Robber and Robbed: Subjectivist Slamming

This post is being made in response to one of our readers, who, in commenting upon one of our posts, expressed dissatisfaction with the intelligence level of our philosophical foils. (Let it never be said that we do not heed the comments. So go comment. Now.) This reader was of course right in that Ayn Rand’s IQ was lower than the temperature in Antarctica or even the IQ of Uwe Boll. According to reliable sources,* any IQ beneath 70 is considered feeble-minded. By this measure, Ayn Rand’s mind was so feeble it couldn’t make it from the easy chair to the bathroom without a team of social workers.

And so I have decided to up the ante with this post—philosophically speaking, that is. And also normally speaking. While my subject today still deserves a hefty dose of Thumb-style ridicule, he was actually kind of a Smart Guy. Arguably. But he was dastardly.

Robber: Immanuel Kant
Robbed: Western civilization

Oh, he played innocent. Look at old Immanuel, no harm to anybody. He just stares at a church steeple all day and then scribbles down some notes about Life, the Universe and Everything.** He’d never hurt a fly, let alone set humanity upon a downward spiral of philosophical inquiry that would hold us at a virtual standstill for at least several centuries and lead to widespread relativism and denial of the metaphysical and epistemological basis of the concept of truth in the human mind.

My purpose is not to delve into Immanuel’s actual philosophy. That would frankly bore readers, and would also require that I actually read his stuff. I have no intention of doing so in the near future, not because I don’t occasionally enjoy inhaling feces directly from the page, but because there are simply too many other good Books around. Like Asimov. But it might be good to show you readers the big picture, at least, and see why his influence has been so perfidious.

After and because of Immanuel, philosophers began to think you couldn’t talk about Truth anymore. It was merely a measure of subjective experience, they said, and not a statement about reality.

While I will not try here to refute Immanuel and his band of groupies in any philosophical sense,*** I will say that this is simply excrement. 2001 really is the greatest movie ever made, not just subjectively so. Millennium Force really is one step beneath heaven. This post really is about Immanuel Kant. Right Thumb really is smarter than you.

Now let’s take a look at a few quotes. Just for fun.

“Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.”

If I can understand what he’s saying here (and if I can’t, it’s not a failing on my part but just that ol’ Immanuel liked to be ambiguous), he’s saying that when you actually think about it, happiness doesn’t really exist. Hah-hah! Immanuel clearly never watched Battlestar Galactica. Or Star Trek. Or read Two Thumbs Sideways. Then he would know happiness. (Possibly even ecstasy in the last case.) He must have led a bleak and dreary life. I’ll bet nobody ever gave him a kitten.

“I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.”

No, you just believed you had to do this.

“Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another.”

The other day I saw an elderly gentleman asking for help with his tax returns. I guffawed and said to Right Thumb, “Hehe, so immature!” (As a side-note, Right Thumb’s response was a veritable diarrhea-of-the-mouth concerning the economic theory behind senior citizens, taxes, policy-making, and The West Wing. He clearly felt strongly about many of the issues involved, although I could never quite make out his exact opinions.)

“In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.”

I once thought of burning Critique of Pure Reason over Immanuel’s grave. Then I realized the fire might spread so I gave up on it. Oops, I’m unethical.

Now it’s time to finish up with Mr. Kant, simply because I cannot take any more of this. And remember, this post really did exist. Now, to see if our readers do.

> Left Thumb <


* Meaning a Google search.

** Although he was a Smart Guy, Immanuel was not quite smart enough to reach the conclusion of “42”.

*** I am certainly up to the task, but this would once again simply bore our readers to tears. That is, if tears exist other than in my subjective experience.