Education Instead of Apathy

Here is an article, entitled Capitalism vs. education: Why our free-market obsession is wrecking the future  that I dredged up from the bottom of the internet known as Salon.com. Written by Eric Levitz, the article takes issue with Barack Obama’s 2014 State of The Union Address and how the phrase “income inequality” was scrapped from initial drafts and replaced with an emphasis on “ladders of opportunity”. Levitz’s grievance is that Obama didn’t call for “radical income distribution or a proposal for aggressive government hiring”, but instead spoke about social mobility and the need to improve education. For once, I will have to defend Obama. American students have much lower test scores than most other developed countries (especially in math)[1] and Obama’s suggestion that this needs to improve is backed by good sense. After all, how are Americans supposed to compete internationally if their math and science skills are so poor compared to those of people in China or Korea? If the goal is to reduce inequality, then the need for better education seems obvious. Levitz references David Blacker’s book The Falling Rate of Learning and the Neoliberal Endgame, which essentially argues that education reform should not be attempted since he believes it’s too ingrained in capitalism. Levitz writes,

“His book advises activists to adopt an attitude of fatalism. In his narrative, hope is found in the fact that even neoliberal capitalism is helplessly constrained by a system larger than itself, namely that of the environment. The task for the left then, is to prepare, psychologically and experimentally, for inevitable collapse.”

I hope I am not alone in my opinion that this is a disgusting and reprehensible point of view. If David Blacker truly thought that there was a structural problem in the education system then it would be irresponsible of him to be so indifferent to it. Even though his arguments amount to little more than baseless conspiracy theories, they reflect the sinister mentality that underlines all socialist doctrine, namely, that socialists would rather see the world destroyed if they cannot impose their system of beliefs on others. His is the attitude of a spoiled brat who throws a tantrum when he fails to get his way. This fatalist attitude only demonstrates that people like Blacker and Levitz don’t care about the well-being of the country as much as they care about peddling their sick, weakling beliefs. This becomes more apparent later in the article when Blacker writes that his goals for education reform include: “unionization, desegregation, and inclusion.” These are vague terms when used in this context, but one can see that what Blacker means is that he wants to warp curriculums to a socialist view of the world. The goal of education is to equip children with the knowledge and skills to become successful in life. Indoctrinating children with Marxian jargon will certainly not provide them with a sufficient education and I for one am glad that our current education system does not cater to Blacker’s vision.

Capitalism is the most compassionate and ethical economic platform there is. When Obama chose to emphasize practical initiatives like education reform, instead of pandering to bitter politics of class division and envy of the rich, he was extolling the value of capitalism rather than whiny entitlement. The United States was a country founded on the principle that any individual can improve their status through effort and cultivation of his talents, a principle that remains true to this day. Raising the standard of education and improving math and science skills will make more young people self-sufficient so they can meet the demands of today’s economy. Eric Levitz and David Blacker do not want anyone to have this freedom to succeed. If they had their way, individuals would become the property of the state, to be utilized and disposed of at whim. It's nonsense like this article that makes me wonder whether Salon.com’s readership haven’t all been lobotomized with icepicks yet.

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[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/american-schools-vs-the-world-expensive-unequal-bad-at-math/281983/

Our World Cannot Function Without Money

Money is the force that drives the economy of an open society. It functions as a unit of account, a store of value, and as a medium of exchange. While some utopian thinkers would argue that money is not a necessity, one would be hard-pressed to imagine a cashless society that allocates resources as efficiently as our own. Few civilizations throughout history have thrived without some form of currency. An open market composed of an intricate series of sales, purchases, investments, and exchanges would be impossible without a stable form of currency. This post is a response to a recent article writtenby the Socialist Party of Britain and posted on Libcom.org that attempts to explain why money is not necessary in a socialist economy. The author argues against Ludwig von Mises’ essay Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth, by claiming that economic calculations can be made in a socialist society as in a capitalist society without the use of money. I believe that the author of this article has misunderstood the point of von Mises’ essay, and makes the very same arguments that Mises was scrutinizing. Economic calculations could not be made in a cashless society that meets everyone’s demand and where all resources are used to the greatest efficiency. There are too many problems inherent in allocating goods in a centrally planned economy, let alone in one lacking a stable currency. A socialist economy could never rival the productiveness and efficiency of an open market, but without money such an economy would be doomed to failure. The article in question reveals a fundamental misunderstanding with the use of the price system and with the purpose of money.

