Thought for the Day
 

“What I was looking at was a tussle between two groups of mass-men, one large and poor, the other small and rich. As judged by the standards of a civilised society, neither of them any more meritorious or promising than the other. The object of the tussle was the material gains accruing from control of the State’s machinery. It is easier to seize wealth than to produce it; and as long as the State makes the seizure of wealth a matter of legalised privilege, so long will the squabble for that privilege go on.”



Alfred Jay Nock - Memoirs Of A Superfluous Man - 1943

I'm not small and rich or large and poor but what I am is sick of paying for those who choose not to work/ game the system. My wife was at the store and came home to tell me the "person" in front of her in line payed for it's grocery's with a Link card (IL. food stamps), This person bought the Motts brand apple juice while my wife had store brand to save us money. This so angers me that a food stamp program does not require you to shop bargains like we do. One very small example on how the system pays you to be a piece of crap! The poor "seize wealth" by way of apathetic voters here in the state of IL.

Been a lot of this as of late
 

To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.

Mark Twain


Ally

"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves."

Edward R. Murrow



Ally

apropos of nothing
 

“He didn’t invent iron ore and blast furnaces, did he?”


“Who?”


“Rearden. He didn’t invent smelting and chemistry and air compression. He couldn’t have invented his Metal but for thousands and thousands of other people. His Metal! Why does he think it’s his? Why does he think it’s his invention? Everybody uses the work of everybody else. Nobody ever invents anything.”


She said, puzzled, “But the iron ore and all those other things were there all the time. Why didn’t anybody else make that Metal, but Mr. Rearden did?”


Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

WW

We are entering a golden age of rediscovery, we are going to rediscover that accounting trumps ideology.

If some measure constitutes a "fair share" for half of us, why isn't it fair for the other half?

We hang our petty thieves and make our great thieves leaders.- Aesop


Department of Education:

"Let me control the textbooks and I will control the state." —Hitler, while speaking about the schools and their indoctrination of the Hitler Youth Corps (Hilterjugend)

"Give me your four year olds, and in a generation I will build a Socialist state." —Vladimir Lenin

"Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." —Joseph Stalin

"We destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social." —Communist Manifesto

"Whoever controls the image and information of the past determines what and how future generations will think; whoever controls the information and images of the present determines how those same people will view the past.” “He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future conquers the past." —George Orwell


Why do we spend so much time arguing about which of us can produce the best set of lies?

"Be it sight, sound, smell, or touch, There’s something inside that we need so much. The sight of a touch or the scent of a sound, Or the strength of an oak with roots deep in the ground. The wonder of flowers to be covered and then To burst up through tarmac to the sun again. Or to fly to the sun without burning a wing - To lie in a meadow and hear the grass sing. To have all these things in our memories hall And to use them to help us to find… Ha ha ha!

The Moody Blues :)

“Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibnum, however far it is pushed one way or the other.

The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim — for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives — is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal. Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over again. Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims. It would be an exaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters.”

- Geroge Orwell (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four.

It is the dissimilarities and inequalities among men which give rise to the notion of honor; as such differences become less, it grows feeble; and when they disappear, it will vanish too.
Alexis de Tocqueville


Ally

Submitted by James Miller of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada

What Democracy?

A sacred cow is usually defined as that which is regarded as far too valuable or prestigious to even think about altering. Any proposition that comes close to complete abolition is met with astounding ridicule. In the realm of legalized harlotry (politics), careers are made out of defending sacred cows no matter how expensive, socially corroding, or intentionally dishonest they are. Compulsory public education is one of the first to come to mind. The various vote buying schemes that masquerade as a welfare safety net are another. Whenever the political class or its apologists in the media find themselves in a bind trying to validate the government’s latest plot to fill its coffers or grind already-undermined liberties further into the curb, they often resort to evoking the greatest sacred cow of all: democracy.

Starting from the earliest years of basic comprehension, children in the Western world are propagandized into believing that without democracy, society would descend into unlivable chaos. Schools, both public and private, perpetuate the fantasy to millions of forced attendees every year. They are told that the government which has a hand in practically anything they encounter was formed with only the best intentions. In America especially, the representative democracy constructed out of the collective genius of the country’s founding fathers is lauded as a gift to humanity. And though its influence is waning in recent years, the Constitution served as a model for developing nation-states around the globe. Back in 1987, Time magazine estimated that of the 170 countries that existed at the time, “more than 160 have written charters modeled directly or indirectly on the U.S. version.”

