bluecherry

"Just because there are plenty of bad religions out there doesn't mean there can't be a good religion."
Define what you mean by "religion" here. If you meant a faith based system of beliefs as typically is meant, then by definition there can't be a good one because faith is never a good thing. If you have a different idea in mind when you use the word that does not involve faith, then how would this differ essentially from a club that met regularly like already exists in a number of places? People go to local Objectivism clubs in many places for things like listening to lectures, discussing reading material, socializing, planning and coordinating activism efforts, sharing advice and inspirational things, et cetera.

To something in the first paragraph of Jackethan's post, the part about just wanting to act like some sort of stereotype, I've come across examples of some like that and some that aren't. One of my oldest and closest friends is a male to female transsexual and she is far from a stereotype and not married to traditional ideas about gender roles or entitlements. She's a very unique and interesting person. There was one other male to female transsexual person a year ahead of us in high school and once out of curiosity my friend went and had a conversation with this other person. My friend was absolutely horrified at what she encountered. This person indeed was a terrible stereotype. All they seemed to care about were things like shoes and purses and such. My friend was just aghast and so much wanted to be distanced from something like this, just thinking how much that is NOT like her and that she does NOT want to be casually lumped in with and seen as like that other person. Though my friend does seem to look and act a lot more like you would expect of a female than a male, she doesn't seem really hung up on focusing on things like the gender stuff, really it seems more like the issue is just about being really freaked out and disturbed at having been born with a type of body that just doesn't seem like what it should be. Interestingly in my friends case, maybe something really did just go screwy since a few years ago while examining something else, a doctor found out she actually does have XX chromosomes, if I'm recalling what she told me correctly.

As for the larger question of what these people are and how to treat them, the way I've always viewed my friend is that she is what she is - as we've labeled it, a transsexual person, male-to-female. She's a person born with one type of body that for whatever reason seemed to not line up with something else about her in how she could think of herself, so she sought to do something to make the two of them line up with each other. Neither I nor she is trying to deny her medical history, the fact of the type of body she was born with, but I treat her as a female basically because for all my intents and purposes, she effectively is. (Though since I don't have much difference in how I treat people based on if they are male or female, it mostly just means I refer to her by female designated pronouns.) There is nothing in our daily doings and interaction with each other or other people which makes her past physical state a relevant factor. Maybe she takes some sort of medications or something regularly, but it isn't as if there aren't plenty of regular females that do. Maybe she's infertile, but so are many females, especially ones over middle age, and she doesn't want to have kids anyway.

epistemology

kerfuffle

друг (droog - friend; Russian)

grok

If you have enough time, energy, and concern to post about your displeasure at the things people seem to believe in this thread, then why do you not have enough time, energy, and concern to try to correct that which is causing you the displeasure rather than just talking about the fact of the displeasure? Reason is not automatic, not everybody learns as quickly and easily as others for a variety of different reasons. If you believe mistakes have been made here, why give up and presume it's due to people being hopelessly evasive and trying not to understand rather than simply the fact that something which is obvious to you may not be obvious to everybody?

Hmm, I don't know if this will make any substantial difference or not here, but it's worth a shot.

Hello, Superman. I've read all of this thread. At the top of this page you have said that you think if Objectivists knew you that you think they would consider you second handed for something to do with your sexuality I presume, though it isn't stated directly so. I'm not heterosexual and this has been no secret and yet in the two or more years I've been regularly participating here I have never had anyone accuse me of being second handed or any other negative thing for not being heterosexual. I've never had any supporter of Objectivism I've spoken to anywhere evaluate me badly in any way for me sexuality. By far and large, I've had a very warm and welcoming reception. Heck, for a while early in my time here the chat room had just about more non-heterosexual regular participators than heterosexual ones. Fun times. Sans a few minor pests like one could find anywhere else, there is no threat of being subjected to harassment for non-heterosexual people from Objectivists.

