Addled Alain de Botton

The last time I mentioned Alain de Botton in these pages, I encouraged him to let go of his mommy’s hand and show some maturity, as he was waxing nostagically for being treated as a child, by the State.

In response to my mention, Alain dropped me an email stating the following.

I take it as a point of pride to have lots of immature sides. Indeed, it seems a basic definition of maturity to understand, accept, and not run away from sides of one’s nature which might offend a rigidly ‘adult’ view of the self.

I responded to Alain’s note this way.

Thank you for your note, unexpected though it was.

I, too, have immature sides, Alain, and fully understand their workings in my daily life.  Like you, I do not run away from my immaturities, but rather attempt to harness these immaturities, or grow out of them, in such a way so that I do not endanger myself, or others, relying on my reason, rationality and individual self-reliance rather than the state’s chains, which you seem to express a longing for in your article.

Though you intimate that I have a “rigid” adult view of myself, I fully realize that what abilities and strengths I have can be augmented by other individuals, by emulation and study of their abilities and strengths, or by discarding what I have come to understand as untenable rigidities.

The state cannot, and does not, protect me, or you, from any dangers, Alain, it only provides a false sense of security, a wonderland so to speak, not unlike Alice’s.

Respectfully, and with wishes for a fine day.

Alain did not respond to these thoughts, as they may have been too rigidly mature.

Alas, Alain seems to not only be susceptible to immaturity, but addledness, as he is now hawking the building of a temple, to atheism.

The atheist ‘philosopher’ Alain de Botton has undertaken a (literally) monumental project: he wants to create in the City a 150-foot-high temple to ‘new atheism’.

I wonder what they’ll use for their “scripture” books and hymnals?

We already have temples to atheism, Mr de Botton

Linked via SondraK who notes if you build it they will come to worship.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/31 at 12:32 PM

  1. I heard about the atheist temple plan the other day, but didn’t know anything about the fellow pushing it.  This post gives some pretty interesting backstory, to say the least.

    That the first is addled and the second immature I agree, but betwixt the two, I find de Botton’s temple proposal less wrongheaded and worrisome than his defense of nanny statism.  At least as far as I’ve read, he doesn’t plan on forcing anyone to pay for, attend or play bingo at his atheist house of . . . atheism.  So long as he doesn’t interfere with anyone’s right to laugh at his pretentiousness, I’ve got no real problem with it. 

    Even as a decided theist, I certainly don’t share the objections that Alexander Boot voices in the linked Daily Mail article.  It’s incredible to me that he would actually assert that “some of my closest friends are atheists” ahead of ridiculing the very notion of an “atheist philosopher” and blaming atheism for every modern ill, aesthetic and moral.  He even suggests that those atheist friends of his “tacitly agree” with him about philosophy, then declares that they “regret” their atheism and actually “know that a drastic departure from Christian culture will create nothing but nothingness.”

    While the article leaves me wondering about Mr. Boot’s grasp of atheism (and Christianity!) specifically and philosophy generally, it certainly leaves no doubt that the concept of “closest friends” eludes him utterly.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/31  at  09:08 PM

  2. ...I find de Botton’s temple proposal less wrongheaded and worrisome than his defense of nanny statism.

    Linda, I agree.  In fact, de Botton’s temple plans don’t worry me at all, but rather kind of amuse me, in that laugh at his pretentiousness way which you note.

    Your insights regarding Boot, I think, also hit the mark.

    Posted by John Venlet  on  02/01  at  07:23 AM

  3. I’d fight to protect Alain’s right to be free to worship himself – so long as he didn’t try to have me join him there in his state of godlessness.

    I’ve always been of the opinion that atheism’s fundamental premise was rooted in the glorification of man.  Consider the ancient Greek viewpoint “Man is the measure of all things” contrasted with the Biblical view: “What is man that thou art mindful of him?” 

    To see God, one must first see man realistically. 

    The atheist, seeing man as the measure of all things, seeks to clear a place on The Throne for man to occupy – ergo, no room for any deity.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/02  at  09:06 AM

  4. Linda: there are many good reasons why that rag is known as “the Daily Fail”, some of which are amply evinced in Boot’s article.

    But on a more serious point: it should not be overlooked that whilst arguments against religion can be used to indict the theocratic fascism of the Islamic world, they can also be used to undercut the rights-based ethical argument against the State, as in socialized medicine. The most vocal and well known champions of this argument in the U.S. are always on the relgious right and explicitly base the argument on theistic premises. Aside from being intellectually lazy, this is tactical suicide.

    Posted by mike  on  02/02  at  09:46 AM

  5. Mike, you are absolutely correct in pointing out the error a great many theistic individuals make.  The catholic (small c) church has contributed many, many proponents of socialistic ideals to the population at large.

    Posted by John Venlet  on  02/02  at  10:07 AM

  6. Mike, wait. You’re saying that “arguments against religion” can “be used to undercut the rights-based ethical argument against the State” and that members of the religious right champion and deploy these arguments - based explicitly on theistic premises - with regard to socialized medicine?

    I’m having more trouble with this than John did, but I’m interested enough to ask for clarification.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/02  at  11:47 AM

  7. That’s what happens when I knock things out too quickly (my use of “this argument” in paragraph two, line six was at fault since the grammatically obvious referent was not the one I had in mind).

