DonAthos

Do you take any of those points seriously? People who make those points are either rationalizing or using them to try win an argument. Their real argument is that they don't want more than a certain number of immigrants each year, because it dilutes existing culture and brings competition for jobs.

A dictatorship is a threat because it is a threat to your life and property through the use of force... 
This is a fundamental disagreement with Objectivism. 
Of course people might develop ideas that would then push them towards initiating force, and in this sense ideas might be threatening. Yet we still wouldn't want to initiate the use of force at this stage because people can also change their mind, or might be cowards and not do anything, or don't know the implication of their ideas, or otherwise want to give people the opportunity to be free to change their ideas. We can respond to these threats through argumentation, persuasion, or anything else. In other words, there are different kinds of threats, and different kinds of responses to threats. Since ideas aren't violent threats, I don't see any justification to respond to them with violence.
I can put it this way. I think your idea about anti-American beliefs is itself anti-American. I think this is threatening to the stability of our country, and would necessarily lead to violence if enacted in the way you want. Should I be able to deny you access to the country? Should they be able to kick you out of the country?

If a few million come in every year they have time to assimilate and become more American, especially if they are not forced to keep a low profile by wrongful immigration restrictions.  Many of the people who come here do so to work, which is compatible with becoming more American.
Any portion of collectivism or individualism present in any person's ideas is there by their choice and can be changed by their choice.  It is not biologically determined.  This is also true, in a less direct manner, of most, if not all, of a person's attitudes and emotions.  And where reason conflicts with emotion, we can choose reason.
That approach may be of value, especially in breaking through initial resistance, but to really accomplish something we need to work positively, on a fundamental level, by teaching them the right fundamental principles.
Perhaps.  That's stated very generally, making it hard to get a handle on.  It's not the whole story, though.  For example, central planners have trouble knowing what prices to set.  In at least some cases they have used prices in freer economies as a guide.
It's not tribalism.  It's recognizing where I can have the most effect and where this will most affect me.
Where exactly national borders are drawn is not arbitrary but optional.  (I am using the words "arbitrary" and "optional" in Ayn Rand's sense.)
The world badly needs to have a U.S.A., although it really needs a better one than the one we have now.
To the extent that people distinguish "races", they do so on the basis of minor physiological differences.  The evidence for greater differences is weak at best and implies at most statistical differences which are much less than the differences among individuals within each "race".  The biggest genetic differences that do exist among humans fall not along the lines of traditional "races" but among different groups in Africa, one of which gave rise to all modern humans who left Africa.
I am well aware that the "races" have had different histories which have had measurable statistical effects and have also had a major effect, in a variety of ways, on people's ideas and attitudes.  Can you name even one shade of gray that actually exists that I can't see?

It could not, because those particles only act according to what they are, not according to what they aren't. 
You can't arbitrarily hack anything. You can't do more than its possible to do given the nature of what is, particles and 'meta-energy puffs' included.
The fact that things are made of more basic ingredients does not invalidate the existence of those things. Explaining something doesn't invalidate its existence.
By the way, Objectivism is not a materialistic philosophy. It holds existence, not matter, as the primary. Matter and conciousness are specific things that exist.
No, there isn't. When you say that two bottles of water are the same thing, you're saying that both of them are man-made objects with a shape and material suitable for carrying liquid. You retain those characteristics and ignore their measurements (in reality everything might be different about them: their size, their exact shape, whether they're made of plastic or glass). But those bottles are not the same thing at all, i.e. instances of an Archetype. They are two different concretes which man can classify togheter in order to reduce the complexity of the world.
According to your views, if there is a higher-lever 'spec' which defines what things are and ought to be, what is the even higher level spec which defines what the previous spec is and ought to be?
In other words, causality. But actions don't cause objects, it's objects that act. Causality is an instance of the law of identity: because something is what it is, it acts according to that. 
A thing isn't the way it is because it ought to be what it is. What is, is. 'Ought to be' is a specialized category applying only in a specialized context, that of choice. In no way does it apply outside that context. In morality, when you say that you ought to do something in order to achieve a goal (man's life), you mean that you ought to do it because of certain facts, i.e. because of the identity of man and the world. 
Everything is what it is, i.e. has a nature. Not an abstract nature. Define your terms, otherwise your arguments will go all over the place. The ability to mentally isolate certain characteristics of an object and to contemplate them apart from that object is what abstraction consists of. It allows man to observe similarities and differences between objects and thus to form concepts and the whole body of human knowledge. Abstractions themselves have a nature. For example, they are formed in the brain of a particular living being, they require a certain type of action on the part of that being, they are made possible by a very complex kind of nervous system.
In your view, do the abstract universal archetypes which define the nature of things have a nature themselves? In that case, what do you think defines the nature of these universals? Other universals? If those universals are primaries and their identity is not set by previous universals, do you think that by the same token we can dispose with universals altogether and simply accept existence as a primary? 

