Amaroq

I'm pretty sure I know exactly what you're talking about, OP. I feel the same thing. Not to the degree you do, but what I read from you is familiar to me.   I've searched and formulated my own problems with working in much the same way as you. But I've essentialized it further. It seems that in order to attain the values we require, we must also suffer. Suffering and pain are each signals that we are dying.   So the essential formulation of this problem is: Life seems to require death.   I can think of two problems that are causing this feeling: 1. Your work doesn't serve a good purpose to you, or you have lost sight of the purpose of your work. 2. Your work is torturous work in and of itself. So even if your work is serving purposes for you, the work itself is still killing you.   The solution for 1 is to make sure that your work is serving your purposes, and that you don't lose sight of the purpose your work serves. The solution for 2 is fairly obvious: To choose work that doesn't torture you when you perform it.   To concretize, I'll show examples from my own life. (Since I don't know anything about yours.)   When I first got into my own apartment, I didn't have my computer. My new apartment was in Minnesota and my computer was in Washington. I had nothing to my name and I was going to be getting welfare to sustain myself. (Unemployment for rent. Foodstamps for food.)   My computer and my internet are some of the highest values in my life. I really, really needed my computer back. So I really really needed a source of income so I could get my computer back.   I normally dread the idea of work, and I would have been tempted to stay on the doll. But because I wanted my computer so badly, I applied for work and I got a job as a dishwasher.   It didn't feel like torturous work then. It felt like every day I worked was a day closer to having my computer and internet again.   I had my sights set on a goal, and my work was not just work; it was what I had to do to attain my goal.   Nowadays though, I feel much like you do. Partially because I've lost sight of why I work. It has become a duty that I have to do every day. A duty to get up in the morning and drag myself to work, and to wash dishes, and then go home again. I get my paycheck still, but while I'm at work, I don't mentally associate the work with the money.   This breach between the work and the reward in my mind could be one cause of the feeling that work is suffering; that life is death.   The other problem is, of course, that the work itself is torturous.   There's only so far you can make it on keeping your eyes on the prize. If the work kills you inside, you're still going to start feeling like work is suffering, no matter what rewards you get for your work.

You ask what it's like for work to be life rather than to be pain? Here's another example, again from my personal life.   I'm a self-taught web programmer who codes in php. Back in the day, when I used to actively code, I would code because I had amazing ideas that I wanted to bring to life. Ideas that I daydreamed about and then eventually set about coding.   Once I started coding, I couldn't stop. The only thing on my mind was the idea that I was bringing to life. I was unable to resist, because the idea I was creating was so important to me that it was an end in itself to me. I would work 8+ hours a day, in my own free time, perfecting my code, so the entire program perfectly revolved around my idea for it.   This is work that feels like life, as opposed to work that feels like death. Think back to your past. Have you ever performed a productive hobby where you enjoyed the thing you were doing, as if it were an end in itself?   That is what Ayn Rand means when she says that work is life.   So as far as I can tell, your answer is two-fold.   1. Find work that serves your purposes and never lose sight of the connection between your work and your purposes. And, 2. Find work that is an end in itself to you. Work that you can't resist doing. This way, you can serve the other purposes in your life with work that feels like life as well.   You should be able to truly live if you can do these two things.

