Hermes

I am currently reading The Logical Leap by David Harriman, a book much discussed. I recommend it highly, not so much for the things people argue about, but for what is not up for discussion: objectivism is rational empiricism. (Note the lowercase letters.) Whether your mathematics suggests an empirical test or your experience suggests a rational explanation, the two must come together for your assertions to be valid -- and that cannot contradict anything else already proved to be true. (Unless we go back and refute the earlier proof.) My point is that so far, almost everything that has been offered are rationalist claims without empirical context.

One post -- from Iowa -- mentioned school furniture made at prisons.

Here in Michigan, we used to do that, also, have the prisons make the office furniture for the state government. But Grand Rapids has a lot of companies making furniture and they always objected, eventually successfully. Prisons making furniture for public school presupposes public schools, of course, a different problem entirely. For a while, they had prisoners making workboots for the state police, but when the workers found out where the product of their effort was going, the result was like something out of Atlas Shrugged.

Rather than argue this or that detail without context, you have to start with empirically valid generalizations. My bachelor's is in criminology with a concentration in administration. My master's is in social science with a criminology concentration in global crime. In criminology we speak of the "mass mediated hyper-reality of crime" a bit of post-modernist jargon sorry to say but nonetheless properly identifying the fact that most people get their ideas about crime from television, newspapers, movies, and the Internet. You do not sit in courts all day long. You do not patrol the streets. You do not work with offenders on probation or parole. You do not counsel victims.

Basically, you have no idea what crime is, so you have no idea what prisons are.

It is absolutely true that the purpose of prison is pain. Reform of the offender was one minority experiment in Philadelphia in the 18th century. The method for that was solitary confinement to allow the offender to come to terms with God. Letting prisoners work in shops just lets them make weapons, but at least they are occupied and therefore easier to control. Most people -- even offenders -- are social animals. Solitary confinement is so severe that it is torture by definition. So, we have populations of prisoners in prison societies, working in the laundry, playing baseball, and otherwise not going crazier than they must seeing as how they are isolated from family, friends, and society at large -- the first level of pain we inflict.

Generally, people who harm others were harmed themselves. Remediate their damage and you prevent future crimes. It is also true that some perpetrators have chemical imbalances that can be corrected. Some predators are predisposed by genetics and sometimes they can find socially-acceptable outlets, for instance in the military. (In Alduous Huxley's utopian novel, Island, the burly guys were sent into the forests to chop trees.) Finally, some predators are so genetically defined that they will never be changed by externalities. What do you with them?

Prison is exile. It is a matter of topology. Instead of sending them outside the city walls, you wall them up away from the city: same result. The historical example of Australia (and the USA, in fact, also), suggests that a larger dumping ground with fewer internal controls is one way to solve the problem: just have someplace the size of Wyoming with deadly walls around and put all your problems there: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. But watch out...

Sociologist Robert King Merton analyzed anomie, first identified by Emile Durkheim. Merton's typology of deviance is explained at the bottom of the Wikipedia biography here. Deviants (so-called) may be innovators and rebels. If you only reward people who sit down, shut up, and do as they are told, you will not make much material progress. (Merton's full essay is here.) Like all mid-range social theories, it has limitations of explanation for phenomena beyond its scope, spousal abuse, for example.

We idealize the 19th century and in that, we blank out on inconvenient truths: on the unsettled frontier, in the boom towns, gold rushes, and landgrabs, life was more brutal. We are kinder and gentler. (In Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee, Hank Morgan is sent on his fantastic journey after being hit on the head with a wrench. We don't allow violence in the workplace. Back then, it was normal. Prisons and the retributionist theories that created and maintain them are a zombie from that more primitive time, forced-fed our lifeblood by political conservatives.

It costs about $60,000 per year to incarcerate someone. How much would you pay not to imprison someone? How much would you pay for community corrections, reintegrative shaming, reconciliation tribunals, negotiation, arbitration, and adjudication, alternative sentencing, and restorative justice -- just some of the many alternatives to prison. In the final analysis, would you be willing just to write off a loss rather than to throw good money after bad trying to change the past?

I am an Objectivist, except that:
I think that it is proper that a woman can be President of the United States;
I do not place a high value on operetta music (though I know many tunes);
I accept other people's homosexuality as their choice and do not find it disgusting;
I enjoy Mozart and Beethoven; I enjoy rock music, especially "new" music of the 80s and even punk.
I respond well to Rodin's "The Thinker;" (See my review on RoR here.)
I know that you can have law and justice without government.
I once read one book by Mickey Spillane -- I, the Jury -- and that was more than enough;
I tried "Charlie's Angels" and did not like it;
I watched old "Man from UNCLE" shows on DVD a few months ago and liked what I saw.
I believe that "ought" comes from "is" but that "is" might not lead to any "ought."
And I am not sure that saying you oppose welfare gives you a right to accept it.

But other than that...
I am an Objectivist.

And I agree with Ayn Rand that you might have a right to own a rifle, but you probably have no right to own a handgun.

(When asked to sum up Objectivism standing on one foot, Ayn Rand defined politics in terms of capitalism, not government.)

I see many clear distinctions among (1) objectivism as rational empiricism and (2) Objectivism and (3) the corpus of Ayn Rand's works.

