Nuclear Energy: A Great Loss and Worthwhile Pursuit

Thanks to energy activist Alex Epstein, the issues affecting energy production have become a side interest of mine. In truth, Mr. Epstein has become my favorite Ayn Rand Institute fellow given the immense interest I've had in his articles, and his most recent one on the safety of nuclear power is no exception. It's utterly shocking to hear that Japan's nuclear death toll post-tsunami was zero, and my shock is intensified by the fact that, for some bizarre reason, people are pointing to the tsunami disaster as "proof" of nuclear energy's danger. Based on what? 

My interest in energy is driven by my desire to own my own restaurant someday, actually. Energy, of course, plays a huge role in the industry. We need electricity to power the microwaves, natural gas for the oven, and so on. Can you imagine how much the energy costs affect the food pricing? And that, of course, affects how many patrons we serve and how much we sell to feed them. The worst time to work, in my opinion, is during those slow times in which we have almost no one eating; it's the meal rushes that I live for. It's agitating to think that such great energy alternatives as nuclear energy are ostracized and prosecuted, which leads to a lower energy supply and higher prices, and therefore higher restaurant costs and prices . . . and less patrons. I dream of a future where even the fanciest restaurants are cheap and almost always packed, and I'd like to be the head of one. That people like environmentalists interfere is annoying indeed.

But of course nuclear power isn't the answer to everything. I doubt anything will ever replace natural gas in cooking. Fire-top stoves are just more practical: You can judge the temperature easily by eye (i.e. by the height of the flame) and make instantaneous fine-tune adjustments, virtues I don't think are possessed as greatly by other cooking means, such as coil or magnetic stoves. Aside from cheap electricity, it'd also be great to have cheap natural gas to help drive restaurant costs yet even further down.

Hopefully public opinion can be changed for the better, for we have an immense amount to lose in wealth and technological advancements if practical forms of energy continue to be opposed and have their costs driven up. I'd hate to have an empty restaurant just because my lighting bill is too high. 

Quotes That Guide My Life

Everyone, in some form or another, appreciates a good quote. A quote becomes appealing when it condenses down the essentials of the views of someone holds, allowing them to hold in their mind very pregnant ideas in a very economical form. While, as par the norm, people tend to appreciate quotes as they come by them, I've been making an effort for a very long time to decide upon which quotes are most essential to the way I view how life should be lived. At one point I even took to collecting quotes and writing them all over the place to serve as constant reminders and inspiration, but I wrote down so much that appealed to me that the writing became too great to keep track of or check on a regular basis, so from there I struggled to pare down the list to the bare essentials that drive my being. I think I finally reached that point, and would like to share that list in hopes of inspiring you to comment with yours, and perhaps motivate you to decide upon your essential favorites.

So here are my top four favorite quotes in reverse order of personal importance, which I consider to be the driving force behind everything I do. Those with asterisks might be paraphrased, not exact quotes.

4.) * "Do something you would do for free and someone will pay you well for it." - Mary Kay

This has molded my view on my career. Certainly I'm greedy and would like to make a lot of money, even become filthy rich one day, but this quote helps me keep in mind what is the most fulfilling and practical route to riches. To become materialistically wealthy should not be my aim. It shouldn't even really be on my mind. My emphasis should be on becoming the best I can possibly be in the career field I love and have chosen to dedicate myself to for life. The material rewards I reap should not be sought after, but rather be a natural consequence to how well I've done to cultivate my skills and be the best I can be.


The culinary profession isn't a high-paying profession by its nature, but I'm not worried about that. My ultimate aim is still not totally clear at this point, but I'm thinking about taking an ultimately intellectual and entrepreneurial route in my career, for which training as a chef will assist me in that matter. If I want to make a million, or even a billion dollars, then my concern is becoming worth that as a person, not directly pursuing it.

I do well at my job because I love it, even as a mere dish washer . . . not become I'm chasing dollars. The payment is the consequence and reward, not the goal.

3.) "Judge, and prepare to be judged." - Unknown

While growing up, passing moral judgment was inexplicably avoided and done with extreme inaccuracy when practiced on occasion. When giving praise my elders would often detach their compliments from the known facts of reality and give statements that were totally unbelievable and false, and any vices and immorality often went unacknowledged and ignored, leaving people to suffer endlessly in relationships they refused to acknowledge were rotten. I never consciously avoided moral judgment, but my inability to make precise judgments in my youth led to me having terrible relationships with other people all the time, continuing associations that should have been terminated promptly, and having malformed estimates of myself due to bad standards of judgment. I suffered greatly due to not having good thinking methods for judgment.

Once I learned how to pass objective moral judgment, my relationships improved dramatically, as I knew better which people were worth associating with and who should be cut off from contact, and underwent a drastic self-improvement spree once I identified the standards I wanted to strive to and starting holding myself responsible for my habits. I continue my self-improvement endeavors to this day since I hold myself to the same moral standards which I use to judge other people I interact with. My life has become infinitely better because of that.

This quote keeps in mind three things: That it's important to judge others (lest you suffer bad associations), that it's a logical corollary to submit yourself to others' judgment (so that you become comfortable with your public status and make changes where appropriate), and that you, most importantly, judge yourself. Doing this has helped me treat people with objective consistency based on their deserts, feel comfortable on hearing others' views about myself, and evaluate myself when trying to determine where I'm pursuing my ideals or need to make changes.

2.) "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

This one is important to me more for moral reasons rather than, say, the optimization of talent. Building upon the last quote, another problem in my youth is that people often judged each other on the basis of isolated and rare incidents, often in the face of consistent evidence that flagrantly proved that things were otherwise. For instance, some people would take a consistently angry and malicious person and characterize them as happy and benevolent on the basis of one act or incident that made them feel good, such as observing them smiling once or doing a single good deed, despite the fact that 99 times out of a 100 that same person would act to the contrary. It's like these people were pretending the other 99 times didn't exist. As a result, once again, many bad relationships were continued even though they were generally and consistently bad, all because on seldom occasion things would be "good." You need to judge people on their consistent behavior if you want things to consistently be good, not the other way around.

Furthermore, this quote also emphasizes to me that it's most important to judge a person by their acts, not their intentions or emotions. Have all the good intentions you want: It's not going to qualify you as having a heart made out of gold unless you perform the deeds to match them. I've seen some truly awful persons characterized as practically saints all because they had good intentions on occasion, even if they did nothing in practice to put their intentions in action, and building on the above paragraph this would again be another thing which would be very rare and seldom to a particular person, thereby being an obscene dropping of the context.

In comparing practices with preaching it is the actions that ultimately matter more, if one were to weigh them in isolation, but it totality it is of course how a person's actions match up with their preaching that matters most. In this case I've even seen terrible hypocrites judged as good even as they seldom, even rarely or never practiced their stated ideas, all because they preached the right things. What a detachment from reality!

This quote has helped me be more patient and meticulous in how I judge people, and helps me make sure I'm keeping the entire context of their being and am paying attention to and weighing the right things. Unless a person has done something unforgivably bad, I try to avoid hinging my estimate of someone on the basis of an isolated incident, and use my memory to full advantage to collect and store incidents that I believe give indication of someone's moral status, and use the pieces to form a coherent picture which I'll use to form a moral judgment. But even after forming the judgment I still try to keep it open-ended to continue adding pieces of evidence which will either intensify my estimate of someone (such as by observing repeated virtue by a person I view as good) or cause me to change my estimate if the pieces of evidence start tilting the scales the other way, such as a virtuous person repeatedly indulging in moral failings or a bad person consistently working towards redemption. It keeps my relationships in a semi-fluid state to better enable me to treat people according to their deserts, depending on the totality of the context of their being I have observed.

And, of course, I hold myself to that same standard. It helps keep me straight and avoid making the justification that certain things are an exception to the rule of my being. For instance, if I'm exhausted and take a day off from my efforts to rest, then I'll judge it as a deserved exception to my usual strivings. However, if I chose to rest and laze about for three days in a row, then I'll judge that I'm dangerously close to becoming a lazy person in nature and will make the appropriate corrections.

1.) "A giant is as a giant does." - Rod Serling, from the Twilight Zone episode *Last Night of a Jockey*

Almost as soon as I heard it it became my favorite quote of all time. Anywhere I can post a quote online, like in my e-mail signature, this is always the one I choose, and I read it virtually everyday, never forgetting it. It's very similar to the last Aristotle quote, only I like this one for its emphasis on substance.

Another difficulty in my childhood is how concerned everyone was with appearances, most often in total divorce of substance. For instance, people around me were more concerned with looking happy to other people rather than cultivating an actual life of contentment, and knowing them in private I learned that their smiles were mere muscle flexing, as inwardly they lived a stale and discontent, and even downright miserable existence.

And what reward do they get for focusing so much on appearance, on how they look to others? Nothing. No spiritual contentment, material satisfaction, healthy relationships . . . jack squat. This obsession with appearance was only to ease the discomfort they felt in being seen by other people, and avoiding discomfort and pain is not the same as gaining inner peace and happiness.

