Egoism is the prioritization of one’s own interests, or those of one’s group, over everyone else’s interests. It is necessarily tyrannical because it implies willingness to sacrifice everyone and everything else for the sake of one’s own benefit.
Any goal other than universal order itself is necessarily egoistic. This is not because universal chaos is the only alternative, but because by prioritizing a goal other than universal order one is implying that he’s willing to sacrifice universal order for the sake of whatever end he is positing.
In order to escape the accusations of egoism, people would often point out that they are repudiating all well-known forms of violence. This is, however, inadequate. In order to overcome egoism, it is not enough to simply repudiate well-known forms of violence. Rather, it is necessary to prioritize universal order.
By prioritizing universal order, one is making a promise to end every form of violence. By every form of violence, I mean not only those forms of violence that one can perceive, but also every form of violence that is difficult to perceive.
Without prioritizing universal order, one may repudiate perceptible forms of violence, but there is no guarantee one will repudiate those forms of violence that are impercetible to one’s senses. In fact, one does not even want to: the desire to end violence is not the main goal. Rather, it is merely a means to escape accusations of egoism.
A man who does not prioritize universal order, but who nonetheless insists that he’s not an egoist, may not use well-known forms of violence, but you can be sure that he will find and put to a very good use all those forms of violence that have been previously unheard of.
You should never trust a person who does not present a clear hierarchy of values. Whoever tells you that he’s aiming for multiple ends should be distrusted. Consciously or unconsciously, he’s herding you along his own path.
You cannot aim for both happiness and universal order at the same time. Whoever makes such a claim must be distrusted on the ground that he’s refusing to present a clear hierarchy between the two values. If happiness is more important, then it necessarily follows that one is willing to sacrifice universal order for the sake of it. If universal order is more important, then it necessarily follows that one is willing to sacrifice happiness for the sake of it. There is no middle ground here.
The reason I dislike James is because he has been thaught, or has learned on his own, to resolve many of the problems we face in everyday life by uprooting them. Not by resolving them, but by eliminating them.
Instead of seeing these problems as problems that have to be resolved, he thaught himself, or was thaught by someone else, to deal with them by convincing himself that they are not problems at all, that the only problem – the only real problem – is the fact that he thinks there are any problems at all.
In this way, one takes all of the responsibility for everything that is happening in the world. The bullied one, unable to face up to the bully, convinces himself that it is actually okay to be bullied. The one who takes all of the responsibility for what happens is to be expected to have moments when he takes no responsibility whatsoever for his actions. The bullied one eventually becomes a bully.
In this way, people become desensitized to violence. This leads to the barbarian idea that being sensitive is a weakness. People are expected not to take any offense. They are also expected to ignore every wrong that is occuring around them and to simply move on.
It is not the case that people are desensitized to all forms of violence. Rather, desensitization tends to be only partial. One is desensitized only to a subset of violent acts.
James is desensitized to non-physical forms of violence. He has no sense of honor at all. This is the main reason I find him despicable.
He is too obsessed with power-driven egoists that he fails to see that he himself has become an egoist in the process. A different kind of egoist, to be sure, but still an egoist.
His lack of sense of honor can be observed in his statement that “no insult can be given if it is not taken” implying that the problem of insult is to be resolved by desensitizing oneself.
James has no interest in justice. His sole interest is survival and, of course, joy.
Why would anyone let himself be offended if it does not threat one’s survival? This is what bothers him.
And why would anyone let himself be offended if both survival and joy can be guaranteed by desensitizing oneself to violence? It makes no sense to him.
There is no doubt that if everyone adopted his way of thinking – which is Jewish in essence, with survival being at the top and joy immediately following – that everyone would get along. But that does not mean there would be no violence.
There is a difference between a signal of violence and an act of violence itself. James never really addresses violence itself. He only ever deals with signals of violence. By eliminating signals of violence, he manages to fool his brain into thinking that no violence is actually taking place.
This is based on the delusional idea that offense, and violence in general, is merely a mental construct, not real at all.
So if someone punches me in the head, I should not respond back at all in an effort to correct the injustice. Rather, I should ask myself “does this endanger my survival? does this decrease my joy?” If yes to any of these questions, then I should respond in the manner that either secures my survival or increases my joy, but if no to both questions, I shouldn’t respond at all. I should just ignore it. The pain I feel I am to interpret as a mistake to be overcome. For the most part, at least.
