Seeker

Took whose focus off their achievements? His own focus, I guess, and maybe that of his relative handful of listeners ... that hardly consistutes the focus. And how do you know that he targeted them because of their race? That's an unwarranted assumption. That's a fair distinction. I need to chew on that for a bit.

I know that this is easy to conclude given the lack of humor in his show but I must disagree. The purpose of offensive and inappropriate language in the context of comedy is to relieve tension and diffuse the power that such taboos have. The psychological need for humor is no less than the need for music or other forms of pleasure for most people for exactly that reason. Only when the context is dropped, and Imus is treated as though he were the anchor of a nightly news program instead of the host of a comedy show, are the words necessarily offensive and inappropriate. Although the fact that he isn't funny doesn't help his case, the fact is that comedy is hard, so I am willing to take him at his word that his intentions were sincere. As such, he had nothing to apologize for.

Don't forget the sanction of the victim - in this context, Imus made the mistake of apologizing, thereby granting his opponents' position. If he had defended himself consistently and as a matter of principle (admittedly hard for an unfunny comedian to do - the only way to know his intentions were humorous is to take his at his word), then this might have died down quickly. When he chose to engage the issue, he inflamed the situation and then it snowballed, garnered even greater attention, and he began to lose advertisers and was suspended. Now maybe he would have been suspended and lost advertisers anyway, but at least he would not have been a willing participant in his own destruction.

All right, I'll bite. The significance of that passage is that it shows that Rand's argument is based on the actual facts of man's existence derived by a process of observation and abstraction. Without the epistemological understanding of such a process and the means to validate its conclusions, in much the same way that a looter can't see the destruction he causes, Freddie can't see the conceptual basis for the conclusions Rand draws about man and says that they are Kantian categorical imperatives (or, in Objectivist terms, "floating abstractions", or in common lingo "you just made that up"). The basic problem here is epistemological. Until that basic problem is addressed, it will be useless to attempt further argument. Do I get the 10 points?

I think the essence is that it's a form of psychological assault (so goes the argument, anyway). Although since no one has yet seen fit to define what that means, I don't see how anyone can draw any conclusions about its validity.

I agree, but to go a level deeper, seeing people having sex does not interfere with your rationality. It doesn't force you to stop valuing. It doesn't force you to stop reasoning. You are free to think "I value sex in private, and I do not value that depiction" and move on. You may find it distressing that someone else did not share your values. But you know what? It's good for you to know that. Maybe it will teach you something to know someone else for who they truly are, not who you wished them to be. And in any event, your happiness is not their charge, but yours. Demanding that they cease being who they are to suit your values is a denial of their identity, a denial that A=A. Nothing could be more opposed to reality and Objectivism than the idea that we can properly force others to conform to our values. Yet that is precisely where the reasoning advanced so far seems to lead.

So it's rape? That's what you're saying, in effect. Putting up a poster of a nude person in a store window is raping passers-by. It occurs to me that all of that initiation of force stuff was really unnecessary. All we have to do is equate whatever we don't like with "psychological harm" (whatever in blazes that is supposed to mean) or "trashing my values" (hello, censorship of political messages) and voila, we can ban it. What great news for the majority!

Your sex matters to your life, sure. Your sex life should be private, yes. But unless it's you on the poster, I fail to see the connection here. A lot of human activities we regard as intimate, private matters in our own lives can nonetheless be depicted in public art. The analogy to Roark doesn't work because it wasn't just anyone's architecture being interfered with, it was his.

Only the fact that the "psychological harm" standard you provided has yet to be objectively defined, so is very open-ended.

Then you agree that Objectivism would sanction forcing ugly people to wear paper bags to save people from the psychological harm of seeing their faces? And we are supposed to believe that rights cannot conflict in a rational society?

