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Hello from NZ!

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Thank you for the warm welcome.

Life is pretty good in NZ though it does have a slower pace compared to most countries I suspect.

I think I have a similar temperament to Ayn Rand so when I discovered her it is like a concretization of my conclusions. It has been quite a journey for me actually. I was born into a Lutheran family but after delving more into it as an adult, didn't found any good positions on it. Being not fond of dogmas and doctrines got me interested in Quakerism but they did not have good answers either. Then I moved to other religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism and got the same results. Even Stoicism was not cutting it. When I finally got to Ayn Rand, everything was just clear cut and crystal clear. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

As a fellow NZer I would say don't go following any one school of thought slavishly or go acquiring new gods or goddesses for yourself - read and listen to everything and everyone across the spectrum, and form your own ideas and critiques of all you hear. Personally I have tarried with Ayn Rand-type ideas (especially in the 90s during the Douglas/Richardson era as finance ministers), but they don't really gel with me now - in particular their implications for/with democracy. I have (I suppose) moved in towards the left and find agonism is what makes the most sense to me for the time being.

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Anyone who follows Ayn Rand slavishly or sets her up as a goddess is being a very bad Objectivist.

Ayn Rand's thinking and contributions go much deeper than politics.  The world is dominated by very fundamental philosophical errors that lead most people astray on multiple levels.  We have to fight this.

58 minutes ago, Com said:

their implications for/with democracy

Just what does this mean?  I think a system in which political power derives from elections with a broadly based electorate is less dangerous than any alternative.  I think we should keep the bill of rights and add additional protection to it.  I think most Objectivists would be in essential agreement with me on this.

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"Anyone who follows Ayn Rand slavishly or sets her up as a goddess is being a very bad Objectivist."

Yes. That is all I am saying. As with any search for truth, we should be prepared to change and grow.

"Just what does this mean?"

If one is a democrat before being an objectivist (or any other philosophy), then all well and good. If one seeks to install their philosophy at any cost (at whichever extreme), it is a problem - and necessitates the bypassing of democracy. There may come a time when objectivism is central and generally accepted, but (in my humble opinion) there are too many problems for this ever to become likely.

It looks very much to me that there are philosophies on the left and on the right which are self-contained and true within their own truths and axioms. They can never meet each other in the middle, and are irresolvable (even nonsensical) when imported into each others' frames of reference.

I also wonder how those without land or capital can gain access to these, under a strictly objectivist regime. I also wonder how power can be controlled without democratic oversight. Power doesn't vanish, it moves, whack-a-mole style, so instead of the state (the electors within a democracy) holding the power, power makes its move into the hands of those with wealth.

And (to me) very importantly, how can those who want all learners to have access to all ideas in order to arrive at their own conclusions be sure that they can - in particular within the state-run education system (or whatever should come to succeed it)?

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