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I don't think this is true. I think it's an interesting notion, being "committed to evasion." Someday -- and it's sooner now than ever -- I plan on opening up a topic to really try to explore evasion... but in the meantime, do we think it's true that people are committed to evasion? Were it so, how could any of us survive? We depend upon reason for survival itself (whether or not we account "survival," in any sense, the standard of value ). And so I think that we in the West, as elsewhere, must be open to reason to some certain extent. And if we manage marvels, like constructing skyscrapers, conquering disease, etc. -- and we do -- then that is all the more evidence that reason carries great sway among men. And Objectivism, as truth, has literally everything worth valuing to offer. If we can get it right -- as we must attempt to do for ourselves, our own sakes, let alone proselytization -- then we have the formula for earthly happiness, inclusive of all values and virtues, including "fun." I'm taking a bit of a flyer, and I'd rather discuss this in full when I do commit to a topic on evasion, but I suspect that it does not come out of nowhere, unmotivated. I suspect that it's something like a psychological defense mechanism... and as such, I think that there are means by which we may come to understand evasion, such that we could be more or less effective in communicating our message. I don't think it's hopeless or fruitless. I think we can do better.

It's literally impossible for a man who has already abdicated (consciously or unconsciously) his responsibility to judge things for himself, deferring wholly to and depending wholly upon others, to consciously and with intention in a committed fashion, repeatedly decide not to engage in independent thought, not unless he second guesses his abdication and wrests back his responsibility each time. No, a person is not voluntarily committed fully and intentionally and continually, they simply, at some point in their distant past, have put aside what they would need to avoid evasion, the responsibility of thinking. From there it is a simple matter: thinking has been evaded, the only thing left to do is to latch onto and accept any one of the contradictory answers, ideas, thoughts, sentiments, on the basis of how one feels in the moment, or how easy it is to accept for the nonce. These of course build up into the baseless irrational edifices we all encounter so often in the psychology of others. What little left of a man's mind after he has decided not to think for himself, are the ideas and doctrines and sentiments of his immediate surroundings which he latches onto. They may be there due to habit, the past ease with which they could be latched onto, the feelings they produced, or they could be due to indoctrination, religion, messages of the media, teachers, parents, or priests: baseless guilt and unfounded admonishment. These form false structures in a psyche, posing as morality, virtues, principles... a slowly hardened, monumental edifice of falsehood... and YES this IS defended from thought .... and EVASION IS the psychological defense mechanism at play.., how else to defend the false, the incorrect, the irrational, against the process of fully integrative and flawlessly logical thought...? It must be the suspension of the act of thought ITSELF, and evasion of any momentary thought before they can be fully embraced, understood, integrated, and remembered... else they would bring the whole house of cards falling down. You will note, that the above implies falsehoods in a sense should be powerless against, to put it simply, thinking, ... as if thiking were a time bomb ready to set off a chain reaction... so why is the world filled with so much falsity and insanity? Precisely because Evasion IS effective, its mechanism enables the negation of thought as a process at its root... and whenever it springs up... like a depraved self abusive game of whack-a-mole... threatening thoughts are smashed over and over wherever and whenever they appear... shielding the false edifice in all its distorted glory. Falsehoods cannot win the face of thinking ... they only win in the emptiness of a desolate mind whose only lonely sounds are the guarding winds of evasion where the buzz and life of a thought should have been.

*snicker* Actually, I did understand. I merely addressed the first point I disagreed with, your contention that Objectivists as a group are sorely lacking in fun. I just don't think it's generally true. That said, I don't personally know the people you discussed and I've largely stayed out of that fight, so I'll take your characterization of those public Objectivists as accurate for the sake of argument....but I must still disagree with you, as I think your other premise is wrong. Fun is a virtue,as you noted. As applied to the people you discussed, I would have to agree -- they need more fun for their own sakes. But you seem to be saying that Objectivists need to be more fun in order more effectively spread Objectivism, presumably to enact the social change that is so sorely needed. In my view, there's not a damned thing that Objectivists can do about the world's merry handbasket ride. Westerners are, as a society and mostly as individuals, committed to evasion and not all the reason -- or fun -- in the world, will change that. Only bitter experience might do so, experience the West will get in a couple of decades or so. (I wrote a much longer screed on that point over in DW's topic.) As to what Objectivists should do instead of attempting the impossible, that's probably off-topic here. But I do intend to write about it sooner or later.

I agree with your post generally, but this is a wee bit of an overstatement, given all of our own personal experiences living in unjust societies. Perhaps he does "not thrive", or he "must fight" or "struggle much harder to survive". A man can survive with a great weight chained about his neck... but he will thereafter only be living as a man... with a great weight chained about his neck.

I can't speak to Peikoff himself but I believe those who find Objectivism and try to fully understand themselves and reality in an integrated fashion are not waiting for happiness to happen, nor delaying it, they are actively pursuing it. A mystic who never discovers independence or morality nor life itself as a human, can live as a physical and spiritual slave thinking he is happy. Those who know better, even intuitively, will be compelled to want to wake up from such a false existence. Waking up and fighting the inner falsehoods is the good fight that sometimes takes a lifetime. Consider the indoctrination and the effect of social programming religion, altruism, and skepticism on almost everyone every day of their lives from birth. Is it any wonder that it truly takes a lifetime of effort to heal those wounds, to rebuild the atrophied muscles, and broken bones of our abused and tortured psyches? I don't think it is surprising, I truly think it is a wonder anyone raised in modern society ever truly becomes a whole and happy human and all that means. As far as I'm concerned Peikoff has finally won in the good fight, and I urge everyone not to give up on their own fight to be fully human, no matter how hidden and ingrained the damage and no matter how long it takes. We've heard the truth... we need to believe, understand, and then fully Know it with our entire being. After word : We here are here for a reason and it is ourselves. Unless and until we have obtained everything we want and need, we'll keep coming back. If any should break the chains that make this forum necessary, and we hear nothing from them again, I will assume they have reached a better place, a world beyond this one... the real world and a happy full life as man qua man... for truly they will then have slipped their surly bonds to touch the face of the God who is in fact their true and full Self, as it can and should be.