Plus, this episode of the Twilight Zone shows how an obsession with appearances can actually ruin oneself. (SPOILERS) In it, a jockey (a horse racer) gets permanently discharged from his beloved profession and has to cope with not being able to engage in it ever again. A spiritual entity within him starts speaking to him and offers him a wish as his last possible resort to rising up and living a good life. The jocky wishes to be big, and the entity makes him into a literal giant. The jocky then goes into a kind of euphoric ramble about how amazed people will be by his size and how he'll be admired. He calls a girl up to ask her out on a date, but she turns him down even as he frantically boasts about how "big" he is. He's irritated until he suddenly gets a call from the jocky club, learning that they've decided to give him one more chance. He's relieved that he gets another chance at his beloved profession, but after the spiritual entity taunts him he quickly realizes that he's too big -- he can't fit into his clothes, sit on a horse, get out the door . . . his concern with altering his physical stature, his appearance, lead to him ruining his life because he thought greatness meant looking great to others, not being great. His concern with appearance over substance made him sacrifice his only chance at a fulfilling life. (/SPOILERS) 

And that's what I've observed with other people in my life too. People concerned more with how they look rather than how they are have given up the values they most wanted to achieve, all for the empty gain of receiving approval from others. The people I've observed that have lived this way have led lives with empty relationships, mediocre careers, undeveloped talents, shallow romances, and so on.

This quote keeps me concentrating on what the actual value of my efforts and practices are in regards to pursuing my goals, rather than how people perceive them and in spite of their disapproval. Deeper still, it keeps me focused on living a life of substance, of being a good person rather than trying to look like one, of cultivating my mind rather than sounding intelligent, of being authentically respectful rather than using fake manners, and more. The quote continues to help even beyond this, such as by helping me judge whether a practice is really beneficial to my life (e.g. a study technique), how deeply I value a particular person, if the entire context of my habits lines up with my ideals, and endlessly on. It's been a way long time since I've last seen this TZ episode, but I do own it on DVD and should watch it again soon, and probably won't ever forget it. I anticipate I'll be holding onto these words for the rest of my life. If I want to be a great person, then the substance of what I do needs to be great. We are what we do. A giant is as a giant does.

* * * * *

These are the quotes that have the strongest influence in my life and in the molding of my being. It took an extremely long time to get to the point I could pare down my list to this, but it helps me in every single facet of my life, from how I treat people, how I exert myself at work, how I utilize my free time, how I judge myself, etc.

However, I'd like to have for a top five. One thing I don't think I keep in mind often enough is how finite my time is here on earth. You and I are probably not going to live forever. Am I living as richly as I could and making the best use of the limited minutes I have alive, however many billions of them? I'd like to have a quote that essentializes how preciously finite life is, but haven't seen any. Could my readers suggest one?

While we're at it, what are your favorite quotes? And I'm not asking for a hodge podge list either: what are the quotes that really mean something to you? That may guide your life as the above four guide mine?

Maybe once I do gather a top five I'll print and laminate them, so that I may read them everyday.      

More on the Economic Collapse: Possible Benevolence?

A while ago I wrote a post that mused upon how the U.S. might respond to an economic collapse. Will things get terribly dangerous and violent as they have in hyperinflation situations elsewhere? Or do we have a chance at the nation going through the disaster with relative peace? I don't think I did a good enough job explaining why this question is worth contemplating, so I'd like to share some deeper thoughts.

Simply put, the way a country handles a particular problem on a sense-of-life level depends on the philosophy inherent in its people. A good or mostly good philosophy will help a citizenry prevent and avoid significant problems while giving them the mental strength to bear what bad things do occur, as a good philosophy will be reality oriented and be able to offer guidance on the world before us. A bad or mostly bad philosophy will lead a citizenry into disaster and prevent them from being able to deal with it constructively or gracefully, and so will lead to a malevolent people whose natural state is that of disaster. A bad philosophy isn't oriented towards reality, so it can do little to address the laws of the world before us.

I think the reason why countries that have gone through hyperinflation have become terribly violent and malevolent is because that's the ultimate sense-of-life consequence of the philosophies that brought the economic crisis to existence. The elements that encourage evasion in these philosophies lead these people to search for scapegoats rather than recognize their own guilt in the matter, which causes them to become a nation of flagrant criminals. It's very destructive psychologically to judge oneself as immensely immoral or even evil, so anyone immoral enough to engage in the acts to earn him that status will logically be prone to the signature immoral act, evasion, which he'll use to avoid acknowledging his own character.

It's hard to sort through the clusterflop of the multitude of reasons that can be used to summarize the situation, but in short I think that, economically, any particular hyperinflationary nation won't recognize that it's killing the goose that lays the golden egg, and at each step of strangling it will wonder what's wrong with the goose rather than the actions being taken to extract its gold. After the goose dies the moochers are left seething that they didn't get what they're "owed" and become vicious. They shoot themselves in the foot and blame other factors endlessly, even as they continue to fire unto themselves.

As far as I know, no economic disaster thus far in recent history has lead to a nation going into a significant turn-around. I'm not knowledged enough in history to know exactly what happened here, but I know for certain that these crises haven't led to any nations freer than the United States. The philosophies that lead to their economic problems, by and large, remain intact even after the crisis.

It's this particular factor that leads me to wonder whether the U.S. might be able to handle an economic disaster more gracefully than other countries have. Objectivists haven't won the war of ideas yet, but I think we've succeeded in making the nation question its philosophical premises. By doing that we've not only increased our odds of winning, but in also changing the nature of the people. If we manage to go so far as to change the direction of the tide before the serious economic collapse, then could that not change entirely how the U.S. will respond? Or in other words, if we change the philosophy the U.S. enters the collapse in, then won't we also change the sense-of-life results that will spawn as a reaction to the situation?

I think other nations have descended into violence because they were a nation of moochers and looters to begin with, and in dealing with the results of their parasitism they go hysterical. If the U.S., however, were to recognize at a majority level that the government is at fault for our economic troubles, then perhaps U.S. anger will be more directed at the polls, voting booths, and city halls, rather than at each other?

This is why, in my above linked essay, I think the most important safety consideration for an individual is where he lives, as the different political atmospheres of different states and cities are determined by different philosophies. Therefore, I think the U.S.'s response to a collapse will vary greatly from location to location, depending what people view as the source of the problem. In such a statist place as my old home of Michigan, I can visualize it becoming a very dangerous place to live, not even allowing for a safe walk at night. The people were already somber and irritated as I left them, and in no way ready to recognize they're responsible for supporting the politics that continues pushing the state to ruin. My new home of Texas, however, I could visualize as becoming risky, but not frighteningly dangerous, as the people are noticeably lighter in spirit and more at peace.

I'm still not sure, and probably won't know for certain until the major event happens, but perhaps the best way to bring up the question is that the United States is a unique nation that's going through a unique phenomenon during a unique period in history. Is it not reasonable to assume that the U.S.'s response to collapse will also itself be unique? Benevolent, I hope.

Intellectually I recognize that it's still best to prepare oneself as strongly as possible, whether it be stocking up on medicine or ammunition, but emotionally I am somewhat anticipating Americans remaining a respectable citizenry during the worst of times. Hopefully so. I say prepare for disaster and plan for prosperity.

An Odd Splash of Good News

A little while ago I mentioned the importance of recognizing the positive in the culture every now and then on a more frequent basis. While I recognize that the world is definitely getting into a worse place in our presence age, I think far too many people, especially Objectivist activists, have been dwelling too much on the negative aspects of what's happening. It's important to acknowledge and examine the follies, but it's being done to such excess that it's hard to see any positive in the bleakness all these people paint, and at least Diana Hsieh seems to understand. I'm not encouraging ignoring the bad, but rather calling for people to call to attention the good more often, for even one acknowledgement once a week can do wonders for one's resolve to battle a deluge of negativity the other six days. I'm still hopeful, and given the chance the war of ideas can still be won this is perhaps the most essential time to fuel the spirits of intellectual troops, for the tide may have fewer than five years to be changed.

So to follow my own advice, I cite these positive news stories as of late. They're quite unusual since they've been happening very close to one another within the last two weeks, which makes me wonder if I'm living in a parallel universe, if things are actually getting better, or what:

New York has legalized gay marriage. I'm heterosexual, but I also believe in the right to marry whoever you want on voluntary terms. Nobody has any business tending to other people's affairs and forcibly preventing gay couples from marrying, especially the government.

Geert Wilders has been acquitted of hate speech charges. The court ruling was rather sloppy, justifying the decision on the basis that he was criticizing the Islam religion and not its followers, so there's still needs to be more understanding of what free speech entails, but this is a good development. You should be allowed to say whatever you want given you're not violating rights (e.g. divulging information contractually agreed to keep secret) or inciting violence.

From a CNN alert e-mail:

U.S. Supreme Court strikes down California law that would have banned selling violent video games to children.

