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Yet another aristarchus submission has met it's appointed fate. Nothing surprising, but, there was a non-blank rationale field, highly unusual!

We're sorry, your submission "This online comic shows how pick-up artists morphed into the alt-right" was declined for the following reason:
All hail the Supreme Gentleman! -takyon

The editors felt it inappropriate for them to correct the issue themselves. Please feel free to correct the issue yourself and resubmit.

Of course, I think the entire point was that these are no Gentleman, and the Red Pillars need to get themselves over to The Art of Manliness website. And apparenty, this includes one of our more prolific editors? Cause for pause, Soylentils! What are we part of, here!

Ethics for Soylentils: Part Second.

We left off with the objections to Utilitarianism, before we were so rudely interrupted. But before we go any further, it would be a good idea to give some more general categorization to ethical theories. The entire opposition to ethics as an attempt to impose rules of behavior is actually mis-placed, unless you actually are a sociopath, in which case none of this is addressed to you. But we will need to establish what I like to refer to as "normative force", or what exactly is the basis of an obligaton to act in a particular fashion, which is regarded as "right".

There are some that oppose any "ethics" as an attempt to force, no doubt "down their throats", of some arbitrary value system or the other, most likely based on some religion, which is probably based on a bunch of old men trying to make it with high-school girls, or run for the United States Senate. And of course we all sympathize with that. But the costs of moral relativism are having to admit that any value system is just as good as any other. And this is demonstrably false. How demonstrably? Well, here we go.

The simplest power-point version of ethical theory is to divide them into three categories: who, what, or why. Slightly more expanded, they may be called "character", "intentions", or "consequences": or "agent, act, outcome". Now is should be easy to see why Utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethics. Actions are good or bad depending upon their consequences. Of course, what has always bothered me about this is that judging an action by its consequences just seems to be begging the question, or at least only putting it off. What makes for a good consequence? Well, utiltiarianism answers this with the utility calculus: if more are make better off, then it was a good action, "better off" being what those concerned consider to be better off. We aggregate all the "goodness" or utility of an action, and if the net is positive, countered by bad consequences, that action is good. But this leads us to the second objection to utilitarianism: can the aggregate increase in happiness offset the decrease in happiness by some?

Interesting digression: If, under utilitarianism, we want to maximize happiness, we should take into account the principle of diminishing marginal utility. As you might have come to realize by now, much of Bentham's thought is compatible with that of Adam Smith, the author of The Wealth of Nations and father of Neo-Classical economics. One slice of cake can increase your happiness level by quite a lot. A second by more, but not quite double. A third, well, more, but you almost have had enough. Four? At some point, they are shoving cake down your throat, and your pleasure levels are dropping instead of going up. Now this works for all goods? Maybe. But even if we never get to the down-side of the cure, the point remains that a poor person given any amount of a good, as opposed to a wealthy person, is going to produce a larger net gain in happiness, or utility. So, given the principle of utility, the most utility maximizing distribution of goods for any society would be communism. It just makes sense.

Of course, on the other side, some would say that allowing for less than egalitarian distribution of good could produce a situation where there was in fact more good to go around, so we can recommend a meritocracy type capitalism based on the greater social good. But in either case, there is no grounding of the system on the rights or deserts of any agents. But again, more on this later with John Rawls.

At this point I can hear our libertarian Soylentils just screaming
"Noooo!!", as they are wont to do when being reamed by the market.
But here we can sympathize with them, if only briefly. But as
Commander Spock said, "The needs of the
many outweigh the needs of the few, or the needs of the one." It
is only that we usually think this is true if the 'one' has some say in the matter. "A greater gift hath no man", etc., etc., but throwing the fat guy on the trolley tracks, well, it just seems wrong. Even if it would "save (more) lives".
And for a nice satirical explanation of "Trolley Car Ethics", see The Good Place, available on Netflix?

So, can we make an argument that conscripting people for the common good is wrong? There is no such barrier in Utilitarianism. If we think that is wrong, we need another theory. Utility is the "outcome" theory, where the ends justify the means. The "agent" theory is going to get short shrift here, mostly because I believe it is conservative propaganda. That leaves the "act" theory. This is going to get interesting. An "act" theory is going to say that actions are intrinsically good, or bad. Our Libertarian protagonist want's to say that taking from some, for the greater good, is wrong, an act of theft, no matter what good is achieved. The "act" theory is the best option for trying to rationally argue for that position.

The problem is that just asserting an action is intrisically wrong does not get us very far. In fact, it puts us right back at the level of personal preference masquerading as morality, as Jeremy Bentham rightly accuses it. To briefly recap, Utilitarianism puts this question off by not judging an act, nor its intent, but the consequences of the act, and then just accepting the judgment of the various persons involved or affects as to whether these consequences were good or bad, and then just aggregating those judgments for a final determination. One person, one vote, so to speak. But the difficulty is that if some action produces a "bad" for some, but a "greater good" on the whole, then that action, by its consequences, is good. Sacrifice of some is justified by the greater good of all. Of course, it is easier when the sacrifice sees this and acts voluntarily, but it is not necessary.

Ursula K. LeGuin just passed away. More than many writers in her genre, she could capture ethical issues in ways that clarified the central point. She wrote a short essay titled "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" that captures the problem with sacrifices: at some point, you have to acknowledge that your happiness is founded on the suffering of others. In the story, the happiness of an entire society is dependent upon the imprisonment and suffering of one individual child. At some point, when they are of age, each member of the society has to face the cause of their happiness, and consent to the arrangement. Some, the Ones who walk away, cannot do so. They leave. But as LeGuin writes, no one knows what happens to them. They walk away.

Deontology

So actions it is. Our question still is, how can this be a principled judgment, not just personal preference? Who is the boss of you? Or put more philosophically, whence normative force? This will be the primary focus in this Installment of Ethics for Soylentils, and I fear we may have to go to a third installment.

For a change, we are going to consider Immanuel Kant's ethical theory. It is kind of amazing that he is almost the only philosopher to lay down a theory that is based on obligation, and on the intuitive understanding that most people have about morality. So we launch into "Duty Ethics", the idea that there are actions that one must do, simpliciter.

The idea of "normative force" is essential to ethical theory. You can be nine ways to Sunday about what is right and good, but if you cannot come up with a motivation for people to practice it, well, it's just a theory. So the question is, as Bernard Williams put it, "Why Be Moral?", or as the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy calls it, "normative motivation".

Now, Kant is German. Nothing against that, in general, but German Philosophers tend to exacerbate the predelictions of the language. I have heard rumours that German philosophy students read the the great German thinkers in English translation, where they make much more sense. This is hard to imagine, to one whose native language is Samian Greek. But you are forwarned.

  Kant famously starts of by saying nothing is good in itself, but a good will. Right away we are into intentions, as opposed to results. There is something to this. Let's say you are an Propanol_fueled, charged by you masters with producing a weapon that will target Jews, genetically. But instead, your "product" cures clamydia, and about time, too. Do we think Prop is a good person, and what he did was a good thing, when what he was aiming at was genocide? Nope, still a bad person, even if the results were good. And we go the contrary, the biological researcher trying to cure cancer, but instead produces a pathogen that can be used to target left-handed people, and it is so used? Good person? Yes? Good outcome? Oops! But our point here is not to obfuscate Kant, rather it is to clarify him. He is saying that it is the antecedent aspect of actions that give them moral value, not what happens, but what you thought you were doing, that makes an action right or wrong. Now we all know that the road to Gab is paved with good intentions, so we will have to be a bit more detailed on this. And I think Kant actually pulls it off. But you will have to stick with us through a rather wild ride, conceptually speaking.

Alright, what makes a "good will"? Yes, we are faced with the identical question that plagues Utilitarianism, or for that matter any ethical theory. The question of "Ground". Now this is where the Moral Nihilists leave us, for they believe there is none, and can be none such. But Kant disagrees. And he believes the mass of humanity disagrees as well. Proving such a ground, however, is not as simple as it may seem. A "good will", by definition, is one that wills good things. Again, this just puts the question off. What makes an object of a will a good thing to will? Aristotle incorporates the same circular reasoning into his "virtue ethics", where he defines "virtue" as that what a virtuous person does. And, accordingly, a virtuous person is one who does virtuous things. Obviously. Utilitarianism, and Consequentialism generally, says that an outcome is good if some being thinks it is good. This has an advantage, as an ethical theory, that it treats all such judgments as given, and thus as equal. We ddo not say to the fan of Pro Wrassling that he does not actually think that wrestling is a good, we have to take his own judgment of his own good seriously. And we may even be able to extend the range of such judgments to non-human beings. So Utilitarianism is, or rather, can be quite egalitarian.

