The Shopping Cart Theory

“The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing. 

    "To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognise as the correct, appropriate thing to do. To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart. 

    "Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it. No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you or kill you for not returning the shopping cart, you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart. You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do.

    "Because it is correct. 

    "A person who is unable to do this is no better than an animal, an absolute savage who can only be made to do what is right by threatening them a law and the force that stands behind it. 

    "The Shopping Cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society.”

~ anon. but widely attrib. to Glenn Danzig

"The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from goodwill and an acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own; who appears well in any company, and a man with whom honour is sacred and virtue safe."

~ John Walter Wayland (1872-1962), American historian and educator who submitted 'A True Gentleman' to The Baltimore Sun in 1899 as part of a competition for the best definition of a true gentleman. His was crowned the winner.

She makes a good point

Comic strip, of course, by the late Charles Schulz

"If you want to know the real meaning of work, read Frederick Douglass's account of his first time working as a free man."

"If you want to know the real meaning of work, read Frederick Douglass's account of his first time working as a free man.
    "After escaping slavery, his first job was loading coal onto ships. It was new, hard, dirty work. Here's how he describes it:

"'I was now my own master. It was a happy moment, the rapture of which can be understood only by those who have been slaves. It was the first work, the reward of which was to be entirely my own.
"'There was no Master standing ready, the moment I earned the money, to rob me of it. I worked that day with a pleasure I had never before experienced. I was at work for myself and my newly-married wife. It was to me the starting-point of a new existence.'

"Dirty, backbreaking work—and he describes it as rapture, pleasure, a new existence. 

    "Next time you struggle to find meaning in whatever it is you do for paid work, think of Frederick Douglass."

~ Gena Gorlin, quoting Frederick Douglass from his Autobiographical Writings

When the “junk heap” is steadily deteriorating

Wastewater analysis suggests increasing recreational drug use among New Zealanders. (Although there are some problems with the data.) But this isn't an issue confined to our small islands.

This is of course when recreational drugs are illegal. So drug consumers are willing to pay more to gangs for a riskier product to get their chosen high.

Two questions always come up when one advocates for drug legalisation. 

The first is that legal drugs will make drug consumption more prevalent and more sordid. This goes against both evidence and theory: Milton Friedman for one arguing that the Iron Law of Prohibition actively encourages the escalation of more virulent pharmaceuticals, to make any drug problem worse.

But the other question is this: 

Why do many people want to abuse drugs and alcohol? Why is this such a persistent problem in our culture — and would it still be a problem in a more rational culture?

Good question. And Stewart Margolis takes a good stab at answering it, beginning by drawing a distinction between drug use and drug abuse. Because clearly there are many well-functioning adults happily consuming recreational drugs including opium, alcohol and caffeine -- and if we trace the history, have been doing so since the first fermented berries were found several thousand years ago.  Indeed,

Archaeologists have found evidence of opium use in Europe by 5,700 BC, and cannabis seeds have been found at archaeological digs in Asia from 8,100 BC.

So it seems at least some adults have discovered a rational way to use mind-altering substances. A decent martini before dinner for example being one of the best ways to shake off the cares of the day.

There may be some that are simply too dangerous to ever be used, but that would be a scientific question rather than a moral one. 

But some adults won't, can't or don't want to be rational about it. If we discount the obvious (that some people are prone to addiction; that there might be genetic factors increasing susceptibility to substance abuse) we're left with the nagging idea that there might be more to it than that. 

Margolis makes the case that the problem is fundamentally philosophical:

Of course, a worldwide problem like this undoubtedly has multi-factorial causes, but I think at root drug abuse is an attempt to escape reality. 

Materially, the world has never been richer, so what are so many people eager to escape from? Despite our affluence, I think we are experiencing a philosophical crisis. 

Ayn Rand pointed out that humans need a philosophy in order to live. In “Philosophy: Who Needs It,” she wrote, 

“Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation — or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalisations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt.”

