Korthor
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Posts posted by Korthor
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I don't think Rachel Maddow reflects mainstream Democratic opinion, nor do I think the Fundies are listening in to newscasts by left wing American feminists. What's really emboldening Iran is its perception that the US is weak in Iraq.
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I like asking questions, and I think questions like, "What is the line between philosophy and opinion?" is a good one. My intent wasn't malicious, and I guess I'm writing for people that also like asking questions. Some people's interests don't run in that direction, and they're free to ignore me. I hope people don't view every question I ask, even if it's dificult, as an attack.
I would like to thanks those who took time to answer, even if they do find me annoying.
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The Republicans also criminilized politics, not to mention sex (impeachment of Clinton). I found the Commentary article and wasn't impressed. Yeah hard-core Marxists like JPS called America and the French Nazis... he was like the Michael Moore of his day with some philosophical and novelistic skills. I wouldn't put him in the same category as center-leftists like Friedman.
The surge is showing short-term results... and people who oppose American continuation in the war insist the results will stay short term. It's a debate. If you want to debate Iraq policy, then debate Iraq policy. The old "if you suggest we're not winning the war, you cause us to lose the war" schtick stopped being persuasive a long time ago. Even Fox News commentators have trouble still saying it with a straight face.
Please don't engage in ad hom attacks that presume to know the secret thoughts of millions of people... many of whom are combat veterans and war heroes themselves. How many of the planners of the Iraqi war are veterans? The neocons are just a bunch of ex-socialist intellectuals... why should I give them the benefit of the doubt over experienced military men who doubt the success of the current strategy?
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After reading people's responses, I realized it might be helpful to better artiuclate what was motivating my concerns. The point of Rand's critique of the moral/practical and theory/practice dichotomies was that philsophical assumptions had very direct "practical" effects. To take the example of psychology, she thought that bad psychology (i.e., self-loathing) was a direct effect of moral principles.
To take another approach, Peikoff critiques the analytic-synthetic dichotomy on the grounds that one can't make distinctions between necessary and contingent truths. When people describe certain views of Rand or other Objectivists as time-bound, contingent, "current-eventy," they are creating a dichomoty similar to the ASD. Is there a distinction between "analytic" (necessary) v. "synthetic" (contingent) views of Objectivism? To be clear, I'm using the ASD as an ANALOGY--i'm not accusing anyone of epistemological errors here. I just find some of people's overly-pat response goes against the integrating thrust that IS intrinsic to Objectivism.
And yes asking provocative questions involves provoking. Some people find it annoying, but as Kurt Kobain Cobain would say, "my will is good..."
I also enjoy keeping questions on this forum open as long as possible rather than closing them down by being satisfied with the first response that comes to mind... another psycological quirk that DavidOdden perhaps finds annoying.
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Honsestly, I found your answer less than illuminating. I asked about what should be considered "intrinsic" to Objectivism, and you said that we should bracket thoughts that are "a personal opinion about the state of the world." I was wondering where to draw that line. If anyone had a concrete answer I'd be thrilled. Maybe it's like pornography, "we know it when we see it." As you might of figured out by now, I like raising provocative questions...
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1. I was thinking of her essay "About a Woman President."
2. OK she said "psychological immorality" rather than "degenerate"
Here's a quote from CapitalismForever on the Homosexuality thread
http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.p...ic=94&st=40
Compare this with the following unequivocal statement from Ayn Rand during a Q&A in 1971:
QUOTE
Q: This questioner says she read somewhere that you consider all forms of homosexuality immoral. If this is so, why?
A: Because it involves psychological flaws, corruptions, errors, or unfortunate premises, but there is a psychological immorality at the root of homosexuality. Therefore I regard it as immoral. But I do not believe that the government has the right to prohibit it. It is the privilege of any individual to use his sex life in whichever way he wants it. That's his legal right, provided he is not forcing it on anyone. And therefore the idea that it's proper among consenting adults is the proper formulation legally. Morally it is immoral, and more than that, if you want my really sincere opinion, it is disgusting.
