AwakeAndFree
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AwakeAndFree, what is "real politeness"? As opposed to what? To etiquette applied for the sake of purposeless convention -- that is, convention for its own sake?
Also, I do not understand what you mean by saying that being polite is applying justice to the realm of impersonal relations.
First, justice is the virtue of "judging a man's character and/or actions exclusively on the basis of all the factual evidence available, and of evaluating it by means of an objective moral criterion[.]" (Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 2nd edition, p. 51.) So, how does being polite to a stranger at a dinner party apply justice?
Second, what do you mean by "impersonal relations"? Aren't all social relations personal?
Well yes, "real politeness" as opposed to dogmatic etiquette upheld for its own sake.
By saying "Impersonal relations" I meant to stress that politeness should not apply in close relationships - not with lovers, friends, or even close family members. The reason is that once in those relationships, a person has a specific understanding of the person he's dealing with, and can taylor his behavior rather than stick to general guidelines.
As to applying justice to new relationships - this is exactly what politeness is: You don't know the person very well yet, so you treat him with a certain amount of respect; saying in effect: I will hold you worthy of respect until proven otherwise.
This is different from "having good manners" which does not entail respect at all. Francisco D'Anconia and Rhett Butler are two very good example of this kind of well bred insolence. When the situation called for it, they were often good mannered, without being polite.
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I see real politeness as the application of justice to the realm of impersonal relations. It consists of respecting a fellow human being's independence (in both action and thought) and rights.
Some people make the mistake of confusing respect for a person's intellectual independence with not judging - but of course those are completely different in nature.
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I already posted this somewhere else, but here I go again:
What current hit TV drama features a genius hero that follows his own judgment even in cases where his career, romantic love, and very life are at stake?
On what show's recent episode did that same hero speak the sentence: "It's dangerous to ever assume that my actions are not rationally based"?
What show stresses the importance of reason above all else, and of both the inductive and deductive methods' importance to human life?
And what show dramatizes the fact that a man's single-minded dedication to his work is what makes him great?
The show is House, and the entire first season will re-run every Tuesday, 9:00 PM Eastern, on Fox.
Politically incorrect, rational, charming, and witty - Dr. Gregory House (played by the incredible Hugh Laurie) is a rare occurrence in television history. House's obsession with his job is not the result of altruism: he became a doctor for the enjoyment of solving medical puzzles. He often rejects severe cases that don't hold any interest for him, sending patients to lesser physicians.
The show opens as Dr. House is hiring a new team of young experts for his department, and throughout the series his team is coming to admire him despite of his arrogant, bluntly individualistic behavior.
The show is not perfect, but it comes closer than any TV drama I have ever seen. I'll give you just two House quotes that reveal the essence of his character (His quotes are a goldmine; fans of the show already collect these "Housisms"):
"Like I always say, there's no 'I' in team. There’s a 'me,' though, if you jumble it up."
And another:
"Treating illness is why we became doctors. Treating patients is actually what makes most doctors miserable."
To those of you who are Sherlock Holmes fans, I would add that Dr. Gregory House is most a modern adaptation of that immortal character, as acknowledged by the creator in interviews.
I would love to hear more people's impressions of the show. From my understanding it was a great hit, and is therefore expected to continue with all new episodes in the fall.
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This is gibberish.
What you are literally saying here, is that for something to be scientific, you have to be able to prove it is false. Hence, all scientific knowledge is false.
Not exactly. A lot of scientists believe that in order for a theory to be scientific, there has to be some kind of test that will determine whether it's true or false. In essence, they are trying to deny God and other arbitrary theories the claim of being "scientific".
Unfortunately, this is a very primitive and inexact way of distinguishing science from non-science. It's a vague, failed attempt to identify the arbitrary as arbitrary.
Ayn Rand, in my view, did a far better job in stating that anything that is unsupported AND unrefuted by our current state of knowledge, has nothing to do with our knowledge, and is therefore ARBITRARY.
What Rei Chi calls "unfalsified", we would supposedly be calling arbitrary. And both of us, supposedly, are treating it the same way: by ignoring it.
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Tikkun Olam (world fixing) is a very religious term. It means your moral obligation to make the world a better place, to "fix" it.
There is a relevant quote from one of the big Rabbis if I recall correctly, saying: "If you believe that you can break it, you must believe that you can fix it."
It's a worldy and pro-free will view, on the one hand. On the other it does rely on God's will, and moral duty. And the things one is supposed to fix is probably human greed, poverty, stuff like that.
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Does Objectivism make you happy? Does converting to the philosophy of Objectivism make a person happier, either immediately or down the road?
Are you kidding? I used to have lapses of bitterness, cynicism, and frustration before I found Objectivism. Not to mention a desolate feeling of lonelyness whenever I was baffled at the irrationality of the world.
I was resigned to serving as a slave of my country (through the Israeli draft), and was about to give up on my dream - which was fiction writing. Objectivism gave me the moral backbone to resist slavery, pursue my dreams, embrace my values and enjoy life to the fullest.
