stephenmallory

You'e absolutely right, there are good gamblers and there are bad gamblers. There have to be. This is what gambling is. Whether you're good at - approach it rationally - or bad at it - approach it emotionally - you're dependent upon the other group. All gambling is a zero-sum game. Unlike in business or investing - which is routinely smeared as gambling although it is fundamentally different - there is no trade of value for value for mutual-benefit. There is only a winner and a loser. If you're a winning gambler, you're fundamentally a predator on the stupidity of others and if you a losing gambler, you're fundamentally the prey. Neither group is really after values and so they desire money. Instead they are engaged in a kind of ridiculous power-struggle to show dominance in an otherwise useless activity. From my observations of my father's gambling problem, I learned that even when he would win, he would continue to play. Not because he sees another clear opportunity to win, but because, subconciously, he doesn't feel that he deserves what he has "earned" and so he isn't opposed to risking it yet again. Conversely, when he loses, it helps to confirm his basic view of himself as an unlucky, undeserving person. Now, he certainly is an extreme case, and most people when they gamble do so merely to spend time with friends or to enjoy the glitz and glamous of a casino or whatever. But it is my theory that anyone who seriously considers gambling as a legitimate means of income suffers, to some degree, from a lower sense of self-worth than someone who doesn't. To relate this back to Michael Vick, I think that it's no coincidence that if your entertainment - your spiritual nourishment - has to come from the killing of inferior life forms then your view of the source of wealth is the exploiting of mentally inferior or morally flawed individuals. Vick certainly didn't need the money he could win from gambling, but what he did need, desperately, was the sense of dominance over his fellow gamblers that the dog fights gave him the opportunity to acquire.

Mrocktor, I'm glad we agree - the value is sexuality per se, not masculinity or femininity. I stated this just as clearly in my last post as you did in yours. But with that, said, sexuality apart from masculinity for a male or femininity for a female is a meaningless concept. The only way for a man to express his sexuality is for him to express his masculinity. However, this does not mean, as you say I say, to grow a beard and get a job as a lumberjack. It simply means to desire to acquire - or, if you have already done so, to value - those physical traits which accentuate the differences between a man and a woman. This is part of valuing sex and wanting the best out of it. Having physical strength is not a prerequisite for having sex, but it certainly makes it more enjoyable. Without it you can't throw your woman around. Just like, for a woman, having limberness is not necessary to be sexual, but it certainly makes it alot better. This does not mean that if you are not the strongest man in the world you are not masculine or if you aren't the most limber woman you aren't feminine any more than if you have a sub-par heart it isn't beating. What if does mean, however, is that if your woman is stronger than you, you aren't masculine or if your man is more limber than you, you aren't feminine. This is the social element of sex - what you call "the collective." I don't know how you can seperate this element. Sexuality is a social activity and so "masculinity" and "femininity" are relative terms - relative not from man to man, but between men and women. But just because a trait is commonly valued by two or more people does not automatically make it subjective any more than it automatically makes it objective. What makes it objective is what it does to further an individual's life - in this case, your partners physique as well as your own makes sex more enjoyable. Rebelling against something something that is popular, simply because it is popular, in an attempt to preserve you "individuality" makes as much sense as choosing to remain deaf.

I agree completely. I am completely opposed to any type of state intervention in this case. I made the comment I made because it supports my earlier claim that being involved in gambling, in the long term, is inviting distaster - to say nothing of being involved with dog fighting. Michael Vick will, and properly should, end up poor. He isn't educated so without football, expect to see him picking up your trash. And even if he happens to have millions in the back at the moment, given his tendency to spend it on ostentatiously wasteful things and to alienate those around him, I wouldn't be surprised if he lost it all. Mike Tyson comes to mind. Would you want this type of person as your customer base?

