roots connecting it to extended family ties. And the family structure is ephemeral, it could just one day fall apart in much the same way that one's wages could also disappear along with systemic economic collapse. In this confusing, weak, shallow and ephemeral family structure men have become dispensable except as sources of revenue stream. Women are left to live up to some feminist stylized ideal of being fully proficient in a career and a good parental unit ("mother" and "father" has lost significance). To be a parent is difficult. I have read many accountings of what the average child will cost the parent in strictly financial terms, not in terms of other needs and demands upon one's time and life-energy. It is overwhelming. That any schopenhauerian biological drive to reproduce could overcome fear of such a daunting life-task is hard to imagine. Our cultural sexual revolution -the end of religious sexual taboos and the embrace of open sexuality as healthy and natural- has of course contributed. If one wants to see the sickness of our society in a single image then just look at a pic of JonBenét Ramsey et al. And this of course explains why since R v W in the US some 55 million children have been killed in the womb for the sole reason to avoid this enormous stress -economic, emotional, temporal and judgmental stress- of being a parent in today's sick society. But look over there! There is an individual who has not adjusted to this social structure. That individual has allowed the stress to propagate as abuse to her child. There! THAT is the face of evil. .

LOL. Objective, rational analysis often ends in the taboo. Here are two quotes from Nietzsche (which are germane to this thread). When I first read them they pissed me off, but later came to understand them as true utterances. "As yet, no thinker has had the courage to measure the health of a society and of individuals by the number of parasites they can stand." "My utopia. In a better arrangement of society hard labor and the troubles of life (stress) will be meted out to those who suffer least from them: hence, to the most obtuse, then, step by step, up to those who are most sensitive to the highest and most sublimated kinds of suffering and who thus suffer when life is made easiest." Obviously this woman in question doesn't have the strength/health to deal with the stresses of life and her little parasite. Is it her moral failing, or her nature? . "Is it not the action of the mother and it's causes, which is central to this dialog?" Post #47

Rainbow, my comments are not a critique against how you handled the situation but a critique against the concept of "mean to mean." I have in the past heard such antipathy towards the mother as is on display here in this thread. But usually it is accompanied by the cry "There ought to be a law!" or "The State should take the child!" This is the first response because the State has always been the agent of "mean-ness." But in a libertarian setting (we are libertarian, yes?) I'm curious how this might play-out. Is the maxim -freedom includes the freedom to fail- limited only to economics and not parenthood? Has "mean" just transitioned from State authoritative violence to verbal abuse? How does the child respond to verbal abuse from her parent(s) when she witnesses verbal abuse from strangers? Does not verbal abuse become a mere societal norm? That was my point about "mean to mean" escalating and losing any distinction between mean-1 and mean-2. Taking the child, punishing the parent with jail or fines seems counter-productive to the good of the child. Public ridicule, it seems to me, would only serve to send the abuse into strictly private settings. Restoration/redemption of the abusive parent is the only rational course of action and it can not proceed from a foundation of antipathy, i.e. hate the sin but love the sinner. .

I hope it is proper that I comment on this while the post is no longer here. I also hope that it isn't overly pedantic if I try to give another language lesson as I did in Philosophy concerning objective/subjective and abstract/real. While that one didn't go over so well, neither do I expect this one to. But it is important in rational dialog to clarify terms. Sympathy is to emote with an other. Empathy is to place oneself into another's emotions. Antipathy is to emote against. Apathy is to not emote. In seeming unison the contributors to this thread showed sympathy for the child and antipathy towards the mother. The forum did not show empathy for the child, that would be to place oneself into the child's situation and ask "what would I do if I were the child?" I am wrongly perceived as showing sympathy towards the mother and apathy towards the child. My posts were not an appeal to sympathy. That has been amply conveyed by many contributors. My post was an appeal to empathy with the mother, to place oneself in her shoes to try to understand why she acted as she did. Is it not the action of the mother and it's causes, which is central to this dialog? .

I understand that this thread is centered on the actions of this woman. While the actions of the woman may have been indirectly caused by some pathos in her past or some culturally indoctrinated indifference to child abuse, I suggest that the DIRECT cause of this singular incident that forms the basis of this thread is the acute stress the woman felt at the moment she pulled her child away from the doorway. "I'm very tired" are the first words the woman spoke in the confrontation. Why is this not obvious? or acknowledged? This thread seeks the best methods of condemnation of this woman's actions. With-in the confrontation and with-in this thread there is no clear distinction between the condemnation of her actions and condemnation of the woman herself. I suggest that if this thread seeks the best method of confrontation the dialog should minimally begin with "Listen, I know you are under a lot of stress, but..." Is there no secular corollary to the christian adage to hate the sin but love the sinner? I acknowledge the stress in the microcosm of this incident - and in the macrocosm of society. It is the same stress. .

The highlighted portion displays bad logic. The concept of parenting as a certain skill set, let alone the actual word 'parenting' was never part of the question. You only assumed that and you also assumed what the question implies. Let me give another possible implication: "if you don't have children then you will never be able to sympathize with the enormous stress that children bring." If you go back to the OP and the recounting of the confrontation, the first thing the woman said was "I'm very tired" The social pressures of expected levels of affluence and consumption (most felt at Christmas time) which make mothers become wage slaves as well as also being mothers with parenting skill-sets; and the enormous economic liability that entirely parasitic children undeniably are; creates a pervasive atmosphere of stress which first and foremost should be acknowledged as a foundational part of our reality. IMO see https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/42768-a-little-truth/?p=392151 disclaimer - criticizing the logic of an argument against child-abuse does not assume a position which is indifferent to child-abuse. edited to correct bolded text disappearance (?) and to add the disclaimer..

