Review: Nothing less than victory

After going on for more than 8 years, the war in Iraq finally ended on December 15, 2011. The war in Afghanistan, after going on for more than 10 years, is still going on -- making it the longest war in American history. The cost? $1.3 trillion and still counting. 5,300 American soldiers killed, 48,000 wounded and still counting. In Afghanistan we let the Taliban and Al-Qaeda escape to Pakistan and Iran. They were never defeated and now they are slowly taking over parts of Afghanistan again. In Iraq we removed Saddam Hussein and empowered, via democracy, Iran-friendly Islamists. So, are we safer now? Clearly, the answer is: No.

By any objective standard, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are abysmal failures.

To avoid similar disasters in the future, we have to to learn from history. For such historical guidance, I would turn to Nothing Less Than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History by the late, great historian John David Lewis.

In Nothing Less Than Victory, John Lewis studies six major historical conflicts, from the Greco-Persian Wars to World War II, to discover the conditions of complete, conclusive and lasting military victories. Or, in other words: the *military* means to achieve a real and lasting peace.

Lewis argues that it's necessary, but not sufficient, to merely destroy the enemy's *ability* to wage wars. Not if your end is a long and lasting peace. No, to achieve peace you will also have to break the enemy's *will* to wage wars. You have to make the enemy realize that their cause is hopeless, false and immoral. You have to make the enemy feel the pain of defeat. You have to, mercilessly, crush the enemy.

You must make them pay and suffer to such an extent that they are willing to question and reject their most fundamental ideas and values. Only then they will be ready to realize that their cause was not only hopeless but also false and immoral.

What it means more specifically will vary from case to case, and John Lewis offers more than enough historical examples to illustrate and prove his point. But, in essence, it amounts to discrediting the ideas and values, i.e., the philosophy that is justifying and inspiring the enemy to initiate wars in the first place.

Consider, for instance, how the US made Japan accept an *unconditional surrender* in World War II by dropping two atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

Unconditional surrender demanded that the underlying causes of the war be eliminated. And it worked: The causes were eliminated, and there has been no hint of aggression from Japan since.

The deepest reason for the success of the victory—and the need for unconditional surrender—is philosophical, and relates to the mental connections formed by the Japanese. They formed deep integrations about the nature of the world and their place in it. The "Emperor," the "Nation," the "national essence," the "Yamato race"--these were monolithic abstractions that loomed over the Japanese like gods. The Americans set out to smash those integrations and to replace them with new ideas and norms of conduct. Breaking the power of the emperor as an "incarnate deity" in the minds of the Japanese was vital to lifting the veil of evasion that had subordinated the minds of the Japanese to authority. To return the Japanese to cognitive contact with reality required an end to the emperor's wish as the source and standard of morality, and an end to a religious myth as the core curriculum in the schools.

The result would be a reorientation of the minds of the Japanese, as their existing concepts were smashed and rebuilt...

The firebombings of Japan were the start of this educational process—they concretized the idea of war and made it impossible to claim that there was goodness in such horror. The bombings smashed the false integrations on which the Japanese had been raised. This allowed them to re-integrate the concept "war" into its essentials: blood, smoke, rubble, fear, scars, screaming death. War was now a horror to be rejected, not an ideal to be sought...

The victory brought the Japanese back to cognitive contact with reality. It broke the connections between sacrifice and glory, death and honor, the emperor’s wish and goodness. The effects of this reached deeply into their moral outlook and led them to redefine their basic values.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were sold to the American people as wars in self-defense. They were, in fact, anything but: they were self-sacrificial "humanitarian" efforts of "nation-building", where American soldiers had to fight under altruistic rules of engagement. Basically, American soldiers had to avoid hurting the "innocent" civilians, by paying with their own lives. "Democracy", i.e., giving the enemy the vote, not victory, was the real goal in Afghanistan and Iraq. (For details read "The 'Forward Strategy' for Failure" by Yaron Brook and Elan Journo and "'Just War Theory' vs. American Self-Defense" by Yaron Brook and Alex Epstein.)

Many Americans now believe that wars in self-defense are self-defeating. It is, therefore, no wonder that most Americans are now discouraged and demoralized by the very thought of another war. It is also no wonder that most Americans now believe that the only alternative is either another horrible failure such as Iraq, or "diplomacy", i.e., appeasement. But is this conclusion justified? No.