    I meant that conservatives ground their insistence on rights in theistic premises (“God-given”), and this is an unnecessary liability when attempting to dissuade people from voting for big government politicians. 

    Here is an alternative argument (using the libertarian NAP) expressed as a syllogism…

    Major premise: imposing one person’s values upon another is a violation of the non-aggression principle.

    Minor premise: no value can be objectively shown (in the strictest sense*) to be preferable to another.

    Conclusion: there can thus be no objective grounds for violating the non-aggression principle.

    It’s heavily ironic because it means that the only objective principle in ethics is one which rests upon there being no objective values. I think it’s a stronger argument for the “negative liberty” notion of rights that conservatives and libertarians argue for than merely saying that these rights come from “our imaginary friend in the sky” (which is precisely the sort of language with which your rights-based argument will be dismissed without reflection).


    *Hume’s is-ought gap, which is to say an “ought” cannot be immediately deduced from an “is” without a tacitly mediating “ought”.

    Posted by mike  on  02/02  at  11:04 PM

  8. Correction (my major premise is tautological)...

    Major premise: violations of the non-aggression principle must be justified by appeal to value.

    Minor premise: no value can be objectively shown (in the strictest sense) to be preferable to another.

    Conclusion: there can thus be no objective justification for violating the non-aggression principle.

    Posted by mike  on  02/03  at  02:12 AM

  9. Thanks for straightening that out, Mike. I can see that “insistence on rights in theistic premises” would be a liability in trying to dissuade people - non-believers, at any rate - from supporting big government pols and policies, but I don‘t see how such a tactic, even in failing, would “undercut” other rights-based, anti-state arguments.  Moreover, and whatever its soundness, I have to wonder about the efficacy of the logic you promote for the purpose you envision.

    Consider this email exchange I had a few weeks ago on the subject of rights and health care.  My correspondent, as it happens, is a staunch atheist and, incredibly enough, a self-identified libertarian.

    Myself:

    My central concern about defining health care as a right is this:  The life-saving or merely health-enhancing services touted by government as my right become the enforced obligation of others to produce and provide. [. . .]  I believe that my only actual rights - not granted by, but rather (ideally) recognized and respected by the government - are to be able to do peaceful things for myself - speak up, associate with whom I wish, acquire and control property, etc. - without being molested for the same.  I don’t think I have an actual inalienable right to any commodity or service necessarily produced by other people.

    My correspondent, in reply:

    You list the rights you believe you have.  I accept all these.  But where do these come from?  You simply assert them, just as the Founders asserted that ‘we hold these truths to be SELF EVIDENT…’  But, of course, what is self evident to one person is pretty dim to another.  I hold that Health Care is a natural moral right, just like free speech, religion or lack of, assembly etc.  But that is the only right I would add to the Constitution.

    Oh well.  So much for avoiding the imaginary friend thing.  Think the syllogism would have helped here?  If so, I’ve seen about a million other instances where it could come in handy.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/03  at  02:53 PM

  10. In that case, Linda, try this:

    Major premise: Health care products and services must be produced by human effort.

    Minor premise: Human effort compelled by force is slavery.

    Conclusion: The production of healthcare products and services under compulsion is an instance of slavery.

    Or as someone else put it: “If you have a right to force me to pay for your health insurance, how come you don’t have a right to force me to pick your cotton?”

    Posted by mike  on  02/03  at  09:03 PM

  11. You zeroed right in on my ellipsis in my quote above, I kid you not.  The excised bit in full:

    The government would (further) take up the task of making others pay for what I receive, even of requiring doctors to provide services whether they are paid (enough or even anything) or not.  My right to receive becomes someone else’s obligation to produce and government becomes the agent which enforces this production, irrespective of the producers’ willingness to produce or the providers’ willingness to provide.  The producers and providers become, ultimately and actually, slaves.  They treat because they have to, because the product of their labor is promised to the receiver as a right.  (Initially, of course, as long as it is permitted, the health care producers and providers will flee the market until severe shortages become the norm.)

    Right over his head.  Or *ping* off the blinders, who knows?

    Why in the world didn’t I remember Jeff’s pick your cotton
    query? Might it have done the trick, or merely prompted my correspondent to add that he doesn’t care to add any agricultural rights to the constitution at this time?

    I’m not out to belittle or dismiss your efforts to formulate ideas logically and express them understandably.  Your suggestions above are as spot on as what consistently appears on your blog.  I just never cease, for some reason, to be amazed at how unreceptive most people are to such ideas and how entirely impervious to logic. They believe they have the right - God-given, self-evident, you-name-it - to everything they can acquire with a vote and the rest is just blah blah blah blah blah.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/04  at  01:16 AM

  12. “I just never cease, for some reason, to be amazed at how unreceptive most people are to such ideas and how entirely impervious to logic.”

    Aesthetics. Jeff’s exposition is better than yours quoted above because (a) it is brief, where yours was lengthy and (b) it evokes a pungent sense of outrage where both yours and mine are dry and whispy.

    Posted by mike  on  02/04  at  09:16 AM

  13. Well, yours is maybe a wee bit whispy, but mine bobbles about more on the bloated and disorganized side.  Jeff’s, though, really does just slice right on through. I move to resolve to vote it into the manifesto!  Next!

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/04  at  10:15 AM

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