Also recall that Rand was not only speaking of actual sexual intercourse but also sexually explicit posters. So even a small two-dimensional image could be properly proscribed. To expand on the idea of loathsome visual perceptions, consider also that there are certain patterns or combinations of visual stimuli that are objectively loathsome, like clashing colors, lack of symmetry, or badly proportioned shapes. You could include clothes that don't match visually. You could include certain types of art and architecture that are objectively ugly. You could include unsightly factories or highways. You could include ugly people, for that matter. We don't need to conceptualize this type of ugliness because it hits us at the perceptual level. These are things that strike much more closely at the heart of the principle that Rand appeared to be describing than does an act of sexual intercourse, which in itself is a beautiful thing, and if it is considered ugly because it is not private, is so only because of a learned conceptual understanding of the nature of sex. Yet I doubt that Rand would have sanctioned using people's right not to perceive loathsome sights to justify laws forbidding bad art and architecture, mismatched outfits, factories, highways, or ugly people, at least as far as I can grasp the principles of Objectivism. So this particular twist about public sex seems odd indeed. Just a bit more for us to chew on.

Thank you, that helps. I think I am homing in to the source of my difficulty. I can thoroughly understand how certain things such as putrid smells, loud or disharmonious music, flashing lights, and so on can interfere with others' rights because they are at a perceptual level. But in all honesty, I do not think that the root of our disgust with public copulation lies in the perceptual realm. It is conceptual. As such it is different from those other things in a very important way, because it is the idea that troubles us, not the perception. Now here is where I may stand to be enlightened, because maybe there actually is something precognitive about witnessing sex that is like a putrid smell or obnoxious noise. This is what I am struggling with. What is the nature of the physical reaction to witnessing others have sex that analogizes it to the physical reaction to noxious odors or audible noise? Or have I misunderstood tha basis of why those things are bad?

I am still trying to integrate this whole idea, without much success I'm afraid. Let's suppose this was a publicly-owned forum. A majority of members might be deeply offended by the loathsome idea that most people aren't Objectivists. Does mean I should be tossed in jail for expressing a fact of reality that is objectively unpleasant in the context of this forum? Of course not. All I did was speak the truth. This whole line of reasoning seems to erase the freedom of speech entirely. It's a cliche to say it, but the purpose of the freedom of speech is to protect the expression of precisely those ideas that the majority finds most disagreeable, not those with which it already agrees. I'm looking at where this discussion has taken us, and it seems that we're standing at the epicenter of justifying censorship and the tyranny of the majority. Someone please clarify what went wrong in my reasoning about this (or conversely, what went right with Rand's reasoning). Surely I have misunderstood a key distinction. I have tried to integrate, for example, the idea that public sex can be properly banned because the majority of citizens in a particular jurisdiction believe that sex is a private act. The right in the question is (apparently) the right to not perceive anything that, once conceptually integrated, is at variance with one's conclusions of the way people ought to behave. Well isn't that the same thing as having as the right to force others to behave the way we think they ought to behave? And by extention, to force their minds, against every tenet of Objectivism that tells us that this is wrong? Please help me understand what I have missed here. I am utterly bewildered as to how a public sexual display would interfere with someone else's pursuit of a rational life. This is akin to saying that any especially irrational behavior (i.e. behavior inconsistent with the nature of man) interferes with others' pursuit of a rational life if they are forced merely to notice it. I just don't see the connection.

I haven't had the chance to think through all of this thoroughly yet, but offhand I'd say that the individual bears responsibility for the self-inflicted consequences that flow from choosing to find something loathsome, be it sex, animal torture, or anything else. Man has the freedom to choose his responses to conceptual content (note that there exists a distinction with noxious smells, bright lights, loud noise, etc. that interfere with man's perceptual faculty). Concepts exist within man's volitional sphere within which he is entirely responsible. The supposed public/private distinction is simply irrelevant. It seems to me that Rand was off base here, effectively justifying man's failure to exercise the volition not to suffer unpleasant consequences to displeasing ideas. With respect, I do not think that justifies a restriction on others. However I may be wrong and am open to correction, as I said this is my first chance to consider the matter. Edit - There might (emphasize might) be an exception justifiable on the basis of minors in public places - but only minors, not unconsenting adults.