Granted, it may today seem inconceivable that we will ever win the ongoing war against Islamic totalitarianism. Especially after suffering through failures such as the Iraq war. But it is, in fact, *not* too late to teach Iran the same lesson.

Indeed, Lewis observes that although some conflicts went on for years, sometimes even decades, and were riddled with massive losses, setbacks and failures, it was still possible for a nation to restore its morale, reaffirm its moral conviction that it is in the right and, finally, recognize that it is never too late to demand nothing less than victory. This realization -- that victory is, despite everything, still possible -- was a real boost for *my* morale. This is, for me, probably the most valuable lesson in Nothing Less Than Victory. For this, I am eternally thankful to the late John Lewis.

Nothing Less Than Victory is a great book. I would recommend it to everyone who is interested in the history of wars and the morality of wars, since it offers an unique historical and moral case for achieving real peace through war. I would also recommend it, even if you happen to be more interested in the present and the future, instead of the past, because it will offer you the historical frame of reference, necessary to properly evaluate the conflicts confronting us today and tomorrow.

Review: The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff

What is the cause of Nazi Germany? What turned "an educated, industrialized, *civilized* Western European nation, a nation renowned throughout the world for the luster of its intellectual and cultural achievements" into Nazi Germany? This is a serious question that has haunted mankind since the end of the Second World War. Unfortunately, virtually nobody has been able to offer even a semi-plausible account of the rise of Nazi Germany. Consider, for example, the popular view that Nazi Germany was born out of the economic hardship caused by The Great Depression. If that was true, then you would expect many more countries, including America, to end up as totalitarian dictatorships.

In The Ominous Parallels, Leonard Peikoff offers, for the first time, a rational account -- an account which has alarming implications for the future of America.

Peikoff's account revolves around an analysis of the culture of pre-Hitler Germany: politics, economics, art, education, psychology and science. He quotes, at length, the most influential and prominent politicians, thinkers, writers, intellectuals, artists, scientists and educators. Peikoff uncovers a culture thoroughly steeped in ideas such as: reason is invalid (i.e., irrationalism); man is only aware of a distorted (by reason, class or race) version of reality (i.e., subjectivism); there are nonrational means of knowledge (i.e., mysticism); the essence of morality is to do your duty and sacrifice yourself for others (i.e., altruism); the individual is nothing and the group is everything (i.e., collectivism) -- ideas which served as the ultimate justification for the totalitarian Nazi state.

Peikoff traces these ideas, underlying and representing the essence of the German culture, all the way back to Plato, Kant and Hegel. Thus, Peikoff proves that the *fundamental* cause of Nazi Germany is the science which deals with *fundamental* ideas: *philosophy*.

The Nazis were merely practicing what everybody had been preaching for centuries. The public regarded them as *idealists*. So, to the extent the public had any issues with the Nazis, they couldn't offer any *fundamental* opposition; they sensed the Nazis were philosophically and morally in the right. Peikoff: "No weird cultural aberration produced Nazism. No intellectual lunatic fringe miraculously overwhelmed a civilized country. It is modern philosophy -- not some peripheral aspect of it, but the most central of its mainstreams -- which turned the Germans into a nation of killers". Peikoff, therefore, concludes: "The land of poets and philosophers was brought down by its poets and philosophers".

Peikoff doesn't stop here. He also compares the culture of pre-Hitler Germany with the culture of pre-New Left America. Peikoff illustrates how virtually every single idea that created Nazi Germany has more or less taken over the American culture. I warn you: this part of the book will make your hair stand on end. Peikoff, therefore, concludes that America is facing the same fate as the Weimar republic: "No one can predict the form or timing of the catastrophe that will befall this country if our direction is not changed. No one can know what concatenation of crises, in what progression of steps and across what interval of years, would finally break the nation's spirit and system of government... What one can know is only this much: the end result of the country's present course is some kind of dictatorship..."

The Ominous Parallels is well written and well argued. Peikoff knows how to clearly explain and relate the meaning of Plato's, Kant's and Hegel's ideas to the statements and actions of the intellectuals, artists, scientists, educators, and the Nazis themselves. Here is one example:

During the Hitler years -- in order to finance the party's programs, including the war expenditures -- every social group in Germany was mercilessly exploited and drained...