I'm pretty sure I know exactly what you're talking about, OP. I feel the same thing. Not to the degree you do, but what I read from you is familiar to me.   I've searched and formulated my own problems with working in much the same way as you. But I've essentialized it further. It seems that in order to attain the values we require, we must also suffer. Suffering and pain are each signals that we are dying.   So the essential formulation of this problem is: Life seems to require death.   I can think of two problems that are causing this feeling: 1. Your work doesn't serve a good purpose to you, or you have lost sight of the purpose of your work. 2. Your work is torturous work in and of itself. So even if your work is serving purposes for you, the work itself is still killing you.   The solution for 1 is to make sure that your work is serving your purposes, and that you don't lose sight of the purpose your work serves. The solution for 2 is fairly obvious: To choose work that doesn't torture you when you perform it.   To concretize, I'll show examples from my own life. (Since I don't know anything about yours.)   When I first got into my own apartment, I didn't have my computer. My new apartment was in Minnesota and my computer was in Washington. I had nothing to my name and I was going to be getting welfare to sustain myself. (Unemployment for rent. Foodstamps for food.)   My computer and my internet are some of the highest values in my life. I really, really needed my computer back. So I really really needed a source of income so I could get my computer back.   I normally dread the idea of work, and I would have been tempted to stay on the doll. But because I wanted my computer so badly, I applied for work and I got a job as a dishwasher.   It didn't feel like torturous work then. It felt like every day I worked was a day closer to having my computer and internet again.   I had my sights set on a goal, and my work was not just work; it was what I had to do to attain my goal.   Nowadays though, I feel much like you do. Partially because I've lost sight of why I work. It has become a duty that I have to do every day. A duty to get up in the morning and drag myself to work, and to wash dishes, and then go home again. I get my paycheck still, but while I'm at work, I don't mentally associate the work with the money.   This breach between the work and the reward in my mind could be one cause of the feeling that work is suffering; that life is death.   The other problem is, of course, that the work itself is torturous.   There's only so far you can make it on keeping your eyes on the prize. If the work kills you inside, you're still going to start feeling like work is suffering, no matter what rewards you get for your work.

You ask what it's like for work to be life rather than to be pain? Here's another example, again from my personal life.   I'm a self-taught web programmer who codes in php. Back in the day, when I used to actively code, I would code because I had amazing ideas that I wanted to bring to life. Ideas that I daydreamed about and then eventually set about coding.   Once I started coding, I couldn't stop. The only thing on my mind was the idea that I was bringing to life. I was unable to resist, because the idea I was creating was so important to me that it was an end in itself to me. I would work 8+ hours a day, in my own free time, perfecting my code, so the entire program perfectly revolved around my idea for it.   This is work that feels like life, as opposed to work that feels like death. Think back to your past. Have you ever performed a productive hobby where you enjoyed the thing you were doing, as if it were an end in itself?   That is what Ayn Rand means when she says that work is life.   So as far as I can tell, your answer is two-fold.   1. Find work that serves your purposes and never lose sight of the connection between your work and your purposes. And, 2. Find work that is an end in itself to you. Work that you can't resist doing. This way, you can serve the other purposes in your life with work that feels like life as well.   You should be able to truly live if you can do these two things.

I'm pretty sure I know exactly what you're talking about, OP. I feel the same thing. Not to the degree you do, but what I read from you is familiar to me.   I've searched and formulated my own problems with working in much the same way as you. But I've essentialized it further. It seems that in order to attain the values we require, we must also suffer. Suffering and pain are each signals that we are dying.   So the essential formulation of this problem is: Life seems to require death.   I can think of two problems that are causing this feeling: 1. Your work doesn't serve a good purpose to you, or you have lost sight of the purpose of your work. 2. Your work is torturous work in and of itself. So even if your work is serving purposes for you, the work itself is still killing you.   The solution for 1 is to make sure that your work is serving your purposes, and that you don't lose sight of the purpose your work serves. The solution for 2 is fairly obvious: To choose work that doesn't torture you when you perform it.   To concretize, I'll show examples from my own life. (Since I don't know anything about yours.)   When I first got into my own apartment, I didn't have my computer. My new apartment was in Minnesota and my computer was in Washington. I had nothing to my name and I was going to be getting welfare to sustain myself. (Unemployment for rent. Foodstamps for food.)   My computer and my internet are some of the highest values in my life. I really, really needed my computer back. So I really really needed a source of income so I could get my computer back.   I normally dread the idea of work, and I would have been tempted to stay on the doll. But because I wanted my computer so badly, I applied for work and I got a job as a dishwasher.   It didn't feel like torturous work then. It felt like every day I worked was a day closer to having my computer and internet again.   I had my sights set on a goal, and my work was not just work; it was what I had to do to attain my goal.   Nowadays though, I feel much like you do. Partially because I've lost sight of why I work. It has become a duty that I have to do every day. A duty to get up in the morning and drag myself to work, and to wash dishes, and then go home again. I get my paycheck still, but while I'm at work, I don't mentally associate the work with the money.   This breach between the work and the reward in my mind could be one cause of the feeling that work is suffering; that life is death.   The other problem is, of course, that the work itself is torturous.   There's only so far you can make it on keeping your eyes on the prize. If the work kills you inside, you're still going to start feeling like work is suffering, no matter what rewards you get for your work.

