Contradictions and Continuity
Most individuals can sense that “something is amiss”. Taking a step back and surveying the news, the world events, or even simply the events we see in our own friends and family, will bring one to question “what’s wrong with everybody?” This is a fantastic question. And it has an answer.To answer the question, we will be taking several steps backwards (or should I say “forward”?), to understand other basic ideas regarding life, the meaning of life, and happiness. Each of the points might come off as unrelated or in-germane. The points most certainly relate in the end, and are inherently connected and linked together.
The philosophy of capitalism is often seen as simply nothing but a philosophy of economics. This is wrong. Capitalism isn’t just a theory about economics, it’s a theory about life. All philosophies affect all other philosophies — the fundamental principles of mankind and reality as a whole do not change simply because we are discussing money, or God, or anything else. If a principle is true, then it is true – unless there is another principles which makes it untrue, in which case our view of the principles is the flaw and contradiction, not the actual principle itself.
The simplest and most obvious example of principles constantly ringing true can be found in mathematics. Math is a concrete science regarding the quantitative relationships of parts of reality and a quantitative description of reality as a whole. There are no contradictions in the postulates of geometry — each postulate builds upon the other. The postulates do not work against each other to create an incoherent system of study, but instead work together to comprehensively explain what reality is — a system of absolutes.
A is equal to A. If A is equal to B, then B is equal to A. If A is equal to B and B is equal to C, then A must be equal to C. These are, of course, some of the most fundamental starting points of math — we know they are true. Never in the course of math will any of the actual postulates collide or contradict — there is always an order, there are never collisions or contradictions. Even in situations where the postulates seem to contradict, there is no actual contradiction — only seeming contradictions.
The extremist capitalist/philosopher Ayn Rand once wrote in her landmark book, Atlas Shrugged, “Whenever you think you see a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is false.” Though Miss Rand is notorious in her undiplomatic writing style, and of alienating her audiences through her ferocious writing style, she most certainly was correct regarding this.
There are no contradictions in the principles of nature, whether these principles are mathematical or moral. If something is right it is not wrong, if something is A it cannot be the opposite of A. It either is or it isn’t. It is definitionally impossible for something to both be and to not be at the same time.
Understanding this is the foundation of all understanding.
Because of this, we cannot be both selfish and selfless — we must act upon one of these ideas, and not the other. Selfishness is often potrayed as a horrid kind of evil, an evil where the selfish don’t care at all about others — this is laughably false, and will be covered in a later essay.
[This essay is part of a series of essays on capitalism.]
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