Moral action depends on context, but this is no blank check on action in an "improper society." The question before us resolves into whether there is a right to restrict immigration. If there is no right to do it -- if, in fact, restricting immigration is the initiation of the use of force -- then that is immoral equally in a "proper society" or otherwise.
The proper time to protect peoples' individual rights is immediately and always: not when "a proper society is set up," which we currently have scheduled for... well, sometime in the distant future, I continue to allow myself to hope.
The checks you mention with respect to immigration? I agree that some sort of "checks and criteria" is warranted, and that action/restriction can happen there, too, according to the same criteria with which we would countenance retaliatory force domestically. Meaning: if we would rightly restrict the liberty of a US citizen for some reason, then we could rightly restrict border entry for that same reason. But otherwise, no. Otherwise, there's nothing special -- with respect to our recognition of individual rights -- to being born in Tijuana as opposed to San Diego.
If immigrants plan on using the welfare state, that's the welfare state's problem, not mine. (And I have less than zero interest in restricting immigration so that the welfare state may better survive.) It doesn't warrant my telling someone that he may not move to a certain city, buy a certain house, take a certain job, etc. I believe in liberty, and more to the point that I do not have the right to initiate the use of force.
Let's talk about this in concrete detail for a moment. You have a man in Tijuana who wishes to move to San Diego, to get a job there and rent an apartment, so that he and his family may have a better life. You're telling me that an Objectivist such as yourself believes you have the right to tell him that he may not do these things -- in the name of self defense?
Well, why not? If we apply the principles given, I don't see why an Objectivist wouldn't support restraints on a person's freedom to leave. If the people who believe in freedom choose to leave the US, that might leave me just as poorly off as allowing an influx from countries with some poorer culture, right? So if I can restrict people and their actions on the one hand, so that I may have a more favorable political culture, why not on the other?
(For what it's worth, I don't know that a person like Trump -- though quite far from an Objectivist -- is expert at drawing these sorts of distinctions. If he had his druthers, do you suppose he would make it illegal for certain businesses to leave the US and build their factories elsewhere? I do. So even if we're going to approach this from some "realpolitik"/pragmatic angle, I think there are good reasons for mistrusting walls, generally.)

I would agree to no such thing, beyond a background check to make sure we aren't accepting a known rights violator to the country. Even that makes me nervous because you could end up barring somebody who got arrested for a bar fight or something in their relative youth. The immigrating person should respect the rights of others is the main issue. I don't care if they live a murderous society as long as they don't bring it here individually. 
Is a person truly free if he isn't able to choose where he lives voluntarily? Can a society truly claim to value liberty while denying other's liberty to make such a choice?

