Reblogged:Left 'White'-Washes Anti-Semitism

[Gus Van Horn blog]

Some time back, I tweeted a Value for Value post by Peter Schwartz which explains how our culture's dominant ethical code, altruism, justifies supporting Hamas over Israel, despite the demands of justice to do exactly the opposite.

Schwartz says in part:

Certainly, a growing anti-Semitism is at work. But the more fundamental explanation is the one provided by a schoolteacher in Atlanta, as reported in the Nov. 5 NY Times ("Across the Echo Chamber, a Quiet Conversation About War and Race"). She posted the following message on Facebook, defending her unequivocal backing of the Palestinians against Israel:

"The actual history of this situation is NOT COMPLICATED. I will ALWAYS stand beside those with less power. Less wealth, less access and resources and choices. Regardless of the extreme acts of a few militants who were done watching their people slowly die."

She is stating the essence of a moral code that is accepted by virtually everyone today: the code of altruism. According to that code, need is the ultimate standard of morality. If others are in need, nothing else matters -- you have a duty to satisfy their needs.

Now that Iran, a nation nearly ten times more populous than Israel, has more directly waged war against Israel, it would be interesting to quiz the above schoolteacher about which side she is on.

I would not expect her allegiance to have shifted, despite the fact that Israel had enough help repelling that attack that it is a fair question whether it could have done so alone.

Absent the ability to ask directly, we can get the answer by consulting a recent Brendan O'Neill article article at Sp!ked. It is titled "How Woke Leftists Became Cheerleaders for Iran," and I think the below is crucial to understanding why we're seeing mass "demonstrations" by people claiming to be in favor of this warmongering regime's "right" to "self-defense:"

The left would say, Don't believe your lying eyes or mind about this evil man. (Image via Wikimedia Commons, license.)

The Western left's blaming of Israel for everything, and its implicit absolution of Iran, is grimly revealing. These people seem to view Israel as the only true actor in the Middle East, and everyone else as mere respondents to Israel's actions. Israel is the author of the Middle East's fate, while the rest of them -- Hamas, the Houthis, even Iran -- are mere bit-part players with the misfortune to be caught up in Israel's vast and terrifying web. This is identitarianism, not anti-imperialism. A new generation of radicals educated into the regressive ideology that says 'white' people are powerful and 'brown' people are oppressed can only understand the Middle East in these terms, too.

The end result is that they demonise Israel and infantilise Iran. The Jewish State comes to be seen as uniquely malevolent while Iran is treated as a kind of wide-eyed child who cannot help but lash out at its 'Zionist' oppressor. Israel is damned as a criminal state, while Iran's crimes against humanity are downplayed, even memory-holed. This is where wokeness leads, then: to sympathy for one of the most backward and repressive states on Earth on the deranged basis that its criminal strikes against Israel represent a blow against the arrogant West itself... [bold added]

The whole idea that all of Israel is Caucasian or that the Islamic world is entirely brown-skinned is nearly as ridiculous as assuming that race determines character or as using white as code for oppressor and brown for needy or oppressed.

If anyone needs disabusing of the notion that the left stands for racial equality or individual rights, what we're seeing unfold -- the use of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to excuse racially slurring Israelis as white (which is a racial slur coming from the left these days) en route to enabling their extermination -- should concern anyone with a grain of rationality or a sense of justice.

By casting the alleged neediness of Palestine and Iran -- and Israel's well-earned strength -- as racial attributes, the left has excused making the mindless siding with terrorists in the name of altruism permanent.

They're coming for the Jews now, and they will come for the rest of West as soon as is convenient. We're all "colonialists" now, according to the left, anyway.

-- CAV

Link to Original

[DavidOdden]

1 hour ago, Gus Van Horn blog said:

it would be interesting to quiz the above schoolteacher about which side she is on

It goes way beyond ‘interesting’, it enters the territory of morally imperative. There is a plain contradiction in Oliver’s position. The media (NYT) bears a responsibility for turning this personal discussion into a propaganda event, it then has carries that responsibility to defend the oppressed in the present case. (*Crickets*). Of course, that presumes that the purpose of the media is to objectively report facts rather than advocate a particular ideology.

