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OCON 2008: Brook/Ghate lectures on cultural change and activism

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For those who couldn't attend OCON 2008, I'd like to give a summary and review of the excellent 3-part lecture series by Yaron Brook and Onkar Ghate entitled "Cultural Movements: Creating Change". These were the centerpiece lectures of the conference and the anchor of the overall conference theme of "cultural change".

Each lecture lasted 90 minutes (including Q&A). The topics covered in each lecture were as follows:

Lecture 1 - Yaron Brook - Introduction; free market economists; environmentalism.

Lecture 2 - Onkar Ghate - Religion in politics and culture.

Lecture 3 - Yaron Brook - The future of our culture; why and how Objectivists can engage in cultural activism.

I've created this summary from notes taken by myself and Diana. However, the responsibility for any inadvertent errors or inaccuracies is purely my own. By necessity, the material present here is a highly condensed version of the original lectures. I expect that the full lectures will be available to purchase through the Ayn Rand Bookstore sometime in the future (or possibly even available as free content on their website, if the ARI chooses to release it in that fashion).

After the lecture summaries, I've added a few concluding thoughts of my own.

==========

Lecture 1 - Yaron Brook

Introduction

Yaron Brook started by stating that if one wanted to make predictions about the future course of a country, it was essential to study its politics, its culture and ideas, and its sense of life. These lectures would examine the influence of three important forces on American culture -- free market economists, environmentalism, and religion. At the end of the series, he would then use those examples to make predictions about the future of America and extract lessons for Objectivists.

Free Market Economists

The 1970's marked a turning point in economics, as the Old Left declined in political power and numerous countries began partial adoption of free market policies. Much of this was due to the intellectual activism of various free market economists and thinkers such as Hayek, Friedman, and Von Mises. None of these thinkers were Objectivists, although many were influenced to some degree by Ayn Rand.

Despite the fact that these thinkers of the New Right had only an imperfect understanding of capitalism, they had a powerful effect on Western culture and politics due to their advocacy and defense of free markets, and their policies made life better for millions of people over the next 20+ years.

One of the keys to their success was the fact that they established think tanks, wrote numerous books and articles, published OpEds, and gave lectures.

However, their influence started to fade after 20+ years, primarily because their arguments were based on economics without grounding in a proper underlying philosophy. Furthermore, many of these thinkers viewed capitalism as just a "better delivery system for altruism". Hence by the 2000's, we started seeing a reversal of the global trend towards free markets and a new return to statism.

Because the free market economists failed to offer moral and philosophical arguments (only economic ones), they left a cultural vacuum ready to be filled by other forces willing to claim the mantle of morality - namely environmentalism and religion.

However, the free market economists did buy us some valuable time, which is extremely important.

Environmentalism

The modern environmental movement began with Earth Day in 1970, and was an outgrowth of the leftist anti-war movement of the Vietnam era. Whereas the earlier conservationists of the 1950's wanted to preserve the outdoors for human purposes such as recreation and enjoyment, the modern environmentalists began promoting the idea of preserving nature for its own sake, and viewing human industrial and capitalistic activity as inherently evil.

The modern environmentalist agenda focuses on four major issues: pollution/toxic wastes, (over)population, preserving nature for its own sake, and "climate change".

Through their numerous forms of cultural, legal, and political activism, they have had a strong effect on America, slowing and/or stopping numerous industrial and business developments.

Much of their success is due to their strategy of activism, combining grass roots activism with writing books and articles, shrewd use of the courts, and aggressive injection of their ideas into the educational system. As a result, most primary and secondary school students in the US hear nothing but environmentalist propaganda, and never encounter serious disagreement with those ideas.

Interestingly enough, despite their many successes, many of the more extreme (i.e., more consistent) environmentalists believe that they have failed. They had hoped to create an "intellectual revolution" and a renunciation of industrial society, but this has not happened. The extreme "deep ecology" movement is too nihilistic and too anti-man to have a broad appeal in America. The American sense of life has frustrated the extreme environmentalists. Americans are not yet willing to make the sorts of deep sacrifices for the sake of this ideology. Some of the thinkers of the "deep ecology" movement also recognize that appeals to socialism are unlikely to work, and a few are looking towards partnering with another ideology for which Americans will be willing to make such sacrifices -- namely religion.

- - -

Lecture 2 - Onkar Ghate

Religion

Many believe that the intertwining of religion and politics began with Reagan, but in reality it began in the 1960's.

During the 1960 Presidential campaign, JFK gave a now-classic speech articulating the importance of the "absolute" separation of church and state. He stated that a President's religious views should be a "private affair".