As for the pests, for the most part they haven't been responded to all that harshly recently due to a couple things. One is trolls being a lot like pigeons - pesky, nasty, unwelcome and only further encouraged to stick around and bring friends if you feed them. (Which by the way, I don't think you are a troll though your recent posts are kind of baffling.) Another is that we're pretty tired of a lot of the same old same old from certain people and groups so after a while they cease to as effectively make your blood boil and we just don't feel like going through the same old stuff with these people over and over. One guy in this thread has been around for ages just barely skirting the rules of the forum to avoid getting kicked out and all he ever seems to post on is homosexuality and abortion. On homosexuality, he insists on blindly adhering to anything to ever come out of Rand's mouth or pen without question or says one is immoral and not an Objectivist (not true) and offers no other attempt to support his position. On abortion though, he rejects Rand's position (which she wrote much more on and provided her reasoning for) and yet acts like this in no way subjects him to being immoral or not an Objectivist like he says in homosexuality threads of any disagreement with Rand on basically anything at all ever no matter what. This person's credibility is zilch, just ignore them like most of us do by now. Maybe some time soon they'll just finally get ejected from this place. As for the Christians who were floating around for a little while, I don't think I saw any of them in here and even if they were in here saying bad stuff, clearly they don't speak for Oism. We do welcome inquiry from non-Objectivists about Objectivism, so unless they start making a nuisance of themselves, they're welcome to be here. That's why we don't just kick people out right away or harass them when they say they're Christians. I think a bunch of them left or were kicked out though finally for spamming up all over so much Christiany stuff that it just kept taking over and diverting one thread after another.

As for quotes from others, Branden is no longer an Objectivist, whatever he says after his break with Rand is irrelevant to Oism. I know Peikoff is fine with homosexuality by now at least(I'm pretty sure somewhere I saw from a recent convention on Objectivism a quote of a homosexual man in the audience asking him about how it actually seems like there is a higher rate of non-heterosexuality among supporters of Objectivism than in the general population and Peikoff's response was something like, "Is there a problem here?" to which everybody just chuckled.) As for what Rand herself said while she was alive, there's an important thing here that most of us are familiar with that people new to this may not know. There's an important distinction made between things which are part of Objectivism proper and anything else, even if it was said/written by Rand herself. Some things are obvious, like color preference not being a part of Objectivism. That's not a philosophic issue. There's also that some things may be a philosophic issue, but still are not part of Objectivism because they were not by Rand or approved by her for inclusion as part of her philosophy of Objectivism (maybe because she thought it was wrong, maybe she didn't hear about it to judge it, maybe it was written after she died.) Some things may be issues which there can be right and wrong answers on, unlike what the best color is, but they are issues of specialized science. Psychological subjects and questions of nutrition and such are not part of philosophy. All the philosophy of Objectivism has to say on those things is basically, "try to pay attention, look at the conclusions of well done research and take care of yourself as best as you can on the basis of such." This and the fact that we are not omniscient means that the best choice to make in regard to these things may change as information is updated. (For example, this is why Rand quit smoking after a while when the research started showing significant health risks in connection with it. Before this evidence was provided, she had no reason to evaluate smoking as bad for her life.) There are also significant distinctions between the *principles* of the philosophy and particular applications of them. Principles may be properly or improperly applied, but some issues are a lot less simple and obvious about what principles apply how to what particular case and so it isn't blatant that, "Objectivism says X about the proper response to situation Y." So, issues like sexuality and gender have the problem that not only did Rand not show the full reasoning behind her conclusions, how they connected and lined up with Objectivism (thus meaning nobody else has any reason to believe her even if they believe she is right on things in Objectivism and for all we know they may have been based on outdated info or heck, no info, though that would be unusual for her), there's also the fact that the workings of these things are much better categorized as matters for psychology than philosophy.

That's not to say Objectivism has nothing to say about the topic, just that it is broad and heavily dependent on what psychology turns up. For one thing though importantly, sexuality is a matter of what one feels. Feelings are not subject to ethical evaluation because they are not a matter we can control directly like what we say or if we attack somebody or not. Feelings are not right or wrong, good or bad, they just are. They are the product of other things which give rise to them and it is those things we may evaluate, not the feeling itself. The question then, which is up to psychology and other specialized sciences, is what is that underlying stuff and what are its consequences? Whatever the nature of the cause(s) though, even if it were to be due to some kind of error of any type or other kind of unfortunate incident (not to suggest that is generally the case), that doesn't mean the feeling or the person would be evil or should deny it. Nobody suggests somebody with arachnophobia pretend it isn't so or that they are bad because of this. Causes are still a bit inconclusive generally of sexualities, but consequences are a much clearer issue.