IQ distributions work in such a way that this doesn't happen anyway. At best, you would need a very limited population, which we aren't even talking about.
But you missed the point. I'm not going to go over how you got the Objectivist position on individual rights incorrect, since we went over that already. Suffice it to say that it is a principle, not an "absolute" (contextless truth) in the way you put it, to guide how we establish an organized society, rather than a consequence of an organized society. Regardless of the person's IQ or race, we care about their actions or their stated beliefs, especially reasons to think the person is a threat to individuals. We might hold people to different standards of accomplishment, but we hold people to the same standard of morality. This is than the basis we should use in which to create a stable and healthy society. This then establishes a shared culture and all that, which only enhances the stability.
You still avoid the whole IQ discussion that you've created when you refuse to talk about what you would do about black people in the US. 

The concept of "God" pushed by scriptuarians is pretty bizarre too, but you can't tell this by looking at a picture of "God".  You have to think in principles.

This is slightly off topic, but, not, at the same time: I think we should (and will, barring some disaster) colonize Mars (and other planets and moons), and that the main reason for doing so should be to exploit their resources to the maximum possible for maximum profit. So, I don't think it's necessarily (or at all) true that colonization is (always) immoral, it just got messy in the past because other humans often got in the way.
Edit:  And yes, there should also be scientific reasons for doing so, and also, in a much more minor way, creation of "outposts for humanity" in case of "disaster" here on earth. The reason for this addendum is I don't want others to believe that I haven't "thought through" it all like I think some do when I don't list every possible scenario, I just think these are more secondary concerns, even though colonization for scientific reasons will come first initially. I'll also state that *if* we find life there but it's only bacterial or virus (or something equivalent), and it is found to be a threat to humans as in a disease causing way, it will be perfectly moral for us to exterminate it to safely pursue human ends, *unless* we find sentient lifeforms.

A continuity?
The inevitability of mass deaths, corrupt leadership and poor living conditions used to justify a "no worse off" argument for what happened to native populations is counter-factual too, n'est-ce pas?  What occurred was exposure to formidable interlopers whose actions demonstrated the practice of "might makes right", regardless of how they spoke about it. And that lesson was learned, went viral and continues to rationalize the actions of those who vie for power today.
Therefore, I'm inclined to believe the practice of colonialism, imperialism and the like are immoral, regardless of whatever incidental benefits fall as scraps from the interloper's table, because the ends do not justify the means.
Perhaps the Trader Principle is an unknown ideal too?

Human beings do not  always apply their full mental focus to everything they do. In fact, many tasks that we have to focus on and prctice very consciously become increasingly automated over time, so that we can drive 100 miles on a daily commute and hardly know how we got to our destination. This clearly has many advantages, and yet the risks are also pretty clear. 
That's just automated tasks. There are also "automated judgments and decisions"  which follow the same theme of economizing the need to spend time thinking everything through. Sales people take advantage of this "thinking" that people do based on a quick pattern recognition, and without spending the time needed for a good decision. 
The conscious mind is always there to be awakened. This allows for a "meta" approach: after an experience where we did something unthinkingly, we can analyse it, and fit that into the same pattern-recognition machinery. So, the next time, it can be a reminder to wake up and start to think more critically about something. Or, one could decide that when one recognizes the same pattern one will not make a decision without sleeping over it. 
One can go beyond one's own experiences and learn from the experience of others. Books like Cialdini's "Influence" and Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow" have many such examples. They can be tools to prepare oneself for such situations. 
Yes, this is not about chemicals that "pre-exist". But, I think it is analogous. In the sense that after some experiences, a thoughtful person might decide not to make a major decision if he's feeling particularly unwell.... or some such thing. The classical example is PMS. At least one woman has told me that there are some times in some months where she (paraphrasing) puts her conscious mind on high-alert for a few days, and also tries to avoid certain situations where she thinks she might react in a way that she will later regret.

Does this contradict "blank slate". It really depends what exactly one means by a blank slate. Every time the topic comes up, people argue about what it really means. I'll suggest that the way to clarity is to replace the term with something more descriptive, for the duration of this topic.