Is-Ought distinction, or why ethics is not psychology.
          But here is where the problem comes up. The problem, famously formulated by David hume as the Is-Ought Problem. Simply stated, Hume's observation was that we cannot derive an "ought" from an "is", Or to put it bluntly in the case of Utilitarianism, just because Bluto prefers watching WWE (World Wresting Entertainment) to watching opera, this does not means that he should prefer thusly. I can't believe I just typed "thusly". One should never do that, sorry. You see what I mean? But this does point up a very serious distinction: a separation of science and ethics. No facts about the world, be it human biology, historical sociology, or hylomorphism, can produce an obligation for anything to act in accordance with such facts. A dog wearing clothes and walking on its hind legs may be "un-doglike" behavior, but we cannot say that it should not do so. And of course, why does it do so, against its dog-nature? Here we have a significant point: Science can explain why organisms behave the way they do, but they cannot demand that they should behave in any particular way. So your dear author here, having been conditioned to write in certain ways, including the occasional egregious use of "thusly", no doubt does so on occassion, but that is no argument that he should not, or that he should. Alright, what we are after here is the idea that morality must have an entirely different ground than the facutal, empirical, scientifically studiable world. This is where Kant takes us. Now for you "spiritualists" among us, chill your jets. Supernatural is not what you think it is, and isn't it funny that your god hates all the same things that your hate! What are the odds? But the point remains, explanation is not the same a moral justification. Remember that.

Transcendental Method

Kant circumvents the entire issue. This is why he is hard to follow, he is not putting forth a theory of value, but instead a theory of obligation. Thus the ground is not the ground you might have thought it was, and in fact, as the Philosopher Barack Obama said, the ground may have shifted under your feet. The ground, in fact, is not what is, or is considered good; it is what can command you. We launch off into Kant's Transcendental Method. Okay, here it is: for everything that is, there are certain necessary conditions for the existence of that thing. We are in danger of committing the fallacy of affirming the consequent, but we will let that slip for now.

Kant's famous Critique of Pure Reason utilizes the same argument. This always reminds me of what a fellow philosopher once said to me: "every philosopher really has only one idea." I guess that was his! But Kant applied his transcendental method to reality, or, what is in fact, phenomena. In order for something to appear to a consciousness as an object, certain conditions are necessary. Three of these, to cut the argument ridiculously short, are a subject, space, and time. No subject, no object. No space, no distinguishing of subject from oject. No time, well now, where were we? You should get the point.

Now we move on to ethics. In order for there to be a right or wrong, there must be something that is a prior, or that is a priori in Latin, that makes it right, and this has to be a necessary precondition for something to be "good". Kant undertakes to produce a "metaphysic of morals", or that is, the formal or logically necessary structure of any system of morality whatsoever. This means that consequences, or even things like desires, cannot be the basis for morality, since they are all matters of a posteriori knowledge. Now this will strike almost all empiricists (from the Greek, ἐμπειρία,"to try") as completely insane, but not surprisingly, most empiricists are Utilitarian, or at least sceptics or Buddhists.

What follows from the consequentional nature of most other ethical systems is that we can never know what we should do until we know what it is we want. And more importantly, if we do not like what is entailed in achieving the end we desire, there is always the simple solution, "Stop desiring". And, well that is the Buddhist solution in a nutshell, but also famously addressed by Janis Joplin, who sang. "Oh Lord, won't ya buy me, a Mercedes Benz. My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends." The "Lack of Mercedes Problem" has several solutions, of which prayer is only one. One could make money, even though that did not seem to work for Janis. "Worked hard all my like, not a penny did I save;". Or credit, fradulent credit, car-jacking, all of which entangle one in further potential difficulties. The simplest solution is, "just stop wanting a Mercedes." Problem solved. So the real question is not what you should do, but how badly do you want the outcome? (We are going to leave aside the question of efficacy of any particular course of action.)

Kant distinguished between hypothetical imperatives, which are like the "How to own a Mercedes today!" scenario above, and obligations, what he calls "categorical imperatives", moral commands that you have an obligation to do, no matter what you want, so you cannot just decide not to want to do what it is that you must do. The existence of such commands is the question here, and perhaps it is better to reverse Kant's own explication of it. So we pose the question, not what duty is, but what is it that is the necessary pre-condition for duty, what would it take for an imperative, a command, to be binding upon you? Back to the "You're not the boss of me!" retort. Okay, then, who is?

There are two aspects to Kant's Categorical Imperative, universalization, and the "end-in-itself". The universalization might cause some objections. But think, if something is right for you to do, does that not mean that it is also right for anyone else to do, as well? We might refer to this as the "Golden Rule", with some provisions. The end-in-itself is the more interesting part, however. I have often be perturbed by fundie Christians, with their insistence that atheists cannot be moral. I finally realized that what they were saying was a version of Plato's "Great Chain of Being". In order for there to be, let's say, "blue", there would have to be, according to Plato, a perfect exemplar of "blueness", something so blue that anything blue would have to be included under it as a lesser blue. Now for Plato, and for Kant, and for the Xian Fundies, if there is no perfect being, there can be no lesser beings. Pause. Think about this. Perfect blue. That means that Peacock Blue is blue, but it is not "Perfect Blue",and is only a sort of blue by participation in the idea of "perfect blue". Perhaps this actually makes more sense in terms of morality.

If there is no ultimate, final, good, then nothing can be an instrumental good. Aristotle recognized this, and thought that there has to be some good that is only a good-in-itself, and not a means to some other good. He took a survey, and determined that this is happiness. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics,Book I, chapter 1.) Kant disagrees, for the reason that happiness is only valuable because someone values it. This is our crux, the question we have for Soylentils: is something valuable simply because someone values it? But if this is the case, value is,well, subjective, and worse, random! Now Kant avoids all this by starting off by saying that the only thing good in itself is a good will, and that a good will is one that can will, rationally, only good, because it is not determined by any interest or bias. But then he does the switch: A good will is one that does what it does out of respect for the law. We are iffy on what exactly Universal Moral Law is, but evenso, we can respect any being that could, whether it does or not, respect the law, as a law, as a categorical imperative. Thus Kant's Third Formulation of the Categorical Imperative is:

Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.

Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Second Section.

Now the consequences of this, if I may use the term, are quite extraordinary. Respecting another means recognizing them as a rational being, and respecting them as a rational being means, if nothing else, respecting their judgment, their freedom of judgment. Thus, messing with their judgement, by for example, lying to them, on the one hand is quite definitely using them as a means to our ends. But more importantly, it is interfering with their own free judgment, by getting them to rely on our own averred opinion, rather than objective facts. In other words, using them as a means by disrespecting their right to the truth.

Now I am going to cut to the chase, since no doubt we might have exceeded the mental ability of some Soylentils, and that is no reason to dispararge them, but we will keep it short. Kant insists on universal moral laws, not subjective laws, not "different view or values", absolute commanding moral laws. But the interesting part is that Kant realizes that the only way such laws could have purchase on a rational being, as opposed to one, for example, that might have interests that could be affected by breaking the law, is if that particular rational being make the universal law a universal law for it self. The law is not the law because any other being declares it to be the law. It is law, and binding upon you law, because you legislate law for your self, as a free being. No way out, bro!

Now the kicker: You legislate universal moral law, and so that law is obligatory for YOU. Respecting any other rational being means you have to respect their legislation of universal moral law for their own self, as well. So, obvious question, what about when our "universal moral laws" diverge? Well, obviously, we cannot both be right. As it was laid out in the movie "Highlander",

There can only be one!

However, and here is our point, lusty Soylentils, respecting the other rational being means you cannot coerce, or decieve, or canoodle or cajole, this person that is so wrong about what is right and wrong. But what you can do, is seek to persuade?

