bluey

Hmm, good points. I guess if I'm sure I'm not being the rude one I could just refuse to go, find something else to do, and deal with it if they want to make a fuss. It's not that I have a problem with confrontation, it's just that I want to make sure I'm within my bounds if I'm going to do something that will force them to do something they don't want to ... I know they do the same thing to me but I also know that they are sure they're right (of course they happen to be wrong, but is it really my place to point that out to them? I know from experience that it's a really hard reality to face). Actually now that I put it like that I can kind of see what the problem is. It's not my responsibility to help them keep up whatever evasions they've chosen, although I feel like it is because that's the way they were before I came into the picture - but it will never be as though I was never there, I guess, even though I'm not out to cause trouble. That's pretty much how it is. When I'm around I try to focus on doing things ... I'll go four wheeling or to my brother's band practice, do something around the house with my mom, etc. I'm partly kind of "placeholding" in the hopes that when my brothers leave home they'll come around and things will change. But I guess they're old enough now that they could maintain contact with me if they wanted to, so maybe that's not a good reason anymore.

But the problem is that they're not actually *doing* much, just going about their business and I'd have to make a fuss in order to disagree ... for example, the next time I'm at home for a weekend and don't want to go to church, what do I do, just sleep in? That's being more rude/childish than reasonable I would think, it would be like refusing to eat with them just because I don't like what they're having. I don't sleep in until 11. I have no reason to sit in their living room and stare out the window until they get back. If I'm at home visiting them, isn't it just respectful to go along with their routine, so long as I'm not being asked to participate? It just seems like my choices are: be a jerk to them for just doing what they think they should do; or go out of my way to ignore all the ways that they ignore the fact that I'm clearly uncomfortable. I mean I'm not interested in debating everyone every time I go home, I just want to visit and chill out, but my family is a very "discuss religion around the dinner table" kind of family and I usually just sit there as opposed to taking it on myself to change the whole tone of the conversation. Should I change that policy? Or just suck it up when I'm there but go home less often? I feel like they've earned the right to enjoy my company or something, as they did raise me the best they could and I turned out pretty good, and I'd be denying them that if I did anything different ... and we all get along in other activities. It would make me unhappy to do something hurtful to my family if I don't absolutely need to. Well I guess it's just a matter of how I should handle the subject. If I'm eating dinner and suddenly a conversation on religion breaks out, do I just sit there in silence (which is what I do now)? That's awkward because I'm not really the silent type and they know I have opinions on the subject ... just opinions that offend them. It's not a matter of changing how they think about it, I know that's not going to happen (not for all of them anyway, maybe when my younger brothers are a little older they'll understand that I'm a fully functional human). They do provide value that I can't really replace, though ... I think ... They already have my time though, I mean I'm there, they live in a little town and there's really nothing better to do with that hour or two. I can see how I'm sanctioning it by going along, I just can't see what other options there are that aren't just as bad.

