Why hasn't Objectivism won already?

[MinorityOfOne]

I try not to get discouraged, but it's hard. I don't think studying philosophy academically helps. Whereas most people can simply dismiss stupid arguments, I have to confront them constantly, and I eventually get so confused that I forget what was so stupid about them in the first place. (This is not to say, by the way, that all analytic philosophy is stupid. Just that a lot of it is stupider than it seems.)

Lately I've been particularly unhappy about my own methodology. In some respects, I actually think it's gone downhill over time; I see myself picking up some of the bad aspects of analytic philosophy, and getting confused over things I know I shouldn't be confused by. I find it hard sometimes to think in essentials. I'll have six months off before grad school (after next semester, that is); hopefully I can work on some of this stuff during that time. (And, who knows: it's quite possible that the problem isn't as bad as it seems, and I'm just taking the problems I have in understanding complicated analytic stuff too seriously. It's hard to tell while I'm right in the middle of it.)

In any case, I'm sure I'll benefit from the adversity in the long-run. In the meanwhile, though, it is a pain in the butt.

[stephen_speicher]

Lately I've been particularly unhappy about my own methodology.  In some respects, I actually think it's gone downhill over time; I see myself picking up some of the bad aspects of analytic philosophy, and getting confused over things I know I shouldn't be confused by.

Have you considered the possibility of additional study as the OAC? One of the nice things about that is, aside from the specialty presentation of the course work, is that you have philosophical mentors to give guidance, some of who, not that long ago, went through exactly what you are going through. Betsy just put out a Cybernet Update today on the OAC

-------------------------------------

APRIL 26TH - OAC APPLICATION DEADLINE

-------------------------------------

The Objectivist Academic Center is now accepting applications to its

undergraduate program for the Fall. The deadline is April 26, 2004.

The undergraduate program is a systematic course of study designed to

give aspiring intellectuals a thorough grounding in the basics of Ayn

Rand's philosophy. For more information on their program and how to

apply, visit their Web site <http://www.aynrand.org/academic>.

[MinorityOfOne]

Yeah, I've been taking classes through OAC since it started. I'm pretty far behind in the work, though I'm finally starting to catch back up.

I've been disappointed in the lack of feedback through the program. The first year there was extensive interaction with the teachers, and it was extraordinarily beneficial. During the second year there was fairly minimal feedback on the papers, but there were occasional one-on-one tutorial sessions which were very helpful, and the classes were still live so it was still possible to raise questions. This year, all the classes are taped lectures by Leonard Peikoff, and the policy is that assignments will be graded without feedback -- which means, unfortunately, that the program is not nearly as valuable, and that my motivation for it has dropped significantly. At this point, the only reason I'm still in the program is because I expect to get more out of it next year when we're back to live classes. That hope aside, there's nothing in the program at this point that I couldn't get simply by listening to lectures and studying independently.

Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I still recommend the OAC. Like I said, the first year in particular was fantastic, and there are benefits to the later years too: at the least, you get access to a lot of lectures that would cost hundreds of dollars to purchase. Just be aware that the first year isn't necessarily representative of the whole program: for the second couple of years, it'll tend more & more to be a real self-study program.

[stephen_speicher]

I've been disappointed in the lack of feedback ...

I'm sorry to hear you are not getting more of what you want. Others have reported somewhat differently, so I am not sure what to make of it. Regardless, good luck in all your studies.

[MinorityOfOne]

It may actually be somewhat my fault, because I've been perpetually behind in the work... dunno. I'm hoping to get completely caught up this summer, so hopefully next year will be different.

[kesg]

Why is it that many people who have read even both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead still remain unconvinced of the absolutism of reason and are so hostile to those who are? 

Probably because they merely skimmed Galt's speech and therefore missed the most important sentence: Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification. The rest is merely details and applications. This sentence states the core and essence of Objectivism. The full grasp of its meaning and importance separates the real dealers from the wannabes.

[DeeVee]

I am in the human services business....thinking requires facts...then analysis...and self control

It is so much easier to be "emotional" ...to "blame" someone else...to "be a victim" to "not exercise self control."

To exercise objective thinking has to begin in childhood with intelligent parents who "get it!"...that logic and analysis is part of an adult and successful life.

For the past 40 years...the American left-wing press and media has been on a campaign of creating a culture and society of child-like grown ups and consumers who function between the ages of 10 and 15 years old...who are intellectually lazy, and furthermore, do not have very many "facts" at hand. This is a recipe for disaster.

Furthermore...in Ayn Rand's 1971 "return of primitive" text...many such grownup children have been taught to merely "protest" anything that smacks of logic, using short hand bumper sticker words...without understanding the concepts of that which they are protesting. It is enough for them to say "deficit....iran contra...Halliburton" and have no idea whether or not that which they are protesting is of any merit. To simply protest is enough.