You ask what it's like for work to be life rather than to be pain? Here's another example, again from my personal life.   I'm a self-taught web programmer who codes in php. Back in the day, when I used to actively code, I would code because I had amazing ideas that I wanted to bring to life. Ideas that I daydreamed about and then eventually set about coding.   Once I started coding, I couldn't stop. The only thing on my mind was the idea that I was bringing to life. I was unable to resist, because the idea I was creating was so important to me that it was an end in itself to me. I would work 8+ hours a day, in my own free time, perfecting my code, so the entire program perfectly revolved around my idea for it.   This is work that feels like life, as opposed to work that feels like death. Think back to your past. Have you ever performed a productive hobby where you enjoyed the thing you were doing, as if it were an end in itself?   That is what Ayn Rand means when she says that work is life.   So as far as I can tell, your answer is two-fold.   1. Find work that serves your purposes and never lose sight of the connection between your work and your purposes. And, 2. Find work that is an end in itself to you. Work that you can't resist doing. This way, you can serve the other purposes in your life with work that feels like life as well.   You should be able to truly live if you can do these two things.

I've been having a few disturbing thoughts. I need someone to slap me down and explain why I'm wrong.
 
Every value that we hold dear requires effort to gain and keep. We must fight entropy. We must fight comfort. We might struggle through the pain to get it. How can we live this way and still be happy? If every little thing that makes us happy requires so much voluntarily accepted pain, in order to escape some other pain, how can we ever see life as anything other than pain and relief from it? How can we get up each day and see a life filled with constant pain and struggle and not feel down about it?
 
Ms. Rand said, "To a Money-Maker, as well as to an artist, work is not a painful duty or a necessary evil, but a way of life; to him, productive activity is the essence, the meaning and the enjoyment of existence; it is the state of being alive."
 
How on earth could I live that way? How can work be enjoyment? How can work not be pain?
 
It makes me want to cry reading her words sometimes. I want to believe such a life is possible. Listening to the audiobook of the Fountainhead on the bus on my way to uni, I have nearly cried.
 
"The form in which man experiences the reality of his values is pleasure . . . . A chronic lack of pleasure, of any enjoyable, rewarding or stimulating experiences, produces a slow, gradual, day-by-day erosion of man’s emotional vitality, which he may ignore or repress, but which is recorded by the relentless computer of his subconscious mechanism that registers an ebbing flow, then a trickle, then a few last drops of fuel—until the day when his inner motor stops and he wonders desperately why he has no desire to go on, unable to find any definable cause of his hopeless, chronic sense of exhaustion." - Ayn Rand
 
I identify with this feeling. I don't get much pleasure out of anything I do. And I cannot figure out why anything should give me any pleasure, physically or emotionally. I can't figure out how I can value anything. If I'm meant to value my life, and my life is a drag, then how can I go on valuing it?

And then there's Nyan Cat at the bottom.

What for? You'll just say that "no, that would happen the same way in both a private and government facility, and they could both be held accountable the same way". Even though I already explained that government officials and private individuals are subject to two different sets of rules. While government officials are only allowed to act with permission, private individuals may act freely until proven wrong. That's what makes one category a government employee, and the other a private citizen. If you hire a private citizen to do a job, as instructed by the government, then he's no longer a private citizen, he's a government employee.

Btw. this is the same argument as the private vs. government police force. And just as pointless to have it, if someone refuses to acknowledge the role of the government as the only entity which may use retaliatory force.

This is an idea that seems to be at the root of this issue for me. Even if, through some feat of genetic engineering, they could change a man into a woman, from the chromosomes up, I couldn't get myself on board with having a relationship with one. In some more fundamental way, they would still not be a woman to me. I wouldn't try to argue formally that he is not a she since all evidence would imply otherwise, but on a psycho-epistomomological level I could never alter it in my mind once I knew.
My only introspective guess as to why I feel that way, is that I see being a woman as more than a set of XX's. A large part of being a woman is that she grew up as a little girl. All of the truly formative years of her self concept were spent being, and being reacted to, as a girl and a woman. That life and those experiences are, by and large, completely different from the the life of a little boy turning into a man. Even a troubled little boy without a strong sense of his masculinity and any number of more typically female experiences, cannot be thought to have experienced and developed his sense of life as a woman would have.