Yes, the majority of people who have ever gambled in their lives don't have gambling problems. But the majority of gamling that occurs on a daily basis is done by people that do - if you define "gambling problem" as doing so when you can't really afford to or in spite of other ways to finance your goals. I'll speak about horse racing first because that's what I know most intimately. Even though Churchhill Downs is invaded by tens of thousands of people once a year for the Kentucky Derby, it doesn't change the fact that every other day of the year they run ten other horse races. There's usually 1,000 to 2,000 people at a race track on any given day. Multiply that by the 100 or so race tracks there are in this county and you have a pretty substantial number. Not to mention all of the electronic, off-track betting parlors. But that's just horse racing. There's also bingo, sports betting, and the biggest fish of them all: The Lotto. Walk into any convenience store and you'll see that the Lotto is more than just a once-in-a-while thing. It's as ubiqutous and regularly consumed as soda and coffee. You can't honestly say that the majority of people who frequently patronize these insitutions are working professionals with healthy 401(k)s and $0 credit card balances. No, they're not homeless psychopaths sitting on NJs boardwalk waiting for their ship to come in - I don't know why you thought that that was who I mean - but they're certainly not playing these games just for kicks. The vast majority of them have jobs that they subsist on and they play these games with the serious intention of using them to supplement their income, not just to enjoy themselves. Furthermore, even if they really do gamble just to enjoy themselves, like most forms of entertainment in this country, many people do so when they can't really afford it. There's a reason why in the height of the Great Depression the movie industry still turned a profit.

Moebius, You said: Of course the inventors of these things are not morally responsible for their abuse. And in many cases, you are not immoral in continuing to sell them. However, if someone walked into my heroine/rat poison store and said "I want to overdose on something, what do you recommend?" I would reply "counseling." People are of immense value to you personally because of the enormous potential they possess. There are very few contexts where it is ever appropriate to ignore the fact that someone is acting self-destructive because of a mental illness and to encourage them to continue. These situations are when his behavior poses a direct threat to your well-being. Not to get too far off topic, but most threats to one's well-being come not from the mentally ill, but from the philosophically flawed. I am generally less forgiving and less compassionate towards these people because, unlike the seriously mentally ill, they are usually responsible for it. Granted, consistent followers of flawed philosophies ultimately end up mentally ill - Hitler and Stalin come to mind - but usually before that happens they see the errors of their ways and make the best ammends they can. My taking advantage of their irrational policies can be a great impetus towards that - a much more valuable lesson than whatever it may have cost them. I have to edit this to interject a great rebuttal to an earlier point that I just thought of: I certainly hope the "self-interested capitalist" who was Michael Vick's bookie or breeder or whatever didn't get too deep in this operation because after all of this is over, his star client is going to have a pretty tough time paying his bills.

Moebius, Two Issues. First, regarding my "unsubstantiated" generalizations about gamblers in general and sadistic gamblers in particular, I have my own experience to support them. My father is an adamant horse race gambler. He is nearly 60 years old and has no assets whatsoever, lives in a studio apartment in a bad neighborhood, and has debts in the tens of thousands of dollars. I have spent many, many hours in betting parlors and have visited a number of horse racing tracks as well as Las Vegas. I have observed the predominant type of person to be found in these places: poor, uneducated, and generally lacking in virtue. I know that my father certainly lacks virtue. He has lied and stolen repeatedly to support his gambling habit. Even if I didn't have any of this first-hand experience, the ill-repute of places like Las Vegas and Atlantic City should suffice as evidence of the type of person you will generally encounter in an environment where gambling is the focus. But despite all the general lack of virtue I have been exposed to when I was involved in gambling, I have yet to encounter a scumbag who is not only a liar, a pipedreamer, a pauper, and a moocher, but also a sadist. I can only imagine. The other issue is this quote of yours in response to Thales: When someone sees what is actually going on at a dog fight - death, pain, and suffering - and they feel a exultation towards power and skill, I don't know what else you need to conclude that mental illness is present. If the mind exists to further an organism's life, something is seriously wrong with it when sensations of pleasure are associated with perceptions of it's antithesis. To a psychologically healthy organism, even the destruction of it's enemies only ilicits a feeling of relief. Also, I know from personal relationships that people who cut themselves do so as a way of feeling alive. As children, they were neglected by their parents and so as a way to assuage their confusion about their very existence they hurt themselves to get the attention they deserve. Would you support this as a form of therapy the same way you would be open to watching a dog fight to feel alive?