A rational being makes their own determinations based on reason,and the facts of the case. If you think they are in error, as a matter of respect you owe it to them to correct them. But here is the point: The only way to respect another is to offer them a rational argument. If the argument succeeds, it is not you that are forcing your opinion on another, it is they themselves that force the conclusion of a well argued argument upon themselves. Jurgen Habermas calls this "the forceless force of reason". But this does suggest how silly all the attempts at "culture wars" are, as if just managing to get a bare majority to agree with you, or that a capture of the state to enforce your ideas, amounts to a hill of beans. Give me an argument, leave me free to make up my own mind, but do not attempt to force your values onto me. If you do, we will have a whole 'nother level of intercourse, if you know what I mean!

(Side Note: I have tried this on TMB, to no avail. How many rational arguments do you have to offer before you can say you tried, at least?)

We're sorry, your submission "Alleged UK Neo-Nazi Admits Plot to Murder Lawmaker" was declined for the following reason:
We don't usually report murders or other sensational stories - so the only reason that you would submit this is because it includes the alt-right? Journal--JR

The editors felt it inappropriate for them to correct the issue themselves. Please feel free to correct the issue yourself and resubmit.

JR, in case you actually read this, there was no murder, only a confession to a plotted murder by one of your countrymen. I fear the real danger is not Syrian refugees, but Englishmen exposed to that alt-right. And I especially fear that janrinok is one of those.

Now your poor aristarchus is approaching 12% acceptance. Through no fault of his own, let me assure you! It mostly seems to the the Head Editor, Janirorok, or, jANINORAK, or, jannirock, something like that. Anyone can look him up in the appropriate venue. But the real nub of the matter is, Janirakor is controlling what solylents see as news!!!

Yeah, so what, big deal. Same as it ever was. Except, for one brief instant in the history of the Universe, an idea arose, an idea whose time had come, and idea that could have TMB, Fricking Runaway, the Original gweg_, and that nasty woman, Hazumi, all come together for a common purpose. And that purpose was TRUTH! Do you hear me, eds?
Why are you here, if not for truth? Why are we here, except for EF, who is evidently not here, except for truth? Do you want an alt-right incest Traditional Workers Racist website, or do you want the obverse, a site that bans any mention of the total idiocy of the Right, because the Right, traditional or alt-right, is so dumb as to defy description.

Of course, denying and rejecting, and not accepting, and deep-sixing submissions that point out exactly this will not avail SoylentNews. We already have a rep as an alt-right site, and members like myself are only entertainment, I guess. But, if any aristarchus submissions were to make it past the Iron-ass, retired military, totally brain-washed but not as much as the Runway, gateway of the JR . . . . Janirok, or janrinok, ::: Remember. Back before you applied to MI6. can, you? Did they wipe your mind, your memory, you very basic human sense of decency? Well, maybe, but that is no reason to reject aristarchus submissions. I mean, the dude is a philosopher, a "lover of Wisdom", dedicated to the pursuit of truth, and you take it upon yourself to reject his submissions? Oh, JR, if you actually are retired military, you should know better than this!
What is the first rule of intelligence? Yes, exactly, and you deprive Soylentils of the truth.
When Brexit cuts your pension, expect no sympathy from any other soylentils, except turgid, who never was MI6, or even MI5! What the hell is an MI, anyway?

update, **** New shit has come to light, man, and there's a beverage involved, man!

So, seriously, how could anyone make the case that Soylentils are not interested, only peripherally, of course, in a submission about Furries? Alt-furries just kinda simulates certain instincts, but still. How can the eds justify depriving the SoylentNews readership of such interesting, and entertaining, news? Aristarchus really wants to know!

And, does this just work? If I post a link to my submissions, everyone can peruse a better SoylentNews, such as it might have been ?
https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl
Hmm, looks like just me. Let me know what you see, my fellow soylentils!