The 7-2 ruling today was a victory for video game makers and sellers, who said the ban -- which has yet to go into effect -- would extend too far. They say the existing nationwide, industry-imposed, voluntary ratings system is an adequate screen for parents to judge the appropriateness of computer game content.

Still no understanding of individual rights present, but still a victory for them nonetheless. It's the parents obligation to monitor and control what media their children consume, and they have no right to force all people to follow their standards by issuing a ban on violent video game sales to minors. California, I've heard, has a particularly bad reputation regarding nanny-state behavior, so that this comes from here is intriguing.

And from another CNN e-mail:

The Supreme Court has tossed out an Arizona law that provides extra taxpayer-funded support for office seekers who have been outspent by privately funded opponents or by independent political groups.

A conservative 5-4 majority of justices on Monday said the law violated free speech, concluding the state was impermissibly trying to "level the playing field" through a public finance system.

Arizona lawmakers had argued there was a compelling state interest in equalizing resources among competing candidates and interest groups.

I'm not sure how ideological the actual court ruling was, but this is rather good. If a candidate receives more donations than another candidate does it is because more people are voluntarily choosing to fund him, not because they're being forced to. To "level the playing field" by forcing tax payers to fund certain candidates is not only stealing, but also forcing them to support ideas and people they choose *not* to support.

This isn't a development within the last two weeks, but recently I've learned that Exxon established its own blog to talk about company happenings and even defend themselves against political attacks. I don't know how good the entirety of the blog is, but here's a good piece. I wish more companies would defend themselves like this, because while people may be very resistant to acknowledging their positions it would at least offer an impediment against politicians doing what they want. The worst thing you can do is not say anything when something you oppose is advocated to be put into law. Will other companies follow suit?

I don't know what all this has to say about the culture in general given that these are small pieces of evidence in a larger body that has yet to be seen, but it's good stuff regardless. It's this kind of content that needs more attention in the blogosphere. Individual rights are under attack, but individual articles here and there show that battles are being won in at least some places, and we can use this to fuel our resolve to continue fighting, securing more victories and generating more of these articles, until the war of ideas is won.

It's stuff like this that shows there's still hope for the future. It's stuff like this that shows it's possible to overcome evil ideas and political laws within our lifetime. And it's stuff like this that give us reason to expect that maybe life is still, and will continue to be, worth living.

My Thoughts on Charles Schulz

Lately I've been reading Schulz and Peanuts to see if there's some greatness behind the man who has created the immensely popular comic strip, as well as reading some of the anthologies. Like with Walt Disney, I wanted to see why he's so popular, and to see if I could garner an admiration of his work through garnering an admiration of the man. In the Disney case, I picked up a biography while shopping and came to admire Disney immensely, and such an admiration has indeed led to me watching and enjoying his company's animations, even though I ignored and disliked them as a kid. I was hoping the same might happen for Schulz, but unfortunately not.

Now with adult eyes I can see the wit and intelligent construction that goes into the strips, finding new enjoyment in contrast to my childhood distaste, but Schulz himself is hardly a prime mover and has some bad philosophic elements. It surprised me to learn, for instance, that he didn't exert that much control over his art, as he allowed it to be titled something he detested his whole life. He just didn't believe in "making trouble," even if it meant sacrificing something as significant as the title of his strip. Furthermore, I found it sad to learn that an unjustly humble attitude was instilled in him during youth through his family's philosophic opposition to self-esteem, which led to him hiding his talents and feeling guilty about them, and even being baffled in old age as to why everyone thought he was a great cartoonist. Through this he also seemed to develop his malevolent universe premise and victim mentality, where he was afraid of people, withdrawn, and possibly even constructing imaginary wrongdoings against himself, such as frequent bullying on a playground that may have never happened.

From my reading I'm not nurturing what I would say is an actual dislike of the man, but rather a growing disinterest after seeing he's not at all heroic or dominant. It's good to see that he's been recognized for his talents and actual greatness in the comics industry, but I think he would have been capable of much greater things if he had a stronger personality. If only he had fought for his own way.

But at the same time, distinct from the biography, I am recognizing the actual merit behind the comic strip. The writing can be witty and the jokes well-written, the minimalistic lines aesthetically pleasing in their economy, and the malevolent universe not all that bad. On this last point, while I know the strip is known for it's depressing elements I don't think it's that negative, and have noticed there's plenty of good elements too where the characters do find satisfaction and contentment.

I've hardly studied the topic, but my personal opinion is that Bill Watterson, the author of Calvin and Hobbes, is truly the greatest comic strip artist that ever lived. He has enormous integrity and conviction that led to him constantly fighting with his syndicate to ensure that he got to publish his strip the way he wanted to, an inventive creativeness that pushed him to constantly experiment with different styles, and philosophies that not only stimulate the reader's intellect, but are also portrayed with aesthetic mastery through the art. This last point I think is essential to the proper form a comic should take -- illustrating the ideas through the artwork -- as endlessly I see comics fail on this point over and over again, either overemphasizing the artwork in divorce of the content or having the characters do lots of talking which makes the artwork superficial. While it's sad that Calvin and Hobbes is complete, I think Bill Watterson did the right thing since we can view the entire series with happy nostalgia, not having to face what a terrible decline strips such as Garfield have gone through. If only we knew what Mr. Watterson were doing now.

As such, I don't plan on finishing Schulz's biography, but I do think I'll take to finishing the multitude of Peanuts anthologies available from my library. They are very good strips indeed. I'm not sure how I'd rank Peanuts right now, but Calvin and Hobbes is definitely my favorite strip, Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland second, and Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend third.

Defeating Negative Humor

Well, I finally thought of another self-improvement goal regarding my lovability pursuits. I've recently noticed how terribly excessive my negative humor is, where I indulge in things such as mock bullying, playful character attacks, and more. As of far nobody has taken offense and has even been amused, but still I think it would be best for me to reduce such a style of humor.

More or less I think this is a bad leftover habit from my childhood when I still had to deal with some pretty hostile people in school. Even as I gained more friends I was still the butt of people's jokes on frequent occasion, and in a self-depreciating manner I somehow learned to play along and participate, joining in on the jokes against myself even as they were atrociously malicious. I remember one time I was playing hacky-sack with a group of people who named the sack "Benjamin."

The negative, however, does not amount to a positive, and dwelling on the negative can very easily give way for people viewing you as negatively equivalent to the things you talk about. People want to be happy in life and live where bad things are the exception to the rule, not the trend, so I ought not joke around and tease about it as if it were the consistent tone of living. It might be alright on occasion, but I've been going too far.

To help alter this bad habit I'm going to add to my perfectionism list a new category: Humor. I still need to do more thinking on its precise restrictions, so that I know what constitutes a violation, but for now I think it would suffice to say that I've betrayed my goal if I engage in any playful character attacks or self-depreciating jokes, though there could be more. Hopefully doing this will make me more aware of what I'm doing, as my other categories have.

You Can Only Hate What's *There*

Lately I've been thinking about the Objectivist tenet on how things such as income distribution, anti-trust laws, and the like are evidence of hatred for the good for being good, and I think I've made an identification that makes this point a little clearer.

By "hatred of the good for being good" Ayn Rand meant that these people of this kind hated good people -- talented artists, successful businessmen, geniuses -- because they possessed human values and practiced virtues which they did not, and they hate specifically those qualities. In practice, her logic continues, this will amount to seeking out to undermine or destroy these things, such as by upholding "abstract" art, taxing and regulating businessmen, and labeling geniuses as nut jobs. They'll mostly do it under an intellectual guise, such as arguing how abstract art is actually great or why businessmen are immoral, but at root the motivation is hatred of the good for being good.

The specific thing that confused me is how such a large body of people as a society could be malice driven like this but state their motives as being otherwise. Is it not possible that they could believe their justifications with total sincerity? And I think degrees are relevant here, as I believe someone could be conflicted by believing partially his justifications while being motivated at root by another, so here I'm adding emphasis on total sincerity.

What clarified things for me is remembering that only existence exists. That which does not exist cannot have an impact on reality, and anyone who claims to deal with things that don't exist, such as supernatural entities, are only dealing with content within their mind. Since the thing doesn't actually exist, they can't interact with it, or even direct their emotions towards it.

So for things such as society decrying the acts of honest businessmen, I think the reasons why they hate them for their ability and success are imaginary because the misdeeds they're accusing businessmen of are largely nonexistent. They don't rise prices arbitrarily, force consumers to purchase from them, steal from voluntary transactions, and so on, so when people claim to hate businessmen for these acts they're almost solely dealing with content of their minds, as the facts by and large don't exist. Since these facts largely don't exist, that means these people can only direct their hatred towards that which does exist, and what is it that exists of great businessmen in general? Success, wealth, ability, and more. People hate those attributes because those are the attributes that actually exist, not price gouging, stealing from willing consumers, and being overall menaces.

