Bold Standard
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Posts posted by Bold Standard
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However, this clearly is not questioning the principles of Just War Theory, this is just challenging his hypothetical example.
I'm not sure what you meant here; but just for the record, Yaron Brook is opposed to Just War Theory, which holds that civilian casualties should be avoided at all costs in a war.
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Did you know that you can listen to other people's stations, and let other people listen to your stations and look at your profile on Pandora? I haven't really tried it yet, but that might be a fun way for people to share the music they like with others on the forum. I'm assuming that the ratings you choose will affect what plays when someone else listens to your station, but I don't know if that person can then make additional ratings of his own or not, or if that effects what plays when you listen to your own station afterwards.
My profile is www.pandora.com/people/phifltrigy. But I'll warn anyone who tries to listen to my stations that most aren't very good yet-- and that's assuming that my ratings will affect what you hear when you listen. In fact, I'd say that my Paul Whiteman station and my Edith Piaf are the only ones that don't play 90% ultra crappy music. But they're all gradually getting better the more I listen. Somehow, though, they keep managing to find new trash that has no relation that I can understand to the music I rate positively. Then sometimes they'll surprise me and play something that I do like, that's unusual, and that still doesn't have much that I can understand to do with my station.. Oh well, it's an interesting concept, though.
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And, of course, there is this little treasure: "Especially compared to the American cartoons of this same period (profligate with gratuitous violence and racist/sexist stereotype victims), the entire community of animals depicted in Weather-beaten Melody is peaceful, friendly, fun-loving, imaginative and altruistic--quite the opposite of the Nazi requirements for a dedicated Aryan citizen." Note the subtle equation of American public taste with Nazi ideals.
Wow.. I wonder how even a severely confused person could arrive at the conclusion that altruism is "quite the opposite of the Nazi requirements for a dedicated Aryan citizen"!
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That may be a worth a road trip from Dallas......
You can e-mail HOS at [email protected], or, if you don't hear back from them fast enough, PM me for more information and directions.
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For me, watching some of his cartoons is like watching the sort of very benevolent illustrations that one found in turn of the last century storybooks and on old sheet music covers from that era suddenly come to life.
I read this sentence, and immediately scrolled down and clicked on the link. What a great description-- I agree! Not only that, but the animation is really advanced and 3-d looking.
In some of his wartime features, he managed sneak past the censors very subtle swipes and digs at the Nazi regime.Did you (or anyone) notice any digs in the cartoons you linked to? I thought maybe the diversity of the bugs playing the record was one? Also in that one, maybe the scenario of nature discovering civilization was a subtle jab at or at least inversion of the Nazi ideal of civilization "returning" to Nature?
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To you, what is the status of the pleasure one recieves as one burns ones brain into oblivion with narcotics? What is the status of the pleasure of a man hallucinating as his body wastes away in a disease-ridden gutter? What is the status of the pleasure of a zoophile engaged in his perversions?
In other words, at what price does that pleasure come? If it comes from some form of evasion, then is that a pleasure that a life-seeking rational man would desire?
You phrase this as though I'm advocating hedonism, but I don't advocate that. The status of the self-destructive behaviors you mentioned is that they are a pursuit of short-term (but presumably real) pleasure at the expense of eudaimonia.
I think it is conceivable that a pleasure obtained as a result of an evasion could actually turn out to be in one's rational, long term self-interest. It's only, if one is evading, he can not be sure that it will be, because he has closed off his awareness in that area.
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Dr. Tara Smith is going to speak at the Houston Objectivism Society, on October 14th!! It's going to be 35$ for adults, and 25$ for full time students to get in. Here's the blurb from the HOS webpage:
Dr. Tara Smith, philosophy professor at UT, is scheduled to give a talk to the Houston Objectivism Society on October 14th at 7:30 p.m. on "Why Originalism Won't Die." Here's her description of the talk:The basic idea of originalism is that judges should be bound, in their interpretations and rulings, by the law as written. A bit more precisely, one can describe it as the thesis that the meaning of the Constitution should be settled by reference to the "original understanding" of those who enacted it. In the debate over proper judicial interpretation of the law, the doctrine of Originalism has been subjected to numerous, seemingly fatal criticisms. Despite the exposure of flaws that would normally bury a theory, however, Originalism continues to attract tremendous support, seeming to many to be the most sensible theory on offer. This talk examines its resilient appeal (with a particular focus on Scalia’s Textualism). By surveying and identifying the fundamental weaknesses of three of the leading alternatives to Originalism (Popular Will theory, Dworkin’s value theory, and Judicial Minimalism), the talk demonstrates that the heart of Originalism’s appeal rests in its promise of objectivity. The talk also establishes, however, that Originalism suffers from a misguided conception of what objectivity is. All camps in this debate, in fact, suffer from serious misunderstandings of the nature of objectivity.
