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Overzealous N00b Objectivists

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The Wrath

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Because once I've fully integrated it, I'd be the completely moral man. I think its going to take me a long time to be perfect to the extent that I'm that consistent.

To throw my two cents in:

I think that what "Matthew J" means is that for him it will take a while. Integration of a philosophy, and the difficulty in both understanding it and applying it to one's life, can be a very difficult task. The difficulty lies in the mental state that a finds himself is in. For instance, a person (such as myself) who has been taught Christianity from childhood holds subconsiously (i.e. has integrated) a lot of bad ideas (e.g. altruism, faith, etc); and it takes that much longer to get rid of them. There is nothing inherent in O'ism which would take it a long time to digest - as it is concievable for someone to have read AR once and have an easy time digesting it (e.g. a person raised by an O'ist family).

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For instance, a person (such as myself) who has been taught Christianity from childhood holds subconsiously (i.e. has integrated) a lot of bad ideas (e.g. altruism, faith, etc); and it takes that much longer to get rid of them.

I have a hypothesis that the Judaeo-Christian morality has a lot to do with the kind of misintegration of Objectivism that's so common at the beginning. Not the concretes (altruism), but the principle behind it (intrincisism). The traditional Christian morality has gotten so entrenched in Western culture that morality, to most people, means: a dogma of rules restricting action. Even for those who weren't raised Christian, it's in the culture.

I haven't listened to Understanding Objectivism (yet), but I'd be interested to know if Peikoff says anything about it. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find some reference in the DIM Hypothesis, either.

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I haven't listened to Understanding Objectivism (yet), but I'd be interested to know if Peikoff says anything about it. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find some reference in the DIM Hypothesis, either.

Understanding Objectivism" is almost a manifesto on this exact topic. The basic manifesto of that lecture is: Don't take the few rules you've learnt and apply them in a rationalistic fashion; understand the rules as though you were reliving the experience of the original thinker.

I guess DIM is a better elaboration.

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I have a hypothesis that the Judaeo-Christian morality has a lot to do with the kind of misintegration of Objectivism that's so common at the beginning. Not the concretes (altruism), but the principle behind it (intrincisism). The traditional Christian morality has gotten so entrenched in Western culture that morality, to most people, means: a dogma of rules restricting action. Even for those who weren't raised Christian, it's in the culture.

I would agree that intrincism is probably the most important (bad) idea people leave Christianity with, but I think the "concretes" (not scare quotes) are still substantial.

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Yeah, well, he posted to HPO virtually from the beginning, so if you want a taste you can look at the Google archive. He's very talented at enraging people.

Heh. I've only skimmed the archives of HPO but I didnt expect to find anyone else as bad as Steve Grossman.

Why did everyone stop using it? There seemed to be a lot of really interesting discussions up till around 2000/2001.

Edited by Hal
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Why did everyone stop using it? There seemed to be a lot of really interesting discussions up till around 2000/2001.
Long story short, lack of central purpose. Despite the avowed purpose, nothing is actually off-topic except Neo-Tech. There is also virtually no control over who posts and on what (my memory is a bit fuzzy but I think that in 10 years there were fewer than a half-dozen people actually banned -- the mangement finally offed the nut-case Ed Conrad after some 5 years of psychotic rants). After you put up with the decreasing intellectual level and the lack of serious engagement for some years, it's natural to want to leave for greener pastures. Certain individuals might amplify the urge.
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Yeah, that made sense. I dont know what it is about usenet - it seems to attract people who are deranged to the point of being almost psychotic. Even from my brief skim of the HPO archives, there are quite a few people who seem obsessive to the extent that they are bordering on mentally ill. When you couple the loonybin atmosphere of usenet with something as controversial as Objectivism, and then leave it unmoderated, I suppose its asking for trouble.

Still, some interesting threads there.

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