Dustin86

snerd, The apparent contradiction here seems much bigger than your example. We're talking about man's means of survival, not a suitcase. This is the way I see it; there are tons of people with brilliant minds who would never survive, at least without constant aid and caretaking (e.g., Stephen Hawking). There are tons of completely "Subjectivist" muscley tribesmen who can't read, can't write, would fail an IQ test, but who clearly win the survival test. Rand clearly tries to draw a link between the necessity of accepting Objectivism or at least some form of Rationalism, and survival, for mankind. And I'm just not seeing it. This is not to downplay the achievements of mankind's Stephen Hawkings. Not at all. But when we're talking about survival, I'm not seeing the connection between that and Objectivism. And it's a connection that Rand is clearly trying to draw.

In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, in John Galt's Speech, there is a quote that seems to be central to the Objectivist worldview, but yet seems to be completely self-contradictory. "Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer - and that is the way he has acted for most of his history. A living entity that regarded its means of survival as evil, would not survive. A plant that struggled to mangle its roots, a bird that fought to break its wings would not remain for long in the existence they affronted. But the history of man has been a struggle to deny and destroy his mind." Clearly according to Ayn Rand, man has done the opposite of what Objectivism says to do, for "most of his history". He has acted "as his own destroyer [...] through most of his history". He has been "a living entity that regarded its means of survival as evil". The next three words in the quote are "would not survive". But wait a minute! We're still here. Not only just man as a species, but Subjectivists and Subjectivism, are still here. Birds that "fought to break [their] wings" and plants "that struggled to mangle [their] roots" died out a long time ago. But Subjectivist human beings are still here. Indeed, the vast majority of human beings are Subjectivists, according to Objectivist philosophers. Assuming that Objectivism is true, how could this be?

Epistemologue, World history, or even the history of just the past 100 years, thoroughly debunks the Benevolent People Premise. I saw some interesting footage and thought of your post today. This is very recent footage from a major American university, the University of California at Berkeley. Just looking at this video, the fact comes to mind that even if you don't think in terms of race, guess what? They do. Even if you don't think in terms of tribe, guess what? They do. Even if you want to be a Rationalist, living in an Objectivist Republic guess what? They don't. And there are hundreds of times more of them than there are of you. One of the biggest reasons why I am a monarchist is because monarchy is the best system ever devised for mitigating this. The person of the monarch has been able to represent the people of all colors and ethnicities in a way that no republican president or prime minister has ever been able to "pull off" even halfway as well. Not even a tenth as well. That is why monarchy is the most stable form of government especially when you are talking about a large, multi-ethnic, multi-racial country such as America. In the wake of the collapse of monarchies because of republican revolutionaries is when the bigtime ethnic bloodbaths have happened. Right off the top of my head I can think of the Armenian genocide under the "Young Turks" regime in the mid 1910s, the genocide of the Cossacks under the revolutionary government of Vladimir Lenin, the genocide of the Ukrainians, the Ingrian Finns, the Kraelian Finns, etc., under the second USSR leader Josef Stalin, the Trail of Tears here in America under the seventh president of the republic (Andrew Jackson), etc.

Repairman: I don't answer questions written in bold-point to the tune of "So, for the umpteenth time, what makes you different from a neo-Nazi". That's beneath my, and anyone else's dignity. You know, I'm starting to resent these attempts to twist my words, to "monsterize" me, for lack of a better term. This isn't the first time you've done this by far. You seem to have had a personal vendetta against me for quite some time, as in this entire year and maybe before. Most people here have been very civil, and I've learned a good deal from this forum. Only one other person has sought out a personal vendetta against me, and I ended up blocking that person. That would be the easiest way right now to ensure I'm no longer asked bold-pointed questions implying I'm a neo-Nazi.

You misunderstand me - completely. I think that white nationalists are a negative for the alt-right. A big negative. I do not sympathize with them. However, they have no real power, and I cannot help notice the "socially useful role" that they provide in the Establishment narraitive and I cannot help but look down on people's "hatey-monkey" behavior at the "Two Minutes Hate" that is being erected by the Establishment on account of a group that has had no power since the 1950s. The short answer to your questions is I was alt-right first. I was there from the very beginning. If white nationalists started using the term "Objectivist" would you be impelled by "decency" and "a moral duty to disassociate yourself from ethnic cleansers" to stop using the term "Objectivist"? Answer the question.