 I think Rand was spot on, and the increase we are seeing in drug abuse is the result of the self-doubt brought on by people who have assembled a “junk heap” of often contradictory ideas. This has always been a huge problem, and has always resulted in a tremendous amount of suffering. So why does it seem to be worse now?

I think it’s because the quality of the ideas in the “junk heap” has been steadily deteriorating. 

When ... [common sense and] enlightenment ideas were widespread in the culture, average, unthinking people could randomly pick up a pretty workable set of ideas, which would allow them to prosper and attain a measure of happiness. They were not as happy and prosperous as they could have been, had they done the work of choosing and integrating the right ideas, but they could do all right.

But today, many of the ideas floating around in the cultural are anti-enlightenment. If you unthinkingly accept a collection of these ideas, you are unlikely to prosper or find happiness.

It's perhaps also the case that governments' increasing  economic mismanagement has been making it increasingly difficult for younger folk to get ahead economically -- they can sense that even if they can't see that explicitly -- so that there's part of of them ready to give up on the "old" idea that hard work will pay off.

You [might] notice that you’re not doing as well as your parents did, either economically, romantically, or socially. As a result, you will be filled with doubt, with dread, with a sense that something is wrong with the world — but you don’t know what or how to fix it. I believe this is the feeling that people desperately want to escape — and so they turn to drugs that numb or relieve these feelings, at least temporarily.

While I’m sure there are benefits to be found in a variety of drug and alcohol treatment programmes, I don’t think we’re likely to make much progress on substance abuse until people deal with the underlying philosophical crisis driving the abuse. 

In the meantime, though, making drugs legal would provide a huge benefit, both to those struggling with abuse issues, and more importantly, to those of us who don’t use drugs or who are able to use them responsibly.

Utilitarianism is bunk

"[Utilitarians], in the fashion of [Jeremy] Bentham, pronounce the greatest happiness of the greatest number to be the social end, although they fail to make it intelligible why the happiness of the greater number should be cogent as an end upon those who happen to belong to the lesser number."

~ Felix Adler from his essay “The Relation of Ethics to Social Science,” in H.J. Rogers, ed., Congress of Arts and Science (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906), vol. 7, p. 673 [cited in Murray Rothbard's article 'Utilitarian Free-Market Economics']

"Be feared or be loved." True?

"The rebbe rightly rejects the false alternatives from 

Machiavelli: 'be feared or be loved.' But he does not mention 

a key attribute of the good man: INDEPENDENCE."

"One of Machiavelli’s most famous ideas is that it is 'better to be feared than loved.' He observed that, in power struggles, being feared can prevent betrayal or confrontation and can command a certain kind of respect.
    "My goal in life is not to pursue power at any cost. I also reject the false choice between being feared or being loved by others. 

    "What I seek instead is happiness—achieved through my own independent effort. I do not wish to live as either a master or a slave to anyone. 

    "Whether others fear me or love me cannot be the foundation of my happiness, because that would make my well-being dependent on them. True happiness, for me, comes from independence: from using my own thinking and actions to create the things I want to see existing."

~ Felipe Lapyda from his post 'The independent man rejects Machiavellian false alternatives'

Focus

“If we look at history, it always will speed up. So that’s why I think the skill of focus, being able to know how to focus when it's necessary, I think is a very, very valuable skill to have nowadays.”

~ Oscar de Bos, co-author of a new book Focus On-Off

'Education Through Recreation'

"A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself he always seems to be doing both. Enough for him that he does it well."

~ Lawrence Pearsall Jacks from his 1932 book Education Through Recreation (pp 1-2)

"Neo-Aristotelian ethics offers a powerful alternative to modern moral theories that struggle to explain why morality has the authority it does."

"In much of twentieth-century moral philosophy, ethics was rebuilt ... [Once p]hilosophers ... abandoned the idea that things have natures or essences that determine what counts as their flourishing. ... morality [instead] had to be reconstructed in other ways: by appealing either to outcomes (consequentialism), or to rules (deontology), or to agreements (contractualism), or to sentiments (expressivism). The result was an ethics often detached from the way we ordinarily evaluate living things in the world.

