Natural Law reading group, Week Three, the title essay

Photo by Samuel PASTEUR-FOSSE on Unsplash

By Chad Nelson
Special guest blogger 

I thought about steel manning the case for natural law, but realize I cannot do a competent job of it. The extent of my homework was to re-read Rothbard’s chapters on the topic in Ethics of Liberty, but it only left me with more questions. I turned to a Clarence Thomas web search hoping to find something more basic. Thomas’s belief in natural law was a point of controversy during his Senate confirmation hearings in 1991, albeit one that took a back seat to the Anita Hill allegations. It’s telling that one can find a litany of academic articles attempting to explain natural law, but very little in the way of a Cliff’s Notes version. Why does it take a law review article to explain something that’s supposed to be so self-evident nobody in their right mind would deny it? Furthermore, why don’t its proponents lead with actual examples of natural law? It ought to be the easiest way to make the case. If these “laws” are so timeless, cross-cultural, and intuitive, surely citing a few of them would give dimwits like us the lightbulb moment we need to recognize it.

After an admittedly weak effort to become a “metaphysical wizard…like Konkin and Rothbard” (p.54), I’m still left thinking that natural law is “ontological spaghetti” (p.45). I’m not clueless about it. I generally understand what its advocates are getting at. It just doesn’t seem possible to ever arrive there. Indeed, natural law seems only able to exist as high-level abstract theorizing. A fun thought exercise, but lacking “real world” applicability, it becomes worthless. Recognizing this, RAW uses his essay to "bring his adversaries down from out of the clouds” as Oz noted in last week’s comments. Or, as RAW puts it, “To come out of our heads…means to come to our senses, literally…” (p.83)

One of the more effective strategies RAW employs is to detribalize, as when he compares and contrasts some of the claims of competing natural law cultists: Mormons, Catholics, Objectivists, feminists, ecologists, Mayans, Aztecs, Nazis, Druids, libertarians, etc. No ideology is spared. These examples are endlessly amusing of course, but if you’re self-aware, they also make you wonder which of your own absurd beliefs might land you on this list. 

If we can barely find agreement among today’s tribes on what is “natural,” how can we ever move backwards in time to evaluate generations past? Can’t we find one such law to put to the test? Says RAW, “about the only rule all tribes agree on is the one that says people who criticize the rules should be burned, toasted, boiled in oil or otherwise discouraged from such heresy.” (p.46) (An interesting aside: heresy “comes from the Greek, heiress, to choose…” (p.62))

The funniest parts of the essay for me come out this smorgasbord of cultural skewering. The whole thing has the feel of a George Carlin special. Indeed if Carlin was “the dean of countercultural comedians,” RAW may well be one of the school’s co-founders. I imagine RAW would have a comedic field day in 2022 given how many more competing natural law cults have arisen.

I found the most interesting line of RAW’s thinking to be his juxtaposition of scientific and natural laws. Natural law advocates are fond of claiming to have discovered the “Science of Justice” (Spooner), so it’s nice to see a philosopher with laboratory experience and scientific know-how confront the claim. Wilson says the claim stems from their misunderstanding of “laws” of the scientific variety, which, if we are being precise, are more appropriately termed approximations, current best guesses, models, etc. Yes, some prevailing scientific laws may be so reliable that we may take them for granted, but as we know, paradigms shift. Besides, scientists, unlike natural law cultists, never resort to burning, toasting, or boiling each other in oil for questioning or seeking to revise what we know. Err...

Perhaps natural laws are like scientific laws in that way though. Not quite universal, but so darn close that questioning them is reserved for only the nuttiest among us. 

RAW: “[N]atural law in [George] Smith's sense would be akin to an absolutely Newtonian scientific prediction and would be equivalent to a kind of practical science, like saying, ‘if you jump off a tall building without a parachute, you will get hurt.’