From another thread, I found this fascinating: I don't want to read too much into this podcast, or to put too much upon one man's experiences (even if that man is Leonard Peikoff), but really, I found this not only fascinating in itself but that it speaks directly to -- not necessarily the technical specifics of this ongoing conversation, but -- my basic approach and motivation. Peikoff describes himself as finally fully happy at age 81 (though I'm certain he must have enjoyed himself to some extent throughout his life), and he attributes this to having discovered what he "really wants to do in life" (as opposed to at least some portion of his work theretofore, which he "dreaded"). To me, in my life, such a thing is simply unacceptable. I would not want to wait until I'm 81 to be able to describe myself as "finally fully happy" and in fact I have not waited. Though I have challenges and setbacks from day to day, as I expect everyone must, and sometimes severe or lasting ones, I consider myself happy in all of the major areas of life. In part, I believe this is because I have always paid careful attention to my own experiences, cared about them, and have taken action accordingly. When I have pursued paths that I dreaded (and I have), including career aspirations or personal relationships, etc., I took that as a cue that there was something fundamentally amiss, and in need of investigation/change. I did not accept my own unhappiness as being somehow the price of moral action, but I sought (both without and within) to make things better for myself, as much as within my power, as soon as possible. I have put nothing higher than my own experience of life -- to make it as positive as possible -- and I think that this emphasis has rewarded me. If Peikoff could not have described himself as "fully happy" before this late juncture, then I suppose we must be thankful for his longevity. What a tragedy it would have been, had he died never being able to say that about himself. I'm middle-aged, myself. A week ago, I was involved in a car accident -- that's one of those pesky challenges/setbacks! -- and actually, it was a situation that I've often brought up in various discussion about ethics: I was stopped, behind some other cars, but another car (a couple back) failed to stop, and there was a domino effect, leading to my being rear-ended. No one was injured, thankfully, but sometimes things don't work out so well. Can we imagine if I were pursuing an ethics that might not lead me to happiness until I'm in my 80s (if ever)... and then I die decades beforehand, whilst dreading my daily work? What a waste that would be. No thank you. I would rather enjoy myself along the way, as much as possible, so that on the day I die (be it tomorrow or fifty years from now), it will always be correct to say that I was happy. From yet another thread, I recently found this: I don't know what dream_weaver had specifically in mind when he wrote this -- and frankly I don't know what to make of it, if we are disinclined to discuss various interpretations of Ayn Rand's wording on a board such as this -- but I will say that I believe it really, deeply matters how we understand and approach ethics. I think it can make the difference between being able to achieve happiness now, or having to wait until old age... if we ever reach it at all, if we don't die first, our attempts at "survival" notwithstanding. If the Objectivist community has a hard time winning converts -- and based on many threads here lately, and based on the overall state of the world, and the way things appear to be trending, I'd say that we do -- then maybe part of it is that we don't manage to produce very many well-adjusted, friendly, happy people. Maybe the confusion at the heart of our approach to ethics, a confusion reflected in this thread and many others on the board, is playing a role in that, inspiring people to fight for "survival" (whatever that should mean to them) at the cost of the things which might otherwise bring them happiness in the near(er) future or present. I'd say that if, when people met Objectivists, they were inspired to think, "Wow! That person really has life figured out; look how well they're doing! Look how happy!" that this would go at least as far as a free copy of Atlas Shrugged in convincing them to investigate the nature of the underlying philosophy. Maybe farther.

Try this on for fun https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KIs9xM7Sac8

Only you can find the right balance that works for you. You are like a chameleon. You can put on different colors depending on who you are with. You can be yourself, but not truly show who you are. Truly you always act in your self-interest, but you don't always have to clue people in on what you are doing, especially if you know that they won't approve. This is an act which takes YEARS of practice. I haven't always been an Objectivist, but I've always been selfish. Always. I cried tears of joy when I found objectivism because it finally made sense to me, that a part of me had always been that way. In my 25 years, I have integrated the act of blending into a non-egoist world into an art form. If you need advice on how to handle certain social situations, don't be afraid to ask me (even if I am younger than you, I am an "old soul" compared to most).

No. Not if you mean by "Narcissistic" the clinical definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder Absolutely. Sure it is! Of course. As those who brought about and voted in Hitler into power found out! Being AWARE of anything (i.e. identifying reality) as such does not have pitfalls. Obsessing over anything you can be aware of, being obsessively and continually aware of one thing to the detriment of being aware of anything else, or to the detriment of acting certainly are pitfalls. Being socially aware if done rationally (like being aware of anything else) should be smooth sailing... the only pitfalls are not to be found in the being aware of something, but in the HOW or WHAT you then think about or evaluate that something of which you are aware. THAT is where the real error occurs. In fact, being as fully and accurately and rationally aware as possible of the fact of people's existence and their actual character, value, and relationship to a man is the opposite of a pitfall .. it is VERY useful.