Occasionally, a rational commentator will notice one of these contradictions and will write about it, as Schwartz did. What should be said is that the NYT has a responsibility to put this very question to Oliver – unsympathetically, in the same manner that they address others whom they deem to be politically incorrect. Attention needs to be put on the media for its reporting bias. However, to be effective such attention would need to be itself objective.

This then reminds me of a recent Gus blog where Gus interjects a comment that “Trump’s Supreme Court appointments eventually overturned Roe vs. Wade”, which is misleading (he appointed only 3 of the majority justices, and that statement carries the false and unsupported implication that this was Trump’s reason for those appointments). It’s fine to pick on Trump, but let’s see some actual facts, not just mystical divination about the mental state of voters and guilt-by-association reasoning. Now, hitting rather close to home, there has been a chorus of crickets over the fact that the Trump faction in the House at least temporarily limited some of the right-trampling power of the FISA courts. This action was taken with the full approval of Trump, and yet where is the laudatory commentary?

So yeah, we can understand this in terms of a hierarchy of values. Truth is a value; but Trump is a greater disvalue; ignoring a relevant truth is less evil than making an false assertion or implication. Some media elevate the ‘Trump is evil’ axiom to the point that they will make literally-false statements, but that is not so common because of defamation law (though certain media are statutorily immunized against such actions). A safer bet is to rely on false implications (which can still be a cause of legal action, just easier to summarily dismiss). When silence is available, that is a completely un-actionable method of promulgating the viewpoint that Trump is evil.

To be clear, Trump is evil, my point is that the philosopher’s job is focus on the logical infrastructure of political discourse, and to point out these contradictions. We cannot in all honesty demand adherence to logic if we also repudiate logic. The laughing-face emoticon is an exemplar of an intellectually dishonest tool, which should be obliterated from this forum.

[tadmjones]

Trump the producer and creator of value, is evil on an O'ist forum ?

[DavidOdden]

Not that Trump, I’m referring to the once and future president. Trump in office, as wielder of the executive power. I could care less about his real estate operation.

[tadmjones]

Was the power he wielded evil? And so by wielding he became evil, or did he corrupt the wielding of a prior established power that was uncorrupted?

 

On 4/16/2024 at 2:59 PM, DavidOdden said:

Not that Trump, I’m referring to the once and future president. Trump in office, as wielder of the executive power. I could care less about his real estate operation.

Productivity is conditionally virtuous in O’ism? 

[DavidOdden]

17 hours ago, tadmjones said:

Productivity is conditionally virtuous in O’ism?

Producing things of objective value is unconditionally a virtue. Not everything created is an objective value (example: Das Kapital; Mein Kampf). Keeping with the context of Trump as our Supreme Leader, it is irrelevant whether he produces value in real estate, since the job of POTUS is to execute the laws of the United States, not to manipulate the economy or make a profit off of real estate deals. Applying the relevant criteria, Trump is an anti-virtue, as president.

[tadmjones]

I think Trump was hoodwinked into implementing anti-freedom/private property policies and expanding military/government powers as response to Covid.

What part of the job of POTUS did Trump perform evilly?

[Ogg_Vorbis]

 

22 hours ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

That was screen-capped from Google Gemini. 

 

I see the term "anti-value" used a few times on this forum, but "anti-virtue" isn't as common.

There is no such thing, of course. Productivity is a virtue, even if someone else doesn't like the product. Hitler and Marx produced books by practicing the virtue of productivity. Whether the books are morally valuable to someone else is irrelevant. 

Edited April 19 by Ogg_Vorbis

[Ogg_Vorbis]

5 hours ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

I see the term "anti-value" used a few times on this forum, but "anti-virtue" isn't as common.

There is no such thing, of course. Productivity is a virtue, even if someone else doesn't like the product. Hitler and Marx produced books by practicing the virtue of productivity. Whether the books are morally valuable to someone else is irrelevant. 

"The laughing-face emoticon is an exemplar of an intellectually dishonest tool, which should be obliterated from this forum." David Odden

[DavidOdden]

Plainly, this forum has degenerated to the point that intellectual honesty is no longer a value

[Ogg_Vorbis]

Right. Because intellectual honesty is a virtue.

[Pokyt]

22 hours ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

I see the term "anti-value" used a few times on this forum, but "anti-virtue" isn't as common.

There is no such thing, of course. Productivity is a virtue, even if someone else doesn't like the product. Hitler and Marx produced books by practicing the virtue of productivity. Whether the books are morally valuable to someone else is irrelevant. 