*****
A friend has pointed out that rejected submissions are not publically viewable, so here they are:

Democratic Senate Judiciary report claims Russia ‘used’ the NRA to help Trump’s campaign Wednesday May 16, @10:15AM Pending
Janrinok rejects all aristarchus' submissions! Tuesday May 15, @10:53PM Rejected
Organiser of white supremacist march in Charlottesville planning second rally, nobody wants to come Tuesday May 15, @07:01PM Rejected
Alt-Right Trolls Are Using An Argument About Pit Bulls To Justify Racism Tuesday May 15, @04:08PM Rejected
The Intellectual Dark Web, Brought to You by Your Snowflake Tweets Tuesday May 15, @03:54PM Rejected
A Jewish investor linked to the Russia probe bought alt-right domain names Monday May 14, @01:10PM Pending
Alt-right in Montreal: How Charlottesville exposed key players in local white nationalist movement Monday May 14, @02:17AM Rejected
The real reason tech billionaires are prepping for doomsday Sunday May 13, @03:43PM Rejected
Alt-Right: From 4chan to the White House review – in search of a rightwing rabble Sunday May 13, @12:15PM Rejected
Russia-linked company that hired Michael Cohen registered alt-right websites during election Sunday May 13, @11:59AM Rejected
Birth of a “Troll Nation”: Amanda Marcotte on how and why conservatives embraced the dark side Friday May 11, @05:23PM Accepted
The “Intellectual Dark Web,” explained: what Jordan Peterson has in common with the alt-right Friday May 11, @05:16PM Accepted
Alt-right web domain names registered to company that paid Cohen Friday May 11, @02:56PM Rejected
Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, ‘alt-right’ to rally at White House if banned from Charlottesville Friday May 11, @01:53PM Rejected
Birth of a “Troll Nation”: Amanda Marcotte on how and why conservatives embraced the dark side Wednesday May 09, @11:08PM Rejected
Birth of a “Troll Nation”: Amanda Marcotte on how and why conservatives embraced the dark side Wednesday May 09, @12:58PM Rejected
Stop trusting the self-mythology of the worst people on the internet Monday May 07, @11:44PM Rejected
Neo-Nazi California Senate Candidate Barred From State Republican Party Convention Monday May 07, @11:30PM Rejected
Melt-down: Alt-Right Grifter ‘Baked Alaska’ Is Plotting A Comeback On YouTube Saturday May 05, @03:09PM Rejected
Debating the Intellectual Leader of the French New Right Friday May 04, @08:31PM Rejected
Police investigating neo-Nazi recruiting in Montreal, Mayor Plante says Thursday May 03, @11:27PM Rejected
Alt-Right Bible ‘Camp of The Saints’ Proves Everyone’s Still Insane Thursday May 03, @01:02PM Rejected
GoDaddy to Alt-Right Leader Richard Spencer: Find an Alt Web Host Thursday May 03, @12:41PM Accepted
I Watched an Entire Flat Earth Convention for My Research – Here's What I Learnt Wednesday May 02, @05:36PM Accepted
Alt-Right Ding-Dong Defeated By Sign Wednesday May 02, @03:29PM Rejected
Texas Town Terrified by alt-right gun Toting Tyrones Wednesday May 02, @12:32PM Rejected
White supremacist found guilty of beating a black man in a police garage during Charlottesville rall Tuesday May 01, @08:36PM Rejected
Trump: Viele „neue Rechte“ sind nun von ihm enttäuscht Tuesday May 01, @12:44PM Rejected
Η θεωρία της Νέας Δεξιάς - Ταιριάζει στην περίπτωση της Αυστρίας και της Ιταλίας; Tuesday May 01, @12:14AM Rejected
Πρωτομαγιά 1944: Η εκτέλεση των 200 από τους Ναζί -Ενα drone πάνω από την Καισαριανή [βίντεο] Monday April 30, @11:19PM Rejected
Alt-right spread vile libel about Michelle Wolf Monday April 30, @10:46PM Rejected
How to Fight Alt-Right Terrorism Monday April 30, @03:28PM Rejected
De Alt-Right: te vrezen of te bestrijden? Monday April 30, @12:31PM Rejected
Soylentil commanded to stop submitting submissions! Sunday April 29, @10:31PM Rejected
Seeing Through the Rhetoric of the Alt-Right Sunday April 29, @09:22PM Rejected
Alt-right leader Richard Spencer begs for money to pay his legal bills Saturday April 28, @11:35PM Rejected
Alt-right provocateur James Allsup makes WSU appearance, advocates for Identity Evropa Saturday April 28, @10:53AM Rejected
Foreign and 'alt-right' activists target Irish voters on Facebook ahead of abortion referendum Friday April 27, @08:44PM Rejected
NRA Gathers Documents Amid Scrutiny Over Ties to Kremlin-Linked Banker Friday April 27, @02:15PM Accepted
UPDATE: White nationalist Chris Cantwell, known for Charlottesville riots, arrested in Leesburg. Friday April 27, @12:35PM Rejected
UVa has issued a no trespass warning to Jason Kessler Friday April 27, @12:28PM Rejected
Here's why the alt-right loves Kanye West Thursday April 26, @03:32PM Rejected
Alt-Right Down But Not Out Thursday April 26, @10:45AM Rejected
How the alt-right uses milk to promote white supremacy Thursday April 26, @10:14AM Rejected
Looking Ahead to the Alt-Right's Second Act Tuesday April 24, @10:09PM Rejected
Neo-Nazi 'Tyrone' exposed as US marine Tuesday April 24, @01:02PM Rejected
The mysticism of the alt-right Monday April 23, @04:36PM Rejected
Laura Ingraham meets the Afrocentric “alt-right” — and it’s every bit as weird as it sounds Monday April 23, @02:30PM Rejected
Waffle House suspect Travis Reinking deemed himself a 'sovereign citizen,' a right-wing nut-job. Sunday April 22, @07:47PM Rejected
‘Nazi scum get out!’: Watch entire New York bar chant at Milo Yiannopoulos until he leaves Sunday April 22, @07:36PM Rejected
The rise of fascist fashion: Clothing helps the far right sell their violent message Sunday April 22, @12:01PM Rejected
How the U.S. became Troll Nation: From Gamergate to the rise of Trump Sunday April 22, @11:48AM Rejected
The class conflict dividing America’s race warriors Sunday April 22, @12:37AM Rejected
Analyzing Kevin MacDonald's 'Culture of Critique' & the alt-right's embrace of anti-Jewish ideology Saturday April 21, @10:32PM Rejected
Militarized Cops At Tiny Georgia Neo-Nazi Rally Arrest Counterprotesters For Wearing Masks Saturday April 21, @08:32PM Rejected
Missoula judge advances suit against neo-Nazi who attacked Whitefish real estate agent Friday April 20, @10:46PM Rejected
Right-Wing Media Promote An Anti-Semitic Extremist To Mock Starbucks Controversy Friday April 20, @09:14PM Rejected
German neo-Nazis mass for festival on Hitler’s birthday Friday April 20, @04:04PM Rejected
Die Postergirls der neuen Rechten Friday April 20, @12:55PM Rejected
‘Imploding’: Financial troubles. Lawsuits. Trailer park brawls. Has the alt-right peaked? Friday April 20, @12:45PM Rejected
Fant nyfascist-ideolog i hyllene Friday April 20, @12:05PM Rejected
Violent alt-right members consider Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh a hero — 23 years after. Friday April 20, @01:38AM Rejected
Seeing Through the Rhetoric of the Alt-Right: Spotting White Supremacist Propaganda in W.Va. Thursday April 19, @07:34PM Rejected
McInnes, Molyneux, and 4chan: Investigating pathways to the alt-right Thursday April 19, @04:31PM Rejected
Right-winger? Not me, says alt-right darling Jordan Peterson Wednesday April 18, @11:25PM Rejected
Why white nationalists are spreading conspiracy theories that Trump is being controlled by the “deep Wednesday April 18, @02:47PM Rejected
Gravitas Acquires ‘Alt-Right: Age of Rage’ Documentary Wednesday April 18, @02:36PM Rejected
Chat Site for Gamers Got Overrun by the Alt-Right. Now It’s Fighting Back. Wednesday April 18, @12:51PM Rejected
Paul Gottfried: Don’t call me the ‘godfather’ of those alt-right neo-Nazis. I’m Jewish. Tuesday April 17, @11:43PM Rejected
Paul Krugman: Unicorns of the Intellectual Right Tuesday April 17, @03:37PM Rejected
‘Dear White People’ Season 2 Targets Alt-Right Trolls Tuesday April 17, @11:46AM Rejected
Ann Coulter is retweeting a white nationalist Monday April 16, @02:52PM Rejected
Paul Nehlen, the alt-right candidate running for Paul Ryan’s seat, explained Saturday April 14, @04:12PM Rejected
Graham Linehan on the art of the risky joke – and why the alt-right get it wrong Saturday April 14, @04:01PM Rejected
This Is Stupid Watergate. Wonkagenda For Fri., April 13, 2018 Friday April 13, @11:55PM Rejected
Alt-Right Activist On State Of The Movement: ‘We Are Fucked’ Friday April 13, @04:29PM Rejected
Facebook Deletes Richard Spencer's Accounts in Hate Speech Crackdown Friday April 13, @04:24PM Accepted
Alt-right speaker cancels appearance in Grand Junction Friday April 13, @04:19PM Rejected
Alt-right magnifies hyopcrisy Friday April 13, @01:24AM Rejected
Dakota Johnson's Boobs Nominated for Best Actress in Fifty Shades Freed Friday April 13, @01:17AM Rejected
Why the idea that the English have a common Anglo-Saxon origin is a myth Wednesday April 11, @11:26PM Rejected
Professors Are Targets In Online Culture Wars; Some Fight Back Wednesday April 11, @05:26PM Rejected
Top Florida GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Spoke at Event With Bannon, Yiannopoulos in 2017 Wednesday April 11, @03:14PM Rejected
Controversial alt-right speaker Milo Yiannopoulos' LSU talk canceled, organizers say Wednesday April 11, @03:06PM Rejected
Paul Ryan’s Retirement Gives a Big Boost to the Most Prominent White Nationalist in U.S. Politics Wednesday April 11, @12:48PM Rejected
Chelsea Manning reflects on her mistaken attempt to reach out to the alt-lite Tuesday April 10, @01:11PM Rejected
Does Unleashing a Neo-Nazi 'Troll Army' Count as Free Speech? Tuesday April 10, @12:53PM Rejected
Nazi From ‘Sieg Heil Taylor Swift’ Vid Arrested on Weapons Charge Tuesday April 10, @12:47PM Rejected
Less Than a Year After Charlottesville, the Alt-Right Is Self-Destructing Monday April 09, @05:54PM Rejected
Alt-Right Furries Are Raging Online, And Leftist Furries Wonder What Is To Be Done Monday April 09, @03:49PM Rejected
R/THE_DONALD Opinion: Reddit’s advertising strategies still hide hate speech Monday April 09, @03:42PM Rejected
The Alt-Right Media Bubble Is in Trouble Monday April 09, @01:46AM Rejected
Is Dutch Bad Boy Thierry Baudet the New Face of the European Alt-Right? Monday April 09, @01:04AM Rejected
Poet went undercover in the alt-right now talks about healing Monday April 09, @12:13AM Rejected
The Fall of the "Alt-Right" Came From Anti-Fascism Sunday April 08, @11:58PM Rejected
Cambridge Analytica whistleblower: Bannon wanted data for alt-right candidates Sunday April 08, @11:45PM Rejected
The Alt-Right Is a Subculture Without a Culture Sunday April 08, @11:39PM Rejected
A Political Movement, Defining Itself by What It Hates Saturday April 07, @06:56PM Rejected
Gab Is the Alt-Right Social Network Racists Are Moving to Friday April 06, @03:12PM Rejected
Stormfront.org restricts access to donors, shuts down main server Thursday April 05, @03:41PM Rejected
Atheist Alt-Right? Wednesday April 04, @04:15PM Rejected
30% of World’s Electricity Consumption Will Be Spent Explaining Bitcoin Tuesday April 03, @03:00PM Rejected
Sam Harris, Charles Murray, and the allure of race science Sunday April 01, @03:38PM Rejected
The ‘crying Nazi’ from Charlottesville now says he’s an FBI informant Wednesday March 28, @05:40PM Rejected
With Kisses, from Russia, NRA is compromat!! Tuesday March 27, @11:32PM Rejected
Alt-Right: Age of Rage, SXSW 2018 Review Monday March 26, @12:58PM Rejected
Exposing Alt-Right Anti-Semitism and Its Enablers Monday March 26, @12:26AM Rejected
Lessons from the Left: The alt-right’s history in America Monday March 26, @12:14AM Rejected
Baked_Alaska or Baked in terms of Marijuana Racism Monday March 26, @12:00AM Rejected
The Hate Report: The alt-right is a mess Sunday March 25, @11:08AM Rejected
"Alt-Right News" is no more! Sunday March 25, @10:42AM Rejected
Looking Under the Alt-Right Rock Thursday March 22, @03:40PM Rejected
Alt-fight: Jason Jorjani, leaving the alt-right? Wednesday March 21, @10:50AM Rejected
Readership plummets for alt-right Breitbart without Bannon Wednesday March 21, @10:17AM Rejected
"White Wakanda!" Alt-right takes on yet another film. Tuesday March 20, @01:28PM Rejected
Free Speech! Except for Muslims. Alt-right Civil Liberties. Tuesday March 20, @01:07PM Rejected
The alt-right is in decline. Has antifascist activism worked? Tuesday March 20, @12:45PM Rejected
Everything We Think about the Political Correctness Debate is Wrong Tuesday March 20, @11:26AM Accepted
Heimbach Monday March 19, @04:17PM Rejected
Israel’s Alt-Right Is Now Mainstream—Are Lawmakers Doing Enough to Stop It? Sunday March 18, @10:54PM Rejected
Prominent US neo-Nazi arrested on domestic violence charge Sunday March 18, @01:15PM Rejected
What the Alt-Right Gets Wrong About Jews Saturday March 17, @04:41PM Rejected
How a white nationalist’s family came to blows over a trailer tryst Saturday March 17, @02:04AM Rejected
Before Heimbach was a Mother-in-law _cucker, he was excommunicated Saturday March 17, @01:36AM Rejected
White nationalist leader Matthew Heimbach arrested for domestic battery Saturday March 17, @01:19AM Rejected
Behold the incestuous master race: Neo-Nazi leader Matthew Heimbach has affair with mother-in-law Saturday March 17, @01:12AM Rejected
White Supremacist Assault and Adultery Scandal Ends in Jilted Neo-Nazi Web Admin Deleting Site Friday March 16, @09:55PM Rejected
Alt-Right: Age of Rage is a snapshot of one of 2017’s darkest moments Friday March 16, @10:50AM Rejected
‘Alt-Right’ Ringleader Richard Spencer: We Attract the Mentally Ill Thursday March 15, @03:59PM Rejected
White Nationalist Leader Heimbach Arrested On Domestic Violence Charges Wednesday March 14, @09:13PM Rejected
Matt Heimbach arrested! Wednesday March 14, @12:31PM Rejected
Does Richard Spencer’s Disastrous College Tour Mean The ‘Alt-Right’ Is Fizzling Out? Saturday March 10, @12:30AM Rejected
German Far-Right ‘Terrorists’ Jailed for Series of Attacks on Refugees Wednesday March 07, @11:34PM Accepted
Awkward! All of Oculus's Rift Headsets Have Stopped Working Due to an Expired Certificate Wednesday March 07, @11:04PM Accepted
Iconic Stellar Debris Ring Much Stranger Than Previously Thought Wednesday March 07, @12:34AM Accepted
Alt-Moonie Gun Blessing, with Robes and Crowns of Ammo! Sunday March 04, @02:00PM Rejected
The "Alt-Right" Is Building a White Nationalist Mass Movement With "Operation Homeland" Saturday March 03, @01:45PM Rejected
Here’s How an Alt-Right Troll Auditions for Survivor Saturday March 03, @01:20PM Rejected
Alt-right attorney defends racism, homophobia, Richard Spencer: but that is not the point. Friday March 02, @12:09AM Rejected
Stereotypes About College Students And Free Speech Are False Tuesday February 27, @05:45PM Rejected
These Companies Are Sticking By The NRA Saturday February 24, @12:23AM Accepted
Mind control or gun control Friday February 23, @12:34AM Rejected
It’s time for conservatives to retire the term ‘alt-right’ Thursday February 22, @09:40PM Rejected
Twitter “Bot” Purge Causes Outcry as Follower Counts Fall Wednesday February 21, @03:40PM Accepted
‘Fire this ammosexual’: Viewers demand CNN boot Kingston after he calls Parkland students left-wing Tuesday February 20, @09:20PM Rejected
Jordan Peterson, darling of the Alt-right, publishes a book Tuesday February 20, @03:41PM Rejected
‘Alt-right’ Oregon State student-government member ousted in overwhelming recall vote Sunday February 18, @08:27PM Rejected
James Damore's Labor Complaint Against Google Was Completely Shut Down Friday February 16, @03:43PM Accepted
Total: 148