My point is that the rational predator, if such exists, does not fit within the context of that paragraph because it is clear that Rand was referring only to men who reject reason and we're not really debating whether they're destroyed. In other words, you are simply arguing that rational predators exist, a well-known problem. But as such you would do better to focus on the real question rather than focusing on the argument that Rand actually made in the paragraph you cite - namely that irrational looters are destroyed.

I have no problem taking "destruction" to mean exactly that, according to the qua man standard, because Rand was very clear in her view that the looter was foregoing reason: “The men who attempt to survive, not by means of reason, but by means of force, are attempting to survive by the method of animals. But just as animals would not be able to survive by attempting the method of plants, by rejecting locomotion and waiting for the soil to feed them—so men cannot survive by attempting the method of animals, by rejecting reason and counting on productive men to serve as their prey. Such looters may achieve their goals for the range of a moment, at the price of destruction: the destruction of their victims and their own. As evidence, I offer you any criminal or any dictatorship.” So as we debate the possibility of rational predation, it seems clear to me that such does not fit within the context of the paragraph above. If the argument is that rational predation is possible, then we need not try to make that conclusion fit with a conclusion ("destruction") that followed from a contrary premise (that the looter was foregoing reason). In other words, the essence of the argument is not about whether one who foregoes reason is destroyed by the qua man standard, but whether predation is necessarily irrational. The argument about what "destruction" means is irrelevant.

This is false. The qua man standard, which is to say, reason, is precisely what guarantees that conflict will not exist between individuals. Conflict is the result of the initiation of force, which is irrational (see above regarding the impossibility of prudent predation); with reason, force is not initiated, so no conflict can exist. Rationality and initiating force are mutually exclusive.

The comparison is inapposite because in those instances, you are not the one choosing to generate the conflict, whereas in the predator scenario, you are. The initiator of force is responsible for the conflict his actions generate. In the Cuba and USA tax examples, you did not initiate the use of force and had no choice as to whether conflict would exist. As a predator, the choice to begin a conflict was yours, and was irrational for a number of reasons I gave.

In this example, you have the cleverness of one mind - yours - on your side, while your enemies have the minds of an entire civilization on theirs to stop you. You're not the only one who's prudent; suppose they put in place measures to detect you of which you were unaware. Waging a war of one against all is not prudent. And it is a war. By choosing a path of destruction, you have taken a risk you did not need to take - particularly considering that your cleverness could have applied productively, i.e. in a manner that does not result in conflict among men. Prudent predation is an oxymoron. This does not answer the question at all. The question was how do you know what your lifetime indirect losses are from the loss of productive activity that the corporation cannot now undertake because you stole its $1 million? Not only can't you answer that question (i.e. your destruction was indiscriminant, the long-range effects of which are unpredictable), but your answer shows that you do not understand the way in which a free society benefits all men. Productivity and trade is not a zero sum proposition. There is no such thing as a benign confiscation of wealth, because it separates the wealth from the mind capable of making use of it in the most productive way, the results of which spread incalcuable benefits throughout the whole society. The loss for you is incalcuable, your risk unquantified, and your decision to steal irrational. The comparison with productive companies engaged in competition is improper, because productive competition entails the creation of wealth, not its destruction. More competition in the form of increased productivity can never be dangerous to anyone. The same is not true of looting. His decision is irrational because he was unable to calculate its long-term costs. He will have a million dollars, but he might not have access to the medical treatment that wasn't invented because the $1 million for its development was stolen by him, or a longer chain of causes and effects from his decision resulted in the same. Nor do the effects end there; the nature of human knowledge means that no one else will receive the lifesaving treatment, which costs the lives of other creative men that would have made discoveries and contributed to his life in other ways, and so on. If two people exist by trade, they each benefit from the value of each others' productive work. If only one produces and the other loots, neither will obtain the benefits of the looter's productive potential. This is why Gary has to argue that some are simply better at looting while others are better at producing. But this defies the facts of man's rational mind. There is no evidence that a mind capable of the complex calculus necessary to justify looting as a rational decision is any better at looting than at production, and certainly not sufficiently so to justify the incalculable losses the looter suffers.