I'm having a problem with several important relationships in my life and I wonder if anyone has dealt with this, or has any suggestions for dealing with it. The problem is that my entire family (parents, brothers, extended relatives) as well as almost every friend I've had for longer than 5 years is a committed evangelical Christian. Yeah, every single freakin one. Many of them are really important and valuable to me - they are all good, healthy, people who I learn a lot from (for example, my dad runs a small business and has taught me a lot about it) and generally rational except for one shared and mistaken premises: God exists. Since they believe that and, as part of the package, that even entertaining any doubt about it is a sin with some pretty dire consequences, for me to even suggest the topic is treated pretty much as though I were brandishing a knife at them or something. Seriously - I'm intentionally putting them in physical danger by daring to suggest such a thing - God is "unknowable" which is why they can't prove his existence, but he "speaks personally to them" which is why they don't have to consider whether it's true. The fact that I'm not a Christian, to them, is clear evidence that I'm self-destructive and unstable. They don't treat me any differently as long as I don't bring it up and go quietly to church with them when I'm at home, but it's clear enough that I can't really be trusted around impressionable children, etc. I think my parents have some kind of savings account set up for when I inevitably come home knocked up and coked out (not really ... but I'm sure it wouldn't surprise them). In reality, however, I'm a great example of a responsible citizen. I have a university degree, a good job (where I've been able to climb the ladder quickly because I actually *am* responsible, dependable and sensible), a part-time business that will soon be a full-time business, perfect credit, solid friendships with good people ... I mean, what more could they ask for? I have relatives who are doing much worse but are still "better" just because they are "seeking God". So they still insist on worrying about me, treating my opinions as though they come from some deeply hurtful experience that caused me to hate God (I had a coffee with a friend over Christmas and the next thing I know, he's preaching a sermon at his church about how I turned my back on God because of all the hurt I've experienced in my life ... which apparently happened sometime when I wasn't paying attention, I've had a pretty normal life), and generally don't trust me to take care of myself. What can I do?? I don't want to cut them all out of my life, other than this issue I love them and think they're great people. I also value having people in my life who have known me for more than a few years, I mean it's my family and people I grew up with. They just honestly think that I'm volatile and "spiritually" suicidal and will always refuse to believe otherwise, no matter what I do. Besides, anything I did would just make me the villian and they would see it as some sort of admission of guilt (like I just can't handle being around the "truth", God is convicting my soul or something). Anything I could do would be interpreted as an act of aggression. It's not that they're doing anything to me - I'm the one who changed, not them - it's just that the whole "black sheep" routine is getting really, really old. I'm tired of hearing about people praying for me ... when the only really difficult problem in my life is the fact that people won't stop freakin praying for me That's a long explanation but I'm really stumped as to what to do here. Hopefully people here will have some suggestions and I appreciate (in advance) any replies.

Do you think it's really possible for Objectivist ideas to take hold through revolution? I've been thinking about this. America was able to establish ideals of freedom and individual rights because it was a new land - they needed a system of distribution for land that was basically up for grabs. For Objectivism to take hold through revolution, millions of people would need to willingly give up the "advantages" of political altruism, and since the majority of individuals benefit more than they lose (or appear to - most people benefit from roads and schools and only pay a small portion, while large companies and producers pay disproportionately to provide those services) I just can't see how, without some sort of societal collapse where those goods are non-existent, you could convince enough people to "do the right thing" rather than "get free stuff". It almost seems like it would necessarily have to happen through a Gult's Gulch type of strategy - enough Objectivists buy land in the same place and refuse to receive any advantage from or pay any taxes to the government, using their own resources to defend the area (basically claim sovereignty, set up their own proper government). I mean it would be their land, they'd have bought it and have deeds, the only way the government could get anything from them would be by a direct initiation of force. Then perhaps by example the majority could see that this is the way to go.

No, because animals who don't have a concept or means of trade consider force perfectly normal and acceptable. Of course animals don't consider force to be an initiation of force. They don't consider it, that's the point. Even if the monkeys use sex as a value to be traded for other values - say, one monkey wants another monkey's banana so it decides to offer a little "service", in return for which the banana changes hands, without any use of force - do you think the monkey would understand the concept of me not being totally down with that? Would he consider that I've refused his offer and leave me alone? In other words: does volition play any part in this exchange? I mean, let's think about how this situation would actually go. I have a banana that the monkey wants. It starts trying to do some objectionable things. I yelp in disgust and move my sexual organs and banana a safe distance away. What does the monkey do then? Chase me? Try to force me to accept his "trade"? Accept my choice and offer something else? Find someone else with a banana he can try to trade for? The idea that use of physical force doesn't count as an initiation of force just because the "victim" monkey doesn't do anything about it is an illustration of exactly my point: the other monkey can't do anything about it because he has no alternative to force. They use physical force against each other, even in matters where the same thing could be accomplished by use of volitional trade, simply because they live by means of force - that is their means of survival, NOT reason. You can see it in action, you don't have to test whether they are hypothetically able to use reason to some extent as an alternative, because they simply DON'T use reason to any extent when force is available to them.