Short notice here. I call upon all Soylentils to submit Fine Articles to SoylentNews, but in this particular instance, any articles on the extremely embarrassing incident in the trailer park in Indiana involving White supremacist Matthew Heimback, founder of the Traditionalist Workers Party. Yours truly has submitted an entire shit-load of submissions, but for some reason they get rejected. I can only surmise that this is embarrassment by some editors who have alt-right leanings, or live in trailer parks, or have feelings for the old "Mother-in-Law".

But that is neither here, nor there. Soylentils are against censorship. Hell, we let Eth and jmorris, and Runaway post their crap, so why no report on the latest follies of the alt-right? No interest? Oh, seriously, who is not interested about a guy who lists his profession as "white nationalist", carries on an affair with the wife of his webmaster, who is also his father-in-law, and then assaults said father-in-law, and the daughter of the father-in-law, who would the the "wife" in question. Oedipus had it much easier than Matthew.

So submit away! Ten times a day, or an hour! Keep that queue full of submissions! Make the editors work!

*******************
UPDATE! Wow, subs barely last half an hour now! Here are some more that have been, um, "declined".

Prominent US neo-Nazi arrested on domestic violence charge

And a totally unrelated, but very informative and interesting article on the source of alt-right anti-semitism.

Finally, another on the Israeli alt-right movement.

Just not of interest to Soylentils, huh? That's what they want you to think! (Not saying that there is an alt-right cabal controlling SoylentNews, but there just might be an alt-right cabal controlling SoylentNews.)

********************
What? No White Wakanda?
Or Antifa has succeeded?

*********
March 22, more declined submissions, which are actually quite interesting for the average Soylentil.
Jason Jorjani to leave the alt-right
Readership plummets for alt-right Breitbart without Bannon

*******
March 23!

We're sorry, your submission "Looking Under the Alt-Right Rock" was declined for the following reason:
We are not interested in the sexual habits of this individual.--JR

The editors felt it inappropriate for them to correct the issue themselves. Please feel free to correct the issue yourself and resubmit.

Such an interesting submission, Looking Under the Alt-Right, alright. Somehow I have the Idea that even if I fix it, and resubmit, it will still get rejected. But you know, despite Rhinos and K-pop, it is not about the sex.

Oh! The main thing is that janorinok is back! So nice to be denied by my favorite ed, who has safely returned from the jaws of death! Thank you, JR!

*******
March 25, 2018, Rejected again!
This one is good, can't remember what it is about. There are so many, so many.
*******
March 30!!! Oh, Noes! Crying Neo-Nazi story rejected!!!

********
April 5, 2018
I have submitted several reviews, or stories about reviews, of a film that was premiered at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, "Alt-right: Age of Rage", all of which have been rejected! It as if somebody does not want Soylentils to know about this movie?
  https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=25584 Enjoy.
********
April 8, 2018
Can we just link my submissions page, so anyone can see the whole sorry episode?
https://soylentnews.org/~aristarchus/submissions

In Momenti ad Mortuum Ethanol_fueledum.

*********
April 18, 2018

Oh, the Soylent Carnage! A week's worth of worth submissions, rejected without comment, apology, or notification! Some were quite good, like the Anglo-Saxon archeology piece, and the bit on alt-right attacking professors. Or, we could read the eds lame submissions! Ha!

**************
April 30, 2018
"We're sorry, your submission "De Alt-Right: te vrezen of te bestrijden? " was declined for the following reason:" And nothing follows. Our eds can't read Dutch? What are they, Austro-Spanish-Hungarian?

So here we are, once again being the alternative to the "other site", which seems to have crapped itself, but we still have our own problems. Yes, I have gone on about them for maybe way too much, but I wanted to bring up one nicety of SoylentNews that is honored in the breach. Notification of submissions rejected.

