Kantian Incarceration

By Roberto Diego

Copyright 2008 Roberto Diego

Copyright 2008 Roberto Diego.  No part of this article may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the copyright holder. This book is being offered to publishers who might be interested in publishing it as a hard cover or paper cover book.  If you are a publisher and would like to talk to the author about publication of this book, please contact by email robdiego@aol.com.

When the ground breaking book written by Copernicus (1473-1543) (De Revolutionibus) was published in 1543, the reader found in the Introduction of the book an argument by Andreas Osiander (1498-1552) that Copernicus’ idea that the earth revolved around the sun was not to be taken as an expression of truth but merely as a theory. 

This apology was considered to be necessary to hide Copernicus’ radical idea from the prying eyes of the Inquisition.  Had Osiander and Copernicus been living in a time of free expression, this apology would have been considered to be cowardly.   During those days, of course, one did not disagree with the Church.  The Inquisition was a vivid reminder that the Church held all authority on “the truth” and that disagreeing with  Scripture was tantamount to earning the wrath of God.  The fire at the stake that some martyrs experienced was justified as a mere taste of what awaited challengers at the hands of the Devil (Fortunately for him, Copernicus was already dead when his book was published).

Likewise, when Pope Urban held his private chats with his friend Galileo, a man who had already met the Inquisitor (the same man who had done the burning of Bruno in 1600), he was advised by Urban that he could write again if he phrased his argument in the form of a theoretical work.  Unfortunately, when Galileo phrased his next work, more as a satire, and put into the mouth of one of the characters the very words that the Pope had used against Copernicus, the once friendly Pope became enraged.  The point was clearly made by Urban during Galileo’s subsequent trial that science had a limit; it could not touch on the very truths that God himself had proclaimed.  Urban reminded Galileo that only an ignorant man could claim to know the inner truths that God intended; a mere man had no business stepping on the feet of the holy person who represented the highest truth of all.

I was reminded of this history of the battle between science and superstition while I read a great article by Ayn Rand called “From the Horse’s Mouth” where she dealt with the writings of a man praising the works of Immanuel Kant.  I noticed a parallel with the Church’s view that “theoretical” ideas didn’t infringe on the spiritual superiority of the Church. 

Rand writes in “From the Horse’s Mouth”:

“Professor Paulsen [the author of the book she is quoting] is a devoted Kantian; but, judging by his style of writing, he is an honest commentator—in the sense that he does not try to disguise what he is saying: "There are three attitudes of the mind towards reality which lay claim to truth,—Religion, Philosophy, and Science....In general, philosophy occupies an intermediate place between science and religion....The history of philosophy shows that its task consists simply in mediating between science and religion. It seeks to unite knowledge and faith, and in this way to restore the unity of the mental life.... As in the case of the individual, it mediates between the head and the heart, so in society it prevents science and religion from becoming entirely strange and indifferent to each other, and hinders also the mental life of the people from being split up into a faith-hating science and a science-hating faith or superstition." (New York, Ungar, 1963, pp. 1-2.)[1]

This means that science and mystic fantasies are equally valid as methods of gaining knowledge; that reason and feelings—the worst kinds of feelings: fear, cowardice, self-abnegation—have equal value as tools of cognition; and that philosophy, "the love of wisdom," is a contemptible middle-of-the-roader whose task is to seek a compromise—a détente—between truth and falsehood.”[2]

Who decided that the purpose of philosophy was to mediate between science and faith?  The answer, of course, is only a man who knew the difference between science and faith but did not want you to know.  He was also a man who knew that only faith would benefit from placing philosophy between science and religion as an arbiter.

After the trials and tortures by the Church of men who told the truth, the Church fell out of favor during the next few generations when many thinkers began to argue for the silenced scientists.  As more and more new discoveries confirmed the observations of Galileo and Copernicus, the Church lost its credibility and a new secular age began that we now call the Enlightenment. 

The fear among many philosophers like Kant was that the Church would lose so much influence in an increasingly secular culture that it would collapse as a cultural force.  Rather than let the Church die, these philosophers thought they had to make room for faith by leaving morality in the hands of the Church and assigning science to a world that they conveniently considered to be theoretical and beyond comprehension. 