Without Objectivism I would be a bitter computer engineer in Tel-Aviv, rather than an aspiring fiction writer in New York City. The difference between my life before and after Objectivism is like the difference between these two cities.
Nathaniel Branden if he thought people were happier after conversion. I asked after establishing a decent rapport with him and very casually. Then I watched very closely when he replied. He seemed astonished at the question, hesitated a small moment, but then answered right away in an evidently candid and forthright manner: NO. (We talked a bit more, but that was the gist.)Asking Nathaniel Branden if Objectivism makes people happy is kind of like asking Judas if Christianity made him happy. No wonder he was astonished. It couldn't make him happy since he came to reject it, and was rejected by it.
Makes sense?
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I want to throw a question out there. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think it's an important topic, though maybe not in modern-day USA. Police force and all that.
If you are a warrior, that is, someone who fights for the preservation of values, is this consistent with an Objectivist philosophy? To clarify:
1) I am not sure whether a warrior actually creates values or adds to them.
Sure, he does create a value: the value of being safe from attack. He creates an environment where one is free to pursue his values. That's the whole purpose of government: to use force against the initiators of force in order to allow a free society to exist.
Is there a greater value than being free from attacks against your life, property, and freedom?
2) There is an initiation of force issue too. Presumably in the above mugging scene I did physical harm to the mugger or at least threatened it. Chances are I've never seen him, or his victim, in my life. He never initiated force against ME, but he initiated force against SOMEBODY.Yes, the mugger abdicates his rights the moment he tries to violate someone else's rights. In a lawful society - his rights are going to be stripped from him by the legal system (police, courts). In an unlawful society, he knows he might be dealt justice by a just outlaw, or as you call it a "warrior".
The same moral principle applies to government justice and to "street" justice - in case there is no efficient government to protect rights.
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Welcome, Kat!
Objectivism has nothing to do with the rationalist idiots you meet now and then who call themselves Objectivists.
It has everything to do with the philosophy Ayn Rand herself created and presented in her novels and other writings.
Yes, Ayn Rand made some very good points in Meta-ethics, and it is surprising to find out that almost nobody bothered to ask those crucial questions for thousands of years!
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. The anger that it projects seems to relieve anger and stress that I would feel should I not listen to it.
This is the real problem, not the actual music. You are emotionally unbalanced and seem to use this music as a way to avoid dealing with it on the fundamental level.
Would you still listen to this kind of music if you were a truly happy man, with no hidden anger or stress waiting to be unleashed?
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A dogmatic person can't be a real Objectivist, since Objectivism upholds individual thought and judgement above all.
However, there are dogmatists (and other psychos) who borrow some of their dogmas from Objectivism, and even call themselves Objectivist.
Also, there are a lot of Objectivists, especially young people new to Objectivism, who haven't fully grasped Objectivism and hold some sort of rationalistic super-structure instead of well defined principles.
You can identify these people easily - when they start treating the silliest things as immoral (like altruistically-themed computer games, or writing Objectivism with a lowercase o).
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This phrase from Capitalism.org is giving me a headache.
I simply don't get how "no one is forced into poverty". As for the handicapped who make up a minority group, I agree that private charity should easily be able to grant the right to life to those.
But what about the following scenario:
People have to work for wages that aren't high enough to allow them to escape from poverty. Due to competition on the labour market there's no way of earning more money. They're just working to live, to be able to buy food, but they surely won't escape poverty. Imagine the money you earn isn't even enough for you to survive.
It is said that reason alone enables every man to prevent poverty. But no matter how reasonable you are, if the overall supply of labour outweighs the demand for labour, there's no way EVERYONE will find a well payed job (well payed meaning enough to live above poverty level).
Sure, you could try to produce something on your own, running your own business. But in a competitive world and with your limited capital, you won't ever be able to offer your products for a price as low as that of your competitors. YOU WON'T EARN A PENNY.
So how can this be poverty by choice. How can this be poverty due to free-will?
If you say, "Well, you can always go hunt some deer. As long as you survive this way, you don't belong to the poor. You've got reason enough to know how to do that.", if you say that's how poverty is defined, I will understand. But I'm not sure whether poverty is just defined as "inability to survive".
Furthermore I'm not sure wheather reason alone enables you to go hunting successfully. It might also take some physical abilities, even some determined genetically, so in the worst case even reason doesn't help.
Please correct me if I'm wrong
Bobby from Germany.
I'm not going to discuss this, except to say that with this kind of thinking you will never be rich.
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Personally, I would love to live in a society where government is not necessary, but the reality is that humanity is not mature enough yet to handle it.
A society where government is not necessary, is a society where no violence exists. Given that man has free will and is free to choose to do evil by his very nature - violence would always exist, or at least always potentially threaten individual rights.
So what's the point of having this sort of ideal? Free-will is such a basic truth that it is retained even in the most extraordinary fantasy tales. An ideal based on humans always choosing to do right is farther removed from reality than Tolkein's Middle Earth.