"One trouble with this unexpected and incongruous intrusion of pragmatism into metaphysics, as I see it, is that it takes the spooky religiosity out of Natural Law, opens the matter to debate and discussion, examination of real details of actual cases, how to gauge probable outcomes, etc., and thus approaches real since, almost. This tendency seems to me a step in the right direction, but it relinquishes the metaphysical Absolute Truth that people like Rothbard and Konkin and other metaphysicians are seeking. That which is placed in a practical sensory-sensual space-time context is no longer absolute, but becomes a matter of pragmatic choice, tactics, strategy and the relativity that obtains in all empirical judgments.” (p.31)

(Another interesting aside: This study of human action, praxeology, is a central component in Rothbard’s and other Austrian economists’ philosophy, and comes from the Latin for the “customary way of doing things — i.e., the tribal game-rules.” (p.18))

After all is said and done, we are left with the conclusion that natural law is just a way for men to “rationalize their own prejudices.” (p.44). A word that appears frequently throughout the essay is “word” itself: “word-and-symbol hypnosis," “webs of words,” “word-play,” “snarl words,” etc. This is obviously no coincidence -- much of this debate over revolves around language, and how we map it to “sensory-sensual experience.” RAW shows that when coupled, “natural” and “law" happen to be two words that “do not correspond to any real territory.” (p.5)

Natural Law online reading group, Week Two, the title essay

 A committee of five presents the first draft of the Declaration of Independence (John Trumbull painting). 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

So says the Declaration of Independence, which evokes natural law (i.e. in the previous paragraph it mentions "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God.") Natural law posits that there are "values intrinsic to human nature," as this Wikipedia article explains. These notions are what Robert Anton Wilson is taking on in his essay. 

I wonder if my American readers think it is "natural" to drive on the right side of the road, and my British readers think it is "natural" to drive on the left side? Here is something interesting: "In the UK and Australia, people tend to turn left when entering a building. In the US, they turn right. It’s important to remember if you’re booking a trade show booth." (Source, third item). 

A few annotations: 

Loompanics, Page 3. Boy, did this publisher push the envelope. "According to Gia Cosindas, Amazon.com, eBay, and Google refused to allow Loompanics to advertise on their sites, since some of the books' content violates their editorial guidelines. Specifically, Google wrote, "At this time, Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain 'the promotion of violence [and] drugs or drug paraphernalia."

New Libertarian, Page 3. The Samuel E. Konkin III magazine. For back issues, including the "Natural Law debate" issue, Vol. IV, No. 13, that Wilson cites, go here.  And I quite liked The Fractal Man, J. Neil Schuman's novel about Konkin.

Samuel Konkin III

"politics remains such a depressing paleolithic and murderous spectacle," page 9. See also Gene Healy on how politics makes everyone dumber. 

For a New Liberty, Page 10. For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto by Murray Rothbard, an anarcho-capitalist tract, was a big part of the libertarian surge in the 1970s. I had a hardcover copy, when I discovered libertarianism while in college from Illuminatus! and other sources, and it was very influential. I would guess that many serious libertarians have read it; I'd be surprised, for example, if Jesse Walker or Chad Nelson said they had not read it. Rothbard, by the way, was a strong peacenik, like RAW (he was a big influence on the late Justin Raimondo, the founder of Antiwar.com), and that allows many of us to overlook his other sins. (In fact, Raimondo wrote a book about Rothbard.)

"all three at once," Page 17. This business about "the hide of the Easter Bunny" is really funny; did you catch that RAW also is making a joke about the doctrine of the Trinity? 

Simon Newcomb, Page 22 -- Simon Newcomb (1835-1909) was an accomplished mathematician and a very smart guy, but just as RAW mentions, he did argue that airplanes are not possible. (The Wikipedia article, buttressed by footnote 23, says that "When Newcomb heard about the Wrights' flight in 1908, he was quick to accept it," so in Wilson's terms he behaved like a scientist, not as a dogmatist: When he received new evidence he accepted that he was wrong. (I cannot resist repeating the famous saying of Arthur C. Clarke: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

Simon Newcomb

"Doubt everything. Find your own light." Page 23. This seems like a rather free translation. In What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula, the last words are given as, "Transient are conditioned things. Try to accomplish your aim with diligence." The Fake Buddha Quotes website also wonders where this version of the the Buddha's last words came from. 

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Page 53. One of Robert Heinlein's most famous novels, published in 1966,  is a favorite of science fiction fans (it won the Best Novel Hugo) but also is a favorite of libertarians (it was the first novel to win the the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award, from the Libertarian Futurist Society, in a tie with Atlas Shrugged (Nineteen Eighty-Four and Fahrenheit 451 had to wait another year). I read it as a teenager and am overdue to read it again; Tyler Cowen re-read it in 2017 and found that despite his low expectations " it nonetheless holds up very well and in fact has aged gracefully."

