RAW Q and A on conspiracies

R.U. Sirius and Ian Monroe have posted some apparently new audio from a 1988 talk by Robert Anton Wilson. The two pieces can be downloaded as MP3 files. I particularly liked the 20 minutes of questions and answers about conspiracies.

Fly Agaric on RAW sharing with his readers

Steven Pratt aka Fly Agaric announced his new piece on Robert Anton Wilson as an "article" for  his Twitter followers, which of course include me (@FlyAgaric2019), but to me his new piece, "RAW Hypersharing Language Vs. the Equation," reads like poetry. Either way, it's a good summary of RAW's intellectual influences.

Robert Anton Wilson podcast

Here is a podcast about Robert Anton Wilson,  using material produced by Joseph Matheny. I think I've heard all of the material it's based on, so I'll probablyh skip it myself, but SatoriGuy recommended it in the comments.

Celebrating Mozart's birthday

There will be plenty of Mozart CDs playing on my stereo this weekend. Friday was Mozart's birthday, so I figure it's appropriate to celebrate over the weekend.

In "Credo," a chapter in Right Where You Are Sitting Now, Robert Anton Wilson wrote, "I believe in Bach, the creator of heaven and earth, and in Mozart, his only begotten son, and in Beethoven, the mediator and comforter ... "

Mozart appears as a character in RAW's "Historical Illuminatus" trilogy and is mentioned as a favorite composer of Sigismundo Celine and Maria Babcock.

For some live Mozart performances, go here. Also here.

Italian neofascist homage to Ezra Pound

From the pages of The Guardian, an article about the Italian neofascist group CasaPound, which takes its name from Ezra Pound. Pound's 86 year old daughter is not pleased. (Via Ted Gioia on Twitter.)

Another book recommendation

If you've read very much of Robert Anton Wilson's writings, you are familiar with his frequent warnings about getting too comfortable with our own opinions and your own assumptions of certainty that  you know what's going on It's a major plot theme of ILLUMINATUS! It's what he's talking about when he refers to reality tunnels, or recommends reading political  magazines that express opinions you disagree with. (For example, in the New Libertarian Notes interview, RAW says, "I also read at least one periodical every month by a political group I dislike -- to keep some sense of balance. The overwhelming stupidity of political movements is caused by the fact that political types never read anything but their own gang's agit-prop.") RAW often talked about how he wanted to persuade people to adopt an agnostic attitude, not only about God but about other dogmas. I could give other examples, but if you're familiar with him, you know what I'm talking about.

I mention all this because I am reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. The book is all about how all of us are much more certain about our opinions than we have any right to be. Mr. Kahneman argues that we often substitute half-baked intuitive judgments for carefully-considered ones. Here is one review of the book, which begins, "There have been many good books on human rationality and irrationality, but only one masterpiece. That masterpiece is Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow." 


Another sentence from the review: "My main problem in doing this review was preventing family members and friends from stealing my copy of the book to read it for themselves."

I strongly recommend the book, too. Kahneman is a winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, although in fact he is a psychologist.

Tyler Cowen, one of my favorite bloggers and authors, put Thinking, Fast and Slow on his list of the best economics books of 2011. 

RAW Week (unexpectedly) continues at BOING BOING

I thought RAW Week at BOING BOING was done, as it's been much more than a week and the postings had stopped for several days, but Mark Frauenfelder has just posted a new essay by David Jay Brown. (A couple of sentences from Brown's piece: "He was incredibly supportive of my writing. He wrote letters to cheer me up when I was down and even sent me money when I couldn't afford to pay my rent.")

Frauenfelder explains, "I received so many wonderful essays about Robert Anton Wilson, that I've extended RAW Week for a few more days!"

A Few Blunt Statements About Neuro-Economics by RAW

No Governor Issue 4 includes an essay by Robert Anton Wilson, "A Few Blunt Statements About Neuro-Economics." The article appears to have been written during or after the time he had to go on welfare to support his family, and it appears to give the reasoning behind his advocacy of a basic income guarantee.

Before I posted the PDF, I emailed a copy of it to Arthur Hlavaty, because I noticed the Shea's zine reviewed a zine Arthur had published about 30 years ago. About the RAW essay, Arthur commented, "The Wilson essay greatly enlightened me when I first read it, with its image of money addiction. RAH and RAW turned me on to libertarianism and showed me why it doesn't work, Heinlein with "Man, as a social being, cannot escape government any more than the individual can escape bondage to his bowels" and Wilson with that."

RAW Week at BOING BOING

I've put up a permanent link under "Resources" for BOING BOING's apparently-concluded "Robert Anton Wilson Week."