Potential negatives to one's life in association with non-heterosexuality that are known are being subject to harassment and opposition by people that don't like you, but if that was any kind of real reason to make something bad for your life, Objectivism as a whole would be screwed as it is full of unpopular stuff. You may have greater difficulty finding suitable partners if you are homosexual due to it being much less common than heterosexuality, but everybody has things they require in partners that will shrink the pool a lot and make it take time and effort to find somebody suitable. Babies? Not everybody wants them, they can be adopted, there's surrogacy and sperm donors, and for lesbians (though expensive) science has now made it possible for them to make a baby with two female parents, though for homosexual men this is not yet possible, yet. Clearly Rand didn't have a need to breed anywhere in Objectivism anyway. As for sexual activities, so penis-in-vagina is off the table, oh well. There's been thousands of years to get inventive and I've never heard of anybody saying a male and female shouldn't be together because some kind of disability may prevent intercourse.

As for the issue of the law of identity, one is to recognize and not evade the facts/nature of themselves. Just because something is typical of most humans doesn't necessarily mean it must be so of all of them. Many traits may be typical of humans but a variance from them may exist without disqualifying one from humanity or damaging them. A typical example I bring up is what hand(s) somebody writes with. Most are right handed. Lefties used to get smacked for using their left hand and I've heard some religious people thought using the left hand was some kind of evil thing. More things are commonly designed for right handed people due to the statistics still, but there is obviously no flouting the nature of oneself as a human being in using one's left hand for writing and other tasks. If nobody can come up with any potential objection to sex with one's own gender within the framework of Objectivism but the issue of the law of identity, then they have nothing to object to but doing so if one is heterosexual, otherwise it is just an exercise in *accordance* with one's unique, individual identity.

I'm unfamiliar with this label, but I know of one case I've come across before of a group that regards having children as always immoral and aims to have people just quit breeding. The call themselves the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. I'm pretty sure I recall them being environmentalists rather than nihilists though.

It is quite plainly an incomplete site that somehow, the creators felt fine in releasing it with a very large portion devoted to Hsieh. They felt it necessary to put basically all the FAQ content devoted to Hsieh. There are minimal substantive arguments presented, on a site that quite clearly puts Hsieh on the level of the Brandens and David Kelley, and even Libertarianism. I cannot evaluate the site as anything more than dishonest by it pretending to say "hey, we're just asking people to check their premises!" On top of that, these people who made the site are quite frankly nobodies.

It's you who are doing her a disservice. Objectivism derives its principles from reality, which means
knowledge, which means facts.
Do you not think that in the light of further information about homosexuality, she would have - now -
rejected her earlier, and slightly rash (imo) position? No doubt, here. Grant her integrity some due.
Second, as I said, her extemporaneous remarks are superfluous to Objectivism. They represent an
application of a principle, not the principle itself. That she was nearly always spot-on, doesn't change that
we have each got to make our own applications, if we value independence.