So you take Trump's actions generally as being supportive of free trade? Here's an opinion considering that analysis, among other possibilities.
I don't know. I think it's possibly an error to consider Trump as being particularly principled in any direction -- except for the bedrock that is his own aggrandizement. But it certainly seems to me that he's not afraid to violate what I would otherwise consider to be free markets, or the individual rights which make free markets possible. If that's a "negotiating tool," I don't know that it makes it any better. I don't think he cares about things like "rights."
In any event, how do you square your interpretation with Trump's threatening US businesses against moving overseas? For instance, here is a write-up of Trump's reaction to Harley-Davidson. This does not sound to me like a principled free-trader in action.
Race has nothing to do with nationalism, either currently or historically? All right. I think there's possibly something arguable here, but I'll leave it for others, or for another time.
Okay; I will look forward to that being addressed later.
Do you also consider it a "valid and pertinent question" as to how it is proposed to enforce a preference for nationalism? Perhaps we have decided that the Quebecois and Basques, etc., should have states -- or perhaps not -- but how generally does the nationalist propose to preserve his culture against demographic shifts, immigration and emigration, influx of foreign media, etc.? Can this be done without violating individual rights?

@DonAthos You are correct that what I have postulated has evolved, but that's only because I'm trying to envision a realistic scenario that involves "FPE" destruction, nondestruction, or the ability to transfer and therefore avoidance of destruction (assuming that's possible). I'm trying make to sure this whole debate isn't a form of debate that's essentially just talking about "squared circles" or something that is impossible in reality. As to everything I said about entanglement, that's mostly to suggest that specifically the fundamental principles of reality that might make such teleportation possible in reality might also provide a way out of the conundrum of "FPE death".
I've been thinking hard on this, and have decided the subject needs to happen on a more abstract level that includes human minds but isn't limited to only them, so that people aren't sneaking in preconceived notions about their thoughts on man in general. A general AI running on a specific "computer" vs another otherwise identical computer is something I will discuss in the future.
I'll be back with more when I completely flesh out everything I'm thinking of exactly in the near future.
But, I will leave one thing here for everyone to possibly discuss if it interests them: Imagine putting a living human inside of a skin tight "force field" such that the entire human body is completely separated from the environment with zero space between the person's body and this "force field". The person is then vaporized while inside the force field such that his now free flowing particles that remain are still confined to the volume left inside this force field and can not mix with the outside environment. Then "through the 'magic' of future technology is put back together exactly the same as prior to vaporization (likely impossible due to quantum fluctuations due to the uncertainty principle, and the second law of thermodynamics, etc. *which my be key to resolving all this due to loss of information at the quantum level*).
Would the identical mind that results then share the same FPE with the mind that existed before it's substrate/brain was vaporized? I think the answer is still no because the existence of the substrate was discontinuous. The substrate that causes any mind to exist must exist continuously, with no discontinuities for a particular FPE of a mind to continue existing. This is fundamentally different than a person experiencing a coma, a alcohol induced blackout, etc., or more abstractly a general AI having it's processor switched off then turned back on after some period of time, because the substrate (brain, memory, processor) never cease to exist even if it's unused for some period of time. Vaporizing a mind's substrate that is the cause of it's emergence is fundamentally different than those examples because there was a finite period of time that even the capability of mind "production" (and therefore that mind's previous FPE) was completely destroyed and obliterated. When the substrate is then rebuilt and the mind reactivated must be a new FPE because the previous FPE lost the ability to exist for a finite period of time.

What would "a bunch of 'unaccountable sociopaths'" have to do with a fully capitalist government? If and when a capitalist government starts to exist for the first time in human history in, say, the United States, why would it be a bad thing for it to spread throughout the whole world? This would be, far and away, the greatest achievement in the history of mankind.

I don't often run into mentions of This Perfect Day, but it is a neat book!