The Constitution is presented as the miraculous creation of divine individuals when, in fact, it was nothing of the sort. Like any attempt to centralize state power, the Constitution was formed out of the economic desires of its framers. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Thomas Paine, and Henry Adams weren’t even present at the Philadelphia Convention as it was drafted. Many Americans at the time were suspicious at what ended up being a coup to toss out the decentralized Articles of Confederation in return for an institution powerful enough to be co-opted for the purposes of rent seeking. As Albert Jay Nock noted:

The Constitution had been laid down under unacceptable auspices; its history had been that of a coup d’état.

It had been drafted, in the first place, by men representing special economic interests. Four-fifths of them were public creditors, one-third were land speculators, and one-fifth represented interests in shipping, manufacturing, and merchandising. Most of them were lawyers. Not one of them represented the interest of production

when the Constitution was promulgated, similar economic interests in the several states had laid hold of it and pushed it through to ratification in the state conventions as a minority measure, often — indeed, in the majority of cases — by methods that had obvious intent to defeat the popular will. Moreover, and most disturbing fact of all, the administration of government under the Constitution remained wholly in the hands of the men who had devised the document, or who had been leaders in the movement for ratification in the several states.

Unvarnished history like this is never taught in public schools and is hardly known by the public at large. There is a reason for this of course. When the rose tinted glasses are removed, the state appears as the organized criminal racket it really is. Those entrusted as “representatives of the people” are really looking out for themselves and their financial well-being. As government grows and regulatory bureaucracies flourish in size and scope, law formation becomes not just a job for the elected legislature but also of the executive enforcers. In other words, the same people tasked with enforcing the law are also given discretion over what rules they wish to impose. These unelected bureaucrats, in a constant effort to validate their positions of authority, will never seek to cut the tax money that is their lifeblood. Instead, they will spend the whole of their budget every year as they live out their desire to have meaningful employment through crushing freedom. The people’s will is sold off to ensure a new bloc of state-privileged voters.

Leviathan’s growth by bureaucracy has been occurring all over the Western world but it is accelerating at a worrisome rate in the United States and Europe. In the 2012 edition of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s 10,000 Commandments which provides a type of snapshot of the American regulatory state, it is documented that federal agencies were responsible for the implementation of 3,807 rules. These economically destructive regulations were set in stone despite only 81 bills passing Congress and being signed by the President. Representative democracy has been replaced by the rule of the unaccountable. In an environment where the power players are shielded from public backlash, the opportunity for cronyism, corruption, and back room deals increases tenfold. Revolving door politics becomes the norm as the regulators who write the laws end up being employed at the same firms that avoid their punitive nature.

Across the pond in Europe, unelected technocrats continue to try and save the floundering currency union. Austerity measures, which amount to more tax increases than cuts in government spending, have been imposed by bureaucrats who have little to no identification with the people they are levied against. It is centralized planning on continent-wide scale. The person with the most sway in the crisis has been European Central Bank President Mario Draghi. Though Draghi only has one vote in the body that controls the printing press, he is seen as its mouthpiece. Last week as the Olympic Games kicked off, he infamously made the off-the-cuff remark on doing “whatever it takes to preserve the euro”. The remark, whether Draghi admits it or not, carried with it the bought-and-sold notion that the printing presses would soon be put on overdrive in an effort to quell the crisis by buying sovereign debt. Stocks in both the U.S. and Europe rallied on the news but sunk soon after the plan was revealed as a farce. There was no trick up his sleeve; Draghi’s remark was pure posturing.

However the event was highly revealing of the reliance the global economy has on a constant injection of cheap, fiduciary currency. Under central banking, consumer preferences which normally guide the free market’s structure of production take a backseat to the whims of the operators of the printing press. Financial markets begin centering their operations around fresh batches of newly created digital currency. Fractional reserve banking becomes even more emboldened. Because money isn’t neutral and always enters the economy at specific points, the first receivers are able to spend and invest before overall prices are affected. The last receivers must deal with prices rising prices as their wages stagnate; thus lowering their real income.

The free market economy is analogous to democracy because consumers vote with their wallets on who produces the best product. Under central banking, few individuals are granted the monopolistic license to produce that which facilitates all transactions. There is nothing democratic about central banking in practice; it is a system of top-down governance based on the fantastical idea that there exists an ideal amount of money that only a few intellectually gifted economists can determine. With one hundred years of operation under its belt, all the central banker profession has learned through the various recessions which plagued the 20th century is that money printing appears to solve everything.

