Shrugging 101

[CICEROSC]

Maybe it's out there and I'm just not aware of it -- are there any Objectivist sites oriented toward "shrugging" -- which I'll define here as withdrawing financial support from corporations, organizations, or groups which adopt clearly anti-reason policies? I know that almost none would measure up to rigorous scrutiny, but that doesn't mean that the most egregious of them (for example, those that help finance Michael Moore projects) ought not be singled out for ongoing criticism.

I've always realized that Atlas Shrugged was never intended to be a handbook for day-to-day political action, but it seems to me that the internet creates some interesting possibilities for carrying out a variation of John Galt's "let's pull the rug out from under them" method.

I'm not a web designer, but I would contribute financially and of my time toward setting up such a page -- a graphically professional clearinghouse of information about which corporations are least deserving of my purchasing dollars.

[Betsy]

Maybe it's out there and I'm just not aware of it -- are there any Objectivist sites oriented toward "shrugging" -- which I'll define here as withdrawing financial support from corporations, organizations, or groups which adopt clearly anti-reason policies?

Since good isn't the absence of evil, I think it is a lot more important to support and promote the people who are doing things right than to spend time and other precious resources on those who are doing things wrong.

[aturner]

Please see my reply to "Another Attack On Private Property Rights" in the current events forum. I'd really like to see other's perspectives on the choice to shrug, not react, or "attack" the evil in the world.

[Bearster]

Maybe it's out there and I'm just not aware of it -- are there any Objectivist sites oriented toward "shrugging" -- which I'll define here as withdrawing financial support from corporations, organizations, or groups which adopt clearly anti-reason policies?

I don't think you mean "shrugging", but "boycotting."

I think most Objectivists do it to some extent, for example I don't buy French wine or see movies starring certain actors (e.g. Alec Baldwin).

Almost everyone in this culture is a mixture of good and evil premises, from the top business leaders on down. Buying a product is not a moral sanction of the seller's every premise--thank the gods, or else there would be no way to buy food!

Shrugging, I think, should be defined as withdrawing your participation from the world, the culture, and the economy. Recall how Galt worked to provide a subsistence living for himself with no surplus.

I think Rand said the time to do this is when the government takes away the right to speak or write. I've always thought that this would be the same time as when there is no way to work in one's profession without granting moral sanction to the evil.

I do not think that either criteria has been met in 2004, at least in the USA.

[IDC]

I think most Objectivists do it to some extent, for example I don't buy French wine or see movies starring certain actors (e.g. Alec Baldwin).

Yes, I have skipped movies because of the political views of the actors. I probably should be able to ignore it, but I can't. I wanted to buy the Mission to Mars DVD but have resisted for over a year because Tim Robbins is in it.

[Tom Hall]

Maybe it's out there and I'm just not aware of it -- are there any Objectivist sites oriented toward "shrugging" -- which I'll define here as withdrawing financial support from corporations, organizations, or groups which adopt clearly anti-reason policies? ...

In Ayn Rand Answers, page 55, Rand talks about whether it would be appropriate today for producers to "shrug" as in the novel. She says

One does not ye have to break relationships with society. But what one must do is break relationships with the culture: Withdraw your sanction from those people, groups, schools, or theories that preach the ideas that are destroying you.

and goes on to give some good advice about how one needs to reject today's dominant philosophy.

I wonder if we could expand this topic beyond economic sanction, and think of ways to avoid more subtle and common forms of it ?

[khaight]

I wonder if we could expand this topic beyond economic sanction, and think of ways to avoid more subtle and common forms of it ?

Yes, we can and should. Here's one thing I do. Our culture is rife with institutions that claim to do one thing while actually doing the opposite, e.g. schools that claim to educate while actually attacking the mind and inculcating a psychology of second-handed authority worship. Do not act as though such institutions are acting in good faith when they are not; rather, point out that they are doing exactly what they were designed to do. In other words, call a spade a spade. This sometimes has surprising results.