Um ... if a chimp tried to deal with me by attempting to stimulate my sex organs, yeah I'd take that as an initiation of force. How could that possibly constitute an attempt at reason??

Well the thing that gives people rights is that they are able to volitionally trade values (this is the application of individual reason to a social situation). So if a chimp wanted to convince me that I should deal with it by reason instead of by force, it could make some sort of attempt to get an orange and then try to trade it for my banana, without using force against me. Instead all you get from chimps (as far as I know) is maybe an attempt to take your banana when you're not looking. If they, without exception, use force rather than reason in dealing with other beings (unless specifically and painstakingly trained to do otherwise, or at least to appear to do otherwise), they fail the test of reason being their means of survival. I think the attempt to "test for reason" in a being is misguided - if they were creatures of reason, they'd be trying to reason with us. If a human were captured by, say, some alien species whose language was completely unintelligible and there were no obvious means of communication, the human would still necessarily try to communicate with it, at least until it became clear that reason was impossible and then they would have to take whatever other options were open to them (stealing food when the alien kidnappers weren't looking, for example). So if you've got a reasonable creature, you shouldn't have to "test" for reasonableness. I know you're asking about free will, but since free will can't exist without a faculty of reason then the same argument applies.

Interesting. The people who are against Rand for whatever reason (she wrote long books ) sure are serious about it. Lol the guy who compared Objectivism to Scientology ...

I read Sophie's World when I was 17 or so and I remember it being a decent history of philosophy if you take it at face value - it is good to be able to put all the different philosophers in some sort of historical order so you can see the ways they each built on or reacted to previous ideas. As for the whole "meta-" theme of the novel, there are two ways you could see it. The point could be that the universe and ourselves ("reality") are fundamentally unknowable, since . Or it could be that the reader has to figure out for themselves whether there is a reason to think that In the end no book could tell you that reality is real if you're convinced that you can't rely on the evidence of your own senses. Even if the point is that anybody should be able to see how silly it is to throw out your own powers of observation just because some book tells you you could theoretically .

Specifically I would say that this is wrong (from the bit that The Egoist posted above): "The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion." Anybody's posited recognition of a "fact" which he can't present evidence for has to be treated as arbitrary since it is not "susceptible to rational discussion", since only evidence can be rationally discussed. "Consciousness prior to thought" could only possibly mean consciousness unconscious even of itself, which is a contradiction, or consciousness conscious ONLY of itself (in which case the "prior to thought" part is misleading), but then only introspective "evidence" can be obtained and introspective evidence can't be communicated (you being really really really sure you saw a ghost is not ever a good reason for me to believe in ghosts). So is the mystic's recognition a fact that we should take into consideration when attempting to form rational conclusions about morality, as Harris believes? He is basically saying that since so many people say they are really really really sure that something changed about the world because they were sitting around thinking really deeply/meditating, we should admit that we have some possible evidence that mental processes can influence the physical world. Instead all we have evidence of is that the mental processes of an individual affect the physical processes of the same individual. No "mystic" has ever managed to do anything more "supernatural" than I do when I see an object, decide to move toward it, and start walking. Mental, yes; supernatural, no. In any case even if the mystic is doing something that we can't observe, we can't just take his word for it and start acting on it. So: Sam Harris is wrong when he says that altruism is the rational moral code. In fact rational selfishness is the correct ethical principal for the human life. But he is right when he says that moral principles can and should be rationally arrived at. He's proposing the right method but admitting the wrong evidence, namely by allowing for evidence that he admittedly hasn't observed himself, that other people claim they have but that they can't prove. Right method + wrong evidence = wrong answer. It's good that he's getting part of it right, though, and even better that using the right methods means that he's going around being right on TV once in a while.

