CYBERLIB — A New Form of Book
Below you’ll find a draft chapter from a new form of book I am creating for sale on Kindle. It consists of chapters like the one below. Tweet-length sentences that are grouped in threes and meant to be aphorisms that stand by themselves. An aphorism is an invitation to thought. Any author who dreams he or she can go beyond this point is my guest. I prefer to think of myself in far lesser terms. A mason, a builder, one who having some freedom experiments with what to lay upon what. I am thinking that someone reading this might find it a form that makes sense. Yes I have coined a new term cyberliberalism as a nasty rejoinder to the horrendous term neoliberalism that somehow managed to kidnap liberalism and make it the tool of unbridled, lazy and exploiting capitalism. I am an unapologetic defender of the idea that goodness is smart, profitable and lacks only in the buzz we get from being evil. We all love that buzz and fail to see it as simply a detour, often costly, to the same good end. So I spend my days making these tweet books. Do I sell them, not yet, not in any volume. Do I promote them? Not with any money or ads other than my own little efforts here and on Twitter. Do I care? I care about agreement from others who think independently and see what I do as simply a brick in a decent structure that could last.
19
Because we are not rational, neither are markets.
Nothing is entirely predictable.
Chance is a feature of reality.
2
Values are the only thing that can cut across the actualities of existence.
Values can describe actions and expressions.
The process of discerning values is called evaluation.
2
Values have been downplayed in ethics in favor of virtues.
Virtues relate more to characterization than to the actual good and evil that exists.
Values are accurate descriptions of good and evil acts and expressions.
3
Neoliberalism can be called an evil phenomenon.
The evil in neoliberalism is in the manifest harm it creates.
Neoliberalism is not alone; fascism and totalitarianism are also evil.
4
To call anything evil is to say it is founded on selfishness and mindlessness.
To call anything unethical is to say it fails to consider good and evil.
Neoliberalism largely ignores ethics and falls into the realm of lesser values,
5
Lesser values include intolerance, unhelpfulness and being anti-democratic.
The worst of evil values are inflicting injury and death.
The preoccupation with superstition in popular culture is a strategy for avoiding good and evil.
6
Neoliberalism will give way to Cyberliberalism.
Cyberliberalism will incorporate the best values of liberalism.
The best values of liberalism are its constitutional conservatism and its affirmation of universal rights.
7
Rights are the ultimate fruit of an ethic of values.
The best values lead to affirmed rights.
Rights are the only viable basis for philanthropic action.