However by 2008, all candidates believed it to be important to trumpet their religious views as positives. Even though some may be adopting this pose as a cynical ploy, they all feel this is what the voters want to hear. So how did things change over that 40 year period?

In 1964, Goldwater stated that the cure for the country's ills was a return to religious morality. Although he was soundly defeated, he did win in the South, where his message had an appeal.

In 1968, Nixon calculatingly went after the religious vote with some success. In 1976, Carter promised to bring back morality to politics and ran as a "born again" Christian, winning many votes from evangelical Christians (although he subsequently disappointed them). Many in the mainstream media started paying attention to this hitherto-neglected subculture in America.

In 1980, Reagan actively courted evangelical Christians, and this trend accelerated with Bush I in 1988 and Bush II in 2000.

In the meantime, the religionists had been gaining in numbers and strength in the culture at large from the 1930's to the 1970's. The Scopes Monkey trial of 1925 drove many religionists underground, where they developed their own subculture, with books, music, educational curricula, and other products, mostly under the radar of the mainstream media. Hence, when they became politically active in the 1970's, they took many by surprise.

Until the 1960's and 1970's, many of the religionists were content to stay out of politics. But due to their opposition to many cultural trends of the 1960's, religious leaders began urging their followers to get involved politically to oppose what they called "secular humanism". The Christians began to speak out on issues such as sex education, school textbooks, abortion, etc., in a belief that it was proper and moral to integrate politics and religion.

Politicians and thinkers on the "New Right" formed alliances with the Christians, adopting many of the strategies of the left. They created many grassroots single-issue organizations, think tanks with broader agendas, cultivated contacts within the media, and created a vast communications and fund-raising network to promote their ideas. They also established their own educational institutions to train the next generation of intellectuals.

And "they wrote and they wrote and they wrote" -- producing countless articles, essays, opinion pieces, etc., to get their ideas out.

The power of the religionists' appeal is that they offer an alternative to the nihilism of the left that repels many Americans. They promise to fill that vacuum with positive ideas and principles. This is one source of their power.

Although the American sense of life is not altruistic (i.e., we believe in hard work and success), the explicit altruist philosophy of Americans is one which makes them feel guilty for that success. Religion feeds on that guilt, and this is another source of its power.

Lately, the evangelicals have started to move away from a primary focus on issues such as abortion and sexual orientation/conduct, and towards a broader range of issues which includes "social justice" and environmentalism. Environmentalism and religion in particular have the potential to form a truly "unholy marriage", because in a crucial way they both need and complement the other.

The religionists have previously been concerned with issues in the spiritual realm, such as sex. Environmentalists have previously been concerned about issues in the material realm, such as industrial production. But a combination of the two gives each other strength, and feeds an ideology in which your very existence is a sin. This alliance grants a powerful moral foundation for environmentalist condemnations of mankind's physical activities and it also expands the domains by which religion can assert control over man's spirit through guilt.

Although some "conservative" religionists may espouse support for a free market, this is an inessential accident of history. The old guard of religionists came of age when the primary opponent was Communism, which was opposed to both God and the free market. Hence, they supported religion and free markets as part of a package deal in opposition to Communism.

But this linkage is unravelling, as it must given the premises of religion. Religion emphasizes sacrifice as a primary virtue, and hence any earlier support for free markets will start to fall away, as we are starting to see in the younger generation of evangelicals.

- - -

Lecture 3 - Yaron Brook

The Future of America and Implications for Objectivists

The long term threat to America is religion, because it could unite the worst of both the Left and the Right. Nor can we count on the fading American sense of life to save us.

The current American psycho-epistemology is oriented towards production, which requires long-range thinking and a willingness to challenge tradition for the sake of trying and creating new things.

In contrast, both environmentalism and religion oppose change and favor a "don't move" psycho-epistemology. Environmentalism opposes man changing the material world in favor of stasis; religion opposes the active mind willing to challenge authority in favor of a "don't move" approach aimed at man's mind. This "don't move" premise unites those two schools.

Hence, our American sense of life is in real danger. If we lose this sense of life, then over the next 40 or so years, we could face a future characterized by erosions in basic freedoms, loss of material prosperity, and an authoritarian government under religious rule. There may be ups and downs, but the final outcome will be inevitable if we don't act. To prevent this dire future, we need real positive cultural change to take root over the next 20 or so years and we need to start acting now.