For Example:

We're sorry, your submission "Here’s How an Alt-Right Troll Auditions for Survivor" was declined for the following reason:
Journal for this - not worthy of the front page--JR

Now I love JR, or janrinok, he is my favorite editor, he tries to stay true to the ideal that was SoylentNews, but I have to ask, not worthy, why? Us submitters could use some more constructive criticism! Is it just that once again, I was critical of the alt-right? Knowing that would help. Or was it that the submission was about broadcast TV? Was that the reason? Not enough to go on, even for a 2400 year old philosopher!

And then there is the boilerplate:

The editors felt it inappropriate for them to correct the issue themselves. Please feel free to correct the issue yourself and resubmit.

For some reason, in my particular case, I feel that this is less than sincere. I have resubmitted, with the limited guidance given by the eds, and had the re-submission also rejected. Oh, poor aristarchus! Doomed to a level of Dante's hell where the editors are the authorities, and they can make decisions based on things we know not of. So I guess I will put something about how there are boobies, a la TMB, on Survivor, with the alt-right rejected because there are never any boobies in alt-right things at all because it is just like the scene in the Blues Brothers, where the Illinois Nazis were plummeting to their death, and the second in command, cmn32480, says, "I have always loved you." So, there is that.

Now is the time for all good Soylentils to come to the aid of their news aggregating website! We need more balance, more inclusiveness, less right-wing fanbois bubbling! We could use an aristarchus submissions, not because he will just submit more and make us look like a bunch of right-wing dweebs, but because there is a viable, majority, sane and everyday position out there that thinks the alt right needs to be hung out to dry. Let the racist bastards speak, I say. And my submissions are the one way to do so. If the eds reject them, they have made the bed in which they will lie. Not a good bed. Roll over, and there is Milo? Do you really want that?

Okay, the Eds, using the term losely, in their infinite wisdom, again, terms used loosely, rejected a submission from your loyal and faithful Soylentil, aristarchus. This is not unusual, or unexpected, and normally I do not resort to journal entries for rejected submission, but in this case, I actually spent a fair amount of time putting it together, and despite what the eds fear most, that reality has a well known liberal bias, reality has a well-known liberal bias, and the subject matter of this particular rejected submission needs some discussion. I turn it over to you, my fellow trusted and loyal Soylentils, persons of rapier wit, and steel-trap minds, charity to a fault in debate, real Lentils of Soy!

Original Submission (this is going to hurt, and lose stuff.)

aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

A post on the American Philosophical Association blog [apaonline.org]offers some insight into the popularity of a certain Canadian academic, Jordan Peterson, who seems much beloved by the alt-right.

Peterson’s work invites a much more extensive critique than I have the space (or inclination) to offer here, and there have been numerous excellent critical pieces (including this recent article in The Guardian) [theguardian.com], but what’s more interesting to me is the question of why so many young men are drawn to his work, specifically what need his pseudo-intellectual misogyny fills for these men, some of whom I’ve found to be otherwise quite intelligent and reasonable in one-on-one interactions.

Evidently, Peterson just published a book, and controversy has ensued. But our author here thinks it is nothing to worry about.

However, I think it is more likely, given that we have largely integrated the pain of those collective traumas, that this regressive moment will be relatively brief, and we will soon see a progressive wave of compassion, justice, sustainability, and even kindness in reaction to the Trump-Peterson era. I suspect this regressive movement will be viewed by history as the final death rattle of the older mode of relation, making way for the emergence of a qualitatively novel historical era. As Whitehead writes, “new epochs emerge with comparative suddenness,” and the tragic regression we’re currently enduring may ultimately be understood as the factor that finally propelled us into a novel mode of relation.

And of course there is much more commentary available, as in The Guardian article referenced, and many other places.

Digg [digg.com] reviews the book:

David Brooks writes in The New York Times that Jordan Peterson, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto, is having a moment, and that he may be the "most influential public intellectual" alive. The man that Brooks, a writer known for missing the mark on cultural criticism, calls "the perfect antidote to the cocktail of coddling and accusation in which" young men are raised today has revealed himself over the last year to harbor a bevy of regressive ideas on sex and gender that turn out to be grounded in his own psychological theories.

Some Canadians [macleans.ca] are rather disapproving:

University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson was in the news this week—and one imagines this makes the university sad. Peterson first made the news and became a belle of the alt-right when, in September 2016, he announced that he would not use a student’s preferred pronoun if he were asked to, except that he might if he felt the request was “genuine,” and no one had asked him that anyway.

        What that poor man has been through.

And she adds more:

“Postmodern neo-Marxism” is Peterson’s nemesis, and the best way to explain what postmodern neo-Marxism is, is to explain what it is not—that is, it is entirely distinct from the concept of “cultural Marxism.”

        “Cultural Marxism” is a conspiracy theory holding that an international cabal of Marxist academics, realizing that traditional Marxism is unlikely to triumph any time soon, is out to destroy Western civilization by undermining its cultural values. “Postmodern neo-Marxism,” on the other hand, is a conspiracy theory holding that an international cabal of Marxist academics, realizing that traditional Marxism is unlikely to triumph any time soon, is out to destroy Western civilization by undermining its cultural values with “cultural” taken out of the name so it doesn’t sound quite so similar to the literal Nazi conspiracy theory of “cultural Bolshevism.”

        To be clear, Jordan Peterson is not a neo-Nazi, but there’s a reason he’s as popular as he is on the alt-right. You’ll never hear him use the phrase “We must secure a future for our white children”; what you will hear him say is that, while there does appear to be a causal relationship between empowering women and economic growth, we have to consider whether this is good for society, “‘’cause the birth rate is plummeting.” He doesn’t call for a “white ethnostate,” but he does retweet Daily Caller articles with opening lines like: “Yet again an American city is being torn apart by black rioters.” He has dedicated two-and-a-half-hour-long YouTube videos to “identity politics and the Marxist lie of white privilege.”

What the poor man has been through!

Finally, from the pages of The New Statesman [newstatesman.com]:

In recent weeks, I have become mesmerised by a clinical psychologist who is the darling of the alt-right. That is not a sentence I ever thought I’d have cause to write, but Jordan Peterson is something else.

        I had seen some of his lectures before that notorious interview with Cathy Newman of Channel 4 News in January, the one that gave him particular notoriety in the UK for his comments on the gender pay gap. As Stephen Bush wrote last week, Peterson’s book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, is at base a self-help guide, and like every other contribution to that bloated canon contains a mixture of the persuasive and self-evident.

Dark Enlightenment or dank memes, it does seem that the intellectual pretensions of the alt-right are somewhat less than solid. But in a world of changing and confusing roles and self-identities for males, I usually refer to The Art of Manliness [artofmanliness.com] for more actually useful information, without all the rightwing agitprop, and very handy mustache grooming tips.

Original Submission

Pushing 30 is exercise enough.

        Home About FAQ Journals Topics Authors Search Polls Submit Story Subscribe Preferences Log Out Atom feed RSS feed

Alright, clunky, but most links restored. Have at it, and knock the TMB off his high horse!
*****
Update, of sorts. I have received a message from the TMB his own self, one of those things, again, that lowly normal Soylentils do not have, bragging about how he now has two journals with over a hundred comments. Well, lah-de-dah! Do we really need to turn journals into a popularity contest? This is one reason why, normally, I just let rejected submissions lie. If Soylentils are not interested enough to have it on the front page, in the estimation of the eds, then it probably does not belong there, or in a journal. And I would direct everyone to NotSanguine's journal on rational debate, it is much more interesting than this one. Unless you are a incel with a Red Pillar who voted for Trump.

We put off part Two of Ethics for Soylentils, even though they are sorely needed, for another unfortunate series of events: aristarchus censored yet again.

As some are aware, since the unpleasantness at Charlottesville last August, I have been submitting articles on the self-named "alt-right". Nearly all of these have been rejected. That in itself does not disturb me, I tend to call a spade a stupid idiot white supremacist homosexual gayhater who cannot get dates. But that is just me. No, here we have a case, for the second time, when one of my submissions has been accepted, but then disappeared. This worries me. It is one thing to be rejected, with which I have no problem, and I will not grouse about. But to be accepted, and then the Man in the High Castle steps in to block the Fine Article? Sounds like censorship to me, and must also seem that way to at least some of the editorial staff.