From the beginning of the Eurozone crisis, anyone not quenching their thirst with the Kool-Aid of good, honest government recognized that the large banks were the true beneficiaries of the various bailout schemes. Because commercial banks in Northern Europe are exposed to sovereign debt, it is in their best interest for default to be avoided even if it means receiving interest payments in a devaluing currency. The people of the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) are told their governments are being bailed out as a benefit to them. What’s really happening is the bankers are pulling the reigns of an unscrupulous political class looking to ultimately cash out by helping their friends in high places. The rhetoric of preserving democracy by EU officials amounts to nothing but a childish ploy when contrasted with the brazen, systematic exploitation the state embodies.

To the ruling establishment, the approval of “we the people” matters insomuch that they don’t recognize their oppressors. Democracy is a charade to convince the masses that they are in charge of their future when they are servants to authoritarianism. Economist and philosopher Hans-Herman Hoppe was spot on when he recognized that

Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else.

Rather than give the people a voice, democracy allows for the choking of life by men and women of state authority. When Occupy protestors were chanting “this is what democracy looks like” last fall, they wrongly saw the power of government as the best means to alleviate poverty. What modern day democracy really looks like is endless bailouts, special privileges, and imperial warfare all paid for on the back of the common man.

None of this is to suggest that a transition to real democracy is the answer. The popular adage of democracy being “two wolves and lamb voting on what’s for lunch” is undeniably accurate. A system where one group of people can vote its hands into another’s pockets is not economically sustainable. Democracy’s pitting of individuals against each other leads to moral degeneration and impairs capital accumulation. It is no panacea for the rottenness that follows from centers of power. True human liberty with respect to property rights is the only foundation from which civilization can grow and thrive.

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
Alexis de Tocqueville

When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
Alexis de Tocqueville



Ally

Thirty Years Hence
 

SOVIET AFGHAN WAR DOCUMENTARY Part 2/5 - YouTube

Notice the difference in reporting and the raw public threat to go nuclear.:D

What a horrible mistake.
 

A gamble which resulted in eight years of conflict and ended in defeat .
And the lesson learned from all of this was what ?


Ally

lesson?
 

Never get involved in a land war in Asia!-Vincenee (The Princess Bride);)

Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.

-- P.T. Barnum

Ally

Your true pilot cares nothing about anything on earth but the river, and his pride in his occupation surpasses the pride of kings.

--Mark Twain

Be the change you wish to see in the world.
Ghandi

The men American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try and tell them the truth .

H.L. Mencken

This post is just wrong on so many levels. Are you saying that you'd like to "switch places" with this person to live their "life of ease"? Maybe they have 4+ kids and the mom is busy all the time just trying to take care of them. They probably don't live in a nice 4-bedroom house with two cars and a nice lawn and backyard. Of all the things to get "angry" about, it's brand name apple juice? You've got to be kidding me. The decision to get the "off-brand" is obviously a sacrifice on your part, but I'd imagine you have infinitely more and better things than this person does, so why get bent out of shape about apple juice? It probably comes down to some congressman making sure that his business constituent is on the "approved" list, but whatever the reason, I wouldn't be too bent out of shape about it. What can you buy that they will never have a shot at? I'm all for personal responsibility, but at some point people need some kind of chance to get better.

I see the food stamp card abused all the time. I've seen it used for food and then they pull out cash for the cigarettes and booze. Makes me angry at the system.

"switch places", "life of ease"... What??

“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
― George Orwell, 1984


“In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory or defeat. In the past, also, war was one of the main instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with physical reality. All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers, but they could not afford to encourage any illusion that tended to impair military efficiency. So long as defeat meant the loss of independence, or some other result generally held to be undesirable, the precautions against defeat had to be serious. Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four. Inefficient nations were always conquered sooner or later, and the struggle for efficiency was inimical to illusions. Moreover, to be efficient it was necessary to be able to learn from the past, which meant having a fairly accurate idea of what had happened in the past. Newspapers and history books were, of course, always coloured and biased, but falsification of the kind that is practiced today would have been impossible. War was a sure safeguard of sanity, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned it was probably the most important of all safeguards. While wars could be won or lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.”
― George Orwell, 1984


“This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.”
― George Orwell, 1984




“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.

Consider all this; and then turn to the green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

^^^^^^^^^^^
I see someone else is a George Orwell fan .:):cool:



Ally

Although it should be against the rules, that would make me a little angry at the system, but booze and cigarettes are not apple juice. That's the ultimate straw-man argument if I ever heard one. That guy was angry because someone was buying APPLE JUICE. Pilots use food stamps for gods sake. So would it be different if it was a pilot earning 25K trying to support a family and thinking that it would be nice to get his/her children name-brand apple juice?