Our eventual goal should be a "culture of reason", one in which intellectual leaders have a deep respect for reason, the world is full of energetic rational producers, great and beautiful art abounds, and material prosperity is valued as moral. Not everyone in this culture will be an Objectivist, but the principles of Objectivist philosophy would be infused throughout this culture. It's hard to imagine such a culture now, but this can and should be our goal.

We may not live to see this future, but we can achieve a change in the right direction, moving us away from destruction and towards this future. There is no "magic bullet" to achieve this goal -- destruction is easy, whereas creation is hard. But we need to make this cultural U-turn over the next 20 years, otherwise it will be too late. And this goal is possible, if we are willing to work for it. As a realistic goal in 20 years, we could see a culture in which Ayn Rand's ideas are in wide circulation. Not everyone agrees with those ideas, but at least ideas such as "egoism", "rational self-interest", and "capitalism" (as we Objectivists understand them) are all part of the mainstream culture, being actively discussed and debated as a serious alternatives to the status quo.

So how do we get there? What can we do?

First, it's important to recognize that getting Ayn Rand's novels into the hands of high school and college students is just a beginning. One should not just donate money to the ARI Books Project, then sit back for the inevitable victory of Objectivist ideas. History is not deterministic. Instead, people need to be exposed to the right ideas over and over again. Throughout history, the spread of good ideas has required both truth and persistence.

We must therefore act as teachers. Because we are trying to upset the philosophical base of our culture (and not just repackage altruism in a new guise), we will have to do lots of teaching, speaking, and above all writing, writing, writing.

Making inroads into academic philosophy departments is important, but not enough. We need "new intellectuals", not just "new academics".

We must also be proud advocates of our ideas, not apologizing for them or taking a "value-free" approach.

Our goal should be "many small and meaningful changes" in the culture. Although our long-range goal is to see the culture moving in the right direction, we need to fight for our ideas today. Every Objectivist can do this.

We must also offer Objectivist ideas as a positive alternative, not just make criticisms of the current bad ideas. People are persuaded not by criticisms of a negative, but by promotion of a positive ideal. This is where religion gets its strength and what makes it such a threat. Hence, we must offer Objectivism as a positive that offers solutions and leads to happiness and success in the here and now -- i.e., "a philosophy for living on Earth". To be persuasive, we must offer a positive, inspiring alternative to the status quo.

At the practical level, this includes the following steps:

1) Educate yourself.

2) Get involved.

3) Be a good communicator - friendly, civilized, and focused on values.

4) Speak, write, and engage others on issues of importance to you.

There are numerous areas in which one can work. One can work in ad hoc groups devoted to tackling specific issues from a moral basis (such as FIRM's work on free market health care or the Houston activists who fought zoning). One can work on promoting rational education at the local level or creating Romantic Art (not the same as "Objectivist Art").

The ARI cannot and should not be working on all these issues -- instead its mission is to expose young minds to Ayn Rand's ideas and to develop and spread her philosophy.

Individual Objectivists can complement the ARI's work by speaking, writing, and providing moral support to others doing the same. This will expose even more people to Ayn Rand's ideas and buy us time against our enemies. This sort of activism need not take up a lot of time. Sometimes just speaking up at a meeting or writing a letter to the editor can have more effect than you can imagine.

We can also shore up the better elements of our culture by forming appropriate alliances, so long as it doesn't compromise our integrity or sanction wrong principles. Through such alliances, we can give those allies the necessary proper philosophical foundation for their ideas and expose them to our ideas. There are many opportunities to work with others on specific issues (defending abortion rights, opposing antitrust, opposing creationism in education, etc.) in a principled and effective way.

This job seems daunting. It will require time, money, and work, but it is doable. And it will become easier as more "new intellectuals" start arriving on the scene, also speaking, writing and further "softening the culture" for Ayn Rand's ideas.

Our best allies are reality and the American sense of life. The ideal world that we are imagining is much more appealing to Americans than the bleak world offered by the environmentalists and religionists. Their visions clash with both reality and the American sense of life, whereas our vision fits with both.

Hence we must master the facts and stress the philosophy. Objectivism gives explicit philosophical voice to the American sense of life, and Objectivism is the American philosophy. This positive message must be communicated to Americans while that sense of life still exists. If we find shared values with Americans and support their virtues, we can help Americans translate that sense of life into conceptual terms.

Yaron Brook concluded by saying, "Our job is to convince Americans to save America."

[The final lecture ended with a standing ovation from the audience.]

======================

Some closing thoughts of my own:

This was an alarming yet inspiring set of lectures. It was alarming in that Yaron Brook and Onkar Ghate concretized in chilling detail the magnitude and urgency of the threats facing us. But it was also inspiring in that they offered a vision of a positive future that I want to live to see, as well as giving enormously valuable theoretical and practical advice on how we can effectively fight for that future.