In another recent thread, I was invited to make this one to explore what I'm calling "the transporter problem." In quick summary then, the "problem" considers the famous Star Trek transporter. It purports to disassemble a person (into whatever constituent elements) and then reassemble that person in identical fashion (and perhaps from the same constituent elements) at some distance.
In Star Trek, people routinely utilize this technology; however (granting that this would someday be feasible; a separate consideration), I would not use such a thing, because I believe that it would be fatal. This speaks to the question of the "First Person Experience" (FPE) and its metaphysical status -- which is why I'd raised the problem initially; granting that the person who enters the transporter (e.g. James T. Kirk) is identical to the person who leaves it from a third person/scientific perspective, I yet argue that there is a fundamental metaphysical difference which cannot be assessed from "outside," i.e. it is a different person with respect to the FPE. The Kirk who leaves the transporter is not the same Kirk as the one who entered it; the Kirk who entered the transporter is dead.
In response it was asked whether sleep was in some way analogous to this situation -- and whether we "die" when we go to sleep. But no, it is not the same thing at all. When I go to sleep at night, I wake up the next morning as the same person. Whatever interruption or discontinuity of consciousness that sleep provides (as well as being knocked unconscious, in a coma, or "legally dead" then revived) it is not the same as the death of the transporter, which I argue is utter obliteration.
Then it was suggested that this is some rephrasing of the "Ship of Theseus." But no, it is not. It is not a question as to whether we continue to call the entity who emerges from the transporter "Jim Kirk," but: would we be willing to use the transporter?
I argue that the answer to that question depends on whether we believe that a consciousness can be reconstituted such that the associated FPE remains the same, irrespective of what we call it, and whether we believe that the FPE (despite being immeasurable from a "scientific" perspective) has any reality to it. Which is to say that it depends upon our assessment of the FPE metaphysically. Accordingly, I would not be willing to use the transporter.

The light hitting your eyes gives you an image that looks like a 3D object.  That is on the level of perception and is true.  Whether it really is a 3D object is on the level of interpretation, and there it is possible to make errors.  This is not really different from other cases that have been used to attack the senses, such as a stick partially in water looking bent.

I agree, and here Rand has chosen to speak in a manner such that she could be understood by the masses.
 
I think the main psychological takeaway here is that "intention" or "goal" or "intended consequences" are such a focus of common everyday non-attentive action, that people forget that WHAT they are doing most often achieves NOT ONLY what their goal happens to be... but with blinders on, thinking muted, and eyes on the "prize"... the interpretation then is that the action taken and the particular intended consequence are one and the same.
So much so, that a popular self-help writer of the 80s and 90s Steven Covey (Seven Habits?) had to explicitly state (and I am paraphrasing from foggy memory) "when you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other end of the stick too", something one might forget if only focused on picking up one particular end of the stick...

I’m sorry Nicky but IMHO you really are missing the point here.  Obviously the loss referred to is NOT literally the God’s absence.  The purpose of the post is to discuss psychological loss and how people adapt and /or grieve.  It’s obvious that being lied to and mislead for years about something and then learning the truth about the nonexistence of that something is not metaphysically a loss of the thing... the thing lied about was never there... but it IS a type of psychological loss.
Imagine you are married to a business woman for 15 years... you have a family and you see her and your sons as the center of your universe... your very life’s worth tied up in a wonderful family you are profoundly proud of and in love with.  Imagine you find out that in fact she has been living a double life, that she has another family she has been visiting during her so called business trips, another husband and adopted children... you come to know she has treated them as she has treated you... with complete dishonesty.. it is a betrayal of the highest order and puts you in a psychological tail spin...
Your love... your family... your life... as you experienced and loved them to be ... are a sham.  Did anything metaphysically in fact about what she was, what your family was, what you were, change upon your learning of her deception?  No, only your misapprehension of them.
This is a psychological loss of the highest order ... and if you are to live through it .. you need to deal with it.
In the same way, being mislead and lied to your entire young life by ALL close to you, your teachers, your friends, you extended family and your very parents.. regarding the existence of God or an afterlife of any kind... is a profound psychological injury and deception which amounts to a phaychological loss of the highest order upon discovering the truth.
If you are not interested in participating in the discussion of psychological loss I totally understand.. not everyone is interested in the same things.
Cheers!