Moebius, How can you say that what your customer's reasons for their interest in your product is irrelevant to you and your values? Think of what you're doing to yourself by becoming financially dependent upon depravity (a claim I adequately backed up in my last post). First of all you're exposing yourself to depravity by delving into the arcane details of dog fighting culture just to remain competitive in the enterprise. This can't be good for you psychologically, and even if you're able to withstand it, it's not worth the effort. Secondly, you're counting on people who, by and large, are not professional football players as your customer base. Generally, these people have terrible money managment skills, have few seizable assets should it come to that, and are not going to be regular customers due to their lack of financial stability - the addictive nature of such behavior notwithstanding. Even more importantly, legal or not, people that regularly attend dog fights are more apt to quickly resort to intimidation and violence as a means to resoliving disputes. Money is worthless if you're dead. As far as your conjecture about the pride derived from successful breeding, that's great, but then why would you want to destroy the object of that pride by having it fight to the death? Secondly, I agree that you don't have to keep an animal as a pet to derive value from it. You can have it pull your wagon or plow your field or guard your junk yard. But for all of these things to occur, you do have to keep it alive. If it's not alive, it's not an animal, it's fertilizer or dinner. To equate the value that is derived from an animal performing a task that benefits not only it's owner, but in turn itself, with a task that achieves only the psychological destruction of it's owner and the physical destruction of itself is sheer insanity. Now let me address your equivocations regarding boxing. It's simply incorrect to assert that extensive precautions are not taken to ensure the safety of boxers. They wear gloves inside padded, well-lit rings. There are referees and doctors on hand to ensure the sportsmanship and safety of the athletes. Even the structure of the match is such that it considers the reasonable limitations of the human body and doesn't require a knockout for a victory. Sure, like virtually every human activity, boxing involves risk and sure, like every human activity, it has individuals who don't respect the rules and the spirit of the sport, but that's not it's point. It's point is, as has been said, to demonstrate a mastery of a particular skill, and all of the training and conditioning that it requires. Finally, to address your last paragraph: What do you feel when you hear of someone inheriting a fortune and wasting it all? I think that, even just described hypothetically, you would feel a slight sense of outrage at the thought. Being human, there is a certain orientation towards values that is assaulted, if even on just an emotional level, by such senseless waste. Dogs are the same way. All dogs, even the ugly ones, if properly cared for, possess the temprament to be rewarding companions to their owners. It's part of their psychology qua dog. They are not like lizards or cockroaches who, being of lower intelligence, are incapable of forming emotional attachments. In fact, that it comes so easily and automatically to dogs is precisely what makes them so charming. I'm not saying that you have to go out of your way to love all dogs, or to look for cases of dog abuse to be outraged about, but when you come across them, there is an appropriate and an inappropriate way to respond.

Mrocktor, I think that Dan's "hands" analogy does hold (pun intended). It really is "hands or no hands" because it really is "sexual capacity" versus "no sexual capacity." It's not a question of whether or not it's more valuable to be a man or a woman. In fact, that's a ridiculous question. Instead, it's a matter of valuing a capacity for sexuality over not having a capacity for sexuality. I value my sexuality and since I am a man, that means masculinity. So I value my masculinity in turn. Secondly, I agree that those physical characteristics which disable a person in some way are not values. I thought I made that clear in my last post using the example of the wilfully deaf people, but I'll elaborate. To further my analogy of the man with the heart ailment: no, he is not pleased that his heart is limited in some way and her would certainly act to have it improved if the opportunity presented itself, but that's not the point. What he does value about his heart is what it does do for him, despite it's shortcomings. If anything less than a perfectly healthy heart meant that it continuously released deadly poison into the bloodstream, you might have a point. But it doesn't, so you don't. Finally, I don't understand your point about two equally valuable attributes being equally valuable. Do you mean if they were identical? If so, in the context of one person, that would be virtually impossible. I've never heard of anyone born with two heads or four hands. If you mean in the context of more than one person - that is, yourself and another hypothetical, non-existent person - I don't think that the terms "more" or "less" even apply. My hands aren't more valuable to me than my non-existent hands, but neither are they less. They simply are what they are: they're my hands and so they're valuable. They may not be the best hands and they may not be the worst, but they're my hands and I do everything I can to maintain them. If you mean "equally valuable" in the context of sexuality; that I'm saying it's valuable to me to have a penis but it wouldn't be valuable to me to have a vagina, reread my first paragraph.