We now have a sizable population of adult males in their forties who dress like adolescent children, often like "street thugs," who are also gender confused,... And women who are even mothers, with their bellies and breasts hanging out as if they are still teenagers. Such anti-adult thinking has been inculcated by left-wingers and especially the "advertisers" because they want such "feelers and emotors" to buy and consume worthless products based on "emotion."

However, such anti-logical "feelers" also consequentially vote...much to the chagrin of those who want and need this society and civilization to be led by objective leaders. Worse yet, even military and intelligence decisions have been "infected" by "emotional" thinking...rather than objective thinking needed to win wars against the terrorists who are on a world-wide jihad against logical thinking.

Is there scientific evidence that there are differences in not only brain functioning and even DNA in how different political parties, and religionists think? Yes there is, and knowing this, it is my contention...that such persons who are not objective in their thinking...are mentally ill, because such a lack of logic and obsessive compulsive thinking that results in the same negative outcomes century after century (one of the definitions of mental ill)...especially at the level of religious jihadism....is endangering and bringing us closer to an epochal disaster if logic is not used to defeat them.

Edited April 25, 2004 by GreedyCapitalist

[BlackSabbath]

Is your caps lock button knackered?

There is also the possibility pointed out by Mike Mentzer when asked why most people, who work out, still don't use his Heavy Duty weightlifting system and that is, "because they are just stupid".

[Richard_Halley]

DeeVee, I agree that these people are, in some sense of the term, "mentally ill," so long as you are not intending this to mean that they do not have the freewill not to be.

These people have a rational faculty, their "illness" is a choice not to use it.

[stephen_speicher]

IS THERE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE THAT THERE ARE DIFFERENCES IN NOT ONLY BRAIN FUNCTIONING AND EVEN DNA IN HOW DIFFERENT POLITICAL PARTIES, AND RELIGIONISTS THINK? YES THERE IS ...

Really? I have never come across a sequence of nucleotides which has been identified as belonging to members of one political party, rather than another. I have also studied physical brain differences and neurochemical functioning hypothesized to account for certain differences in human characteristics, but I have never seen any such difference associated with political parties. I do try to keep up with the literature in the field, but perhaps I missed something. Do you have some journal references for this scientific evidence?

[BIGBANGSingh]

Is your caps lock button knackered?

There is also the possibility pointed out by Mike Mentzer when asked why most people, who work out, still don't use his Heavy Duty weightlifting system and that is, "because they are just stupid".

Unfortunately, Mentzer *was* wrong. I find that Objectivists interested in weightlifting tend to follow Mentzer's system. It's time to recognize that being an Objectivist doesn't make you a good exercise physiologist.

[BlackSabbath]

Unfortunately, Mentzer *was* wrong.  I find that Objectivists interested in weightlifting tend to follow Mentzer's system.  It's time to recognize that being an Objectivist doesn't make you a good exercise physiologist.

I swear by Mentzer's system and I am an Objectivist because of reading his work and not a Heavy Duty trainee because of my Objectivism.

Can you start a thread discussing weightlifting, please?

And you can start by telling us what you recommend yourself.

[BlackSabbath]

This is now moving slightly off topic but I just had a look at your recommended system and I am not impressed.

Still if it works for you then you clearly have far better recuperative powers than i do and you can clearly get away with training at much lower intensity than I need to.

[BIGBANGSingh]

This is now moving slightly off topic but I just had a look at your recommended system and I am not impressed.

Still if it works for you then you clearly have far better recuperative powers than i do and you can clearly get away with training at much lower intensity than I need to.

Like you said, this is not an appropriate place to discuss exercise physiology. If you're interested in debating the science of hypertrophy, I'd recommend you do it on HST's forums.

However, I don't understand why you wouldn't be "impressed" by scientific evidence, although you seem to be "impressed" by Mentzer's speculation. We're all built the same; the principles of muscle growth do not change from person to person (just like philosophic principles). HST is true and proven - I don't know why you'd want to evade it.

[BlackSabbath]

However, I don't understand why you wouldn't be "impressed" by scientific evidence, although you seem to be "impressed" by Mentzer's speculation.  We're all built the same; the principles of muscle growth do not change from person to person (just like philosophic principles).  HST is true and proven - I don't know why you'd want to evade it.

HST true and proven?

That's exactly what my experience with Heavy Duty has taught me about Mentzer's system.

To train as frequently as HST requires, just looking at the site you recommend in your posts, I would either overtrain severely or I would have to drop my training intensity severely.

I evade nothing. I have made consistent progress when ever I have kept up my training using Heavy duty and I am never going to a high volume system.