"Neo-Aristotelian ethics [by contrast] is a deliberate return to an older starting point. ... [that] revives Aristotle’s central insight: that moral evaluation is a species of natural evaluation. To call a human being good is, in a deep sense, analogous to calling a wolf healthy, an oak tree flourishing, or a heart sound. Morality is not imposed from outside human life by rules or calculations; it arises from the kind of beings we are.

"This approach does not represent a nostalgic return to antiquity. It is a highly contemporary, analytically precise attempt to restore a metaphysical foundation that many modern ethical theories quietly lack. ...

"* Rights, dignity, and human nature

"Modern moral discourse frequently appeals to human rights and dignity, but often without explaining why humans possess them. Neo-Aristotelian ethics provides a grounding: humans have rights because of the kind of beings they are. Their rationality, sociability, and capacity for flourishing make certain forms of treatment incompatible with their nature.

"Thus rights are not abstract moral inventions, but discoveries about what respect for human life requires.

"* A return to realism

"Perhaps the most striking feature of neo-Aristotelian ethics is its realism. Moral judgements are not expressions of emotion or social convention. They are claims about how a certain kind of being ought to live in order to flourish.

"To say that cruelty is wrong is, on this view, as objective as saying that a plant deprived of sunlight is unhealthy. Both are evaluations grounded in the nature of the organism.

"This realism reconnects ethics with biology, psychology, and anthropology. It restores continuity between our understanding of life and our understanding of morality.

"* Conclusion: ethics restored to its natural home

"Neo-Aristotelian ethics offers a powerful alternative to modern moral theories that struggle to explain why morality has the authority it does. By returning to the idea that humans have a nature and that flourishing is measured against it, it makes moral evaluation intelligible in the same way that natural evaluation is.

"Ethics becomes neither rule-worship nor outcome-calculation, but a reflection on what it means to live well as the kind of creature we are.

"In doing so, neo-Aristotelian ethics does not merely revive Aristotle. It restores to moral philosophy a metaphysical foundation that allows morality to be seen, once again, as part of the natural order of things."

~ Tim Harding from his post on 'Neo-Aristotelian Ethics'

"I believe in rational self-interest. I believe people want to have happy lives. But they don’t half go about it in some fucking stupid ways."

"I get that all human behaviour is purposeful. I believe in rational self-interest. I believe people want to have happy lives. But they don’t half go about it in some fucking stupid ways. ...

"[Y]ou’re not crazy. Whatever you’re doing, you’re doing it for a good reason. But there might be a better way. ... I believe we’ve got two big adventures in life: the first is finding your purpose and the second is pursuing that purpose. The sad fact is most people get to do neither. I’m hoping you get to do both. ...

"[But h]ere’s the truth of it: no one wants you to follow your dream. Best-case scenario, they’ll want you to follow their dream for you. Mostly, though, nobody cares about your dreams, they’re busy getting on with their own shit."

~ Jimmy Carr from his post 'Why do you do?' [hat tip Mark T.]

The (man-made) world really is getting greyer.”

"It’s not just in our imagination—the “world really is getting greyer.” A researcher recently studied photos of household items going back two centuries. An analysis of the pixels showed a scary collapse in colour. 

"Even the Victorians—often considered as conformists—lived a more color-filled life. We have almost completely abandoned red and yellow and other bright hues in favor a boring black-and-white spectrum.

"But what’s most striking is how this descent into grayness has accelerated during the last few years. The most popular color is now charcoal—and at the current rate it will soon account for half of the marketplace.

"This runs counter the mantra of marketing experts [sic], who claim that products need to make a statement and capture the public’s attention.. They say that, but then turn around and launch another grey product into the look-alike marketplace.