sNerd's gonna have to change his welcome statement

You're new to the ideas in Objectivism, aren't you? ;P Some key ideas in Objectivism you seem to not be familiar with yet are the three different categories of moral values as intrinsic, subjective, or objective and of absolutes as absolute within a context. What do these things mean? Most systems of morality believe values and morality are either built into reality entirely separate from whatever people need or want or think (the intrinsic view) or that these things are entirely products of the inner workings of the minds of people with no connection to the outside world (this is the subjective view), but Objectivism is the only one to hold that values and morality are a product of the interaction of the human rational consciousness with the world around us, that it is based on us using our rational consciousness to identify things in reality and determine what will aid our lives (there's more explanation for how this conclusion is come to though if you do a little reading into Objectivist non-fiction literature, just right now I wanted to give a basic summary of the unique position Objectivism has as neither intrinsic nor subjective.) As for absolutes being contextual, it means that in any given specific context, what is, is, basically. For example, we don't have absolutes without context like "killing is always wrong no matter what!" -- what we have instead is recognition of things in specific contexts, like "Choosing to kill an innocent person when nobody is initiating force against you is wrong" and in that context of lack of force against you and innocence of the other person, then choosing to do so is wrong, however if the context is changed to be the case that somebody starts trying to kill you and you hadn't tried to initiate force against anybody else to bring this upon yourself, then if you need to kill them to defend yourself it is ok. That's a moral application of the idea of contextual absolutes, but perhaps a simpler illustration would be to tell of contextual absolutes as related to the way the inanimate works. Some people try to say there are not absolutes because they think an absolute means it must be so regardless of other factors, so gravity would only be an absolute if objects *always* drew together, and since we have things like magnetic levitation, gravity must not be absolute. However, a contextual absolute here means that gravity always works under certain conditions and if you change the conditions to introduce something like magnets repelling each other upward, it doesn't change the fact that gravity exists and works certain ways under certain conditions. The idea of contextual absolutes arise from the recognition of causality as being rooted in the nature of objects and that Objects work in set ways depending on what exactly they are interacting with. A balloon is a balloon and will respond as a balloon would by expanding some in a little heat and contracting some in chillier temperatures, so it doesn't just always expand or always contract, but if you repeat the same basic conditions you will always get the same basic result because the nature of the objects and situations involved remain the same, they don't just start reacting in all kinds of odd ways, like sometimes the balloon will expand in response to a little heat and sometimes repeating the exact same scenario it will start barking.

So, morality can be absolute contextually too and we figure it out through the use of our rational consciousness to recognize the relation of ourself to reality, to see what is needed for a creature such as ourselves to flourish. Some things which all people have in common based on being people will remain the same, while other things will be different based on some differences in our personal lives. However, all the stuff, be it common to all people or unique to specific individuals, is not a product of exclusively the outside reality or just whatever somebody dreams up without regard to the rest of the world, it is always moral or immoral based on rational identification and response to the facts of both ourselves and the rest of existence.

So, as I expect you are not very familiar with Objectivism at all, what do you know of it so far for people here to get an idea of your existing knowledge base, so we can know what you may already know and what you haven't read/heard/seen which may be good to suggest to you. Have you read any of Rand's fiction or non-fiction works or anything else by any other Objectivist scholars or intellectuals? Have you just heard a little stuff second hand or in passing maybe through somebody you know? Or (guess based on your username) have you perhaps just gotten curious based on reading the Sword of Truth books and hearing the author supports Objectivism and come looking based on that without having yet looked into the original sources?

If your agenda is to show how Rand's philosophy is wrong, this forum isn't the place to do it. This is, after all, called ObjectivismOnline.net. If you really can't help yourself, try the debate forum, but keep in mind forum guidelines.

I agree with Long's analysis, that both terms are at least popularly used as packaged deals, but it seems to me the suggestion to abandon it doesn't entirely follow, but that leaves the question of when to abandon an anti-concept and when to reject the negative conflation part of it. If it does happen to be that the term "capitalism" is conflated with (1) the free market, and (2) government favoritism toward business, then if we reject it on the grounds of opposing (2), we could be just as misunderstood as rejecting (1) (going around saying "smash capitalism," or trying to promote "free market anti-capitalism" will confuse the hell out of people.) The most important thing is I think the necessity to clarify and define your terms, hopefully to disassociate the latter meaning, in the same way Rand attempted to do with "selfishness." That being said, a part of that means that it's also imperative to recognize the second meaning is often present when we may not realize or intend it. Perhaps in contexts where it could be confused, one might consider using a qualifier like "free market capitalism" or "laissez-faire capitalism" whilst not assuming that everyone means the same thing.

The interesting thing to note, and the problem that needs further looking into, is why for Rand certain terms were anti-concepts and/or packaged deals and that this constitutes a reason for rejecting the term, whilst some others are the same, and we should hang on to the terms. For example, Rand claims that "extremism" is an anti-concept, since it lumps "extreme" defenders of evil and "extreme" defenders of good together as though they were equivalent (CUI 176.) Hence one should not say either "yes, I am an extremist" (which would commit you to acknowledging a relationship with extreme defenders of evil) or "no, I am not an extremist" (which would commit you to being a moderate defender of the good.) Instead one should reject the very notion of "extremism" and decline to use the term at all. The same goes for "isolationism," "McCarthyism," "ethnicity," "meritocracy," "duty," "an open mind," etc.

