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Private scholarships - betraying your ideals?

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neverborn

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I was talking with my girlfriend today, who is also an Objectivist - and she was filling out a Teamsters Union scholarship. In it, you basically have to kiss Teamster Union ass - questions such as "What does Teamsters Union mean to you?" - the answer being collectivist corruption wouldn't behoove her.

Would it be immoral to betray your ideals to write something so pro-Union and pro-collectivist to receive a scholarship?

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I was talking with my girlfriend today, who is also an Objectivist - and she was filling out a Teamsters Union scholarship. In it, you basically have to kiss Teamster Union ass - questions such as "What does Teamsters Union mean to you?" - the answer being collectivist corruption wouldn't behoove her.

Would it be immoral to betray your ideals to write something so pro-Union and pro-collectivist to receive a scholarship?

I went to college on Masonic, Optimist and Kiwani scholarships. All are very much not what you would call atheist friendly but then in the speech competitions and essays I didn't lie. If I lied then yes that is a personal moral betrayal.

Luckily, the topics didn't directly address religion but I never hid that I was an atheist to them. Sounds like she'd have to comprimise her principals and not only lie but advocate something that is immoral as forced unionization are violently anti-capitalist and deeply in bed with organized crime.

Ask her, stormfront.org & the NAAWP offers scholarships for "Aryans" going to college. How would she feel winning those essay contests? ;) Actually, irony as it is, they are both pretty darn pro-union so she might be able to use the same essay.

Edited by scottkursk
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My mom brought home some scholarship stuff from her union which I refused to do. One essay was "How Tommy Douglas positively influenced Canada." He was the man who rallied and sparked the total socialization of medicine in this country. The other one was "How public programs provide benefits to minority groups." There are tonnes of scholarships out there, including one's where you can write Objectivist essays like The Fountainhead contest.

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  • 1 month later...

Hmmmmmm.... this is a very interesting question. More people like neverborn need to visit forums :).

I think it helps to remember that values of *any* kind lie in a hierarchy, and are therefore subject to overruling by values which lie higher up in the hierarchy. For example, Honesty is a value. But people you love are also values. Let's say, for example, that a strange man with a gun arrives at your house. Your wife is hiding in the broom closet. The strange man demands to know where your wife is hiding (nevermind the reason.) Do you tell him the truth? Absolutely not, because the consequence would be the death of a woman you love. In this case, ones love for their wife is a larger value than being honest. Even Howard Roark, in The Fountainhead, lies multiple times. This is not immoral, because his wish to build Cortlandt, or his love for Dominique, etc. are all greater values than Honesty.

So the question you need to ask is which is more important: Honesty or a Scholarship. Should one espouse collectivist rubbish in order to get a far better education? The problem with this is that most people figure that no matter what they do, they will be acting immorally, because they must either lie or sacrifice their education. But it is never immoral to act according to ones principles: and if one principle overrules another, so be it.

Sacrificing a lesser value for a greater one is not a compromise. Roark said in the Fountainhead that if a building's integrity is sacrificed by one bit--if one cornice or column is treacherous to its purpose--the building becomes aesthetically useless. This is also true of a person. If ones honesty, integrity, or pride is compromised for any lesser purpose, you have delivered yourself into the grimy hands of evil. But a compromise is always a sacrifice. Lying for the sake of love definitely shows integrity; it is a not a sacrifice of ones honesty, just as giving someone a penny in return for a dollar bill is not a sacrifice of ones money.

I have large lungs, I know.

Personally, I would not accept such a scholarship. As ex_banana-eater said, there are plenty of scholarships out there that do not require dishonesty. Also, what one is being dishonest *about* also factors in. There is a strong value-difference between saying ones wife is on vacation in the Virgin Islands and writing utter garbage about the value of socialization.

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Lying for the sake of love definitely shows integrity; it is a not a sacrifice of one's honesty, ...

While I agree with your example (lying to a thug asking where your wife is hiding), I wouldn't sum it up as "lying for the sake of love".

I do not think that correctly describes the essence of why it is right to lie in that situation.

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What are several examples? And were his alleged "lies" honest or dishonest ones?

-He claimed (up until the trial) that he had not designed Cortlandt.

-He claimed he had never met Dominique

-He took part in all of Keating's parasitism, which involved claiming he had designed the buildings, rather than Roark. This is ultimately a form of dishonesty.

Of course his lies were dishonest. How can one have an honest lie?

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