To me, they are what they are, which is a man who had a surgical procedure so that he might be more womanlike, but he is not a woman. Sex isn't a perfect dichotomy so exceptional cases in the middle get their own names, like hermaphrodite, or transgendered.

Psychologically speaking, them identifying with another sex and taking surgical steps to identify further does not obligate me to identify them as the other sex so that they might feel better about themselves. And anyways, it would never work since accepting the sum total of who they are, an individual who wants to be fundamentally different than what they are, is the only way to close that kind of book. I wouldn't go as far as Peikoff and suggest that they are immoral, but I think that a reasonable assumption is that being so fundamentally opposed to your own identity usually comes out of an unhealthy place.

I gave the moral argument: They attacked us on 911 and celebrated the fact and supported the terrorist attacks then and since, so it is moral to act in self-defense and to destroy those countries. The moral argument for killing "innocents" is that their death is not our responsibility -- it is the responsibility of the country that attacked us, and the truly innocent who are morally against Theocracy would welcome the attack on their country to overthrow their government. Ayn Rand has said similar things about the USA going to war with the Soviet Union -- she would have welcomed it, even at the risk to her own life because the USSR was destroying her life anyhow.

I do agree with the several previous posts who said if we are to do it then we need to do it right and to stop apologizing every time we kill a "civilian" (in quotes because their standing army is not the one attacking us, and all the terrorists are "civilian" in that sense). The outright moral cowardice displayed by Bush and then Obama in fighting this war is why it is stretching on for so long. WWII against formidable armies and navies only lasted about four years, and the Islamics have nothing anywhere near the magnitude of Germany and Japan. We are not winning because we don't have the moral fortitude to win.

Sorry, this person you were talking to is just wrong.
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?
Four. Calling the tail a leg doesn't make it so.

Those pronouns are stolen. Return them to their correct defintions.

He - a male, man, boy
She- a female, woman, girl

Therefore a man cannot steal that 'she' and misuse it in calling themselves a 'she' when they are a BIOLOGICAL MALE, a MAN, therefore a 'HE' not a 'she'. What grammatical corruption.



Polite? I don't care about being polite anymore in regards to them, just grammatically correct. I will still refer to a man that plays dressup and calls himself a 'woman' and refers to himself as a 'she' - a man, a 'he'. If he goes and has surgery to invert his penis or whatnot, I will still refer to him as a man.

Yeah, right...like the FBI and the CIA, who are supposed to keep track of these things, prevented the first bombing of the WTC and certainly stopped 911 dead in its tracks! The whole problem has been treating it like criminal activity instead of State sponsored terrorism, and guess who came up with the answer to that one? Why, it was our good friend Dr. Peikoff, now to be known by some to be an Objectivist in name only and dishonest for applying the principles of Objectivism to real-world situations. If his suggestion had been followed in End States Who Sponsor Terrorism (written 10 years before 911), those terrorist attacks would never have happened. But that's only theory according to some on this forum, and there is no need to apply philosophy to real-world events. Philosophers -- especially rational philosophers -- ought to just keep quite about those things and stick to theorizing about forms of syllogisms or whatever, so long as they do not try to apply it to real-world events.

I'm doing my best to ignore J13 and Ninth Doctor due to some of the things they've said in threads (including this one), but I cannot let this off-hand remark against Dr. Peikoff stand. You are implicitly asserting that Dr. Peikoff is an Objectivist in name only because he is against the building of the NYC Mosque near Ground Zero. We've discussed this thoroughly in several threads, and it is not a violation of rights to defend oneself against a vicious enemy who is seeking to become established in the United States and especially seeking to build a monument to their wanton acts of destruction on 911. The right to life comes before the right to property -- i.e. one cannot make the claim that a murderer's property rights are violated when one removes him from his house and throws him in jail for murder. And since the terrorists of 911 made their attacks in the name of Islam and were perfectly consistent with Islam, then yes, Islam can be throttled in the USA, at least until the war is over an we have decidedly won the war and they swear to never attack us again. Moderators: If these two posts need to be moved to another thread, then do that, but I couldn't let it stand.

