Shouldn’t You Really Know Better After All This Time?

Speaker Blair: Today in the Foxhole, we are welcoming back Andy Clarkson. He's here to discuss his series of videos entitled The Six Point Pattern of the Antiairistotelians. Welcome, Andy.

Speaker Andy: Hey, guys, how are you doing? Glad to hear your voices again.

Speaker Blair: Thanks. Good to have you back.

Speaker Martin: Great.

Speaker Blair: All right, so why would anyone be interested in a podcast and a video series entitled The Six Point Pattern of the Anti Aristotelian? What do you think, Andy?

Speaker Andy: Well, that's a great question and I will admit it's bit of an obscure topic, but it's highly relevant. So absolutely great way to start this off. And if I may, Blair and Martin, I'd like to answer them both from my perspective with three answers, but can I give a little background first that may show context to your listeners?

Speaker Martin: Please do.

Speaker Blair: It's on YouTube, right?

Speaker Andy: It's on YouTube. It's free. In fact, I was going to tell you where it is, but let's just do that right now. There's a couple of ways to get into it. One is you can just go to Youtube.com and do a search on six points and spell out the word six point pattern Anti Aristotelian, or go to the playlist when you get to that. It's The Impact of Aristotle's, the name of the channel and you'll see six videos average about ten minutes in length, some shorter, some longer. Or you can go directly to a URL. And I think most of your listings and you guys are familiar with URL shorteners, like tinyurl.com?

Unknown Speaker: Yes.

Speaker Blair: What I appreciate about the videos too, Andy, is that they're just like ten minutes long. You're able to compact all this knowledge into 610 minutes videos.

Speaker Andy: Great. Well, thanks. I appreciate that. Yes, and I hope that's useful to your listeners. Again, watching it through, I think that's less than an hour, but they are broken up if you need to rewind and what the heck is he talking about? Some of the stuff is a little complex, but yeah. Thank you, thank you.

Speaker Blair: Go ahead, Mark.

Speaker Martin: And in the future we will do a backup for this because this could happen. It's on YouTube and I say no more. So we should find a safe place for it in the future.

Speaker Blair: Also true.

Speaker Andy: Feel free to download it. Sure. Yeah. But I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. So did that answer your opening questions, Blair, about who would be interested in wine?

Speaker Blair: I especially love the subtitle, but we're going to get into that here in a little bit. My other question to you, Andy, is now of course, you're focusing on the anti Aristotelians. Do you also provide the listener or the viewer with Aristotle's achievements?

Speaker Blair: Great. Now, you mentioned in the notes here that you generous to provide me. You mentioned both Ms. Rand and Leonard Peakoff. Do you want a quote from them?

Unknown Speaker: Yes.

Speaker Andy: And the last one is this gets to the point about valuing things. If we consider the fact that to this day, everything that makes us civilized beings, every rational value that we possess, including the birth of science, the Industrial Revolution, the creation of the United States, even the structure of our language is the result of Aristotle's influence of the degree to which, explicitly or implicitly, man accepted his epistemological principles. We would have to say, never had so many owed so much to one man. So I want to say that this video series is an application of objectivism. I can't take credit for it. Without an Iron Rand and a Leonard Peacock, I wouldn't have any idea this so they were the inspirations, their philosophy, her philosophy, which he expounded upon, drove all this. I wanted to learn this on my own and then be able to share it in my way to you, your listeners and anybody who is interested, just.

Speaker Blair: For our listeners too. Andy, define what epistemology is for.

Speaker Andy: Excellent. So in philosophy, there are five classes. Metaphysics is the view of the world, the view of the universe. Okay? And I'm not going to go into big detail. Epistemology is the science of how we know. How do we gain knowledge about the universe, everything in the universe, how do we gain that? And so Aristotle and objectivism, epistemology is based on human faculty of reason, which is the foundation of the process of thinking. So that's epistemology, some have faith. Epistemologies based on faith and belief. That's a claim to no knowledge, but it's no proof. No proof, but just belief. But once epistemology is how one gains knowledge. Hopefully that was briefing to the point.

Speaker Blair: I believe that, yeah, that should work. Thank you so much. Now, I love the subtitle here. Shouldn't you really know better after all this time, after all the missteps and the tragedies and the calamities that have happened and are happening now?

Speaker Martin: And do you see that right now, for example, what's going on in Russia and Ukraine? Warfare. And they get moral support from a church or from an orthodox.

Speaker Andy: Yes, the Putin is getting support from the church. Yeah. And so the mysticism is supporting the initiation of force. Is that what you're getting at?

Speaker Martin: Yes.