To give another example, imagine having a craving for a granny smith apple, and contrast two different scenarios in which a granny smith apple is present and not present. In the latter situation, a person cannot justifiable claim to crave the apple on the table before him because the apple isn't there. He knows physically he craves an apple, but so far that desire remains physical, emotional, and rooted in his mind because there is no such apple around to be the object of his desire. And so it goes with businessmen: Since, in general, the evil doings they're accused of don't actually exist, what these men are hated for is what actually exists, what can be objects of people's hatred, which is talent, money, etc. Of course, I recognize that some businessmen are and have been evil, such as the peanut manufacturer that last year deliberately processed and sold spoiled peanuts, but they're the exception to the rule, not part of a trend.

Only existence exists, and all we can interact with is existents. If a person is unable or unwilling to recognize that something doesn't exist, then instead he'll interact with actual existents in a totally misguided way, right down to believing he's dealing with something that actually something totally different.

Hershey and Child Labor

Via Jim's Chocolate Mission I've learned that there was recently a protest against Hershey regarding their usage of child labor in Africa. It was cited that they made a vow about a decade ago to cease such a practice, and yet to this day still continue it.

Chocolate, believe it or not, is quite wrapped up in politics, and I'm certainly concerned about a company's practices when I contemplate regularly consuming their products. I still have a lot to learn as to what the current issues are and where companies stand, but I've heard that some companies even indirectly fund slavery in the cacao plantations they purchase beans from, though I haven't heard any names accused or conclusive evidence. But as far as things go in this article, I think things are far too sketchy on whether it's proper to condemn Hershey or not. It notes specifically that they're condemning child labor, not slavery, so it is of great question as to how we should evaluate that practice.

Most essentially, what is the economic context of the workers? If things are so poor there and everyone badly off, then voluntary child labor would actually be a good thing, because otherwise the alternative would be an even poorer people and perhaps starvation. If that's the case, then even such an unpleasant practice becomes desirable by the overall good it does to the workers. On the other hand, if it's superfluous and unnecessary, then I'd consider it an irrational practice that isn't worthy of supporting, but at the same time isn't worthy of condemnation given its voluntary nature. In either case, if it's true that slavery isn't involved here, then I think protestors are making a mountain out of a molehill.

I suspect that it's the case that poverty drives these people to employ children, because otherwise a more prosperous society would have enough wealth to allow these children to stay home and pursue other activities, such as schooling. How good of workers could they possibly be anyhow in comparison to grown men? It's likely out of economical necessity that they find themselves in this position.

As such, I see no reason to abstain from consuming any of Hershey's products. I see no sufficient evidence that they're actually guilty of an immoral practice, and will not condemn them as such.

Bullies and Shirts

Recently I've had the annoying experience of a bully of the sorts yelling at me from his vehicle for me to "get some clothes on." Given the frequent sunny weather here in Texas I tend to favor shirtless and shoeless walks, mainly to up my vitamin D production and get a more even tan, and I guess this person didn't approve of my appearance. Of course, courageous as his act was, he conducted it by slowing down his car, yelling from an open door, and then driving promptly away. This is the second time this has happened to me, the other person committing the act without stopping or slowing down.

This irritates the hell out of me. Not because of its rudeness, but because of the philosophical underpinnings that are implied in the mentalities of these people who would do such a thing. My intention in taking a walk in such a fashion is not to make a statement or garner attention -- not even the attention of attractive women -- but simply to maintain my health and regularity of appearance (no farmer's tan for me). Otherwise I'm tending to my own business, walking for the same reason I always do: To introspect, which walking vastly helps me do. Oftentimes I even nearly lose awareness of what I'm doing because I'm enjoying my thinking so much, concentrating only on the attractive scenery and thought processes. These bullies, on the other hand, are displaying second-handed mentalities in which they're not only sensitive to their environment as it relates to them, but also are moved to offer spiteful comments to that which they disapprove of in order to gain approval of the people that are in the car with them.

It's obviously a difference between first-handedness and second-handedness that is leading to these different behaviors. In my first-handedness I am only concerned with my environment insofar as it relates to my safety (e.g. not stepping on glass barefoot) and aesthetic admiration; otherwise, my primary concern is my task, which is to enjoy my walk and indulge in a lot of thinking. They, on the other hand, in their second-handedness are concerned with the environment in regards to how it compares to them, leading them to keep a watch out for whether, say, people are looking at them, or in my case they might be looking for things to mock such as I, since my shirtless practice is uncommon and therefore unconventional, leading to them feeling irrationally superior to me since they're accepted by popular views and I'm not. Therefore, I theorize that their bullying comments was to gain a sense of superiority by highlighting in their minds that they're following convention while I'm not, and that the people in their car are approving by way of their probable laughter at their antics.

What most offends me is that I view this as unjust treatment considering I'm a great adherent to the golden rule. I treat others as I desire to be treated, and psychologically this has made me very tolerant of non-essential (i.e. not concerning morality) differences. I often walk shirtless and shoeless in public and expect to be respected on that matter and left alone, and in return I leave other people alone on their stylistic choices and practices in public, whether it be wearing what I'd consider offensive or absurd clothing, or strange practices such as walking with one's hands in the air (yes, I've seen that in the past). I've even seen a man walking around in a neon green suit before and only casually looked at him, not feeling motivated to stare or even comment on it in the privacy in my mind. When other people treat me rudely about my differences while I'm respecting theirs I feel unjustly treated since I'm granting them something they're not returning.

Whatever their comments, I'm not going to stop this practice. It has nothing to do with other people, not even showing off my physique to women I might find attractive. I'm engaged entirely in my own matters and wish these people would just tend to their own.

Mistakes

I wonder: How much of a trend could it possibly be that people will assume a person is innately incompetent or ignorant if they make a mistake, no matter how much they demonstrate that they have corrected themselves? I'm thinking in terms of things like forgetting directions to a place or performing a work task incorrectly, not immoral stuff.

Lately I've noticed I've been nurturing a rather irrational premise about mistakes that has been making me fearful of people watching me cook. I don't mind the prospect of accidentally ruining my meal and learning from my errors, I just don't like it if there are witnesses around, and I think that it may be due to some irrational ideas regarding the nature of mistakes itself.

In the past whenever I would make a mistake it was treated with near absolute disbelief that I was capable of learning or correcting my ways, as when I would err the people around me would then endlessly try to correct and guide me, way beyond reasonable or rational expectations. For instance, if I previously had difficulty remembering the directions to a certain location the person guiding me there would then ceaselessly give me directions to it and quiz me upon it for weeks, even months, longer than ever needed, and they would outright ignore my improvement and correction and continue on with their guidance. In other words, after having made a mistake I would commonly find myself being treated as I weren't capable of learning from that mistake. Thus, I tend to fear people observing my mistakes because I fear it's going to lead them to try and correct me upon it nearly without end, and ignore any proof that I have learned. For goodness sake, some people have even taken to offering me directions to a place I've traveled to literally over a dozen times.

It's okay to offer constructive criticism, but beyond a certain point it becomes insulting. One needs to keep a watch on the evidence that the person is either improving themselves or have totally corrected themselves, otherwise you're ignoring their ability and treating them unjustly.

The reason why I wonder whether this part of a trend in the philosophical culture is because it has a nature as an idea: That mistakes are somehow evidence of a person's inability to perform or learn. And that in effect may be related to another philosophical idea: That ability and talent is innate and outside of one's capacity for development; you either have it or you don't. Given that, a person with that idea might be overly disturbed at their mistakes since they might believe they have no natural capacity to do otherwise, and a like person witnessing someone make mistakes may assume that a person needs to be forever guided in that endeavor otherwise they'll unavoidably fail on their own.

Have you noticed this trend in your own life?

The Fear of Telling the Good They're Good?

A mentality I've never understood is the one that actually feels fear towards the prospect of telling someone that they're good. Even in an irrational circumstance I can imagine being afraid of morally condemning someone for fear of hostility, but what is it that's just so darned scary about giving someone a compliment, like letting them know what a good job they're doing?

To use myself as an example, someone once put money in a card and gave it to me as a reward for the work that I did, but when I approached them to offer my thanks they had a facial expression indicating fear about the subject. In an even stranger incident -- really strange -- someone once mailed me a card that contained lavish praise, probably in recognition of my intelligence, and the absurd thing is that I happened to be living with the person at the time, which means they took the effort to write on a card, put it in an envelope with a stamp, and actually drive to mailbox so that it could be mailed back to us. If I remember correctly, they even omitted a return address to ensure I wouldn't recognize it when they handed me the envelope (since they got the mail). Not only was it ridiculous, the person also refused to acknowledge its contents to me in person.

Again, just what's so frightening about justly complimenting or praising someone? I can't even project this mentality, as when I see virtue I acknowledge it explicitly without hesitation or emotional resistance. It not only feels right, but seems natural to me. I dole out just praise where deserved since I know it's wrong to withhold it, and how bittering it can be to be in a situation where your good nature seems to be unappreciated or not even seen.