Orwell wrote the best prediction of the future, most of it has come true. Sad to say that most don't recognize the future has come to rest exactly as he described it.
Thanks Ally.

Thanks for posting this thread.
The one thing that sticks out for me anyway is this -
"One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship."
Makes me wonder how my homeland when the time comes is going to cover our revolution.
I remember the old man telling me long ago "we ignore the voices of the past at our own peril ".

Ally

“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”
Mark Twain

" Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn’t any. But this wrongs the jackass."

"There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man’s notion that he is less savage than the other savages.

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
― Mark Twain


“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”

“Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed. ”
― Mark Twain

We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
― George Orwell, 1984

I like this part.

"Before you judge a man, walk a thousand miles in his shoes. After that, who cares, you're 1,000 miles away and have his shoes"
- Captain Jack Sparrow

update on a classic
 

The love of theory is the root of all evil. (William Briggs)

WW

Why are peak oil-ers like Jehovah’s Witnesses? Answer: When the definitive JW prediction of the ‘Day of Wrath’ failed in 1914, they did what false prophets have done in every generation: shifted the goalposts (to 1975 in the case of JW’s—and wrong again). It’s what false prophets do to save face, enabling them to keep fleecing the inherently gullible. Peak-oilers do likewise.

Having written their headline-grabbing, money-making blockbusters predicting the imminent collapse of an oil-driven industrial world, peak-oilers like to maintain a ‘fluid’ approach to their predictions. In the case of oil, however, that’s becoming a tougher proposition, as their ignorance of energy, economics and the sheer ingenuity of man is increasingly revealed in the looming global oil boom.

(Peter Glover)

WW

“Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.”
― Herman Melville


“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar. ”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick


“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for avast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick


“I will have no man in my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
(moby dick chap 26 p112)”
― Herman Melville

"This is how the farce of modernism ends, with the anti-bourgeois rebel revealed to be a money-grubbing little fraud." (M.A. Signorelli and N.A. Salingaros)

WW

1954 production of 1984-
1984 by George Orwell / Nineteen Eighty-Four / Film Movie - YouTube



Ally

Treading the soil of the moon, palpitating its pebbles, tasting the panic and splendor of the event, feeling in the pit of one's stomach the separation from terra - these form the most romantic sensation an explorer has ever known”

Vladimir Nabokov

" They say your life flashes before your eyes,it's up to you to make sure it's worth watching "

"How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it"

~Adam Smith

“In order to act consciously with the intention of awakening, it is necessary to know the nature of the forces which keep man in a state of sleep.

First of all it must be realized that the sleep in which man exists is not normal but hypnotic sleep. Man is hypnotized and this hypnotic state is continually maintained and strengthened in him. One would think that there are forces for whom it is useful and profitable to keep man in a hypnotic state and prevent him from seeing the truth and understanding his position.

There is an Eastern tale which speaks about a very rich magician who had a great many sheep. But at the same time this magician was very mean. He did not want to hire shepherds, nor did he want to erect a fence about the pasture where his sheep were grazing. The sheep consequently often wandered into the forest, fell into ravines, and so on, and above all they ran away, for they knew that the magician wanted their flesh and skins and this they did not like.

At last the magician found a remedy. He hypnotized his sheep and suggested to them first of all that they were immortal and that no harm was being done to them when they were skinned, that, on the contrary, it would be very good for them and even pleasant; secondly he suggested that the magician was a good master who loved his flock so much that he was ready to do anything in the world for them; and in the third place he suggested to them that if anything at all were going to happen to them it was not going to happen just then, at any rate not that day, and therefore they had no need to think about it. Further the magician suggested that they were lions, to others that they were eagles, to others that they were men, and to others that they were magicians.

And after this all his cares and worries about the sheep came to an end. They never ran away again but quietly awaited the time when the magician would require their flesh and skins.

This tale is a very good illustration of man’s position.”





-P.D. Ouspensky, In Search Of The Miraculous. 1949

Von Mises criticism of Materialism: Materialism - Ludwig von Mises - Mises Daily

"The materialist thesis has never yet been proved or particularized. The materialists have brought forward no more than analogies and metaphors. They have compared the working of the human mind with the operation of a machine or with physiological processes. Both analogies are insignificant and do not explain anything.
...
Ideas influence one another, they provide stimulation for the emergence of new ideas, they supersede or transform other ideas. All that materialism could offer for the treatment of these phenomena is a metaphorical reference to the notion of contagion. The comparison is superficial and does not explain anything."