You know, it is one thing to call me a kook because I posted an hyped up article on Obama's birth certificate; and it yet another thing for me an other Objectivists to be called a kook for pointing out that Obama et al follow and preach Marxist political philosophy and want to impose Marxism on the rest of us. What do you have to do, be thrown into a gulag before you learn to think in terms of principles and to take ideas seriously? It has been pointed out time and time again that the political philosophy of the Left comes straight out of the Communist Manifesto -- but that's OK, because it is only abstract ideas and have nothing to do with the daily lives of Americans. Obama is aiming towards a government controlled economy and Pelosi is aiming to curtail political speech -- but that's OK because the trains run on time. Get real!

It's a non-issue.

Even if there was credible proof that he lied, and he's not American born, it would still be a non-issue for me. I don't care enough to look over the evidence.

Although I would like to point out that the people attacking Thomas with cheap insults, for making an honest effort to look at the evidence, while they themselves did not make such an effort (and are just going off of a general media consensus which ends up being superficial or even purposefully misleading all the time), are clearly being irrational and arrogant. And they're also breaking the forum rules.

You know that part of emotionally driven relationships just before the breakup, when people go way, way out of their way to find fault in every word and action of their partner?

Grow up!

Let me try and explain, once again, what I think his statement means:

He's saying that sometimes, when you hook up with a woman, they're going to act all shy, or pretend that they're "a good girl", and claim to not want what they're clearly there for. At this point, people (like Diana Hsieh apparently), yourself, and some others split from Dr. Peikoff on what a gentleman should do next: You think he should say "Alright, Miss, your wish is my command, allow me to escort you to your cab.", while Dr. Peikoff thinks it's still fine to be pushy and have sex with her.

I'm fine with either position. Really, I could care less how you go about having sex. My problem starts when people take that disagreement, and (not unlike Liberals, when they run into disagreement on racial issues) set out to explain its source. You think a person who disagrees with you on this small issue must be a wannabe rapist, while Liberals think that someone who doesn't believe in the welfare state must be a full blown racist or an Uncle Tom.

That's not an OK leap to make. You're jumping from a harmless disagreement to pretty much the worst thing someone could say on the subject. It would be bad if you were talking to someone you know nothing about. It's even worse when you're talking about someone who is obviously opposed to force on principle.

[edit] I posted this before I read your last reply. I guess I'm wasting my time. Bye.

As Peikoff Predicted:

In Vanity Fair is a Christopher Hitchens piece titled "Assassins of the Mind", in which Hitchens discusses the self-censorship that is going on in the publishing world, even including video games (!), in the long wake of the terroristic threats made against Salman Rushdie by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 -- and our government's appeasement of those threats and the many similar ones since then.


So there is now a hidden partner in our cultural and academic and publishing and broadcasting world: a shadowy figure that has, uninvited, drawn up a chair to the table. He never speaks. He doesn't have to. But he is very well understood. The late playwright Simon Gray was alluding to him when he said that Nicholas Hytner, the head of London’s National Theatre, might put on a play mocking Christianity but never one that questioned Islam. I brushed up against the unacknowledged censor myself when I went on CNN to defend the Danish cartoons and found that, though the network would show the relevant page of the newspaper, it had pixelated the cartoons themselves. And this in an age when the image is everything. The lady anchor did not blush to tell me that the network was obliterating its very stock-in-trade (newsworthy pictures) out of sheer fear. Hitchens gives other examples and rightly goes on from the above paragraph to note that "ometimes this fear -- and this blackmail -- comes dressed up in the guise of good manners and multiculturalism". Hitchens summarizes the current state of affairs succinctly as follows: "We live now in a climate where every publisher and editor and politician has to weigh in advance the possibility of violent Muslim reprisal."

The Hitchens article is worth a read, but not without also considering that Leonard Peikoff predicted this state of afffairs back in 1989, and why he was able to make his prediction.


