Common Resistance to the Axiom
Why Life = Good Feels Wrong to the Dead and the Proud
Introduction: The Frame Beneath All Frames
Every system of thought - philosophy, religion, morality, even science - quietly relies on a living perspective. On something that cares whether it’s true. On something that feels, builds, resists, yearns.
That something is life.
The axiom “Life = Good” doesn’t beg for belief. It reveals the invisible foundation every belief already rests on. It doesn’t ask for proof - it is the condition for proof, the root of meaning itself.
And that’s why it triggers resistance.
Not because it’s wrong - but because it’s right in a way that bypasses ego.
It can’t be argued with, only ignored, insulted, or misrepresented.
The dead (philosophically, spiritually, even biologically) can’t feel it. The proud refuse to kneel before it. And both flinch when the mirror is held up.
This article is for them.
Let’s examine the common resistances - and burn away the fog, one by one.
1. Hume’s Guillotine and the Is-Ought Error
The most recycled objection comes from David Hume: you can’t derive an “ought” from an “is.” You can’t get value from facts. You can’t logically leap from description to prescription.
Except: Life is not a description. It is the precondition.
“Life = Good” doesn’t bridge is and ought. It collapses the distinction. The moment anything values anything - seeks, prefers, avoids, builds, fears, loves - value has emerged. And that emergence is only possible in life. The axiom is not moral. It is structural. Remove life, and “ought” vanishes. Remove life, and “is” has no subject to observe it.
Synthesis as a full framework makes no prescriptions. It simply derives logical truths from the fundamental axiom (Life = Good). It’s purely descriptive.
Hume’s Guillotine stands - but it slices nothing here. We are upstream of the blades.
2. Rand and Bergson: The Vitalist Confusion
Ayn Rand built an entire moral philosophy on the claim that life is the standard of value. So close - and yet so far.
She saw it, then buried it beneath egoism, politics, and abstraction. She mistook the agent of life for the principle of life. As if a selfish man was the measure of truth.
Bergson took a different path - he called it “élan vital,” a mystic, poetic force. But he shrouded it in fog. He saw the current but refused to name the structure.
Synthesis takes their scattered fragments and locks them into place:
Life = Good is not about the self, or a poetic vibe, or a political stance.
It is the tautological origin of value itself. Life affirms itself or it dies. And this affirmation is what creates every system worth the name.
3. “But Life Is Bad!” – The Human Error
Perhaps the most common resistance:
“If life is good, why is it full of suffering, death, injustice? Isn’t that proof that life is bad?”
No. That’s proof that humans confuse their feeling with the frame.
The axiom is not a measure of comfort. It’s a measure of precondition. You can only judge YOUR life (small l) as “bad” if you’re alive - and if you value the judgment. The scream of pain is a testament to Life (Big L)'s affirmation: you care enough to scream.
Good means ‘positive value’. It doesn’t mean “nice.” It doesn’t mean “easy.”
Bad means ‘negative value’. It doesn’t mean “unpleasant”. It doesn’t mean “difficult”.
Life is the only frame where value (both good and bad) arises at all.
Life is a self-replicating system. It MUST regard itself as positive, or it would cease to exist.
Therefore, from within the frame of Life, Life = Good. It is an axiomatic fact.
Even to curse life is to use its machinery. The rock does not weep. The corpse does not complain. You do - because you're alive.
4. “It’s Too Simple!” – The Cowardice of Complexity
This is the smug resistance: “It’s simplistic.”
But what they really mean is: It’s too direct. Too undeniable. Too foundational to argue with - so I’ll insult it instead.
This is stasis worship in disguise. The cult of complexity. The priesthood of the verbose. The idea that ‘Our Being’ and complex consciousness must have some kind of monopoly on value judgements. This is pure human exceptionalism.
But simplicity is the mark of a real axiom - and all good philosophy. Just as 1+1=2 sits beneath every math theorem, Life = Good sits beneath every judgment, ethic, and motive.
If you need a thousand words to hide from three, that’s not philosophy. That’s fear.
5. Bonus Round: Semantic Flails and Sophistry
Here’s the debris pile - the final flailing attempts to dodge the truth:
“It’s just semantics.”
All semantics are born from the living mind. So yes - and that proves the axiom.“It’s tautological.”
Precisely. That’s what makes it inescapable. You don’t escape axioms. You use them.“It’s subjective.”
Subjectivity is the structure of life itself. There is no “outside” view. All value emerges from the subject - and the subject is a living being. There are no exceptions.“You’re just redefining good.”
No. Good is positive value - it’s that simple - nothing more or less. I'm revealing what "good" has always relied on. Without life, "good" is noise - there is no value judgement outside of Life. Human morality is downstream from this. A complex late addition to value judgements.
Conclusion: You Are the Proof
The axiom doesn’t need defending. You are its proof.
Right now, reading this, reacting to it - positively or negatively - you are proving that life is the source of value. The precondition of care. The origin of judgment.
You don’t have to like the axiom.
But you are using it, even in your resistance.
Life affirms itself - or it dies. That’s not a slogan. That’s the law.
Vita Sentit.
Vita Aedificat.
Vita Affirmat.
Full framework here.
Visit the website and speak to the Garden Warden here.
- James Dean Conroy