(from http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/bio/biofaq.html#Q5.2.5)
3. I remember reading that she thought economic sanctions were good against communist countries in the ARL. I don't have it in front of me right now. Can anyone help me out with a quote?
4. Once again, I don't have The Art of Fiction in front of me and have to work for memory.
As I said, I wanted to focus in this thread on the question of the line between views intrinsic to Objectivism versus those one could legitimately disagree with Rand on be considered an Objectivist. If we debated the specifics of 1-4 here, this thread would explode out of control.
If you want to debate about those issues, there are already huge threads on 1 and 2. As for 3, I'll debate you on sanctions later if you really want to. And for four, I've written about it here...
http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=8877
Once again,if you want to debate about those issues or whether Rand really said what I thought she said, then please go to relevant threads or start new ones. I wanted to focus on a broader meta-question.
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For a wickedly humorous critique of Conservapedia, look here...
http://www.avclub.com/content/hater?page=3
If you like a good skewering of both American pop culture and America's obssession with pop culture, I'd recommend reading more The Hater. Amelie Gilette has a hilariously accurate eye for the ridiculous elevated to the level of the sublime.
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But I think the question of what is Objectivism and what is Rand's evaluation of particular empirical matters is an important one.
Obviously you can't advocate the welfare state and support Objectivism, but what about other things? For example, I disagree with the following opinions of Rand's...
1) there are fixed man v. woman gender identities and people who want to depart from normative gender roles are intellectually dishonest
2) homosexuality is degenerate
3) economics sanctions are an effecive policy for fighting totalitarianism
4) James Joyce sucked
Many of these issues have their own threads, and I'm certainly not interested in debating the particulars of my more-or-less heretical opinions here.
I was interested if anyone had criteria for drawing the line between "Objectivism" and "Randism"?
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The only responsibility corporations have is to achieve the aims of their oweners. If the owners want to do other things besides make profit, there's nothing wrong with that.
In the case of publically owned companies, it's up to the shareholders. If companies are pursuing strategies that might lead to short-term reductions in profits for benevolent reasons, it's up the the shareholders and the board to evaluate such decisions.
I'm not sure about this "appeasment" thing. If I drink fair trade coffee, the terrorists win? I can't be held responsible for the altruistic motives of others who drink FTC or boycott WalMart. I feel comfortable with my own justifications, but less so with the thinking of those who are so annoyed with the altruism of leftists that they are highly suspicious of anyone that tries to help anyone else. I've been thinking about this issue more, and hopefuly in a few days I'll post something about the line between benevolence (philia) v. charity (agape).
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By "capitalist benevolence," I meant benevolence that tries to work through capitalism (e.g., the microlending schemes that won the Nobel Prize or Fair Trade coffee) as opposed to just giving money to people on the streets.
I don't think people are assholes because they don't give to charity... but I was disturbed when people accused me of being altruistic, statist, and wealth destroying when I explained why I didn't shop at WalMart.
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So-called "fair trade coffee" is probably a good analogy to unionization: one is deciding to pay slightly more for a product. Therefore you pay less to someone else. (ref. Economics in One Lesson). Perhaps you buy one less pair of shoes. So, instead of one poor coffee-grower and one poor cobbler, you give a little more to the coffee-grower, and its too bad for the cobbler. Every time you pay someone some money, you also do not pay that to someone else.
So, while some may feel warm and fuzzy thinking about the coffee-grower, while sipping their "fair trade coffee", I will feel warm and fuzzy drinking regular coffee while wearing my new pair of shoes. [bTW: "Fair trade" is a redundant term if the trade actually takes place.]
It's my money and I'll spend it as I want. But if the peasant has more money, then won't they buy more shoes? The fact that people on this board object to even the slightest bit of non-coercive capitalist benevolence explains why lots of people think Objectivists are assholes... which isn't true, although some are.