If we make the cultural turnaround that needs to take place in the next 20 years, then future historians will someday look back on this set of lectures as a seminal event in American history. Given that it is likely that many of us will be alive in 20 years (and possibly even in 40 years), then many of us will directly experience the fruits of our action (or lack thereof).

I for one want to live in that future "culture of reason". I think we have a legitimate shot at getting there, but I also recognize that it is by no means certain. I also know that if we sit back and do nothing, then we definitely won't get there.

All I've ever wanted in life is a fighting chance at achieving my goals, and we have one here. And even if I eventually lose, I want to go down swinging, and swinging hard. I sure as hell don't want the bad guys to win by default simply because I didn't choose to act to achieve my values.

This sort of activism should not be viewed as any sort of grim duty. Instead, it should be viewed as a magnificent opportunity. This will be a fight for the noblest of goals -- the future of America. I've only become active in this fight in my own small way over the past year or so. And I also want the world to know (borrowing the words from the great American admiral John Paul Jones), "I have not yet begun to fight".

And I hope to see you all on the front lines!

- - -

This essay is mirrored at the OActivists site: "OCON 2008 Lectures by Brook and Ghate"

For more information on activism:

-- OActivists @ OList.com --

List Address: [email protected] (or [email protected])

Public Web Site: http://www.olist.com/oactivists

Private Group: http://groups.google.com/group/oactivists/

Web Archives: http://groups.google.com/group/oactivists/topics

Edit Membership: http://groups.google.com/group/oactivists/subscribe

--------------------

Paul Hsieh, MD

E-mail: [email protected]

Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine: http://www.WeStandFIRM.org

Edited by Paul Hsieh
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The OActivists Google group has more information on activism, including the following:

"Successful activism - Lessons from the FIRM experience in Colorado"

"How OActivists Can Help ARI Promote Cultural Change"

"Promote Objectivism by Promoting The Objective Standard"

"OCON 2008 Lectures by Brook and Ghate"

--------------------

Paul Hsieh, MD

E-mail: [email protected]

Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine: http://www.WeStandFIRM.org

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If we make the cultural turnaround that needs to take place in the next 20 years, then future historians will someday look back on this set of lectures as a seminal event in American history. Given that it is likely that many of us will be alive in 20 years (and possibly even in 40 years), then many of us will directly experience the fruits of our action (or lack thereof).

I for one want to live in that future "culture of reason". I think we have a legitimate shot at getting there, but I also recognize that it is by no means certain. I also know that if we sit back and do nothing, then we definitely won't get there.

All I've ever wanted in life is a fighting chance at achieving my goals, and we have one here. And even if I eventually lose, I want to go down swinging, and swinging hard. I sure as hell don't want the bad guys to win by default simply because I didn't choose to act to achieve my values.

This sort of activism should not be viewed as any sort of grim duty. Instead, it should be viewed as a magnificent opportunity. This will be a fight for the noblest of goals -- the future of America. I've only become active in this fight in my own small way over the past year or so. And I also want the world to know (borrowing the words from the great American admiral John Paul Jones), "I have not yet begun to fight".

And I hope to see you all on the front lines!

I'm all for activism for the sake of spreading Rand's views and bringing more people into the fold. I think its great that you are getting serious about it. However, I just don't think its a realistic goal to believe you can change the United States into an Objectivistopia. There are far too many impediments to making this happen. The number one impediment, as the lecturers at OCON pointed out, is religion. This is the most religious country in the western world. I think the number of people who describe themselves as believing in God as somewhere around 90 percent.

Secondly, the United States has always been a country where compromise is a virtue. This goes back to the creation of the Constitution and long before. Objectivism is an absolutist ideology, from personal, political, and economic perspectives. There is no way you are going to convert 300+ million people to buy in on this philosophy, when at best estimate, for the total world population, there are maybe 25,000 Objectivists.

That's why I think the most attainable goal when it comes to an Objectivist country is starting one from scratch, much like Israel. I think that's been discussed several places on this forum.

Edited by Michael McGuire
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This is the most religious country in the western world.

Not true.

US data:

81% of American adults identify themselves with a specific religion

14.1% do not follow any organized religion

3% no affiliation

But:

About 50% consider themselves religious (down from 54% in 1999-DEC)

About 33% consider themselves "spiritual but not religious" (up from 30%)

About 10% regard themselves as neither spiritual or religious.

eurobarometerpollrf1.png

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However, I just don't think its a realistic goal to believe you can change the United States into an Objectivistopia.