I'm no psychologist, but it is fairly common knowledge that grief is a natural part of life, if we conceive of it broadly as going through the process of psychologically dealing with loss.  Loss is natural and ubiquitous if one is alive, growing, or changing... all the time one loses one's former self to become something new , something more (or different), a process of being is not static - it is a process of becoming. 
We transform from a dependent child to an adult, we learn to accept that Santa Claus is a fiction, as an adult we accept "the highschool years" as a part of our ever evolving lives and not its definition, and we must learn to make the transformation through old age and decline as well... These transformations and the subsequent introspections of the differences of self, require a process to fully deal with.
We are aware that those who do not properly process these changes, as with those who do not properly process the death of a loved one, have psychologically unresolved issues... which can and will be problematic, until they are properly processed and there is closure and acceptance of the reality of that particular loss or change on a deep psychological level.
One of the biggest psychological transformations a person can go through is to convert from an adherent of the religious/supernatural/mystical to a complete atheist.  This is no trifle... it is a fundamental shift of a world view, indeed a view of the universe, all of existence, its relation to the self and the very definition of self also.
 
Is anyone aware of any authority, academic, or psychologist who delved into, contemplated, and/or wrote substantively on the subject matter of the psychological process of Grief necessary for fully completing the transformation from religion to atheism in a psychologically healthy manner?
 

Jason Hunter,
Reason, fully applied to the issue, tells us why stealing , killing, and lying are wrong, leads us to that conclusion, and leads us to act accordingly.  It is all we need to guide ourselves.  But reasoning with someone who is stealing, killing, and/or lying will only work to the extent that they are rational, which depends on their choice, and even then may take time.  This is why we need deterrents and other countermeasures.  These countermeasures should not include appeals to irrational concepts such as God or duty; such appeals are immoral and do more harm than good.
This does not mean that there are limits to reason; it means that some people fail to practice it enough.
It is a physical aggression to cut off people's access to or from their property.  If I acquire land enclosing someone else's property, they have a right to an easement through my property that will allow them such access.
People who say open borders would be societal suicide tend to overlook private property rights and/or to take for granted wrongful government actions that cause problems.
I think you are neglecting a couple of points:
It is possible for people to build relationships with each other over time.  Such a relationship is itself a value and makes the people more valuable to each other.
When people find themselves together in a household, workplace, or other environment, it is in their interests to cooperate without necessarily calculating costs and benefits for each individual act of cooperation.  This is true even if they have little else in common.

There is no DUTY to principles. 
IF you ignore principles which are true and/or follow principles which are false, you will bear the negative consequences in reality of your DOING SO.  IF you ignore principles which are false and/or follow principles which are true, you will reap the positive consequences in reality of your DOING SO.
Inapplicable. (see above)
The subject of value is a separate issue which does not have bearing on the meaning of DUTY, which you still have not explained.  So what if one is a "reproductive being"?  Pointing out the sheer fact that one has the capability to do something is not tantamount to showing why a person has any duty to do that something... let alone serve as a definition of what "duty" as such IS independent of any particular example of what you purport to be an example of a duty.

JH
What do you mean by the term "duty"?
Is it a feeling you have, or perhaps share with others, maybe some group, the majority, or perhaps a feelings other people had in history, whether famous or not..?
Is it something like an idea residing in another plane of existence, which you can access as a revelation, using only your supernatural "senses" perhaps even a specific "sense of duty"?  Is that other realm the world of forms or God or something else?
Is it something in reality, which a man responds to in order to achieve an outcome?  What outcome?  Why does any man choose that outcome?
What exactly do you mean by Duty?
 