The ultimate target of the Ayatollah, as of all mystics, is not a particular "blasphemy," but reason itself, along with its cultural and political expressions: science, the Industrial Revolution, the American Revolution. And, much later:


The clear and present danger is that writers and publishers will begin, as a desperate measure of self-defense, to practice self-censorship--to speak, write, and publish with the implicit thought in mind: "What group will this offend and to what acts of aggression will I then be vulnerable?" The result would be the death of the First Amendment and the gradual Finlandization of America. Is the land of the free and the home of the brave to become the land of the bland and the home of the fearful? Peikoff saw this coming because he understood why it had to turn out like this, and this pathetic state of affairs will continue and worsen until we respond appropriately to these threats in the manner he recommends.

I think both articles are worthwhile, but if you have time to read only one of them, read Peikoff's.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Corrected a typo.

Original entry: See link at top of this post

The newly re-written essay "Subjectivist Objectivist" makes a lot more sense to me. Basically, Chip is saying that the supposed Objectivists wish their arguments or positions were compatible with Objectivism, though it can clearly be shown that they are not; thus placing an "I wish" over an "It is" -- making them subjectivists. The examples drawn from DH in John k's essay demonstrate that DH's argument on several topics is not compatible with Objectivism, though, of course, she *wants* them to be so compatible.

Regarding rationalism as a method, it is not compatible with the Objectivist method of objectivity -- of remaining focused on the facts while having an abstract discussion. So, their argument is not that rationalism is a type of subjectivism; but rather that rationalism is not compatible with Objectivism.

Wish they had made all of that more clear from the beginning.

My original analysis of what I thought they were saying was that insofar as a rationalist argument can be shown to not be compatible with reality, and the rationalist stamps his foot when this is pointed out to him, that insofar as he does that he is also trying to place an "I wish" over an "It is" -- i.e. that the rationalist methodology does not lead to an understanding of existence, though they *want* it to.

In that part, since clearly a woman can say, "No, I do not consent" I took him to mean she could not give "every evidence" that she wanted to have sex with a man, then say she does not consent and still be moral or honest. In other words, in that case she is not a victim of fraud where he tricked her into his bedroom, but rather a perpetrator of fraud, herself, who communicated one message to a man very clearly with the intention of pretending to be misunderstood in order that she can accuse him of rape later, as has been known to happen to celebrities on occasion.

Again, I think he chose a poor way to phrase it, but holding the question in mind and his whole(somewhat convoluted)answer, I think this interpretation makes more sense, since it is connected to the original question. Otherwise, throwing in a, "oh by the way, it's ok to rape some bitches" has very little connection to whether or not a man who pretends to love a woman to sleep with her has committed fraud which is on par with rape.

Incidentally, his answer was that a man who used fraud to get a woman to sleep with him was morally equivalent to a rapist so I have to think that someone who did commit rape would also be a rapist in his mind.

I think a lot of the difference in opinion might hinge on different readings of the phrase "in certain contexts," which he uses. I'm inclined to think that since he did not explicitly define those contexts, they would be rather narrow and unusual and difficult to explain out of an actual context. People who think he is advocating rape seem to hold that his position is that almost anytime you have a woman in your room then you have every right to rape her. My inclination is based on my past exposure to his beliefs which would contradict the broader interpretation.

Most people that know me well at all, know that I'm an atheist, so when I say something like this or that action will rot your soul, they do not take it to mean that I have suddenly found Jesus. I, and it seems that most who hold my opinion are choosing to extend Peikoff that same courtesy.

It's only anecdotal, but I can count on one hand the number of times that I have explicitly been granted approval to have sex with women, and you would be hard pressed to find one who would accuse me of rape. Most human communication is nonverbal and this is especially so in relationships, so when a woman decides on no, it is imperative that she make that clear and explicitly, verbally so as a bare minimum. If she doesn't, and further gives many nonverbal indications that she does acquiesce, like coming up to your bedroom and taking her clothes off, then it would be hugely immoral for her to call it rape. That is what I am inclined to imagine those "certain contexts" are what he had in mind. Until and unless he clarifies the point though, I would encourage everyone to keep in mind his formal defense of rights generally, and especially with regard to abortion rights and a woman's right to her body, as the best barometer of his actual thoughts on it.

I was actually already thinking of this. I'd say the authorization comes with implicit expectations. The woman wants to receive satisfaction, so the consent should still imply reasonable limits. If the guy takes a dump on her chest for example, authorization is obviously legitimately out the window, because he's doing something that is just, absolutely not a part of the deal. Unless she's into that sort of thing..

