John Stuart Mill and Socialism

The fact that the famous utilitarian became socialist-minded in his later years deserves to become better known.

It came to my attention several years ago, ironically as a result of a reading suggestion by a friend who describes himself as an ex-Marxist. He recommended a book by Ira Berliner featuring his concepts of "positive" vs. "negative" liberty. I wasn't impressed by Berliner as a thinker; for one thing, he never offered a sufficiently clear definition of "positive liberty" for me to be clear on what it was he was disagreeing with. For another, I think it's possible to make the case for Marxist politics purely in terms of "negative" liberty anyway.

But I'm still glad I read the book, because it also featured a talk given in commemoration of Mill, and it was from this that I learned of his latter support for the socialist idea and was led to read his book Principles of Political Economy and Chapters on Socialism.

Worth noting here is that, even before he started favoring socialism, Mill was expressing support for the idea of an inheritance tax on everything beyond a "fair start" for each heir, pointing to the British aristocracy as an example of the decadence that excessive hereditary wealth can foster.

Matt McManus's article in Areo, "John Stuart Mill, Socialist?": https://areomagazine.com/2021/05/12/john-stuart-mill-socialist/

His talk with Ben Burgis about the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0por0j-FKU

It should go without saying...

mobbing and threatening someone for their peacefully expressed opinion is never okay. But in this case, Roth's opinion was misrepresented to boot. He was specifically suggesting apps like Grindr should offer minors a different service from what they offer adults, whereas Musk implied the opposite.

https://nypost.com/2022/12/13/ex-twitter-exec-yoel-roth-forced-to-flee-home-amid-twitter-files-release/

I've yet to see anyone name a plausible psychological mechanism whereby those Balenciaga ads would cause harm to children. It's all moral panic -- but very effective brand advertising. Everyone's talking about them.

A Scientific Pioneer Memorialized

 

A statue of pioneering sex researcher Alfred Kinsey has been unveiled for the Kinsey Institute's 75th anniversary. As Tom O'Carroll writes in his blog:

The life-size bronze statue, which sits on the Bloomington campus of Indiana University, is the work of Melanie Cooper Pennington. In the words of the official press release, it “demonstrates the university’s pride in the living legacy of research and academic freedom Kinsey helped to forge”.

Pennington researched her subject through the Kinsey Institute‘s collection of materials. She brought Kinsey’s famous interview process into her interactive concept for the piece. The sculpture includes a resin chair opposite Kinsey that the viewer may occupy, taking the same position as the 18,000+ research participants who responded to Kinsey’s 347-question interview survey.

Once seated, the viewer will be met by the researcher’s gaze. Kinsey devised a code sheet, represented in Pennington’s sculpture, to record responses to the survey. It enabled him to tick coded items on the sheet while allowing him to maintain eye contact with his subject. The chair and code sheet are internally illuminated, providing additional visual appeal at night.

Well done, Melanie, fine work!

Use of the code sheet enabled those being interviewed about their sex lives to talk in a relaxed, conversational way with Kinsey, without the need to fill in questionnaires themselves. What their eyes were naturally drawn to instead was Kinsey’s own relaxed body language and encouraging manner – it took away the potential embarrassment of revealing sexual secrets.

Quote of the Day: Robert Solomon on Love

Our roles in romance are in every case personally determined, if on the basis of public instruction, and the kinds of roles one chooses to play with one’s lover cannot be dictated a priori. To say that a woman ought to be submissive, and also to say that she ought not, is nothing less than a kind of emotional fascism, a way of dismissing and degrading huge numbers of women who find that their personal preferences do not match up to the latest official line. “The totalitarian woman” might be a better designation for the conservative tendency to confuse questions about public equality with questions about personal roles; but the tendency to confuse the demand for social equality with an authoritarian attack on love is to be found on the other side as well. Romantic love requires equality, and to deny this or to enforce it from the outside is the denial of love as well.

n  Robert C. Solomon, “Love and Feminism,” in Philosophy and Sex, ed. Robert Baker and Frederick Elliston (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1984), adapted from Love: Emotion, Myth & Metaphor (Doubleday-Anchor, 1981)

Support Philosophy for Children!

 

My birthday is coming up, and I'm holding a fundraiser for the Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO), a nonprofit that promotes and supports Philosophy for Children (p4c) programs in schools.

Over the past few decades we've increasingly seen children treated like infants, adolescents like children, and young adults like adolescents. Children are discouraged from an early age from thinking about big questions, which adults all too often deride as silly. Yet a capacity for philosophical thinking is essential for people to participate meaningfully in democracy. I am glad that my parents didn't discourage such thinking, and that there were a lot of books in the house that stimulated it. But I know many children aren't as fortunate. I hope you will join me in supporting PLATO in their work helping today's young people to develop into thoughtful citizens

https://www.facebook.com/donate/435022721901936/

Rage of Consent: How Our Love/Hate Relationship with Youth Sexuality and Abuse Hysteria Is Endangering Our Culture

Rage of Consent: How Our Love/Hate Relationship with Youth Sexuality and Abuse Hysteria Is Endangering Our Culture 

By Heather Corinna

https://web.archive.org/web/20090930044204/http://www.scarletletters.com/current/2001_rage.shtml

A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Close

I'm saddened to have just learned that someone with whom I'd been mutuals on Twitter, and who actually did my portrait a few summers ago (along with others of her Twitter friends), blocked me and unsubbed me from her Substack after I'd sent her an email sharing some life experiences that didn't fit with her world view. This is someone who had once been identified with the Intellectual Dark Web, so you might have expected her to have some commitment to being open-minded. Evidently not.