[edited to add student admission price]
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3.) Mexico would not gain any clear military advantage (in terms of winning the war or increasing their ability to defend themselves) from annihilating the Ayn Rand Institute under this premise.
Yes they would-- if you read the first sentence, " If you are truly defending your homeland (against a real aggressor) then you have a right to do whatever is necessary in order to defend your homeland including the killing of civilians," he says "whatever is necessary." So that implies that in the hypothetical, it would have been determined necessary, ie, would result in a clear military advantage, to bomb the Ayn Rand Institute. Of course, it is merely a hypothetical. I don't interpret his statement as meaning a necessarily discriminate targeting of the Ayn Rand Institute either-- it could be part of a carpet bombing campaign on California. But I'm pretty sure his hypothetical is merely, if it can be shown to be necessary to bomb ARI, then that would be the only moral choice for Mexico at that point, regardless of the innocence of its intended target.
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To start with, I am leery of the practice of quoting Ayn Rand and trying to interpret how she would want someone to behave because Objectivism is not a religion and I am loathe to treat Rand and her words in a way similar to the way Christians treat the words of Jesus Christ and his apostles or Muslims and the writings of Muhammed.
I was only quoting her to help determine what her view was. That's a separate issue from whether I agree with her or whether what she said was true or not, and whether it is consistent with the rest of her philosophy. But I understand your concern.
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You actually listen to a band called Collective Soul(not to mention those other tribal disintegraters), and dare call yourself an Objectivist?
Collective Soul is a pretty offensive name. But, hey, even the Red Army Chorus had some good songs ("The Internationale," for example). -
All over the quotes given in this thread and the others. In the quote in post #17. In the quote you just responded to.
When I say, physical only sex, I mean sex as a response only to a partner's physical appearence to the ignorance or exclusion of their values, character, and all mental attributes.
This is a good example of what I mean by people falsely attributing things to Ayn Rand in this discussion. And it's not something I can remember seeing you do, Inspector, on any other topic. "Physical-only sex" is not a term that Ayn Rand used-- not in any of the quotes on this thread, anyway: I used my search feature on Firefox to double check!
But I have trouble seeing how even the concept of physical-only sex as you've defined it could be possible on her premises. How do you reconcile that with Francisco's statements on sex from pg 456 in Atlas Shrugged, such as, "...in fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions." Is it even possible to divorce all of a person's values, character, and all mental attributes from his physical appearance?
Even if it is possible, I don't see how you derive a concept like that from anything Ayn Rand said, especially the posts on this thread and especially the quote from post #17.
As to your question of where, beyond a desire devoid of love, that problems lie, I suggest the thread linked to in that I endorsed in post #10. Specifically, my formulation in post #83.Although I feel like I've already read endless volumes of posts and threads on this topic, I'll put that on my list and read it eventually. It is an interesting topic, but it does seem to get very repetitive at times.
But as an answer to Moose, and a follow up/addendum to my earlier addendum to Jennifer's post, I would answer the question:"Why is sex purely for physical gratification wrong?"
With:
"Because it's lousy."
Remember this isn't about self-denial. It is about wisdom of what will and will not bring happiness. Or even physical pleasure for that matter.
It makes sense to say that it's wrong to have sex for the purpose of pleasure if it's a situation in which pleasure isn't a possible result of the actions you're taking. But in some posts, you've implied that even if you do experience pleasure, that pleasure is somehow immoral if it's experienced with someone who doesn't correspond to the ideal of the highest possible to you ever. That's where I start to get totally baffled. Even the Christian argument against sex* makes more sense to me than that-- at least they usually admit that you can experience the pleasure on Earth; they just say you'll be punished in the afterlife. They don't say that the pleasure you actually experience wasn't really pleasure..
*[edit: I meant, against (what they would call) "premarital" sex.]
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hi everyone!
i found my new job a week ago but the stability is still a problem.
in China, there are more than 4 million students graduated from the college in 2006 and it is said more than 2 in 3 would not have a job. how can you imagine that! what make it so bad for them to find a decent job.
accoding to opinion of Objectivism, they should accept the result without any complain, because it is caused by the environment of society. i.e. you can't compain the earthquike when it caused calamity.when the Soviet Union caused the calamity, who can be condemned.what is the relationship between the socity and the individual? they are one thing like two sides of the coin! so individualism is right and the collectivism is right as well.