Speaker Andy: And so it goes on and it's destructive. Human lives are obviously people are dying, being murdered. There's some evidence of some level of young aside. And think of the prosperity, think of this being demolished. Think of the misery that's being caused. This doesn't have to happen anymore. We really should know better after all this time. Yeah. So good example martin thank you.

Speaker Blair: So why don't you give us a highlight of the title of each of your six episodes and then a brief explanation.

Speaker Andy: Happy to do that. So not going to go deep in depth here on the podcast and repeat everything, the video series?

Speaker Blair: No, you don't have to do that, but yeah.

Speaker Blair: No, go on.

Speaker Martin: May I ask interrupt you there already? Because I did that as a mental note there. Could you talk a little about the Huskala and the Wall Street brothers? And also you have some ideas about maybe misranse of life and also if this is existing in today's Israel, it was many questions there, but if you want because I have never heard about this before.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah. Thanks.

Speaker Blair: All right, you want to continue with a brief analysis of each one?

Speaker Andy: Yeah. So this is episode two still, and we look at some specific accomplishments. Again, some concrete. The printing press and the Renaissance, the great discoverers, Columbus, Magellan, the flourishing of art of Michelangelo and DaVinci, international trade blossoming, universities growing in Europe. You have Galileo and Newton and Tyco, Bra and Kepler, and the growth of medicine and science and microscopes and telescopes. So that all came from there. So we talk about those errors and those accomplishments. Then we get to episode or part three, the anti Aristotelian destruction. And this is where we start getting into the six points of the antiairistotelians. And this episode, this part three, antiairistian destruction, covers the first two points, the obliteration of Aristotle, and thus the obliteration of reason. And then two, the adoption of the arbitrary. So we just talked about what arbitrary is, and we gain an understanding, a basic understanding of the ideas of anti Aristotelians, including Jesus, St. Augustine, Mohammed, Emmanuel Kant, Adolf Hitler and Karl Marx. And we see again the genocide, the poverty, the war and overall misery caused by these ideas. In particular, the Christian Dark Ages and Inquisition. Islamic Jihad. Communist socialist genocide leading to millions of deaths in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia. And of course, we have the Kante and Germans, who led to two world wars and tens of millions more murders. So between part two and part three, we see concrete of the good and the bad. We move to episode or part four, the demand to follow commands. And now in this episode, in this part, we cover two additional of the six points. Three and 4.3 is the submission to some alleged greater consciousness. They want you to give up your consciousness, your mind, and submit to some other one. And number four is the demand to follow rules or commands that come from the alleged greater consciousness. And we explain what consciousness is and the impact of when a culture and an individual gives up their consciousness to some alleged greater consciousness. And we cover examples from the Quran, hitler's Mind camp, karl Marx's Communist manifesto, the teachings of St. Augustine, emmanuel Khan's critique of pure reason, and the Sermon on the Mount from Jesus Christ. And we've got arbitrary rules from the Quran. I'm not going to go through them now, but you get an idea of the concrete of those two. So now we get to part five, episode five. Again, these are all about ten minutes long, some a couple of minutes shorter, some couple of minutes longer. In this part five, we look at the final two points of the six point pattern of the Anti Aristotelians. .5 is you get a fantasy reward for submitting to this alleged greater consciousness and for following the rules. So you get reward for this. It's a fantasy reward, but they tell you you're going to get things and then the .6 is but if you don't follow the rules, there will be the initiation of force if you don't follow the rules and commands of the anti recent program. And then so we examine the assertions of the rewards if you submit to the Antiairistotelians. These include Jesus Christ's claim of heaven. Hitler's fantasy of a racially pure culture marks his arbitrary vision from each according to his ability to each according to his needs, and Mohammed's dream of a paradise thereafter. And then we see where the initiation of force comes in. And we see, obviously, Hitler and his storm detachment, mohammed calling for jihad, karl Marx calling for the violent overthrow of the productive, and even in the United States of America, pre United States, pre Revolution, pre Founding Fathers, the Christian theocracy in North America, Plymouth Rock. Yes, yeah, all that. There are plenty of examples there. But then we get to part six, and that is the antidote to the Anti Aristotelian. And clearly the antidote is fundamentally is reason. And we review the antidote to the six points of the Anti Aristotelian that reason is the fundamental key to love, to life and happiness versus the fear, the genocide, the misery, the poverty of the anti Aristotelians. So we look at reason as a capitalism, as a political system of reason, and not to the arbitrary. Remember we mentioned the arbitrary and we talked about what that is. So your listeners know what that is, if they don't already. So that's one point. We look at the fact because capitalism is based upon reason. Reason is an attribute of the consciousness of the individual. We're not just cells in an organism. Martin. You are Martin and Blair you are Blair. Andy's. Andy. We're all individuals. Capitalism because it's based on reason, it's a system of voluntary trade of values. And because capitalism is based upon reason, it's a political system of individual and property rights, not the initiation of force that we see from the Anti Aristotelians. And because capitalism is based upon reason, it's the system for prosperity and happiness of human beings living on earth.