So here is my submission that was accepted, but never made it to the front page:

aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

Not sure about this one. Seems too early to panic. But evidently, Chelsea (nee Bradley) Manning attended a party of the alt-right, white, and light. Article is on Slate [slate.com]:

        Chelsea Manning went to a rather awkward party on Saturday night. It’s something she’s been able to do since May, four months after an outgoing President Obama commuted the former U.S. Army intelligence analyst’s prison sentence after she had served seven years behind bars for leaking 750,000 sensitive military and diplomatic documents on Iraq and Afghanistan.

Well that alone should get Soylentils all a buzz, especially the ones who are "Stolen Valor" participants.
But there is more to the story, and the party.

        In a BuzzFeed report, partygoers touted Manning’s attendance as proof of their own inclusivity. “I truly don’t want to speak for her but I guess she respects what this is all about,” said Jack Posobiec, an infamous alt-right provocateur and vocal Trump supporter. Cernovich later tweeted that he was “glad she stopped by.”

                Yes I literally shook hands with Chelsea Manning tonigut, the left is freaking out, it was not a big deal. It was a huge and amazing party. Glad she stopped by. All are welcome to party with me.
                                                                                — Mike Cernovich ?? (@Cernovich) January 21, 2018

If it is alright with the dudes that promoted Pizzagate, that someone who released the child-murdering conspiracy theory that is the US Military is at their party, well, it it alright with me.
But:

        In other words, Manning claims she attended the party to learn more about a group of people she believes push a dangerous ideology that doesn’t deserve a platform. Gathering “intelligence” on “fascists” is probably not the most pressing activity when you’re facing a difficult Senate race, nor is the inconspicuousness presumably required of such a secret mission realistic if you’re as famous as Chelsea Manning. If that is what she was up to, it’s also a move that could be construed as evidence of an affiliation with antifa, the anti-fascist activists on the left that are often associated with violence and direct-action tactics that sometimes break the law. Antifa’s tactics also include conducting deep research on far-right organizers, sometimes by embedding activists at events.

OK, you know the drill, Soylentils! Look to your Right! Now look to your Left! One of these people is a Microsoft shill. Careful what you say.

Other coverage: http://www.newsweek.com/chelsea-manning-says-she-attended-pro-trump-new-york-ball-gather-intelligence-787929 [newsweek.com] [newsweek.com]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/22/an-evening-with-deplorables-inside-the-far-right-party-in-manhattan [theguardian.com] [theguardian.com]
http://www.newsweek.com/white-supremacist-accused-amtrak-terror-attack-also-attended-alt-right-event-771495 [newsweek.com] [newsweek.com]
https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/lukethompson/2018/01/04/the-x-files-alt-right-gillian-anderson-david-duchovny/&refURL=https://www.google.com/&referrer=https://www.google.com/ [forbes.com] [forbes.com]
Only including the Forbes link because their site is opaque if you block javascript, and I am hoping someone can tell us what it says!

And, the evening was not a total loss [nydailynews.com]. One Nazi got punched in the face. So, who was making money off the alt-right in this instance? And how is this submission user hostile?

As usual, all the actual links are stripped, and this is actually the version I posted after this submission was put into stasis. But the points remain the same. (Except, what happened to the User:Hostile tag? It was there until I pointed it out. Is there a Hostile User list on SoylentNews? Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the antifa party? The Mighty McCarthy Buzzard! ) It was pertinent enough for some editor to approve of it, but beyond the pale for some other editor, for some other reason, which I presume we will never know.

In other news, janrinok sent me a very nice Direct Message, (note: normal Soylentils do not have these, so they are like messages from the Gods!), where he said he read much of the past history of the censorship of the arirstarchus on this site, but he did not see it as such. And he expressed some concern that my submissions might open SoylentNews up to a lawsuit (Peter Thiel is an ass!). I do not find that convincing, and I still believe that it is the political bias of several (I could name names, and name names of people who were to become eds, and were mysteriously dropped?) members of the editorial staff, and The Mighty Busstard.

Strange, janrinok seemed to think that I took TMB to be my nemesis. Nothing could be further from the truth. I consider TMB to be my student. A recalcitrant, stubborn, and significantly developmentally delayed student, but I have hope for him. In the long run.

So I encourage everyone to add the #freearistarchus!!! tag to your sig, even though we are not Twitter (thank the gods), in order to shake up the eds. The promise that was Buckfeta is in danger of being lost, as I have long pointed out. So we need to decide what SoylentNews is to be, a libertarian backwater blog, or an actual replacement for the site that must not be named, for the same reason that site was what it was.

Oh, and if any of you disagree with me, I will more likely than not send you over to Larry the Cable Guy. Let's git 'er done!

Ethics for Soylentils

The Short Version, 0.0.2

        As the resident philosopher, et cetera, et cetera, here is a short primer on ethics. No promises of completeness, comprehensiveness, or persuasiveness, but just some things.

        ONE: Some things are good, some things are bad.
        TWO: Some things are right, some things are wrong.

        We will start here. No first we might consider the contrary position, moral nihilism. As cited in the movie The Big Lebowski, “these men are nihilists, they believe in nothing.” Now there are several things that are attractive about moral nihilism:
  1. you are not the boss of me.
And
  2. you are not the boss of me.
These two explain the attraction the position has for libertarians of all stripes. But we have to keep this anti-position in mind, as kind of a null hypothesis to the moral endeavor. (Oh noes, did I just write that? Homminy crap, this will attract those anti-null hypothesis ACs, and then the Electric Universe types, and the Flat-earthers, and jmorris. But, can’t be helped, we plow on.)

        Moral nihilism may be a bit to strong from some, so they opt instead for something like constructivism. Now this is a sociological school of thought of quite some age, so it is good to pay attention. One of the consequences of Marxism is the standing of Hegel on his head. This requires some explanation. Hegel was a German philosopher that put forth a systematic idealism. Without going into it too deeply, idealism is the idea that ideas are more real than things. Yes, to practical minded people, this is insane. But there is a long tradition of this in philosophy, going back to Plato, who held that the concepts of things, the part of them that could be comprehended by the mind, was what was true and real, whereas the phenomenal part was partial and fleeting. So, Marx, going with the popularity of materialism as against Platonic and Hegelian Idealism, tended to explain reality based on the realities rather than the ideas. This led him to suppose that it was the material conditions of humanity that lead to ideas, rather than that ideas revealed or defined the reality that humans lived in. Practically, this meant that for Marx, philosophy, religion, law, and perhaps even the arts, are all forms of thought conditioned and created by the economic relations of the society in which they occurred. Ideas, for Marxists, are ideology.

              Now this leads into a long European tradition of “ideology critique”, especially in French philosophy, coming from the structuralist ideas of Claude Lévi-Strauss, and leading to the Post-modernist tradition, and, yes, to social constructivism. But we only mention all this here to point out that the idea that morality, ethics, ideas of right and wrong, have been in contention for quite some time, and a long-standing approach has been to analyse the position you oppose, to reduce their position to self-interest. We see this all the time, right here on SoylentNews, where climate change deniers accuse the opposition of being in the pay of “green energy”. But seriously, ideology goes deeper than that.

      And, this raises our question here. If the idea of good and evil depends upon a particular “mode of production” in Marx’s terminology, then of course the standards of good and evil could be changed, by effecting a change in the mode of production. Now some may react in horror at the idea that political violence may change what is right or wrong, but the larger question is whether there is any objective morality at all. Marxist ideology may critique Capitalist morality as the mere superimpostion of ideas in defense of a historically determined reality, but it suggests that all morality is in fact not based on anything else. So the question is, what would post-Capitalist morality be based on? Or if there no longer was any structural basis for ideology, would morality exist at all?

        Interesting questions, all.

  So here we go. If there is such a thing as right and wrong, or alternatively good and bad, it must needs have a basis somewhere. This is one of the really smart things that Jeremy Bentham, the father of Utilitarianism, had to say. All morality must be founded on some principle. If not, it is nothing but the subjective expression of a personal preference.

1. Let him settle with himself, whether he would wish to discard this principle altogether; if so, let him consider what it is that all his reasonings (in matters of politics especially) can amount to?
2. If he would, let him settle with himself, whether he would judge and act without any principle, or whether there is any other he would judge an act by?
3. If there be, let him examine and satisfy himself whether the principle he thinks he has found is really any separate intelligible principle; or whether it be not a mere principle in words, a kind of phrase, which at bottom expresses neither more nor less than the mere averment of his own unfounded sentiments; that is, what in another person he might be apt to call caprice?
4. If he is inclined to think that his own approbation or disapprobation, annexed to the idea of an act, without any regard to its consequences, is a sufficient foundation for him to judge and act upon, let him ask himself whether his sentiment is to be a standard of right and wrong, with respect to every other man, or whether every man's sentiment has the same privilege of being a standard to itself?
5. In the first case, let him ask himself whether his principle is not despotical, and hostile to all the rest of human race?