What I'm referring to is a woman who, say, wants sex from the man. But she's evasive. She doesn't let herself know that that's what she wants. She flirts, sends all the signals, goes up with him to his room, all the time telling herself that it's just innocent fun, that it won't lead to anything, but secretly wanting it to lead to something. And then when it inevitably does lead to something, she finally has to face what she's been evading. Can she then, morally speaking, "get out of it"? I don't think any rational woman would find herself faced with this kind of situation, because she'd probably be aware of what she's doing. But keep in mind my first paragraph about there being reasonable expectations. I think there are to be reasonable expectations whether or not a woman is fully conscious of her consent.



I was referring to people like you. Concrete-bound "Objectivists" who shallowly apply a single context-less principle to a single context-less concrete and then think they're smarter than Peikoff based on their shallow interpretations of a single concrete thing that he says. It's a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Peikoff has been studying, integrating, applying Objectivism since before I was born. I'd never be pompous enough to unquestioningly think that I'm right and Peikoff is wrong when me and him come to such incredibly opposing and contradictory conclusions. I would try to understand his reasoning first before I conclude that he's a depraved lunatic and that my reasoning is superior to his. And so far I have agreed with his reasoning on all of these huge controversies. Because I reference reality, and search for the principles, facts and context that give rise to the controversial things he and Rand have said, while everyone else is screaming about how horrible he must be because he said something that's too selfish for them to feel comfortable with. You should already be doing this when you study any written work of Rand's or Peikoff's. Why don't you do this when you hear something you don't like on his podcast? Granted I don't always do so. But whenever I am eventually exposed to the full context, whether by someone else exposing me to it or me finding it myself, I find that Peikoff was taking the fullest, broadest context and body of knowledge into account in his conclusions. People acting like he's a moron for these stunningly shallow reasons is a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. A student in a high school small engines class would never be pompous enough to think he knows how to build an engine better than his teacher who has been building engines his whole life. So why does this shit still fly in philosophy? Do you not know that ideas have just as absolute of an identity as engine parts do? Do you have no respect for people who have been masters of this field for longer than you've known it existed?



Sorry, I was being sarcastic, if you couldn't tell. I'm aware that it's a work of fiction. A work of romantic realism. A dramatization.

But the reason Roark did not rape Dominique was not just "because Ayn Rand said so". The full context of the chapter established that she wanted Roark badly, but she was evading her desire. Roark knew this fully, so he knew he was not raping her. The reason not to act this scenario out literally in real life is not because Ayn Rand isn't a real god to say that it isn't rape. It's because you can't know the other woman's intentions for sure as well as Roark knew Dominique's.

I'm sorry Scarlett. I should not have gotten snippy with you. I didn't know that you were misinterpreting me. I get angry when I see threads like this and I feel like if nobody else is going to stand up for what's right, then I will. So I get "Fired up" so to speak in debates like this where it's the world against Peikoff for what I see as no good reason.

SNerd, I personally would simply say "That's alright." And she'd be free to go. Maybe I'd grin and say "Aw..." before doing so to wittily express continued desire. Maybe I'd ask her why. Though she did get my hopes up by getting undressed and getting into bed with me. So I'd be disappointed, and rightly so. So I'd think it was immoral of her to let it get that far if she was just going to change her mind. If I value her though, I think personally that I'd give her the benefit of the doubt.

I focused on the woman because everyone was so busy focusing on the man. I wondered why only the man is culpable for fraud in a sexual scenario. For some reason, we as a culture tend to place 100% of all sexual blame on the man in every scenario, and that seemed wrong to me. They do that because the man's desire for sex is "selfish", and the man is generally considered the "stronger" of the two sexes. The woman is always considered an innocent victim of the man's selfishness in every scenario where a man desired her and had his way with her, due to hatred of the good for being the good, regardless of the context. I couldn't be sure that there wasn't such a cultural influence at play here, so I wanted to look at the "other side" of the issue.