But yet, the same ("two meanings, with the proper meaning serving to cover and to smuggle the improper one into people's minds") obtains in the case of "selfishness" and "capitalism," but it seems odd to say we should reject these, since it might imply "I reject regard for my own interests," or "I reject the free market economy." So why not at the same time with the others, since it might imply "I reject extreme defense of the good," "I reject national self-interest," "I reject anti-communism," etc., but Rand doesn't seem to concerned that those misunderstandings could be made? When should one advocate for linguistic reform, and when should one throw out a term altogether?

This is completely false and the rest of your completely false statements flows from this incorrect premise.

I don't understand this. Why should anyone pay for another person's mistakes?

I haven't followed anything about OWS. All I can really say is that it appears very disorganized. There are so many voices that it's impossible to even say OWS has a unified message. It's impossible to say OWS is anti-capitalist. Instead, it's a vague sense of a blob. There's just a mass of people that are upset that some (I doubt "many" is correct) rich people have been immoral and even criminal, yet nothing is done about it.

Dang! This thing has gotten to 9 pages long while I was under a rock! I skimmed, so sorry if I say things that have been repeated already. I’ve mostly focused on the most recent things posted figuring those are issues not yet fully addressed.

These are my thoughts on the question of the first time Dominique and Roark have sex. First off, this book is really dang long. The plot takes place over 8 years. When Dominique and Roark meet, they grow a very rapid and deep understanding of each other’s inner workings from very minimal interaction. It is nigh on mind reading. This really helps cut down on a potentially slow, dull and drug out period of them getting to know each other and forming a connection. It is also this nigh-on-mind-reading which is behind the operation of their first sexual encounter. In real life though, we cannot trust that we just have such a deep and accurate understanding of somebody that quickly, so what can function in fiction here is a HUGE no-no in real life, do not try this at home.

As for exactly how their dynamic works here, it’s pretty screwy because Dominique’s psychology is pretty screwy and they are operating on the requirements of her psychology. She’s quite conflicted therefore the whole ordeal is quite conflicted. Dominique thinks of evil as potent and good as ultimately doomed in the face of it and so she sets out to remove good things from a world that doesn’t deserve it ASAP. She destroys statues she likes so others can’t see them, she writes of Roark’s buildings things like that they aren’t fit for having people’s dirty laundry hanging from them, she tries to prevent more of Roark’s buildings from being made, she even tries to delete herself practically in her marriage to Keating by removing all expression of herself and just submitting to what others wanted of her and told her to do. Roark on the other hand never has believed that the evil ultimately wins and so he is setting out to create while she fights to destroy everything he creates. It is in this sense that they are fighting on opposite sides. (The back of the book even states that Dominique is trying to destroy him I believe on the red and white paperback version I have.) Thus, the comparison to soldiers and war and that they are fighting and he has to win and such. He has to make her see that the good can succeed.

Meanwhile, she doesn’t want to have to admit to herself about actually wanting and liking things any more than she has to because (if I recall correctly, last read it a couple years ago) she is resisting forming attachments to things she thinks are doomed and getting too attached and then losing them would be very unpleasant. She doesn’t want to want Roark. She thinks he is good and doomed yet that he won’t stop putting out more good stuff that she has to get rid of and thus they are enemies. Roark, almost reading her mind, gets all this. He gets how she does want him, but doesn’t want to admit it to herself and so that means he has to do it in a way that she can sort of tell herself she wasn’t complicit in it. He knows that she is really a good girl, but that she has become confused and scared by how it seems like it is hopeless against the massive onslaught of the bad out there, so he’s got to work with her rules to a certain extent to get in and get a chance to get involved or else he’ll just end up pushing her away further before anything can be done to counter her mistaken beliefs. You sometimes to a certain extent have to play along and play by the distorted views of people who have sort of been traumatized in order to start building a connection that you can eventually use to start working on correcting the distortions. At least, so it has seemed in some of my observations anyway.

