unskinned
-
Posts
140 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by unskinned
-
-
"Those fighting for free enterprise and free competition do not defend the interests of those rich today. They want a free hand left to unknown men who will be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow...-- Ludwig von Mises"
Is this not confusing the potential with the actual?
-
Well, an individual object is whatever it is. But that isnt really saying much. I suppose you could say that this constitutes its essence, but this isnt how the phrase has traditionally been used and it isnt what the Existentialists are opposing.
When we talk about identifying objects, it normally involves putting them into certain categories - such as classifying them as 'cats' or 'tables'. The classic idea of an 'essence' stems from the belief that we can identify necessary properties which are common to all cats or tables, without which they would cease to be cats or tables. This is the core of the 'essential vs accidental' properties distinction made by Aristotle, which Ayn Rand rejected. A thing is whatever it is, but that doesnt mean that there is an essence of 'doghood' or 'manhood' which is possessed by all dogs or men.
Certainly Ayn Rand rejected "doghood" and "cathood" but would she reject identifying man as the "rational living being?" That he is essentially a "rational life form." That being rational and alive is his essence?
-
-
Pg 118, VOS, Miss Rand writes: "Just as the growth of controls, taxes and "government obligations" in this country was not accomplished overnight--so the process of liberation cannot be accomplished overnight."
I agree with her here; however, I don't understand her logic--or would the above be considered an analogy?
By her logic (or analogy?), if I said, "Just as the construction of a building does not happen overnight, so the destruction of a building cannot happen overnight," I'd be applying the same means of obtaining a conclusion as Rand did, but it would clearly be false, since one can simply dynamite a building "overnight," thus destroying it.
I've noticed this type of arguing occurs a lot in OPAR and in other books by Rand (if need be, I can find many more examples). So I'm wondering what it is, if there's a name for it, and if it's a sound way of reasoning.
Peace,
Nick.
..had to edit b/c I somehow accidentally hit the tab button+enter which posted something I didn't want posted.
For reasons that other posters have already given, the better example of Rand's kind of logic, and of how that logic is not flawed, is:
"Just as the water didn't damage the concrete pylons overnight, so the building cannot be repaired overnight."
-
Let me know if this sounds right. I am taking (and as most of you know this also means waging an inner war with) this existentialism class. It is excruciating to read these writers "for some reason." I have to write a paper on a topic of my choice and I have been wracking my brains because somehow I can't figure out what these philosophers are saying and why I disagree. Then, all of the sudden, just when I was about to give up thinking it through and just hand something in, it hit me.
Existentialism has a main tenet which is written "existence precedes essence." "That-it-is" precedes "what-it-is." First we sort of realize something exists, then we classify it somehow. Aristotle "proceeded to put things in a box" as an existentialist teacher once put it to me. He categorized them after he knew of their existence.
There is also this quotation that I have been really struggling with, in light of Martin Heidegger's support for and eventual but puzzlingly soft core rejection of Nazism. Here it is. “Agriculture is now a motorized food industry—in essence, the same as the manufacturing of corpses in gas chambers […]” (Rockmore, 266). (this is considered Heidegger's most explicit condemnation of nazi actions after the war)
How in the hell can Being, or existence, be abstracted from beings (which are characterized by essence)? That is the question. How can you equate human beings with soil, as above. He is trying to say that the gas chambers and mechanized agriculture represent the same action: the mal treatment of Being. This is a violation of proper thinking of Being, to Heidegger, Being precedes all individuations. But would you say that, as Heidegger did, a human being still "is" even after it's essence has been removed: living, breathing, consciousness. No, this no longer IS a human being, it is a corpse. The soil is and the human being is, but you cannot abstract either from their essence and so you cannot speak of any "community of Being"being violated by agriculture.
So the conclusion I am drawing here is that, Eureka, Existence doesnt precede essence. Existence IS essence and essence is existence. When I prescribe essence I am describing reality, aspects of existents that can be boiled down to the ultimate "whatness" AND "thatness," that it exists. More specifically, existence, consciousness, and the perfect relationship between the two, identity! More simply, Existence exists.
I thought Ayn Rand was exaggerating when she was talking about these bastards and "the equality of the hangman's noose." The "community of Being" is the equality of the non-living. Martin Heidegger's support for Nazi Germany and his comment (who could possibly ask for a better alarm bell?) that we can still "be" with our loved ones after they are dead.
If you made it through this, please tell me what you think.
-
Has anyone ever wondered whether such a thing exists as "handedness?" I don't have much experience with small children and don't remember this part of my childhood so I am not familiar with the facts of a child being partial to a side. As far as I know, I could be left handed as much as I already write and throw baseballs with my left hand, and nothing more than that.
