Contradictions: Do They Exist In Your Thinking?

Whatever you may think you know or may ever hope to know, keep the following in mind: contradictions do not exist.  Most people, who exercise some capacity of rational thought, understand that absolute.  Just to be clear about reason; it is our metal faculty which takes our precepts and integrates that information within the entire context of our existing knowledge in a non-contradictory manner.  The issue is, however, when we think we’re facing a contradiction, our default assumption is to eliminate the new information -- that is an error.

Man is capable of error, so when facing a contradiction, wouldn’t it be prudent to challenge what you already know on a rational standard to see if you made an error?  What’s the worst that could happen?  You continue to revalidate your initial assumptions based on rational standards?  What’s the best that could happen?  You discover an error in your thinking and you correct it.  (The value in correcting one’s thinking should be plain).

To guide your thinking, become familiar with the Laws of Thought: Law of Identity, Law of Excluded Middle, and Law of Non-Contradiction.  Why?  Most understand, at least implicitly, the Primacy of Existence; the next logical step is conforming your thoughts to Law of Identity -- i.e., the Supremacy of Reason -- the result being the elimination of any contradictions that may exist in your thinking.

We know through observation, and the Law of Identity as applied to man, that man must use reason to survive -- reason is man’s basic tool of survival qua man.  Man must create material values (route water, plant and grow food, build shelters, etc.) to survive; values do not preexist for him -- he lacks claws for defense, fur or hide for warmth or protection, and preexisting knowledge to serve as instinct.  Any form of creation, from tools to a skyscraper, requires a process of thought – “what is it that I want to achieve, and how do I do it”? 

In determining how do accomplish something, man must determine the identity of certain objects.  In something as simple as planting, for example, he has to understand that the identity of plants obligates certain requirements for the plant to flourish -- the roots must be buried in dirt with plenty of nutrients, the leaves must have access to an adequate amount of photons, and the plant requires access to the right amount of water.  Man must discover how accomplish these tasks and in what order.  None of this can be achieved by a process of non-thinking, and most importantly, none of his thinking can be effective unless he accurately identifies the facts of reality -- i.e. he thinks rationally -- and acts accordingly.

In the spirit of rooting out contradictions, perhaps the most important historical tenant, that is taken as an absolute, which requires challenging on a rational standard, is the principle of otherism -- i.e. altruism.  Why is altruism accepted without question?  Is it because altruism has no rational foundation?  Why is questioning altruism -- i.e. using your rational faculty to challenge it -- considered inhumane?  Isn’t rational thought, as we observed, necessarily a human requirement?  So, thought is obligatory in creating values, but the absence of thought is obligatory in how to dispose of those values? 

And therein lays the contradiction: man’s identity obligates rational thought, while altruism (thus far) obligates its absence -- how can it be obligatory to think and not to think?  If you wish to eliminate every contradiction in your thinking, then altruism either requires a rational foundation or it’s patently false.  Use this opportunity to start your rational journey into the field of ethics, root out the error, and eliminate the contradiction -- whatever it may be. 

Let’s hear what you discovered.  Does a rational foundation exist for altruism or is it doomed as irrational?  You might be wondering what could possibly replace altruism.  Catch a glimpse of it here.

Ayn Rand's Theory of Rights: The Moral Foundation of a Free Society

"But the theory that rights come from God is hopeless. To begin with, there is no evidence for the existence of such a being, much less for the existence of rights that somehow emanate from his will. Whether one believes in God is beside the point here. Either way, the fact remains that there is no evidence for God’s existence, which is why it is supposed to be accepted on faith—in the absence of evidence. Rights in support of which there is no evidence are not rights but fantasies...

"...To say that rights come from God is to say that there is no evidence in support of their existence, that there is no basis for them in perceptual reality, that they are not rationally provable. This is not a sound theory of rights; it cannot serve as a solid foundation on which to advocate or defend liberty..." [Continued...]