The historical episode to which Paulsen refers (he wrote this in 1898) is the resurrection of religion by Kant after its defeat by science.  Indeed, through Kant, after two centuries of science’s victories, we are told by Paulsen that religion has returned to a philosophical status equal with science.  Kant gave to religion a gift that it did not deserve.  We read in White:

“…what had science done for religion?  Simply this: Copernicus, escaping persecution only by death; Giordano Bruno, burned alive as a monster of impiety; Galileo, imprisoned and humiliated as the worst of misbelievers; Kepler, accused of “throwing Christ’s kingdom into confusion with his silly fancies”; Newton, bitterly attacked for “dethroning Providence,” gave to religion stronger foundations and more ennobling conceptions.”[3]  Ayn Rand might say that science did no such thing and that these scientists had no choice about ceding to religion the moral sphere because their lives were at stake.  The words of White are more an expression of what religion did to science.  In fact, the Church conducted itself as the most immoral of institutions, hardly one that was ennobled.  Science did not strengthen religion; it merely woke religion up to the threat that science posed. 

Rand:

“The conflict between knowledge and faith, Paulsen explains, "has extended through the entire history of human thought" (p. 4) and Kant's great achievement, he claims, consisted in reconciling them. "...the critical [Kantian] philosophy solves the old problem of the relation of knowledge and faith. Kant is convinced that by properly fixing the limits of each he has succeeded in furnishing a basis for an honorable and enduring peace between them. Indeed, the significance and vitality of his philosophy will rest principally upon this.... it is [his philosophy's] enduring merit to have drawn for the first time, with a firm hand and in clear outline, the dividing line between knowledge and faith. This gives to knowledge what belongs to it,—the entire world of phenomena for free investigation; it conserves, on the other hand, to faith its eternal right to the interpretation of life and of the world from the standpoint of value." (P. 6.)

This means that the ancient mind-body dichotomy—which the rise of science had been healing slowly, as men were learning how to live on earth—was revived by Kant, and man was split in two, not with old daggers, but with a meat-ax. It means that Kant gave to science the entire material world (which, however, was to be regarded as unreal), and left ("conserved") one thing to faith: morality. If you are not entirely certain of which side would win in a division of that kind, look around you today.”[4]

You have to ask yourself, why would anyone want to save an institution that had brought torture and fire as its means of dealing with men?  The answer to this question will enable you to see the full context of the devastation that was to come and how utterly corrupt was the effort.  I quote again from White:

“But ere long it was seen that this triumph of the Church [against science] was in reality a prodigious defeat.  From all sides came proofs that Copernicus and Galileo were right; and although Pope Urban and the Inquisition held Galileo in strict seclusion, forbidding him even to speak regarding the double motion of the earth; and although this condemnation of “all books which affirm the motion of the earth” was kept on the Index; and although the papal bull still bound the Index and the condemnations in it on the consciences of the faithful;  and although colleges and universities under Church control were compelled to teach the old doctrine – it was seen by clear-sighted men everywhere that this victory of the Church was a disaster to the victors. 

New champions pressed on.  Campanella, full of vagaries as he was, wrote his Apology for Galileo, though for that and other heresies, religious and political, he seven times underwent torture.

And Kepler comes: he leads science on to greater victories.  Copernicus, great as he was, could not disentangle scientific reasoning entirely from the theological bias: the doctrines of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas as to the necessary superiority of the circle had vitiated the minor features of his system, and left breaches in it through which the enemy was not slow to enter; but Kepler sees these errors, and by wonderful genius and vigour he gives the world the three laws which bear his name, and this fortress of science is complete.  He thinks and speaks as one inspired.  His battle is severe.  He is solemnly warned by the Protestant Consistory of Stuttgart “not to throw Christ’s kingdom into confusion with his silly fancies,” and as solemnly ordered to “bring his theory of the world into harmony with Scripture”: he is sometimes abused, sometimes ridiculed, sometimes imprisoned.  Protestants in Styria and Wurtemberg, Catholics in Austria and Bohemia, press upon him; but Newton, Halley, Bradley, and other great astronomers follow, and to science remains the victory.”[5]

On the other hand, you have to ask yourself, after delegating to the Church the infallible authority to control man’s moral life, why Kant would create a universe made up of noumenal and phenomenal realms?

Rand:

“In modern history, the philosophy of Kant is a systematic rationalization of every major psychological vice. The metaphysical inferiority of this world (as a "phenomenal" world of mere "appearances"), is a rationalization for the hatred of reality. The notion that reason is unable to perceive reality and deals only with "appearances," is a rationalization for the hatred of reason; it is also a rationalization for a profound kind of epistemological egalitarianism which reduces reason to equality with the futile puttering of "idealistic" dreamers. The metaphysical superiority of the "noumenal" world is a rationalization for the supremacy of emotions, which are thus given the power to know the unknowable by ineffable means.

