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Is Mother's Day Altruistic?

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No Kane, i understand.

I do not believe that any honour bestowed out of duty or compulsion is in any way payment for a value, no matter how much that honour may be deserved.

Now you misunderstand what I was saying. What I was saying involved no duty or compulsion.

If as a child you are given a gold star for your work because everyone else got one is there any value to it?

That is not similar to what I said. What does have a similar to what I said is a young child getting a gold star for achieving a high standard in a class.

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  • 3 months later...
Just thought I'd say I gave my Mom Atlas Shrugged for Mother's Day. She's still at the slow part at the beginning, I keep telling her to stick with it--that it gets much better--. Well, you can lead a horse to the water...

I'm glad to say she may have started reading the book rather slowly, but the last few weeks I have noticed that she is over half-way through it now. It's only October now... lol.

Anyways she is really getting into it which is of course making me extremely happy. For instance yesterday. she randomly blurted out, "I can't believe he gave up his business to them; I don't even know if I want to finish the book". lol She was disapointed that he gave in to the government looters. I told her to be patient, that it's for a reason. And today we started talking about the financial crisis and she started going on about how what's happening today seems like it's taken right out of AS. She told me that she was listening to her friends talking about it at work today and she said that she just wanted to tell them to read AS because it explains what is going on, but didn't know how to bring it up. I love it!

It took awhile but my Mom's finally coming around. I'm so happy! Just thought I would share this with some people that might care. :D

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I'm glad to say she may have started reading the book rather slowly, but the last few weeks I have noticed that she is over half-way through it now. It's only October now... lol.

Anyways she is really getting into it which is of course making me extremely happy. For instance yesterday. she randomly blurted out, "I can't believe he gave up his business to them; I don't even know if I want to finish the book". lol She was disapointed that he gave in to the government looters. I told her to be patient, that it's for a reason. And today we started talking about the financial crisis and she started going on about how what's happening today seems like it's taken right out of AS. She told me that she was listening to her friends talking about it at work today and she said that she just wanted to tell them to read AS because it explains what is going on, but didn't know how to bring it up. I love it!

It took awhile but my Mom's finally coming around. I'm so happy! Just thought I would share this with some people that might care. :D

That all sounds great, and made me smile! I gave my mom AS a few years ago, after which she read TF too... and though she's not an Objectivist, I definitely see a change in her, especially regarding atheism, reason, individualism, and free markets.

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Its not altruistic but its inherently second-handerish, in that youre allowing your gestures towards people you love to be dictated by arbitrary social convention (and the marketing budgets of corporations who profit from these events) rather than being acts of spontaneous expression. See also: Valentine's Day.

Edited by eriatarka
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Its not altruistic but its inherently second-handerish, in that youre allowing your gestures towards people you love to be dictated by arbitrary social convention (and the marketing budgets of corporations who profit from these events) rather than being acts of spontaneous expression. See also: Valentine's Day.

Arbitrary vs. spontaneous. Yeah, this is a stretch. It can be 2nd handed. It doenst' have to be. i.e. Inherently is too strong a characterization.

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