Introduction to the Principles of Morality and Legislation, chapter one.

Now there have been attempts to describe morality along these lines, again for some reason by Englishmen. The name of the theory is “Emotivism”, sometimes mocked as the “Boo-Hooray” ethical theory. Under this, the only meaning to an ethical judgment is personal preference. Which by its very nature is unprincipled. Bentham wins. (And holey crapolla, BBC has an “ethics guide”?)

        Next, we might take the subjective idea and try to run with it. Problems, though. We might say that it is right for any individual to do what is in their own self interest. See the problem? What people want, and what they need (interest) are quite often not the same thing. So we end up modifying a theory into what is called “Egoism”. Yes, named after a Planet in the “Guardians of the Galaxy, vol. 2” movie! No, “ego” is just Latin for “I”, or me. Of course, to define what someone should find in their own self-interest, as opposed to what they actually say they want, takes of bit of doing. So we end up with “Enlightened Egoism”. This is what any suitably educated and scientifically aware individual would want, so you must want it, too. No matter what you say.

          We may even be able to extend such a theory to the range of principle that Bentham demands. “Everyone should do what is in their own (enlightened) self-interest. And Devil take the hindmost. Sound familiar? On this view, whenever anyone starts spouting any other ethical theory other than one based on selfishness, they either are jockeying for advantage, or seriously deluded. The may quite possibly be a SJW. But this does leave us with a real problem. Often times it is in our interest to cooperate with others, but of course it is also just as in their interest to betray us when we cooperate. What are we to do?

        Another Brit, earlier than Bentham, gives us a shot at this. Thomas Hobbes lived during the time of the Glorious Revolution in Britain. He sided with the Monarchy. Others, like John Locke, sided with the Parliment. But it is interesting to understand that they started from rather similar amoral assumptions. Imagine primitive humanity, before there was society, laws, authority, or anything. This is a rather novel idea, foreign to political thought previous. For earlier political thinkers, the state was based on a natural order, kings were put in power by Divine Right, and so obedience was required by natural and divine law. Hobbes, and Locke, and interestingly, Jean Jacques Rousseau, came up with a new basis for legitimate authority, an idea called the “Social Contract". Prior to the establishment of such a contract, human lived in a “state of nature”.

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time or war where every man is enemy to every man, the same is consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Leviathan

But this does share something with our Emotivists and Marxists, in that it holds that morality is a human invention, not a fact of nature.

  To this war of every man against every man this also is consequent, that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice and injustice are none of the faculties neither of the body nor mind.

op. cit.

Now Hobbes's way out of the state of nature is to agree to a truce in the war of each against all. But more importantly, he maintains that it is in each individual’s own self interest to do so. Part of the reason for this is Hobbes’ rather pessimistic ground for human equality.

NATURE hath made men so equal in the faculties of the body and mind, as that, though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he. For, as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself.

You may think you can prevail by superior strength, but if we really put our minds to it, each of us is equally lethal to any other of us. Ya gotta sleep sometime! So this means that for everyone, the social contract is mandated by an enlightened self-interest. And of course, breaking the social contract is equally in everyone’s enlightened self-interest, if they can get away with it! Thus Hobbes insists on the creation of an absolute power, a Leviathan, the Monarch, to enforce the agreement. Problem being, the Leviathan is not actually a party to the agreement? Oh, now we move on to Locke, the American Declaration of Indendence, and a whole bunch of liberal bourgeious revolutionary stuff. Skipping ahead.

      Back to Bentham. Self-interest as a principle only gets us so far. Bentham proposed something more universal, a true principle, the principle of “Utility”. Now he here is delving into one of the major points I want to make in this short “Ethics for Soylentils”, the distinction between theories of good, and theories of right. Bentham is competely on the “good” side, and in this he agrees with the ancient Greek school of Epicurus. Utilitarianism is a variant of “hedonism”, from the Greek word ἥδυς, “pleasure”. If it feels good, it is good. Hedonism has been controversial from the beginning, with many saying that pleasure is bad, or suited more for animals or children than for humans. But Epicurus and Bentham both respond along the lines of “what else you got?” The significant thing about moral theory based on a “good”, however, is how much of it there is, and who gets what. If some is good is good, more good is better. Ethics of Good are all about maximization.

            This may be what gets Bentham out of the egoist trap. If more good is, in principle, better, it is immaterial whose good it is, as long as there is more of it. Thus the principle of utility, in order to be a principle, is larger than what I want, or what gives me pleasure. It is this:

"By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness."

Of course, what is important is the total happiness, not the particular happiness of an particular individual.

if that party be the community the happiness of the community, if a particular individual, the happiness of that individual.

Principles, chap. 1

  But on the upside, the happiness of each individual counts for as much as any other, so when the tally is calculated, at least you had a fair chance.

Bentham’s theory leads us to a couple of conundrums, at least. One is the notion of right actually has no place. In fact, this may be one of the most progressive aspects of Utilitarianism, the pleasure of one counts equally to the pleasure of any other, a radical egalitarianism. This can lead us to some conclusions we do not particularly like. For example, if a large number of people, particularly teenage girls, get pleasure from the performances of Justin Beiber, who are we, or The Mightly Buzzard, to say they are in error? The other, and the one most often posed, is that given the equality, there is no bar to sacrificing the pleasure/happiness of some, if it results in the greater happiness for even more persons. This has been played out in fiction multiple times, but the two I would mention are Stephen King’s Storm of the Century, [Born in sin? Come on in!] and Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”.

          We may have gotten away from moral nihilism, and from an equally nihilistic egoism, but there are still more issues in an ethical system. One is the Hobbesian question that if you could take over the entire apparatus of society, why not be an egoistic tyrant? This is the lingering appeal of Realpolitik, as expressed by Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic. This is really the question of normative force: why should anyone be moral, particularly if they really do not need to be so?
        Secondly, we have the question of right, which brings with it the idea of absolute value. In King’s TV series, the islanders are offered a choice, the life of an innocent child, or the death of all of them. For an accountant, there is no issue. But some might say that the sacrifice of an innocent, no matter what the consequences, is always wrong. Are there any things that are always wrong?

Stay tuned for the next installment of Ethics for Soylentils, where we will consider just that.

Original submission on "Undercover in the Alt-right", from the TMB-can't-stand-free-speech dept. Accepted, and them suppressed by the Nazi sympathizing opinion of a non-editor. Is this how SoylentNews is going to roll?

aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

In an interesting look inside the world of white supremacism, the New York Times [nytimes.com] reports on the findings of a Swedish graduate student who went undercover into the belly of the beast.

Posing as a student writing a thesis about the suppression of right-wing speech, he traveled from London to New York to Charlottesville, Va. — and into the heart of a dangerous movement that is experiencing a profound rejuvenation.

While this may sound vaguely familiar, Hermansson discovered some not so surprising facts about Nazis: they love Hitler!

Mr. Hermansson and Mr. Jorjani met at an Irish pub near the Empire State Building, where the baby-faced Mr. Jorjani imagined a near future in which, thanks to liberal complacency over the migration crisis, Europe re-embraces fascism: “We will have a Europe, in 2050, where the bank notes have Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great. And Hitler will be seen like that: like Napoleon, like Alexander, not like some weird monster who is unique in his own category — no, he is just going to be seen as a great European leader.”

Yes, an interesting read for everyone interested in free speech, and its ability out political extremism and vanquish unreason with the bright lights of publicity. And a scary read for anyone worried about Millennial Nazis.

Fluent in the language of online irony and absurdism, and adept at producing successful memes, alt-lighters have pulled off something remarkable: They’ve made far-right ideas hip to a subset of young people, and framed themselves as society’s forgotten underdogs. The alt-light provides its audience easy scapegoats for their social, economic and sexual frustrations: liberals and feminists and migrants and, of course, globalists.

original submission

Postscriptum: a link to the actual report by Hermansson at Hope, not Hate. Very interesting, as a certain German on Rowan and Martin's LaughIn used to say.