Primacy of Consciousness

LGF had a post on an interview with a Dr. Muhammed Wahdan in which he says "Reality is a mistake. We must rectify it." (Hat tip Thrutch) This is the epistemology of the primacy of consiousness being admitted openly and freely as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

It is the belief that reality is created in the mind and all one has to do is will things to be a certain way and, in reality, they will be. E.g., if a man robs a store but convinces the witnesses who saw him do it that he didn't rob the store, then in reality, he didn't rob the store.

Primacy of consciousness is an attempt to change the world by means of one's feelings and always leads to primacy of those feelings. When reality won't conform to his wishes, a child throws a tantrum. If he has rational parents, they will teach him the primacy of existence, that is, to rely on his mind first, act on his thoughts second and feel the proper emotions third. If he doesn't have rational parents, they will teach him that it is reality that is a mistake, that his feelings are supreme and reality must conform to them.

Today's culture is rampant with this epistemology: Bush equals Hitler if you will it and enough people agree that he is; global warming will be catastrophic not only because a lot of people say so (consensus) but because computers say so, and the ultimate proof that feelings are supreme is in the drive to make offending sensibilities a crime. The tool to accomplish this will be the push to outlaw so-called "hate speech." And of course, this was the predictable result of creating "hate crimes."

Hate by itself has no value outside of that which is being hated in any given case.
It would be very proper to hate a butcher like Hitler or a life destroying philosophy like communism.

All emotions are based on a person's values. A person's values are chosen by his thought processes. Any attempt to make any emotion a crime is a direct assault on every person's right to make the judgements he thinks are necessary to live his life successfully. It's more than just an attempt at censorship. It's an effort to enshrine "the right to feel." And in practice this can only mean that some people's feelings will take precedence over the feelings of others.

If you want to see some real hatred, wait till our courts try to administer justice according to whose feelings were hurt rather than whose rights were violated. All attempts to make hate speech a crime or create hate crimes must be resisted and defeated.

A good way to do that is to become familiar with Objectivism, the only philosophy that I know of that advocates the primacy of existence which leads to the only political theory of justice that demands that government protect mens' rights not thier feelings: capitalism.
For more info on Objectivism visit the Ayn Rand Institute here.