The complaint that man can perceive things only through his own consciousness, not through any other kinds of consciousnesses, is a rationalization for the most profound type of second-handedness ever confessed in print: it is the whine of a man tortured by perpetual concern with what others think and by inability to decide which others he should conform to. The wish to perceive "things in themselves" unprocessed by any consciousness, is a rationalization for the wish to escape the effort and responsibility of cognition—by means of the automatic omniscience a whim-worshiper ascribes to his emotions. The moral imperative of the duty to sacrifice oneself to duty, a sacrifice without beneficiaries, is a gross rationalization for the image (and soul) of an austere, ascetic monk who winks at you with an obscenely sadistic pleasure—the pleasure of breaking man's spirit, ambition, success, self-esteem, and enjoyment of life on earth. Et cetera. These are just some of the highlights.”[6]

To fully understand the victory that was being won by science at this time, we must understand that science is responsible for all of the great achievements of the modern world, that science (proper science) bears witness only to the proven and the real, that it seeks knowledge of nature in order that man use that knowledge to live a better life, that indeed, we are living better lives, not because of religion, but because of science and her discoveries. 

Kant, in order to elevate religion and religious morality, needed to destroy the foundation of science.  If the world that science evaluates can be made “inferior” then the spiritual world of religion is superior, which means that the miracles, the out of context deductions from scripture and the myriad disconnected interpretations of historical events were not really falsehoods and superstitions but profound ineffable wisdom.  The destruction of reality was necessary in order that this mystical view could be considered the height of wisdom. 

Rand is right to say that Kant’s metaphysics represented a profound hatred of reason, a profound hatred of man and his ability to count on his reasoning capacity.  Reason was removing from the foundation of religion the very pillars that had given it precedence for so many centuries.  Why else would someone create a false dichotomy about reality if not to elevate miracles and mystical interpretations of reality to a higher status above the views of men who proclaim with certainty that Jupiter has moons? 

To paraphrase, when scientists were proclaiming “it is,” Kant was saying, “knowledge is impossible” as if he were proclaiming knowledge.  Indeed, Kant was saying, “it is and it isn’t” and “you really don’t know what is.”  The contradiction is that in denying the possibility of knowledge, interpreting affirmative statements as nothing more than mistaken notions, Kant puts himself in a position where he loses the right to make statements of affirmation.  This may explain why Kant’s writing was so convoluted and utterly unintelligible; it had to be unintelligible because Kant forbade the intelligible.

Paraphrasing again, Kant’s answer to Galileo: “A phenomenon is that which is perceived and you can only analyze your perception.  A noumenon is the actual object that emits the phenomenon in question and you can only make theories about it.”  For Kant, the noumenon cannot be understood by the mind and the phenomenon is mere appearance.  For Galileo, Jupiter was a real planet and the moons were real moons; and he knew they were real because his eyes saw them.  For Kant, and for the Church, what Galileo thought he saw was merely his interpretation, his theory.  Galileo, were he able to speak his mind without being tortured, would have said, “But they do exist.”  Kant created mush; Galileo created certainty.  Kant was wrong; Galileo was right.  Yet, the Church’s methods lived on.

There was, of course, a philosophical step before Kant that solidified for him the victory of science, and that was Hume who created the most devastating circular argument in history.  As a matter of “empirical” evaluation Hume started by asking the question, why is man so ignorant, contentious and contradictory?  His answer was that man could not see the connection between his impressions and his generalizations because he had a faulty memory; concretes were more powerful than ideas.  The reason man was ignorant for Hume is that he was ignorant.  This was considered a scientific view; but was in fact the false premise that gave Kant both his doubt and caught him in the same circular argument.  For Kant, man was ignorant, contentious and contradictory because he could not understand the world; so the answer, the connection, must be found in transcendance of some kind; meaning mysticism, meaning “categories,” meaning religion meaning arbitrariness.

What did Kant and the Church fear?  They feared a world where objective knowledge was possible.  They did not have a truthful answer to the objective value of pure science (as distinguished from Hume’s pseudo-science). They only answers they could muster were superstition, ignorance, torture, censure, imprisonment and threats of eternal damnation, not to mention the morality of duty which is today the one “gift” of Kant’s that is devastating the world. 