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Different Democrats have different reasons, but most who favor withdrawal say they want to because
1) the war is failing and just costing American lives
2) the troops could be put to better use in Afghanistan, the real fron in the War on Terror
3) Iraq is wearing down US military preparedness
All politicians want to win; let's not pretend like the GOP is any better. If you want to discuss the policies or philosophies of particular people, then by all means lets discuss those policies/philsoophies instead of the facial expressions of Pelosi.
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I guess my point was that there wasn't a single "muslim" culture, and there are certainly wide divergence of views amongst muslims even within the same culture. Pew has numerous studies on world opinion, and if people want to learn about what other people are thinking, then looking at empirical data might be a better place to start than Doyle.
I like his fiction, but I wouldn't use the dialogue from one of his fictional characters as a basis for my foreign policy... or at least I tried to confirm its claims first.
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On the other hand, I find Bush's goofy shit-kicker grin so comforting... it really makes me feel like we have a competent hand at the wheel...
The Democrats want early withdrawal from Iraq. If you want to debate the merits of that policy, please do so rather than tossing around ad homs.
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I think there are contexts where unions are too powerful, especially backed by government force. That's why I'm advocating non-coercive unions. Moreover, there are contexts (e.g., low-level workers in the service industry) where unions offer the only possibility of workers not living in abject poverty. If someone worked 60 hours a week (although companies like Walmart like to employ them for 39 so the won't be full-time) at $6/hour, that would be $360 a week and roughly $14k a year... and that's if they can fine a second job since WalMart won't give them fulll-time. 14K pre-tax for a 60 hour work week and no vacation... That kind of sucks...
On the other hand, the unions in Detroit do seem hell-bent on destroying the American auto industry. In particular, the auto industry (and the airline industry) face problems because of their massive pension liabilities that their competitiors don't have to bear. Hopefully, companies will learn from the mistakes of their collapsing brethern and not offer promises of generous pensions as a way of appeasing unions.
While the teacher unions are a destructive force, they are, as a Marxist would say, "superstructural." I thought the problem was compulsory schooling because of the inefficiences and lack of choice in the current system. Moreover, when schools can pay to get good teachers, students do well... that's why rich kids succeed and poor ones fail in America (on the whole).
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The French shot at the Sphinx, and the Romans burned the library at Alexandria.* If you want a more accurate assessment of the "Dervish" mind than the hundred year old ramblings of a British mystic**, then I'd recommend going to this website...
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=248
While some of the results are disturbing (and would support some of your claims), it indicates that there isn't a monolithic Muslim mind. After all, a thousand years ago the Muslim world was a beacon of Enlightenment (relative to Europe anyway), and it's arguable that we wouldn't even know who Aristotle was without the preservation of his works by the fascinating tradition of Islamic Aristotelians.
*The responsibility for the burning is still in dispute. But the attribution to the Caliph Umar is probably the least credible of the four common explanations given that the first mention of the theory didn't occur until over three hundred years after the fact by a Christian clergyman known for his rabidly anti-Muslim views. It probably has the same historical credibility of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but the fact that Doyle lept to believe indicates something about his state of mind.
** Doyle was one of the leading members of British spiritualism.
P.S. The Colossos had collapsed 900 years before the Muslims arrived in Rhodes. They sold its remains for scrap metal--reportedly to a profit-hungry Jew... wow aren't stereotypes fun!
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1. Chicago will survive without WalMart. It has never had WalMart and it still prospers. It would prosper more with less government regulation, but that's beside the point I'm making.
2. I disagree with the notion that helping other people, even people you don't know, is altruistic: benevolence and generosity are Aristotelian virtues, even if Objectivists don't talk about them as much as they should (although Rand occasionally acknowledged benevolence). Helping strangers if selfish if 1) you aren't sacrificing yourself or your values and 2) your help is rooted in the affirmation of your own sense of self rather than a substitute for it. If the world is sunny, why don't i share some of that sunshine?