In what time-frame?? A massive amount can change in the space of even just a generation or two. Witness, for instance, the total shift in social attitudes on pre-marital sex and child-birth. I have even seen Christians genuinely feel no guilt for pre-marital sex and the prospect of parenthood accordingly! You would never have seen anything of the like fifty years ago.

Secondly, the United States has always been a country where compromise is a virtue. This goes back to the creation of the Constitution and long before. Objectivism is an absolutist ideology, from personal, political, and economic perspectives.

I think you're confusing compromise in the nasty philosophical sense with negotiation and deal-making on the premise of the principle of trade. I see the US as the premier land of the latter, not of compromise. Negotiation and deal-making are perfectly legitimate, and part of the positive sense of life that must be nourished and supported. The underlying principle of lets-make-a-deal is part of the way in to saving the US, not an impediment.

There is no way you are going to convert 300+ million people to buy in on this philosophy, when at best estimate, for the total world population, there are maybe 25,000 Objectivists.

Whoever said anything about converting all that many? There is no need to anyway, as what counts is putting good people into positions of influence over the culture. You'd be surprised how effectual that can be. Indeed, our enemies themselves have used that fact - there are far fewer Tooheys in the world than you might think. For all his other faults I hear about, Malcolm Gladwell's book "The Tipping Point" concretises the power of the few, whose thesis by implication supports Miss Rand's call for new intellectuals.

That's why I think the most attainable goal when it comes to an Objectivist country is starting one from scratch, much like Israel. I think that's been discussed several places on this forum.

If the US were to collapse into a theocracy within the next 100 years then no place on Earth will be safe, with no hope for humanity for who knows how many generations. Any nation whose culture represented a threat to that of the theocrats will be marked for invasion or destruction - worst case is a religion-inspired "Moonraker" scenario with bioweapons as biblical plagues and nuclear weapons as "cleansing fires" etc, leaving the whole world bereft of people except the nutcases who prepared for it. This is not scaremongering but a real and growing possibility. It was a significant element in the Reagan campaign, for instance - there really were those who thought they could bring about the Rapture through Reagan's victory. Building from scratch (or even saving another existing country) in the face of that is wishful thinking.

JJM

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A massive amount can change in the space of even just a generation or two.
Yeah, I figure every "generation" is ripe for intellectual rebellion against it's parent's generation, if only they can be given a reason.

Whoever said anything about converting all that many? There is no need to anyway, as what counts is putting good people into positions of influence over the culture.
If one had a magic wand to zap all major television and radio talking heads, and the top humanities professors of the top universities, into becoming part of some movement, the country will follow.
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However, I just don't think its a realistic goal to believe you can change the United States into an Objectivistopia.

Perhaps you should read Antislavery Political Writings, 1833-1860: A Reader Edited by C. Bradley Thompson. The abolitionist movement effected philosophical change in this country in roughly 30 years.

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We don't need to "convert" everyone to Objectivism in order to have a positive effect.

As Ayn Rand said in "What Can One Do?" (in Philosophy: Who Needs It):

"If you are seriously interested in fighting for a better world, begin by identifying the nature of the problem. The battle is primarily intellectual (philosophical), not political. Politics is the last consequence, the practical implementation, of the fundamental (metaphysical-epistemological-ethical) ideas that dominate a given nation's culture... In an intellectual battle, you do not need to convert everyone. History is made by minorities—or, more precisely, history is made by intellectual movements, which are created by minorities. Who belongs to these minorities? Anyone who is able and willing actively to concern himself with intellectual issues. Here, it is not quantity, but quality that counts (the quality—and consistency—of the ideas one is advocating)."

"...[W]hen you ask "What can one do?"—the answer is "SPEAK" (provided you know what you are saying). A few suggestions: do not wait for a national audience. Speak on any scale open to you, large or small—to your friends, your associates, your professional organizations, or any legitimate public forum. You can never tell when your words will reach the right mind at the right time. You will see no immediate results—but it is of such activities that public opinion is made.

"Do not pass up a chance to express your views on important issues. Write letters to the editors of newspapers and magazines, to TV and radio commentators and, above all, to your Congressmen (who depend on their constituents). If your letters are brief and rational (rather than incoherently emotional), they will have more influence than you suspect."

In my experience, she is absolutely right, as our own battles over socialized medicine in Colorado have shown. If we have good ideas, we can exert an effect far out of proportion to our small numbers. In the end, it is ideas that drive men and shape the course of human history.