As for something in the text of that scene to clarify that this was not a true, serious business rape, it states at one point that there WAS something she could have done that would have made him stop. If she had seemed disgusted is what I think it said it was. Scared definitely, and angry maybe, these emotions and the physical resistance would make sense with Roark’s idea of what was going on with Dominique which would mean being forceful was the right way to go about things, however disgust would not fit the bill at all of what he had been thinking, but it would make sense for somebody who seriously just did not want him. Dominique never seemed disgusted though, just freaked out. Not wanting to admit to herself she wanted him also explains a first desire to go shower, but then just not going through with it. Doing it in a way so that she can try to deny being complicit it in explains her thinking to herself in terms of “rape” later, even though she has started to get more honest and aware with herself about her desire for him. Thinking of him as having raped her would certainly take him down some notches in scary good guy status, even though eventually the whole charade will be dropped about what went on.

That’s really what the whole ordeal was, a charade of rape put on due to mutual understanding of each other’s complex psychology which was made possible by the nature of the whole thing as a long work of fiction.

The forum rules prohibite "profane" content, which means "to treat (something sacred) with abuse, irreverence, or contempt. They do not prohibit profanity. I would futher say "we are not children here," but I do not accept the premise that secrets (or concepts) should be kept hidden from children either.

So I will say that I believe in effective communitication, whatever that entails. If your communication is full of fallacies, emotional appeals, dishonesty, or irrelevancies, then it doesn't matter how decorous it is. But as we are human beings with different levels of maturity and education and strong emotions, I do not object to appropriate use of profanity. And I think it's silly to self-censor the name of a television show.

No, Irene was not really impressive. It simply has been a long time since one passed over the north-east metropolitan area like that, folks forgot what flooding was.

Texas is naturally arid and has suffered longer droughts in the past (nine consecutive years with no rain back in 1800's). Nothing to see there either. Move along.

This isn't your last word, this is your original word. You didn't adequately address the principled arguments made against yours in the other thread. These arguments of yours are pragmatic.

And those differences are? The only thing I can think of as a big-ass difference off the top of my head (besides plumbing) is that women have a shorter time-frame, vis-a-vis their entire lives, to have children than men do. This might cause a reordering of life priorities IF AND ONLY IF having biological children is important to you.

What, in your opinion, are the salient differences between men and women from the perspective of "harmonious interaction"?

Likewise, in other cases, getting people used to the similarities between some men and some women, and not acting like it shouldn't be that way, would also lead to a more harmonious society.

I know what you're talking about, and I didn't mean to imply people don't have varying degrees of agression when they are happy and successful, I just think there must be something wrong in our culture that is making men interact funny around the opposite sex. My ideal man isn't some domineering womanizer, not in the least but if a man is the least bit "artistic" or whatever he seems to be way less sexually masculine than he should be these days.

Psychologically healthy women look up to their strength and view it as something they want to own not conquer. Since there isn't much strength to own I guess that's why so many gravitate towards feminism.

*getting it out of the way that I am talking about straight relationships here and do not have any experience with any homosexual ones and have no desire to do so if it sounds biased

Growing up in the age of the 'manchild' where traditional masculinity has been tossed aside by our culture (Adam Sandler's typical characters are excellent examples of this archetype) I believe that feminism and the prevalence of single mothers have allowed most younger men to remain stuck in a prolonged adolescence. Our culture also contributes to this phenomenon with mind numbing displays of irresponsibility like MTV and Jackass. This environment teaches young women they are strong and powerful and independent, and better than men, but on the flip side it also degrades men and the absence of father figures tends to lead to a specific situation of romantic incompetence. Two relatively common symptoms of this can easily be described as the "will you please go out with me" approach from men who's mothers taught them to be 'nice' and shower compliments on their girlfriends, or the irresponsible man who does not take pride in himself and coasts along. I myself was the former for a while until my father retaught me about interacting with the opposite sex, and from my experience it is much easier to find girls and many more are interested in you as a man if you reflect the more traditional masculinity and maintain an almost arrogant air about you, but always keep the tone light and playful.

So in short: Yes i believe men should pursue women, but not try to 'win them over' as many try to do.

