Paul Rosenberg

Compulsory Sexual Ethics, In Reverse

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AmericaPaul Rosenberg – Once upon a time gay people… homosexuals… were shunned, punished, and even beaten by the police. Horrible things to be sure, but they happened quite a lot.

Likewise women were locked into societal roles. If you wanted to be a housewife, that was fine, but most any other avenue was closed to you, or at least barricaded fairly well. That’s awfully nasty too, but it also happened a lot and for a long time.

And just to be clear, you should understand that everything above was either prescribed by law or tacitly accepted by “the law of the land.” Continue reading →

We Have Undervalued Ourselves

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“Whenever it is that we come to understand ourselves and the true nature of the world, doing the right thing will cease being a burden. We will do the right thing simply because any other action would be stupid.” P Rosenberg

oceanWaterBoyGrowing up, I heard lots of complaints from parents and teachers about children being conceited, proud, and arrogant. Looking back, it seems to me that most of these complaints were related to a failure to obey. We did have one or two kids who were arrogant jerks, but the rest of us received the same comments they did.

But whatever motivated the adults of my youth, they were mostly wrong – it’s not our overvaluation of ourselves that is the real problem; it’s our undervaluation.

Here is a passage from G.K. Chesterton’s The Defendant that makes this argument:

There runs a strange law through the length of human history — that men are continually tending to undervalue their environment, to undervalue their happiness, to undervalue themselves. The great sin of mankind, the sin typified by the fall of Adam, is the tendency, not towards pride, but towards this weird and horrible humility.

I think Chesterton was entirely correct, and I think we have all been surrounded by, and influenced by, a “weird and horrible humility.”

Most of us, most of the time, fear making errors, think about our failures and deficits, and live in a sea of guilt. Not only is this dark self-image unnecessary, but it degrades us and is built upon falsehoods.

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Switching Scripts

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What Is the New Script? Obviously, there isn’t one. We have to start creating it ourselves. But if we don’t do this, the only alternative is 1984’s script – the one that worked for the generation that is in power now, and who sees the world through 30 year old lenses. P Rosenberg

ThinkForYourselfAlmost all of us were raised to follow a more or less uniform script through our lives. Sometimes it was specifically taught to us, and other times we just absorbed it by watching others. But regardless of how we were trained, there are two primary problems with following this script:

  1. Following a script is unbecoming to a thinking being and leads in bad directions.
  2. Such scripts reflect what worked a generation ago, and yesterday is gone.

We all know the details of the script, of course. It goes more or less like this:

  • Do well in school.
  • Rebel with music from the entertainment corps.
  • Get shoes, clothes, and gadgets with the best corporate logos.
  • Get a university degree. (If your family isn’t rich, take student loans.)
  • Take a job at a big firm with good benefits.
  • Get a loan and buy a house.
  • Build a 401(k).
  • Believe in democracy.
  • Send your children to daycare, then school.
  • Buy brand-name goods.
  • Watch the best in entertainment.
  • Rely on Social Security and Medicare.

Do these things, and people in authority will approve of you. In fact, nearly everyone from the previous generation will approve of you. After all, you’re following the script that they wrote, back in 1984, a generation ago.

It No Longer Works

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Mark Wallace Interviews Paul Rosenberg ~ Conscious Resistance

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“There are, unfortunately, people among us who seek power over others. Probably all of us have felt the dominance instinct at some point in our lives, but the vast majority of us learn that it’s an ugly, destructive way of life and we get over it. But some people are wired differently and think of domination as their proper role. These people will always go after power. So long as there are systems that allow them to control and reap from everyone else, they’ll work full-time to get their hands on its levers.” ~Paul Rosenberg

AndrewJacksonMark Wallace ~ I have yet to meet Paul Rosenberg, but I’ve followed his work for years. He’s a brilliant thinker, and from what I can gather via my communications with him, just a damn nice guy!

Paul knows a lot about a lot of things. An adventure capitalist with a broad range of interests and experiences under his belt, current passions include philosophy, theology, history, psychology, and physics. This diverse interest base is reflected in his extensive repertoire of published titles, including A Lodging of Wayfaring Men, The Words of the Founders, and  Production Versus Plunder, not to mention 55 engineering and construction books.

He is also the author of the excellent blog, Free-Man’s Perspective.

Paul is speaking at our Aspen Meet Up, along with Doug Casey and others in August. Sharing a scotch and some intellectual discourse with these two gents will easily be one of the highlights of the year for me! You’ll see how you can join us at the end of this post.

I love reading Paul’s work because I inevitably learn something. That’s always a good thing!

WARNING: If you’re offended by free-thinking, believe government is an honourable institution or are otherwise inclined to think that what you hear from the mainstream news outlets is “mostly the truth”, then you should not read any further. I’d also go as far as to say you are reading the wrong blog.

 

Mark: Paul, you’ve said that, “The meaning of modern existence has devolved to nothing more than comfort and status; discovery is a non-factor. All modern man seeks are food, sex, and comfort, and he/she devotes his/her life to nothing more than mundane things.”

I interact with a global base of friends. Thankfully most of them are not deluded by materialism and empty desires. However, it seems that the majority of the Western world (and increasingly the developing world) has been lulled to sleep by technology, mindless entertainment and a stripping of even the most harmless of tresspassings by overbearing nanny states.

Give us some historical perspective on this. Has this happened before? How does it end?

Paul: Yes, it has definitely happened before, especially as civilizations teeter on the edge of collapse. I generally use the Romans as an example, so I’ll just go with them:

The end of Rome was famously called a time of “bread and circuses,” which simply means “handouts and entertainment.” Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Rome’s fall. It comes from a man named Salvian the Presbyter, in about 440 AD: Continue reading →

A Report From Middle America

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FreemansPerspective  February 11 2014

MiddleClassAmericaI was recently involved in a day of meetings with small business owners in the American Midwest. It was both encouraging and sad at the same time.

What I Found First

Overall, I found a large room full of productive human beings. It was uplifting. Most of these people were between thirty and seventy years old, more men than women, and they were all productive people, the kind who get up early every day, make sure that complex systems are producing properly, fix anything that is broken or near breaking, plan for the future, cooperate with large numbers of other people, and then go home at the end of the day and love their families.

If all the world lived like these people, we’d be halfway to a paradise by now. And that was a thought that made me sad.

Why? Because these people – by any standard of decency – should be left alone to create their better world. But instead, they are forcibly tied to wasteful, parasitic, and destructive systems. Half or more of their earnings are taken from them every year. Their actions are restricted by their moral inferiors. They live less than half the rewarding lives they should be enjoying, and for no defensible reason.

The Other Things

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