But we have to be willing to act on those ideas, which includes advocating them in the appropriate fashion, living by them, and giving moral support to others who are doing the same.

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I'd just like to speak to this issue that Sophia raised: no, the US is not the most religious country in the Western world. The problem is, that the US has this great cultural vacuum, that the rising popularity of Christianity is just winning by default - because it is there, and there is nothing seriously challenging it (I mean, besides the Objectivist movement), it is gaining a dominant role in the US culture.

The real issue, as is evidenced by the Christianity of the front-runners in the Elections, is that people are willing to vote for a candidate on the grounds of whether or not he is Christian. As Yaron Brook and Onkar Ghate were pointing out, it used to be a big issue, in the opposite direction, that a candidate might be religious - JFK stated clearly that his private religious life and his political life were two separate issues.

However, now the US candidates explicitly state that they ground their political ideas in their faith, and that they have this moral grounding that gives them strength. This is the problem, and this is why Objectivism is needed more than ever: to fill the moral vacuum, and prove that Christianity isn't the only moral basis from which one can make a decision, personal or political.

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Sophia, of the countries one generally associates with the West, I have not seen data to disprove that the US is the most religious. In your graph, the top countries are generally not associated with the west in most respects. Portugal would qualify, with those believing in God at 82 percent. Very high compared to other countries, and is kind of an outlier. Italy is the only major country even close to the US in belief in God, at 73 percent. According to this recent poll, 92 percent of Americans believe in God or a universal spirit. So by that measure the US is the most religious Western country.

Edited by Michael McGuire
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I think you're confusing compromise in the nasty philosophical sense with negotiation and deal-making on the premise of the principle of trade. I see the US as the premier land of the latter, not of compromise. Negotiation and deal-making are perfectly legitimate, and part of the positive sense of life that must be nourished and supported. The underlying principle of lets-make-a-deal is part of the way in to saving the US, not an impediment.

No, actually I'm not. The United States has a long tradition of compromising on principle to reach pragmatic solutions. There's an old saying: "there are only two things you never want to see how they're made, laws and sausages." Laws are an intersection of many competing interests, and that's why they often appear to make no sense to the outside observer. But its a tradition that goes back to the formation of the Constitution, e.g. the 3/5 compromise.

Whoever said anything about converting all that many? There is no need to anyway, as what counts is putting good people into positions of influence over the culture. You'd be surprised how effectual that can be. Indeed, our enemies themselves have used that fact - there are far fewer Tooheys in the world than you might think. For all his other faults I hear about, Malcolm Gladwell's book "The Tipping Point" concretises the power of the few, whose thesis by implication supports Miss Rand's call for new intellectuals.

Interesting book it looks like, I will have to pick it up. Converting to an Objectivist society would demand that all citizens adhere to specific philosophical principles of government. There's always going to be, socialists, libertarians, anarchists and Christians who want to continue adhering to the social contract theory of government that we have today. The country would break apart along ideological lines. Besides, influence from the top has its limits; massive social movements don't come from the top down, they come from the ground up, unless violence is involved.

If the US were to collapse into a theocracy within the next 100 years then no place on Earth will be safe, with no hope for humanity for who knows how many generations. Any nation whose culture represented a threat to that of the theocrats will be marked for invasion or destruction - worst case is a religion-inspired "Moonraker" scenario with bioweapons as biblical plagues and nuclear weapons as "cleansing fires" etc, leaving the whole world bereft of people except the nutcases who prepared for it. This is not scaremongering but a real and growing possibility. It was a significant element in the Reagan campaign, for instance - there really were those who thought they could bring about the Rapture through Reagan's victory. Building from scratch (or even saving another existing country) in the face of that is wishful thinking.

The US isn't going to collapse into a theocracy, you can take that to the bank. It's not that dire. I studied religion and politics as part of my political science degree, and have read a lot since about the relationship between them. Religion has been enjoying a resurgence but it it has mainly peaked, and most of its political influence is in rural areas or cultural backwaters of the south. All the main economic, political and cultural centers in this country are not influenced heavily by religion, they are moving away from it. The reason religion is such a hot button issue is that the evangelical vote is crucial to winning the heavily evangelical southern states, which pretty much vote together. No president has ever been elected without winning a southern state. Hence the sop to the christians every four years.

But despite all the rhetoric, no president has taken christianity that seriously when it comes to government policy, not even the born again W. The office of faith based initiatives was nothing more than a feel-good do-nothing department with no funding, there only to give the appearance that christians had a say in the administration. The guy in charge of it quit in protest.

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Sophia, of the countries one generally associates with the West, I have not seen data to disprove that the US is the most religious. In your graph, the top countries are generally not associated with the west in most respects.