-
Highest bidder.
-
I did answer this, but more indirectly.
My contention is that these private forces certainly have the power to enforce what they view as the law. And if companies chose to do this while negleting to fund the public force, the public force would have a very difficult time dealing with the criminal company (assuming other companies withheld funding as well).
Maybe I'm just putting too much stock into a recent episode of 24 where a company uses its own SWAT team to try and take out a Federal agent.
Right, but the point is that if you do that before, it can't last, for reasons Rational One explained clearly. If you do it after you create a government, you have already given up your money, and even if you haven't, you are going up against the collection of resources of everyone else. Bill Gates has that kind of advantage right now, why isn't he taking matters into his own hands?
Like I mentioned above, the principle being reflected in Rational One's comments is that it is impossible to have a capitalistic economy, a complicated system including many profitable industries and services, without capitalism: universal individual right protection.
-
(from Quant Mech)You correctly point out that it is in any company's "rational self-interest" to want protection. I can see two problems with this. 1) Many people/companies do not act in their rational self interest. I'm sure there are many cash-strapped companies in existence that could not bear the burden of security donations. 2) Why would a successful company want to donate to a public police force? Why not invest in a private security force to look after the securtiy of ONLY the company's interest? Why should a big multinational have to bear the burden of providing security for many people, when it can just fund its own force to possibly do a better job?The police for one. Or any person out there crazy enough to go toe to toe with them in a firefight. In other words, it would be complete anarchy. And once again what would the security force do to "collect the debt" if the debtor didn't want to pay? Give stern warnings? Hold them hostage? Torture them? There's nothing they could do to ensure payment without the force of government backing the contract.(from Rat. One)
QM, Rational One's comments are furthermore related to the principle that most industries CANNOT EXIST without this specific kind of government, not just protection, and have all the money (and promise of much more) needed to justify such an expense, locally and nationally.
-
I'm glad the sight has reverted to the old pictures of the winged enlighteners. They represent a spirtual side of objectivism that needs to be shown, I think. The emphasis is on exalted people living and creating.
-
This is infuriating. Paul Krugman hates laissez-faire and wants to equate it with anarchy. He wants to say "Hey, people dying in the streets, no human compassion, Laissez Nous Faire, this is what you wanted!" A truly laissez faire capitalist economy requires a government that will be able to set coherent policies of rights protection which are the earsplitting law of the land. Cooldige going after Capone and that sort of thing. In other words, capitalists would kill Muqtada Al Sadr.
I'm not especially knowledgeable on L.Am., but I suspect this another hide the pea game. I doubt those L.Am governments were really laissez faire.
-
It was then that I read LOTR for the first time and I have been a fan of fantasy ever since. I of course got frowned upon from my teachers at school for reading this "trash.
There was a really cool discussion in OPAR about the history of fiction and how fantasy writing has been the last bastion of heroes triumphing in their setting.
-
Hopefully your hatred is grounded in rational values. One way to check yourself is if you have something to show for it, like achievement, or at least passionately oriented realistic goals. If you have those things, that is the part of YOU that you can go to when other people get you down. That's what Roarke had. That's why other people could only dig in to him so far, to a point, and the rest was his diamond soul. Also, it's likely that you can find people who share similar values. It would be very suprising if you couldn't, even in notoriously difficult Highschool years.
-
The Bearded Suicidal Drunk Has No Clothes
In high school I read a book by Tobias Wolf called This Boy's Life for summer reading. I remember disliking it, just like almost every other book that I read for school besides Iliad , Lord of the Rings , and Shane ... oh yeah and Mr. Popper's Penguins . Recently my sister wanted me to read Wolfe's new book, Old School, about a boy who goes through an old prep school and reads all the major authors. My sister thought this book might show me the real Ayn Rand: a ridiculous zealot, as she is portrayed in one of the chapters. Also, I went to an "old school," which is where I was only encouraged to read books like Ethan Frome and The Grapes of Wrath. Old School was a major seller in bookstores recently, from what I remember. Naturally, I went to the bookstore and flipped through the pages until I got to the part about Ayn Rand. That chapter is basically just another Nathaniel Branden style criticism of her. The most amazing thing about it is that it is an attempt to portray her as a dramatic simpleton through "realistic" fiction. As if he could just make up a story about Ayn Rand which seems similar to some characterizations of her and then pass that off as the truth. Very interesting, though. The writing quality and insights it gives are a worthwhile read all the same.
There are two legitimately funny parts to the story, however, which add to the value of reading it. The first is the story the main character's schoolmate writes. He is a vegetarian with a hilarious sense of humor. Go to Barnes & Noble and read it and then gently put it back on the shelf. The second funny part is about how Ayn Rand reacts to the suggestion of Hemmingway as a great American Novelist.