Darkwaters hit on this point, but I want to clarify it and emphasize it since I believe that it is key in proving that Michael Vick is guilty of wanting to see destruction just for the sake of destruction. Dogfighting is a fight to the death. Ostensibly this means that in order for one dog to win it has to kill the other. But this doesn't always happen. Sometimes the dogs are injured enough to the point where they cannot continue the goal of killing the opponent, and one or both survive because of it. What do you suppose Vick and his buddies do in this situation? Nurse them both back to health to one day fight again? No, they mercilessly execute both of them since they are no longer capable of performing the task that their owners want them to perform: to kill. So either way, if the dogs do it to each other, or if the humans have to do it for them, the point of the fight is only to witness death.

Mrocktor, If values are those things which promote your life, I can see why you would think that one's particular physical characteristics aren't values. They don't necessarily promote your life, rather they are your life. This is true, to a certain point. But as I said, the maintenance of those traits have to be earned. They are valuable in that they allow you to pursue future values such as a pain-free tomorrow, playing a sport, or attracting a mate. They are also a source of pride since they are a readily perceivable reminder of a past accomplishment. So I should have specified that I meant physical characteristics that were objectively valuable. There are deaf people who, in a perverted desire to preserve their individuality, turn down surgery that would give them the ability to hear. This certainly doesn't make sense - it's pure subjectivism. But in the context of sexuality, just because a man didn't choose to be a man, it isn't a subjective preference to value his physiology as an expression of his masculine personality any more than it is a subjective preference to develop a masculine personality in accordance with his physiology. When it comes to being sexually attractive - a task performed over a number of years - the two are distinct accomplishments. No psychologically healthy woman would be attracted to an extremely good looking man who behaved extremely feminine any more than she would be to an extremely unkempt man who behaved extrememly manly. The extent to which an individual does not value himself within the context of sex is the extent to which he behaves inconsistently (fluctuating back and forth in bed between a womanly desire to submit and a masculine desire to dominate) as well as the extent to which he ceases to resemble his masculinity (I'm speaking here to the point Dan made about exercise bringing out one's masculine traits). Of course, we could debate the value or lack of value of one's masculinity or femininity outside of the context of sexuality, but then we would be debating it outside of reality. Since men and women are identical in every other respect, this is the only context in which it is appropriate. Just because values are not subjective, doesn't make them intrinsic. Suppose someone possess a heart which may not function at it's full capacity. The fact that his heart keeps him alive in most situations but fails him when running from a bear, does not make his valuing of his heart a subjective preference any more than woman's pride in her made up face. Should he not value his heart and make no effort to maintain it because he cannot run a marathon? Should the woman not value her appearance and make no effort to improve it because she isn't naturally beautiful? If individuals don't recognize, and indeed feel, their individuality - down to every last detail about them - they make no effort to maintain it, let alone improve it. At the extreme end of this argument, they will lose it entirely. A pile of bones possess nothing special about it. It has no pulse, no beauty, and certainly no gender.