Being productive is a virtuous thing, but pretending like ends of that productivity are irrelevant is silly. The act of Hitler writing Mein Kampf was about as virtuous as a Neo-Nazi typing and posting "death to all Jews" on Twitter. So not very.

[Ogg_Vorbis]

1 hour ago, Pokyt said:

Being productive is a virtuous thing, but pretending like ends of that productivity are irrelevant is silly. The act of Hitler writing Mein Kampf was about as virtuous as a Neo-Nazi typing and posting "death to all Jews" on Twitter. So not very.

Anti-virtue and anti-value are invalid concepts with unclear definitions. They sound like attempts to make exceptions for the virtue of productivity where the ends of the productivity, such as the writing of Das Kapital, are considered a disvalue. They could be related to the idea of an anti-concept.

This is the Fallacy of the Consequent. If writing a book seemed to lead to bad things, then writing the book was bad (immoral, anti-virtuous).

The books Das Kapital and Mein Kampf did not cause anything to happen. They are only books. The fact that someone disvalues these books doesn't mean that the act of writing them was an anti-virtue, or even a vicious act. It is possible that writing those books could have had negligible or zero effect. 

A more rational move than creating neologisms would be to simply remove Productivity from the list of virtues. The value of a particular case of productivity is context-laden. Unless all productivity leads to a benefit, theoretically for humanity, the out-of-context concept of "productivity" can hardly be considered either a virtue or a vice because it depends on what's being produced.

Aristotlean ethics is sorely needed here. 

Should one always be rational, productive, and proud? Run that question through the lens of the Golden Mean and see what comes out.

Excessive pride leads to arrogance. Excess rationality leads to emotional repression. Excess productivity leads to a workaholic lifestyle and eventual burnout. 

Where should you draw the line on your Absolutes? Aristotle would know.

Edited April 20 by Ogg_Vorbis

[necrovore]

34 minutes ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

A more rational move than creating neologisms would be to simply remove Productivity from the list of virtues. The value of a particular case of productivity is context-laden. Unless all productivity leads to a benefit, theoretically for humanity, the out-of-context concept of "productivity" can hardly be considered either a virtue or a vice because it depends on what's being produced.

Productivity itself is context-laden, and in fact it is you who are taking it out of context.

Something that causes a loss is not productive, it is counter-productive.

28 minutes ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

Excessive pride leads to arrogance.

False. There is no such thing as excessive pride. Arrogance is false pride, it's a pretense, because it doesn't have the reality to back it up.

29 minutes ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

Excess rationality leads to emotional repression.

False. Emotional repression is false rationality, it's a pretense that consists of evading one's emotions.

30 minutes ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

Excess productivity leads to a workaholic lifestyle and eventual burnout.

False. A workaholic lifestyle is a pretense, not an excess, and it does not lead to productivity.

[EC]

7 hours ago, necrovore said:

Productivity itself is context-laden, and in fact it is you who are taking it out of context.

Something that causes a loss is not productive, it is counter-productive.

False. There is no such thing as excessive pride. Arrogance is false pride, it's a pretense, because it doesn't have the reality to back it up.

False. Emotional repression is false rationality, it's a pretense that consists of evading one's emotions.

False. A workaholic lifestyle is a pretense, not an excess, and it does not lead to productivity.

Exactly all of this.  Well done. 

[Ogg_Vorbis]

8 hours ago, necrovore said:

Productivity itself is context-laden, and in fact it is you who are taking it out of context.

Something that causes a loss is not productive, it is counter-productive.

False. There is no such thing as excessive pride. Arrogance is false pride, it's a pretense, because it doesn't have the reality to back it up.

False. Emotional repression is false rationality, it's a pretense that consists of evading one's emotions.

False. A workaholic lifestyle is a pretense, not an excess, and it does not lead to productivity.

The Golden Mean is contextual and rational. 

"False. A workaholic lifestyle is a pretense, not an excess." Obviously wrong. It could be pretentious excess, but it is still excessive.

"False. There is no such thing as excessive pride. Arrogance is false pride, it's a pretense, because it doesn't have the reality to back it up." False pride and arrogance are similar but not synonymous. Arrogance does not equal false pride. Perhaps you should use an older dictionary.