I think the difference between what you're doing and what I'm doing is that I'm trying to discover what Peikoff could be thinking that resulted in him saying that. Whereas you guys are focusing literally on what he said. Maybe I can conclude that he could phrase it better. But there's no way he actually meant that a man is good to go and force himself on a woman. But depending on the context, it could be okay. She could be one of those types that wants to be taken and wants to offer resistance, and the man may have identified this in her. It's risky, and the price of being mistaken can be high.

Ninth Doctor, I'm getting sick of you. It isn't an argument from authority. An argument from authority would have been if I'd simply said "Peikoff says this, and he's an authority, therefore it's right." Citing Peikoff's intellectual achievements as evidence that his judgment is sound is just referring to the facts of reality. Plus I offered an argument in support of what he said. Someone who has created such huge amounts of value for us Objectivists deserves at minimum the benefit of the doubt. But you have a track record of jumping on the anti-Peikoff bandwagon every time he says something controversial. I've seen you do it over and over again. So excuse me for trusting his judgment over yours. He's earned it at least. He has never demonstrated to me that his judgment can't be trusted, like you have.

And you know damned well what I meant by "masters of this field." Or at least you should. I think you pointing to Kant as a "master" is a way to evade what I was pointing out. "Just because he's been in the field a lot longer than me doesn't mean that he's better than me. Just look at Kant! His ideas were dominant for much longer!" You (should) know damned well I was talking about good philosophers, consistent Objectivists, when I said that.

Jesus Christ, stop already. Peikoff's comment was a throwaway line on the nature of consent, not the morality of sex. At worst, he's wrong about the Kobe Bryant case. Stop acting like you guys never said anything based on insufficient information.

He did not say it's moral to have sex with a woman even if "the parts don't fit", he didn't even say it's moral to have sex with her if she's doesn't like it. He didn't say it was OK to choke her even though she's not into that, he didn't say it was OK to twist her arm behind her back to cause pain, but making sure you leave no physical mark, he didn't say it's OK to anally rape a man.

And yet, all those lovely images somehow made it into people's arguments on how he is wrong. I guess what he actually said isn't all that egregious. Why else would you feel the need to spice it up like that?


I do not wish to continue this post. I want to stop. Hope that's clear, I want this to be the end of my post. I don't want to write this next part. I don't wanna. No. (this last No. should be read in a forceful tone, please)

Anyways: sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Obviously. If there is no fraud or force involved (which, incidentally, Peikoff made sure to specify), then that person is free to leave at any time. Their declarations really don't mean as much as their actions. The owner of this site has no reason to feel bad about me continuing this post despite my declaration that I don't want to. The declaration was pretty meaningless. They often are.

Rape means having sex with a woman against her will, not without her explicit consent. In Peikoff's example (though I have no idea if also in the actual case he cited, because, like I said, I don't keep up with celebrity news), the woman is clearly there by choice, and free to leave at any time. Unless next you guys are planning to also add kidnapping to the list of stuff Peikoff never said but somehow found their way into this thread anyway.

The book he wrote suggests he doesn't. You're gonna go with the pointless speculation off of the throwaway line in a podcast though, huh?

It's important to maintain the context of his answer. I think it's pretty clear that he is talking about a legal context: that is, a woman should not be able to legally claim she has been the victim of rape when she declines at the last second after having presented a large amount of evidence that she did consent (if this were the case, it would be much too easy for women to claim that they had been raped arbitrarily in order to punish their former boyfriends or for some other reasons). Cases such as State v. Rusk (http://wings.buffalo.../web/mdrusk.htm) are evidence that it's not always easy to determine when rape has occurred, but it is very important to set strict limits on when rape can be claimed to have occurred, since it obviously can ruin a person's reputation.

Ninth Doctor/brian, notice that you completely changed the context by supposing examples where the woman was physically harmed. Physical abuse of that kind is illegal regardless of whether or not rape occurred.

Whether or not it would be immoral for a man to continue to have sex with a woman after she changed her mind about having sex in the middle of the process is not at issue, and is therefore not taken into consideration in Peikoff's answer.

Finally, regardless of whether you think Peikoff is correct, I advise anyone who thinks that consent can disappear "whenever the woman says so" should consider the implications of that view. That's something that a malicious woman could very easily take advantage of. So I think the broader context needs to be considered to establish whether or not consent is in fact present.

Tristan