The central character Satan in John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost has been interpreted as closely aligned with the complexities of the human faculty of reason. The link between Satan and rational cognition was demonstrated in Lucifer and Prometheus, by R.J. Zwi Werblowsky.
Lucifer (Satan’s pre-rebellion “dead name”) carries the meanings of morning star, brightness, and light-bringing. Prometheus was a demigod who stole fire from the gods, gave knowledge of its use to humans, and was then punished for it by Zeus. Thus, the two figures of Lucifer and Prometheus are conceptually linked through the ideas of light, enlightenment, knowledge, wisdom, and reason. And also, evil. Recall that Mary Shelley’s monster reads Paradise Lost in her famous novel, fully entitled Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus.
Now, for many decades we’ve a magazine stomping around that goes by the name of Reason. It hoists a “libertarian” banner, yet it has devolved into the libertarian equivalent of The Daily Wire. It lures libertarians with red meat rhetoric (free minds and free markets!) only to upsell them on the imperial agenda.
Reason has become downright Satanic in the evil sense, promoting the cruel sacrifice of our children on the state’s altar. As for knowledge and enlightenment, not so much. And its titular elevation of “reason” is delusional.
Recently, Reason contributing editor Michael Moniyhan launched an unprovoked attack on Libertarian Institute Director Scott Horton. The attack was a masterclass in duplicity, willful misinterpretation, and intellectual depravity. Unraveling its sordid rhetorical moves will enlighten us on the cesspool of swift and sickening imperial discharge that is congealing at Reason.
First, Moniyhan conflated Scott with Noam Chomsky as ideologically “anti-American.” It was a slander on both men, but the subtle trick was to associate Scott with Chomsky’s leftist and socialist views. Scott is a solid libertarian. He believes all governments are evil. And he understands that there is a vast difference between America and the murder cult in Washington DC.
Yet even as Moniyhan laid into Noam, he revealed an ignorance one hopes is borne of convenience and opportunism:
“…you see the thing with Chomsky is that just the math doesn’t make sense. Could it possibly be that in every one of these foreign policy entanglements throughout the history of the United States that we’re the, the wrong, we’re the bad guy in this, right, in every single instance?”
It’s not math, Mikey. It’s not a coin toss. It’s called path dependency. And no one’s claiming the United States Imperial Government (USIG) is always the bad guy. But it’s always a bad guy.
Moynihan then turned on Scott:
“This you know, this guy that I saw, his name’s Scott Horton. I don’t know anything about him but he’s this antiwar.com, he’s libertarianish guy, but he wrote a book about Ukraine and what is the name of the book? Provoked. Provoked. It’s the name of the book. It’s just like we, we did it, it was us. Even in Ukraine, you know, the color revolutions, we are destabilizing people, no one else is ever doing this and you know Putin and Transnistria, they don’t care about that or something…”
Look, “we” didn’t do anything. The USIG did stuff. And yes, this included color revolutions all over the globe. But if you took the time to read Provoked (#1 in War and Peace on Amazon) you would have been enlightened by the fact that Scott writes about Transnistria:
“If Putin and his forces mean to take Transnistria, they will almost certainly have to take Odesa and the rest of the Black Sea coast first.”
But Moynihan attacked Provoked without reading it because he’s not a good person. He’s a bad person content to have the USIG fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. Scott cares that Odessa could fall to Moscow. He wants Odesa to avoid that fate and has warned about it repeatedly.
In February, the Reason Foundation (which publishes Reason) sponsored a SoHo Forum debate at Dartmouth College between Scott and Eli Lake regarding the USIG’s role in the Russia-Ukraine war. The debate audience was mostly Dartmouth students, many of whom had actually read Provoked and were interested to ask Scott about its substance (it has over 2,000 footnotes). Moniyhan would ship these young Americans off to die on the rare-earth element rich Ukrainian soil. Or in the sands of West Asia to defend Qatar or someone.
There was also a large group of female Ukrainian nationals in the audience. During the audience question section, one of these women took the microphone and insulted Scott, claiming his fact-based work was offensive to Ukrainians. As an American taxpayer, I was offended these people hadn’t stayed in Ukraine to fight for their country.
If they really cared about their home country, they would be mad at Reason, which truly seems hellbent on the USIG fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. But hey, I’m sure they have their reasons.