Hello.
Congrats on the job! Here is an inspiring (to me, anyway) quote from Ayn Rand, expressing her views on not merely accepting the culture. Of course, economics and politics are specific products of the culture, which she deals with more specifically in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and Atlas Shrugged, but this is from a book she did on art:It has been said and written by many commentators that the atmosphere of the Western world before World War I is incommunicable to those who have not lived in that period. I used to wonder how men could say it, know it, yet give it up—until I observed more closely the men of my own and the preceding generations. They had given it up and, along with it, they had given up everything that makes life worth living: conviction, purpose, values, future. They were drained, embittered hulks whimpering occasionally about the hopelessness of life.Whatever spiritual treason they had committed, they could not accept the cultural sewer of the present, they could not forget that they had once seen a higher, nobler possibility. Unable or unwilling to grasp what had destroyed it, they kept cursing the world, or kept calling men to return to meaningless dogmas, such as religion and tradition, or kept silent. Unable to stifle their vision or to fight for it, they took the "easy" way out: they renounced valuing. To fight, in this context, means: to think. Today, I wonder at how stubbornly men cling to their vices and how easily they give up whatever they regard as the good.
Renunciation is not one of my premises. If I see that the good is possible to men, yet it vanishes, I do not take "Such is the trend of the world" as a sufficient explanation. I ask such questions as: Why?—What caused it?—What or who determines the trends of the world? (The answer is: philosophy.)
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"Only the man who extols the purity of a love devoid of desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love."
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's kind of hard for me to imagine a desire devoid of love, but if I think about it in that context, I can. Still, it seems like there are those in this discussion who condemn more than merely a desire devoid of love (and I'm assuming that she means love in the same sense that she defines the concept on pages 34-35 of Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology, "an emotion proceeding from the evaluation of an existent as a positive value and as a source of pleasure"). Some insist that deriving sexual gratification from anything other than sex with one's life partner and romantic ideal is depraved.
The way I see it, it's fine to hold a view like that, but don't attribute it to Objectivism. There is nothing in the Playboy interview with Ayn Rand, or anywhere else in her writings as far as I'm aware, to confirm that Ayn Rand held that view-- and, the way I read her words, I think there are passages that are strong evidence that she did not hold that view.
There are many passages in which she comes out very clearly and persuasively against promiscuity in sex, and against hedonism as a general approach to ethics. But the burden of proof is on whoever claims that anything other than sex with one's ideal automatically falls into this category... And.. Sorry if I'm getting a couple of these threads confused. There are so many on this or a very similar topic right now! From reading the original post, I thought the topic of this thread was "Why is sex for physical gratification wrong, according to Objectivism." In which case, my response is that it's not-- sex should be for physical gratification, and spiritual gratification, too. But maybe I was taking that wording too literally. If the question is: why is sex for physical gratification to the exclusion of spiritual gratification, or even with negative spiritual consequences wrong; then I would say, for the same reason that spiritual gratification to the exclusion of physical gratification, or with negative physical consequences is wrong-- and to the same degree. Because there is no split between mind and body.
[edited grammar]
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I don't know about anyone else, but I place sex for mere physical pleasure under the heading indiscriminate sex.
But the original topic of this thread was not addressing "sex for mere physical pleasure" (emphasis mine), but rather "sex for physical gratification" in general, which is one of the many alternatives some people seem to be equivocating on.
So Bold Standard, I think you are wrong to attribute either of those passages to Ayn Rand's mature view or to Objectivism; especially when she so clearly rejects physical-only sex as "evil perversion."When does Ayn Rand ever even address the issue of "physical-only sex," and what does that phrase mean?
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Here is a quote from the Binswanger article, Objectivist Forum, Feb, 1981 "The Possible Dream"
Thanks for that. That's the clearest, most concise and precise definition of "perfection" I've ever seen. In fact, it's perfect!
I'm going to have to memorize that, because that issue comes up in discussions I have all the time. -
I don't like Rand's use of the word "spiritual," simply because that word is usually used in a context of mysticism (religion, etc.). Of course, that's not the way she's using the word - to her, "spirituality" had to do with the mind, not the "soul." (Forgive the pedantry, I'm no expert, but this is my interpretation of her.)
