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~Sophia~

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Everything posted by ~Sophia~

  1. If he did what he valued why would this drain his spirit? Why would he not find joy in the struggle toward his goals and no joy when he succeeded? --------------------------------- Toohey as the power luster is also an altruist. Anyone who makes themselves a dependent, who places their main concern within other men - is.
  2. Keating is being told (by this mother and society) that he should value social prestige more than his own desires in life. He accepts that altruistic morality and makes his choices accordingly. He is as tragic of a character as Cheryl is, in that respect. They both follow, in their own ways, what that morality demands. They both make choices according to what is considered by the society standard as "the good". They pursue those goals because they accept that they should. But he does not actually value any of those things we already mentioned because none of those choices bring him fullfillment and happiness (altruistic morality does not deliver on it's promisses - as we know it can't). He realizes that he did not make the right choices for himself but he pushes those thoughts away (he admists it, at least once to Roark in a very rare moment of self honesty) and continues on that path eventhough, at every step, he betrays himself. That was the whole point of this character.
  3. There are few pieces of yours which I like: Inkling Catherine Purpleish Bunch Bluegreen White Blossoms Red Bunch Spiky White
  4. But he did not prefer it. Neither did he prefer being an architect over being an artist. He just placed society standard above his own. He did not allow himself what he really wanted, what he really desired.
  5. There are only two alternatives. You are either placing self first or something else first. The other thing above self can be other people (most common) but it can also be nature, for example. Placing anything above self is altruism.
  6. Keating's standard of morality was NOT egoism and because of THAT he was mistaken about what was in his best interest which made him gave up the things which cost him his happiness.
  7. I can see how this may not be so obvious. This is explained in the essay "The Soul of an Individualist" in For the New Intellectual (or Howard Roark defense speech in TF).
  8. Second-handishness is incompatible with egoism. Second-handishness is a result of accepting the morality of altruism. Other's value system will never fully match your own. It may match in terms of cardinal values (not that we live in that kind of society tday) but never in respect to personal/optional values. Keating gave up many deep personal desires - one of his major mistakes was to become an architect rather than an artist, another was giving up Kathy, finally he gave up on what was left of his self esteem. He gave up all of those for the second-hander’s delusion of prestige. He was an altruist.
  9. I think this change in ranking reflects what happened in financial, housing, and automotive industries. It is also a forecast for things to come as a result of those changes.
  10. A good example of lack of individuality is the borg from Star Trek. All the minds are permanently connected and everyone is directed by the hive queen. No individual choices are possible. Not the case with Na'vi. They could connect or disconnect at will and the planet was not directing their actions. They did not connect to get "orders" - the purpose was to communicate information or to get control over the mind (and actions) of animals (each time it was their choice for their purpose). The second does not necessarily follow from the first. It can imply that they had no values in common or that what they were offered specifically was of no interest to them. Also, Na'vi clearly had values: made individual value choices, experienced loss, acted to protect what they valued often at great risk to themselves, displayed personal desires and ambitions, worked hard to deveop abilities and took pride in excellence.
  11. It is a utopian scenario but it is NOT a life boat situation. Life boat scenario has a very specific formulation: It is when no moral option is available (which was not the set up in the movie). That is what makes it amoral and not the state of conflict or emergency itself.
  12. This is what Cameron wrote about his intent : (the movie) "asks us to open our eyes and truly see others, respecting them even though they are different, in the hope that we may find a way to prevent conflict and live more harmoniously on this world. "
  13. These people had issues before they saw a movie.
  14. Someone's understanding of the philosophical explanation of the concept of rights is irrelevant. Rights are based on the metaphysical requirements of survival for rational species. Rights then apply to all individuals of the class regardless of whether they understand them or not (children do not, for example).