????

This is a map of what is considered as the Western world. So you can not exclude Greece and Poland (but just Portugal alone disproves your statement). I don't wish to argue this issue any further.

Westerncultures_map.png

Edited by ~Sophia~
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No, actually I'm not. The United States has a long tradition of compromising on principle to reach pragmatic solutions. There's an old saying: "there are only two things you never want to see how they're made, laws and sausages." Laws are an intersection of many competing interests, and that's why they often appear to make no sense to the outside observer. But its a tradition that goes back to the formation of the Constitution, e.g. the 3/5 compromise.

The Founders were men of principle in the most profound of ways. They were guided principles. They compromised all the time, but they did not compromise their principles. When the Declaration of Independence was drafted Jefferson was famously angry about them taking out the clause about slavery. Ben Franklin calmed him down by telling him that if we can't get full liberty all at once, we'll do it a piece at a time.

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The Founders were men of principle in the most profound of ways. They were guided principles. They compromised all the time, but they did not compromise their principles. When the Declaration of Independence was drafted Jefferson was famously angry about them taking out the clause about slavery. Ben Franklin calmed him down by telling him that if we can't get full liberty all at once, we'll do it a piece at a time.

Okay, sure they were guided by principles. But were they all the same principles? No. The Federalists and the Anti-Federalists had very different principles regarding how the Republic should function. These intellectual battles have been waged for over two centuries, with one side or another getting an upper hand for a time, but neither side ever running the table on the other for very long. So the notion that these long intellectual battles could ever truly be put to rest by the ascendancy of Objectivism is unrealistic.

The Objectivist nation will start small, and consist mainly of emigrants from other nations. Once it can be demonstrated that such a nation can thrive, you will see more movement towards Objectivist principles worldwide. If there was such a nation somewhere in the world, would you leave the US to live there? Why or why not? Are you sincerely devoted to Objectivism, or are you "comfortable" where you are?

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Okay, sure they were guided by principles. But were they all the same principles? No. The Federalists and the Anti-Federalists had very different principles regarding how the Republic should function. These intellectual battles have been waged for over two centuries, with one side or another getting an upper hand for a time, but neither side ever running the table on the other for very long. So the notion that these long intellectual battles could ever truly be put to rest by the ascendancy of Objectivism is unrealistic.

They were on a right track, provided good (although not without mistakes) foundation for the establishment of the freest nation in the world, but lacked objective philosophical justification for their views - which Objectivism provides. It was/is this lack of that explicit philosphical understanding which lead to the gradual betrayal of those values and thus sidetracking from that vision (some people know that this is happening - others simply don't have a clue what made America great).

If you don't understand what freedom truly is and what it truly requires - you won't be able to keep it (you won't be able to properly defend it ... or you may betray it unknowningly).

The Objectivist nation will start small, and consist mainly of emigrants from other nations. Once it can be demonstrated that such a nation can thrive, you will see more movement towards Objectivist principles worldwide.

Isolating yourself from the rest of the world is not necessary and it is not how it is going to happen.

One person's ideas can have a gigantic world-wide influence - negative in this case but - just look at Kant or Marx. Not only that - communism/socialism has been enacted (the way you want to show that Objectivism works) and it was been proven faulty in reality yet people to various degree are still hanging on to it (or its various components) as the ideal.

People must understand clearly in terms of ideas why something is right/wrong and thus works or doesn't. Simple enactment is not enough.

Edited by ~Sophia~
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Yeah, I figure every "generation" is ripe for intellectual rebellion against it's parent's generation, if only they can be given a reason.

I think it would be best to drop the term ‘rebellion’ altogether – it smacks of a condescending treatment of a key point in people’s lives in an anti-intellectual manner. At about age 12-14, when kids start 'rebelling,' it's when they first start thinking for themselves and trying to formulate their own values and identities as distinct from their parents’. As a mere anecdote, I never rebelled against anything, I just started making my own judgements, irrespective of who agreed or disagree with me, parents and teachers included. If I agreed with them then that was that, and if not then I just kept my own counsel.

So, you’re right about it being intellectual, but not the rebellion part. Thus it's not rebellion as such that needs to be fomented, but of providing kids with the means of independent judgement and applying the standard of value to their own lives. That includes sometimes giving those kids the means for seeing for themselves that their parents may well be right and are examples to follow, not to rebel against. Again as an anecdote, despite their other faults, I knew my parents did that much for me, that taught me the value of independent thought and I appreciated it even then.