Altruism: The Morality of Logical Fallacies

"Altruism holds that being moral consists in self-sacrificially serving others. Despite its self-destructive nature, altruism is accepted to some extent by almost everyone today. Of course, no one upholds it consistently—at least not for long. Rather, most people accept it as true—and then cheat on it.

"All religionists—Christians, Jews, and Muslims—are altruists. Their holy books demand it. All so-called “Secular Humanists”—Utilitarians, Postmodernists, and Egalitarians—are altruists. Their philosophies demand it.

"From the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim points of view..." [Continued]

The Perils of Altruism

This choice has been offered: either sacrifice* others to yourself, or sacrifice yourself to others. Now, which will you choose as your moral purpose? Which is more noble? Clearly, sacrificing others to yourself comes with the implicit, distasteful understanding that fraud or force is necessary because no one in their right mind would knowingly and voluntarily do that. Altruism rests on this foundation -- the alternative is worse.


Are the alternatives correct, though, or is it a false dichotomy? The choice as presented assumes that sacrifice is necessary. If you do not choose to sacrifice yourself to others, then you necessarily will be sacrificing others to yourself (or vice versa). But is that assumption correct? Is sacrifice a necessary part of the way men deal with one another? If not, does that suggest a third option: neither sacrificing yourself to others, nor others to yourself?


Changing tracks a bit, it stands to reason that life, in order to survive, feeds off of other life-forms -- from herbivores that eat grass to carnivores that eat herbivores, and everything in-between. That is the nature of life and nothing less will sustain it. None of the rules of life are arbitrary or whimsical -- it is the necessary consequence of one of the laws of nature: the law of identity -- A is A. A life-form is a particular type of entity, with particular characteristics and requirements. If any life-form were to act against -- i.e. contradict -- its requirements, then it would die. If a plant were to strangle its roots and shun light, it would wither and die. If an herbivore were to refuse to consume plants, it would die. If a carnivore were to refuse to consume herbivores, it would die.


With that in mind, it would be an error to assume that men deal with one another in the same manner as they deal with other classes of life-forms -- by consuming them. True, men deal with other classes of life-forms in this regard, but there is a key attribute that men possess which makes their interaction with each other different from all the rest -- their rational faculty.


Man’s mind allows him to produce the values, which his life requires. Man can organize plants in a manner which yields a thousand to a million times more produce than nature would otherwise produce. Man can organize animals in much the same way to create similar effects. Man can design and build machines to make his efforts ever more efficient. Man’s limit of achievement has continuously been broken by each new invention. Man, by his nature, is a producer of his own values. Where in any of this, is sacrifice necessary?

Since men are the creators of the objective values that man’s life requires, it is in man’s nature to deal with other men, not as exploiter or exploitee, but as traders. Each man possesses a value that they produced (with which they are willing to part) and trades it for another value (which they require more than the original) -- both men gain objective value which supports both of their lives. Where in any of this, is sacrifice necessary?

Remember, “If any life-form were to act against -- i.e. contradict -- its requirements, then it would die.” To assume that sacrifice is necessary when dealing with one another is to assume that the only means to acquire values, which your life requires, is by expropriating them from others -- this contradicts man’s requirement to produce and trade the objective values that his life requires. Figuring out how to grow food will sustain your life, killing others for the food they created will not -- what will happen when you run out of victims? Trading values that you do not require for those that you do will sustain your life, killing others who possess the values you need will not -- what will happen when you run out of victims? Those potential victims, if regarded as traders instead, can continue to produce the values you require, which will allow you the opportunity to trade (if you offer them a good value in return).


Since altruism’s foundation is based on the necessity of sacrifice, it too contradicts man’s requirements, and therefore, is a morality of death. What are those contradictions, you might ask. For starters, altruism is a contradiction in terms. Isn’t the person accepting the values, that you offer selflessly, selfish for accepting them? Selfishness goes against altruism and would be considered bad under those terms, right? Why would a moral standard require you to support its antithesis? Secondly, it contradicts man’s requirements. Don’t you require material values (food, water, cloths, shelter, etc.) to survive and live a fulfilling life? If you get those values from someone else, then you’d be bad, right? If you create them and consume them yourself, then you’d be bad for not sharing, right?