[T]he Nazis defended their policies, and the country did not rebel; it accepted the Nazi argument. Selfish individuals may be unhappy, the Nazis said, but what we have established in Germany is the ideal system, socialism. In its Nazi usage this term is not restricted to a theory of economics; it is to be understood in a fundamental sense. 'Socialism' for the Nazis denotes the principle of collectivism as such and its corollary, statism -- in every field of human action, including but not limited to economics.

'To be a socialist,' says Goebbels, 'is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole.'

By this definition, the Nazis practiced what they preached. They practiced it at home and then abroad. No one can claim that they did not sacrifice enough individuals.

Peikoff's case is conclusive. The primary value of The Ominous Parallels is, therefore, that it finally provides us with a rational account of the cause of Nazi Germany. There is, in addition, a wider and deeper value of the book: it concretizes the *fundamental* role of philosophy in a man's life and in the history of man. The Ominous Parallels, thereby, indicates how the subject of history should be studied, namely in terms of fundamental abstractions, i.e., *philosophical* ideas. This is an important lesson if you really want to know what it means to *understand* something where we have been (history), where we are now (the headlines of today), and where we are going (the future).

The Ominous Parallels is a true masterpiece. This is a "must read" if you are interested in history and the role of ideas. (If you have already read it but it was a while ago, then I recommend that you re-read it. It is probably the best way to warm up for Leonard Peikoff's upcoming book: The DIM Hypothesis.) Let me end by paraphrasing Ayn Rand: If you love the works of Ayn Rand, you will love this book.

Want to save the world?

Then you better educate yourself. Study the nature and history of capitalism. Read the works of Ludwig von Mises.

"Economic Policy" is the perfect introduction to Mises. Let me intrigue you with a quote:

It [capitalism] was the beginning of mass production, the fundamental principle of capitalistic industry. Whereas the old processing industries serving the rich people in the cities had existed almost exclusively for the demands of the upper classes, the new capitalist industries began to produce things that could be purchased by the general population. It was mass production to satisfy the needs of the masses.

This is the fundamental principle of capitalism as it exists today in all of those countries in which there is a highly developed system of mass production: Big business, the target of the most fanatic attacks by the so-called leftists, produces almost exclusively to satisfy the wants of the masses. Enterprises producing luxury goods solely for the well-to-do can never attain the magnitude of big businesses. And today, it is the people who work in large factories who are the main consumers of the products made in those factories. This is the fundamental difference between the capitalistic principles of production and the feudalistic principles of the preceding ages.

Here is another great paragraph:

Today, in the capitalist countries, there is relatively little difference between the basic life of the so-called higher and lower classes; both have food, clothing, and shelter. But in the eighteenth century and earlier, the difference between the man of the middle class and the man of the lower class was that the man of the middle class had shoes and the man of the lower class did not have shoes. In the United States today the difference between a rich man and a poor man means very often only the difference between a Cadillac and a Chevrolet. The Chevrolet may be bought secondhand, but basically it renders the same services to its owner: he, too, can drive from one point to another. More than fifty percent of the people in the United States are living in houses and apartments they own themselves.

So true.

Why the iPhone Is Essential for Human Survival

There is this view, in the culture, that there are "real" needs for survival and then there are "artificial" needs. What are the "real" needs? The need for food, water, clothes, shelter, etc. What are the "artificial" needs? The need for a new car, a bigger and better house, or an iPhone.

What makes these needs "artificial"? In part, the fact that we don't share the need for these things with the animals. This "proves" they are not natural. In part, the fact that some needs are more basic than others. We have to satisfy some needs before we can attend other. If we don't have enough water to survive, then there will be no need to even consider what dress we should be wearing on this New Years Eve Party. The difference between basic and non-basic needs is a difference in *urgency*. The need for, say, food or water is more urgent than the need for an iPhone. This "proves" the need for an iPhone is not real. The "need" for an iPhone is merely a "want" for an unnatural, unnecessary "luxury".

Why, then, do humans care about iPhones, while animals could never *conceive* such a thing, much less the need for it? When we understand that, then we will understand why the need for an iPhone is as real, natural and necessary, as the need for food or water.