"False. Emotional repression is false rationality, it's a pretense that consists of evading one's emotions." Emotional repression is not the same as "false rationality." They aren't even in the same category. 

Productivity, as used by Rand, is a floating abstraction. "All work is creative work if done by a thinking mind."(?) The idea that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, while obviously false, would include the writing of Mein Kampf and Das Kapital as creative, productive works. 

From: https://www.objectivistliving.com/topic/12562-albert-ellis-n-branden-debate/

Quote

“[H]appiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions.” (1961a). Could anyone ever be happy when held to this extreme standard, I [Ellis] asked. And scores of voices from the audience screamed back (somewhat to my surprise): “Yes!!!” 

It's the "nothing but" type of thinking that takes it to the extreme.

"Nothing but" productivity? Workaholism.

"Nothing but" rationality? Emotional repression. If you say emotions are included in rationality, you got it from Rand who got it from NB.

"Nothing but" pride? Arrogance. Lack of humility. 

"Nothing but" independence? This leads to missing out on the valuable insights of others.

"Nothing but" justice? This leads to a "show no mercy" mentality. 

"Nothing but" integrity? This leads to unnecessary moral rigidity.

"Nothing but" honesty? Sure, if you like hurting people's feelings. But we don't care about that, do we.

Edited April 20 by Ogg_Vorbis

[Ogg_Vorbis]

It also occurs to me that the idea that it is irrational to entertain even the possibility of a supernatural being leads to censorship of the mind. This is the rational taking to an extreme. 

Edited April 20 by Ogg_Vorbis

[Ogg_Vorbis]

20 hours ago, DavidOdden said:

Plainly, this forum has degenerated to the point that intellectual honesty is no longer a value

I was hoping you'd either make another joke, or state that intellectual honesty is both a value and a virtue. Are you a Funologist?

[Pokyt]

On 4/19/2024 at 11:29 PM, Ogg_Vorbis said:

Anti-virtue and anti-value are invalid concepts with unclear definitions.

Let's ask Oxford English:

• anti (preposition): opposed to : against
• virtue (noun): behavior showing high moral standards.
• value (noun): a person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life.

So, to be "anti-virtue" is to be "against or opposed to behavior showing high [rational] moral standards," and to be "anti-value" is to be "against or opposed to rational standards of behavior."

Definitions seem pretty clear to me! You couldn't have worked that out on your own?

On 4/20/2024 at 8:56 AM, Ogg_Vorbis said:

Productivity, as used by Rand, is a floating abstraction. "All work is creative work if done by a thinking mind."(?) The idea that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, while obviously false, would include the writing of Mein Kampf and Das Kapital as creative, productive works. 

Taking stuff out of context isn't so effective when you're talking to people who have actually read the material you're referencing, and even less so when the lexicon is free for anyone with an internet connection (so everyone reading your posts) to reference. I even own that lexicon in book form, so if I was orating this message over the phone from prison I'd still know you're full of shit.

Quote

Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live—that productive work is the process by which man’s consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one’s purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one’s values—that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others—that your work is yours to choose, and the choice is as wide as your mind, that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human—that to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fear-corroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time, and to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind’s full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay—that your work is the process of achieving your values, and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live—that your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you must drive as far as your mind will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road—that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch, that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine slowly going to rust, that the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap, and the man who makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up—that your work is the purpose of your life, and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you, that any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travelers you choose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction.

Galt’s Speech,
For the New Intellectual, 130

Absolutely neon-violet prose aside, implicit in all of this is obviously a rational formulation of morality and values, Adolf Hitler and Karl Marx were both "killers who assume[d] the right to stop you," and saying you should behave in a way that doesn't limit you in your pursuit of values/associate with people who limit you in that pursuit is indisputably a good idea.

Also, it is absolutely true that "all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind" and you should feel nothing but regret and shame for ever calling yourself an "Objectivist" while not understanding what that means.

The problem is not with Ayn Rand. The only problem here is that you, despite being a forum member for 17 years longer than I have, still never figured out that what is being created isn't strictly material. You can CREATE VALUE. If you are a rational, thinking person, then your PRODUCTIVE WORK IS PRODUCING (OR CREATING) SOMETHING THAT IS OF VALUE TO YOU, AND IN TURN YOU ARE CREATING THE VALUE WHICH OTHERS CONSUME. THIS REQUIRES INGENUITY AND CREATIVITY TO ACCOMPLISH.