"In an attempt to counter this, Pantone announced recently that the colour of the year in 2026 should be white. Some people complained. Others merely yawned. The shift from grey to white is one more measure of the tedium imposed by today’s tastemakers.

"Not long ago, popular colours were striking and changed with regularity. There was a time when avocado was the preferred shade for kitchen appliances. Orange and red had their day. When Monsanto designed a house of the future for Disneyland back in 1957, the kitchen looked like this.

 

"But the real problem isn’t our home decor—it’s the avoidance of risk-taking and the embrace of conformity in our behaviour. And even in our inner lives...."

~ Ted Gioia from his post 'The Return of the Weirdo'

Revenge?

Is revenge a dish best eaten cold? Or not eaten at all. 

There are moments, writes Allan John, when 

the urge for revenge can feel irresistible. We tell ourselves that one bad act warrants another—that striking back will somehow restore justice or bring relief.

But revenge rarely solves the original problem.

And most importantly, it doesn't heal the hurt. The Count of Monte Cristo shows a post-escape life wasted in seeking revenge. The story illustrates the idea that "it doesn’t degrade you when others treat you poorly; it degrades them." 

Nick Cave and his wife Susie chose another path: after their son's tragic death, they chose to find happiness "as an act of defiance or 'revenge' against the overwhelming pain." As they say, the best 'revenge' is outrageous success.

You can't choose what others do to you, or what is done to you. But you can choose how to respond, and whom to become. As the philosopher Diogenes observed, "How shall I defend myself against my enemy? By proving myself good and honourable."

It might be self-defeating. But that doesn't mean it don't feel good. Here's a Nick Cave song revenging himself on a critic, from a few years before his epiphany ...

Bonus vid: Anita Lane + Barry Adamson with the classic revenge song ....

"Be interesting."

"Billionaire hedge funder Bill Ackman has been mocked on X for advising young men struggling to find a date to go up to a woman in public and simply say: 'May I meet you?'

"Claiming that he found success himself with this technique, Ackman added: 'I think the combination of proper grammar and politeness was the key to its effectiveness. You might give it a try.'

"Some felt his advice was hopelessly naive and unrealistic. But at a time when 45 per cent of men aged 18 to 25 have never asked a girl out in person, he should be applauded for offering some kind of solution to our current crisis.

"Increasingly, we are seeing a generation of 'lost boys' opting out of education, employment, marriage and fatherhood, in favour of more dystopian pursuits, often found online.

"Scott Galloway, an NYU professor, investor and podcaster, published a bestselling book this month, 'Notes on Being a Man,' which highlights the problem and encourages men to 'get out of the house,' 'take risks' and 'don’t let rejection stop you.'

"I would add another piece of advice to this list for my fellow men: be interesting."

~ Rob Henderson from his column 'You Don't Need a Better Pickup Line. You Need a Better Life.'

Ergonomics with Aristotle: "The distinctive work of humans, based on our nature, is thus to reason—that is, to think."

"In ancient Greek, 'ergon' means 'work' and 'nomos' means 'law' or 'practice.' Ergonomics, then, is concerned with the 'laws of work.' It takes work for living beings to remain in existence as the kind of beings they are. ...

"Aristotle looks to a living being’s nature to figure out what is good for it. ... the distinctive work of being human ... each person’s most fundamental task is the work of being human. ... What we have in addition to all [the capacities shared by plants and animals] is a rational faculty. The distinctive work of humans, based on our nature, is thus to reason—that is, to think. ...

"Just as a harpist’s work is to play the harp and an excellent harpist’s work is to play that instrument well ... the work of being human—a good or morally excellent human—is to use your rational faculty well. ...

"The reward of such work is a life of 'eudaimonia,' which can roughly be translated as flourishing, happiness, or 'wellness of spirit.'"

~ Carrie-Ann Biondi summarising Aristotle in her post 'Aristotle Put Ergonomics on the Map'

Meaning

Stephen Pinker, photo by Christopher Michel

“I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realisation that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift.”