I tried to link to somebunall of the best articles, but there was a lot of material. BOING BOING's special section featured pieces by Mark Frauenfelder, Paul Krassner, Gareth Branwyn, Antero Alli, Douglas Rushkoff, Jay Kinney, R.U. Sirius, Lewis Shiner, Erik Davis, Ivan Stang, Christina Pearson (in an interview), Richard Metzger, Mark Dery, Propaganda Anonymous and Angus Stocking. Also, some good RAW quotes picked out by Mark, and a "Giant mind-map of Discordianism." Lots of good links in the pieces, too.

When Michael Johnson met RAW

Michael Johnson has put up a very interesting blog post about the day he met Robert Anton Wilson and interviewed him for several hours. One tantalizing question and answer from the interview is posted; many of us hope the rest will someday become available. (It must be a great interview. Michael filled "maybe eighteen pages of a spiral notebook with questions, being careful not to ask anything anyone had previously asked in the fifty or so interviews I'd read with him.")

When you read Michael's post,  see also the comments, which feature Eric Wagner, author of An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson.

The interview took place on Feb. 18, 2003. A photo of the occasion is posted in my interview with Michael.

Can libertarians "claim" RAW?

Richard Metzger's contribution to RAW Week at  BOING BOING has a passage on Robert Anton Wilson's political philosophy:

"There's some confusion about what his political philosophy was like. Wilson is always claimed by the Libertarians because he was against people being arrested for victimless crimes, but the Libertarians won't tell you that RAW also was a strong proponent of the "basic income guarantee" which would make him more of a Socialist than Libertarian, of course, but really he was neither. He wasn't deluded by any political system is perhaps the best way to put it)."

It's true that Wilson favored a basic income guarantee, and later in life he also expressed support for government provided health care for all, something Metzger could have cited to help prove his case. And yes, he broke with mainstream libertarians in certain ways. (See the long interview with New Libertarian Notes, which goes into considerable detail on certain points.)

Still, it feels like a stretch to suggest there's something wrong with libertarians claiming RAW, or to say it's only because "he was against people being arrested for victimless crimes."

Explaining his vote for John Anderson in 1980, Wilson said, "Ideologically, of course, I should have voted for Ed Clark, the Libertarian Party candidate; but I am not that kind of Libertarian, really; I don't hate poor people."

"Ideologically, of course ... " The ILLUMINATUS! trilogy is filled with pages and pages of libertarian and anarchist propaganda. (Simon Moon, one of the main characters, is a left anarchist, but Hagbard Celine, arguably the most important viewpoint character, is a straightforward libertarian).

Wilson wrote many columns for New Libertarian Notes. He was a celebrity within the libertarian movement. When he ran for governor of California, his Guns & Dope Party platform was straightforwardly libertarian (excepting the surrealistic ostriches). For example, the platform called for voluntary taxation, as well as full gun and drug rights. He sometimes referred to himself as a "libertarian" in his writings.

I don't object if a progressive such as Metzger wants to claim RAW, but libertarians have as much right to him as anyone.

Footnote: This seems like a convenient time to recommend Metzger's excellent Dangerous Minds blog. The New Yorker just gave the blog a nice writeup.

New No Governor posted

Issue No. 4 of Robert Shea's "No Governor" zine has been posted and can be accessed via the link under "Feature Articles and Interviews" on the right side of the page. There's a RAW article in it I'll write about next week.

That issue of "No Governor," dated Spring 1979, has an interesting bit of fannish continuity. In the zine reviews, it lists the zine "The Diagonal Relationship" and says, "Available for $1, letter of comment, trade, artwork or other plausible excuses from Arthur D. Hlavaty ... "

The offer may not still be open, but by coincidence, when I first began reading portions of  "No Governor" on Wednesday, I received, via email, Arthur Hlavaty's latest zine, "Nice Distinctions 22," which says, "The print version is available for $1 ($2 outside the USA), arranged trade, or letter of comment (e-mail counts)."

Mr. Hlavaty has not raised his price in 33 years, but you can get his electronic version for free. Download your copy here.

Copyright, censorship and RAW

Yesterday was Robert Anton Wilson's birthday. I managed to miss posting anything about that, but I did notice that the official site was blacked out as part of the protest over SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act which Congress is debating. Its back today.

While it is impossible to predict with total certainty what RAW would have thought of SOPA, given that he's dead and was a contrarian, given his views on censorship and the importance of the Internet, I think there is a good probability he would have approved of blacking out his site.

I do with the same activism that's been used to fight SOPA had been in play when Congress approved an absurd extension of copyright law several years ago at the behest of corporate interests.

Sinclair Lewis, one of my favorite writers, died in 1951, more than 60 year ago, and yet many of his books remain in copyright. It Can't Happen Here, for example, is not available at Project Gutenberg.

I am an advocate of reasonable copyright. I have suggested several times at this blog that fans of RAW should legally purchase any of his books as are actually available, as I do, rather than just stealing them via Torrent or whatever. His family can use the money.

But do I think many of his books should remain under copyright in 2067?

No, I don't.