Why would it be more rational for men to pursue women? I never have found a reason to suppose this is so. The only basis I'd have is what is usually done socially speaking, but norms aren't an indicator of what is rational or not. A traditional "men are pursuers, women are the ones pursued" is an untenable position to have because of same-sex couples, multi-person romantic arrangements, transgender people, and really whatever you can imagine about different self-identities (I'm not going to get into those, at least not yet). The way I see it, pursuit is more of a matter of who has the greatest immediate interest in having a relationship, and that's how it goes. Historically speaking, women seemed to have been the pursued because it was expected or reasonable to expect women to be homemakers. Expected to be passive in general. I imagine what may be nice about being pursued is that the other person is clearly into you. But a male would certainly like that, too. Still, if achieving high levels of valuation is your goal, just hoping to be pursued won't get you anywhere. You can't just sit around expecting to have any kind of relationship by hoping someone decides to pursue you (friendship or romance).

What I'm getting it is somewhat similar to what Kat is saying: depends on the individual. I'd go further by saying that if you like someone enough, it is practically obligatory to act and pursue the other person, male or female. In the sense that if someone is objectively beneficial to your well-being, you should do something about it. Waiting on someone else to act when you already have an interest, I'd call second-handedness. Pursuit makes sense to the extent you're into someone, being pursued makes sense to the extent you're unsure about a person. And the sex of the person does not matter.


Can you explain further what you mean by traditional masculinity? Use examples. Also, can you explain why you think tradition really has any relevant implication on what is a rational behavior relating to romantic interests?

As to your first point, certainly Rand thought it was more appropriate for men to pursue women in romance and for them to take the active part. In her own life, however, she did not do this - she pursued Frank O'Connor (in fact she tripped him), she pursued Nathaniel Branden, and she may have pursued several other young men as well although they did not actually begin a relationship. I am hesitant to speak for "Objectivism" but my honest understanding is that, like so many other things, IT DEPENDS ON THE INDIVIDUAL. Clearly, from your post, you prefer to be pursued. If this is the case, you should probably strive to be with men who are willing to pursue you. There is such a thing as romantic compatibility in addition to just personal compatibility. You should not apologize for or be ashamed of your preferences. However, you should also understand that they are not universal and that it is not "better" to prefer to be the pursuer or the pursued. In fact, it may even change from relationship to relationship - with one person you (the royal you, not you in particular) might do better as the pursuer and in another relationship with a different person it might be better for you to sit back and wait.

There are many rational reasons to take either role (or to mix them up, there's no law that says each person can't do a bit of both). When you pursue, you can feel confident that you are taking action to achieve a value and that your success or failure is more dependent upon what you yourself have done. On the other hand, you run the risk of rejection and you are "showing your hand", so to speak. When you are being pursued, you essentially ask the other party to make an "upfront investment" in you. You have a position of power whereby you can take or leave what someone else has offered. The downside to this is that you may feel like you are left waiting around, that you aren't doing anything, that the dynamics of your relationship depend primarily on another. It is my belief that either the pursuer or the pursued can be "in control", but they are different forms of control.

Your second point re: feminism. I don't know. It depends on what sort of feminism you mean. There is a type that seems to hate masculinity for its own sake as well as any behaviors perceived to be masculine, such as assertiveness, stoicism, etc. I would not, however, blame feminism per se for the lack of confidence the young men you run across seem to feel. I would just say they probably don't have much self-esteem which is a cultural problem more generally. Keep in mind that many, if not most of those traits often associated with masculinity are also strongly tied to individualism. Someone who does not know how to be an independent guy may simultaneously lack "masculine" qualities for that reason.

I will just finish with the thought that often thinking of "men qua men" and "women qua women" obscures the issue, in my opinion. There are many different kinds of both men and women, which is a good thing. Keeping the discussion to opposite-sex relationships for simplicity's sake, a "traditionally" masculine man might be a wonderful mate for one woman but not another. Although clearly some qualities are objectively desirable (intelligence, good health, strong character), the precise combinations of those traits that are optimal are highly individualized. Some women would consider a wealthy, powerful man dedicated to a socially-valued career (doctor, lawyer, politician) and desiring to be in charge of his household and family a wonderful mate, but I would not.

The most important thing is to stay true to yourself and your values. If you won't be happy with a passive guy, then don't pursue them and make yourself uncomfortable. On the other hand, if you're just striking up a conversation with a more timid guy, that doesn't seem like such a big deal. You're just talking, right? You don't expect every man you talk to or befriend to be a potential partner, do you?

Surgery is like that. You're put to sleep and some doctor rips your body open with knives, moves some things around, sometimes putting metal objects inside your body, to make it all better.