dream_weaver

Only if you consider an intellectual con job a firmer grasp on the truth.

To start with, epistemology is a science to discover the laws governing knowledge. Hierarchy is a structure recognized within knowledge. Architecture can be a way to indicate what way you want someone to regard a building, such as a house, skyscraper, etc. Gravity is what holds it to the ground. Given that take on the key elements introduced, how are you deriving that A:B as C:D?

A few more quotes that are indicative of the cause or what is at the root of socialism The Ayn Rand Letter Vol. 1, No. 11 February 28, 1972 . . . And The Response--Part II Newspapers do not create a culture, they are its product. They are transmission belts that carry ideas (of socialism or capitalism) from the universities to the general public. The Ayn Rand Letter Vol. 1, No. 24 August 28, 1972 A Preview--Part III The intellectuals serve as guides, as trend-setters, as the transmission belts or middlemen between philosophy and the culture. The Ayn Rand Letter Vol. III, No. 9 January 28, 1974 Philosophical Detection If laymen did no more than learn to identify the nature of such fruit (i.e. socialism) and stop munching it or passing it around, they would stop being the victims and the unwary transmission belts of philosophical poison. But a minimal grasp of philosophy is required in order to do it. The Letters of Ayn Rand The Later Years (1960-1981) History is determined by men's philosophical convictions. It is philosophy that brought the world to its present state, and it is only philosophy that can save it—a philosophy of reason, individualism and capitalism.

I'm curious how one would separate socialism between political and economic systems. Economics has to do with raising food, producing goods, trade between individuals. Left free of political intervention, this is capitalism. It is only via political intervention into the realm of economics (property rights/individual rights) that one can arrive at Fascism, Socialism, Communism etc.

And what notoriously difficult means are you aware of for the prevention of suicide? Persuasive discourse you say? Physical intervention (force) if you are present, providing they are not a suicide bomber? The pursuit of a goal is no guarantee of success. This applies to the implementation of socialism as well.

There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism—by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide. “Foreign Policy Drains U.S. of Main Weapon,” The Los Angeles times, Sept. 9, 1962, G2 Personally, I can't imagine a better 'tool' in the hands of the intellectuals, than an average European who does not imagine himself to be a tool of the intellectuals, including such 'tools' as "opportunitist politicians, special interests, and those who are only too willing to join a mob regardless of where it is going, just because it's "cool" or "the future"."

Those that have read Rand and others about socialism, know that it can and does persist, and can persist for long periods of time. Would you agree or disagree with Rand from “The Monument Builders,” in "The Virtue of Selfishness, 87 "Socialism is not a movement of the people. It is a movement of the intellectuals, originated, led and controlled by the intellectuals, carried by them out of their stuffy ivory towers into those bloody fields of practice where they unite with their allies and executors: the thugs."

Still clinging to the idea that there is a Randian utopia? As was pointed out earlier, Miss Rand simply revealed her vision of existence and of man's nature. Man is free to choose to be a moral being, or to evade that choice. Lather, rinse, repeat. If you think it analogous only to a shampoo bottle's instruction label, you should read the label again.

That, of course, would presume that I could be left alone to pusure of life of learning about evolution, but that, however, you are suggesting, is not the way of the world. Danger and opportunity are two sides of one coin. Opportunity and preparedness are two sides of another coin. Contradiciton and noncontradiction are two sides of yet another. Then there is the coin of noncontradictory identification. It's two sides are reason and logic. The coin of contradiction is much more base and common. Are you free to find and gather the coins you choose to collect?

Is that what you consider to be a form of mentoring? Taunting? Do you want to understand choice? Choice is you looking at the world of opportunities as you see and judge them to be possible. No, a gun does not eliminate all the choices, but it restricts them to the choice available of the immediacy of the moment. Submit, dissuade, take the chance to overpower the gunholder. But you do not have the choice of looking at the world of opportunities as you see and judge them to be possible while the gun is pointed at you by someone demanding otherwise. This is what we mean when we reply that the muzzle of the gun eliminates the possibility of choice. My impression at this point is that you would rather just try stirring the pot. If you want to accept, or have just accepted on the basis of unexamined premises, that life is dangerous, that socialism is a disease for which there is no cure, that the world is hostile, it too, is something over which we have no power to change. You have asked how Objectivism reasons about these things. You have come to the right spot. Do you have to accept our reasoning? I think the answer is obvious. The arguments are, after all, only effective when accepted by the mind to which they are directed, providing of course, they are evaluated by the criteria consanant with the reality from which they were created.

Where's the choice in that? Lawful authorities. The brown shirts of the German SS were the "lawful" authorities. The Soviet Union, Cuba, and how many others have their "lawful" authorities. I guess if you look at the role of govenment is simply to make and enforce whatever law they happen to whim into existence, then the govenment can never wrongfully point the muzzle at you, providing it has passed legislation giving themselves permission to do so.