~ Steven Pinker from his 1997 book How the Mind Works [hat tip Christopher Michel]

Finding "the meaning of life" in dirty work

"Howard Roark’s bold claim in [the novel] The Fountainhead [is] that “the meaning of life” is “your work. ...

"[P]opular culture[however] reflect widespread attitudes about work: it’s not fun, is at best useful for paying the bills and funding more enjoyable activities, and should be avoided if at all possible ...

"It’s easy for those who live in industrialised countries and cities to picture suits and ties, paycheques, uniforms, store shelves laden with goods, and rush-hour commuter traffic when thinking about work. The trappings of complex market societies direct our focus in the realm of work to making and spending money. However, whether Eve plucks a piece of fruit from a tree or John Locke imagines gathering acorns from the woods, ultimately all labour—physical and intellectual—is first of all about producing in order to live. As Ayn Rand puts it, 'a man works in order to support his own life,' using his mind and effort to solve 'the problem of survival.' ...

"[Mike Rowe's TV series] 'Dirty Jobs and Somebody’s Gotta Do It' brought hundreds of examples of sooty, grimy, sweaty people—who were also happy, flourishing, and paid well—to millions of television screens for well over a decade. Some, like Les Swanson, even chose to leave the white-collar job of guidance counsellor for a career in cleaning septic tanks. 

"Rowe noticed that folks like Swanson 'seemed to be better balanced and happier than most of the people [he] knew,' and asked, '[W]hat in the world do these people know that the rest of us don’t?' In an inversion of a seeker’s stereotypical trek to the top of a mountain to ask a cross-legged sage about the secret to a happy and meaningful life, Rowe put the question to Swanson while helping him 'suck . . . the shit out of people’s septic tanks.' Swanson’s response? 'What came first was the fact that nobody was doing this. What came second was my own, hardheaded commitment to be very good at it. And then, I did the thing that is the hardest thing to do. And that is figure out how to love something that you didn’t think you did.'

"Swanson paid attention to the reality of the market to capitalise on an opportunity to fill a gap he perceived and was more than willing to become excellent at his new job. It’s in the last step he identifies of learning how to love work that was not in his original game plan—a reality for countless workers—that the key to meaning exists. Even those who do follow their passion and fortunately land work they love right out of the gate are not always sure that their work is meaningful. 

"They, too, need to wrestle with 'the meaning question.' So, what is meaningful work? And how can that make for a meaningful life? ...

"We can look to philosopher-mechanic Matthew B. Crawford for a more current embodiment and articulation of this insight. When reflecting on what being an electrician’s assistant meant to him (a job he held as a teenager and young man), he says:

'I never ceased to take pleasure in the moment, at the end of a job, when I would flip the switch. "And there was light." It was an experience of agency and competence. The effects of my work were visible for all to see, so my competence was real for others as well; it had a social currency. . . . Maybe another electrician would see it someday. Even if not, I felt responsible to my better self. Or rather, to the thing itself—craftsmanship has been said to consist simply in the desire to do something well.'

"Crawford’s thoughtful account of what the work of electrician’s assistant meant to him—which transfers to his approach to all of his current work as a philosopher and motorcycle mechanic—reflects insights offered by Rowe [and others] about what makes work both subjectively and objectively meaningful. ...

"[T]he spiritual values you produce through your work [summarises] Rand also 'make his life worth living.' ...

"[L]ife takes work and ... such work requires taking personal responsibility for building a character and self capable of working. It also involves consciously choosing to engage in meaningful work and finding ways to illuminate how that work provides meaning in your life. When these are all in place, alienation and other ills get crowded out. You can look with pride at your life that you stocked with values you created through your work, smile, and say, 'I made this!'

"When Rowe replaces 'follow your passion' with 'bring your passion with you,' that’s a call to bring your passion for living with you no matter where you go or what job you have. Whether you’re building houses or bridges, painting a canvas, or writing a book, you’re always busy with the work of building your life. Roark’s proclamation that 'the meaning of life” is 'your work' is thus not so startling after all."