Arthur Hlavaty, Page 56. The prominent science fiction fan and critic, read  his fanzines! And here are some top quotes, and here is a useful biography. Arthur also founded The Golden APA, which had both Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea as members, see my interesting interview with him about it. 

Arthur Hlavaty

"I am writing in defense of personal choice here (if you haven't guessed that already); I merely object to having personal choices proclaimed as new religious revelations which we all must share or be damned," Page 57. RAW's version of libertarianism, and also another comment on what he sees as the irony of debating natural law with libertarians. 

John 8:7, Page 63, the "admirable remark" which Wilson says "ought to be burned into the backside of every moralist, with a branding iron," is (in one translation), " So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

psittacine, Page 68, birds of the parrot family.

Next week: More on the Natural Law essay, featuring guest blogger Chad Nelson. 

Trying to promote 'Natural Law'

I've been trying to figure out what I can do to help Hilaritas Press sell copies of the latest RAW title, Natural Law: Or Don’t Put A Rubber On Your Willy And Other Writings From A Natural Outlaw. It's an excellent book and I want to see it get a fair chance. (If you arrived late to this blog, the book reprints the long title essay, long officially out of print, but the bulk of the book consists of pieces never assembled into a book before. See my interview with the book's editor, Chad Nelson.)

I'm still coming up with ideas, but one thing I did Monday was buy a copy of the book on Amazon and send it to Tyler Cowen, the prominent public intellectual I've mentioned before on this blog. If Tyler actually read the book and liked it, the potential upside could be huge; a mention on his popular blog Marginal Revolution, would really be helpful. The worst case scenario (and probably the most likely one) is that Tyler never says anything. I suspect many publishers and authors send him books. But then, I will have helped the RAW Trust sell another book, so it's still OK. 

I might be willing to buy another copy and send it out if I get a good suggestion about who else might be likely to read it and reach an audience with a recommendation. And if anybody else wants to try buying a copy and giving it out as a review copy, please post a comment here. All comments to this blog must be approved (it's the only way to prevent prostitution ads and other unsuitable spam from being posted here), so if you try that two weeks from now or a month from now or whatever and post a comment here, I will see it.

I would ask the folks who do RAW-related podcasts to consider seeking an interview with Chad about the book. If you bought the book and liked it, please consider plugging it on social media or your blog or whatever. I'll continue to post about the book here. 

Does anyone have any other suggestions? 

A few years ago, I bought a copy of Illuminatus! and sent it to Ted Gioia, and that worked out rather well. 

Hilaritas releases two books

Hilaritas Press has announced the publication of two new titles, Natural Law, Or Don’t Put A Rubber On Your Willy And Other Writings From A Natural Outlaw by Robert Anton Wilson and From Now to Now, the autobiography of German abstract artist Marlis Jermutus.

The new edition of Natural Law is essentially a new book; although it reprints a long essay RAW wrote which had been published as a short book earlier and has now gone out of print, the new edition also adds a dozen pieces of additional material, both essays and interviews, making it essentially a new book. The editor, Chad Nelson, did a fine job of selecting the additional reprints, and when I served as a volunteer copyeditor for Hilaritas, I discovered Chad had put together an excellent book, one I'm really excited about. I'm interviewing Chad now, and that interview about the book should appear soon. See the link to the Hilaritas announcement for links to buy the book. As of now, Hilaritas is still struggling with Amazon to get the Kindle available, but it should be there soon. 

The Hilartitas Press announcement has quite a bit about From Now to Now, including a review of the book by Christina Pearson, RAW's daughter. "I love this book. As a mature woman of these times, as a childhood abuse survivor, as a hard worker, as a trailblazer, as someone who never wants to be boxed in, and has always wanted to do and be the best me I can, she spoke directly to my weary heart in so very many ways," Pearson writes. 

You can read my 2018 review of an earlier edition  and there is also my interview with Jermutus, which includes discussion of her friendships with Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson (Leary influenced her decision to move to California.) 

The Hilaritas 'Natural Law' book is going to be really good

Chad Nelson

I recently completed a stint as a volunteer copyeditor for the new Hilaritas Press edition of Natural Law, Or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy.