That is good. Even if his conclusions are wrong (and they are) it still means that he'd be able and probably willing to amend his opinions if he could figure out (and understand) which premises he's wrong about. Unless there's evidence that he should know he's wrong and is just lying, I'd say it's a good sign. He's advertizing reason by being famous for being reasonable sometimes. If a few people start examining his process instead of just parroting his ideas and end up figuring out how to think, the world gets a little better to live in at no cost at all to me

Hi nObOdy, I'm bluey. My username doesn't say much about me except, by implication, the fact that I like the colour blue. I chose it because I want people to judge and interact with me based on the content and quality of my posts instead of anything I could posit about myself, and I simply don't care to try to come up with a one-word description of myself. Some people on this board have apparently managed or attempted to do that, though, and some just use their real names or some variation of them. Either way since there aren't any other blueys, it serves to identify me as me and my posts as my posts, and allows my fellow forum users to view and evaluate my posts in the context of each other, if they so desire. I'm myself, not anybody else. I'm only myself, and I know who that is even if no one else does. I'm somebody. I'm definitely not nobody and I can prove it - if I were nobody then I wouldn't be typing this post or watching it appear on the screen in front of me. Any particular anybody is somebody to somebody, if only to themselves, and that's really sufficient to establish them as somebody instead of nobody. I'm not you, I'm me. You're not me, I assume you're you but I don't really care one way or the other. I've seen plenty of people begging but I'm not them. I work for a CEO and I couldn't do what he does, at least not presently, and since I've never really attempted to learn to I couldn't tell you whether I have the necessary capacity to learn to do his job. I have the capacity to do my job, and he definitely couldn't do my job if he fired me tomorrow, and maybe he eventually could or maybe he couldn't if he tried to learn, who's to say? It really doesn't matter. I could have been a lot of different somebodies but I could only ever have been one particular somebody and I happen have made myself into this particular somebody, and whether you or anyone else knows me doesn't change that fact or make it irrelevant. I identify as fellow humans anybody who is somebody to themselves and, if I need to interact with anyone else for any reason, I implicitly begin with that identification. - bluey (edited for clarity)

Yeah, I figure that might be part of my confusion. I don't think that the value you see in your child would necessarily have to be a separate thing from the value you have in yourself. It wouldn't be a lesser value; it would be the same value - not just an equal value but in fact the very same value. Which is why you wouldn't ever allow your child to suffer so that you wouldn't; there would be no such possibility as your child suffering and you not suffering. So if it came down to a choice, of course you would choose to suffer if by doing so you would spare your child. But at the same time you're obviously not your child and it also doesn't make sense to say that your child living is just as good as you living. You know emperically that you could be happy without your child because of all the times before your child was born when you didn't have them and yet were happy. Of course you might feel that if you ever let anything happen to your child then you would be sort of killing off your own value in yourself or something. I guess I just don't really get it, and maybe children are a special case but apart from children I certainly don't understand how it makes sense to talk about valuing someone else's life more than your own life.

Oh, I guess I missed this before my last post or I'd have saved my breath. Douchebag.

No, I haven't read it yet. It's definitely not the terror of not being an Objectivist. It's not about dictatorial terror either if by that you mean fear of some external power. I think it's more like the terror of being in the dark about what exactly is going on and what you're supposed to do about it; fear that you don't understand the world and yet that life seems to demand an awful degree of certainty from you, since you obviously have to act and decide between alternatives. I think you can see instances and results of this kind of terror all over the place, and I know I've felt it myself in the past, but like I said before: a lot of effort goes into being distracted from it. Do you disagree that rampant drug abuse could be an indication of a widespread lack of understanding, and therefore fear, of reality? It's a fear that you can clearly and relatively easily counteract without necessarily being an Objectivist, lots of people do it by simply embracing the reality of themselves as rational beings (maybe not in abstract or explicit terms, but in concrete practice). Since I haven't read the work you're referring to, I can't really help you more specifically unless you want to quote some passages and explain what specific problem you see with them. But I think the short answer to your question about why, if this terror is a real phenomenon, people don't run around in obvious concern is simply that they repress it. It still shows up in lots of ways, like dependence on substances or welfare or maybe in depression or other self-destructive cycles and behaviours.