In a socialist economy like the one proposed by the article, the means of production would not be privately owned, but would become the property of the state. As such, it becomes the responsibility of the state to distribute the goods they produce to the community. Rather than in a free market, where the distribution of goods takes the form of an exchange between the producers and the consumers, the distribution of goods in a socialist economy resembles an internal transfer, seeing as though under socialism there is no distinction between the two; the consumers are the producers. What Mises is arguing in his essay, is that such an economy could never satisfy the demands of consumers since the central planners would not have access to pricing information.[1] Prices in an open market are based on supply and demand. What the author of these articles does not grasp is how his utopian socialist state is going to obtain information about supply and demand without some kind of pricing system. He writes “Our answer is that the choice of which productive methods to employ, like working out what consumer goods are needed, will be based on estimations and calculations in kind.” What these calculations are exactly or what is being calculated he does not make clear. Socialists demonstrate incredible narrow-mindedness when they assume the government can somehow know and accommodate the needs of every single person in the economy. In reality, the series of exchanges and transactions that make up the economy are so many and so complex that nobody, including myself, could ever hope to know what everyone wants and it would be a painfully futile task to attempt to get information to this effect. The needs and tastes of individuals are also always changing, which only complicates matters. This is why I believe the author of that article completely missed the point von Mises was trying to make. Central-planned economies don’t work. There is no way that a government can somehow calculate the ever-changing supply and demand in any given market, let alone without an effective pricing system.

To demonstrate why central-planned economies are inefficient even on a small scale, consider this thought experiment. Suppose you’ve been given the task of making lunches for an entire school of a thousand students. You have access to a huge selection of food that would allow you to make whatever meals you wish, but you don’t have information about the preferences of each student. Thus, it would be impossible to satisfy them all. Some students inevitably would not like their lunches and would be forced to discard or exchange them with others, creating wasted resources. A central planner would never be able make lunches that optimize every student’s utility more any than if the students were allowed to make their own lunches. How then, is the government under socialism supposed to distribute goods to the entire population, allocating them all efficiently? This thought experiment also demonstrates that in an economy where goods are not allocated efficiently, agents are forced to exchange their goods with others in order to maximize utility. Even in a socialist country where currency is abolished, a medium of exchange would naturally arise to satisfy these needs. We can see examples of this throughout history. In American POW camps during World War Two, this medium took the form of cigarettes.[2] Prisoners would exchange their rations for cigarettes since they were light, easy to carry in bundles, and could be smoked. Goods and services in these camps were expressed in terms of cigarettes, just like goods in America are expressed in dollars and cents. Using cigarettes, prisoners whose preferences were not satisfied by rations they received could purchase goods they wanted throughout the camp. I believe that if a state were to dismantle the entire banking system and abolish money, then a commodity currency like cigarettes would develop in its place. Money is more useful than barter for trading and to propose that we could live effectively without a currency of any kind is absurd.

The article later goes on to criticize the pricing system by claiming that the cost of an item only takes into consideration the labour and time it took to produce it. He argues, “To make this the only consideration that counts (as is imposed by the economic laws of capitalism) is an absurd aberration.”

The author of this article is clearly mistaken about several things. Capitalism does not impose laws on anyone. Capitalism is merely a system wherein individuals are free to make their own choices and where property laws are enforced by the government. As far as the price system goes, to suggest that only labour and time are considered in the cost of a good is the true absurd aberration. Supply and demand are determined by a variety of factors, including labour costs, but goods can have value for many other reasons including aesthetic or historical significance, taste, popularity, scarcity, or other seemingly arbitrary factors. The extraordinary value of a coin collection, an antique armoire, or a Vermeer painting is not derived from the labour and time they took to produce, but rather from the scarcity of these goods compared to how much they are demanded. How is a socialist state going to allocate works of art without some unit of account with which to assign them value? It appears that art collecting is to be abolished along with money in this supposed socialist utopia. The purpose of money is as a unit of account, that is, it assigns values to objects based on their demand and supply, which in turn are determined by any number of things. Money allows for the trade of value for value. Money ensures that every good that is produced is traded to someone who wants it for the appropriate value in dollars and cents. It reflects a poor understanding of the economy to assume that somehow the government will know how to allocate its resources efficiently without even a basic unit of account. Therefore, any suggestion that a socialist economy can provide for everyone’s needs better than a market economy is absolute rubbish.