"Hemmingway, always Hemmingway! Hemmingway with the beard!" Hilarious! How dare she! How dare she criticize a writer so… popular as Hemmingway. It's true, his beard was ridiculous in that it represented things much worse about him. She then goes on a fictional tirade, (perhaps partly accurate in showing her occasional over-the-top outbursts, admitted by Leonard Peikoff) most of which I agreed with.
I agreed with the fictional Ayn Rand because she, through the shoddy understanding of the author, named the reasons we all resent reading these stories about old or young men who are destroyed by fishing. (Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Steinbeck's The Pearl come to mind). These are reasons she more accurately wrote about in real life in such compilations as The Romantic Manifesto on her aesthetics. For me, there was always resentment at having to read these books, but I didn't have the intellectual fortitude or calling at the time to name principles Ayn Rand brilliantly discusses: That a piece of artwork where man fails against nature could never be the written by the "Great American novelist." Such a work literally flies in the face of our history! Futhermore, that the most appropriate background for a tragedy is Tyrrany, because the enemy is actually conscious, thirsty, and powermongering. Of course, Tobias Wolfe never got that far in understanding Ayn Rand.
The main point Wolfe makes is that Ayn Rand was a simpleton because she didn't write in "shades of grey." She even flicks a cigarette ash off of her black skirt in his story, and glares at the grey mark left behind with her FEROCIOUS BLACK AND WHITE EYES!
On that note, the funniest part of my story came after a discussion on similar topics with my sister while visiting her New York City. She had initially shown me the book to demonstrate that Ayn Rand "isn't so great, after all." After discussing the usual defenses with her, i.e. that grey is made up of black and white, that the purpose of art seems to be to communicate or contemplate *ideals*, and that tragedy requires an appropriate context, she admitted something important to me. In an absolutely innocent, earnest, intelligent, but also "valley girl" kind of way that is typical to her, she said "To be honest with you, I only have, like, 10 pages left but I can't imagine having to sit down and read them." We both let out long sickly satisfying chuckles, as if to say, "there's not a lot going on in the book, after all." I think we laughed because we agreed that art has to communicate something. But the book "Old School" doesn't communicate anything! It's too grey. On the way out the door I wiped the grey dust from her apartment stairwell's new paintjob off of my jacket, breathed in a gulp of fresh, cold air, and lifted my head to the glittering white stars against the pitch black sky.
It was the same with This Boy's Life , a not entirely uninteresting autobiography, about a boy whose major trait is that he would someday write an autobiography about himself. Thus the title. Consequenty, the last 30 pages are like mowing the lawn. I remember chucking the book across my summer camp cabin when I was done with it. I remember this because my freind said he thought I was just trying to get attention. Well, I was expressing frustration. There was this underlying feeling that this book was boring, excruciating , for a reason. Ayn Rand has offered some logical and intriguing reasons why I felt that way.
-
I was reading an article on capitalism magazine, or somewhere, maybe it was a year ago. The author was writing about Ayn Rand's favorites and mentioned Frank Spearman and The Nerve of Foley. This is an unbelievable short story and can be ordered in a package deal from www.papertig.com.
A different book the author mentioned was about a big railroad problem in Texas and the man who goes and fixes it. It has been described as a kind of proto- Atlas Shrugged, minus the explicit philosophical insights. Does anyone know this book? Can you give me the name and the author? Maybe it is a Frank Spearman book...? I can't remember it and can't find it anywhere.
-
I think what you are saying here is that Arthur Miller was not pathetic. He was an effective and eloquent writer. He was a force. A force for evil. Keeping in mind the whole context, he wrote furiously and eloquently to destroy the good and apologize for the evil. Death of a Salesman is one of the loudest influences against capitalism in the culture today. Good Riddance.I agree with this. The Crucible details a struggle between that which is real, and that which is arbitrary. Miller artistically and emotionally demonstrated the harsh and painful consequences which often follow a denial of reason and reality. Even if you don't agree with its political innuendo, you must agree with the play's underlying philosophical foundation.Arthur Miller may not have been the world's best playwright, but I certainly wouldn't say of his death, "Good riddance."
(from Montesquieu) Other than that, he's been washed up for years, and frankly I thought he was already dead.That was laugh out loud funny.
-
I am in the Detroit Airport. Noticed in the bookstore large paperback Rand fiction on the main display with the oldschool covers. Does any one know why on the original AS cover there is a red sun in between the rails and the mountains? Is it Wyatt's flame or the sun or...?