There really is no "grand poobah" of the alt-right. There really is nobody who gets to decide who gets to be in it and who doesn't. White nationalists do give seem to give off an "ick" factor, but I don't believe it's because of this nonexistent "threat" coming from them -- it's because they're losers, they're social misfits, they're a giant punching bag, they provide an "enemy" for people to rally against. They're basically "Goldstein" from 1984 during the Two-Minutes Hate. Goldstein is somebody who died a long time ago, somebody who no longer has any relevance in anybody's life, but he is the one that people are presented with to rally in hate against, and to run into the arms of Big Brother (the personification of the Party) because of. If you can watch this scene with these people's behavior again in your mind's eye, only replacing white nationalists up on that projector screen instead of "Goldstein", that's basically what our society is, what it has been at least since the time I've been born. And if you want to know why I've developed a malevolent view of the universe and a negative view of human nature, it's because of stuff exactly like that.

So anybody who you decide is not "compatible" with you is your "sworn enemy", even if they offer you an olive branch?

There is a great deal that Objectivists can learn from Alt-Righters and vice versa.

We don't want to be your "sworn enemies". I know nothing about this "mystical god named Kek" or anything like that. I think you're confusing 4chan with the alt-Right.

It wasn't like that. I've been part of the Alt-Right since the very beginning. We were all declared "beyond the pale" by the "mainstream". We all kind of "found each other". It's not like we all hoarded around white nationalists. They found us. Our strength is in our togetherness and interconnectedness, not in our supposed "internet-savviness". The Establishment's weakness is in its atomized individualism.

There is no single alt-right ideology. Like I said before, what unifies the alt-right is a malevolent universe premise and a negative view of human nature, a rejection of the Enlightenment view of human nature which is optimistic.

I am not a white nationalist but consider myself alt-right because I've considered myself so from the time when the term encompassed not just white nationalists but monarchists, those who are anti-democracy, also certain anti-feminists identified as such, etc. The way you are using the term, which is becoming more and more common today (mostly thanks to the media) but is not the original definition, is "alt-right = white nationalist".

MisterSwig, I'm glad you brought up the terms "benevolent universe premise" and "malevolent universe premise", because this basically encapsulates why I don't believe in Objectivism. World history, or even the history of just the past 100 years, pretty thoroughly refutes the Benevolent Universe Premise and pretty thoroughly enshrines the Malevolent Universe Premise. Every alt-rightist I have ever met also holds a Malevolent Universe Premise and has a negative view of human nature. Every one, including the non-racial-nationalist ones such as me1, although "degrees of malevolence" vary. Now that I think about it, there may be a fundamental incompatability between Objectivists and the alt-Right, because now that I think about it, the fundamental thing that unites all of our disparate movements is what you call the "Malevolent Universe Premise", and the related fact that we take the negative view of human nature. However, you need not worry, at least for any time in the seemingly foreseeable future, about any alt-right movement becoming a mass-movement in America, because Americans are addicted to optimism for the most part, even in severely troubled times such as the Great Depression and Great Recession. Also, most alt-right movements (outside of the racial nationalist ones) are not looking to become mass-movements. For the most part, they are looking to purchase their own "neo-medieval" kingdoms in which kings, with the advice and consent of their aristocracies, will have full rights of governance. 1 The term "alt-right" used to also encompass monarchists, various people who are anti-democracy, sometimes also various anti-feminists, etc., but recently the term seems to have been wholly subsumed to mean "white nationalists", a lot of this is thanks to the media.