To offer such recognition is important, as it's part of the process of pursuing and keeping values. If a worker goes unrecognized for his exemplary efforts, then what will motivate him to sustain his momentum? What will keep him attached to his job and prevent him seeking career satisfaction elsewhere? And in the personal realm, what will keep friends together?

To desire such recognition is not irrational. For the most part, it doesn't even involve the desire for reward, like money, promotion, or gifts. People like me just want to know that our virtues are being seen and that they are appreciated, otherwise it's easy to feel as if you're being taken for granted or that the surrounding people aren't even aware of the virtue. It's difficult to put forth all that effort in being who you are when you seem to be treated equally to those inferior, or to even witness others be rewarded, such as with more working hours, when you provide more value and haven't gotten what you deserve. It's upsetting and even angering, and the end result of such an experience is a sense of detachment from the organization or persons being unjust, which will make them the losers in the end when you feel free to move onto other endeavors in life without them.

And offering recognition cannot be satisfied by overused sayings like "Good job," or "'Preciate it." They're said so often that they seem reflexive, and their overuse makes them ring hollow. Different phrases, perhaps one or two full sentences (gasp!), are needed to show that a person is seen and appreciated. For instance, saying "Thank you for doing that. I really appreciate it," may seem insignificant, but its wording is so out of common convention that it's more likely to garner the person's attention and show that he's being acknowledged. It's not that difficult to figure out different variations.

Human relationships cannot be taken for granted. Without the right means to sustaining them they're inherently unstable and easily destructible. An employee taken for granted might without second thought accept a better position at another place even if they hold no resentment against their current employers, and a friend might quickly take to moving to another state if their friends value them too quietly. A person might value their employer or their friends, but unless they know they're valued back, what keeps them?

On the flip-side of the coin, why do some people feel unbearable shyness to praise? I've known some people to get extremely nervous when given compliments, and they might even go so far as to distance themselves from me when that happens. When I'm given praise and assess that it is just, I feel spiritually refueled and have my contentment boosted.

Usually in thinking about how other people respond to certain things I am able to project their mentality to some degree since I can compare them to other parts of my life, especially my time before becoming an Objectivist, but this time I positively cannot. It's utterly confusing.

Why I like Dragon Ball Z

Ever since I identified what I loved about conventional villains I have been consistently sensitive as to how artists portray moral characters in their works. For a long time it used to concern me as to why I liked feeling "evil," but now I see it's rather the case that I'm responding to virtue which has been improperly mixed into villainy.

To recap my previous writing, I've learned that the reason why I admire villains so much is because they're often given virtuous traits that are withheld from the heroes. It's not the evil I admire, but the specific virtues which can be cast into isolation and appreciated individually, such as intelligence, strength, and physical attractiveness. I made this identification while playing a video game, Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (which I sold). Near the end of the game the anti-villain, Bowser, gets trapped in a safe and is abandoned by the heroes in favor of other pursuits. What confused me was my emotions: I felt a great sympathy for the unfortunate Bowser, especially considering he might suffocate, and felt contempt for the heroes being so indifferent. It was strange to me as to how I could feel positive emotions towards an evil character, but I found the answer in the fact that many of the facts in the game don't match the evaluations you're encouraged to adopt. For instance, Bowser is portrayed as a very unhealthy eater, as he eats almost nothing but meat while the Mario Bros. are strict vegetarians, but despite the fact the game developers want you to think Bowser is unhealthy it is an obvious fact that Bowser is much bigger, stronger, and resilient than the Mario Bros., and is lean for his body type while the Bros. have fat bellies. Furthermore, in contemplating the Mario Bros. series as a whole I learned that there are other facets to Bowser's character that makes him more admirable as a person than the Bros. In fact, if one were to omit his evil intentions, he'd be the greatest hero of the Mushroom Kingdom. I highly recommend reading my above linked essay to see by which concretes I reached that conclusion.

But this interpretation isn't limited to the Mario Bros. series; it's all over art. Very often is it the case that the villains are utterly fantastic while the heroes are hardly worth mentioning. By making an integration from M&L:BIS to the whole Mario Bros. series and then to art in general, I learned why I was usually never satisfied at the sight of conventional heroes triumphing over villains, and why I always faintly admired super villains. Because of how the culture is set up philosophically, many traits which are actually virtuous -- such as ambition, self-esteem, and pride -- are given to villains as a symbol of their evil, and the heroes constructed to defeat them them usually contain their antipodes, such as laziness, self-loathing, and humility. Most interesting could be when an artist creates these characters of these natures without intending to. I'm sure the creator of the Mario Bros. would not condemn strength as a vice, but that Bowser is given physical might while Mario is deprived of it -- is quite revealing.

Now that I know what specific traits I admire in villains I can sit more comfortably in my admiration, but, of course, I cannot get total spiritual satisfaction this way. While Bowser has the potential for being a moral giant, it is still the case that he is actually immoral in his pursuit for dictatorship, so while he's exciting as a character he's still worthy of condemnation. The same goes for most all villains, so the virtuous traits that have improperly been handed to them goes to waste artistically. Where are the true heroes?

Happily, I think I've found a series that provides nearly unadulterated virtue. Yes, as the title might indicate, I'm talking about the classic animated series, Dragon Ball Z. Recently an abridged version has starting airing, Dragon Ball Z Kai. I didn't appreciate the series very much as a child, but I thought it would be enjoyable to watch it anyhow on Saturday mornings, now as a more keen adult. To my surprise, I learned that there is a significant amount of good philosophy in this series. There are some negative elements of mysticism, such as magic and otherworldly dimensions, but the basic premises of the relation of good to evil more than makes up for it. The villains are very exciting to witness and attractive to the eye, but they have flaws that severely undermine their character, like painted warts on an attractive portrait, and the heroes not only have the moral high ground, but also possess authentic virtue that makes one glad they can claim morality. The portrayal of evil is intensely intriguing and awe-inspiring, and at the same time the heroes always manage to come up much more incredible and admirable in the end. In short, I find that this series has an extremely good conception of heroism, one that is both authentically good and spiritually satisfying, regardless of the mysticism. Given the prevalence around the web of the image of the super saiyan, I suspect that people recognize this virtue on an emotional level and admire it accordingly. I don't think I've ever seen anyone portray in a positive light the villains: It's always the heroes, usually one who can transform into this golden form, or the heroes actively beating up the villains.

Fan or not in the past, I have seen the majority of the series; watching DBZK is simply a more thorough experience. In introspecting the whole series I have noticed that these themes of the nature of good and evil are very consistent throughout, thereby making the show very philosophically consistent. As such, I'd like to exhaustively detail my observations about the series in the hopes of persuading you to value it as well, perhaps enough so to get up on Saturday mornings to watch it as well.

Before I start, however, I'd like to make a few things clear. First off, no background knowledge of the series is necessary. Since I'm taking the time to exhaustively detail my observations, at least as much as I can for one essay, I will explain how certain things function in the series, such as what exactly is the nature of a "super saiyan." Secondly, I'm going to do the best I can to exclude mention of any filler, movies, or Dragon Ball GT. As far as my knowledge goes, this material does not correspond with the original graphic novel series from which the "true" animation derives its source material, so I omit them in order to keep my points consistent since some of the material, such as the movies or GT, are not entirely consistent with the moral philosophy I've derived from the show. (Note: filler in anime is animation used to take up time and is not consistent with the source graphic novel.) My secondary purpose in doing this is so that my points reflect upon the original artist himself as much as possible, so including material he didn't create would prevent such an examination on his being. Finally, since I don't have access to the original DBZ that aired on Cartoon Network's Toonami I am largely writing from memory and may not be absolutely accurate, so I ask anyone more knowledged in the series to correct any inaccurate information.

Now then, let us examine DBZ, a series with true heroism.

The Heroism

Primarily, this is a series about physical ability at extraordinary levels. It revolves largely around the fighting lives of a few select martial arts masters, and how they cultivate and use these abilities to destroy evil beings who happen to have the same abilities as well, if not more. The potential for strength development is literally infinite: while there may be limits on muscle volume, there is none on density or strength, so the characters transition from being able to lift boulders to be able to move mountains, and then to even destroying entire planets. They learn of laws of reality known to few but accessible to everyone, and train themselves to command nature like a god, learning everything from how to fly, shoot disembodied energy, teleport, and more. All these techniques are available to all beings within this universe, but they're only known to a severely limited amount of people and, worse yet, only taken advantage of by rare individuals. Anyone can potentially fly, but even as millions of people witness these rare individuals do so in the fighting arena it forever remains a novel sight, one that no one ever seriously considers learning how to identify the nature of. The rare individuals are hardly gifted, though to some extent are. They are in contact with the same reality as everyone else, though decide to take advantage of it in a unique way and become superhuman only by the virtue of their breath-taking effort. Goku, the main hero in the series, did not get to being able to move entire worlds just by fact of his birth: It took years of brutal and agonizing effort in order to reach the heights he has, effort that very few have matched and even fewer have attempted.