I have to admit I don't know Star Trek from Battlestar Whateverica so that was kind of greek to me, haha. I don't really know what you mean by "not entirely logical beings". Do you mean that sometimes we act logically (making decisions based on criteria in pursuit of a goal), but sometimes randomly, and can't help it? I would have to say that I personally don't make random decisions very often. Making emotionally based decisions is really a process of logic, albeit with a misguided premise. Anyway there's no fundamental reason why "your heart" and "your head" should necessarily conflict*. If you don't think we've really differentiated ourselves from other animals then what do you make of, say, cities? Manned flight? Modern medicine? Mathematics? The colour wheel? (etc.) [Edit to add:] *This might be why you think Roark acts emotionally rather than rationally. He is specifically an example of someone whose emotions are perfectly attuned to his standards of value, so there's no conflict between the two. I mean, Roark reacting "emotionally" and Roark making "rational" decisions are just two sides of the same coin; there are no conflicting motives for him to choose between.

Welcome to the forum Tayla Can I ask what you've read of Rand's writing? Is there a reason why you reject the idea that humans are rational beings? What do you think emotions are?

Well, there are a lot of diseases and physical problems that aren't contagious, so I don't know how that's really relevant. You can't pass on a broken leg but you can't walk on it, either. If something happens in someone's past that results in them holding two conflicting beliefs about reality, even subconsciously, that's what I would call a philosophical problem. It's not some sort of spontaneous malfunction, true; it's more like a deformity like that which would result from, say, foot binding (to make a physical comparison). Being unable to walk because your feet are horribly deformed because you (or your repressive/dysfunctional family or culture) made it that way isn't an illness. The fact that he's perfectly rational but has this "philosophical deformity" makes sense just as it makes sense to say that a woman is perfectly healthy, has a strong immune system etc., but still can't walk because of this crazy thing someone did to her feet when she was too young to know better. I'm not denying that problems like the one your friend has do happen and even that there could be certain inabilities or tendencies that they display as a result of that particular problem that are out of character, and of course there should be appropriate ways to get help for them; but I also agree with the doctor quoted earlier in that they aren't illnesses or any other sort of medical problem and treating them through a medical system, especially one that tends to treat all mental issues as though they were neurological issues that require chemical remedies, isn't necessarily appropriate. Because since there are also medical problems, i.e. problems with brain chemistry etc., that also result in destructive or uncharacteristic behaviour, having only one name or way of dealing with two really very different issues seems like an obvious problem, doesn't it?

When he says this though: "Whatever aspect of psychiatry psychiatrists claim is not medicalization, is not medicalization only if it deals with proven disease, in which case it belongs to neurology, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neurochemistry, neuropharmacology, or neurosurgery, not psychiatry." doesn't that cover it, at least as far as medication is concerned? He's not dismissing the concept of mental illness in the sense you're referring to, he's just saying that if it's being treated with a drug, i.e. with chemicals that are intended to interact with existing chemicals and processes in the brain or body, then what you're looking at is a physical problem, not a mental problem. I think he's saying that apparent psychological problems are either physical or philosophical: if physical then they should be treated by a physician and possibly medicated, and if philosophical then they're the sort of problems that once would have been dealt with by clergy or a similar sort of counsellor. If it's not a physical problem then it does seem obvious that drugs wouldn't be of any benefit, yet there's really no way to get help for a mental issue without being exposed through the system to chemicals that do have an effect on the brain and probably just confuse the issue. Seeing the distinction would be the first step to developing a non-medicalized way of dealing with a non-medical problem.

Maybe you could have provided him with a more accurate definition of slavery. For example, slavery is forcing an individual to work exclusively for your own benefit and not for his own, against his own judgment. Capitalism doesn't involve such force since it is, by definition, a system of voluntary interaction between free individuals. There are plenty of cases where one person could gain wealth from someone else's labour, to their mutual benefit, and the example of Russian revolutionaries seems appropriate in demonstrating this difference. I think you identified his mistake correctly, you just didn't take it a step further to actually correct it.

