Tucker’s article is also posted on LvMI (so perhaps liberty student can agree that at least 1/3 of my post would be relevant for forum discussion), and Kinsella praises it as a “Fantastic post.” He claims “[parts of the song] are very catchy and creative” and that the song is “simple in celebrating how people like their freedom and freinds and weekends and celebrating life.” Again, endless “partying” and bored, shapeless “fun” are not celebrations of life; they are hedonistic attempts to avoid the necessity of thinking.
As an additional indicator that LRC is a hodgepodge of disjointed and unprincipled commentary-- after many months extolling the virtues of the Caveman Diet and warning of the evils of carbohydrates, today LRC declares maple syrup to be a “superfood!” The site is schizophrenic in its lack of consistent principles, and it has become so disappointing to me that I’m better off not reading it. I’ve kept up for so long because most anarchocapitalists I know seem to find value in it and I keep trying to figure out where and why. Would anyone care to recommend a commentary site that is more calm and consistent?
Isaac is right, Jeff’s article is not be taken as serious art/pop criticism, but it is serious…it is the use of a popular meme in the service of sparking thoughts in the mind of readers drawn to the unconventional material.
If you had bothered to read it on LRC to the bottom, you would have seen that it was reprinted at LRC from LvMI. I have a hard time taking you seriously when you’re not looking that close.
Your comments aren’t relevant for forum discussion, this forum isn’t for criticizing LvMI, it’s authors or the articles. It is a discussion forum for Austrian economics and political philosophy, not a personal rant space. Each article and blog post @ LvMI has a comment thread associated with it on the main site where you can post your comments and criticisms.
Lew doesn’t extol any of that. He links to alt lifestyle stuff because it is interesting and thought provoking. Mark Sisson has his opinion, and the Daily Mail has theirs, and Lew runs the ones that he finds interesting. You’re confusing being an editor with being a fanatic.
I checked out your other thread, and you seem to fancy yourself as the official Lew Rockwell watcher. Well, bad news, we already have one. His name is Telpeurion, and we gave him the job of monitoring Lew Rockwell to keep the lad out of traffic and away from men wearing only raincoats.
I will remind you that Lew doesn’t read here, and posting here will create no editorial changes on either site. Assumng that is your goal, your means don’t match your ends. Both Jeffrey and Lew can be reached by email, and they will reply to correspondence that isn’t unpleasant. Since we both know you’re a lovely person who would never come off as dogmatic, narrow minded or judgmental, pursue the matter of their content with them.
This forum is mostly filled with students. The few of us who don’t fit into that have awesome jobs, are bi-winning with at least two sexual partners, have flaming fists, adonis dna, tiger blood and are due to start our world tour as soon as we finish banging 7 gram rocks.
Indeed, and it was a damn successful hijacking as well. The mises.org version alone now has 811 Facebook likes (which is very high for Mises Dailies).
Full-grown men and women who burn so many calories energetically hating the output of successful kids like Justin Bieber, Robert Pattinson, and Rebecca Black crack me up. While trying to come off as so mature, high-minded, and cultured, they end up showing how immature, petty, and boorish they are.
Meanwhile, in writing this piece, and braving the ire of a few inevitable whiners in order to spread a pro-liberty message to hundreds, Jeffrey Tucker, an erudite, elegant fan of choral and classical music, shows once again how broad-minded, thoughtful, and clever he is.
Full-grown men and women who burn so many calories energetically hating the output of successful kids like Justin Bieber, Robert Pattinson, and Rebecca Black crack me up. While trying to come off as so mature, high-minded, and cultured, they end up showing how immature, petty, and boorish they are.
Yeah, that sort of thing is basically a signal for me to instantly stop talking to the person. I’ve never met a Bieber-hater who wasn’t a half-wit.
“The essays on this page constitute the opinions of their authors, only. Some of them contradict each other. Some of them are incompatible with the views of Congressman Ron Paul. The only thing they all have in common is that they are an attempt, on the part of their authors, to promote the candidacy of Dr. Paul to a narrow constituency, and that they were approved for that purpose by Lew Rockwell.” ~ Walter Block
In this regard, you will notice how often Lew writes in the front page headline “blah, blah, blah, says John Doe” or “…according to Jane Doe.” By not hearing differing viewpoints you put yourself at an intellectual disadvantage.
There’s nothing wrong with being ecumenical. Being open-minded is useful. But you shouldn’t be so open minded your brain falls out. Lew puts a lot of stuff up that is just wacky or nonsensical. There is a difference between saying that the Mubarak might have been behind Anwar Sadat’s assassination and saying that the CIA is using energy beams to kill birds.
Good point AL. AtlasRises calling a collection of writers “schizophrenic” because they don’t agree on everything reminds of when “cultural critics” call the “American public” “schizophrenic” for various reasons. Calling any group of individuals “shizophrenic” is methodological collectivism at its crudest.
Clayton, I can appreciate your post, especially your insight regarding moral nihilism vs. libertarianism. That is a very interesting thought. But I disagree that ideally we’d be partying and not producing. As an Objectivist-leaning person I am convinced that true happiness and contentment come from achievement.
Honestly though, unless you go into business for yourself(which I recommend most people do, given the opportunity), most jobs dont offer any real feeling of achievement.
In any case, theres nothing wrong with not working(or not wanting to work). In fact most economic activity is aimed towards increasing leisure time. Thats the whole point of investment in capital goods: to make workers more productive so they wont have to work as much. Even most work is(paradoxially) done with the purpose of increasing leisure, since most of workers paychecks either goes towards leisure activities, or goes into savings in the hopes of being able to late retire and not work.
We’ll never completely eleminate the need for human labor, but I think a healthy, sustainably growing economy will eventually reach a point where people will only work a few hours a week at most.
The writers at Lew Rockwell tend to show in in their writings that they will take anyone’s word over the government’s. Not necessarilly a bad position, but there is a great deal of difference between giving someone the benefit of the doubt, versus ignoring evidence you don’t like. Case and point, the siding of many writers with creationism and snake oil medicines. Rather than attempting to direct attention to the State’s use of force as the core issue (though they sometimes do), these individuals attempt to the discredit science and industries simply because the state has its hand in them. Fun example: Karen DeCoster’s incessant obsession with the cup cake industry and other “man-child” pleasures for adults. As a worker in the amusement industry, I like to think that you can still take a load off from time to time and have some relaxation that isn’t induced by endorphins during exercise. Karen believes that all of these adults participating in so-called childlike behaviors are purely due to the state. If it isn’t something she likes, she’ll say it is an excess caused by the Federal Reserve. Surely, once we have abolished the state, Disneyland will be no more. Right.
I will be honest and say that I often enjoy the content on the site, and check it several times daily… But those little nuggets of wisdom from Gary North, David Kramer, Christopher Manion, and the fore mentioned DeCoster make me loathe to send these links to my friends. If the wide spread dissemination of knowledge is our objective, as many here say it is, then is it not just to voice our concerns about our contemporaries who may be running counter to this goal?
