Let me start this thread with honesty, because it may be the best thing that I can offer, so that you can understand why I'm here and trying to respect Objectivism. First, some common ground: I'm a libertarian and a metaphysical non-Randian objectivist. Where I differ from Objectivists is that I am a libertarian for reasons centered around pragmatism rather than morality, and I have very different moral imperatives than those offered by Rand's Objectivism.
By nature, I'm a student of philosophy (Even if by label I am a quantitative systems student); I was once a secular humanist and now just don't have a label. To be honest, I never liked what introduction I did receive to Objectivism (I read an introductory book by Peikoff and several books by Rand). So, I set it aside and went about my business.
Enter my recent roommate situation. One of my roommates was in jail in the past (we got along fine) and by a strange coincidence the other was a rather outspoken proponent of Objectivism (we got along fine, too). Unfortunately, these two guys absolutely hated each other, and they were fighting, physically, every other day when I wasn't around. I had to take sides, so I sided with the guy who hadn't been in jail (the Objectivist, John). So, I got my roommate John moved for free, since I know the folks that own the place (and myself). This put my friendship with this other fellow at risk, which is unfortunate, because we were friends, and I can get along well with most people. The Objectivist guy (henceforth John) seemed like a nice, quiet, smart guy who was being bullied, and it seemed like helping him was the right thing to do.
It turns out the guy who was getting beat up all the time was also a complete sociopath. The only two requests I made of him were to leave the AC on 70 degrees and if I could borrow his extra power supply to fix my computer. The guy would try to out-pseudo-intellectual me all the time, and he would talk about how ignorant everyone is, and then I'd say, "Hmm, do you think I'm ignorant?" and he'd just look at the ground with a smirk.
The guy would take pretty much any help you offered him, but would never be cooperative or respectful about anything. When I started to be perpetually annoyed at him, he started doing increasingly weird childish stuff. Naturally, I resented him, so I quit helping him with much of anything. The thing about John is he's bigger than me, but he has no spine, so I figured, what the hell, I'll just ignore him and do whatever I want. He threatened my girlfriend in a way that was very scary for her, I ended up confronting him, there was something about his body language I didn't like, and the end result is that for the first time in my life, I got in a fight (and unfortunately, ended up giving someone a severe beating). I don't actually feel guilty about what I did, because the guy was a bonified butt-munch, spineless, and he was also bigger than me. Actually, the police didn't even believe him when he filed assault charges because I am smaller than him and he has apparently filed assault charges against five different people in the past year.
However, I do and should feel guilty that I allow myself to perceive an entire group a certain way because of a bad experience. The truth of the matter is that since then, I have come to perceive Objectivists as selfish people who are fixated on intelligence and who enjoy intellectual masturbation rather than emotional maturity in others. I admit that is not a nice or fair way to perceive or portray Objectivists, and being a philosopher who (above all things) considers morality to be characterized by empathy, I have a duty and a burden on my conscience that I should make good with and come to understand a group that I misrepresent, even if only in my mind.
I think that's enough about myself, and I hope you will forgive anything I say if you perceive my words as disrespectful. I am, at least, doing my best to speak with complete candor. I do have some questions for each of you.
So, some questions, whose purpose is two-fold: first, to convince me that I am wrong about Objectivists in general, and second, to convince me that Objectivism as a philosophy is not so bad either.
1.) Not all evil behavior is stupid behavior, nor is all stupid behavior evil, correct?
2.) It is not moral to accept many things from people with communal personalities and refuse to help at all in return, correct? I understand this rule is applied to governments, but individual entities are treated differently than governments in this situation, right?
3.) It is not moral to mistreat stupid people simply because they are stupid, correct?
4.) It is not immoral to help someone without expecting anything in return, correct? (E.g., it is immoral to promote this as an imperative instead)
5.) Is the moral normative more of a positive description of how species behave, or is it a real metaphysical normative?
6.) From a secular, neurological perspective, it seems more reasonable to view morality as an emergence of empathetic centers of the brain which reinforce and punish "socially approved" and "socially unacceptable" behaviors, respectively, rather than "beneficial" and "non-beneficial" behaviors. E.G., morality seems more sensibly modeled as a function of the superego. Are any of you guys bothered by this sort of positive description of morality, or do you consider it more adequate than "socially approved" and "socially unapproved" models?
7.)Do you consider the distinction between "socially approved" and "personally beneficial" behavior less-than-meaningful or unimportant?
And just out of curiosity,
8.) What is more important in a friend: their maturity or their intelligence?
9.) Do you like kids?
10.) Leonard Nemoy or William Shatner?