When you read these words, visualize the beautiful skyscrapers built by men of science, the trips to the moon and Mars, the thousands of products, medicines, air conditioners, heaters and clean cities with clean happy people; recognize that these things are possible because someone asked the questions “why? and how?” and actually found the answers; then ask yourself whether you want this world or a world with none of these advances, none of these questions and no answer except that God did it; a world fraught with plague, poverty, suffering and the downward glance of a humble creature who is threatened with torture, death and eternal suffering?  That humble creature is you if you choose mysticism.  Once you recognize that the dungeons of religion are what Kant felt compelled to save then you’ll know that evil exists and that evil is more than just a demon spouting fire.  Evil is a philosopher who rules our modern age.  Evil is mysticism and the only real choice for a person seeking to live a good life is mysticism or reason (science).  There is no arbiter between them; there is no compromise; there is only reality or there is the ineffable.  You must make a choice.

Let’s be clear, the purpose of both religion and Kant is to reduce man’s mind to a malleable state.  Today’s politicians, radicals and dictators are merely opportunists taking advantage of Kant's life work; they are taking advantage of the fact that altruism and collectivism, the very ideas that Kant saved, are foregone conclusions in the minds of most men who have been educated in Western schools.  No one challenges these charlatans because most people do not have the ability to challenge with conviction the “social” goals of the state and the use of the gun as the arbiter between the average man and those that would steal his product for their own gain.

In Kant’s world, there is no longer a need for the scientist to analyze reality correctly or even to be rigorous in his methodology.  The only thing he need do is garner millions of facts that support the views of the government’s brute.  He need only start from the foundation of Kant that man is incapable of knowledge; and then develop a psychology that holds that man is an out of context, emotional being, locked into a subconscious remembrance of his birth moment; that we can understand him only by looking at rats and that we can motivate him by reinforcing those actions we want him to take.  Kantians give man the “freedom” to obey by feeding him a biscuit when he does what we want and an electric shock when he doesn’t.

Rand:

“Scientists are willing to produce nuclear weapons for the thugs who rule Soviet Russia—just as they were willing to produce military rockets for the thugs who ruled Nazi Germany. There was a story in the press that during the first test of an atom bomb in New Mexico, Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Los Alamos group who had produced the bomb, carried a four-leaf clover in his pocket. More recently, there was the story of Edgar Mitchell, an astronaut who conducted ESP experiments on his way to the moon. There was the story of a space scientist who is a believer in occultism and black magic.

Such is the "honorable and enduring peace" between knowledge and faith, achieved by the Kantian philosophy.

Now what if one of those men gained political power and had to consider the question of whether to unleash a nuclear war? As a Kantian, he would have to make his decision, not on the grounds of reason, knowledge and facts, but on the urgings of faith, i.e., of feelings, i.e., on whim.”[7]

The philosophy of Immanuel Kant has established the belief that the individual has no basis for evaluating reality or coming to his own conclusions.  When a person speaks what he thinks is truth, the Inquisitors of Kant ridicule him for thinking he can understand anything.  Like the Church once did, they silence him; this time not by threat of torture, but by imposing the torture of guilt and doubt; by imposing the ideas that there is no such thing as self-interest or truth.  Man pays the consequence for this idea when he learns that the day of liberation that was promised him is the day of his loss of freedom or the day of his death.

If you believe, consciously or subconsciously, as Kant preached, that reality is created by others or society, you become confused about how to calculate the reality that those others are creating.  You might think that the only way to create your own reality is to learn how to read the collective.  You might also think that you must base your thinking on that “reality” while you pretend not to be confused and afraid.  Is it any wonder that most people think there is something wrong with them?  Blame it on Kant.

In the area of scientific research, if a scientist accepts the basic pronouncements of Kant, he is not able to state a truism.  He must state only opinions, hypothetical constructs, theories and questions.  If he holds a truism, he will make sure he covers any explicit statement in ambiguous language so he is not accused of thinking he can perceive reality.  For the Kantian, life, thoughts and actions can only be an apology.