I have accused Dan of this same attitude in another context, so I hope I endear myself when I defend him in this one. Certainly "individuating elements of the self" are valueless in the context of their superiority over other hypothetical, non-existent elements. One takes what nature gives and doesn't complain. However, in the context of sexuality, they can be of immense (personal psychological) value - if man's life, and the happiness that makes it worth living, is the standard. One's individuality is a complex sum of traits, many of them shared by others. What makes them valuable is that you possess them. No matter how similar or different you are from those around you, you are still an individual and that's what makes them important. The context of sexuality is unique; it is perhaps the one area where a man and a woman's similarities and differences are celebrated simultaneously. So yes, if you're a man, it's good to be masculine, lest you be mistaken as feminine just the same as if you're moral, it's good to express that to you mate, lest you be mistaken as immoral. Also, to be sexually attractive - that is, distinctly masculine or distinctly feminine - has to be earned, even if it is largely dependent upon genetics. It is earned by being maintained through exercise, hygeine, proper nutrition, etc. One could even make the argument that cosmetic surgery should be regarded in the same way because it costs money, which has to be earned. Aside from the fact that all of these attributes point to, ceritus paribus, a certain superiority in character (self-esteem and self-discipline specificially) among other potential mates, they also suggest a greater capacity to deliver sexual pleasure. Since attracting a mate means an enhancement of one's happiness, I fail to see how preserving and accentuating one's sexuality is not a vaue.

Hi Dan, First of all, let me say that I deeply respect your intellect. I read your essays on Sexuality and Manogamy recently and thought they were brilliant and, from a cursory glance, quite correct. I was hoping you specifically would reply because, having read through the thread, I expected you to present the best counter-arguments. Yes, my post was accusatory. It was meant to be. I realize that there are no "lone-wolves" on this forum. In fact, I would say that there aren't any lone wolves anywhere in the world except perhaps in prison or on the run from the police. But, as a principle, the idea that moral certainty is impossible is impossible to consistently follow. As I said, explicit subjectivists are hypocrites. But there is such a thing as an implicitly subjectivist argument - no matter who makes it. People can be completely impartial in many aspects of their lives and committed to protecting their own little quirks in another. Every issue a individual is confronted with has to be dealt with independently. Merely saying "I'm a committed Objectivist" does not make all of your opinions, let alone your emotions, objectively valid. I was trying to demonstrate how a lone-wolf would approach the issue of "dirty talk" to provide more of a compelling thrust to my arguments against it (as it is being identified in this thread: words like "slut" and "whore") than to just defend my position positively. As to my definition of the term: you ask where I got it. I made it up. Or do you mean that it's not logical? In one respect, this entire thread is an attempt to define what is and is not morally acceptable, clean or dirty, to say during sex. So I gave it my best shot. I don't think that "[a word] used in a generally positive, ironic sense" is an adequate definition. Your next question is perfect because it allows me to add substance to my definition of "the introduction of one's psychological pain into sex or it's imposition on one's partner." But to be clear, what I mean by that is because nothing done physically between two consenting adults that can be objectively shown to contribute to (or perhaps, confirm), and not detract from, their self-esteem would be considered immoral except by a Christian. I actually looked up the definition of the word "fuck" and as best I can tell, it's some variation of "poke" or "stick" from a half dozen or so Indo-European languages. So no, I wouldn't count curse words as "dirty talk" because they merely express the level of intensity one is experiencing. Saying "fuck me!" is just like saying "poke me" but it's also saying "You're poking me so well that I must use an equally as exceptional word to describe it. 'Poke' just won't do." I couldn't find anything suggesting that "slut" or "whore" just meant "exceptionally good lover." I noticed that some on this forum take those words to mean just that. Perhaps between themselves and their lovers that's what it means. But why the unecessary confusion of having different definitions for different rooms in the house? How about just inventing a new word? And not that it's relevant, but yes, I've tried dirty talk. Oh, and thanks for the welcome. Glad to be here.