       

Under Socialism, Vermeer's The Astronomer is worth 9 million cigarettes

Another ridiculous claim made by the article is that under socialism, producers would not take into account monetary or market values, but rather “human values”. I believe what the author means by this is that goods will only be produced in accordance with their need in society rather than to make a profit. This kind of mentality, well-meaning and idealistic as it may be, does not correspond to how the world really works. I feel the following quote by Adam Smith has relevancy here: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” In order to create a given product, it requires technical ingenuity, time, effort, resources, imagination, and market knowledge. In a market economy, firms are willing to invest all that effort because if the product they create is successful, it will confer a benefit in the form of profit. Threats of competition also ensure that producers make the best goods possible, utilizing their time and resources to the greatest efficiency to satisfy the greatest demand. Under a socialist economy however, there is no threat of competition and no opportunity to make a profit off anything, so where is the motivation under socialism to satisfy these “human needs” to the best of its ability? To engineer some product for the masses, using the fewest resources possible, and without the accountability incurred by competition, it seems that any good produced under socialism would inevitably be of lesser quality that its equivalent in a market society. If you compare the technology of Soviet Russia to that of the United States, this becomes evident. The state of the Soviet automobile industry was so poor, that in the 1960s, Soviet leadership turned to the Western powers to help them produce a proper car.[3] The infamous Lada, a product of communist ingenuity, was a car so unreliable that if you purchased one brand new, it still required extensive repairs in order to be made roadworthy.[4] The Lada also had horrible fuel economy and they became an object of ridicule anywhere outside Soviet Russia. If the socialist’s way of satisfying “human needs” is to have its people driving around in obsolete deathtraps, then I will take my chances in a market economy. 

How do you double the value of a Lada? 

Fill up the gas tank.

Any economy with a stable currency can provide for the needs of its people better than a cashless socialist hell. For all the high-minded rhetoric espoused throughout the Libcom.org article, little of it amounts to more than idealistic navel-gazing. Money allows for individuals to exchange their labour for an equivalent value of goods and services. It ensures that workers are properly compensated and that all resources are allocated efficiently. Socialists and utopian thinkers are hard-pressed to demonstrate how a world without money could ever function.  Money gives the individual freedom to make his own choices.  Supply and demand, more so than any amount of socialist rhetoric, reflects the true needs of the people, and this is why I believe socialists despise money. Ultimately, money represents the responsibility the individual has over his own life and his freedom of choice, ideals that do not fit the socialist’s vision of man as a form of sacrificial livestock—to be herded and organized by the whim of a central planner.  No state or central planner, regardless of the means at their disposal, can never accommodate these needs better than an open market.

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[1] https://mises.org/pdf/econcalc.pdf pg. 36-37

[2] http://www.clsbe.lisboa.ucp.pt/docentes/url/jcn/ie2/0POWCamp.pdf

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_the_Soviet_Union#Historical_production_by_year

[4] http://www.economist.com/node/11703067

Rape Culture Does Not Exist

One of the tenets of third-wave feminism that I find particularly objectionable is rape culture. Unless you are totally unacquainted with feminism’s current form (in which case I envy you) then you are likely familiar with it. The Women against Violence against Women website describes rape culture as “jokes, TV, music, advertising, legal jargon, laws, words and imagery that make violence against women and sexual coercion seem so normal that people believe that rape is inevitable.” Those who advocate the existence of rape culture believe that there is a concerted effort made by men to justify rape and violence against women. These feminists will have you believe that everything from the daily news to the nutritional information on the back of cereal boxes conveys implicit justifications for men to abuse women with impunity. I came across this article written by Zaron Burnett entitled A Gentleman’s Guide to Rape Culture. He makes some arguments about rape culture that I believe to be incorrect. In this post, I wish to address this article and explain why Burnett’s point of view is mistaken, as well as dispel the myth of rape culture in general.

Burnett begins his article by stating that all men are part of rape culture and perpetuate it with their mere existence. It doesn’t matter if you actually are a rapist or not. He claims that men commit ninety-nine percent of rapes, and thus it is largely men who “are the primary agents and sustainers of rape culture.” He then argues that because men do so much raping, women see all men as potential rapists, so men should take extra precautions around women to make them feel safe and secure. In elevators, stairways, or parking lots, men have a duty, according to Burnett, to make their presence known and to show that they are not rapists. What a load of bollocks this is. This mentality only goes to show the double standards inherent to feminist ideology. If men have an obligation to show women that they are not rapists, then it lowers them to the standard of rapists by default. Demanding that men have to accommodate the needs and vulnerabilities of women in this respect only perpetuates the notion that men are rapists.

