"Libertarian-Laced" Living
A specter is haunting the west...
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese 43
Joel Bowman, with today’s Note From the End of the World: Mermaid Beach, Australia...
Don’t look now, dear reader, there’s a new strain of super virus on the loose... or perhaps it’s the next wave of ableist, transphobic misogynoir... or maybe a crazy, ultra-far-extreme-hard-right-wing plot to overthrow democracy...
...by popular vote!
More on this imminent threat to life on planet earth in a moment. But first, a word about words... used, misused and downright abused.
War of the Words
As someone living the dream of a failed novelist, we have come to believe that the right word can paint a thousand pictures. But how malleable these linguistic tools have become, especially in the clammy clasp of those who pursue what might be called an “open relationship” with reality.
Like our dear readers, we peruse the papers of record with one eyebrow firmly furrowed. Sometimes we laugh. Other times we cry. Often, it’s a bit of both. Frequently shocked and rarely surprised, we take the good with the bad, hoping only to avoid the ugly as best we can.
Not in search of truth do we parse their flimsy pages, in other words, but to learn of the myths, fictions and pork pies promulgated by The Establishment. In ovine unison the presstitutes bleat the accepted narrative du jour, taking refuge in the false security of consensus.
Having never met a soppy shibboleth for which they didn’t promptly swoon in weak-kneed genuflection, today’s paper propagandists dutifully spout all the safe space slogans of the unthinking mob.
“Love is love.” “Black lives matter.” “Women’s rights are human rights.” “Science is real.”
Like other such pedestrian debates in the public square, the panting antagonists play fast and loose with definitions to justify their own all-too-human prejudices and petty conceits.
Who among us thinks of themselves as “anti-choice” or “anti-life”? Likewise, who claims “science is fake,” that the climate has never “changed,” that “women aren’t human” or “black lives don’t matter”?
More to the point, what breed of incurious fopdoodle would wish for life, in all its vibrant complexity and glorious nuance, to be reduced to a yard sign slogan?
The phrase “love is love,” for example, would appear to deny one of life’s great mysteries all its nourishing idiosyncrasies, its variegated forms, its sublime peaks and treacherous valleys. It is both a reductionist platitude and a cynical false equivalence. As anyone with a pulse knows, there are many types of love, by no means equal.
“Let me count the ways...”
The ancient Greeks had a trove of words to describe the forms of love we might, fortune willing, experience along our earthly journey, including pragma (rational, logical love, from which we derive the word pragmatic), philia (deep friendship, brotherly love), philautia (love of the self), eros (of a physical nature, whence comes the word “erotic”), storge (love of family), ludus (casual, flirtatious love), agape (love of God for man, love of man for God) and even mania (obsessive love). Each is as unique and astounding as the snowflakes on a mountainside.
Is love of one’s children the same as, say, love of one’s work? Love of a spouse tantamount to love of pistachio ice-cream? Brotherly love equal in all ways to love of a good book? And what is the motivation behind “solving for love” anyway, as though it were some pesky equation in a third grade mathematics pop quiz?
Why reduce a subject which inspired vast minds down through the ages, from Sappho to Shakespeare, Rumi to Keats, Byron to Browning, to a crude, three word bumper sticker? As if there was an argument to be had, and we’re now being informed of the one and only answer, forever and ever, Amen.
Can we not bask in the abstruse a while longer, prostrate beneath the open skies, without our enlightened betters enervating the mystery before us with their pithy formulae?
There are 8 billion people on the planet, give or take. No small number of them (read all) are looking for love or one kind or another. “Good luck!” we say.
More Than Words
This is more than “mere” semantics. The world as we know it was built on ideas... ideas articulated through the masterful mechanism of language. Control the language and you control the ideas. Control the ideas and you control the world. Which brings us back to our narrative mongers in the mainstream media.
Now, maybe we’re suckers for punishment... or perhaps we just enjoy a good belly laugh... but of all the claptrap clarions we ingest during the course of a given week, USA Today is one of our favorites. We are especially delighted to see the team of should-be satirists penning their latest “thoughts” on the goings-on back in Argentina.