Actually, Ayn Rand was in the habit of frequently using the term "soul" as well [edit: as, for intstance, in her famous aphorism, "Man is a being of self-made soul"], usually stating something like, "By 'soul' I mean: 'consciousness.'" I think she liked using words like "spiritual" and "soul," because they conjure a more uplifted, "reverent" conception of the mind, as opposed to a materialistic interpretation of the mind. I think it's mostly an aesthetic choice.
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Why is sex for physical gratification wrong?
Why do you assume that it is? I have seen Ayn Rand and other prominent Objectivists give strong arguments that promiscuity and indiscriminate or degrading sexuality is wrong. But I've never heard any of them say that "sex for physical gratification [is] wrong." In fact, there are many statements from Ayn Rand and others to the contrary.
I will provide just a couple of examples:
From her notes on the character of Howard Roark, that she made while writing the Fountainhead--
Until his meeting with Dominique, he has had affairs with women, perfectly cold, emotionless affairs, without the slightest pretense at love. Merely satisfying a physical need and recognized by his mistresses as such.This is an excerpt from a letter Ayn Rand wrote to Gerald Loeb on June 3, 1944. Mr. Loeb is writing a novel in which his protagonist is struggling with conflicts between sex as a physical need, and his mind and ideals, and Ayn Rand is giving him advice on how his character should resolve the conflict.
The mental state of the hero—the idea that man is a slave to sex and to nature, that there is an irreconcilable conflict between the mind and the sex urge—is a perfect description of the mental state of an adolescent. Not of a mature man. In the case of your hero—this mental state would be intensified tenfold, because he is developed intellectually, he is an intelligent man in every other way, and an experienced man—but in the matter of sex he is still a youth. That mental state, however, is NOT caused by his particular predicament. Only intensified by it. It is the normal mental state of very many adolescents when they discover sex. Not of all, but of many. The tragedy of your hero is not that he gets into such a state—but that it will take him longer to outgrow it than it would in the case of an actual adolescent. And the most interesting part of the process would be that he can outgrow it while consciously watching his own spiritual growth. And he will outgrow it. He has to. That, too, is a law of nature.Why is man a slave to sex? Because he needs it so strongly? Well, his need of food is even stronger, and more urgent and more immediate. But nobody thinks of himself as a slave to food. We simply take for granted that we need it—and we are in complete control of the means by which we get it. We keep on inventing new means all the time—we find new pleasures in food—and the whole matter is not tragic at all. In fact, in a normal, modern civilization, to a normal, average man the problem of getting food is no problem at all. Yes, he does need food, he is not free to decide not to eat—but why should he decide that? He is free to satisfy his need in an endless number of ways, he controls his means of production—he is a free man. (I am speaking of a civilized, capitalistic society—not of a collectivist slave pen.) The basic fact about sex—its overpowering necessity—is the same. So the mere fact that man needs it does not make him a slave. Now, of course, his means of satisfaction are not as simple as in the matter of food. But still, he is in control of them. The thing that seems to terrify your hero is the fact that his satisfaction depends upon another human being, upon some woman. There is nothing so dreadful in that. Not if he found the right woman. It can appear terrible to him—only until he does find her. But if he doesn't—well, as he matures and grasps the subject, he would learn that he can find a second-best substitute. Let's say, not a wife, but an attractive mistress. It would not be sex at its best and highest—not the perfect union of the spiritual and the physical—but it would not be terrifying or degrading or enslaving. That typically adolescent feeling comes, I think, only from physical impatience—a strong physical desire that drives the man to women he despises, for lack of anything better, while his mind naturally objects. Why should his mind object if he found a woman he did not despise?
[editted to add page number]
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A couple of recent threads have made me wonder why this is the stance of Objectivists. Why is it that Objectivism considers it immoral for a man to have sex with a woman that he doesn't value?
Don't confuse views discussed on this message board with the official stance of Objectivism on any issue. I do not believe that this is the Objectivist stance, and I think a case can be made against this being Ayn Rand's position. However, I have noticed that it is the position of many on this message board. I'm not wanting to argue one point or the other; I just wanted to make the distinction between the stance of Objectivism (which nobody here can speak for, officially) as apart from the stance of particular Objectivists or students of Objectivism.
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On the issue of when should a person be considered an Objectivist, there was an interesting post by Amy Peikoff on the thread, "Who are the true Objectivists?"