Not at all.  The open or closed "debate", the attribution of authorship or credit for any idea, and the names by which we call systems and or improvements to systems, DECIDELY are NOT the "HARD" questions.
THIS is precisely my point. 
The IT is philosophy.
IF you think something with Objectivism is wrong make your case.  If you want to investigate areas in your opinion not fully investigated in or completely ignored by Objectivism, please do so. Do it all... just don't fuss over what anyone calls your work.. its not like you are trying to gain membership in a club or a cult.
Getting your Philosophy right IS what you should be doing... THIS debate... is not doing anything philosophical AT ALL.

I've threatened to do this for quite some time... so I guess now is as good a time as any.
There's been some discussion on this topic recently, and I'm not opposed to importing quotes -- but for this OP, I'd like to start fresh. I don't have a particular thesis or argument, but I would like to explore the topic of "evasion," and importantly how it intersects with ethics. That is, given "evasion" (however we conceive of it, though obviously that's central to the discussion) what do we do about it? How do we recognize and deal with evasion in others? How do we recognize and deal with evasion in ourselves.
Let me back up for a moment. The first time I ever dealt with evasion, and recognized it as such, was long before reading Rand/discovering Objectivism. I'm sure I didn't use the word "evasion" to describe the phenomenon -- probably something like "denial" would have been quicker to my mind -- but I was debating the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden with a Christian friend of mine, and I wished to make a point by reference to the text of Genesis. I didn't have a copy on-hand, but I was certain that my friend must keep a copy (and we were at his home). I asked him to break out his Bible, so that I could demonstrate the textual basis of my argument -- show that the Bible really did say what I claimed that it did -- and... my friend refused. He did not want to look at the Bible, to see whether I was right or wrong. He didn't want to know.
Now, I know that many people will think that this is besides the point. "Evasion" is an internal phenomenon, a subconscious phenomenon, and so it is. You can't see it happen. I agree. But I have come to believe that evasion often has surface features and effects which may be recognized and addressed. It's kind of like a "tell" in poker: you can't see the other person's cards, but you can see their reaction to their cards, and often people have a characteristic reaction, depending on their hand. That is information, and just like any information, we can try to make sense of it through our best use of reason (bearing in mind the context that we may easily make mistakes in doing so; and sometimes you bet in poker on the basis of what you think you know, and lose).
Usually, this doesn't take the form of someone specifically refusing to look at something -- refusing to look through the proverbial (or literal) telescope -- though sometimes it does. But especially through a long history of debate and conversation, on this forum and elsewhere, what I've found is more often a pronounced reluctance or resistance to specific argument. There are untold arguments where someone has made a claim of, "I will get to that point soon," and then they never, ever do. Not even if it is brought up time and again, or made a point of emphasis. This is not, in itself, proof of anything, let alone "evasion," but especially in context I consider it my best means of determining when a partner in conversation is focused and oriented (in the manner that they would need to be to determine their own error, should I be correct) or otherwise. When examples go unaddressed, when my arguments are paraphrased incorrectly (sometimes wildly so), when questions are asked but never answered, and so forth, it is all information that helps me to see whether someone is engaging with the discussion... or perhaps deflecting it.
And then, in myself, I wonder: how should I know it, if I evade? Because I take it for granted (though perhaps I shouldn't) that a person does not have conscious awareness of his own evasion; if he had conscious awareness, it wouldn't be evasion. That's what makes it so damned troublesome!
What I have found in others, I look for in myself. I look for the effects of evasion, rather than counting on my ability to detect it, as such (or rather than what I fear most do, which is to implicitly assume that I am the only human on earth somehow immune to evasion, of my nature). When I feel reluctant to address some argument or answer some question directly, I try to make it a point of emphasis to do exactly what I am initially disinclined to do. If a question is asked of me, and I fear that my answer will somehow put me at a rhetorical disadvantage, because my instinctive answer somehow "sounds bad" for me or the point I'm trying to make, I consider it doubly important to answer the question directly, and to try to assess whether what I consider a "rhetorical disadvantage" isn't actually just me being wrong about something. I may also choose to answer such a question at length, in an attempt to explain myself more fully, or provide the proper context for interpreting my answer, but I don't let it pass unaddressed because it seems "easier" or feels more comfortable. I fear that those emotional cues, sometimes, may actually be symptoms of an attempt at evasion.