Humans are not machines that can be programmed with the right morality and never sin again. Nor should they be.
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What exactly is "anarcho-capitalism"? How does this differ from laissez-faire capitalism?
Anarcho-capitalists believe capitalism can exist in an anarchic system - where even governments, courts, and security forces "compete" in the free market. That's a ridiculous concept, as there is no objective law and the result will doubtless be gang warfare of the worst kind.
The difference between anarcho-capitalism and laissez-faire capitalism is that the second supports a monopoly on the use of force, granted to one government per country, charged with protecting individual rights. In the first, every court and every government can have its own laws, and the individual decides which ones he wants to accept.
Many people are attracted to this or that form of anarchism out of an unstated, groping attempt to defend individual rights. These people realize, at some point, that anarchism would not lead to individual rights, if ever practiced.
I doubt that ann r kay is truly an anarcho-capitalist in the full meaning of the term.
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Yes, I love fantasy. And I love your quote from "Richard Rahl."
The Sword of Truth series is my absolute favorite fantasy series. Sorry, all you Lord of the Rings fans.
Ah, well.
You do realize that Terry Goodkind is a very explicit admirer of Ayn Rand?
Anyways - welcome to the forum! I'm very happy to see that Objectivism is spreading through the culture to such a degree that one can get much of the right ideas from secondary sources.
Still, I'm sure you'll find the Fountainhead experience extremely rewarding - and Atlas Shrugged will blow your mind.
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I never heard of her.
All I can tell you is that Bat Ye'Or is Hebrew for Daughter of the Nile.
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The issue of showing versus telling in fiction writing is not the same as being subtle and implicit versus being explicit.
Showing and telling is a matter of style, and on this I agree. A writer should show rather than tell the important aspects of his story. For example, it is better to show a character acting mad rather than saying "John was mad as hell."
The issue of implicit versus explicit is a different issue altogether. Should fiction writers use explicit words to name their own ideas in a novel? I submit that if the ideas are complex and not obvious, they should. And many great writers, like Ayn Rand, Victor Hugo, Dostoyevski and Charles Dickens do.
Their genius is in their ability to say it without compromising the realism and integrity of the story, without breaking out of character, and without using floating abstractions (i.e. - they say what they want only after they have thoroughly demonstrated their point through the concrete occurences in the novel, and only if there is a logical plot reason for those ideas to be heard).
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A friend of mine told me an even funnier story.
He asked a girl he knew if she had ever read Atlas Shrugged. She told him:
"Oh, yeah! Isn't that the one where they kill a goat?"
Apparently she did read it. Because they do kill a goat in Atlas Shurgged. My appreciation to anyone who can remember in what scene.
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What do Objectionists think of the Church of Satan?
We don't.
Assuming you meant Objectivists.
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Everything Deserves mockery, as there is no perfection.
There is nothing more deserving of mockery than a man who derides everything without distinction.
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Inspector,
It is not non-Objectivist, or even false ideas as such that we love to laugh at. It is stupidity and evil in general. We laugh at those persons or actions too evil or stupid to deal with reality.
I have no problems deriding an Objectivist fool (and no, this is not necessarily a contradiction), and there are people who are not Objectivists, but do not merit derision.
[edited to add a few more typos]
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I think it takes a pretty healthy childhood and a life surrounded by rational people to be shocked at the fact that, unfortunately, epistemological corruption in children is commonplace, modern society or not.
I wish! I was never surrounded by rational people. But I was very far from religion: my family and whole hometown were explicitly secular thoughout most of my childhood.
Besides, the child itself is was not corrupt. It was the PARENTS who were trying to corrupt her. And THAT'S what was so shocking.
I guess it shouldn't have been shocked, but I was very much disgusted.
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You won't prosper if this wasn't a joke.
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Woah.
I still find it hard to believe that people need a "path" to atheism. I can't believe that people today in modern societies are still raised in this fashion - basically brainwashed from a very young age to accept God.
Personally I was never religious. One could say I ranged from Agnosticism to Atheism all my life. Mostly the latter.
I remember a disgusting scene I saw in Israel about two years ago. I sat on the train, on a lovely summer day. A happy looking religious family sat across the isle. A young couple with a child.
The child, a girl of about 3-4, was beautiful and very curious. She constantly asked questions, and looked out the window.
We were passing Haifa's Carmel beach, a beautiful landscape of sand, grass, flowers, and a vast view of the ocean, shining under the sun.
The girl was awe struck. Standing in her seat to better grasp the full grandeur of what she was seeing. Her eyes were wide open. She probably came from Jerusalem and had never seen the sea before.
Her father saw this, and seized the opportunity. He came closer to her and asked her in a low voice: "Who made the sea?"
The girl just wanted to silently watch the view, but they didn't leave her along until she told them who made the sea.
It makes me shiver everytime I think about it.
Somebody Please Welcome Me
in Introductions and Personal Notes
Posted
Welcome, Sev.
Your name is oddly familiar. :-P