Forbidden Philosophy

Forbidden Philosophy

Restore Reason
"Truth, Freedom, Beauty, Romance"

Very few of us could - or, for that matter, would even want to - dispute the reason and logic behind the principles promoted by Enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century, namely:

• the concept of humanity as beings of free will, who can choose their own values, achieve their own goals, and control their own existence;
• the individual right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness;
• the separation of state and religious power from the natural rights of an individual;
• the equality of all people before the law, regardless of race, gender, religion, social status, or previous condition of servitude;
• the advance of society through knowledge and scientific inquiry.

The method by which these concepts were presented to the public, however, may be a bit more shocking.

According to Robert Darnton's The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France, there were three primary categories of books the people of France were reading in the years leading up to the 1789 overthrow of the French monarchy (this material was oddly referred to as "philosophy books" by the merchants of the time in an attempt to hide the revolutionary nature of the material being sold).

The first two may seem somewhat obvious, even by today's standards:

• Utopian Fantasy: better known today as Science Fiction, these volumes dealt with imaginative content such as futuristic settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life, and were used as a framework to explore politics, identity, desire, morality, social structure, and other literary themes;
• Political Slander: better known today as Propaganda, these volumes unleashed a veritable barrage of lies and slanders against whatever adversary seemed the most dangerous, until the nerves of attacked persons broke down, resulting in the deconstruction of the legitimacy of the monarchy and the church.

The third has absolutely no equivalent today: Philosophical Pornography.

Interspersed between prurient tales and images of sexual dominance and submission, philosophical issues would be discussed by the characters portrayed in these books, including materialism, hedonism and atheism. Issues like "all phenomena are matter in motion," and "religion is a fraud, though useful for keeping the poor and working classes in line" were common topics for these discussions. These works also drew attention to the sexual repression of women, and rejected the notions of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, and the divine right of kings..

These issues became the spark that would eventually ignite a passion for an individual right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness (as enshrined in the Declaration of Independence), and fan them into the burning flames of revolution in both America and France.

Maybe this be why our message of individual rights, private property, non-aggression, and unregulated free trade has not been embraced by the entire world yet?

Just imagine what it would be like to watch an adult movie, and getting a philosophy lecture on the benefits of reason and self-esteem, and the dangers of faith and self-sacrifice, in between the scenes of hardcore sex.

Could be we've just been been promoting our message in the wrong places!



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Atlantis Master Lease

Atlantis Master Lease

Restore Reason
"Truth, Freedom, Beauty, Romance"

One of the most intriguing concepts presented in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged was her description of the capitalist utopia called Atlantis - the secluded community founded by Midas Mulligan, and composed entirely of participants in the great strike of the men and women of the mind called by John Galt. Analyzing this arrangement through the eye's of an investor, this community was most likely organized around a real-estate concept known as a multi-tenant income property.

There are advantages to keeping the title to the land component of a real-estate development intact - parceling the land into various lots by land leasing rather than subdividing. This creates a concentrated entrepreneurial interest in the success of the development, enabling it to be administered as a long-term investment property for income. The incentive for those holding the ground title is to supply public services and amenities to the place, creating an environment that a free market of producers will find attractive. To the extent the ground title holders provide these services and amenities, they can then recover their costs, and earn a profit for themselves and their investors. Whole settlements and communities can be established using this non-political model, with each development competing with the other in the market for clientele, and community services becoming a major growth industry.

The modern hotel is a great example of this development model in action. A hotel resembles a community in having private and public spaces. Its corridors are its streets, its landscaped lobby the town square. Its public transit happens to operate vertically rather than horizontally. In-house medical and security services assure round-the-clock safety of guests, visitors, and property. The hotel provides utilities and zones its  space in an orderly manner for shopping, dining, entertainment, and other appropriate land uses. All it lacks that we customarily find in communities is a city hall exercising tax and other kinds of discretionary authority over the inhabitants and their property.

The resulting master lease becomes the critical programming language of the social software, capable of generating an elaborate but internally consistent web of relationships, all spelled  out in the wording of the leases, subleases, and sub-subleases, etc. The sum of agreements actually in effect at any given point in time would be the written constitution of the community. Agreements could be as specialized and distinct as circumstances might warrant, so long as they did not contradict the master lease.

A set of natural-law principles together with supporting procedural rules would also need to be incorporated into the master lease. This would enable a system of law to be in place from the very beginning of the development, from which point it would evolve of its own accord. It would be a law, moreover, to which everyone in the community had consented.

For those of you who have ever dreamed of following in the footsteps of the heroes and heroines of Atlas Shrugged, and giving practical expression to an isolated community of like-minded individuals united together around the principles of liberty, private property, and unregulated free trade, click on the following link:

Sample Master Lease Agreement for Atlantis

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