How to avoid sanctioning evil

[airborne]

I understand that silence is likened to agreement. Evil is metaphysically impotent and therefore cannot survive without sanction from the good. Well I just want to try and pull this down into a concrete situation so I understand. Yesterday I was speaking to a kibbutznik friend about separation of economics and state and he said it was "interesting".

Later on however when were driving along the Jordan Valley he starts telling me(I'll paraphrase what he said): how sometimes you have to keep people happy in your self interest. This is why Israel built a dam with Jordan and has water agreements with them. Touching off what was said earlier today about not helping people... It's like we all at the kibbutz like to fund kids after-school programs so they wont go running around causing havoc. This is how revolutions are caused, by unhappy people who overthrow the rich/happy minority.

This is full of wrong comparisons and just plane silly. Comparing revolutions caused by angry people to "school children" and not co-operating with Jordan as Capitalist etc.

One of the reasons I got interested in Ayn Rand was because solid arguments were given to me against lots of the things I believed so I followed up. Some people are just never convinced though, and in the above example it wasn't worth risking offending him as I was hosted at his place etc. So my question is how do you avoid sanctioning evil but at the same time not speaking out at everything people say which is wrong and offending them(which can be alot)?

[aequalsa]

Later on however when were driving along the Jordan Valley he starts telling me(I'll paraphrase what he said): how sometimes you have to keep people happy in your self interest. This is why Israel built a dam with Jordan and has water agreements with them. Touching off what was said earlier today about not helping people... It's like we all at the kibbutz like to fund kids after-school programs so they wont go running around causing havoc. This is how revolutions are caused, by unhappy people who overthrow the rich/happy minority.

It's a little Socratic, but I find that causing people to expand their own irrationality is the easiest and least offensive way. In the case above, I would have asked him for a historical example of a successful peasant rebellion to be sure that I have cause to worry.(there aren't any...it is always the upper middle class vs the upper class-no one else can realistically fund them.) Another tack would be to ask how that was different from extortion and then ask to what extent a society should act out of fear...the similarity to terrorism would be hard to overlook. The better of the two would depend on how easily offended they were.

In the case of the dam(since I am unfamiliar with the details of the arrangement) I would ask how much building a dam was an act of altruism. Did Isreal pay for the whole thing and give the water away for free? Get as much detail as possible to find where, if anywhere, the immorality was.

[softwareNerd]

So my question is how do you avoid sanctioning evil but at the same time not speaking out at everything people say which is wrong and offending them(which can be alot)?

Silence does not always signify approval. In contexts where it does, one can state one's disagreement in the barest possible terms (i.e. as a disagreement, but without specifying any reason whatsoever), and also state one's unwillingness to discuss the issue further.

[SpiralTheorist]

Silence does not always signify approval. In contexts where it does, one can state one's disagreement in the barest possible terms (i.e. as a disagreement, but without specifying any reason whatsoever), and also state one's unwillingness to discuss the issue further.

Yup. In other words, the responsibility to pass judgment doesn't imply a responsibility to give people minute-to-minute updates about your progress. ;-)

As always, you can't determine what's virtuous outside the context of what's valuable. Moral judgment isn't an end in itself, it's a tool for dealing with others. When silence would reasonably be construed as support for something bad, it's worth speaking up, because your pride will depend on it. (I underline "reasonably" because people might conclude you support them for all sorts of crazy reasons, and you're in no way responsible for that.) When the person you disagree with might be persuaded, and trying to do so wouldn't be detrimental to your interests (and would be worth your time), it's worth speaking up. Sometimes it's worth speaking out against someone who is hopelessly irrational because you have an audience who might learn from your arguments. In short, whether or not it's appropriate depends on the situation and on what sorts of results you're trying to achieve.

Also: most people have a lot of cognitive inertia, and they actually have pretty good reasons for it. An active thinker will integrate his philosophical thoughts deeply over time, even the false ones, and will therefore have to do some serious disentangling before concluding that he was wrong about anything of substance. It's not the sort of thing that can happen in the course of a conversation. This is really important, because in the heat of debate it's easy to mistake someone's need to mull for stubborn irrationality.

I've found that, usually, philosophical discussions are best done in spurts. Work from the details to the matters of principle, make a case for your side, and then drop the topic for at least a few days to let it sink in. Or say something really, really interesting, and then tell them to go read Rand. ;-)

I hope that's somewhat helpful. It sounds like you've given him something to think about, and all you can really do is hope that he does. In the meanwhile, surely there's another reason you're at his home. For what it's worth, my advice is to try to stop worrying about the dam and enjoy your stay.

-- Spiral Theorist --

[aequalsa]

Also: most people have a lot of cognitive inertia

Nice Phrase Spiral! Identifies the concept perfectly.