For as I'd recently mentioned elsewhere, I have come to regard evasion as a sort of psychological self-defense mechanism. I think no one is immune. When I try to imagine the extremes of evasion, what I come up with is something like "dissociative identity disorder." To be very honest, I'm not certain whether that's a real phenomenon or not (or the extent, at least, of its "reality"). But suppose that it is. My layman's perspective on it is that it might make sense for a person, in a given context, to "go to war with reality" to some certain extent in order to preserve one's sanity otherwise. To pretend that some outrageous forms of abuse (especially in early childhood) are not truly happening to the self, but "someone else." It is a desperate measure in the face of the truly horrendous, and it portends a lifetime of difficulty and recovery, but in some cases it might still be better than the alternative.
I think that, to lesser or greater extents, evasion is a subconscious means of such self or "ego" preservation.
With my Christian friend (and I sorely wish that I had this level of insight then), it's worth asking: what would he need to defend? What vested interest does a teenager (as we both were) have in the details of the story of bleeding Genesis, such that his emotions would scream at him to avoid looking at his own professed Holy Book? Well, only everything. He'd been raised Christian, in a Christian family, in a Christian community. Though it may not be so simple as this, he regarded his own understanding of the universe -- and his own morality, his own self -- as being based upon his beliefs in the Bible. So... if he were wrong about that, even to the smallest degree, what would that mean for... his beliefs about literally everything else? What would it mean for his regard for his family, for his friends, for himself (in that he had been so thoroughly taken in)? Having been so wrong about this, how could he ever again trust himself going forward?
It's an immensity to consider. And I think that this lies at the heart of the pushback against thought, against evidence, that evasion fundamentally represents. Our survival, our happiness, our lives and all that this represents, depends upon our ability to think, and to be right. And so the possibility of being wrong (and sometimes thoroughly wrong) feels like an attack on our very lives. Evasion, then, is the fear of pain that being wrong, and all that it entails, made manifest at the subconscious level... and then represented at the conscious level by emotional reactions and biases that shade our responses, choices and actions, whether it be something so striking and obvious as an explicit "refusal to look," or something so subtle as an indirect answer to a direct question.
Beyond looking for the "tells" I'd mentioned, resolving to answer questions directly, and etc., what can one do to fight against this tendency? I think that some of my conscious convictions have helped (or at least, so I hope). My conviction, for instance, that being wrong is no moral crime. That it is, in fact, a wondrous joy to discover my own errors -- not a slight against my ego or value, but a tribute to my ability and intelligence. This is how I have come to view debate and argument, not as a contest between enemies, but as a collaboration between allies. I do not feel put off by challenging material; I am drawn to it. (And indeed, I read Rand initially, not because I thought she would agree with me or provide me with some defense of already-held arguments... but because I thought she would disagree with me utterly, and I looked forward to the project of identifying her errors!)
There is an analogy to be made here with my experience of playing games with my daughter. She does not like to lose. Of course. Nobody does. But over the course of my life -- and reflective of what I hope to instill in her early on -- I have come to view losing at games (or "failures" more generally) as being instrumental to the course of improvement... and eventual winning/success. So it is with being wrong. We are all wrong, at times. We are all probably wrong, right now, with respect to some of our beliefs. It is no moral failure to be wrong about things. But the right way of viewing this, in my opinion, is to deeply value the experience of being proved wrong. To then put ourselves in the best position possible to be proved wrong, and to embrace that feeling, embrace the difficult emotions associated with a stern challenge to one's ego, as being part of the true path towards success. And then, also, to look for the concrete manifestations that I have mentioned -- and seek out and discover others, and amend our actions accordingly.
It ain't easy. I'm not always successful, either. But I believe that it's the key to addressing one's own evasion and pushing past it to discover and embrace the truth.