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Evil blast from my past

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pam

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Anyone else sometimes feel embarrassed about the ideas they were so excited about in their past?

Before reading Atlas Shrugged, I held very contradictory views. I was a far-leftist in politics, but believed in individualism where my own life was concerned. I somehow failed to see the irrationality of my views until Ayn Rand helped me come to my senses.

In fact, I sometimes have trouble even remembering exactly what I believed before becoming an Objectivist (except in a general sense). I think this is because my ideas were very chaotic at the time, and were therefore difficult to retain in my memory in the long run. I wonder if anyone else has had a similar experience?

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I was quite taken with Stoicism, the philosophy most commonly associated with Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Cato the Younger. While it certainly is a flawed philosophy, I recognize some aspects of it in Objectivism, which explains what I found so fascinating about it in the first place. I'd still call myself a stoic, but rather in the modern sense of the word. Barry Goldwater's "the Conscience of a Conservative" is what led me on the path towards Objectivism.

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I used to be some sort of socialist. I think my idea of what socialism looked like was actually some sort of construct of my own making. Looking back on how I thought it should work and what I know now, I really think most of my ideas were wishful thinking tacked onto a well-known group. Luckily a high-school economics course corrected all those bad ideas and a reading of Atlas Shrugged set me straight.

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When I was about 11 or 12, I remember sitting on the couch in the middle of our living room thinking okay, shouldn't everybody get some "baseline" level of "the basics" or something like that. I remember thinking well if you can't afford a place to live it should "be provided" at some minimal level, the same for foods, and clothing items for shoes. I remember having a vague idea at the time that socialism was bad or evil so I told myself that that's not what I'm thinking of because beyond the "basics" a person had to provide for himself, say if you didn't want the "basic" shoes you had to get a job and earn your better pair.

I sat on the couch thinking about this for many hours, I must of been alone because I remember nobody bugged me. Then I started to get to point of *how* these basics would be created to be dolled out. Eventually I realized that it would take a form of slave labor, because I couldn't figure out where the money was going to come from. At first, I thought well the "government" has money, they can just pay for it all. Then I thought well were does the money that the government "has" come from. I knew it came from taxes, and that taxes where something that my parents paid out of the money that they *earned*. It was then that I realized no form of what I had been thinking about was right, because it involved taking from others to give to people who haven't earned the "basics".

I remember thinking all that and actually going through in my mind what it would take to *manufacture* those "basic" shoes, and what it would have to lead to-- an inferior product, shortages in supply, lazy people, etc.

So I'd say for about an hour and a half of my life I was an explicit "socialist" although I wouldn't admit it to myself at the time, but I can't say that I'm ashamed of it because being one for those brief minutes and really thinking through what it meant "quickly" turned me into what I am to today-- a Capitalist.

My thinking that day lead to my thinking today--and for that I'm proud.

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I wonder if anyone else has had a similar experience?
I can't even imagine how I would talk to the me of 10 years ago. I've changed enough that I can barely identify with that person. That Rand quote from OPAR where she talks about a philosophy of undigested slogans, etc. - that was me. I was coldly rational in every aspect of school/science, but full of fuzzy ideas about life/philosophy. One thing I can say is that I've always had an aversion to faith, so my transition to Objectivism was pretty smooth.
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Anyone else sometimes feel embarrassed about the ideas they were so excited about in their past?

Religion seemed bogus by 9th or 10th grade; science and reason became more and more important. I went into physics, but along with that I developed the belief that "everyone is stupid, I am smart, I know what is best for them". I remember taking that Political Compass test, and I always scored far left, halfway down ("down" is toward "libertarian" and away from "authoritarian"). Now I can't even answer some of the questions as they pose false dilemmas or require you to assume things that are not true. I knew individual rights were important, but when they became inconvenient, I would ignore them, like most people do.

I'm proud of my move away from religion and faith, but not of the intellectual authoritarianism that came later.

Edited by brian0918
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I guess the closest I could come to explaining my political ideals (and hence for me at that point my philosophy) before O'ism would be Military Libertarianism. I thought Heinlein's government in Starship Troopers was as close to perfect as one could get. In that only those who proved their worth to the nation were qualified to elect, and be elected, the leaders of it.

Then I served, and let me tell you folks. Some of the people that protect you with their lives and guns when you sleep in your bed at night are only there because the Army is the first gang to get their hooks in.

Then I read AS, and from there I was led here, and elsewhere and I saw that it all fits together. Just as no man is an island, neither is any action, thought or deed.

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I was quite taken with Stoicism, the philosophy most commonly associated with Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Cato the Younger. While it certainly is a flawed philosophy, I recognize some aspects of it in Objectivism, which explains what I found so fascinating about it in the first place. I'd still call myself a stoic, but rather in the modern sense of the word. Barry Goldwater's "the Conscience of a Conservative" is what led me on the path towards Objectivism.

Ditto for me, along with what others have said about thinking the government should provide for 'some kind of baseline' for people.

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I was a big Christian, and I changed my views from somewhat of a conservative to far left socialist just to please this one girl I was infatuated with. Now I'm the exact opposite. And I have to say, I have never been happier than the time between now and reading Atlas Shrugged. I found that I valued my life much, much more when seeing that my life does not belong to some invisible man, or to anyone else besides me, myself and I (my Holy Trinity :lol:)

Edited by NickS
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I am fifty-one years old.

I did not seriously consider Objectivism until I was twenty-eight. But by then, because of the ideas I had allowed myself to be brought up on and accepted, I had so seriously damaged my life that even today I have to deal--daily--with the consequences of those ideas and of acting on them.

It's a long story that I won't go into. I'll just list the most deadly ideas I used to hold before the circumstances they created forced me to start checking my premises:

--There is an after-life. There is a kind of "consciousness pool" from which everyone's consciousness (or soul) comes from when born and to which it goes after death. Thank you, Plato.

--It's all right to be mystical. After all, everyone else is. Almost everyone I knew believed in a God.

--Act on your feelings. Feelings are the guide to action.

--There can be more than one universe.

--The good is to contribute to society. One's existence is really not justified unless he or she contributes to the world, to society, to other people.

--Some capitalism is good, for sure; but we need a little socialism.

--Industry is destroying the environment, even though we need industry and technology is good.

--A great work of art is one that exalts the opposite of one's beliefs and values (!). That makes a truly daring work of art.

--One must experience everything before he or she dies.

--Be "open", and be "open-minded".

I accepted these ideas, mostly subconciously and by default, in my younger years. But if I am a victim (I do not think I am, because no one forced these ideas into my head), then I am a victim of what I would call "soul-tampering". Said tampering has many mostly unwitting agents--teachers, ministers, parents, classmates--but the mastermind can only be the same one who has been tampering, centuries after he was published, with the rest of us: a certain philosopher from Konigsberg, Germany, who's been dead two hundred years.

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