Miss Rand had written: "There are only two fundamental methods by which men can deal with one another: by reason or by force, by intellectual persuasion or by physical coercion, by directing to an opponent's brain an argument—or a bullet." In the case of a black market, there are still only two methods they can deal with one another. In the case of reason, it breaks into two aspects, reason and "deception." Reason is resorting to exchange of value for value. Trading goods for goods that are unavailable from "legal" avenues. The "legal" avenues have made what goods are available scarce through laws prohibiting actions that might normally take place in a free, rather than a socialist marketplace. Deception is resorted to when the exchange encounters something unexpected. The unexpected could be the contact you made was someone working undercover for the "legal system" which made those goods less available, or it could be a bobby that is working to uphold a "legal system" that made those goods less available. At this point, it is no longer a trade of value for value. If you have encountered someone working undercover, usually the trade has been confirm, and you are busted for "illegal activity". Do you submit to arrest, surrender of the values you brought in hopeful exchange for being permitted to walk, or take matters into your own hands? If in the process of making an exchange with your contact and the bobby shows up, or a ruffian happens upon you, you may try to deceive the bobby or dissuade the ruffian. If the bobby doesn't buy your deception, or the ruffian is determined, you are back at submitting to arrest, robbery, and in case of the ruffian perchance being murdered, or taking matters into your own hands, In the case of deception or dissuasion, if these methods fail, the system is not upholding individual rights nor intervening to ensure them. The task of upholding your rights by force falls upon you. In a deeper sense, the task of upholding your rights always fall onto you. One either has to uphold them by their own might, or by the consent of the governed, implement a system that is predicated on upholding the rights of the individual. If the latter is not implemented, or becomes corrupt i.e.: immoral, then the onus is returned directly to the individual who then has to uphold against all who are immoral and might seek him harm for himself without the backing of the corrupt government. FWIW, Eiwol seems to be developing something similar in scope from a different angle, which bluecherry has also alluded to.

And to tie that to directing into his brain an argument (based on reason or deception, in the case of a black market) or a bullet, in the case of the black market, you have to stand as protector of your own individual rights, as they are not being upheld and protected by the socialists, should it reach those extremes again.

And if the bobby that walked up to you and asked "What's all this now?" does not accept your "reasoning"?

Let me try to state it a different way, When the freedom of men to trade with one another is not upheld by protecting individual rights, the black market leaves you responsible for ensuring your own individual rights. Those who particiapte in the black market always run the risk of being discovered by the "authority" or just an outright thug, or engaging with an undercover "authority".

A black market precisely illustrates this. You bring to market the goods of trade, looking for another to trade with, carrying a means of protecting yourself if you find yourself in an exchange with someone who is being either unreasonable or irrational.

She was pretty clear on how to deal with irrational men. In her notes regarding Galt's Speech she wrote: ". . . Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone." If you combine that with the understanding that "[t]here are only two fundamental methods by which men can deal with one another: by reason or by force, by intellectual persuasion or by physical coercion, by directing to an opponent's brain an argument—or a bullet."

As to "going Galt", the earlier point of seeing the valley being a resort, a place to withdraw from "getting one's hands dirty", I find this forum to be a place to one can go and interface with like-minded individuals, develop a deeper and broader understanding of reason, logic, morality, identification of fallacies and contradictions, etc. Unlike the valley, it also brings in people who don't hold Objectivism with the same esteem, giving rise to different advocates of Objectivism adressing and dealing with them conversationally in an arena that explicitly Objectivist in nature. I find this a good thing. It doesn't mean we all agree, or that the ideas put forth are explicitly objective even if we do agree. John Galt is credited for stating: "When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit." This is a place where we can look for and find those who make reality king and insist on granting it access to the throneroom of understanding via discourse, and help one another out in that process.

I don't understand how advocating morality and the system it would give rise to, capitalism, is not a form of resistance in conjunction with denouncing immorality and the systems it has given rise to historically.

This conversation had me recollect the book Compassionate Capitalism, by Richard DeVoss. While I have not read it, I am familiar with the Amway Corporation that Richard DeVoss co-founded. I know the Britt organization touted this book. I would have to speculate that it was written from a Christianity filtered viewpoint. From the Amazon description: "Rich DeVos shows how your energy, your ambition, and your spirit of enterprise can travel together down a path in which the spirit of capitalism and moral values inextricably merge."

As you clearly pointed out, I cannot accept Objectivism on behalf of the Socialists. What are you going to do with that fact?

It's not about smugness. It's not about moral superiority. Morality is what it is. You can either accept and embrace it, or try to evade it. Morailty per se does not have a nature, it is man that has the nature of being a moral being.

Because socialism is not like a disease for where there is no cure. Part of morality, is the identification of what you accept and the basis of why you accept something as true.

You mean things like accepting that socialism is analogous to a disease for which there is no cure? What does one do about a fact of life over which one has no control? You distinguish it from the facts of life over which one has control, and act accordingly.

You shouldn't have to come back down to earth if you haven't left it, ideologically speaking. You correctly stated earlier that socialism is inherently immoral. It would be more accurate to state that Objectivists have discovered that morality is something which can be practiced.in world where others may chose to do otherwise, (rather than carving out a little more space in hostile world.) In this sense, we practice what we preach, man must be free to choose.