Most admirable in this realm is that the heroes are self-made. Sure, the heroes may have some advantages which may make them superior to the average human being, such as Piccolo's ability to instantly regrow limbs or Goku's ability to instantly get stronger after healing from a fight, but by and large it took intense effort for the heroes to build themselves up to where they are. They constantly train, persevere in brutal conditions, and never so much as contemplate giving up even after agonizing injury. It is through the sole exercise of their freewill have they moved themselves to accomplish such, and by this they claim total credit for what they have achieved.

The moral righteousness practiced in the main heroes is totally pure of any poisonous elements, even that of altruism. Any fight to defend the good is done so with the passion only possible to men morally certain that their position is right, and they act not out of sacrifice, but to protect their values: Their freedom, loved ones, and life. Given the stupendous strength the heroes possess, it is no less than exalting to see that they possess the moral high ground, making them fully the giants who deserve to be giants. No where is moral purity better portrayed than in the series' main hero, Goku.

Goku is the epitome of morality in this series. He is free of bad elements, conflicts, and any chosen vices. Near the first part of the show he is victim to a few intellectual errors, but he does not stay static with his beliefs and so corrects them when he learns better. He is so pure of evil that for many years he literally couldn't even conceive of it, and has a virtually nonexistent capacity for anger until he witnesses the most extreme of evils. As a child he once fought a devil-like man who used a special ability to make people explode through the power of their evil thoughts. In a flashback the devil-man indicated that he once even made a "pure" monk, a being with control over his mental processes, explode sheerly by whatever dust specks of evil was within him. And yet, when he tried the same technique on Goku all it did was make an aura of colors surround him, prompting him to comment on how pretty the technique was. Goku was so innocent that morality was simply his natural, near-instinctual state, one so strong that for a long time he literally didn't even think about evil. His outlook on life matches his inner state, for he believes that there's good in everyone, and even if he meets someone evil he must be pushed to his utmost limit to fully believe that they're irredeemable.

This last facet constitutes a naivete' which Goku holds only since his worldview is so strongly benevolent, and unfortunately it causes him a lot of grief in the series. He very seldom kills bad guys, instead opting to injure them and leave them to redeem themselves, which unfortunately has turned out to happen in the majority of the cases, thereby fueling his ignorance. He even gives mass murderers a chance at redemption, which time and time again comes back to haunt him in the form of injury or stronger evil in the future. It is unfortunate that Goku should have had this trait, but he adopted it out of pure innocence in the belief that good is so potent as to be nearly irresistibly persuasive. Who can blame him given the amount of evidence he obtains throughout his life? After all, the vast majority of the heroes, even the greatest ones, started out as villains.

With rare exception, almost everyone that Goku has met in his life has started out with evil intentions. Yamcha was a thief in the desert. Tien and Chiaotzu were training to become professional assassins. Piccolo planned on enslaving the world. In various degrees did these villains practice their creed, but upon being confronted by Goku they were put in their place and gave up their malicious strivings out of uncoerced choice In each case Goku never actually forces them to change their course through the threat of retaliation or destruction, but rather convinces them of the impotence of their evil by way of their defeat. After witnessing the impotence of their evil ambitions, the villains then transform themselves into moral beings, even going so far as to redeem themselves absolutely by becoming the greatest heroes in the universe.

It took many years for Goku to even conceive of the slightest possibility of there being someone absolutely irredeemable, someone so vile that it's impossible for them to make amends. Even after Vegeta, a villain at the start of the series, becomes responsible for murder, Goku allows him to depart for his planet in the belief that mercy would be the proper thing to show in order to give Vegeta the chance at redemption. Even Frieza, one of the most memorable and main villains, is given a hefty account from which to withdraw second chances from, even as Goku's friends are slaughtered, including his best friend Krillin.

This naive belief, while destructive, is not permanent. Goku finally learns of his error after defeating Frieza. After Frieza gets sliced in two by his own energy disk, he begs Goku to show him mercy, for he'll never go about his evil ways again. He was entirely trying to take advantage of Goku's good nature. Being pressed by his moral premises, Goku undertakes to heal Frieza in order to give him enough strength to be mobile, and intends, out of disgust, to let Frieza escape the about to explode planet they were on on his own. While Goku is flying away, however, Frieza tries to kill him with one last attack, to which Goku responds by blasting Frieza into near oblivion. Upon arriving back to Earth, Goku fully recognizes that some people in the world are so vilely evil that they simply will forgo every chance at redemption, and so must be destroyed in order to be fully defeated. After that realization, Goku always took the effort to vanquish every evil thereafter, but still -- to some extent he held onto his old premises. While he knew evil needed to be destroyed, he still held onto the notion that there was always the slightest chance at redemption. Before he defeated the final villain of the series, Kid Buu, he openly speaks aloud that he hopes that Buu gets reincarnated as a better person, and god rewards Goku by doing just that.

Goku's morality is not sacrificial; it always comes with reward. In convincing the major heroes to give up their evil ways and redeem themselves, Goku is rewarded with their friendship, respect, and protection. Everything Goku does is either to gain a value or protect an existing one. Some of the more knowledged fans may be tempted to point out to me that Goku "sacrificed" himself when he allowed himself to be killed in the act of teleporting away a self-destructing android, but in reality that is not a true sacrifice since Goku would have died either way. In order to protect his loved ones -- there was a heaven anyways -- he gave himself; if he did not, then he would have died along with his loved ones as well.

In the period that Goku is dead (people can be brought back to life in this series), he is rewarded by earning a spot in a kind of "Super Heaven," a heaven above heaven. In that heaven the very best people in the universe group together to practice their favorite thing for all of eternity: martial arts. What is a more just reward for Goku than to have him spend all of time with his moral equivalents engaged in his exalted passion? All of the other heroes -- again, once villains -- also manage to earn a spot in this special heaven.

Unlike other conventional heroes, the heroes here are physically attractive, intelligent, strong, resilient, and, most importantly, self-made. They are not average ordinary folk "like you and me," but rather giants who have accomplished something that is possible to all, but only reached by few. For once, these are moral beings who deserve the honor of triumphing over evil, and it is very pleasurable to watch them do so.

The goodness of the characters seems to correspond with the universe itself, as if it were inherent in nature for the good to dominate.

The Benevolent Universe Premise

Not only are the heroes giants in their skills, but evil is also largely absent to begin with. In the world depicted in DBZ, it's shown that times are largely that of peace. There have been mentions of war and the like, but the only things you're shown are peaceful countrysides, peaceful villages, peaceful towns, and peaceful cities. As far as I know, the only major worldly threat that involved mostly normal humans was that of the Red Ribbon army, and even with the great quantity of evil there Goku defeated it single-handedly as a child. Evil is largely absent in the majority of mankind, and things such as robberies appear as a tiny drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things. After all, many of the heroes could defeat a robber literally with one finger. The truly competent evil belongs to very few select individuals, and each has a short reign. Regardless of their age, Frieza, Cell, and Majin Buu were all defeated within approximately a week after confronting the Z fighters.

Moreover, when defeated evil is the one to stay down. In conventional portrayals it is usually the villains who come back time and time again after each defeat, resolve unharmed, while the heroes protrude an aura of luck given that they might not survive a single defeat. This is an obvious display of the malevolent universe premise in modern philosophy, the notion that the universe is set to metaphysically favor evil and doom man to frustration, suffering, and destruction. If one will take the Megaman series of video games as an example, the same root evil comes back to haunt the heroes time after time for centuries, maybe even millennia. It's impossible to enjoy any sense of the heroes truly overcoming evil since they never make any headway and are doomed to lifelong fruitless fighting.

It is possible for people to come back to life in this series, but the villains are always exempt from the benefit. It is always the heroes and good people who get to come back to the world while the villains continue to suffer in Hell. The heroes may be beaten, battered, severely injured and tortured, and even killed, but they always come back indefinitely. Villains? But one life to live, and they're gone forever.

All the villains arrive on the scene with ferocious strength that dwarfs the Z fighters in the beginning, but in the end the Z fighters not only triumph, but do so with overwhelming force, annihilating evil excessively beyond any necessary minimum requirement for their destruction, showing how powerful the good is in comparison. The final two villains, Cell and Buu, are totally vaporized in one fell swoop while at full health and peak energy. The despicable reigns of terror are brought to an end with the greatest of destruction, with salt and citrus acid rubbed in their wounds. What once started out as an nearly invulnerable threat now hardly registers in our beings, and we never feel impressed by outdated powers of the villains again: They're being pushed around in Hell now by insultingly lesser beings, weaker demons. The good guys do eventually temporarily situate themselves in Hell -- not out of deserts of course, and they do get out -- and the old bad guys of the past pounce and are immediately overcome in a joking matter, as if they weren't worth taking as serious threats anymore.