How do we know that we need anything? How do we know that we need, for instance, food? We feel the pain of hunger. How do we discover the need for water? We feel thirst. How do we discover the need for sleep? We feel tired. How do we discover the need for clothes or shelter? We feel cold. We feel that food takes the hunger away. We feel that water takes our thirst away. We can feel that a cave is warm. The point is that we discover the need for food, sleep, clothes, shelter, etc., *perceptually*. (The need for such things as water and food, is *felt* here and now. That's precisely what makes them *feel* more urgent. Let me add, however, that a need is not less real, merely because it is less urgent.)

Since animals only function at the perceptual level of awareness, they cannot become aware of any needs *beyond* this level. But man can. It's reason which allows man to conceive of such things as a tools, which are useful if he wants to make weapons or build traps, so he can more efficiently hunt animals. The point is that we have to think to *discover* the *need* for such things as tools, weapons and traps. Once we discover that we can do something, to serve our lives, such as making a tool, we also discover a new need.

As long as we stay at the animal level of awareness, i.e., the perceptual level, we will never be able to discover the need for things such as a tool or a weapon, because we will never be able to even conceive of tools or weapons. The same is obviously true of millions of other things, such as various means of transportation: boats, trains, airplanes and cars; various means of communication: radios, TV:s, computers and phones; various sources of energy: coal, oil and natural gas. Notice, that to satisfy these needs, we also need *knowledge*, such as the need for various forms of sciences: mathematics, geometry, biology, chemistry, physics, economics, psychology, pedagogy, architecture, engineering, etc.

The more we know, the more we need. Before we knew oil could be a source of energy, we didn't need it as a source of energy. Man's ability to think conceptually, gives him the ability to *identify* needs animals cannot even conceive of. That's why man has many needs that we don't share with the animals.

Man can't live by bread alone. Man also has various psychological needs. Happiness, and pleasure, is the emotional reward of successful living, i.e., the successful pursuit of values. But happiness also make you more *motivated* to continue pursue life. Thus, man *needs* happiness and pleasure; happiness and pleasure are *survival* values. Man needs, for instance, friends, romantic love, sex, parties, music, movies, Xbox 360, Lindt chocolate, etc. These values are as essential for man's survival as water or food. (It is, of course, *optional* whether you, for example, prefer an Xbox 360 instead of a Playstation 3.)

These needs are not "created"; they are *identified* by reason. They are rooted in the nature of life. Life is *motion*: it *is* the pursuit and achievement of values. There is no end to how we can improve on life and the very pursuit of values. "There is no human life that is 'safe enough,' 'long enough,' 'knowledgeable enough,' 'affluent enough,' or 'enjoyable enough'-not if man's life is the *standard* of value" (Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, p. 292).

Besides, what gives rise to our "needs"? Our "wants". If you don't *want* to live, then you don't *need* anything. That's my answer to those who say that the need for the iPhone is merely a "want".

The need for more and better is inherent in life. To stop moving forward, is to reject life. Life is not a "state" we can achieve "once and for all", by satisfying our most basic needs of the day. If you reject the iPhone, on the premise that you don't need it since you have had your daily meal, then you are *not* choosing life. You are, actually, choosing death. Would you say that a business is out for profit, if it refuses to invest in new machinery that would cut its costs by 50%? No. Similarly, would you say that a human chooses life, if he *rejects* new and better ways of satisfying his survival needs? For example, new and better ways of producing food (e.g., genetically altered crops and animals), of living (bigger and better houses), of transporting ourselves (e.g., the flying cars of the future), communicating (e.g., the new iPhone 4S), of treating his illnesses and injuries (e.g., the cure for cancer), of entertaining himself (e.g., the upcoming Xbox 720)? No. To reject progress is, therefore, to reject life.

The need for the iPhone is, indeed, is real, natural and *necessary*. And to reject the next iPhone, is to reject life.

Any TED lectures compatible with objectivism ?

I suppose there are many lectures that you could classify as "compatible" with Objectivism, in the sense they tell you something true. But I can't think of any particular lecture right now.

Ask me anything

What's your (brief) opinion on modern art, in general? (Compared to earlier epochs, in general)

If you by "modern art" mean nonobjective art, then my opinion is that it isn't even art. Therefore, it can't even qualify as bad art.

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How popular is Ayn Rand in Sweden?

I don't know, but I think she is quite popular. The translations of her books have sold quite well, I've been told. I don't know if they're in their second or third printing right now.

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