  15. The context, from memory, was that he was trying to communicate to the Na'vi the seriousness of the situation which they were not fully grasping. What humans did was almost unthinkable to them. The mode of survival of the two species was different and thus the values were drastically different as well. Na'vi did not know any other environment and this was their first encounter with a different species. Also this comment, and few other similar ones were the exception in the movie. They did not constitute the essence of what the story was about. It is not unreasonable that the leader would have characterized the situation in this way. My son watching the movie did not think that the main character was a traitor. It only reasonably follows that he would. In time he would have used up all of the oxygen supplies. Also his human body was damaged. Makes sense to me. If I decided to stay I would have made the same choice. There was also a risk involved - success was not a given outcome - he and his love bravely took that risk. The main character showed a lot of heroism. It also made sense for Na'vi to be mystical to some degree. They were considerably less advanced than humans and lacked the scientific understanding of their environment. Main character, a human, used reason throughout the movie rather than relying on Na'vi superstitions. Modern/superior - in what way? Humans were much more advanced in terms of being able to understand reality even if much different from what they are used to. Na'vi were presented as much more primitive species that could survive without technology (which was probably the reason for why they were able to remain ignorant). But their context was different, their world was different. There was some type of cross-species chemical connection on that Planet. It was clear that humans could not take the same path. Pandora was so drastically utopian that Na'vi's choices do not translate to human context. They presented some men as that. Others, including the main character, were presented differently. (The kind of men I admire are usually not the majority and usually not the leaders of our world. This part was actually not that unbelievable to me. I don't like where humanity is going politically - do you?) This movie primarily was about rights and fight for freedom despite great odds (massive technological advantage on the side of humans). So? It was a fantasy movie! I did not get that impression at all. I have no idea what you are referring to. Criticizing particular business practices is not necessarily anti-business. Humans did not "return to the primitive" - that was not presented as the ideal. Main character stayed behind for a woman (his human body was also damaged). ------------- Aliens invading earth and humans being the less advanced species has been done many times before. -------------
  16. Perhaps we are going on two different definitions of anti-man. Was man damn as evil? Was it criticizing an aspect of man that is part of his nature? No. Was it anti-reason/anti-mind? No. Did it called for humans to sacrifice their well being/survival for the sake of nature? No. (what they were mining was more on the level of gold rather than humanity saving resource). Was it calling for no human intervention in nature? No (just not for digging under that one tree). Was it calling for a world without innovation? No. (in the story Na'vi could survive without technology but humans could not even breathe without the use of it). -------------- Yes there were elements that were bad but let's keep it in perspective.
  17. Restricting research to solely adult stem cell studies severely hampers medical progress of life saving importance. You pretty much saying that a clump of undifferentiated cells is above a fully developed human being. (Undifferentiated state is before a cell turns into a type of a cell). At the same time, embryonic stem cells cannot themselves develop into a full organism. ------------------------- All embroynic stem cell lines have been derived from “spare” embryos created during in-vitro fertilization. Embryos that otherwise would have been (and are) destroyed. Typically in the process of IVF over 20 mature ova is extracted. After fertilization procedure, out of these, 2-4 healthy-looking embryos are implanted in the woman's uterus. The surplus embryos are either frozen in liquid nitrogen (and out of those about 25% die during the freezing/thawing process when the first implantation was not successful) or simply discarded (often down the drain). It is these embryos, which otherwise ARE being discarded, that scientists use/want to use for research. Preventing stem cell research only prevents medical progress - it does not "save" any embryos. We are talking here about undifferentiated clump of cells, typically less than five days after fertilization. Farming humans, for organs for example, would have been immoral. Two different things.
  18. Do you have any other ideas other than education? That is what we do - we promote reason.
  19. For those interested, here is a YT clip (interesting part starts at about 1:00) illustrating this in action. ------------------------ (I think I found my first new year project - to learn as much a possible about Edward Louis Bernays)
  20. You are probably right in terms of his intentions. I also don't consider Avatar as a big threat - certainly not on it's own. But this is not an isolated message in a popular media today.. it is one of similar many. The compounding effect of repeated exposure linking certain feelings to certain outcomes is not so insignificant.
  21. And what drives, motivates, directs individuals toward particular actions? It is ideas - is it not? But we have a market of ideas, many contradictory - so how do people decide to accept and support idea X rather than Y? Look around you.. do you find that most people display a conceptual mentality? I don't mean the intellectuals - I mean the average voter. Fact is, on average, they don't - not outside of their work and not when it comes to social matters. Perceptual-level mentality is the default. Emotion vs. Logic in sales (and this includes selling ideas) is a good topic to research if you interested in this further. This approach has been proven very successful over and over - just look at the environmental movement campaign. It works. Of course they are capable of rational thought but you underestimate the power of emotion in human decision making. I assure you - none of the effective ideological leaders or political campaign managers make this mistake. An excellent illustration comes from the last presidential election, in which most people voted for "change" without looking too deeply into just what kind of change was being offered. Pure genius in terms of effectiveness.
  22. This is in line with my evaluation of the movie. I am glad I took my son to see it. It was one of those fun events this Christmas we will always remember. The experience was fun and the ideological shortfalls created an opportunity for an interesting discussion in the car on our way back home.
  23. You are right. Art properly is not judged by artist's intentions but by what has been actually created - it's identity. --------------- I think the issue here is how to objectively judge art that is ideologically mixed (and most art today is as most people today lack ideological integration).
  24. That is not the theme of this movie.
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