You misinterpret the argument. The qua man standard operates at a level of abstraction as it pertains to each individual member of its class. It does not pertain to a collection of individuals as such. The generalizations it offers apply to all individuals, as individuals, because they all share the essential characteristic that defines the abstraction. Since the generalizations here apply to individuals, there cannot be "tension" (which is to say, contradiction) between them and the facts of each individual's nature.

How do you know what your risk of being detected is? How do you know what your lifetime indirect losses are from the loss of productive activity that the corporation cannot now undertake because you stole its $1 million? I won't accept "somehow" as an answer. Nor will I accept that we know that the predator is prudent because that's a hypothetical given. I want to know how the predator knows what he claims to know, in justifying the assertion that his decision to loot is rational. If you are omniscient enough to answer those questions, then why wouldn't it be a more optimal path for you to apply that power to consistently achieve a much greater life as a producer rather than a parasite?

I wouldn't single out IRS agents. I'd include everyone who survives by forcibly confiscating the productive work of others. You seem to suggest that stealing can be a rational stragegy for survival. But reread what I said above: "Initiating the use of force is destructive of the minds of other men who, in a society free of coercion, would have contributed to the looter's survival by trade. The looter is blindly working against himself and his own survival. Which is to say that survival and looting are actually at odds."

Let me try to approach the problem this way. All along we have said that the question whether one ought to choose existence is a primary. It is only to living organisms that this alternative exists, and only to man (rational animal) that this choice applies. For man, the question "to exist or not to exist" is the question "to think or not to think" - what Rand referred to as "throwing the switch". If you choose to think, i.e. exist qua man, then you need a moral code. Which is to say that the primary, pre-moral choice extends all the way to choosing to live qua man, i.e. the choice to live qua man cannot be derived ethically. For man, it is inseparable from the choice to live, period. You are free to choose not to think. In that case, ethics has nothing to say to you, and you have no need of an ethical code. But if you choose to think, i.e. live qua man, a code of ethics will be useful to you in surviving qua man. Now Freddie will say that man has another choice, to live qua looter. Looters think, so they need an ethical code to help them in their looting. But the essence of looting is not reason but force. Force and mind are opposites. Initiating the use of force is destructive of the minds of other men who, in a society free of coercion, would have contributed to the looter's survival by trade. The looter is blindly working against himself and his own survival. Which is to say that survival and looting are actually at odds. Reason is man's basic means of survival. The alternative of living qua looter is the same as the alternative to not exist at all. Then Freddie will say that plenty of looters survive by looting, and if they chose not to exist, they'd commit suicide. But all that means is that they don't understand the nature of themselves and their actions. The fact that they haven't chosen death consciously does not mean that death isn't the course that they are pursuing. They have chosen death, and just don't realize it. Freddie will say that some looters live longer than Ayn Rand, so looting works better than thinking. In individual cases that might indeed be true. But the looters had no way of knowing that. They got lucky, but could never say when their luck would run out. Occasionally gambling pays off, but that doesn't make gambling a rational way to seek to earn a living. Leaving one's life to chance is certainly possible, and it works out for some, but that doesn't mean that looting works better than thinking as a general principle.

It doesn't say that.

It may depend on the restaurant to some extent, but anyway, the very fact that you complain about it suggests that you think it's a widespread problem. Even if service styles had no discernible pattern, you should still explain your wishes ahead of time and judge performance accordingly, because it matters to you. Some folks might not care at all. They're the ones who don't need to explain anything. It's not that your requirements are "basic", it's that they're specific. And to ensure compliance you should say what they are, at least until the day comes when most everyone agrees with you and won't tolerate the kind of service you dislike, and the prevalance of small talk and such ceases to be a problem worthy of discussion. Actually, that's non-service - which is outside the realm of tipping completely.