DO NOT READ THIS WEBPAGE if you are a wimp, a crybaby, a child under (or over) 18, are subject to temper tantrums, heart attacks or strokes, or are otherwise "sensitive" or easily offended. This is a man's page, so if you can't take the heat, go back to the kitchen! It's a man's page, not because I post pictures of naked women, but because I do something much worse: I tell the naked truth (however, please see our disclaimer) -- and that's something it takes a man (or at least a woman with balls) to handle. What I mean is, the truth is not something that ordinary people want to hear -- in fact, it usually makes them as mad as hell to hear it. And the reason they get so mad is because ordinary people are just that -- ordinary -- that is, they haven't achieved much, and thus their egos are weak. Which means that if an ordinary person feels he has been attacked -- as he usually does when any of his beliefs are challenged -- then, because of his weak (and thus sensitive) ego, he is likely to react furiously. (And of course when you make fun of cherished beliefs (as opposed merely to disputing them), as I often do on this webpage or in my other writings, you always make the people who hold such beliefs ten times as mad.) But what is even worse is that in most cases where people get angry over something, the impulse is to 'kill the messenger' -- here, myself -- rather than deal with the underlying problem -- here, ignorance and error.
But where weak men find a threat, strong men find a challenge; and it is my hope that by exposing real men to the salacious nakedness of truth, they will be seduced into a permanent loving relationship. It won't be easy, however, because the things I write are generally considered dangerous by would-be censors because of their tendency to undermine opinions which are formed on the basis of the un-dangerous information that comprises the common fare of TV, newspapers, and other conventional information sources. In particular, the dangerous ideas which are presented here include the desirability of hatred, the niceness of nastiness, and the falsity or fallibility of almost every conventional idea ever conceived, including liberalism, conservatism, communism, capitalism, religion, atheism, animal rights, feminism, political correctness, racism, anti-racism, patriotism, children, sexuality, abortion, the family, mom, apple pie, the flag, and just about anything else you care to name.
While I regard this webpage, like the books I write, as devoted to exploring and exposing the truth in all its beauty and ugliness, I also believe that the truth is complex, ie, that there usually aren't any simple answers to the questions which typically weigh heavily on people's minds. And because of this, I also believe that the best way to discover truth is often to listen to the people on the fringe -- people who are "weird", "unacceptable" or otherwise outside the mainstream since, as the immortal J.B.R. Yant once said, "Progress comes only from deviance, irregularity or violation of the status quo." But if truth makes people mad, deviant opinions make them even madder, because not only do deviant opinions conflict with what "everybody knows", but they often don't even have the respectability of being spouted by some ignoramus with a PhD after his name. What I am really saying, then, is that this webpage, while giving a platform for my personal opinions, nevertheless aspires to a rigorous standard of evenhandedness in which not only are the opinions of critics freely linked, but the faults of all sides are exposed in an effort to achieve what can only be called equal-opportunity offensiveness.
One of the most devastating weapons in the fight for truth is humor. In this regard, we may note that what is funny to one group is often offensive to another. Accordingly, my desire is to make fun of everyone and everything that is funny without regard to creed, color, national origin or anything else except innate jocularity. But there is more to the humor of this page than mere equal opportunity, for I am positively opposed to the rejection of stereotypes, unlike so many "right-thinking" (and especially left-thinking) people, and for two reasons. First, I believe that stereotypes may (tho do not necessarily) represent the wisdom of long observation by many people, as is demonstrated by the fact that stereotypes are so often widely believed, and that something which is widely believed is likely to possess some adaptive advantage in the struggle for survival on this often-hostile planet. But there is another and even more important reason: Humor often depends on stereotypes. And I have no intention of giving up a rollicking good joke just because some uptight liberal tells me it makes his anus pucker.
Another matter relating to my use of humor is that there has typically been a distinction made between the groups about which it is socially acceptable to make jokes -- like lawyers and politicians -- and those about which making jokes is socially unacceptable -- like Jews and blacks. The distinction is basically that the former groups are voluntary associations, while the latter are not. But in reality this distinction breaks down when you realize that you may convert to Judaism, or you may -- as certain sun- tanned whites have found it useful to do -- claim to be black in order to take advantage of the legal breaks given to this particular group. But there is yet another way in which this distinction might break down: Liberals could begin to claim that the circumstances of our lives, rather than our voluntary choices, determine whether one becomes a lawyer or a politician or whatever, and thus that the "involuntary" members of such groups should no more be subject to ridicule than members of racial or religious groups. And that, my friends, will be the end of humor -- unless, of course, liberals allow us humorists to claim that our calling is "involuntary", too, and thus not subject to criticism any more than politicians and lawyers are. But then who can divine the logic of liberals?