If one had a magic wand to zap all major television and radio talking heads, and the top humanities professors of the top universities, into becoming part of some movement, the country will follow.

Actually, just getting good humanities professors would be enough, that the talking heads would themselves follow along (or, more accurately, be replaced with other talking heads), if we had the time for the effects of this to work themselves out. As it happens, Drs Brook and Ghate are saying not, but I do not have sufficient information to say whether they're right or wrong on the 20-year time-frame point in particular.

Besides, influence from the top has its limits; massive social movements don't come from the top down, they come from the ground up, unless violence is involved.

You're falling into the fallacy of social affairs either being exclusively a purely grass-roots phenomenon or politically-driven, in effect that of collectivism vs fascism as the only alternatives explaining man’s social arrangements. Politics is a grass-roots phenomenon to the extent that it takes the widespread acceptance by people for the politics in question to succeed - but why to people accept what they do? It is not the politicians' influence, except in the concrete-level details. Who, then, sets the underlying tone?

Influence is top-down, but the top in question is not politics, it is in humanities departments of universities. In particular, the top is the intellectuals promoting ideas in epistemology and ethics, compared to which the consequent politics is the proverbial fly on the axel. This fact will hold even in Objectivistopia, for the reason of the simple fact of the Division of Labour: not everyone can be a dedicated philosopher or hyper-articulate analyst, so there will be specialists (professionals and top-notch amateurs alike) whose opinions and advice will be considered and acted upon by the rest of us (ideally, after having formulated rational judgements of those specialists’ abilities and characters). Every major Objectivist thinker has been saying this and explaining why it is so for decades, starting with Miss Rand herself, but you have somehow managed to miss this.

The US isn't going to collapse into a theocracy, you can take that to the bank. It's not that dire.

This is from the same poster who notes that religion is the number one impediment?

I didn't say it assuredly was, at least not yet. I only noted that it was something that could not be casually dismissed, and that if it did happen then nowhere on earth would be safe, thus ruling out any Objectivistopia in a world where the US is a hellhole. In the meantime, the intermediate might appear somewhat more benign, such as that young unmarried Christian couple I mentioned. Christianity seemed benign in its original early days, too.

Religion has been enjoying a resurgence but it has mainly peaked, and most of its political influence is in rural areas or cultural backwaters of the south. All the main economic, political and cultural centers in this country are not influenced heavily by religion, they are moving away from it.

Where did this resurgence come from? Has that core source been spent? As far as I can tell – and similarly as far as Drs Brook and Ghate can tell – not by a long shot.

From what I can recall of the matter (ie more than just the lectures), there’s demographics involved, too. If memory serves me, aren’t the religious regions the ones with the highest birth-rates, while the least religious aren’t even close to the bare replacement rate? Certainly, parentage is not destiny, but it takes a certain courage to buck the local culture. It’s still fairly easy to do that now (depending on the particular local culture in question), but as an outsider looking in it appears to me to be getting harder – not just in terms of threats but through trying to fight the accumulation of sickly-sweet drips of its apparent benignity.

The reason religion is such a hot button issue is that the evangelical vote is crucial to winning the heavily evangelical southern states, which pretty much vote together. No president has ever been elected without winning a southern state.

Again, the primacy-of-politics fallacy.

Hence the sop to the christians every four years.

You read the same summary at the head of this thread as I did, right? In point in fact, Dr Ghate indicated that JFK felt the need expressly to disavow making a sop of that kind. The evangelical vote did not exist, as a real entity, until the Goldwater campaign. Goldwater woke them up to their own power, and they’ve begun to use it and expand it. There is a growing trend at work, not a routine that has always been followed. The sops have been getting bigger since then, with fits and starts, and if that keeps up without challenge then one day they wont be mere sops. Are you thus suggesting that Dr Ghate has his history wrong?

The office of faith based initiatives was nothing more than a feel-good do-nothing department with no funding, there only to give the appearance that christians had a say in the administration.

One of Dr Ghate's points was that it is a major warning sign that a President had to make such an appearance at all. As was said, fifty years ago JFK was compelled to decry the involvement of state in religion. A “feel-good” measure you say? Exactly! Even if at the moment it was toothless, why did that particular project feel good in light of an opposite feeling in the past? Are you honestly suggesting we should just shrug our shoulders at the fact that such an initiative was ever required in the first place?

Judging from your responses to me, while simultaneously fighting with Sophia on how religious the US is, is your position then that the US culture will remain in a more or less physically harmless state of cloying universal religiosity for the rest of the foreseeable future? If so then that strikes me as more than just a trifle naïve.

JJM

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