~ Carry-Ann Biondi from her symposium paper 'Mike Rowe, Work, and Meaning in Life'

"Why are leading institutions so biased against fossil fuels?"

"Why are leading institutions so biased against fossil fuels?

"Because their operating 'anti-impact framework' causes them to view fossil fuels, which are inherently high impact, as intrinsically immoral and inevitably self-destructive.
...

"Our knowledge system’s opposition to fossil fuels while ignoring their enormous benefits can only be explained by it operating on an anti-human moral goal and standard of evaluation that regards benefits to human life as morally unimportant.

"Outside the realm of energy, an example of an anti-human moral goal at work is the scientists who, operating on the anti-human moral goal of animal equality, oppose animal testing for medical research and disregard its life-saving benefits to humans.

"The primary moral goal of our knowledge system that operates on energy issues is the anti-human goal of eliminating human impact on the rest of nature—a widely-held goal that is often disguised as merely eliminating only human-harming impacts.

"Our leading institutions' attempt to disguise their goal of eliminating all human impacts as eliminating only human-harming impacts by using vague terminology such as 'going green,' 'minimising environmental impact,' 'protecting the environment,' and 'saving the planet.'

"The goal of eliminating human impact necessarily drives our knowledge system’s opposition to cost-effective energy because cost-effective energy always significantly impacts nature.
...
"Our knowledge system ignores the benefits of cost-effective energy because on the anti-human standard, it is intrinsically immoral and its benefits are morally irrelevant.

"Our knowledge system catastrophises the negative side-effects of cost-effective energy because it views Earth as a 'delicate nurturer.'

"On the 'delicate nurturer' assumption, Earth naturally exists in a delicate, nurturing balance, with humans as 'parasite-polluters' whose impact can only destroy it ... 

"The 'anti-impact framework' must be replaced by the 'human flourishing framework,' including the goal of advancing human flourishing ..."

~ Alex Epstein from his post 'The root cause of our leading institutions' bias against fossil fuels'

'Why Cynicism is Just Moral Cowardice'

"The cynic who treats all institutions as corrupt helps make all institutions corrupt by withdrawing the good-faith engagement that makes them not corrupt."

~ Joan Westenberg from har article 'Why Cynicism is Just Moral Cowardice' [hat tip Duncan B]

Your "unlived life"

"The world is full of people suffering from the effects of their own unlived life. They become bitter, critical, or rigid, not because the world is cruel to them, but because they have betrayed their own inner possibilities. The artist who never makes art becomes cynical about those who do. The lover who never risks loving mocks romance. The thinker who never commits to a philosophy sneers at belief itself. And yet, all of them suffer, because deep down they know: the life they mock is the life they were meant to live."

~ Carl Jung

"We never had to take any of it seriously, did we?"

On Ayn Rand Day (which was on Monday, apparently) let's remember what to take seriously.

In a letter to a fan, she said of her novel Atlas Shrugged:

You ask me about the meaning of the dialogue on page 702 of ATLAS SHRUGGED: 

'We never had to take any of it seriously, did we?' she whispered.

'No, we never had to.' ...

Let me begin by saying that this is perhaps the most important point in the whole book, because it is the condensed emotional summation, the keynote or leitmotif, of the view of life presented in Atlas Shrugged. ...

What Dagny expresses here is the conviction that joy, exaltation, beauty, greatness, heroism, all the supreme, uplifting values of man's existence on earth, are the meaning of life—not the pain or ugliness he may encounter—that one must live for the sake of such exalted moments as one may be able to achieve or experience, not for the sake of suffering—that happiness matters, but suffering does not—that no matter how much pain one may have to endure, it is never to be taken seriously, that is: never to be taken as the essence and meaning of life—that the essence of life is the achievement of joy, not the escape from pain.