Dear Friends,
It seems to me, progressivism, communism, and indeed any socialist ideology thrives in category errors. They look at one category of thing, then try to apply it to another. A factory and an economy are in a different category. Mentality and physicality are also different categories. Moreover, it’s obvious that applying a solution for the wrong category probably will result in further harm. For example, if someone has pneumonia, taking them skiing for emotional support might be a sub optimal solution. This category application error of central planning systems may be a bug or a feature. Imagine if you wanted to sow chaos to collapse a system, to rebuild it as you would prefer. Wouldn’t applying the wrong category of solution be an ideal game? They can claim to be “helping…” or they could be stupid.
Mental versus physical is a category error that has been forced on us by the elite. The new class has come to the conclusion, apparently, that if one has a mental illness, the solution is surgery to change the body to suit the mental illness. If that mentality changes, use the scalpel again. Their solution is elegant in that the mental illness need never be addressed and the surgery is very lucrative. Obviously, mentality is a different category than physicality. So the result of changing physicality to suit mentality is further harm. Just as psychotherapy is ill suited to cure tuberculosis. This category error has cost many youths their futures. It does however create chaos in the form of mass shootings, ruined lives, and all the other undesirable outcomes of untreated mental illness.
Confusing the categories of a simple system versus a complex system is classic. A factory, farm, or corporation is a simple system problem. A farm needs to do one thing and anything that leads to that singular outcome is a step up the slope of Mount Fuji. To a single optimized top. An economy on the other hand, is a complex system. There is no single point at which we should aim. Instead there are hundreds of small peaks. Reaching the top of one means others are neglected. A single point of control is only really able to aim at one thing at a time. The result is applying a single point optimization strategy against a complex system. Just as a factory without a manager is probably not going to be productive. This category error is historic, and is proven effective at generating poverty.
Law is a different category from morality but they are often conflated. What is lawful is often considered moral and what is unlawful is considered immoral. Moreover, mere application of law or not, teaches the people what the state considers moral or immoral. This is done by the decision to indict or not. Yet in some places slavery is legal and escape from slavery illegal. Would you say that is a moral law? In the US, we have been astonished by the Epstein files showing our elites are Satanist, pedophile, cannibals who are as far above the law as we are below its protections. This shows us that law and morality are utterly different things. Morality is a universal, defined by the Golden Rule, and law is defined by Thrasymachus… a tool for the strong to use to exploit and extract from the weak.
These are examples of category errors. Applying the solution that works in a factory is disastrous when applied to an economy. That’s because the category is wrong. Conflating the categories of law and morality numbs the minds of the victims to their victimhood. They believe their exploitation is just, because it’s legal. Imagine if the elite started saying that psychotherapy is the best solution to syphilis. It wouldn’t be long before the galloping crud was an epidemic. However, we are expected to accept that a scalpel will solve a mental illness? These all lead to chaos in a myriad of ways. It may be that the elite are simply stupid, and that’s why they so often apply the wrong category of solution, but then again, the Satanist pedophile cannibals could be up to something.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