Here’s how the paper’s allegedly objective World News section delivered “just the facts, ma’am” on Javier Milei’s having rescued his country from the brink of a hyper-inflationary abyss:
Argentina's chainsaw-wielding, self-proclaimed "anarcho-capitalist" president who says he takes most of his political advice from his dogs has appeared to achieve what many political analysts and economists said his radical plans almost certainly wouldn't: modest improvements to the country's economy.
Javier Milei, 53, a former right-wing economist and television pundit whose combative style and embrace of conspiracy theories has drawn comparisons to Donald Trump, took power in December.
[NB: Keen readers understand that Milei’s canine consultants are named after Austrian School economists… so they undoubtedly are excellent resources, as long as one has the ability to understand even a basic joke.]
After a few more gratuitous half truths, obligatory smears and context-free assertions, the author continues on his merry way, comedic tone-deafness on full display...
Milei has long claimed to adhere to a strain of libertarianism that has at its heart a political and economic philosophy that effectively calls for the abolition of the state. During his campaign, he repeatedly brandished a chainsaw to symbolize his intent to slash public spending to fix Argentina's troubled economy. He also claimed he was considering "blowing up" Argentina's central bank, which hasn't happened.
And here we come full circle, to the aforementioned grave and imminent threat to civilization, greater than any compound trigger word, worse than any campus micro-aggression, more hazardous than any pronoun misgendering you can imagine...
There is indeed a specter haunting The West, dear reader. That specter is... freedom. And not just any old garden variety freedom, either. As the author of the USA Today article frets, this new strain of freedom is “libertarian-laced.”
While grudgingly acknowledging that, “the plan from Argentina's controversial new leader to tackle runaway inflation may be working,” the article nevertheless laments that Milei’s “libertarian-laced austerity 'shock' measures have translated into lower inflation rates.”
Long time readers will recognize libertarianism as the radical notion that human beings are not government property. As such, anarcho-capitalists threaten no individual and arbitrarily preference no group. They are happy to live and let live, embracing the wondrous complexity of life in all its shades and nuances, aware that one day ash comes to ash, dust to dust, and we all stand equal before our beginning and our end.
To free people, liberty is life. To the state, it is death. And that’s today’s final word.
Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
P.S. Happily for liberty lovers (and woefully for statist haters…boo-hoo!), freedom is in the ascendency around the world.
Our friends back home in Argentina send word of Milei’s address to a packed stadium just last night, where he launched his new book Capitalismo, socialismo y la trampa neoclásica (“Capitalism, Socialism and the Neoclassical Trap”).
We’ll have more on that for you when our copy arrives…
Meanwhile, here on Substack, tens of thousands of independent authors, journalists, investigators, opinion columnists, etc. are sharing their own perspectives on everything from politics to economics, financial markets to crypto investing, corporatist malfeasance and individual triumphs.
We may be small… but we are legion. And we are bringing down the mainstream narrative… one brick at a time.
We are especially grateful to our generous Notes members, whose dues allow us to pursue this humble publication. If you would like to join our growing Notes community (already #24 in World Politics on Substack), please consider becoming a member today. Thanks in advance ~ JB
Your rich use of the King's English was in full flower today.
Too many phrases for me to single out any for a Mini-Mighty-Pen Award
However, I did like this single sentence a lot: "Can we not bask in the abstruse a while longer, prostrate beneath the open skies, without our enlightened betters enervating the mystery before us with their pithy formulae?"
I've often had similar thoughts but none close to the linguistic embellishment in this single sentence.
Joel, you most certainly can turn a phrase—so absolutely no need to refer to yourself as a failed novelist. As TS Eliot reportedly said when asked by his publisher if most editors were failed writers, he replied “Perhaps, but so are most writers.”
Although you and Bill have parted ways, I continue to follow your work (the greatest experiment) because of its importance to our time—literally on the bleeding edge of history—and because of your flair for the language. It is a rare pleasure to read someone inching their way up the ranks with the likes of a modern-day Roberts, Macaulay, or Gibbon. You’ve definitely got the gift. That said, please keep your eye on the ball. I’d like to hear more of your thoughts and commentary on the economics and politics of our situation/predicament. I hope you will understand this not as a criticism but as a plea for expanding the dialogue and community of all of us who enjoy your work and are vitally concerned with the issues of the day. Please stay focused on The Experiment. Hope you are enjoying your time “back home” after a 6-year hiatus (although they say we can never truly go home again). Best wishes for your personal fulfillment on this new and most important path you have chosen