Anton Posted June 5, 2009 Report Share Posted June 5, 2009 What is the Objectivist stance on collective pride? Such as nationalism, or particular social groups. From what I have read Objectivism deals with individual pride and does not mention group pride. I see it as meaningless and perhaps even a misuse of the concept of pride but I'm still interested what others have to say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phibetakappa Posted June 5, 2009 Report Share Posted June 5, 2009 (edited) What is the Objectivist stance on collective pride? From what I have read Objectivism deals with individual pride and does not mention group pride. You are right it is a invalid use of the word pride. There is literally no such thing as a "collective," pride, because pride is a mental product of a consciousness, and consciousness is and can only be an attribute of any given individual man. It is possible for a given individual to feel pride in themselves that they judged or evaluated a certain, team, organization, and/or society as being of objective value to their lives. E.g., it is understandable for an immigrant coming to America to feel pride in themselves for having made a good choice in moving to a good place to live and flourish. Just as if a given man is a contributing member of a certain group or organization, which has a certain implied or explicit charter (purpose), such as an informal group of friends or a formal team, or political organization or even a book club; then it is understandable to be proud of one's role in that organization and their contribution to the overall production of the organization. One can play their part in making a good team, in making a good business, in making a good home owners association, or making a good society. But, a good requires a chosen beneficiary and a chosen standard. A given good (value) begins in an individual man's consciousness with a process of evaluation, and ends with a certain chosen and/or sustained course of action. Legitimate pride is a virtue, i.e., pride itself is a tool for sustaining and/or enhancing a given man's life. Like all values it must have both a standard and a beneficiary, i.e., pride is an emotional enhancement to some individual man's life for some individual man's reason. Now contrast the above with the idea of having a sense of pride because of where one happens to be born or what race one happens to be part of. Or having a sense of pride for where one has happened to end up as one aimlessly drifts through life. Or having a sense of pride for some group which happens to accept him, or which he identifies with because it he feels safety can be found in numbers. The common denominator for a false sense of pride is the unchosen, the unselected, the unevaluated, and thus the uncaused by a given individual. A rationally validated sense of self is an objective value, i.e., possessing a personal knowledge and positive evaluation of one's own identity and value is itself an objective value, i.e., it is a necessary condition for sustaining motivation for living one's life. Therefore, if one can not obtain (produce) a legitimate sense of self and/or a legitimate self-identity by earning it via shaping their lives into the image of their chosen values, then often people look for someway to fake it. Feeling a relief from anxiety is not the same as earning a positive sense of joy. An the feeling of relief one gets from being a member of a herd-collective, is a cheap substitute for all the thought required to make good choices. Where a herd is herded, can seem like having a legitimate purpose to an aimless and out of focus man. Therefore, I believe Ayn Rand was correct when she stated man's three cardinal values are: reason, purpose, and self-esteem. Regards Michael Edited June 5, 2009 by phibetakappa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anton Posted June 5, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2009 Thanks Michael, I was surprised to receive a very eloquent well formed reply. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Howard Roark Posted June 11, 2009 Report Share Posted June 11, 2009 This was analyzed here by Leonard Peikoff and his discussion group. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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