Asher's Maxims
Asherisms: For Asher, maxims are a way of storing his voluminous thinking on any given subject via easy-access file labels in the soul. He's been writing them since 1992, when he read Kahlil Gibran's aphorisms in Sand and Foam, and he was spurred on a bit by Oscar Wilde. Some of his maxims are personal, and some are about the world, life, the universe, writing, love, pain, monsters, and nearly anything else he encounters. Some are things that go into making characters and stories and should be considered merely speculative and not taken too seriously.
Asher's Maxim 47
The universal commonality among people is the lifelong quest for answers to four questions: Who am I? What is the world? What is my relation to the world? What do I do now? or put another way, the questions of: identity, understanding, meaning, and vocation.
Asher's Maxim 46
It’s a logical imperative that the quality of an opinion will not exceed the quality of the information on which it is based.
Asher's Maxim 45
If not for the essential loneliness we feel in estrangement, we would never seek friendship with our enemies.
Asher's Maxim 44
Walk softly on the earth.
Asher's Maxim 43
The most offensive thing you can say to the conservative is that you answer to absolutely no one and feel no subordination to anything. Not accountability – all honorable men feel accountable – but no sense of authority. (the offence of insubordination)
Asher's Maxim 42
The liberal minded are most outraged if you feel nothing at all in common at a basic human level with anyone – at least if they think you mean it. (the offence of alienation)
Asher's Maxim 41
Draw a circle around whatever you call the world, and I’ll draw a circle around that and say the world is bigger. (the big world analogy)
Asher's Maxim 40
Real anarchists don’t spend their time thinking about politics.
Asher's Maxim 39
Murder is always in purity’s back pocket.
Asher's Maxim 38
Capitalism was a Ponzi scheme until they made it legal.
Asher's Maxim 37
National emergencies and national spectacles always continue until replaced by a more useful emergency or spectacle.
Asher's Maxim 36
We’ve already established that elections are for sale; now we’re just haggling over the reserve price.
Asher's Maxim 35
When a military turns on its people, it becomes a force of foreign mercenaries.
Asher's Maxim 34
It’s much easier to be brave facing a minivan with a tank.
Asher's Maxim 33
We battle over schools, because alternatives require greater effort.
Asher's Maxim 32
Enjoying someone’s illness is a sign of greater illness.
Asher's Maxim 31
Superpowers will always prefer tyrants, because dealing with a million peasants is too expensive.
Asher's Maxim 30
Ideology is to groups what LSD is to the mind.
Asher's Maxim 29
If you and I can think of and plan a conspiracy, with our own resources, then it’s even more tempting to those with more at stake.
Asher's Maxim 28
People who make fun of conspiracies have simply never conducted one.
Asher's Maxim 27
In the only nation to have used nuclear weapons on a civilian population, all discussion of genocide is an act of amnesia.
Asher's Maxim 26
If you’re going to hurt me, leave a mark, so at least I know I’m alive.
Asher's Maxim 25
If the U.S. is a Christian nation, we’re better off with the antichrist.
Asher's Maxim 24
Marriage, in the vernacular, is a feudal contract exchanging property rights for exclusive sex. (Austin’s Maxim)
Asher's Maxim 23
Blood is on all hands. Even an infant kills, before his first breath.
Asher's Maxim 22
The reason idiots get away with being idiots is that they’re more intelligent than the average person.
Asher's Maxim 21
Kindness is relative; if you’re kind to me but persecute immigrants, subjugate foreigners, and deny care to the sick and relief to the poor, it makes you an unkind person with preferences.
Asher's Maxim 20
People who reject objectivity are always its biggest fans.
Asher's Maxim 19
Ideology makes intelligent people into functionally unintelligent ones. (law of mitigated IQ)
Asher's Maxim 18
It’s not true that corporations pursue the bottom line above everything; corporations, on the whole, will prefer the ideology of power over success.
Asher's Maxim 17
Corporations, by nature, will choose whatever is the most foolish course of action at least half the time. (law of corporate inefficiency)
Asher's Maxim 16
You can be wrong, even when you’re right, if you’re right for the wrong reasons.
Asher's Maxim 15
The “people” are always wrong.
Asher's Maxim 14
All solutions create undesirable problems.
Asher's Maxim 13
There is no such thing as a nation.
Asher's Maxim 12
If man can conceive of any evil thing, no matter how monstrous, it will be carried out eventually by some man somewhere. (law of human depravity)
Asher's Maxim 11
You can’t argue with belief.
Asher's Maxim 10
The twin vices of the writer are the intention to change the world and the desire to be known.
Asher's Maxim 9
Pretty women drive nicer cars.
Asher's Maxim 8
Nothing is “just” what it is.
Asher's Maxim 7
Anything can be a story.
Asher's Maxim 6
When you lie, you still tell the truth about what you want someone to believe.
Asher's Maxim 5
We’re all naked.
Asher's Maxim 4
None of us ever stops communicating, even when we sleep.
Asher's Maxim 3
Everything is sexual.
Asher's Maxim 2
If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing as work.
Asher's Maxim 1
The secret to being right all the time is: the moment you know you’re wrong, change your mind.
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