Consider if you were to make a similar argument regarding Muslims as suicide bombers. Given that Muslims commit the majority of suicide bombings, one could argue that Muslims have the obligation to show that they pose no threat when they associate with non-Muslims in public. The reasoning follows that if men have to go out of their way to use submissive behaviour to show that they do not intend on raping women, Muslims have to let others frisk them to prove they are not wearing vests of dynamite. If women feel vulnerable around strange men, some non-Muslims may feel unsafe around those of middle-eastern descent, but if anybody should argue that the Muslims have an obligation to make others feel safe in their presence, then such a person would a racist. Given that a minority of Muslims happen to be terrorists, this should not entail any guilt or obligation on the part of Muslim people. Even if Muslims committed 100 percent of suicide bombings and men committed 100 percent of rapes, it does entail that non-rapists and non-bombers should carry any of that guilt. Teaching men that they are threatening to women and that they should make efforts to avoid women in order to make them feel safe will only perpetuate the notion of men as rapists. Such thinking only encourages an irrational fear of men by women and the notion that men are inherently sinful in their own minds. It is insane to hold an entire demographic of people responsible for the crimes of a select few.

Another point in Burnett’s article that I find objectionable is that he reduces all the complexities and nuances of human relationships down to broad-sweeping generalizations about men supporting rape culture and women being victims. Burnett writes “If you think that sort of stereotyping is bullshit, how do you treat a snake you come across in the wild? You treat it like a snake right? That’s not stereotyping, that’s acknowledging an animal for what it’s capable of doing and the harm it can inflict.” Get a fucking grip, buddy. There are 3.5 billion men in the world—all with different backgrounds, measurements, temperaments, interests, and values. How can the burden of rape culture, assuming it exists at all, rest uniformly upon a twenty year-old white frat-boy and a celibate nonagenarian monk from Tibet? For Burnett to reduce the condition of every single man on the planet to the level of some reptile you find in the forest makes me wonder whether the feminists haven’t already tied him up in the basement and castrated him. 

You can still hear the screams.

Later in the article, Burnett offers a list of examples of rape culture. A few of these examples include “Sexually explicit jokes”, “Publicly scrutinizing a victim’s dress”, defining manhood as “dominant and sexually aggressive”, as well as gendered violence in movies and television. He also makes the grandiose claim that rape culture plays a central role in all the social dynamics of our time. Rape culture, according to Burnett is “part of all our social, societal, and environmental struggles.”

Human beings have been raping each other for a really long time. From the rape of Lucretia, which indirectly led to the formation of the Roman Republic in 509 BCE, to the rape of Rindr in Norse mythology, to Tamar from the Book of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible, history is abound with rapes both ancient and modern, real and fictional. Rape, just like any other crime like thievery, murder, or arson has existed since time immemorial and I suspect that rapists, for reasons known only to themselves, will carry on raping until the sun swallows up the earth. Well before the existence of violent music and television shows, filthy jokes, and slut-shaming, there has been rape. Feminists are hard-pressed to demonstrate a correlation between the emergence of violent movies and the frequency of rape. I hope nobody will dispute the fact that rape is a particularly horrific crime and I support any measures that attempt to mitigate its occurrence. If we wish to stop rape or sexual abuse then I believe scientific research is necessary to determine the real causes and motivations for rape. The theory of rape culture does not offer any satisfactory explanations in this respect and amounts to little more than an elaborate feminist conspiracy theory. To believe that rape is the result of certain kinds of entertainment, or dirty jokes demonstrates a very narrow understanding of human motivations. 

Although, the feminist depiction of our world would suggest otherwise, few people in our culture today seriously advocate rape. Rape culture conjectures not only that things like sexual jokes and violent movies normalize rape, but that they were conceived by men for that very purpose. In this way, rape culture resembles a tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory. There is no substantial evidence to suggest that men are conspiring to create entertainment or are disseminating ideas for the purpose of raping women. I am a man. Based on my experiences with others throughout my life, I can say with honesty that we are not conspiring to rape women. Most men, including myself, believe that rape and domestic violence are terrible. Wife-beaters and rapists are cowards. Only a minority of extraordinarily twisted individuals believe that raping or abusing women is a good thing. Thankfully, few people lend these views sympathy when they are expressed in public.  The belief that men are all secretly perpetuating sexist norms for the sake of abusing women is absurd and stands testament to the paranoid and unscientific tendencies of feminist ideology.

