Overture
How does a person, on planet Earth in 2020, achieve anything that resembles genuine contentment. How does a person live an ethically consistent life?
What, on planet Earth, circa 2020, does it mean to do the right thing? What can we ordinary people do to help combat the reverse-enlightenment that’s unfolding before our eyes?
Why, in any case, should anyone care about doing the right thing or enlightenment values?
Can anyone accomplish any of that without also being a f**king lame-ass?
Just Words Fallacy tells the story of one man who has answered those questions by committing himself, explicitly, to a life of deliberate and principled rationality.
Just Who the F**K Do I Think I am?
My name is Christophe Difo.
I’m the curator of the Just Words Fallacy (JWF) project. During the day, I’m an employment attorney at a large corporation. I write and edit online content related to my legal specialization.
In the evenings, I’m a student of human nature and of the human experience. I create online content related to that experience and related to my self-imposed mission to discover how best to live life rationally, deliberately, and virtuously. JWF is an expression of that purpose.
JWF is also a recognition that the fruits of the Enlightenment - the movement that ushered humanity out of the Dark Ages and toward secular democracy - are under persistent attack. Perhaps now more than ever.
JWF is a platform for a reason-centric counter offensive. It's committed to the dissemination of Enlightenment values like:
Rational inquiry.
Secular democracy.
Science.
As importantly, JWF challenges, doggedly and directly, anti-Enlightenment ideas like:
Un-examined belief.
Authoritarianism and theocracy.
Religious and ideological dogma.
Still, it’s important that we not take our short, short lives too damn seriously.
The heady stuff of existential inquiry is critically important and it’s often interesting. But we shouldn’t limit ourselves to brow-furrowing investigations. Individuals’ capacity to appreciate the immensely stimulating, awe-inspiring quality of existence is as critical to human flourishing as is an understanding of how the human mind works.
Beyond that, there’s much to be said for just f**king the f**K around. Our stint on this tiny, blue, planet is a brief and insignificant mark on the continuum of universe. We might as well have good time while we’re here.
JWF aims to chronicle the totality - and the absurdities - of the human conundrum. Not just the parts that make for long think pieces.
Why “Just Words Fallacy?”
The Just Words Fallacy moniker is a nod to the Just World Fallacy - a pernicious cognitive bias among human beings. Examination of cognitive biases is, in significant ways, at the crux of the JWF project. Among other things, JWF seeks to discover:
How human cognitive biases impede society’s progress toward maximizing individuals’ contentment and maximizing general human flourishing; and
What, if anything, we can do about the problem.
The JWF name also affirms that the conversations we have here aren’t just words. Well placed words have sparked revolutions. JWF works to ingnite a revolution of perspective and to do so in a format that’s not a full-on snooze fest.
How Can You Support JWF?
This post is Just World Fallacy’s inaugural statement. It aspires to kindle a conversation about how we might stem the tide of unreason that’s threatening to overwhelm our civilization. JWF is also discovering how best to live a life of ethically-driven contentment in the midst of the sh*t show.
As part of this JWF kickoff, I’ve added three posts (in addition to this one) to the JWF Blog for your perusal. They’re titled:
Each of those posts reflects the kinds of ideas that JWF hopes to spread. I’d be grateful if you’d follow the progress of the JWF adventure.
Please: Like. Subscribe. Share. Follow. And tell your friends.
Postscript
What’s in a Name?
This post is titled Overture because it’s meant to be the reader’s introduction to Just Words Fallacy.
The image attached to this post is the USS New Jersey. The New Jersey is an Iowa-class battleship that served in the United States Navy from 1943 through 1991. She is now a floating museum in Camden, NJ.
In this particular photo, the New Jersey is firing a full broadside as she might in the opening moments of an engagement.
Acknowledgment
Before I go, I’ll acknowledge the thinkers who have inspired Just Words Fallacy, and the people who’ve supported me in the project, including:
My wife, Lindsay
Tim Stettner
All of my friends whom I roped into beta testing the site
Sean Prophet
Greg Graffin (and Bad Religion)
Sam Harris
Steven Pinker
Daniel Dennet
Thanks for everything.