Kantian arguments are an attack on the human mind, a deliberate attempt to make the reader go through an excruciating insult to the mind.  Ayn Rand:

“Kant originated the technique required to sell irrational notions to the men of a skeptical, cynical age who have formally rejected mysticism without grasping the rudiments of rationality. The technique is as follows: if you want to propagate an outrageously evil idea (based on traditionally accepted doctrines), your conclusion must be brazenly clear, but your proof unintelligible. Your proof must be so tangled a mess that it will paralyze a reader's critical faculty—a mess of evasions, equivocations, obfuscations, circumlocutions, non sequiturs, endless sentences leading nowhere, irrelevant side issues, clauses, sub-clauses and sub-sub-clauses, a meticulously lengthy proving of the obvious, and big chunks of the arbitrary thrown in as self-evident, erudite references to sciences, to pseudo-sciences, to the never-to-be-sciences, to the untraceable and the unprovable—all of it resting on a zero: the absence of definitions. I offer in evidence the Critique of Pure Reason.”[8]

We have to understand what has happened at the hands of Kant; not just a cultural “drawing of the line” like that described by Paulsen that has no real impact in the world, but a psychological drawing of the line with devastating impact on the lives of men.  The same inner torture and the same insistence that man sacrifice his mind and his actions that were imposed upon man during the battle between science and religion (while religion was the brutal master), is now happening inside the mind of every man who is influenced by the cultural control of Kant and his “mental life.”

Rand:

There are many examples of Kantianism ravaging the field of today's politics in slower, but equally lethal, ways. Observe the farce of inflation versus "compassion." The policies of welfare statism have brought this country (and the whole civilized world) to the edge of economic bankruptcy, the forerunner of which is inflation—yet pressure groups are demanding larger and larger handouts to the non-productive, and screaming that their opponents lack "compassion." Compassion as such cannot grow a blade of grass, let alone of wheat. Of what use is the "compassion" of a man (or a country) who is broke—i.e., who has consumed his resources, is unable to produce, and has nothing to give away?

If you cannot understand how anyone can evade reality to such an extent, you have not understood Kantianism. "Compassion" is a moral term, and moral issues—to the thoroughly Kantianized intellectuals—are independent of material reality. The task of morality—they believe—is to make demands, with which the world of material "phenomena" has to comply; and, since that material world is unreal, its problems or shortages cannot affect the success of moral goals, which are dictated by the "noumenal" real reality.”[9]

Here is where we see the Kantian payoff and we can understand the virulence of the philosophy.  Success for the Kantians is financial bankruptcy for productive citizens.  Success is total compassion, total giving.  The only concern altruists have for the “givers” is that they are never giving enough.  Where today do we question altruism and self-sacrifice?  Where today do we examine the consequences of altruism and the immorality of the theft that takes place every day; while everywhere we hear that to sacrifice for others is noble, no where do we hear that this idea is responsible for nearly all of the vast numbers of atrocities that have caused untold suffering on this planet?  As long as we are “compassionate” we are moral; regardless of the immorality of robbing from the productive their very life-blood, the hours of work, and the turmoil that comes from wondering why altruism seems so unfair…but is not, according to the philosophy of Kant.

Rand:

“The statist replies that…a [government] monopoly is no threat to independence; government edicts are not force, he explains, because the people themselves, if it is a "people's republic" or a democracy, are the source of the government, which represents them. Tell it to the individual who is not represented by the government and does not agree with its plan for his life. Tell the kulak under Stalin, or the student in Tienanmen Square, or the physician in Massachusetts that he is "really" the source of the laws (or tanks) being unleashed against him, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. Historically, the modern root of this obscene notion is not, as is often said, Hegel, but his mentor, Kant. Kant postulated as man's essence a "noumenal" self, an unknowable entity that imposes on men an austere life of duty—but this is not an unjust imposition, Kant insists; a man is obligated to do his duty because he himself—himself in itself—is the author of the duty; even though his apparent or "phenomenal" self may be too superficial to understand this truth. Of course, only philosophers talk in such terms; politicians and journalists are content to cash in on the terms without mentioning them.”[10]

It is on the basis of Kant’s arbitrary imposition of altruism, the unquestionable nature of the force that he has imposed upon man through his philosophical inventions and disconnected connections, that mankind has been sentenced to prison; the prison of faith, the prison of the arbitrary, the prison of the immoral that should have no place in the life of a free man.

When an individual holds (consciously or subconsciously) that religion is his cultural authority, his thinking is characterized, as Rand said by fear, cowardice and self-abnegation.  I call this state of mind by a different name: “Kantian incarceration” and it is felt by any man who does not challenge religion on moral issues; or by any man who is caught in the trap of his “noumenal” self that tells him he has no choice but to do his duty.  In this way, morality and duty are turned against a man by the man himself…yet without his real choice…there is no choice…if he is to be moral. 