3. If the contracts are non-coercive, I agree that we don't have a "moral obligation" to condemn them, and they don't have a "moral obligation" to give a damn about my point of view either. But I also have a right to pay a few more cents for tube socks as an act of generosity and benevolence. I'm not advocating anything coercive. While i'm sure some "corporate responsibility" is motivated by statism/altruism, I had in mind things like "Fair Trade Coffee." I'll enjoy my coffee more if I know that when I was drinking it I was helping peasants raise themselves out of poverty rather than pushing them further into it. The fact that thet Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize last years indicates that the world is waking up to the fact that the best way to help others is through benevolent capitalism: helping the poor to help ourselves.
4. Ultimately, each person has to make up their own mind as to whether WalMart's practices are worthy of condemnation. I just wanted to make one more comment about union-busting. What I object to is WalMart's spying on unions and firing people who try to form unions. Yes it is their right and I'm not advocating that the government stop them. But I find the practice distasteful, so I choose to withold my dollars.
5. I find the WalMart creates wealth argument irrelevant, since I'm advocating giving my money to other companies that are also creating wealth... not donating it to Greenpeace.
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Just a few hours after I wrote about the infilitration of the Iraqi government by militias and insurgents, I was proven right in a most gruesome fashion. Evidently, some Shia policemen decided to form an impromptu death squad and killed over 45 Sunni civillians.
Obviously, arming the Iraqi government and disarming the civillians is not a sufficient solution.
In America, we say "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." In Iraq, I guess you could say, "When guns are outlawed, only government-affiliated death squads will have guns."
For the full story, see here...
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Are you saying there are non-empirical truths (e.g., math), or that math isn't true? How does this not fall prey to the analytic/synthetic dichotomy (i.e., math consists of analytic truths and science of synethic ones). There is only kind of truth... truth about reality. Different contexts have different standards of evaluating whether something is true. I don't think math has a different epistemological status than chemistry: they're both disciplines that purport to describe reality. If you want to say math isn't a science, I'm willing to concede the point, but math is certainly true in the same sense that chemistry is or philosophy is... they're all disciplines that attempt to discover truths about reality.
I looked at chapter five .. Were you talking about the idea of the "arbitrary"? Maybe that idea could clarify that dilemma.
Professor Smith, a widely respected chemist with a record of impeccable honesty tells you, "X is true. In fact, it's been completely accepted in the field of chemistry for fifty years." He then hands you a book outlining X and why it's true. You don't understand it. Is it arbitrary to believe X?
I would say no, since believing people who know what they're talking about and have no reason to lie isn't an "arbitrary" basis for belief. We take the word of others for things we can't verify all the time. It's not arbitrary if there is a basis for trust, and Occham's razor would militate believing all the scientists are lying. Moreover, it is rational to believe things even if we can't be certain of them. For example, I believe the sun will rise tomorrow even though I'm not certain of it.
And I would believe Stephen Hawking if he told me, "beana ii leat boazu." I don't think it's arbitrary, but maybe I'm just a soft touch. Perhaps after we've gotten to know each other a little better, I'll extend you the same courtesy.
When I say I "believe" something, I'm making a claim that there is a correspondence between the mental concept and reality.
It is possible to say "x" is true even if I don't know why it's true. It's possible for me to "identify the referents" and "understand a proposition" without understanding why the proposition is purported to be true. Here are two reasons...
1. It is possible for me to grasp a concept (say the conclusions of a scientific report) that is meaningful to me even if I don't understand the concepts that I would need to verify the truth or falsity of the concept.
2. To take another example, I understand FLT. If says that there is no integer greater than two for which a to the n power plus b to the n power can equal c to the n power. I understand that. I bet you do too. Look, look, a concept in my mind! But is it true? I'll say yes, but I'll never understand Wiles's proof of it. I don't think that my belief is arbitrary given the rigor that mathemeticians applied in testing it.