I can already tell the feminists will be quick to counter my point by claiming that sexism is being conveyed to us implicitly through entertainment. Feminists like Anita Sarkeesian and Suey Park are always analyzing entertainment through a feminist perspective, revealing messages or “tropes” which they claim instil sexist attitudes into our minds. I have heard them claim that the shitty Robin Thicke song Blurred Lines justifies rape if you interpret the lyrics a certain way. I have heard them claim that the so-called Bechdel test reveals the poor representation of women in films. There are countless other examples of things feminists believe to be encouraging rape—from Twitter hashtags to photo memes. The problem with ascribing all these things to rape culture is that the attitudes which feminists find so offensive are the product of sexual dimorphism and not some patriarchal conspiracy. When a man portrays women as an object of his attraction and sexual desire, it is not because he was conditioned by some TV show he saw, but because of innate biological imperatives urging him to get laid. Men want to have sex with women. You don’t need some elaborate feminist doctrine to explain why men want to get their dicks wet. It’s just human nature. Sexually suggestive songs don’t explain why men objectify women any more than an advertisement for McDonalds explains why humans ingest food. I am afraid that if you actually believe Robin Thicke is a harbinger of unquenchable male lust, you may need to revise your calculations.

These women are clearly rape culture shills.

Then from whence cometh rape culture? If the tenets of rape culture do not stand up to serious analysis, then why do so many feminists and people like Zaron Burnett keep propagating it? As I have already argued in a previous post, many feminist doctrines such as privilege and rape culture are mechanisms by which to impose guilt on men. In this way, it is similar to the Catholic doctrine of original sin. If you can make someone feel guilty for something, you can bend that person to your whim if they believe it will absolve their guilt. You may or may not have actually eaten the forbidden fruit, but you still suffer the consequences of Adam and Eve. You may or may not actually be a rapist, but you should think of yourself as one. Just like receiving the Eucharist will keep you in the Pope’s good books, submitting oneself to the feminists will lessen one’s culpability in regards to rape. I can safely say that anyone who tries to make you feel guilty for something you have not done is not looking out for your best interests. Men like Zaron Burnett who willingly accept the guilt that feminists impose upon them are enlisting themselves for a perpetual and thankless servitude as sexually-emaciated peons. Rape culture is male guilt. Seeing as though feminists do not take kindly to men who dare question the existence of rape culture, this purpose should be clear. 

Rape culture is not a reliable framework for understanding or dealing with rape. Its premises are not corroborated by evidence apart from the narrow feminist worldview and it imposes guilt on all men for their sexual desires. Rape culture does not attempt to mitigate the occurrence of rape at all, since those individuals who commit most of the rapes are not likely to be persuaded by feminist theory. Sexual assaults should be investigated and prosecuted like any other crime, instead of attributing their occurrence to vague patriarchal power structures. To those women whose opinion of men has been warped by the notion of rape culture or by feminism in general has my sincere apologies. 

California Gun-Control Bill is Completely Pointless

"My hard-on for gun-control is this long." -DF

Always looking to capitalize on the latest tragedy for political support, Democratic senators from the state of California—Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer have proposed the “Pause for Safety Act”.  According to this article, the bill would allow people to take out “temporary gun prevention orders” on those they suspect are unstable or potentially threatening. Under this bill, courts can issue orders allowing for the seizure of firearms by those who are deemed dangerous. With the Elliot Rodgers case and several other recent spree-shootings still fresh in everyone’s minds, it is no wonder the gun-control crowd has yet again seen fit to exploit the victims of these tragedies as a means to push their own agenda.

At first glance, it might seem like this bill does not infringe on the freedom of a law-abiding citizen’s right to bear arms, but in practice it may not be as innocuous as it appears. First of all, had this law been in effect already, how many spree shootings would it really have stopped? If the bill requires someone to file a temporary gun prevention order against someone they believe to be a threat, then I fail to see how this would have stopped any of the recent spree shooters. It takes a certain kind of disturbed lunatic to open fire on a crowd of innocent people. Those who are bent on doing harm to others are not likely to obey gun laws in the first place. In fact, the majority of firearms involved in murders in the United States were purchased illegally. This bill effectively does nothing to eliminate the thousands of illegal firearms already in North America, which aren’t going away regardless of how many laws are passed. It is naïve to think that homicidal lunatics are going to relinquish their firearms just because Dianne Feinstein said so. Mentally unstable criminals are not thwarted by temporary prevention orders.