-
The movie was among the worst I've ever seen. It presented characters that weren't of any value, didn't make me care why I should continue watching the movie, and presented a stumbling plot that begins and ends in boredom. Napoleon himself brought the concept of loser to a whole new level ... he had no purpose other than stumbling through whatever life tossed his way with an occassional effort to pursue a value. All of the characters were like that, and it made the movie a dull waste of time. Certainly not a movie to watch twice.
I assume you are aware that the movie is a comedy? I don't understand your post. Do you not think it is alright to laugh at losers or do you think that the movie unjustly attempted to make Napoleon look like a hero?
-
he was? how?
His revolutionary anti-civilian tactics ended the only civil war in the most significant nation in the history of the world. I voted for Alexander but Sherman solidly beats MacArthur.
-
Is the Brook vs. O'Reilly interview available on the net at all?
Now it's on ARI in either "news" or "media." You need RealPlayer.
-
I understand why they support them in the conflict against the Palestinians, and I agree. However, I have heard Objectivists refer to Israel as a nation that promotes individual rights...I have a hard time believing this, since Israel is rather socialist and has mandatory military service. Do Objectivists truly respect Israel, or is it just sympathy for its current conflict?
It's not just socialist, it has highly theocratic elements, just like our worst enemies.
The point Yaron Brook has made, however, is that they are mostly productive, wealth creating, and life enjoying in action. For all the zionist ceremony, Israelis love life and are on the side of it. The transformation of the desert that was once Palestine into the fertile civilization it is today is given as exemplifying that benevolence.
-
People could be granted rights of way in the air the same way they are allowed fishing rights on the ocean. Then they regulate who can go where and when in their zone. Violators and trespassers are tracked and prosecuted wherever they land. Maybe air police could be invited to buffet the planes with turbulence, low frequency sound, or lasers so that they would be persuaded to land immediately. Violators of smaller rules, like "no loitering" or speed limits could be threatened with fines and ultimately by being banned from the right of way.
Citizens don't own the air but they own the right to move through it. Your local neighborhood aircarport could own a column or cone of air space sufficient for you to take off from it. Then you could choose which layer of airspace is the right altitude, congestion, level of safety, and price to your liking. All of it would presumably be worked out by computer on the ground ahead of time. Part of the value of the price you are paying is for the maintenance of a safe and well controlled "onramp" and "highway."
If things get too congested you would choose a different layer of airspace. If they all become congested, there would be a market for cheaper and more powerful engines so more people could take advantage of higher zones. If they became congested as well, bullet trains might become more popular. Etc, Etc.
Also, the reckless could choose to risk it and fly through airspace that is for some unforseeable reason unregulated... but where would it be difficult to collect money for profit? If there is congestion, then there will be profit. Air rights of way don't have to be paved! With communications as they are, a larger private airtraffic controller could pick up any particular air right of way over a large area. Especially in the unlikely event it has congestion problems but not enough profit to justify a smaller local controller.
-
I don't see why everybody here thinks we have the right to continually deny the right to nuclear arms to other legitimate sovereign nations. It is a country's right to own and develop whatever they damn well please-- we can't dictate terms to other nations and simultaneously hold them sovereign and independent. Now I'm not saying that the United States can't act in its self-interest...what I mean to say is that this half-assed approach is philosophically uncertain and rather hypocritical.
I for one don't think Japan is a threat. To say that nukes are "out of the question" is simply absurd; we must decide if they are friend or foe-- I think evidence overwhelmingly points to 'friend'-- and act accordingly.
I would like to see some principled grounding of this in-between dickery.
I don't know what "dickery" means but you have a point. I wouldn't stop them from getting Nukes with military action. I would make sure they know that they are our allies and will be protected. Also we should be "diplomatically pissed," whatever the procedure is, if they attempt to get them. So "out of the question" diplomatically, but not entirely. My language was too strong.
On the other hand, what I'm trying to say is I'm not sure just how much of their being classified as "freind" has to do with the reality of our
military hegemony 
over them. Explain why, with that in mind, it is not more complicated than your post seems to portray. -
I would be very sad and maybe terminally depressed because there are no values if life is immortal.
I think we're talking about the prospect of an unbelievably long life. Not an indestructable robot or the absence of values.
I would start a university in Chile, Colombia, or South Africa. Most likely Colulmbia.
I have found that many Oists to be excessively negative
in Miscellaneous Topics
Posted
Skyscraper, it would be very interesting, if only for narrative value, to hear your specific story. What exactly happened? What arguments did they use? What were you defending? Was there a scene? Did you get revenge? Did hilarity ensue? And so on...
Otherwise, it's not clear what you are talking about.