P.S. If you want to debate about the epistemological status of math, I"m game, but please start a new thread.
PPS. Would you please respond to my query about whether of not you believe in magnetism or the special theory of relativity?
PPPS. Thanks for the post Moebius. I thought it made sense. Just one comment about the issue of scientific debates: I find debates on "global warming" amongst amateurs frustrating because neither side knows enough to prove why the other side is ignorant. They're essentially lobbing contextless facts at each other without the necessary knowledge to integrate these facts into a meaningful picture of what's happening.
I wrote the post because I find the arrogance of amateurs who think they understand climate science when they'e just read the cliff notes galling.
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I think the goals should be the disarmament of all militias and non-government personnel, which includes the destruction of their capacity to re-supply (which may mean cross-boarder attacks). This would require a loosening of the rules of engagement in many areas of Iraq, but not all.
Do you think there even the slimmest possibility of that happening given that the Shia militias have infilitrated the Iraqi security forces and the Sunni insurgents have infilitrated the Iraqi army? In a very real sense, everyone outside the Green Zone (and much of the people inside it) are allied with some extra-governmental force or another. It would in fact not be completely misleading to say that various branches of the Iraqi government are arms of the insurgency and militias.
The only way to get rid of the militias and insurgents is to carpet bomb the whole country minus the Kurds. This might be a good plan (I'm open to arguments in favor of it), but the idea that we can "defeat" or "disarm" the insurgency and the militias is just silly... especially given that there is little political will in America to do so. That's why I proposed some goals that could possibly be achieved.
P.S. Iraq is a good example of libertarian polyarchy run awry.
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"First they came for the Jews. I am not a Jew, so I said nothing...."
The WalMartians are a strong and resilient people. If the Jews could recover from the Holocaust, then WalMart can get by without Chicago.
But seriously, I'm not saying that what the Chicago council did was right. I just wanted to voice my dissent from the right wing consensus that WalMart is great. I don't like low-wages, they do discriminate against women, I don't like union busting even if I don't believe in government-backed unions, and in general... they treat workers badly. Are you saying you can't tell when someone is being treated badly by another? I'm not saying that companies have a "moral obligaton" to sacrifice their profits for my beliefs, but it's also my right as a consumer to vote with my buck. I'm willing to pay an extra quarter for tube socks if it makes the world slightly more pleasant for others and myself... This isn't altruism, but the Aristotelian virtue of benevolence.
The fact that some companies are emphasizing "corporate responsibility" is an indication that people like me are having an effect. I don't think we should dismiss this as "hippy bullshit" just because hippies hate WalMart. If you can afford to pay a little more, the monetary cost to yourself might be outweighed by the psychic reward of your generosity (another Aristotelian virtue). If we want to convince people that capitalism isn't evil, then we should stop sticking up for companies that make people think capitalism is evil.
Look at Bill Gates and all the wealth he created for himself and others. Now he's giving up much of it that he doesn't need to make the world around him better. That isn't altruism. It's virtue in the fullest sense of the word.
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I do believe math to be a science, but that's kind of irrelevant to my dilemma. Gvien scientific theory x which you don't understand, Either
A. You do believe x or
B. You don't believe x.
Is there a third option I'm missing? Even if I don't understand FLT, I do understand the law of the excluded middle.
I think the debate about whether math is a science is peripheral to this issue, so I'll meet you half-way and allow you to substitute for X any scientific theory you don't understand.... say Einstein's special theory of relativity.
I choose option A. You seem to be saying you'll go with B, which means that you don't believe in a great deal of science... a peculiar position for a man of reason.
P.S. If you don't believe in magnetism (since I don't think you understand the physics), then maybe you should stop claiming to be the "World's Northernmost Objectivist"
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The most important question to ask is, "What are our goals in Iraq?" Obviously it's not going to be a Middle Eastern Switzerland, so what do want to achieve? What would could America accept as non-defeat, given that victory is probably impossible. In order of importance, they are...