To do so, I had to agree to a  nondisclosure agreement, so I have to be careful to reveal few actual details about the book. I think it is known publicly that the book doesn't just have the original long essay but also adds other material, but I can't give any other specifics. I also don't know when the book will come out; I only know Rasa and the Hilaritas folks are working on it. 

But what I did want to record is that based on what I read, it's going to be a really good book. I am very excited about it, and I'm curious what the rest of you will think when it comes out. Chad Nelson took on the task of editing the book, deciding which additional material to add, and he did a great job. There is a lot of additional material, and it's all really good. 

I had expected a more political, more "libertarian" book based on the sources I was working with, but instead I encountered a rather strong RAW book, one aimed at all of his fans. 

In fact, I told Chad in an email, "I was actually kind of expecting a 'libertarian' book, but I suspect the title will have broad appeal to RAW fans."

Chad replied,"I too was expecting a "libertarian" book!"

Chad then gave me a RAW quote from the Natural Law essay which partially summarizes what the book became:

"If Ideologists ever convince me that this pragmatic, individualistic, scientific attitude is incompatible with libertarianism, then I will find some other name for myself and not use the word 'libertarian'anymore. I am not interested in Ideologies and don't give a damn about labels at all, at all."

                                                                                                    -- Robert Anton Wilson

Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons'

A Creative Commons recording of The Four Seasons by the Wichita State University Chamber Players. 

Gregory Arnott's excellent Nature's God blog post Monday discusses the history of magick, something I know nothing about, and inspired some great comments. I thought for today's post, I would say something about Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, mentioned in the chapter Gregory covers. (I had a tough work week, working seven days in a row. On the seventh day, yesterday, I finally read the chapter and then listened to a Trevor Pinnock recording of The Four Seasons.)

As Maria falls asleep, she thinks of the "thirteen Weeks in each of the four Seasons, Vivaldi's Four Seasons music running through her head, and the thirteen at the Last Supper, and the sun, which is One, moving in eternal circle through the 12 Houses, one plus 12 being thirteen..."

I would point out that the structure of Vivaldi's work also fits the "one plus 12 being thirteen" that Maria thinks about. It's a work about the cycle of one year, but it consists of 12 movements, three for each season. (Three movements are the normal structure for a concerto, and The Four Seasons is a collection of four violin concertos.)

The Four Seasons itself has an amazing history. Vivaldi, who died in 1741, was pretty much forgotten for more than 150 years (it's not really likely Maria would have known his music) but eventually The Four Seasons underwent an amazing revival. Wikipedia cites the numbers: "The World's Encyclopedia of Recorded Music in 1952 cites only two recordings of The Four Seasons – by Molinari and Kaufman. By 2011, approximately 1,000 different recorded versions have been made since Campoli's in 1939."

If you have a library card, you can likely to listen to dozens of recordings on the Freegal or Hoopla Digital streaming music services. Or you can listen to the recording by John Harrison and the Wichita State University Chamber Players, released to everyone under a Creative Commons license.

Robert Shea on 'Natural Law'

The Connections column in September/October 1987 Nomos quotes Carl Watner's response to the moral riddle posed by Robert Anton Wilson in his book, Natural Law, or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy.

After quoting Wilson's account of Conchis's dilemma in The Magus: either he beats three prisoners of war to death or the Nazis execute every male in the village, Watner proceeds to give us what he deems the correct answer to the question:

If the principle of "no aggression against non-aggressors" (that is, libertarians all agree that it is morally improper to violate the rights of innocent persons) can be used to identify libertarians, then why does Wilson find this such a riddle? Doesn't he agree that it is wrong to kill innocent men? Of course, it is hard to think that 300 people may die but shouldn't libertarians be prepared to let justice be done, though the heavens may fall?

I took down my copy of Natural Law or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy, just to see if Watner was being fair to Wilson. I re-read Wilson's full explanation of why he poses this riddle:

The totally hypnotized, of course, have an answer at once; they know beyond doubt what is correct, because they have memorized the Rule Book. It doesn't matter whose Rule Book they rely on -- Ayn Rand's or Joan Baez's or the Pope's or Lenin's or Elephant Doody Comix -- the hypnosis is indicated by lack of pause for thought, feeling and evaluation. The response is immediate because mechanical. Those who are not totally hypnotized -- those who have some awareness of concrete events in sensory space-time -- find the problem terrible and terrifying and admit they don't know any correct answer.