Subjectivism is the rejection of objective standards for deciding what behavior is good for you and what behavior is bad for you. Those who explicitly hold this belief have to be hypocrites and so this belief, per se, is no more harmful than any other incorrect utterance. Just like the reason for their holding that belief in the first place, most are intellectual dependents who pick up their standards from their surroundings. Even in a social environment populated by intellectual dependents a sense of right and wrong develops: it is right to belong to the group and it is wrong not to. As protection against the ever changing particular standards by which this sense is expressed, most conclude that something is right because society says it is. Fortunately, and only fortunately, the majority of the sexual standards that society still abides by are life-enhancing, and the majority of people practice them - Hollywood notwithstanding. But there are some who do not. Ayn Rand identified a phenomenon known as the "tribal lone wolf". This is someone who is rejected from the tribe because of an inability to live up to the tribe's standards of behavior. Instead this person conjures a new, yet equally as irrational, standard as the tribal-subjectivist. Instead of believing that "it's good because the tribe says it's good", the lone-wolf thinks merely that "it's good because it's me". All are detrimental, but what makes subjectivism of this type the most dangerous type is that, like tribal-subjectivism, a sense of right and wrong is present, but unlike it, a fear of tribal rejection is no longer present. Without rational scrutiny, the lone-wolf is left exposed to his lowest emotions and patently irrational behaviors are given an intellectualized justification. A run-of-the-mill subjectivist is wishy-washy and will never follow one direction too long or with too much dedication. Most of them have integrated positive cultural norms that they follow most of the time. Tribal-subjectivism has the benefit of centuries of trial and error built into it's sexual customs and the fear of ostracization to prevent it's followers complete psycho-sexual demise. The lone-wolf, however, is restricted by nothing and, if his ideas are bad enough and his emotions are strong enough, nothing will stop him from enthusiastically pursuing his own sexual degradation - treating it as his most vaulted personal expression. Of course, no individual should be motivated by fear to pursue sexual pleasure. But this is precisely what all forms and all degrees of sexual subjectivism suggest. It certainly is not rational to pursue someone sexually merely because someone feels a physical urge in response to that person and disregards everything else he may know about that person's character. While it will be adamantly denied, what truly motivates such behavior is a hatred of one's sexuality and an overwhelming need to appease it as quickly as possible. Nor is it any more rational to accept or deny a set of sexual proclivities because one fears the disapproval of others that may come from being perceived as too rigid or too permissive. This fear emmanates from a deeply-held, unexamined attitude about sex that it is not a personal value, but a duty to one's partner or even to one's body. However, what is worse, more frighteningly irrational, is the belief that one's choice of sexual style bears no relationship to his personal, conciously held - albeit automatized - preferences about what is arousing any more than how this act will affect the dynamics of the relationship overall. To this person, a sexual act is, and only can be, a blind explosion of mindless impulse with mindlessness and impulsiveness being it's own justification. This is the sexual nature of the lone-wolf, who, if given the chance and if stricken with the impulse, would mount the leg of a member of an entirely different species to satisfy itself. While his subjectivist bretheren, in their more intellectual moments might defend this as a sacred, personal ritual, the demands of the tribe - which accidentally is more in touch with the demands of man's mind - would win out and he would be denounced. As against moaning or heavy breating, "dirty talk" is a verbalized form of one's sexual proclivities, not merely another proclivity itself. The term itself should be evidence enough. "Dirty" is meant to mean morally unclean - as if some particular sexual act between consensual lovers was inherently immoral. Given that religious attitudes towards sex have dominated much of human history, it is safe to assume that this term refers to historically taboo acts like oral or anal sex. This certainly does not make sense. Nothing that involves the human body experiencing pleasure can be properly considered dirty because the human body is morally clean. Redefined, "dirty talk" is a nebulous concept that has been stretched beyond it's original, legitimate referants to mean anything that one might wish to sexualize. The closest one can come to a definition today would be to describe it's effect: the introduction of one's psychoogical pain into sex or it's imposition on one's partner. If one wishes to sexualize, personally, the low self-esteen of an imaginary woman and bring that into his bedroom, what is to stop him? Hopefully his partner will, but his philosophy certainly will not stop him. It encourage him to seek a moral justification of the issue, not because there is one, but because he needs one. If he happens to believe that sex is a profoundly personal experience that involves nearly incommunicable thoughts and gestures, the sexual-subjectivist lone-wolf will seek a justification for it in the same way that he justifies all of his other desires - they're his. Sex is special in this regard. The lone-wolf is correct, sex is what he thinks it is - the most profound expression of his personality possible. If he demands that his lover regard his utterances as good, they must be regarded as good for no reason other than the fact that he uttered them.