What I am driving at is this: I believe in freedom -- and freedom of speech in particular -- and I practice what I preach. I'm not afraid to step on a few toes -- or kick some ass. I'm not afraid to breach taboos or violate "good taste". I'm not afraid to freely discuss the contradictions of both the Right and Left. I'm not afraid to turn sacred cows into shishkebob. And what a feast I have prepared! You can rest assured that the world has never seen a webpage like this one!
But however offensive this webpage may turn out to be for the reader, I wish to emphasize that it is by no means my intent to offend; for those who are offended by free speech are often very good and gentle people, very well-meaning and civilized people, and people who, if I met them face to face, I would never in a million years want to offend. Instead, the offensiveness of this webpage -- like the offensiveness of my books -- is merely a necessary evil in pursuit of two fundamental purposes: First, to help bring people together in ways that they have never before experienced or even imagined, and second, to provide an unparalleled source of information which is useful in both thinking and in everyday living.
So how, then, did an academic and artistic type like myself get into publishing a webpage? The short answer is, I am sick of lies, hypocrisy, coverups, and pretensions, and I am especially tired of having my own work -- which is largely devoted to exposing lies, hypocrisy, coverups and pretensions -- being suppressed, censored and hushed up. In particular, I'm angry that the editors of the major magazines and newspapers have had the gall to publish the kinds of crap they do while at the same time rejecting the high-quality pieces which I write -- pieces which ordinarily only see the dark of print in obscure or underground journals, if indeed they are ever published at all. And I'm also angry at reviewers saying my books are too controversial to review (In case you haven't heard about them, now you know why). And I am especially angry at not even being able to purchase paid advertisements for these books for the very same reason. But my strongest anger is saved for the various philosophical ignoramuses who call my works "immoral" when I just happen to be a recognized specialist in ethics (For more information on this topic, please refer to my booklet The Most Powerful Idea Ever Discovered). In fact -- like the main character in the movie Network -- I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more.
But my dislike for censorship is far more than a matter of personal taste. In particular, I am convinced that full and open communication is essential to both personal happiness and the well-being of society. To the casual reader, this may sound like some anodyne First Amendment platitude, but in fact it is the single most important discovery of both my personal life and philosophical career. This discovery came about in three main steps:
* The first step occurred in the first year of my marriage (now in its fourth decade and still going strong), when I came to the realization that the only way to be successful in marriage was to find a method of insuring full and open communication between marital partners. (I discovered such a method, described in my book Success in Marriage --GUARANTEED!!!.)
* The second step of this discovery was my introduction to the Synanon game, a sort of no-holds-barred verbal encounter which I played during a three-month membership in the Synanon organization during the late 60s in San Francisco, and my subsequent founding of an Extended Family Program at the Unitarian Society of Germantown in Philadelphia which was based on the insights of playing the game. (I discuss the Synanon game at length under the heading "The Second Most Powerful Idea Ever Discovered" in my booklet The Most Powerful Idea Ever Discovered.)
* The third and most academically important step of this discovery was my development of the Fundamental Theorem of Utility Theory in my 1991 book Systems Theory and Scientific Philosophy.
While it is impossible to give any comprehensive argument for open communication in a short discussion such as this one, there is a "quick and dirty" argument which may help to make the open-communication position seem more credible: Unlike morality, where everyone agrees that certain types of acts (e.g., murder, robbery, rape) are always crimes, there is no general agreement among people about the types of information that should be forbidden i.e., the type of information people want to forbid varies with their politics. For example, up until the 1960s it was conservative informational taboos which held sway, primarily the taboos on sexual and religious information; but nowadays it is liberal taboos which predominate, the primary ones being those on racial, ethnic and sex-group information. But the fact that one set of taboos held sway at one time, and another at another time, demonstrates precisely how arbitrary these taboos are. Furthermore, informational taboos represent not merely limits upon tongue and pen, but limits upon thinking, and thus constitute a pale beyond which minds are not permitted to wander, and a wall which shuts off man's horizons. This, then, suggests that censorship is not only an impediment to thinking, but -- far from being based on generally-recognized moral principles -- is both capricious and pernicious.