I don't know the "correct" answer either and I doubt that there is one.

In the light of the above, it would appear that Watner either failed to understand, or chose not to address, Wilson's point. In any case, with a ringing cry of, "Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall!" he appears to have impaled himself upon it.

[From No Governor issue No. 10, which I will post next week -- The Mgt.]

Put Natural Law back in print

Natural Law is a good little book, but I had to read a copy posted at the Anarchist Library because it's been out of print for many years. I wish the estate would reprint it. At its current size, it would make sense as an inexpensive Kindle Single. Fleshed out with other material concentrating on political philosophy, it also could be the centerpiece of a normal-sized book.

Natural Law -- notes on the "main characters"

I just finished reading Robert Anton Wilson's Natural Law, or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy, and I thought it might be useful to say something about some of the people mentioned in the essay.

Samuel Konkin was the publisher of New Libertarian Notes and New Libertarian Weekly and published not a few articles by Robert Anton Wilson and also published this interview with Wilson, one of my favorites. According to this entry on Wikipedia (libertarians appear to be very active on Wikipedia) Konkin dressed in black, refused to vote, opposed involvement in the Libertarian Party, saw libertarianism as a movement of the left and was a proponent of agorism. He died on Feb. 23, 2004. See my interview with Agorist Kevin MacArdry if you want an example of a current proponent.

Murray Rothbard (1926-1995) was a very influential libertarian who espoused "anarcho-capitalism." His book For a New Liberty was very popular and influential (I dutifully read it in the 1970s after I discovered libertarianism) and he remains influential, particularly among the Antiwar.com and Lew Rockwell types. His portrayal in Natural Law is not flattering, but I'll note that he was a vigorous proponent of peace.

George H. Smith is an American libertarian and atheist. Confusingly for a libertarian science fiction fan, he is not the same person as SF author George H. Smith, or SF author George O. Smith.

Arthur Hlavaty also is mentioned in the text, e.g. "Although I do not agree with the almost Manichean attitude of critic Arthur Hlavaty, who regards nature as a combination of slaughterhouse and madhouse against which, by great effort, a few human beings have created a few enclaves of reason and decency, I do agree with, e.g., Nietzsche, Lao-Tse and the authors of the Upanishads, all of whom held that nature or existence combines so many diverse elements that we cannot judge or measure or compare it with anything, and cannot describe it as a whole except in contradictions." Hlavaty is this guy.

Hlavaty the Horrible (Example)

One of the favorites around these parts, Supergee, writes about the time Robert Anton Wilson used him as a "horrible example."

The reference was in Wilson's Natural Law, or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy. Wilson wrote, "Although I do not agree with the almost Manichean attitude of critic Arthur Hlavaty, who regards nature as a combination of slaughterhouse and madhouse against which, by great effort, a few human beings have created a few enclaves of reason and decency, I do agree with, e.g., Nietszche, La0-Tse, and the authors of the Upanishads, all of whom held that nature or existence combines so many diverse elements that we cannot judge or measure or compare it with anything, and cannot describe it as a whole except in contraditions." (Toward the beginning of the section entitled "Why Not 'Violate' Nature?")

Arthur writes, on rocket science vs. brain surgery "I greatly prefer the intelligence of rocket science. I think we became really human when we figured out verbal and mathematical systems and structures to deal at a safe distance with a material existence that I find simultaneously too boring and too exciting,

"Robert Anton Wilson didn't agree. In fact, in one of his books (Natural Law, or Never Put a Rubber on Your Willy) he used me as a horrible example of the sort of person who doesn't love the material world enough. He later recommended Leonard Shlain's book, The Alphabet vs. the Goddess, for its view of the approaches.

"I could not make it through the book. It featured a form of gender essentialism so extreme that it probably would have offended Robert Heinlein. Men are verbal and violent (which always go together); women are neither, and that's it."

You should really read the whole thing.

By the way, calling Hlavaty a "critic" is a nice, economical touch. Calling him a "prominent fan writer" likely would have confused many of Wilson's readers.

'Natural Law' by RAW

Finding a copy of Natural Law, Or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy by Robert Anton Wilson can be quite difficult, as it has been out of print for many years.

Here is a copy of it at The Anarchist Library, available as online text or as a PDF or EPUB download.