1. Defeat Al Quaeda in Iraq.
Al Quaeda is a Sunni organization, but that doesn't mean that all the Sunni insurgents are aligned with Al Queda. In fact, many of the domestic Sunni insurgents hate Al Quedea as "carpetbaggers." Obviously this will require an aggressive military policy, but it might also require reaching out to some Sunni insurgents to take down Al Queda.
2. Have a stable government that can function on its own.
I think this will be impossible without the Sunnis being brought into the process, which reinforces my conviction that American forces need to distinguish between Sunnis we can work with and Sunnis we can't, because if we lump all the Sunnis into one box as the "insurgency," then there can never be a stable Iraq. But this also requires reaching accomodations with the Shia militias. Once again, distinctions need to be made. While some are influenced by Iran, we shouldn't buy into the "Shia Crescent" theory that all the Shia are going to come together in solidarity (when was the last time ANYONE in the middle east came together to order take out, much less a thousand mile long stretch of solidarity?). Iran and Iraq recently fought a long and bloody war, and the Shia realize they are on the verge of finally coming to power--many don't won't to become lapdogs of Tehran.
Bottom line: there has to be some kind of "peace process" because the ex-patriate Shia dominated Malaki government can't survive in its current form.
3. Stop Iraq from becoming a client state of Iran
This requires planning ways to maintain US force projection capabilities after the occupation. It requires trying to work with Sunni insurgents and Shia militias that don't like Iran. It requires us to spend more time on the Iranian border and less on the streets of Baghdad.
P.S. When people say things like "relax the rules of engagement" and "kill civillians," they need to follow that up with "Kill civillians in order to achieve goal x." It might be necessary to relax rules of engagment in certain contexts, but the US should be clear about what its STRATEGIC goals are and how particular TACTICS enhance or subvert those goals. After all, there might be contexts where killing less civillians would be a more effective policy. The goal of war is NOT to kill your enemies... it is to achieve particular goals. I've always liked Clausewitz's "War is a continuation of politics by other means."
PPS. Please stop beating this "just war' horse. Is there any major politician or military official who espouses it? When military planners form rules of engagment, I doubt they are consulting Michael Walzer.
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I don't know about Mexico, but I don't like WalMart when compared to other stores in the US.
1. Every time I'm in a WalMart, I look into people's eyes and they are dead inside. This might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I find WalMart aesthetically displeasing--kind of like a trip to the DMV.
2. They do treat their workers badly. I don't think the government should be cracking down on WalMart, but as a consumer I prefer to shop at places that treat their workers decently (just as I wouldn't shop at a place that practiced racial discrimination). It is certainly not in our interest to support businesses that give capitalism a bad name.
3. I'm skeptical of all the Chinese goods in WalMart... not because I hate the Chinese, but because I'm worried a significant amount might be from prison slave labor. Moreover, China will be America's rival within the next twenty years, and I would prefer not to do my part to build up the Chinese war machine.
4. They're not really that much cheaper, and I can certainly afford the marginal increase of costs (if any). Certainly in the age of the Internet anyone with computer access that can't find a good deal is just not looking hard enough.
I don't feel an obligation to defend WalMart just because the left attacks them. While their rights shouldn't be violated, I can't help but thinking "they kind of had it coming"... sort of like a guy who gets his ass kicked at a bar by deliberately picking a fight with Bruno.
Proles Follow Orders, Loot House
in The Objectivism Meta-Blog Discussion
Posted · Edited by Korthor
Well, there actually was a report receiving national attention this past weekend that someone was giving away their house if anyone would pay to move it. I also see signs from people moving out offering to give away stuff all the time.
I don't know if I would read this unfortunate incident as a sign of mental defects amongst the proletariat.
Instead, it is a troubling reminder that the internet is not just a site for potential identity theft, but also for vandalism.