Another "quick and dirty" argument in favor of the free flow of information is what might be called the "talking cure" argument: As Breuer discovered -- and Freud popularized -- psychological problems can often be relieved by simply talking about them -- or, alternately, that such problems will be exacerbated if they are not talked about. The Synanon game, which I mentioned earlier, is what might be described as the implementation of this idea within a group -- it provides a tremendous catharsis for the participants in allowing them to talk (and yell and scream) openly about the things that are bothering them. Indeed, much of my writing might be thought of as a printed version of a Synanon game played for the reader's benefit -- a way of unrepressing the repressed, of making the subconscious conscious, and of making the unspeakable speakable. In short, my writings are a way of clearing out the sewers of the mind -- after all, unless you keep them unclogged, you'll end up with a head full of you-know-what.
While only a limited amount of my writing concerns minority and other low- status groups (eg, those of racial, ethnic, sexual, mental, locomotive, financial and calendrical orientations), the greater part of the controversy which my writing has generated concerns precisely these subjects. This is because my political incorrectness violates liberal morality, which has become the current standard of popular ethics during the last thirty years. Altho conservative morality has been staging a comeback of late -- in large measure because of the growing recognition of the complete failure of liberal programs -- conservatism's comeback will be limited by the simple fact of its own failures, which liberalism promised (but failed) to correct. And while, as I noted earlier, my writing is unbiased in the sense that it violates both conservative and liberal taboos, the dominance of the liberal zeitgeist means that it will probably be the piercing screams of liberals that will be most audible as the sharp points I make here are plunged into readers' minds.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more. Not only am I mad at all the lies that pass for truth in the present day, and all the things that aren't said because somebody might be offended, but also because of all the dirty names you get called when you try to tell the truth. And another thing I'm mad about is that, contrary to popular belief, the major problem in human interactions today is not that people are "insensitive", but rather that they are hypersensitive. In particular, it used to be that you could tell a joke, discipline your kids, give the bar-girl a squeeze, tell off someone who was acting like a jerk, work with the sort of people you wanted to, live in the kind of neighborhood you wanted to, and in general be relatively free in your words and behavior within the limits of certain clearly-defined legal prohibitions. Nowadays, however, any of the above-cited activities not only could get you smeared as "racist", "sexist" or the like, but could get you involved in interminable litigation, cause you the loss of your job or business, and even make you subject to arrest for "harassment", "hate crimes" or even "conspiracy". Well, by God, I've had it with this kind of shit, and this webpage, as are all my writings, is a pointed broadside against this sludge-filled Ship of Fools that is taking us so rapidly to Hell.
In a word, what my writing is all about is freedom. Freedom from moral mindcleaners, badmouth busybodies, self-righteous do-gooders, and -- above all -- overweening, ever-present government. But it is not enuf to say that this webpage is about freedom, because there are a lot of webpages -- usually calling themselves libertarian -- which sing the praises of freedom, but don't practice freedom because, down deep, they are really afraid of it. Afraid of getting called nasty names. Afraid of losing advertising dollars. And afraid of their own shadow. Well, one thing is sure -- freedom doesn't do you a damned bit of good if you don't use it. And another thing -- if you don't use it, you're likely to lose it.
But why, you may ask, should there be another webpage -- after all, isn't plenty of information already available, including the nasty kind that makes people as mad as hell? Well, yes and no. For one thing, very few folks are as nasty as I am (ie, no one speaks as freely as I do) while at the same time speaking as competently; and since my books have not yet achieved best-seller status, my mental sewer is in need of its own special drainpipe, and this is it. Another thing is, while there is a great deal of information available, the very abundance of that information makes finding the "good stuff" quite difficult because of the need to pick thru the ever-growing mass -- or mess. A third problem is that webpages or other publications which are geared to audiences with shared viewpoints (eg, conservatives or liberals) often censor out important information which challenges their own viewpoint, and thus there is a crying need for a webpage which is open to linking those who challenge the opinions it champions.
