Excerpts from a Nonexistent Book in the Appendix of a Real Book

On August 14, 2005, I had just finished reading "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, and I was going to type in an excerpt from one of the trilogy's appendices (actually the appendices in the final book of the trilogy, which i read in an edition that combined them into one book). This appendix purports to be an excerpt from a fictional book written by one of the fictional characters in the trilogy. However, by dumb luck I happened to find the same exact text I wanted to type in online already, on Robert Anton Wilson's website. The fictional book is called "Never Whistle While You're Pissing," a title that refers to the Buddhist-ish idea of concentrating fully on doing one thing at a time. I should mention that when I re-discovered this link and decided to post it here, I was eating lunch at the computer, effectively not concentrating fully on eating like in the potato-chip meditation. I'm still not too sure about that whole no-multi-tasking thing, but that's not the point. The point is you should read this:

http://www.rawilson.com/whistlepiss.html

Also, there's this, which is in a different appendix of the trilogy. Didn't record the pages -- sorry:

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APPENDIX ZAIN: PROPERTY AND PRIVILEGE

Property is theft —P. J. PROUDHON

Property is liberty. —P. J. PROUDHON

Property is impossible. —P. J. PROUDHON

Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. —RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Proudhon, by piling up his contradictions this way, was not merely being French; he was trying to indicate that the abstraction "property" covers a variety of phenomena, some pernicious and some beneficial. Let us borrow a device from the semanticists and examine his triad with subscripts attached for maximum clarity.

"Property1 is theft" means that property1, created by the artificial laws of feudal, capitalist, and other authoritarian societies, is based on armed robbery. Land titles, for instance, are clear examples of property1; swords and shot were the original coins of transaction.

"Property2 is liberty" means that property2 , that which will be voluntarily honored in a voluntary (anarchist) society, is the foundation of the liberty in that society. The more people's interests are comingled and confused, as in collectivism, the more they will be stepping on each other's toes; only when the rules of the game declare clearly "This is mine and this is thine," and the game is voluntarily accepted as worthwhile by all parties to it, can true independence be achieved.

"Property3 is impossible" means that property3 (= property1) creates so much conflict of interest that society is in perpetual undeclared civil war and must eventually devour itself (and properties1 and 3 as well). In short, Proudhon, in his own way, foresaw the Snafu Principle. He also foresaw that communism would only perpetuate and aggravate the conflicts, and that anarchy is the only viable alternative to this chaos.It is not averred, of course, that property3 will come into existence only in a totally voluntary society; many forms of it already exist. The error of most alleged libertarians— especially the followers (!) of the egregious Ayn Rand— is to assume that all property1 is property2. The distinction can be made by any IQ above 70 and is absurdly simple. The test is to ask, of any title of ownership you are asked to accept or which you ask others to accept, "Would this be honored in a free society of rationalists, or does it require the armed might of a State to force people to honor it?" If it be the former, it is property? and represents liberty; if it be the latter, it is property1 and represents theft.