[BIGBANGSingh]

This will be my last post on this thread for aforementioned reasons. There's more than enough scientific evidence to conclude that HST (i.e. its principles) is true and proven. When you increase frequency, you drop volume to avoid overtraining. There's nothing wrong w/ dropping "intensity;" HST purposely starts w/ (after a deconditioning period) a minimal load (i.e. "intensity") in order to ensure progressive load. Consult the HST website for detailed explanations of its view on frequency, volume, overtraining, "intensity"/load, etc. It's true that HST uses the same volume as traditional split routines, but it spreads out that volume over the course of a week to maintain high frequency.

[BlackSabbath]

This will be my last post on this thread for aforementioned reasons.  There's more than enough scientific evidence to conclude that HST (i.e. its principles) is true and proven.  When you increase frequency, you drop volume to avoid overtraining.  There's nothing wrong w/ dropping "intensity;" HST purposely starts w/ (after a deconditioning period) a minimal load (i.e. "intensity") in order to ensure progressive load.  Consult the HST website for detailed explanations of its view on frequency, volume, overtraining, "intensity"/load, etc.  It's true that HST uses the same volume as traditional split routines, but it spreads out that volume over the course of a week to maintain high frequency.

This will be my last post on this thread as well.

The definition of intensity used by Heavy Duty appears not to be the same as the one used by HST. Heavy Duty uses intensity of effort while you appear to be talking about percentage of 1 rep max.

As for volume, I have 2 workouts per week of 6 sets each which is sufficiently low volume and frequency to recover from my workouts. I don't buy the %1RM theory of intensity but this would be better discussed on the new Mentzer thread if you like.

[source]

First let me explain what I mean by "The Ultimate Impotence" and then I'll ask my question.

Thanks to most of the philosophical texts, most people today "know" that A isn't A. It's certainly something else. Existence doesn't exist, it is certainly subject to their consciousness and the reality of things can be changed if it is never brought up as a problem. People who are ignorant enough to say something like that and actually mean it today are the presidents and premiers and whatnot. They are said to be the "leaders." And there are these masses who generally believe all that too. Some of them believe every word of their "leaders," some of them don't. In any case, all of them are completely impotent when it comes to dealing with issues that deserve the title of "problem." They are ultimately impotent - because they can't deal with problems, which they can't do because they are convinced that they'll solve themselves if they ignore them and because they aren't really problems the way they choose to see it.

On the other hand, there are Objectivists, who, in short, accept the axioms of Objectivism, thus being as capable to deal with reality as their intellect allows them (while the former majority is capable of evading realiy to the degree which their intellect allows them).

My question is this: How is it that Objectivism hasn't won already? Is it just because the philosophy is so young in comparison to the opposite? Still, how hard is it to prove Objectivism better than some other philosophy which has no ties to reality?

Furthermore, why is it that the proponents of the primacy of consciousness are so disturbed when they only hear of a philosophy which is knowable and logically structured and tied to reality? Are they so afraid they'd suddenly have to start thinking rather than evading? Or is it just that the energy required for them to focus is so enormous that they'd rather do the evading all their lives.

Yet farthermore, how is it that reality itself hasn't already collapsed the petty systems of anti-concepts which such people have built in order to use them to evade reality? How comes that even after millenia of such abuse reality didn't bring down those who decided to ignore it?

[BurgessLau]

[...]

Thanks to most of the philosophical texts, most people today "know" that A isn't A. It's certainly something else. Existence doesn't exist, it is certainly subject to their consciousness and the reality of things can be changed if it is never brought up as a problem. People who are ignorant enough to say something like that [...] 

They are ultimately impotent - because they can't deal with problems, which they can't do because they are convinced that they'll solve themselves if they ignore them and because they aren't really problems the way they choose to see it. [...]

Your package of questions itself raises many questions. Here are a few:

(1) What do you mean by power? A formal definition, if possible, would help.

With that established, I might better understand what you mean by "impotence" (lack of power?) and "ultimate impotence" (lack of power in every aspect of life?).

Then I could test your generalizations about non-Objectivists, for example, your claim that most people can't deal with "issues that deserve the title of 'problem'." (Could you give some examples of such issues -- and of issues that don't deserve the title of problem?)

(2) Are you aware of the idea of "compartmentalization"? (See "Selfishness Without a Self," Philosophy: Who Needs It, p. 62 [hb, the last page of the essay].)

[nimble]

If you are asking why Objectivism hasn't won, is because the majority of people aren't philosophers. They implicitly accept the axioms of Objectivism (or I should say reality), but they don't explicitly accept them. Objectivism isnt the first philosophy to say A=A, or that reality is independent of the observer. I think the only reason it hasn't "won" is because of the large amounts of religious people, and that those who are atheists dont like the cultish aspects that are misconceptions of Objectivism.