The point I made above about freedom being governed by the rule of "use it or lose it" deserves some elaboration. In particular, when nobody exercises their freedom, people become accustomed to not seeing it exercised (and thus become upset when it is); and it is custom which is more influential than anything else in determining the limits of behavior which society will accept. Indeed, even if the law is strongly pro- freedom, this will be of little use in preserving freedom against a tradition of non-freedom, for judges and juries tend to stick with the customary way, irrespective of the law. What this means, then, is that those who exercise freedom -- and, in particular, those who test the limits of freedom, as I am doing -- function as the first line of defense in the war between the advocates of freedom and its opponents. We are the marines who must charge the beaches, absorb the bullets, and grunt our way thru the muck and slime prepared for us by our opponents in order to establish a beachhead of liberty so that those who come after us can do what we did without ever having to so much as get their feet wet. All of which means just one thing: If you believe in freedom, support this website: buy some books or -- if you are an advertiser -- purchase advertising space. Or for that matter, send us a donation. Our battle is your battle. Our fate is your fate. And remember, it is far better to fight when the fighting is easy and the chances of winning are good, than to wait until the fighting is hard and the chances of winning are slim. And besides, as I think you will shortly agree, this is one hell of an interesting webpage.
As long as I am on the subject of fighting for the right of free expression, it is worthwhile to note that, while there is obviously a great deal of difference between my writing and the popular men's magazine Playboy, there does exist an important parallel. To be specific, Playboy succeeded in bringing honor to the much-maligned subject of sex, and in particular transformed erotic photography from immorality to immortality -- and respectability. Likewise, I hope that my writing will bring honor to other important taboo subjects, and will in particular make an important contribution to the transformation of race, sex and gender stereotypes from immorality to respectability. Part of Playboy's success, of course, rested on the fact that its founder acted from philosophical conviction, thus making it difficult for establishment prudes to make the charge of immorality stick. Analogously, the founder of this webpage -- namely, myself -- not only acts from philosophical conviction, but in fact is a philosopher; and thus it is hoped that the thoughtless and ignorant charges of immorality which will undoubtedly be hurled at me for violations of tabooery will rebound onto the hurlers where they belong.
Another way to put what I have been saying is this: Searching for truth, like coping with diarrhea or committing murder, can be both dirty and dangerous, as anyone who has ever seriously challenged established ideas can tell you. But neither cultural nor personal progress can be made unless one is willing to assault the frontiers of the mind, and the id in particular, which -- besides outer space and the atom -- is the only real frontier remaining to us. And it remains one of the last ones, not -- as in the case of space and the atom -- because of technical difficulties, but rather because it is truly the most fearful and frightening of all. For just as many men will fight another man to the death rather than admit to a mistake, so most men will adhere to conventional falsehoods rather than seriously consider the possibility of their falsity and face the inner and unknown darkness of their own minds.
It is clear, then, that this webpage, like my books, is intended for an elite, namely, the searchers for truth -- what I would call the true philosophers. It is only such people who can tolerate the sorts of outre ideas which will be found here. It is only such people who can reject the common classification of everything as either black or white, in favor of seeing things in varying shades of gray. It is only such people who will be able to tolerate the cognitive dissonance of a variety of opinions and of the seeming contradictions which I will inevitably stumble over in our attempt to discover the truth. And it is only such people who can be described as truly educated, because -- in the words of one of their number -- there is no idea which they find offensive.
But there is another reason why my writing is for an elite: Since most people obtain their ideas from that vast intellectual wasteland called television, it follows that the relatively small number of people who read are the only ones who will ever be exposed to ideas outside the narrow confines of conventional thinking, and are thus the only ones who will be equipped to deal with anything more real than fantasy, more substantial than consumer goods, and more meaningful than the latest fad. To echo the words of a popular song,
We are the readers, We are the leaders, We are the molders of fortune ...
Now in closing, let me leave you with the following thought: If this webpage or my books make you angry, then perhaps you are lucky; for anger is a shield from truth, and thus a defense against its pain. Anger, too, is a filter; for it extracts from our midst those without the mental or emotional capacity for our journey, and leaves us with only those whose stomachs and bowels are unlikely to discharge themselves on the rest of us during our long and difficult passage.
But besides the purposes I have already mentioned, this webpage has one other: To make you as mad as hell so you don't want to take it any more.
Enjoy!
* * Back to the Home Page of John "Birdman" Bryant, the World's Most Controversial Author * *