I could not say exactly what amount of knowledge one should have before calling oneself an Objectivist. Certainly one need not have a degree in philosophy. I would want to know -- is the person familiar with enough of the essentials of the philosophy, and with the alternatives, to make a choice in favor of Objectivism? Does the person live by those essentials, to the extent possible to him?A person who calls himself an Objectivist "too soon," as a mistake, out of eagerness perhaps, is not at all troublesome. If this person is honest, he will either change his mind later, and acknowledge his mistake, or he will continue to learn about and integrate the philosophy. The person who we will judge as bad is one who calls himself an Objectivist while acting on and/or advocating ideas that he knows are contrary to those that Ayn Rand believed. And, if a person is in academia, we would assume that he has the intelligence necessary to decide whether he agrees with Objectivism, certainly in all its essentials, and probably in a number of details and basic applications. Thus, if we see such a person promoting ideas that are clearly anti-Objectivist, and yet call himself an "Objectivist," then yes, we will judge him as bad, as someone who is trying to ride on Rand's coattails without being "constrained" by agreeing in total with her philosophy.
There is also such a thing as being overly reluctant to call oneself an Objectivist; perhaps this comes from fear of the very constraint of which I speak. So long as one is merely a "student," then he thinks he is free to make more errors. Only the individual can judge whether he knows enough to take the dive and commit -- and it is a huge commitment. To say that one commits to being rationally self-interested to the best of one's ability is tough stuff. However, there is also the danger of becoming an perpetual "agnostic." My analogy (which may not be very good, so forgive me if it isn't) is the couple that lives together for years and years and never commits to get married. There is something about the sheer act of commitment that allows one's knowledge and integration to proceed further. And I'm not talking public declarations or trying to put everyone on the spot -- this is a commitment to oneself, but still a commitment that one makes, explicitly, to oneself.
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Suppose I were to argue that some claim that Ayn Rand made was inconsistent with her fundamentals. If you agreed with me, would you say that Rand was wrong about what Objectivism was and that I am right about what it is, or that I had shown that Objectivism was flawed?
If I agreed, and if the claim made by Ayn Rand was not itself a statement of a fundamental, then I would say that Miss Rand was wrong about that claim, but not about what Objectivism was (because Objectivism was/is the fundamentals of Ayn Rand's philosophy, and not every claim ever made by Ayn Rand).
If I agreed, and if the claim made by Ayn Rand was a statement of a fundamental, then I would concede that you've shown Objectivism to be flawed. (But, of course, that hypothetical is impossible, because I am familiar with her fundamentals, and know that they are consistent).
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That's beyond amazing. Thanks! I love youtube, too.
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Specifically I am talking about people motivated by altruism in any form. The types of situations I encounter run the gambit. Apparently my co-workers believed their third grade teachers when they said that if you're going to bring candy, you have have to bring enough for the entire class because these people know that I'm on a tight budget and so they are constantly trying to buy me lunch. Also, I have distant relatives that give me things like Christmas and birth day presents since I suppose they view me as a member of their tribe and so I must be taken care of.
Are you sure that these people are acting altruistically, and not that buying you lunch and presents is a value to them? Is it clearly a sacrifice for a co-worker to buy you lunch? They're not getting anything objective out of it-- for example, a more pleasant environment at work, that would make the deal profitable for them, according to their values?
I know I've bought co-workers lunch before, when they didn't have any money, and I wasn't being altruistic. Just because someone professes altruism doesn't mean that their actions are actually guided by altruism-- in fact, it's impossible to consistently act on altruism.
The point I'm trying to make is, as long as you're not asking people to make sacrifices for you, and as long as you're not implicitly entering into an agreement you don't want or don't intend to fulfill by accepting a favor with strings attached, why is it hypocritical to accept a gift from someone? Are you sure you're not attributing a malevolence to people because they are philosophically confused, when their motives may actually be benevolent, in as deep a sense as they understand?
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He [...] professes to love me, [...] He has even claimed he is indifferent to my presence!
Without knowing the context, this seems to be a pretty clear contradiction. Does he love you, or is he indifferent to your presence? It's impossible to feel both ways at the same time and in the same respect.
Maybe he's holding contradictory premises, or he could be lying to you...
he tells me I should not show emotion if it is important to meDoes this mean that it's okay to show emotion as long as it's not important to you? What is his reason for recommending this principle?
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Interesting efforts, Bold Standard. Good luck with that!
It is notable that there are so many [O]bjectivist musicians here. Think there is a correlation?
Thanks. As to there being a lot of Objectivists here, I'm sure there's a causal correlation. But I'm not sure if the amount of musicians is disproportionate or not.. Ayn Rand is one of the few philosophers in history (especially modern) to lay the groundwork for an intelligible aesthetic theory-- maybe that attracts musicians and artists in general? (There are a few writers and painters around, too..)
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