You might be saying, “Well, maybe this bill won’t actually prevent any crimes, but it still sounds like a good idea, right? I mean, who wants to let potentially dangerous people own guns?” The problem with this line of reasoning is that it is not always easy to determine whether someone is a potential threat. Whenever one of these spree killers goes out and shoots twenty people, we always look for red flags in their behaviour that would have allowed us to prevent the violence beforehand. Sometimes it is quite obvious that somebody is a threat, as in the case of Elliot Rodgers, but oftentimes you can't tell that someone is violent until they've acted out.  How then, is a court supposed to draw the line between someone who is a legitimate threat or just a well-meaning eccentric? To me it seems as though there is no accurate criteria by which we can label somebody as a potential threat. Without any reliable criteria in that respect, how are the courts in a position to issue warrants allowing for the seizure of people’s property? If this bill becomes law, then I predict that there will be many gun-owners who will unjustly be labelled as “potentially dangerous” and have their weapons seized by the government.  Maybe the guy who lives on your block doesn’t like you face and decides he’s going to file a gun prevention order on you because he feels “threatened”. Or maybe a manipulative wife files a prevention order against her husband on a whim because she got mad at him for some reason. If you have a decent imagination, you can probably think of scenarios when a law like this could be abused.

This is a classic example of a group of misinformed politicians fishing for votes by the proposition of well-meaning, albeit completely useless legislation. It’s all about making things sound good on paper.  Those who support this bill have not made an effort to look past their knee-jerk reactionary instincts to gun violence to consider the ineffectiveness of controlling firearms.  Taking guns away from anyone will not prevent violence, it will only encourage it. 

Nietzsche Club Banned at University College London

University College London has banned a Nietzsche club from holding meetings at the school on the grounds that the philosopher’s work encourages right-wing and fascist ideas. UCL’s student union barred the club as it believes “fascism is directly threatening the safety of the UCL student body.” According to This article, the action banning the club from campus was part of a wider initiative at the school called “Fight Fascism”, wherein “a united front of students, workers, trade unions, and a wider labour movement… [fight] the root cause of fascism—capitalism.”

It must be a daily barrel of laughs attending a school run by such Marxist stooges as those at UCL. Contrary to what they are saying, banning the Nietzsche club really has nothing at all to do with “fighting fascism” and everything to do with publicity. It’s about covering their asses. When a university such as UCL is publically funded and takes in tax money, it has to maintain a semblance of political correctness, otherwise squeaky wheels like Timur Dautov or Suey Park will bitch and complain and the school will lose its funding.  Universities such as these will not tolerate any clubs or associations that do not tote the party line or could be possibly perceived as offensive by someone, somewhere. Don’t let their rhetoric fool you. They don’t give a fuck about fascism. It’s all about money.

Those columns weren't built out of free speech, you know.

All of that aside, I bet you that the people who spearheaded these idiotic initiatives can’t even tell you what fascism is all about, or even why it is still relevant in the year 2014. If the stooges at UCL had a genuine concern about its students being corrupted by fascist ideology, then they should encourage an open discussion about the tenets of fascism so the students can learn for themselves why fascism is immoral and why it should be avoided. Just as banning books makes people want to read them more and censoring music only makes it more popular, decreeing that a Nietzsche Club cannot have meetings will only make people more interested in Nietzsche’s philosophy. Banning information is thought control; it is unethical and will not eliminate the thoughts in question. If Nietzsche’s or anyone else’s ideas really were poisonous, then hiding them only gives them an allure. It will attract people to them if only for the fact that they are hidden. I’m sure the students who attend UCL are intelligent enough to think for themselves and they don’t need some douchebag Marxist administrator determining what is appropriate for them to read.

As the article on Thedailybeast already points out, Friedrich Nietzsche was not a fascist. His connection to Hitler and Mussolini stems from an erroneous interpretation of his ideas which was promoted by his sister,who had a poor grasp on his philosophy to begin with. An in-depth examination of Nietzsche’s writing goes beyond the point I am trying to make in this post, I do not believe his ideas are particularly dangerous that they should be discouraged. However, just because someone’s beliefs are immoral, does not mean they are not worth examining. If UCL really had a substantial argument against the philosophy of Nietzsche, then they would present it and allow it to be judged on its own merits. Only weaklings censor works they disagree with. The banning of the Nietzsche club by UCL really goes to show the moral cowardice inherent in the standards of political-correctness today. If merely being exposed to ideas that are deemed unattractive is enough to corrupt a student body, then perhaps it is what is attractive that is truly corrupt to begin with. 

In other news, UCL's Book Burning Club just got a new endowment fund.