Why would a moral standard, if practiced consistently, guide you to self-destruction? The fact that men are alive today means they’ve breached the morality of altruism to some degree -- that leads to the perils of altruism: those who are noble die in its name and those who are alive owe their guilty lives to others.

The third option is far superior than the original two. It allows men to be set free from other men and allows them to live free on their own effort or any voluntary arrangements their hearts desire -- all this is accomplished without sacrifice.


*Note: I suppose it would be prudent to clearly identify what I mean by sacrifice. It is a type of trade which exchanges something of higher value for something of lower value. A $1 bill in exchange for $100 bill is not a sacrifice -- A $100 bill for $1 bill is. Going without food to feed your child is not a sacrifice -- taking the food out of your child’s mouth for another’s child is.

Freedom Must Be Earned

No one can escape this undeniable truth: freedom must be earned—if not by you, then by the grace and generosity of your betters.  To earn is to apply intelligent effort to achieve an outcome—which presupposes a mind able to think and use reason in order to distinguish truth from non-truth.  The more valuable the goal then the more worthwhile the intelligent effort is in achieving it.  Freedom being the most valuable thing an individual can earn, it is only fitting that it’s the hardest thing to obtain and maintain.  Through all of recorded history, it wasn’t until the climax of the Enlightenment that a political system was designed and implemented to defend liberty—early attempts were made before, but none as successful as the U.S. Constitution.  Our Constitution is a guard against tyranny; but just like its utter uselessness in the hands of mindless barbarians, who do not even know the reasons for their own traditions, so it is useless in the hands of mindless politicians elected by thoughtless constituents.  It would almost take a mind as great as our framers—and just as thirsty for liberty—to preserve our political system that guards individual freedom.  A mind that is simply acquiescent to the greatness of our framers’ design is not enough to secure liberty for he is defenseless against the senseless—how is he to know the difference?

“If it ain’t broken, then don’t fix it… but how do you go about maintaining it?”  Just like a properly functioning motor needs maintenance from time to time, so does liberty—as Thomas Jefferson once said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”  When a motor ceases to operate or ceases to operate well, it will take an understanding mind to ascertain a solution.  When a man suggests adding water to the fuel tank or mulch to the engine, how would you know that to be wrong unless you know something about the essence and nature of motors?  When a man tells you that the only way to secure liberty is to take it away, how would you know that to be an error unless you know something about the essence and nature of liberty?  There may be a lot of good choices when it comes to properly maintaining a motor, but there are infinitely more bad choices—so it is with preserving liberty—how are you to know the difference?

The first step to maintain our system of liberty is to discover liberty’s true essence, nature and importance—aside from what others tell you.  The second step is to learn the true essence, nature and importance of our constitutional republic’s inner workings—aside from what others tell you.  If you have no interest in discovering the difference or you don’t think that you are capable of understanding it, then you have already surrendered the right to liberty long ago and whatever individual freedoms you do enjoy you owe to men better than yourself; but then again, how are you to know the difference?

To know the difference requires learning the truth and contrasting that knowledge from the thick fog of non-truth.  That particular journey is quite long and perhaps it can never be fully completed; but once significant progress is made, the subsequent steps to preserving liberty and our system will come quite naturally.  I suggest that you start now for your time to act is running out.

"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it."  — Judge Learned Hand

"Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks -- no form of government can render us secure. To suppose liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.”  — James Madison, Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 20, 1788

Suggested Reading to Understand Liberty and Our System:

Common Sense, by Thomas Paine

The U.S. Declaration of Independence

The U.S. Constitution

The Federalist papers

Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, by Ayn Rand

The Virtue of Selfishness, by Ayn Rand

For the New Intellectual, by Ayn Rand

Men in Black, by Mark Levin

End the Fed, by Ron Paul

Meet the System, by Joseph Plummer

Suggested Reading to Understand The Contrast:

The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx

Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, by Ludwig Von Mises

The Road to Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek