Greetings OO!

[Вениамин]

This will be as concise as possible:

I am a full time college student (economics) and I also work as a tobacconist. Two years ago, I read The Fountainhead, and I know it is cliche, but I thought the story put into words the vague and previously unarticulated feelings I have had about the way people behave and the way society works, like a "finally, someone else gets it" kind of moment. I had never known previously that such a school of thought existed. I have since been reading a lot about the related philosophies and fields of liberty, but I feel that I have, over time, found out that I have far many more questions with each new idea I learn. I don't like being in the position of not fully understanding what I categorically know to be right, but the time commitment to learning all of these ideas is quite immense really, especially for objectivists as objectivists seem to be against all conventional thought.

I feel I have also wandered down some wrong paths in the process of learning more about liberty and objectivism. Particularly anarcho-capitalism. From a purely idealistic point of view, the tenants make sense to me. Realistically speaking, however, I have never found the anarcho-capitalist solutions to be sound, and this is after spending a lot of time reading Rothbard, Hoppe, etc. and lurking on mises.org. A sort of "so close and so far away" feeling about the philosophy. I really want to support it, but I find the anarcho-capitalist solutions to be lacking in the same kind of ruthless scrutiny that anarcho-capitalists claim the statists do not have (I feel the same way about political libertarians and the Ron Paul camp). I have had conversations with anarcho-capitalists and often I find their ideas fall to the wishful thinking fallacy and often ignore the freeloader problem in economics.

I have come to OO to find my roots. Objectivism is where I started and I think it would be best for me to spend time here to form a concrete, defensible, and rational position that I can be confident about defending (not the anarcho-capitalist "I don't know how it would work, but I know it will be moral" kind of cop-out).

Also, learning about objectivism is really a lot of work to make oneself feel like an outsider. So far it has made me kind of sad to realize that the man of modern society is usually a vacuous, dangerous, morally bankrupt idiot. I want to meet other people that don't think what I believe is a sign that I am "deeply troubled" as my own twin sister told me after I first explained to her, in brief terms, what I believed in. I also come from a very Jewish, very liberal family and my family's religion has been the source of a quiet animosity between myself and them after I told my parents I have become an atheist.

That's about sums it up. Thanks for reading.

P.S. (I can go by Benjamin if that makes things easy)

Edited January 21, 2012 by Вениамин

[bluecherry]

"P.S. (I can go by Benjamin if that makes things easy)"

That would help quite a lot. I seriously came in here ready to post something along the lines of, "Aw, come on! Really? I can't type that!"

Welcome to the forum. Make yourself at home. We'd be glad to point you to places you can find answers or write up some new responses ourselves any time.

I can understand the accusations situation. It's pretty ridiculous, but not all that uncommon. Lots of us have gotten similar things directed our way. I've heard things like people saying we're sociopaths, then of course there's always some of the more confrontational really religious people who claim you are damned, the straw men bandied about that paint us as approving and similar to all kinds of murders, and I've had some of the at-the-time closest people to me call me delusional and accuse me of mental illnesses left and right for years because I was just unusual in large part due to my support of Objectivism. Ultimately, I lost some people I cared for a lot when they got to the point of insisting either I subject myself to barrages of criticisms based on poor reading comprehension with some of my Oist non-fiction until I see the light and abandon it OR they would conclude I was just nuts, utterly, hopelessly irrational and thus they would need to get rid of me. I called it quits at this point and they left calling me nuts and all kinds of other nasty things.

Personally, I concluded that when people take my support of Objectivism as a reason to disrespect me, unless you can quickly clear things up, it is time to start putting space between yourself and that person. Neither I nor, presumably, you deserve that kind of treatment. There are far better ways you can spend your time with things and people that will contribute to your well being rather than detracting from it. Some people you can get rid of totally and quickly, but situations where you can't, just don't stick around more than you have to. If you haven't really had a chance to explain things to these people around you though maybe they just got the wrong idea and things can be fixed. If that is so, great. But failing that, your best hope is probably just to give it time and let your lack of sprees of murdering, stealing, and raping speak for themselves. Keep a little distance and let them watch you go about living.

[Eiuol]

Welcome, Vyeniamin! (Cyrillic is fun, a B sounds like a V!)

Also, learning about objectivism is really a lot of work to make oneself feel like an outsider. So far it has made me kind of sad to realize that the man of modern society is usually a vacuous, dangerous, morally bankrupt idiot.

I understand the feeling quite well, but I would say that people by and large are none of these things. Well, vacuous at times can describe people.

Edited January 21, 2012 by Eiuol

[Steve D'Ippolito]

I seriously came in here ready to post something along the lines of, "Aw, come on! Really? I can't type that!"

But I can! Очень приятно, Бениамин!

(But it's not easy--I can't touch type on a Cyrillic layout and have to hunt for some of the letters by trial and error because of course my keyboard has the Latin alphabet painted on it. "Where the heck is И anyway? *presses V key, gets м. "Nope. How about this key?" *backspaces then presses B key, gets и. "Ah, there we go. Now for а. That one I remember, it's under F." [And ф is under the A key so those two are easy to remember.] And of course it all depends on knowing enough Russian to be able to write a useful sentence anyway. Since I've forgotten almost all of it, I won't be much of a hazard.)

Welcome to OO.net, Бениамин. From what you said, it's obvious you've read more than just the Fountainhead (she doesn't talk much about capitalism there) so I'd be curious to know what you have read.

Meanwhile I'll practice remembering that you press S to get ы. Fortunately, when one wants с (the Cyrillic S, for everyone else reading this) the correct thing to do is press C.

[brian0918]

Welcome to the forum! I see you go to OSU. There are a couple Objectivist professors at that school, including one who is a moderator on this forum (though inactive lately): David Odden in linguistics, and John Opfer in cognition.

A couple years ago the Ohio Objectivist Society was very active, however several of the members either moved out of state or got more involved in their careers, so we are not very active currently. There is supposed to be an Objectivist club at OSU, so I would recommend contacting them for more one-on-one discussion:

Ohio State University

Ohio State University Objectivist Club

Club Leader: Adam Wanter

E-mail: [email protected]

[Steve D'Ippolito]

Well crap. I didn't notice it was В not Б. Sorry about that, Вениамин.

[interesting bit of history there--when the Romans picked up the concept of an alphabet, and modified the Greek alphabet to suit themselves, Β or Β was a "b" sound and we still call it "beta"; by the time St. Cyril and Methodius brought writing to the Slavs, the sound represented by Β in Greek had changed to "v" and the Greeks call the letter "vetta" now--that is why the symbol В in Cyrillic stands for a "v" sound not a "b." The spoken Greek language had changed its phonology (a not uncommon phenomenon; a different instance of this is one reason our spelling is so screwy in English). Clearly somewhere along the line, I'd guess in Greece after the Old Testament was translated into Greek (The "Septuagint"), but before Cyril's time "Beniamin" became "Veniamin" and he spelled it with В not Б--Cyrill had to invent the latter letter to render the "b" sound in Slavic since the sound no longer existed in Greek. (He invented a lot of new letters, actually; the old Slavic tongues had a lot of sounds that didn't appear in Greek.) If so that makes it possible to more precisely date when the B->V shift occurred in Greek--it was after 300 BCE but still before 900 CE.]

Edited January 21, 2012 by Steve D'Ippolito

[Hairnet]

I don't know if me saying this will help you at all, but please do not start thinking of people so negatively. The vast majority of Americans are trying to live their life to the fullestt (and if I am right, everybody deep down really wants this) however they are deeply confused and plauged with bad ideas, and some times emotional complexes. What I am saying is that they might not understand your ideas, yiour politics, or you decisions, but thats not what is important, what is important is that you are healthy and happy. I have seen way too many people who are Objectivists who get themselves caught up into various little wars with people they know and then bemoan the state of humanity. I can't believe though, that humans, overall, are worse than they were in the 19th century, or ancient greece. Those times wiere filled with racism, sexism, slavery, senseless war, and so on and so forth for the vast majority of humanity. Now we live in a time where it seems like all of that evil can be erased from the globe with in the next century. Given the oppurtunites that earlier generations have created, how can I believe that they are all that evil, or that the people who follow in their footsteps are evil?

Yes the Christian-Libearal-Humanists have filled their minds with tons of nonsense. They worship altruism, but respect, cyncism, and when it comes down to it they are mixture of both that leads to random acts of pettiness and sentiment. However, they are a lot better neighbors than so many other alternatives (like "Fundementalist" Christians or Muslims).

Now on "Anarchists" and Libertarians.

The main issue I have with them is that their only philosophers they have are Jesus and friends, Mises, and Max Stirner. Max Stirner's philosophy can justify anything, which is to say that it justifies nothing politically. Jesus would be an Anarchist (socialist) if he thought the world was important enough to consider. I have major disagreements with Mises' epistemology, which I think is just a rationalistic trap.

Objectivism is about making sure the state works. When people say the words "failed state" they don't mean that

Edited January 22, 2012 by Hairnet

[bluecherry]

But I can! Очень приятно, Бениамин!

Show off!