Please see updates below.
Now that I have listened to it, I want to join the other folks who have recommended the new Hilaritas podcast featuring Bobby Campbell and a discussion of the new Hilaritas TSOG; You Tube video in my post a few days ago, while the Hilaritas Press post with links to podcasts is here.)
I always enjoy listening to Bobby; I think my favorite bit this time was his recommendation to use E Prime when arguing a point on the Internet; do that, and the argument never escalates, Bobby said. I also liked Bobby's suggestion that Timothy Leary seemed to be overtaken by the Timothy Leary character he created and the suggestion that mystical experiences get discussed in terms of a simulation because software often can be how we currently see the world. I also agree with Bobby that taking RAW seriously means being willing to read him critically, and disagree with RAW when necessary.
Bobby says that RAW's political ideas can be described as "malleable" and don't follow a consistent ideology, and I agree. Mike made the point that right wingers "cherry pick" from RAW's views, but I think left wingers and libertarians do that, too, both because it is human to try to claim someone you admire for your tribe, and because RAW was all over the map and lends himself to cherry picking.
For example, Bobby says he does not agree with the "guns" part of the Guns and Dope Party, but on at least one occasion, RAW seems to suggest that wide gun ownership guarantees "that the murder rate in Unistat would always be the highest in the world. This kept the citizens in perpetual anxiety about their safety both on the streets and in their homes. The citizens then tolerated the rapid growth of the Police State, which controlled almost everything, except the sale of guns, the chief cause of crime." Similarly, at various times RAW condemns taxation and praises social democratic welfare states, which cannot exist without high taxation.
Bobby also says he has not read Email to the Universe; I like it better than TSOG and wonder if Bobby will agree if he ever reads Email, one of my favorite RAW books.
Mike, doing a good job as usual as host, takes some credit for Email. He deserves to do so as the founder of the RAWilsonfans website, but as Michael Johnson notes in a comment to my original post on the podcast, several people deserve credit for the RAWilsonfans archives used in putting Email together. Michael Johnson's piece is a nice addition to the Hilaritas Press edition. [UPDATE: Mike Gathers takes exception to some of this and believes I am minimizing his role, which was not my intent; please see his comments below].
Mike confuses The New Inquisition with the Hilaritas Press Natural Law; the latter draws extensively from Samuel Konkin's New Libertarian publications. [UPDATE: See also Mike's comments about this, too].
Finally, is there something wrong with my hearing, or are there birds chirping when Bobby is talking?
4 comments:
I have tried to give more than enough credit where credit is due for those who have helped me with RAWilsonFans.org/.com over the years. You have an interview with me that documents this in detail here at http://www.rawillumination.net/2015/03/robert-anton-wilson-fans-returns.html. And, in the ~25 years that website has been around, I'd estimate that easily 90-95% of the energy put into it was mine, and 95-99% of the costs, probably in excess of $4k by now were taken on by me.
If anybody deserves some more credit that I missed in the interview, it's Joseph Matheny, who hosted the site for a while and also created the current template I've been using for several years.
I don't think your correction on this issue, Tom, is warranted at all, no matter what other have said.
Also, I stand by what I said about _New Inquisition_. I believe several essays were first published in the _New Libertarian_ zines and newsletters before being republished in the book.
Correction: I was not confusing Natural Law and New Inquisition, but I was mis-remembering and wrong about New Inquisition. Natural Law has ties to New Libertarian but it was a completely different story from the one I was thinking of.
Several articles from Right Where You are Sitting Right Now do appear to have been pre-published in various Zine's prior to the books release.
As many as 5 chapters from TSOG may have been pre-published in High Times, but I have not taken the effort to purchase the back issues of High Times to confirm.
In a similar vein, the "Brainwashing" chapter from Neurpolitique/Neuropolitics seems to have published in the June 76 issue of OUI.
There are at least a 1/2 dozen other essays turned book chapters like this that I could cite, but I think you get the point. I did mis remember New Inquisition, but I was not confusing it with Natural Law as you assert.
Thanks so much for listening and sharing, Tom :)))
I can explain the birds!
This conversation was actually from May 28, 2022, and the springtime birds around here are pretty wild
Ramsey Dukes recently posted a few videos on his YT channel discussing Reality Tunnels. He does so using computer softwares architecture as a metaphor.
Here's the first one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzutT50Py40
Post a Comment