Even I have felt alienated by Objectivists, because I differ in the realm of politics, so because I do not accepts EVERY thing Rand wrote, apparently I am not an Objectivist, even though I believe and support all other aspects of the philosophy.

[dark_stranger]

My question is this: How is it that Objectivism hasn't won already?

[...]

Yet farthermore, how is it that reality itself hasn't already collapsed the petty systems of anti-concepts which such people have built in order to use them to evade reality?

I think what you're asking is, "If the world is not fully populated by Objectivists by now, why has it not collapsed completely already?"

The answer is because there are enough people who (implicitly at least) hold enough Objectivist principles to keep it going. As Miss Rand pointed out in Atlas Shrugged, the looters exist at the sufferance of the producers. Without enough people acting for their own survival in accordance with reality, the world of man would indeed collapse.

d_s

[Betsy]

My question is this: How is it that Objectivism hasn't won already? Is it just because the philosophy is so young in comparison to the opposite?

YES!

Cultural change takes time. Not only that, but acceptance of the right ideas on a personal level takes time. Even when someone accepts Objectivism in their youth, it takes many years to integrate and automatize those ideas into one's soul. If they discover Objectivism when they are older, they have already accepted and automatized other ideas and habits that may be difficult or impossible to change.

The Rabbi at the synagogue I attended as a child said that the reason God had the Jews wander in the desert for forty years after they left bondage in Egypt and before they entered the Promised Land was that people with a slave mentality were unable to live as free men. In forty years, two new generations were born in freedom and the old people died off.

I never bought the God stuff, but two generations sounds about right. Now that Objectivism is beginning to get a toehold in our culture and most children are exposed to it in their youth, I expect it will be the dominant philosophy in 20-40 years.

[source]

YES!

Cultural change takes time.  Not only that, but acceptance of the right ideas on a personal level takes time.  Even when someone accepts Objectivism in their youth, it takes many years to integrate and automatize those ideas into one's soul.  If they discover Objectivism when they are older, they have already accepted and automatized other ideas and habits that may be difficult or impossible to change.

The Rabbi at the synagogue I attended as a child said that the reason God had the Jews wander in the desert for forty years after they left bondage in Egypt and before they entered the Promised Land was that people with a slave mentality were unable to live as free men.  In forty years, two new generations were born in freedom and the old people died off. 

I never bought the God stuff, but two generations sounds about right.  Now that Objectivism is beginning to get a toehold in our culture and most children are exposed to it in their youth, I expect it will be the dominant philosophy in 20-40 years.

I look forward to that day.

But let me point out that right now, humanity is not living in the desert and the collectivist mentality isn't being cleansed. I think, if indeed your prediction is correct, that, just as nimble said - majority of people aren't philosophers - they will remain non-philosophers. Just as they accept the unchecked and false premises of collectivism, so they will accept the premises of objectivism and individualism and to some degree all these will still remain mixed in their minds.

This, I fear, could be fatal to objectivism - not in the sense that it will be proved wrong because I think it can't be - but in the sense that it will be the target of the attack of those who have such mixed premises in their minds, and who have done something more or less wrong because of this.

Ayn Rand said that man cannot be forced to think, if he doesn't choose to think himself. Are the principles of Objectivism enough to make a man think and reach conclusions in the manner of a scientist (for Philosophy too is science)?

[Betsy]

I think, if indeed your prediction is correct, that, just as nimble said - majority of people aren't philosophers - they will remain non-philosophers.

That's THEIR problem, not mine.

Just as they accept the unchecked and false premises of collectivism, so they will accept the premises of objectivism and individualism and to some degree all these will still remain mixed in their minds.

This, I fear, could be fatal to objectivism - not in the sense that it will be proved wrong because I think it can't be - but in the sense that it will be the target of the attack of those who have such mixed premises in their minds, and who have done something more or less wrong because of this.

So what? They are in no position to influence what I think.

Ayn Rand said that man cannot be forced to think, if he doesn't choose to think himself. Are the principles of Objectivism enough to make a man think and reach conclusions in the manner of a scientist (for Philosophy too is science)?

Not if he doesn't want to. People have free will.

If people DO want to think and understand themselves and the world, Objectivism is a powerful tool. And they can benefit from it right now. "He who fights for the furture lives in it today" and those who don't, don't.

[source]

That's THEIR problem, not mine.

Indeed it is. In America, it's probably THEIR problem alone. Over here, it's everybody's problem. Remember We the Living? Things here, in Croatia, right now, are not much different than that. They are better, but they are bad.

Not if he doesn't want to.  People have free will.

If people DO want to think and understand themselves and the world, Objectivism is a powerful tool.  And they can benefit from it right now.  "He who fights for the furture lives in it today" and those who don't, don't.

I had a related thought after I posted this. I can do things my way and if the others cannot follow, who cares - it's their problem. (That's me discovering America )