pretty much everything that apparently excludes ayn rand from the category of "philosopher" applies to every single philosopher in the canon, she was: a terrible bigot, did some really bad philosophy, wrote lots of fiction, uncharitably interpreted interlocutors, etc.

everything leveled at her can be just as much if not more so leveled against pirsig, camus, stirner, nietzsche, marx, kant, aristotle, plato, etc., etc.

there's two things that set her apart from these thinkers

the first is being a woman (especially the kind who didn't conform to conventional notions of femininity) which imo plays a part in not only the amount but the kind of widespread vitriol liberals (usually men) spew at her

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@corymassimino

27 Jun

anarchism is NOT the proposition that eliminating states would be costless

it’s the proposition that it’s worth the effort to *reduce* those costs by creating alternative, horizontal ways of providing the few good things states do: defense, arbitration, social insurance, etc.

it’s in this way that anarchism at its best is a radical reimagining of politics as an *imminent* project, connected more to interpersonal ethics than abstracted policy ideas, thus bringing political philosophy “down from the clouds” to the real world of flesh-and-blood people

as an example: non-anarchists view “immigration” as a policy area concerning appropriate regulations, quotas, security, etc. whereas anarchists view “immigration” as a moral area concerning the just treatment of non-Americans

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@corymassimino

9 Apr

https://twitter.com/nino_kadic/status/1247995931389239298

Perhaps: philosophy is a particularly nebulous concept that in the public sphere has broad associations with 1) radical, or to-the-root, thinking and skepticism that opens the door to unpopular ideas and, by extension, conspiracy theories and 2) spiritual/personal improvement.

https://twitter.com/nino_kadic/status/1247995931389239298

These associations are not totally unfounded.

But in the context of social media they are easily weaponized by 1) people disguising insane conspiracies as products of an "open-minded philosophy" and 2) grifters disguising New Age/self-help products as the "one true philosophy."

The result: people who are at first genuinely interested in a philosophical way of thinking, but don't know how to best utilize mechanisms of knowledge/discourse, get led astray and swept up in the Big Promises offered by the likes of Alex Jones, Jordan Peterson, David Icke, etc.

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@corymassimino

28 Aug 19

The distinction between social and economic issues is arbitrary politicized crap masquerading as serious conceptual analysis. The economy is part of society. Economizing is bound up in socializing and vice versa. The two are one and the same.

Using this framework to write off issues of one kind and emphasize issues of the other kind is just opportunistic manipulation. It distorts and confuses the conceptual landscape even further to the benefit of your particular agenda.

There is a strong link between social planning and economic planning (and social freedom and economic freedom). Yet being forced to choose between them has often been Step 1 in engaging in Real Politics in America.

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