The jokes are another good aspect of this series. While not of high quality, they are very innocent and treat the heroes respectfully, thereby not undermining their characters and making us lose respect. For instance, when Goku travels to Other World after his first death he is sent to train with a king on a small planet. The king, however, mistakingly believes that Goku is there for comedic training, and so requires Goku to make him laugh with a joke. Goku is a terrible joker, so he assumes a fighting stance, cringes his face, and shouts, "I sold my car for gas money!" (in DBZK) The incongruity of Goku's body gestures with his words brought a smile to my face. This type of humor is a constant through the series, making you laugh with the heroes instead of at them, and the only insults are hurled at the villains. Much of the subtle humor, in fact, can be found in character of the villains themselves, though it takes a keen eye. The villains may look appealing to the eye at first glance, but they have several characteristics in their behavior, appearance, and actions that works together to undermine the severity of their being and make us take them a little less seriously.

Treatment of Evil

Given the mild complexity of each major villain, I'd like to dedicate separate space to all three in order to give full justice to their foolishness. Theme-wise, they have defects in their character and aesthetic appearance, are mostly not self-made beings, and in addition to being impotent in their aspirations they assist in their own destruction.

Frieza: The first thing that strikes the eye is how utterly feminine he looks. Yes, that's right: He's a male, not a female. When I first saw him I think it may have taken years for me to correct that misconception. His colors are queenly, he has an hourglass figure, his finger and toenails are black as if they had been painted, it looks like he's wearing lipstick, and he has the husky voice of an obese woman in menopause. To further the misconception, his first appearance shows him levitating in a throne-ish kind of pod, which gives off the appearance of him being a queen. He's a despicable and ruthless killer, but can you feel contempt at the same time thinking he might be using cosmetics?

In essence he's an intergalactic dictator. His purpose in life is to "sell" planets, in which he sends his henchmen to exterminate a planet's lifeforms to be sold as vacant in the future to those alien species willing to pay enough. It's entirely feasible to suppose that Frieza kills his own customers and again sells the planet. Mirroring the dictators in the real world, Frieza is also very insecure with his abilities, and is paranoid that some of his henchmen might become stronger than and overcome him. For this reason he undertakes to exterminate nearly an entire alien species, the saiyan race, the same genetic lineage that Goku belongs to. But even with that threat largely nullified he still maintains his paranoia. Consequently, he travels to another planet to collect magical orbs called dragon balls, which, when all seven are gathered, can summon a dragon that can grant three wishes. Frieza's wish is for eternal life. In this pursuit he is responsible for the murder of countless people.

To his ultimate dismay, however, his effort was entirely futile to being with. After the heroes finally do manage to summon the dragon, Frieza flies over and shouts his wish at it, but of all the ironies: the dragon will not grant wishes spoken in anything other than Namekian, the dominate language of the planet. Given the heroic nature of all the Namekians on that planet, no would could even be tortured to speak his wish for him, so all his efforts were wasted for something unobtainable.

After failing in his venture, he's left on the about to explode planet with Goku, who had been pushed to achieving super saiyan mode, a genetic ability that modifies a saiyan's strength incredibly (and turns their hair golden and eyes blue), after Frieza killed his best friend. From there he fights a futile battle. Goku could have killed him at any time, but given his mistaken premise that evil can always redeem itself he only intended to punish Frieza with a beating and then leave him alone. As another irony, it is largely Frieza who destroys himself. A disk of pure energy was traveling right towards him, and moved by his benevolent nature Goku tried to warn him. Frieza's paranoia and distrust made him believe that Goku was trying to fool him into looking away, and didn't listen. He paid dearly with having his arm, tail, and torso sliced off. He begged Goku then to help him, trying to appeal to his good nature, and promised never to engage in evil again. Goku gave in and healed him so that he would be mobile, but Frieza betrayed the gesture and tried kill Goku one more time, earning him one final blast from Goku that subsumed his whole body. He was then left for dead, but only got slightly more injured, even after the planetary explosion.

After being reconstructed with robotic parts, he traveled to Earth in order to try and kill Goku's loved ones, but was met by future Trunks, a saiyan from the future, and almost insultingly overwhelmed. One of Frieza's major attacks, for instance, was pushed away with a single finger. His deathblow came from being sliced in half and exploded into ashes. What once was a sick dictator is just another soul in Hell.

Cell: Cell is an organic android who is able to able to utilize the DNA and powers of the people he absorbs with his tail, and he can make only the best genes express themselves in the most positive way. His pursuit is for a perverted sense of "perfection": He desires to be the most physically perfect and powerful being in the universe, and to destroy anything lesser than he is. He is the epitome of a not self-made being. In the series he's practically freshly born and is probably only truly two-weeks old when he grows into a full-powered adult, so the only way he could have developed himself the way he did was through stealing other people's abilities and strength. Obviously he is meant to give off the appearance of an insect, and we can derive from his absorption and perverted notion of "perfection" that he is a parasite. In the architect world, his character equivalent is Peter Keating. Is he so foolish that he thinks he can become great by stealing other people's greatness?

His exoskeleton, while "cool," looks bizarre if we're to think how it would translate to the real world. Things sticking out everywhere, squeaky hinges at each step, and a deformed looking tail sticking out between his shoulder blades. In personality he is entirely arrogant to an annoying extreme, mostly because he obviously doesn't deserve any pride for his stolen powers. His confidence is inflated with just a heavy gas, and it contributes to his downfall.

Goku's son, Gohan, was the one to defeat Cell, and interestingly enough Gohan could have defeated Cell almost any time he wanted during the final battle. The only problem is that Gohan had a personal conflict: He thought that the release of his fullest potential would result in him losing control and destroying everything he valued. For this reason he largely abstained from fighting Cell, causing Cell to start taunting him and try harming his loved ones. It wasn't until a once-pacifist android convinced him that it was alright to use his fullest strength to protect his loved ones that he released his restraints. Upon doing so, he gave Cell a severe and painful beating, even temporarily causing him to revert back to a previous, less powerful state.

The final blow came through a showdown of two conflicting energy waves that confronted each other in equal strength and stayed in one position ("Kamehameha" waves). If either Cell or Gohan weakened in his exertion of the attack, then the other would be overcome fatally by the opponent. Feeling inflatedly confident about his strength, Cell didn't give his fullest attention to his attack, and allowed himself to glance at the surroundings when one of the heroes tried to antagonize him. During this period of foolish distraction Gohan then allowed his fullest potential to show through while heavily injured and with one arm, overcoming Cell and vaporizing him. Even if Cell had been paying attention he would have still been doomed, but it is noteworthy how unseriously he took the situation even as he was in a fatal position.

Majin Buu: Majin Buu is the final and strongest villain in the series, and I think my images practically speak for themselves. The fat version is known as Fat Buu or Mr. Buu, and that's how he's first seen in the series. The slimmer version is when the evil escapes from Mr. Buu and reverts back to Buu's original form, Kid Buu. Kid Buu stands mighty at four feet tall, is probably made out of taffy (literally), and is strong only because he was born that way. All his abilities, including being able to reassemble his body parts instantaneously and learn fighting moves just by watching, are only the result of magical powers he has by default of his birth.

Aside from his obscene pinkness and bizarre build, his biggest failing is that in all forms he has the psychology of a young child, and at worst he's totally insane and whim-driven. Even more embarrassing, he doesn't have access to his full power unless he throws a screaming tantrum. Near the end of the series he nearly causes the metaphysical fabric between dimensions to rip apart just because he's screaming so loudly out of frustration. Unless he's throwing a fit like that, he has no access to that strength.

His deathblow is virtually all his own fault. Goku managed to gather up into a giant ball all the available energy of Earth and its population, and had tossed it directly at Kid Buu. The ball moved slowly enough that Buu had more than enough time to move or teleport out of the way, but with his pure insanity he decided to take on the ball and try pushing it back. He was successful for a short while, but a wish made with the Namekian dragon gave Goku back all his energy and allowed him to push back with far less than his full strength. Kid Buu was absolutely overtaken and destroyed on the atomic level.

Kid Buu is most representative of how evil is treated in this series, as he's the final and most important villain. Most noteworthy is that he's the most evil: He destroys and murders not in pursuit of anything, but for its own sake, whereas Frieza and Cell were at least after something. And what kind of being was concocted to represent the embodiment of pure evil? An atrociously pink monster with the build and temper of a child, and lacking the least bit sanity. To give an idea of his insanity, when he blows up planets he makes little efforts to get off them beforehand, instead opting to get blown to smithereens along with them. His magical ability to regrow and reform his body is all that prevents him from dying. It's a curious question as to whether he can even speak coherently, as he only speaks a single sentence and spends the rest of the time screaming, grunting, and growling.

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To look back on this section as a whole, the second and third main villains, Cell and Buu, have debatable competence. Each has special healing abilities that allows him to fully heal from any attack as long as it isn't too severe. Cell is able to regrow his entire body in mere seconds so long as a single cell of his is left alive. During his fight with Goku he goes so far as to get his upper body completely blown off, but he instantly regrows it at a quick enough pace to resume fighting. Buu, on the other hand, can come back so long as his atoms are intact. In his fight with the fused being Gotenks he is burnt to ashes, and yet is able to gather up his dust and reform himself multiple times quicker than Cell ever could. To think of it, Buu wouldn't even need to retaliate if fought, for he could lay on the ground and survive literally nearly any explosive force applied to him.