I agree with the sentiments that Mindy expresses. I, too, am concerned with the advent of the Forum Moderators.

I understand the Admin's position, completely. Admin has an absolute right to do whatever they want. But that is not the issue, certainly not for Objectivists. By analogy, you have a political right to purposely harm yourself, though, of course, it would be immoral to do so.

Furthermore, no one questions the the utility of keeping ads for replica watches off this message board. More to the point, it is perfectly valid for an Objectivist to question tenets and beliefs, in the search for truth, order to gain a better understanding. On the other hand, the Usenet News Groups (Google Groups) for alt.philosophy.objectivism and humanities.­philosophy.­objectivism are loaded with useless junk and frequented by anti-Objectivist trolls. Rational discussion there is difficult to impossible. So, yes, the Administrator benefits us all by doing the hard work of property maintenance.

In the Law subforum under Politics, I posted on "Wrongful Convictions and Miscarriages of Justice." Before I could complete my inital posts, DavidOdden replied to the first that in my next post, I should say what my point is. Last week, that would have been an invitation. Now, it is a threat.

What if I have no "point" or thesis but am only cataloging facts in order to understand them? Others could support or refute the empirical claims or assert their own conceptual explanations. And so on. But now, I read his reply as a hint that if I have no thesis, the posts will be deleted and, ultimately, I could be denied access entirely.

Again, it is the right of the Admin and Admin's agents to do so, but that is not the issue that Mindy addresses.

Last week, we were peers. This week some animals are more equal.

I do not chat. I understand that Chat had problems with trolls. Thus, Moderators were "hired." However, at the outset, the need for Forum Moderators was never validated, but only arbitrarily asserted, as an extension of Chat Moderators.

I am an Objectivist, except that:
I think that it is proper that a woman can be President of the United States;
I do not place a high value on operetta music (though I know many tunes);
I accept other people's homosexuality as their choice and do not find it disgusting;
I enjoy Mozart and Beethoven; I enjoy rock music, especially "new" music of the 80s and even punk.
I respond well to Rodin's "The Thinker;" (See my review on RoR here.)
I know that you can have law and justice without government.
I once read one book by Mickey Spillane -- I, the Jury -- and that was more than enough;
I tried "Charlie's Angels" and did not like it;
I watched old "Man from UNCLE" shows on DVD a few months ago and liked what I saw.
I believe that "ought" comes from "is" but that "is" might not lead to any "ought."
And I am not sure that saying you oppose welfare gives you a right to accept it.

But other than that...
I am an Objectivist.

And I agree with Ayn Rand that you might have a right to own a rifle, but you probably have no right to own a handgun.

(When asked to sum up Objectivism standing on one foot, Ayn Rand defined politics in terms of capitalism, not government.)

I see many clear distinctions among (1) objectivism as rational empiricism and (2) Objectivism and (3) the corpus of Ayn Rand's works.

Suart Hayashi wrote an essay on "The Argument from Arbitrary Metaphysics." Basically, he shows why strawmen are not real and need not be considered.


In the initial problem, the victim was judged mentally competent by her doctors, but incompetent by her plumber. There is a problem in that. I am 60; my wife is 55. We work with our minds and we are aging. She just went through a four-hour examination that provided a multidimensional profile of strengths and weaknesses, norms and variances. There is no such thing as "mentally competent" (except in a government court of law).

I am sorry not to have the exact reference, but in Isaac Asimov's "Black Widowers" anthologies there is a story. The Black Widowers is a society of amateur sleuths who meet to unravel whatever mystery is brought to them once a month by a dinner guest. One month a man comes with an "unsolvable" problem. They hear him out and offer their insights. Each is deflected in turn with new information. Finally, the butler, Henry (as is always the case) offers the solution: He is lying. The guest was making up reasons not to accept the solution based on the facts given originally. So, too, here, is this a lie. Not that HobHouse22 is evil, but that the situation offered is unreal and each adjustment is required specifically because the inital problem was unreal.

HobHouse22 was only asking a different (and interesting) question: What are the limits of commercial ethics?

You do not need to make up little old ladies and plumbers. My professional hobby is numismatics, the art and science of the forms and uses of money, which most people call "coin collecting." I speak at conventions; I have been granted literary awards. I do this well. The hobby guys think that Home Shopping Network is deplorable, a scam, a ripoff. Many denounce Littleton Coin Company, also. The reason is that those entities charge "too much." To the hobbyist, it is obvious that no one should pay $60 for a $50 coin, when with four or five hours in a coin shop you can find one almost as nice without too many problems for $40. These same guys rave to heaven about the "1804 Dollar" and the "1913 Nickel" which are multi-million dollar auction items whose pedigrees have names. I consider them junk. The genuine 1804 Dollars are only "novodels" a Russian word for special work for friends of the Mint. The 1913 Nickels are all fakes. But that is just my opinion, apparently, as the multi-million dollar price tags prove that the market is always right. These famous collectors are successful businessmen. Can you tell someone with a multi-mega-dollar Beverly Hills car dealership that he doesn't know value?

So, if you want to discuss real cases, there are many. If you want to put a theoretical wrapper around these specifics, we can do that. What are the limits of commercial ethics? Can you cite cases?
Those are real questions.