Welcome to the FSI Website
The purpose here is for any individual to have access to those historical and current ideas relating to individualism as a philosophy for living. The basic contention is that individual experience is the foundation upon which everything else is constructed. As suggested in the Descartes quote above, it all starts with the individual.
New—April 2021
For the last 20 years, I have been compiling my research notes on individualism. God-Sex-Politics: It’s All Relative puts forth the thesis that, over the last 4000 years, individual dignity has been built on a foundation of relative thinking.
The book can be purchased on Amazon.com. If you would like to read it now, you can download it without charge by clicking here:
Best wishes,
Gordon F. Brown
November 6, 2024
Generations of Bullies
Any individual who says my will should prevail over your will is a bully; any group who says our will should prevail over your will is a bully. As for God, any individual who says my image of God should prevail over your image of God is a bully; and any group who says our image of God should prevail over your image of God is a bully.
We begin with nature and particularly human nature. As nature would have we it, each individual is the captain of his/her own ship. Our choices guide our course through life. Choices are neither physical nor rational. They are spiritual. Choices are what we can observe, while the individual experience of making a choice is spiritual in that it is unseen and private to the individual. Again, as nature would have it, no one is in a position to dictate spiritual choices over another.
Our sailing may be smooth, or not. There are storms that could sink us. There are pirates seeking their self-interests. Hopefully, there are others with whom we can interact and establish rules of the road to maximize every individual’s freedom to choose.
Pirates are bullies who seek to impose their will over others. They sail under different flags. Our P-R-C triad can serve to group them. Physically, they can be found on playgrounds and with local gangs where the will of the stronger prevail over the weaker. Rationally, bullies are found in schools where teachers dispense the truth to which every individual is to be subordinate or gets a failing grade. As for choice, these bullies can be found in churches, government agencies, and with authoritarian parents. They make spiritual choices to which those under their control are to be subordinate.
Some bullies dictate in the name of God. These bullies claim to know the will of God, and proclaim that those who do not obey the will of God—as they see it—will be punished. They preach the message that God is a bully—do His will (as they see it) or be punished. Citing books and prophets, these truth-givers have no limit to the deaths they can instigate. Historically, we have had battles between bullies, as in the 30-years war between Catholics and Protestants. Today’s conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza can be seen as driven by truth-givers acting in the name of God. [See boxed comment below]
Notably, bullies act outside the realm of human experience. We can be told by a bully that this book or this prophet reflects the will of God and requires our subordination. However, such a belief is not a belief in God, but a belief in the bully giving us a message.
Arguably, human nature requires a personal relationship between an individual and God for an individual to have a belief in God.
The leaders of both Israel and Gaza claim that the Almighty is on their side—Jewish God and Muslim Allah. In Russia, over 70% of the people identify as Russian Orthodox. Putin’s war with Ukraine has been spiritually justified by the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill. Kirill described as “God’s truth” that the people of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus share a common spiritual and national heritage and should be united as one people. From this point of view, Russia is not attacking a sovereign nation-state; it’s restoring the spiritual relationship between two countries.
Anticipating next posting in about 10-20 days with the topic: “Ultimate Weapon of Destruction”
Milton Friedman
You are invited to look over “A Conversation with Milton Friedman.” This one-year, email dialogue between FSI Founder, Gordon F. Brown, and the noted recipient of the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences focuses on linking a philosophy of individualism and the theory of free-market economics.
Ray Bradbury
New to this site is A Conversation with Ray Bradbury with Gordon Brown that began in 2007. Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) is a well-known and prolific American author of short stories and fiction with themes consistent with a philosophy of individualism–notably, Farhrenheit 451. [Posted on June 18, 2012]
Brown’s Perspectives and Commentaries
Visit “Brown’s Perspectives and Commentaries” for essays and reflections on a variety of topics related to individualism. Recent additions include:
* US-China Policy–Posted March 12, 2012, this commentary is an aside to my primary focus of writing a treatise that provides a bird’s eye view of individualism as a philosophy based on a relative perspective of reality. When shopping at Trader Joe’s, a casual comment to another customer about the virtues of organic bananas resulted in his mentioning that he was going to China. With China now on my mind, I decided to post on this website some of my thoughts where I consider US-China policy to be a part of a natural maturational process involving induction and deduction. As for putting this commentary on the website, I took note that although we do no advertising, there are over 2000 hits per month with China being a respectable second to US hits.
* Tiger’s Titantic –This commentary, posted December 20, 2009, on Mr. Wood’s current situation is viewed from a relative perspective and takes note of our newsletter in 2002, which can be seen as predicting a significant aspect of this episode.
*Herbert Hoover‘s American Individualism –This commentary, posted October 2008, explores the implications of Hoover’s philosophy of individualism.
“Relativity” is a term we frequently associate with individualism. Our use of the term simply refers to relationships as the basic dynamic underlying human experience. We have provided a link to a series of “Relatively Speaking” newsletters spanning over 25 years.
This is an active site with weekly additions and up-dates. Feel free to leave your comments using our Feedback link.