Overheidsregulering en haar onverwachte effecten op de koningin

- door de keizer, die zijn liefje geen ongelijk wil geven, en bijgevolg helemaal voor de aanschaf van die machine is

De koningin heeft er zich echt in vastgebeten, in dat thema van de voorspelbare onverwachte effecten van overheidsregulering. En de aantoonbare overbodigheid ervan. Die studies in de politieke wetenschappen hebben haar toch wel onverwachte inzichten verschaft. Komt daarbij dat zij erg goed is in het maken van verbanden met haarzelf. Egoistisch is ze, dat is haar natuur. Als ik het dan (alleen nog maar af en toe) aandurf te zeggen dat ze als koningin niet moet denken dat de wereld alleen maar om haar draait, dan is ze helemaal niet meer te stoppen! "Mijn wereld moet om mij draaien! Daar heb ik recht op! Zoals iedereen!" En print mij dan haar notities uit, want ze is blijkbaar van plan er een systeem van te maken, van haar egoisme, alsof het dat niet al was. "Intuitie is goed, met wat uitleg wordt ze alleen maar beter", zegt ze. Hier is haar uitleg (containing strong language):

Narcissism, liberty, and feeling good about yourself

The typical conventional accusation of narcissism focuses on self-love: "Don't be so full of yourself, you arrogant self-centered narcissistic prick, the world doesn't revolve around you alone!"

It's the conventional appeal to 'altruistic ethics' that makes that accusation so intimidating and effective. It takes a good grasp of the natural law, i.e. the understanding of the confusion that is implied in that notion of 'altruistic ethics', to withstand that intimidating effect.

And to say: "I have a right to feel good about myself, and to live in my own chosen world with my friends, a world that does indeed revolve around myself, as long as I do not deny that same right to others."

Or to ask: "If the world doesn't revolve around myself, what is the center around which it revolves? Why does a world full of happy people need a center at all?"

Or finally to turn around the accusation against the true narcissist: "Aren't you doing exactly what you're accusing me of, suggesting that my world should revolve around what you yourself think its center should be, namely, you yourself, in all probability? Why don't you go and mind your own business, you arrogant self-centered narcissistic prick?"

That's what the natural law is about: founding your individual sovereignty on the faith you put into your own individual soul, while granting the same right to all other people. And it is only on the basis of these mutually respected sovereign rights that interesting exchanges or transactions can ever take place between people. The first step to enjoy life with your fellow man is to stop poisoning his life with your own selfish expectations. It is that obvious. And very simple. Children normally understand it quite naturally. If grown-ups can't remember it, it's because they have been learning the wrong grown-up ideas. It's a civilisational disease called pneumopathology.

Nu, het verband dat ze legt tussen die kwestie van overbodige overheidsregulering en haarzelf betreft eigenlijk mij: zij vindt dat mijn handen teveel in beslag genomen worden door het ondertekenen van al die papieren die erbij te pas komen. En ik kan haar dus geen ongelijk geven, ik ben er tenslotte zelf uren mee bezig, elke dag. Nu is ze te weten gekomen dat zij in Frankrijk voor zulke gevallen een handtekeningenmachine gebruiken, die dat dus automatisch kan zonder dat mijn handen er nog aan te pas komen. Zo'n machine moet in huis gehaald worden, daar wil ze nu niet meer vanaf. En ik geef haar geen ongelijk, ik gebruik mijn handen graag, zeer graag zelfs als het niet is om handtekeningen te zetten. Een Franse revolutie, noemt ze dat, en als het moet wil ze zelf wel met ontblote borsten en een vlag op de barricaden klimmen! Zo opgewonden is ze nu al. Wat mij alleen maar meer zin geeft om haar niet tegen te spreken, want ze is fantastisch als ze opgewonden is. Ik heb haar er wel op gewezen dat een revolutie nogal eens uit de hand loopt, eigenlijk niet anders kan dan uit de hand lopen. Wel, dat lijkt haar alleen maar nog meer op te winden. "Ofwel die machine, ofwel de frontale aanval op de overbodige overheidsregulering." Dat is de keuze die zij mij laat. "Jouw handen zijn van mij." Mais bien sûr, ma jolie fleur sauvage des haies, ma petite fouteuse nue aux yeux fous. 

PS: More study notes by the queen. 

Pop Essay on Ethics, Justice, and Politics (starting from a Jostein Gaarder Quote)

The word 'ethics' has a condensed meaning in everyday life which I would like to describe first. It's a mixed bag of things that are not easy to distinguish clearly and are in the common understanding somehow conflated and thought together.

My thesis is that what is in there is primarily ethics and justice, which by being mixed up degenerate into politics.

"Acting responsibly is not a matter of strengthening our reason but of deepening our feelings for the welfare of others."

This quote by Jostein Gaarder is, I think, a very good expression of this condensed understanding of 'ethics'. There is responsibility and reason (pointing to a duty of self-restraint: "you cannot just do whatever comes into your head without thinking about the consequences"), and there are the feelings for the welfare of others (pointing to a duty of self-sacrifice: "you cannot only think about yourself and forget about others"), and there is the overarching idea that being 'ethical' means being 'altruistic': "we're in this world to share it and take care of each other".

There is of course the well known dialogue between this 'altruistic' standpoint "we're here to serve others" and the sceptical question "and what are the others here for then?"

I would follow Schopenhauer's distinction between the 'duty of justice' (never to harm others) and the 'virtue of charity' (to help others when you can) to say that 'justice' and 'ethics' are simply two different questions, and that it leads to utter confusion when they are conflated (as they are in this typical condensed understanding of 'altruistic ethics').

Justice is about an order of natural rights (my life, my liberty, my property), and these rights are standing on their own (suum cuique), they are not dependent on each other, nor 'limited' by each other. Saying that my freedom is limited by your freedom is confusing: where exactly is the boundary, more to my side or more to your side? What it means is that my freedom in exercising my right is limited by the respect for your right (but not at all by your freedom in exercising your right). And in case of conflict, the burden of proof is not on the right that is exercised (there is a presumption of liberty), but on the objection to liberty in the name of the right that is violated (the one who argues that there is a needle in the haystack must verify the proposition, and cannot shift the burden to the other side, which can never falsify the proposition).

Ethics on the other hand have nothing to do with justice, they are about the 'summum bonum' for which we live, and justice requires that everybody's natural right to follow his own mind when making decisions in the matter is respected. So ethics is strictly individualistic (having nothing to do with justice and others), although each individualistic ethic will also be about how to deal with others in questions that go beyond the requirement of justice, such as the virtue of charity.

The altruistic conflation of ethics and justice leads to confusion and explains the tendency to restate duties of virtue towards others as second order 'rights to something' or claims on others. With claims on others being much more interesting than duties towards others, everybody tends to forget about his duties and starts to run around making claims on others, with all minds set on 'proving' those second order 'rights' (which one could just as well conflate into one single 'right to a decent living in accordance with human dignity'). It is that perversely altruistic game of trying to live at the expense of others which I would call politics (well, admittedly Frédéric Bastiat was first in 1850). And because of the confusion politics has become a question of 'ethics'. Whereas the question of justice tends to be obscured, and more importantly, justice in practice tends to be superseded by politics.

What all this means for individualistic ethics is anybody's guess, as we cannot look into other people's hearts. But one may have apprehensions, such as those expressed quite some time ago already by V.S. Naipaul in the concentrated formula: "Thirty years of free milk and orange juice have led to an army of thugs."