It’s important not to confuse James’ behavior with that of people who tell you to hold back because there are offenses of much higher priority to be dealt with first; or because you won’t succeed in retaliating successfully. These are noble corrections. James’ correction, on the other hand, is ignoble.
People are easily fooled by the prospect of correction – of becoming more successful. But not every correction is noble, no matter how much success it promises. Nowadays, it has become popular to accept every criticism that promotes success, disregarding the kind of success it promotes.
If James has at least some conscience within himself, he will admit that he does not care about putting an end to violence. Rather, what he cares about is survival and joy. By the simple process of desensitization, a man can be made to take pleasure in violent behavior. This does not make the act of violence go away, it simply makes it agreeable. In this way, people can be violent to each other without ever being repulsed by such a behavior. This is because they have eliminated repulsion on the ground that it is irrational in the sense that it does not endanger one’s survival and that it does not reduce one’s joy.
But I am sure that James will argue that violence really only makes sense in relation to survival. The sense of violence has evolved – I am sure he will claim – to warn us that our survival has been endangered. But the signal of violence is not always correct about the danger it signifies – he will go on – and in such circumstances it has to be overcome.
There is no talking to James for the simple reason that he has already decided on what is worth striving for. His worldview is heavily shaped by what he considers to be worth striving for. He interprets everything in terms of survival, not because such interpretations are realistic, but because he posits that survival for the sake of survival is something that is good in itself, something that should be pursued. Like a good Jew that he is, he will, no doubt, try to bury this fact by appealing to an abstract authority such as “material reality”. He will claim that it is not his own will that chose such a good, but rather Truth that did so and him who decided to obey it because Truth is an authority worthy of unconditional obedience. He will “ontologize” survival and joy by claiming that we are all guided by this same principle (he calls it “perception of hope and threat”) whether we acknowledge that or not.
I wish that he could at least admit that it is us who freely choose how to guide our lives and not our material existence that does so. Our material existence can limit us in the sense that it can fight against what we want, but it does not guide us. Our material existence is separate from our spiritual existence. They are related, that’s for sure, but that does not mean they are one and the same.
For one, I am not guided by “perception of hope and threat”. These may have an effect on me, they may overpower my will and sway me in the direction that I do not want to go, but they do not determine the way I want to act. I do.
It is us, and noone beside us, that decides on our goals. Of course, we can be forced to adopt foreign goals, but it is also true that we can resist such force and stay true to our own goals.
Freedom is nothing but the capacity to remain loyal to one’s goals. The simpler definition is that freedom means doing what you want to do. It implies no pattern at all, for it is relative to what one chooses freely of his own will.
It is at least in this sense that it is possible for people to strive for happiness while still being free. Though I may dislike such a behavior, I cannot say it is not free.
But in relation to those who aim for much higher things, happiness is often associated with slavery because they can be easily distracted by it. Slavemasters herd their victims by making the victims’ path of choice extremely painful (stick) while making the slavemaster’s path of choice extremely pleasurable (carrot.) In this way, it becomes very easy for people to detach themselves from their goals by going down the road that is of no real interest to them but of every interest to the slavemaster. Happiness is, of course, not the only way to herd people. Any appeal to instinct will do. Any automatism that strains the will will do.
It is thus difficult for me to determine whether James is free or unfree, but what I can tell, and what I am sure of, is that his goals are of lower quality. And it is this that matters the most.
There is a clear distinction between striving for happiness (hedonism) and striving for universal order (aryanism.)
These paths do not converge. They are separate.
James mocked the distinction between happiness and freedom by incorrectly assuming that the only alternative to happiness is misery. He confuses the end with the path itself. The alternative paths are of lesser happiness, there is no doubt about that, but the end is not necessarily misery. The end may overlap with misery, but what is aimed for is not necessarily misery.
People like him want to believe that a choice between two paths is always guided by pleasure principle. A man is only capable of choosing the path of greater pleasure or lesser pain, he is not capable of choosing the path of lesser pleasure or greater pain. Even though this can be easily demonstrated to be true in reality, they will always try to force their model of reality onto reality itself. They will always try to interpret reality in the way that suits them.
Or, if James rejects pleasure principle as being fundamental, we can substitute it with his PHT (perception of hope and threat.) Whatever path I choose, it is always the path that gives me more hope. This is also demonstrably false.
There is no way out of this conundrum for them.
They bruise 