All I Can Remember (Submissive Version)

The other day I published one of my song parodies on Fetlife's filking group. It's already received a positive comment (no surprise, since the ones I performed at the Erotic Literary Salon got positive responses too), but when I mentioned it in one of my support groups yesterday, a member who apparently isn't on Fetlife asked how he could see it, so I'm posting it here too.

It's a takeoff on the Seekers song "All I Can Remember," and is thematically very similar, aside from the addition of kink. I've modified the title only for the sake of clarity.

 

All I Can Remember (Submissive Version)

Happy days and happy kisses, tickles everywhere
That's all I can remember of times we used to share
Naughty nights and naughty spankings, times you made me crawl
That's all I can remember, all that I recall

I remember seasons when you weren't so far away
I still can hear your laughter when you made me obey
Sheltered from all prying eyes behind your soundproof wall
That's all I can remember, all that I recall

Standing above me
Your smiling face, your warning face fill my mind
I know you love me
And you're the one from whom I want a sore behind!

So, my love, the more I think, the more I want to say
I loved when you made my buns shine and then kissed my tears away
Under your complete control is where I loved to fall
That's all I can remember, all that I recall

Help Stop Harassment of Pro-Choice Campaigners in Michigan

Tell Google: Protect Privacy for Abortion Seekers!

https://actionnetwork.org/forms/tell-google-delete-location-data-to-protect-abortion-seekers?source=direct_link&

Philosophy for Children: Helping the Next Generation Fulfill Its Intellectual Potential

 

“It is not merely that children are capable of philosophical thought, but rather, that such thinking comes naturally to them, and it is inherent in their nature. When given the environment to pursue big ideas, and with the encouragement of adults, they revel in it. This is easily observed through the many times a child may ask ‘why?’” – Human, “The Wonderful Minds of Children”

Philosophy for Children is a program to encourage this potential.

A Love the State Couldn't Cancel

The late Mary Fualaau would have turned sixty today. Better known as Mary Kay Letourneau, her name at the time she met Vili Fualaau as his sixth-grade teacher, they subsequently became lovers and eventually were married. They spent fourteen happy years together as husband and wife, but all told their love lasted 24 years, surviving six years of separation by ageist sex laws during which she was in prison for their relationship.

Source: Un Seul Crime, l’Amour
(French: Only One Crime, Love)
by Mary Letourneau and Vili Fualaau
Éditions Fixot (Paris, France), 1998
www.amazon.fr/gp/product/2221088123/

 

Vili Fualaau was twelve years old when, by his own account, he seduced his 34-year-old teacher, Mary Letourneau. After she was arrested for their relationship, he waited seven years for her release from prison, then at the age of 21 he promptly petitioned the court to have her no-contact order lifted so he could see her. The following year, they were married.

In the first year of Letourneau’s imprisonment, she and Fualaau coauthored a book, which was published only in a French translation, and only in France. The book included three drawings by Fualaau, including the one below, in which Fualaau expressed his feelings about Letourneau’s prosecution. The drawing is not dated, however Fualaau was 14 when the book was published. The two paragraphs below the drawing are translated back into English from the caption of the drawing in the book.

Another drawing by Vili, reflecting his perception of the trial, and where he gives his own version of “the battle of David and Goliath.” In the background, the pillars of society: Trust, Happiness, Life, Heaven, Belief, Understanding, Love, Family, Laws, Spirit, Pride. Vili, as David, holds a sling against the giant Goliath, portrayed as fear, the media, and society (center). Several other characters are involved: left and center, the police and the psychiatrist, driven by a key like automatons, and repeating mechanically: “I’m just doing my job!” (police officer, left) and “Sex offender experiment” (psychiatrist, center). Right, a man yells rape, the prosecutor and judge are questioning, obviously without understanding. In the van, Mary is taken away, and in her hand passed between the bars, she gives Vili Kipling’s famous poem: "If."

In this drawing, Vili expresses his message: “Thankful because she gave me something to live for. [I am an] old spirit [with] true full capacity to love someone. Just read my book. I am a false victim. I am not harmed. Believe me.”

Limited excerpt reproduced under fair use doctrine for noncommercial, educational purpose.

Source: https://www.consentingjuveniles.com/Case_Narrative?case=Vili_Fualaau&lang=FR

The interview everyone seems to be talking about.

https://www.bitchute.com/video/DAU74ByibIYd/

THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE #1757 - DR. ROBERT MALONE, MD

About the guest: Dr. Robert Malone is the inventor of the nine original mRNA vaccine patents, which were originally filed in 1989 (including both the idea of mRNA vaccines and the original proof of principle experiments) and RNA transfection. Dr. Malone, has close to 100 peer-reviewed publications which have been cited over 12,000 times. Since January 2020, Dr. Malone has been leading a large team focused on clinical research design, drug development, computer modeling and mechanisms of action of repurposed drugs for the treatment of COVID-19. Dr. Malone is the Medical Director of The Unity Project, a group of 300 organizations across the US standing against mandated COVID vaccines for children. He is also the President of the Global Covid Summit, an organization of over 16,000 doctors and scientists committed to speaking truth to power about COVID pandemic research and treatment.