Responding to the Original Post: Here's the way I see it personally: It's a very dangerous world out there. As much as we as civilized people may try to pretend differently, it really is a Darwinian world of tooth and claw, of "hang together or hang separately". As for alt-rightists, I can definitely see where they're coming from: the likes of Julius Malema, Robert Mugabe, Khalid Muhammad, and their followers would do horrible things to white people if they could get away with it (look those names up if you don't know who they are). Objectivism on the whole, however, has chosen to join the chorus of Establishment voices crying "racist!" and "alt-right bigot!" at these sorts of people. Again talking to the Original Poster, one of my favorite Objectivist quotes is "guilt is a rope that wears thin". Meaning -- if you want to attract these people, you have to explain to them how Objectivism is going to help them. They're not going to be "shamed away" from "collectivism" that you don't approve of. That may or may not be desirable to you; there may or may not be "easier fish" to go after.

Louie, I think your answer makes sense. The thing that sort of befuddles me though is that Ayn Rand seemed very disdainful of any kind of compromise between Objectivism and Subjectivism. I point you to the following quote, taken from John Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged: Ayn Rand, if I am not mistaken, regarded Objectivism as "good" and Subjectivism as "evil", Objectivism as "food" and Subjectivism as "poison", Objectivists as "thinkers" and Subjectivists as "fools". This would seem to indicate that according to her, there can be no compromise between Objectivism and Subjectivism, just as there can be no compromise between food and poison.

Just to set the record straight, this is not "the nearest to an exact quote from Objectivist literature", it is an exact quote from Objectivist literature. It is from Ayn Rand's Philosophy: Who Needs It?

I still think you guys are missing the thrust of my point. According to Ayn Rand (as I understand her position, please correct me if I'm wrong), no compromise can exist between Objectivism and Subjectivism, and any attempted compromise between Objectivism and Subjectivism simply reduces to Subjectivism. Also according to Rand, Subjectivism is ultimately unviable, and societies built upon Subjectivism will collapse. "The men of ability are being avenged. The avenger is reality", "gutted ruins and moans of agony", etc. Therefore according to Randist logic, Any Subjectivist society is bound to collapse, also any society that tries to follow a "middle road" between Objectivism and Subjectivism is bound to collapse. If this collapse does not happen, it means that at least some forms of Subjectivism are viable, and/or a middle road of compromise between Objectivism and Subjectivism is possible.

There are many statements scattered throughout Rand's works talking about collapse as something that will happen as a result of societal "Subjectivism". One example that comes immediately to mind is from "Philosophy, Who Needs It?", in which Ayn Rand writes: Ayn Rand does not call it "a favorable precondition", but that's not the thrust of what I'm trying to say. To her, "reality", namely collapse, is the avenger of "the men of the mind". This theme is very clear in Atlas Shrugged, and is scattered throughout her other works as well. The thrust of what I'm saying is what if these prophecies about ruin on account of "Subjectivism" never come true? What if "reality" does not "avenge" "the men of the mind"?

So Louie, do you think that governments have the right to collect taxes and punish tax evaders, or do you think violent overthrow is justified whenever governments collect taxes or punish tax evaders? FTR, Repairman, I am indeed finding fault with the American Revolution. I agree with the both of you that certain extreme circumstances such as genocide may justify the overthrow of the government. But nothing remotely like that was happening in British North America in 1776. As the eminent Revolution scholar, Professor Gordon Wood, states: Mere "initiation of force", in the form of collecting taxes and punishing tax evaders for instance, is not an acceptable reason to violently overthrow the government.

Well, Louie, who is a Moderator at the largest Objectivist forum just said one post before yours that there exists an Objectivist moral justification for the violent overthrow of every government in the entire world, the only limitation being the physical/military practicality thereof. So yes, I would think that would constitute such a reason, should Objectivism continue to gain followers.

If according to Objectivism, a government "initiating force" provides a moral justification for violent overthrow of that government, and every government in the world or that ever was initiates force to collect taxes and against those who evade taxes, then there would seem to be a moral justification according to Objectivist morality for the violent overthrow of every government in the world.

Ok, I think I understand what you mean now, but what about taxes? What government today or in history does not initiate force in order to collect taxes, and/or against tax evaders?

??????

But what government in the world today or anywhere in history has never initiated force? That's what governments do. They lay down the law and they enforce it.

I'm confused. It would seem to me that if there is no right to overthrow, then nobody should be overthrowing!