If you feel a tinge of fear whenever a man with a religious collar comes into the room, you may be granting this person, like Kant, a moral authority that he has not earned.  You pay the consequences (psychologically and financially) when you accept his emotional ejaculations as if they came from God.  If you feel a strong desire to belong to a group of some kind and are unhappy when you are alone, you may be operating, like Kant, under the subconscious premise that the collective is the only source of moral certitude and authority.  You pay the consequences when the collective decides to loot or demand everything you have earned as an act of charity and love on your part.  If you find that you go into a submissive state of mind whenever you are around a person who exudes an attitude of moral authority, you may be afraid, like Kant, to challenge the authority of anyone.  You pay the consequences when you see your children lost in a war of conquest, not for the sake of your freedom, but for the glory of the world struggle.

When “Kantian incarceration” forces a person to abandon his mind, the vacuum created gives way to a blind need, an impulse to act on behalf of others.  It is often expressed as a subconscious obsession to please others in virtually any way.  This would include pretending to have a congenial liking for all people, or giving charitable contributions whether he has the money for it or not, or in the case of a rich person, giving his fortune away to the poor, or by seeking to become part of an altruistic group such as the Peace Corp or a street gang; or by becoming storm troopers beating up “oppressive” minorities such as Jews or business people, or by selecting a career that cynically exploits others such as politics, the religious pulpit, the legal profession or bureaucracy, etc. 

“Kantian incarceration” moves the individual to obtain approval from others by not crossing that line between thinking and faith.  For the person who is victimized by it, this imprisonment dominates his entire life and diverts him from the development of a proper moral code.  It can send him on a course that has nothing to do with himself, his intellect, his happiness or his peace of mind. 

An even worse aspect of “Kantian incarceration” is how it harms the individual’s own aspirations, what he really wants and needs.  Since Kant, the individual elevates religion or skepticism to the position of moral authority which keeps him from learning how to think about his own life and needs.  He never learns how to truly “be himself,” he learns to restrict himself, control himself, limit himself.  He becomes an automaton completely disconnected from his mind…with only feelings to guide his way.

The full scope of derangement created by “Kantian incarceration” goes all the way from the nihilists who advance the idea that nothing matters and anything goes (there are no values – just do what you feel), to the progressives who think that force can fix any social problem (people don’t know how to be moral so they must be forced to be moral), to the evangelicals who want to force faith upon a secular nation (our nation was founded by religion), to the religious fanatics who drink the poisoned Kool Aid (rather than question the fake “men of God” who require their self-annihilation).  Skepticism creates the beginning of this scope of derangement while the blind faith of religion creates the end. 

Rand:

“In fact, man needs morality in order to discover the right way to live on earth. In Kant's system, morality is severed from any concern with man's existence. In fact, man's every problem, goal or desire involves the material world. In Kant's system, morality has nothing to do with this world, nor with reason, nor with science, but comes—via feelings—from another, unknowable, "noumenal" dimension.”

The assault on man’s ability to be moral that was launched by Kant’s philosophy is total.  It does not always bring a whip against the back; most often, it hands the whip to the individual and expects him to fervently whip himself; it expects him to inflict as much pain as possible upon himself and to be thankful that someone has forced him, by pain and guilt, to do the “right thing” which is give his own life up for others.  If one tries to encapsulate in a few sentences the entire meaning of Kant’s philosophy, beyond what Paulsen says, one would come up with the view that not only is the individual a self-flagellating slave who is unimportant in the scheme of things, but also that reality is unreal, nothing can be learned, nothing makes sense and there is nothing to do except what other people say is your duty.  Give this lesson to a child while he is trying to understand the world and you can see why so many people today are confused and unhappy. 

Imagine being young and asking questions of a Kantian adult.  Listen to the youngster seek fervently for the truth:  “What is real?”  Answer: “Nothing.”  “How can I understand the world?”  Answer: “You can’t.”  “How do I know what to do?”  Answer: “Do what we tell you to do” or “Help others.”  This is not peace between the mind and religion; it is a wholesale attack on man.  This is hatred of man, a desire to murder his mind, his life, his success, his hope.  Who is incarcerated by Kant?  You are.

 – Roberto Diego

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