Do you think someone owes you a purpose? What reason do you have to think that there is a purpose "out there" for you if you only dig hard enough to find it? Purposes aren't discovered, they're chosen. There are lots of people and groups out there with ready-made purposes for sale who insist that you can't trust yourself, but if you haven't bought one of them yet then you probably already realize that to adopt any given one of them you'd be the one selling out. It counts for a lot, though, I think, that you're "rigorously seeking". It means you understand, at some level, that to be moral requires the effort towards acheivment of personal values and goals. You obviously aren't alone in thinking that an external source of purpose is somehow superior to an internal one, but that's actually not at all true and you're in the right place if you want to find out why not and what is (or at least you've stumbled on the right philosophy, although forums are better for testing than for gaining understanding and I'd recommend you hit the books if you haven't already).

Amos, In rereading the entire thread I think my last post was a little off topic, or at least it didn't really attempt to answer your question. So I'm going to try to. You're asking us to explain how, in a world that operates the way Ayn Rand described it and where Objectivist principles hold true (and therefore are true for everyone, whether they know it or not), examples like the pregnant woman and the marine can possibly happen. I mean, if people are rational beings and the rational thing to do is not sacrifice yourself for strangers, then isn't there something very strange about the fact that these examples can exist? People are really answering your question when they say that Objectivist ethics don't shed any light whatsoever on these situations and that it's unreasonable of you to expect them to, but I think I can see where you're confused. Take the pregnant lady for example. What would motivate her to sacrifice herself and her children for a total stranger? The answer is, damned if I know but it sure wasn't Objectivism Ethics is a very different branch of philosophy than epistimology and with a very different purpose. If your epistimology (your conclusions about what the world is and how it works and what you are and how and whether you can know it) is screwy, then your ethics (your concrete, personal decisions about what your purpose is and how you'll acheive it - this can only follow from an epistimological foundation, for reasons that I think are somewhat obvious so I won't explain them unless I'm asked to) is bound to be screwy as well. How could it not be? If I were to guess, I'd say that the pregnant woman has some view of life that leads her believe that every individual human is of equal value, probably to God or possibly just intrinsically or something, and that she should value what God (or whatever) values and therefore view individual humans as fundamentally interchangeable, and tied in with those beliefs is usually the idea that humility is a virtue and self-sacrifice is heroic. And then she went and destroyed herself as a result of these beliefs and I would say that yes, her death was meaningless, evil and essentially tragic simply because her premises were false. You might ask how a supposedly rational being can hold such supposedly irrational premises. The answer is simply that she decided to. At some point in her life she decided to accept a particular view of the world and run with it, and maybe it really made sense to her in the sense that it explained well enough everything that she happened to be curious about, but it was still actually wrong and, if you've read enough Rand to understand her epistimology then you'll understand how it was wrong. Reality is only sort of obvious; people are the sorts of beings who can decide to do whatever they want, and if all you look at when you wonder about the world is people then you're not necessarily going to catch any reflection of reality in their actions. Unless you happen to run into some people who hold and act on rational premises, but if you'd done that you wouldn't be here. Of course I have no way of actually knowing what motivated the woman to do that, that's just a guess based on the people I've known who would probably make a similar decision. Objectivist ethics can't explain why a non-Objectivist would act a certain way. However, Objectivist epistimology does explain how it's possible for a fundamentally rational being to hold fundamentally unrational beliefs and act on them: free will and no such thing as human instinct and all that jazz that's already been covered in this thread. Hope that helps

