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Showing content with the highest reputation on 05/18/14 in all areas

  1. softwareNerd

    Neo-Objectivism

    Oh not! Not more of the same re-writing your own version of Objectivism, so that you can convince yourself that you've found some problems that you will now resolve by showing us that market minds can and cannot be lived for and also for others. And if the integration of the many into the dual is sought, then it is possible if only the market were to be slightly redefined into a more complete, robust notion. After all, markets are an epistemological concept and a social concept before they are a moral concept, and none other than Stiglitz has said that though their "...power ... is enormous, ...they have no inherent moral character." So, Objectivists need to understand that the things they think are contradictory, may not be so. Alexander Hamilton said "A national debt, if not excessive, will be a national blessing". Objectivists need to understand the non-linearity in sentiments like this, for the Gods that be did not make a law that all causal relationships must be linear...as every school kid who studies the anomalous expansion of water well understands. It is vital to understand that communism does not spring from people like Stalin, but from the cry for freedom and rights of men who have been denied their natural right to walk freely on the earth, just like the next guy... with no respect for fake man-made rules like nobility and titles. It flows from the yearning to live as an individual human being, but as an individual within society...since that is how the human animal lives, and prospers by such living. So, clearly we can see that Objectivism with its stress on the individual carefully combined with its championing of the market is a brother-idea to Communism with its stress that we are all equal in rights carefully combined with its championing of the proper role each of us play in our societies. How are they different? they are almost the same!! If Stalin could take such a noble idea and use it to justify his totalitarianism, surely another dictator can start with an Objectivism idea and use it to justify his own tyranny. Further, both Objectivism and Communism start at the common base of a realistic, naturalistic world-view, free of mysticism and Gods that were invented by ignorant primitives. Upon this base, they both champion reason. And in morality, they focus on this life of man -- here and now -- not on an after-life, not on rituals, not on prayers, not on mother earth. Man's life on earth is the standard that they both share. As eixplained above, in the abstract, their politics are close... pulling down theocracies and monarchies, and calling for the rights of each man, within the market or the commune. Surely it is not too much more than semantics that these two great ideologies arrive at nearly the same principles, with a few words and minor concepts changed. Going further, it is uncanny that even in aesthetics, both seem to think it is okay and good for art to champion their moral and political ideal. There, you have your integration, though it is completely false.
    1 point
  2. Well, the lyrics are poorly written in a poetic or grammatical sense, aside from evaluating their content. For example, words that would be grammatically useful in intelligent speech are left out. A skilled poet can avoid doing that. Anyway, part of my judgment on the nature of the clip was based on the fact that I knew it came from the special features of the DVD of The Corporation, which my economic professor had us watch. That DVD is, literally, the most offensive trash I've ever seen in my life. It's a giant polemic against capitalism and corporations that doesn't contain a single valid argument and rests almost entirely on feelings the "documentarians" evoke through satire, plain making fun of people, and so forth. This kind of piece is typical of their work. In context of the film, it is purely offensive in that it is both anti-freedom and expects you to adhere to its claims by abandoning your mind. Out of the context of the film, it could go either way, but it's just of very poor artistic quality.
    1 point
  3. Cool? It makes me sick. It's trying to satirically deride corporations. (Of course, that's the only way liberals can deride corporations). Fittingly, the lyrics are very poorly done and, to me, the choir doesn't sound very good.
    1 point
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