What I gave is the etymologically based understanding of sub- and ob- as a jumping off point from which we pull away abstract concepts yet remain tethered to reality. To stay consistent- truth (and veracity) etymologically stems from a PIE root word meaning a faithfulness (to one's word.) Truth refers to a speech act - which requires actors. The importance of this understanding of "Truth" cannot be overstated. It is the very foundation of language. Imagine a language of truthlessness where there was no connection between abstract signs and reality. “The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises … binding oneself through promises, serves to set up in the ocean of uncertainty, which the future is by definition, islands of security without which not even continuity, let alone durability of any kind, would be possible in the relationships between men.” Hannah Arendt I could go on, but I'll spare you except to say that I believe that language is "sacred." Tucker (language researcher) connects the etymon of sacred to PIE base *saq- "bind, restrict, enclose, protect," explaining that "words for both 'oath' & 'curse' are regularly words of 'binding.' There is nothing that so universally pisses people off as lying and hypocrisy - more so than aggression, IMO. The idea embodied in the word truth was further abstracted in the middle ages which speak about eternal truths or absolute truths, these being the divine speech act of God. Early science, e.g. Newton, sought these absolute truths. But given that the eternal truths of newtonian physics was overturned by relativity which truth was proven non-absolute by quantum mechanics ... so that science no longer speaks of "truth" but merely of best theory consistent with known empirical data and is ever-ready to abandon truths with the emergence of new data. I think your question needs to be more precise. The best understanding I can achieve is that you are asking if morality can exist apart from human beings ... does morality exist on the planet Neptune? Morality is an abstract construct of the human mind which mediates the affairs of human beings. Without human beings it's existence (which is doubtful) is meaningless. .

>>> concepts ... are not real <<< "Conceive" stems from the root to seize, it is an act of cognition which seizes upon a certain topic. Thinking is real. It is an act that you are doing right now as you read this. Cogito ergo sum. The concepts, the topics that we cogitate upon can be real or abstract. My dog cogitates upon the real idea that there might be a squirrel at the bottom of that tree. She is cogitating upon a very real concept. I can, and I often do, think about new, non-existent mechanical designs (a certain type of bridge construction being one of them) - without using the language of my inner voice. As you say, the thought process is visual. Choose a concept that is unquestionably abstract, e.g. the subjectivity of morality. I can create the wordless image in my mind of <<< a nondescript thing which is placed under a table. I try to see it but can't quite figure it out. In frustration I grab the thing and throw it up on top of the table, spin it around and finally I see it clearly>>> without using a word, only my mind's eye. There I can understand the most basic, etymological, and real idea of objective/subjective. But if I want to go further, say how this relates to morality, then I must abstract it from the real ... and language is my tool for that. Do try my challenge for yourself. In the dead quiet of the night grab hold of this idea with your mind. Cogitate upon it. Cogitate upon it subjectively, e.g. bring into your mind what some professor had once taught you about the concept. Cogitate upon it objectively, in your mind rotate it around and examine it closely from all angles. Then listen for your inner voice, because unless you're the exceptional thinker, it's going to be jabbering full speed. .

I think the other thread of the same title has stumbled because of unclear definition of terms and how the question itself is framed. First I think there is a confusion between objective and real. This error is to take elements from two different dichotomies: Subjective/objective and real/abstract. Real (from res = thing) is the physical world around us which includes the actions of human, animal and other natural agents (e.g. a storm is real). Abstract (to pull away) is taken away from the real and exists in the uniquely human realm of the mind. The ability to think abstractly, along with language is an inseparable part of humanness. (Language consists of both vocabulary, which my dog has, and syntax, which my dog doesn't have.) In fact proto-man appeared in an evolutionary blink of the eye about 50,000 years ago with the concomitant rise of language and the first evidence of abstract art. Surely language is abstract but the corollary to this is intriguing. I cannot conceive of an abstract idea without language. I’ve tried many times. In the still of the night lying in bed I can envision the image of complex mechanical designs with nary a word. But I can NOT think at all about an abstract idea without using my inner voice. Try it yourself. Think about the concept of objective or subjective without language. When I look up a certain word in the dictionary I find many listings of varying usages and connotations and this variation is sometimes more than mere nuance. Then at the bottom I find the etymology which gives an essential meaning which in some way underpins all the various usages of the word - the underlying thread of meaning. These etymons are almost always real things or real actions. They are the connection of abstract language/ideas to reality. Maintaining this connection is what keeps us from spiraling out so far into our abstract constructs that we become alienated from the real … but that I think is a different topic. Subjective stems from the real action "to throw under." Objective stems from the real action "to throw in the open." When we examine something subjectively then the thing it is under obscures our vision. When we examine something objectively we are free to see it from all angles and thus see it clearly. As social animals it is difficult for us to make our own objective judgments without being under the influence of the group’s judgment. The Relativist says it is impossible, that everything is subjective. But this judgment (of everything being relative) itself is the result of objective observation. Objectivity is difficult but it is doable, or at least what is doable is the process of becoming more objective, of removing the obscurant things of subjectivism (“unpacking” is the popular metaphor). Logic should dispel any myth that if an exceptional individual (yet still an imperfect human) can achieve a fully objective judgment of a thing that that rare objective judgment will be correct, true, universal or absolute. ~ Morality (from the root meaning customs) is not real. It is abstract. Morals are abstract constructs of the human mind. Can morality be subjective? Absolutely it can. But the question “Is morality subjective?” includes the premise that all morals are the same, either subjective or objective. The correct question is: Can morals be judged objectively? "My goal in this book is to define a methodology for validating moral theories that is objective, consistent, clear, rational, empirical – and true." UPB .