These healing abilities make these two villains' competence questionable since they're utilized so often in the series. If they lacked them, then the Z fighters would have killed them nearly immediately. Are they such bad fighters that they cannot avoid such damaging attacks and are protected by their special healing ability, or do they feel so secure with it that they don't take the effort to fight to their fullest? I don't know.

* * * * *

Given such a display of heroism and villainy, it comes as no surprise that many people favor the image of the super saiyan. The super saiyan state is representative of the strongest state the heroes can achieve, and with its golden overcast it's a beautiful juxtaposition against the villains. I've never seen anyone depict favorably any villain from the series. In fact, there's an animated image out there that shows a frustrated Super Buu trying to strike Gohan, only to be effortlessly blocked. I think that people admire the heroism of the series on an emotional level, even if they aren't able to make explicit why they feel such admiration. Simply put, we as humans desire our heroes to be morally righteous through the exercise of strength, rather than possess the moral high ground out of default of their weakness. Goku and his friends are incredible given what extreme heights they're able to achieve through effort alone, and it's satisfying to the soul to see them overcome evil with dramatic and heroically excessive force. It's refreshing during a time in which the malevolent universe premise dominates the culture, and the villains are always superior to the heroes and are able to come back from any failure an infinite amount of times. The conventional portrayals gives us hum-drum heroes who excite us none at all and leave us unsatisfied whatever their successes are, since we know another evil is just around the corner, waiting to cause more suffering. It might be a slight virtue to see conventional heroes have limitless resolve in combating endless evil, but that resolve does not extend to the bystander: It's such a bleak picture to see indefeatable evil like that. DBZ is clean of those failings.

To further emphasize my point, I'd like to provide a contrast with another popular animation series, Naruto.

Contrast: Naruto

This series is about ninjas that use a mystical force known as "chakra" (magic, as far as I'm concerned) in order to pull off mystical feats, such as creating clones out of thin air, breathing fire, holding a ball of electricity, and so on. In addition, there are also these mystical demons known as bijuu which are the most powerful beings in the world and are oftentimes fused inside the soul of a human host both in order to restrain the demon and concentrate its power. Explicitly, the purpose of the series is for Naruto, the main character, to become the greatest ninja in history and establish world peace. It's not finished yet, but there is enough information to derive a philosophy from.

Most interesting to me is that it seems that the show's own fans tend to hate it to some extent. I've only sampled one message board and admit my lack of research, but by far the most consistent trend I've noticed is how often the people complain about how deplorable the characters are. Such annoyance and hatred has spawned words such as "Narutard" and "Sasukgay," slurs of the names of the main characters Naruto and Sasuke. Given the exact nature of the show, I attribute this not to nihilism, the despising of values because they are values, but rather to an emotional recognition that these people aren't truly admirable as heroes, but given they are portrayed as heroes arouses a sense of disgust.

To start, the main characters all have severe failings. Naruto, the lead character, is often portrayed as incompetent, immature, unintelligent, and lacking in ability. He later does develop himself into a very able ninja, but it's hard to appreciate his work when considering the fact that he has a bijuu sealed inside of him, the most powerful one of them of all. This bijuu gives him way more power than he would otherwise have on his own, so watching him in his most powerful states is equally impressive as watching someone hack into a video game and unfairly modify a character's strength. Goku may have had certain genetic gifts as part of being a saiyan, particularly the ability to go super saiyan, but it is still the case that he'd had to exert exhaustive effort to realize his potential. While Naruto does have great work ethic, it's hard to ignore how many advantages the demon gives him. Worse yet, Naruto often needs a lot of help from other people in order to obtain the strength he does, such as using a mentor to keep his murderous temper under control while perfecting an explosive technique or having his mother help restrain his bijuu while he took power from it. Naruto is hardly self-made.

The other characters have incredible irrational sides that are almost sickening. Kakashi is a master ninja who can copy techniques just by watching them with the use of a magical eye inherited from his dead friend, but while he's extremely competent his character is severely insulted by the fact he openly reads pornography in public and makes no effort to hide it. Sasuke is the secondary main character who once dedicated himself to avenging the murder of his family and species (there are great difference in genetics despite everyone being human), but despite his early claims for justice he quickly develops into an emotionalistic murderer who gives in to his worst emotions and whims. Sakura is a genius and expert medical ninja, but she feels a great love for Sasuke even after she finds out how vile he's become, and the worst thing is that it isn't true love at all: From the start it was always lust divorced from character; Sasuke has always been deplorable and unworthy of admiration. With main "heroes" like these, it's no wonder people think so lowly of the series.

This series is positively soaked in emotionalism. Most, if not all, of the characters are driven by their blind, irrational emotions which they refuse to acknowledge are nonsense. Naruto, for instance, is pursuing secondarily the redemption of whom he considers his best friend, Sasuke. It is positively asinine that Naruto feels any sense of positive emotion towards Sasuke, as Sasuke has not only become a whim-driven murderer in general, but has tried to murder Naruto at least five times, including trying to burn him alive, stick his hand through Naruto's heart, and slam his brains out by driving him headfirst into the ground. How in the hell can Naruto feel an iota of affection for Sasuke after this? That he does indicates a warped psychology and makes him more repulsive as a hero.

The worst effect that the emotionalism has is that it saps the emotional energy of the series by making so many things unbelievable. Gaara, a once mentally disturbed individual who had intense urges to commit murder and would relish in the act, gives up on his sick ways only because he's "moved" by Naruto's affection for his friends. Given how extremely sick Gaara was portrayed, one cannot believe anything making him better except a mental ward. Furthermore, a major villain in the series, Pein, gives up on his evil ways only because Naruto manages to make him "feel" that his path is righteous by the sheer force of his emotion, as if he somehow transferred his emotional energy across the room. It happens so suddenly that it's a blatant display of whim-worship.

Naruto's strength is the worst aspect, for it too is emotionally driven. Similar to Majin Buu, Naruto for a long time could not access his full power -- power from the demon of course -- unless he got angry and lost his temper. He goes to a state that similar to that of going super saiyan in that it modifies his strength, but it's disgusting in that it makes him glow with a blood red aura, develop more whisker marks on his cheeks, grow larger teeth, grow sharper nails, and run on all fours like a wild animal. He takes to growling and snarling too, and even resorts to such flailing attacks as scratching. In this mode he is almost entirely whim-driven, and those whims serve the source of his power. If he goes into even more powerful states, symbolized by how many tails he has, then he faces the possibility of losing his mind altogether, drowning in hate-filled emotions and trying to murder everything in sight. Will we want to hang portraits on the wall of heroes who need tantrums to order to be their most potent?

But there are actually admirable heroes, though I don't know much about them. They are the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Hokages, the leaders of Naruto's ninja village elected to lead solely due to their extreme competence. For all I know, these men practiced pure virtue and are giants among everyone else, though have the misfortune to all pass away. What's their big reward for their virtue? Why, being stuck in the stomach of the Death God, bathing in stomach acid for all of eternity! In order to try and stop a villain from achieving his evil ambitions, the Third performs a technique which pulls souls out and effectively sends them to hell, and while he fails to take the villain, he intentionally gets himself, the First, and the Second Hokage's soul swallowed. What a just universe! Makes one think more fondly of that Super Heaven given to Goku and his friends, no?

All in all, I think this series is justly deplored, if it be popularly deplored, though again I think many people have yet to largely recognize intellectually what it is that they dislike about the series. They can probably point out the specific concrete acts of emotionalism that bother them and explain why, but alone they won't derive the principle of emotionalism and see how it applies to all acts.

Final Thoughts

In the end, I offer my highest recommendation for the Dragon Ball Z series, especially that of Kai, which is much more enjoyable due to its faster pace in my opinion. There may be a bad element of mysticism, but it's harmless given that it only serves as part of the show's mechanics rather than as an intricate focus of it. The universe is just, the villains fantastic and despicable, and the heroes awesome and admirable. With such a good underlying morality it's no wonder why this series has become so popular, and it well deserves it.

This will continue to be my Saturday morning enjoyment, and I state it without hesitation that I enjoy it. I don't care that it's marketed to children, all I care about is that it has an absorbing story and exciting depiction of the triumph of the heroic over evil.

Today's culture leaves so much to be desired with its lame, "everyday" heroes, such as how fat, dwarfish plumbers defeat a powerful dragon with far more merit for respect. For too long now have I admired the villains of a series and shown no respect towards the heroes, leaving me without spiritual guidance. Even if I do explicitly admire a villain, how can I dare strive to be like him knowing that I consider him evil? For once, in Dragon Ball Z I've found heroes. Not average men, nitwits, or lazy sloths. Heroes.