Speaker Blair: Let me jump in and reiterate too, and people often associate capitalism with just the economics, but it's actually an entire philosophic system named capitalism. It is a philosophy, it is an ethics, it's an economic system. But the philosophy and the ethics have been ignored or denounced until Ms. Rand corrected those errors, if you will. That's my personal view.

Speaker Andy: Absolutely.

Speaker Blair: It is quite more than just economics.

Speaker Andy: Absolutely. Yeah. I think people see a guy with gray hair in a business suit and say he's a capitalist and he may have something to do with business, but he may be tied into the government and getting favors and pushing for favors and regulations. Capitalism has been smeared, but I'm providing a definition and I include it in the video series. And basically, capitalism is a social system. While we are all individuals, there are relationships. There is politics in terms of relationships between individuals, and there has to be a social system for how individuals work together and for those individuals who don't work together, that is, those who initiate force. So she defined and I'm defining it loosely here, I do have the definition in the series, but it's the social system that protects all individual rights, including property rights. So we talk about that, and then we do end the series by another objectiveist concept by asking the question, are you motivated by love or are you motivated by fear? Are you an Aristotelian or an anti Aristotelian? And I won't go into all that now, but we do again reinforce your question earlier on about the subtitle, about we should know better by now. So there's further discussion of that. And then at the end, I kind of tied together with the tragic story of the church's attack on Galileo, and I talked about what happened to him and also why it happened as just another concrete example. But it's really a matter of choice. Every individual has the choice to think or not, and that's what, in the end, this is about. So, any questions?

Speaker Martin: Thomas yes, and I want to always end on a good note, but we talked in the green room here before, and you said you have got Alex Epstein's book, Fossil Fuels. So I wonder if environmentalists are new religion, and maybe you could come back for another episode and talk about that.

Speaker Andy: Oh, sure, yeah. Maybe talk about Alex's book in general, or just environmentalism in general?

Speaker Martin: Yeah, both.

Speaker Andy: I would love to do that. Yes.

Speaker Blair: The book is called Fossil Future. Yes, and it's outstanding. I bought it. I've read the first ten pages. I know I'm going to learn quite a bit from it.

Speaker Andy: Yeah, I do mention in the series.

Speaker Blair: But very briefly, let me just interject then. Philosophers throughout history, when they talk about history, they mentioned three people have brought us to where we are today, and that is Plato, Aristotle, and Emmanuel Kant. Plato and Emmanuel Kant are the anti Aristotelians, and we are seeing a Kant's work unraveling today. With environmentalism, with the restriction of productivity at every level. And the antidote again, would be in a modern day Aristotelian. And her name is Ayn Rand. That's my personal view, yes. But I believe she backs it up with facts, logic and I encourage everyone to read her work. That is why Martin and I have this podcast, because we are advocates of her ideas. Without apology, Andy, we really appreciate you coming on and discussing and elaborating on your video series.

Speaker Andy: Yes, I appreciate that. And just a plug for some past episodes that the three of us have had. We discussed previously the ideas of Aristotle and Iron Rand about happiness, in particular about Exalted Moments, the episode back in November. We've also discussed in previous episodes here on the secular Foxhole in two separate podcasts to modern day anti Aristotelians Jordan Peterson. Don't bite into the Jordan Peterson Marshmallow his Name episode. And then also about Dennis Prager. Back to the Dark Ages with Dennis Prager. So if you want to see more up to date view of antihearse Italians, we've covered them there, but always about it to spend time with you guys. A lot of fun. Always. Thank you.

Speaker Blair: You're welcome. And anyway, all of Andy's episodes correlate. So Andy, thanks for manning the Foxhole with us today.

Speaker Andy: My pleasure. Take care, fellas.

Speaker Martin: And I will end here with Segway in a way. But you had one in the series where, quote, where capitalism is based upon reason, a system of voluntary trade of values.

Speaker Blair: Correct.

Speaker Andy: I'm good. Fellas, thank you again as always for this opportunity. I appreciate it.

Speaker Martin: Thank you very much and talk to you soon again.

Speaker Andy: Take care guys. See you.

Speaker Blair: Take care. Thanks. Bye.