I wonder about this. I saw Ayn Rand's appearance on Donahue (it's on youtube) that took place shortly after the death of her husband, where at the end the host mentions his death and she acknowledges that she's in pain and has lost her highest value, etc. I know that at other times she talked about how she would kill and even die for him, if it came to that. On the show, she says a couple of times something along the lines of "but I'll be okay" or "but it's alright, I'll grieve but I'll be fine". She also said that if she thought for a moment that there was the slightest chance that she could be with him again on the other side, she'd kill herself in a heartbeat (paraphrase) and that makes sense, but of course that would change the whole nature of dying and it would be a different scenario. I think I know what she means and it leads me to question how you really could decide that someone else's life has a higher value to you than your own, as opposed to valuing them because you value yourself. For example my best friend and her husband have been trying to have a baby for a while and I know that when they eventually do, it will have that sort of value to my friend and she would already rather die than have anything happen to it (that will probably make more sense to the mothers out there than it does to me). But at the same time, whatever happens you know "it'll be okay", as long as the world you live in remains the same you'll have all the same, if perhaps "lesser" values that you had before the person was born or you met them and you were happy then, right? I guess my question is, if there was a person who had such a high value to you, how could you possibly decide that you'd rather die than lose that value knowing that, if you did lose them, you'd eventually be okay and life would go on? I mean, wouldn't just the fact that they existed in the world in the first place and that you'll always know it be ... not enough to make up for the loss, of course, but at least enough to tell you that you've grasped that value and that even their death couldn't really take it from you? I can only really understand it under circumstances where the alternative is that you lose them to evil and you'd rather die than watch your embodiment of all the good in the world be destroyed by the whim of lousy, slimy scum that doesn't deserve the time of day. That, I can see. But that isn't the same as dying so that your baby won't die of natural causes or destroying yourself in a futile effort against disease or wasting away after the death of a loved one. Is it?

I'm 25. It's my favourite age I've been so far

I think Jake is correct that Rand doesn't explicitly say this very often, but you're also probably not out in left field to have gotten this impression. I've read most (if not all) of her fiction and some of her non-fiction, plus most of OPAR (I'd call myself a very novice student of Objectivism, though certainly a serious one - everything I'm going to say has probably already been said better by Rand in something that I haven't read yet, I'm sure someone will let us know if and how I'm totally wrong ) and from what I have read I think you may be referring to the whole concept of integration, and how a non-integrated worldview necessarily leads to confusion and (for lack of a better term, I'm bookless right now) angst. And of course most people don't go around all obviously angsty and confused. From my own observation, however, and from knowledge of my own thought processes at times, I think people do try really hard to avoid thinking about causality and other fundamental questions. They do this by either assuming that someone else has it figured out and they don't need to worry about it, or by just not giving themselves a chance to consider it, or by adopting a "patchwork" approach to philosophy where they think about specific questions one at a time until they come up with something that "makes sense" for each question, sampling from whatever different philosophies they come across without trying to put it all together (for example, Christians who have decided that the whole heaven/hell ultimatum doesn't jive with a loving god, so they adopt some quasi-Buddhist idea of "enjoying eternal communion with God" or whatever). There definitely are people who lose sleep over gas prices and taxing oil companies out of existence. People like Toohey or James Dobson whose object is basically self-destruction and whose modus operandi is convincing people that the world and themselves are realistically, if not fundamentally, unknowable and therefore they really shouldn't worry about it, that fortunately "someone else" has the answers and the only philosophy the "little guy" really needs is faith and obedience. And love, of course. For most people obedience and faith and love add up to a reasonable facimilie of real life (or so they're assured) so they just never have a reason to dig deeper. Whenever someone does, though, you find an example of confusion and terror. It's my own theory (from my own observation and experience) that depression and serious self-destructive behaviour usually result directly from a lack of integration and the terror that comes from sort of waking up with no idea where or who you are, so to speak. One major problem I've seen is that people are taught to find purpose and meaning outside of themselves, and often become desperate and even violent when they realize that no "higher purpose" is provided for them. That's explicitly an integration issue; it's an example of someone finding that their belief doesn't line up with reality and being unable to simply revise thier belief. That's my understanding of the issue at least; the majority of people simply stick to the bits of philosophy that work for them and try to avoid looking further. The ones who do, often end up with the types of problems that Ayn Rand implies would result from trying to act on inconsistent philosophies or else just try to get enough people to agree with them until they feel okay about the whole thing. I really have to try to find shorter ways of saying things ...