On 4/19/2024 at 11:29 PM, Ogg_Vorbis said:

Excessive pride leads to arrogance. Excess rationality leads to emotional repression. Excess productivity leads to a workaholic lifestyle and eventual burnout. 

Excess paint-huffing leads to this post.

"Excessive," according to Merriam-Webster, can be defined as: "exceeding what is usual, proper, necessary, or normal" What is "usual" or "necessary" doesn't matter when it comes to pride, so the only part of that definition we need to start off with is "exceeding what is proper."

Surely you realize the "proper" amount of pride for someone to have is entirely context dependent. The difference between arrogance and pride is in how someone's pride in themselves scales with what they have to be proud of. Are you seriously suggesting that there is a set in stone amount of pride that it's okay for every human to have? Are you seriously saying that? If so, are you expecting me to take you seriously? Big ask.

What is "excess rationality"? That leads to "emotional repression"? What? It leads to an understanding of your emotions and how to regulate them. What makes you feel a certain emotion is not pre-determined, it is the direct result of a value judgement that you have consciously made. For instance, it is not irrational to be upset by an action that contradicts a rationally formulated value judgement. Get it?

Being a "workaholic," in the sense that you're using it, is to compulsively work to the point that it's to your detriment, i.e. harmful to your pursuit of value, i.e. to be counter-productive. Where that line sits is, again, entirely dependent on the person and where their priorities are, and there isn't one correct answer for what specific things in your personal life you should be valuing. That is a personal issue. What there is one correct answer for is the standard and ultimate value that you should be using to form those values in pursuit of. That being your life.

If your work habits are harmful to your pursuit of life, then obviously you are acting irrationally and should change. Whether or not that is the case is dependent on your personal values.

 

As an aside, all this makes your other thread very confusing to say the least. For someone who claims to have "spent hundreds of hours studying Objectivism," your objections to the philosophy are so unbelievably basic that I have absolutely no idea how you had an "entire philosophical framework" to "lose" in the first place. You are so unfamiliar with even the most basic things about the philosophy that I'm having to sit here and wrangle you like I'm talking to someone who's never even looked into any philosophy, much less Objectivism.

In another thread you say to Objectivists: "you can't think for yourself?" I mean, did you ever? Did you ever make any connections between what you were reading and the world as you saw it? I certainly did and this is just a hobby to me. My life isn't dedicated to the study of philosophy; my passions lie elsewhere. How is it that someone who was as entrenched as you claim to have been, to the point where you are apparently having this earth-shattering realization, so clueless about the subject matter?

Part of me doesn't even believe that you've read much of anything Ayn Rand wrote. Your aggressive behavior towards others also indicates that you're not arguing in good faith, but I'm perfectly willing to reciprocate that so whatever it's a moot point. What isn't, however, is that you are not at all knowledgeable about this philosophy, but you're very insistent that you've found major flaws with it. What a disgusting display of arrogance and stupidity.

On 4/20/2024 at 8:56 AM, Ogg_Vorbis said:

False pride and arrogance are similar but not synonymous. Arrogance does not equal false pride.

It does. It's ironic that you're complaining about "unclear definitions" when you're insisting that arrogance should be defined as having "excess pride" without even delineating the amount of pride it's apparently bad for people to exceed. The definition's that have been provided to you both make sense and are the contemporary definitions of the words we're using. Which I guess you address next:

On 4/20/2024 at 8:56 AM, Ogg_Vorbis said:

Perhaps you should use an older dictionary.

My 1989 edition of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "retarded" as "slow or limited in intellectual, emotional, or academic development <a~child>."

Edited May 3 by Pokyt

[tadmjones]

When does one start to make conscious value judgements in a rational schema that then directs the contents of an emotional response or recognition thereof?( in O'ism)

[Pokyt]

10 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

When does one start to make conscious value judgements in a rational schema that then directs the contents of an emotional response or recognition thereof?( in O'ism)

I mean I'll just let the person who created Objectivism answer you here:

Quote

The concept “emotion” is formed by retaining the distinguishing characteristics of the psychological action (an automatic response proceeding from an evaluation of an existent) and by omitting the particular contents (the existents) as well as the degree of emotional intensity.

“Concepts of Consciousness,”
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 32

Quote

Just as the pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is an automatic indicator of his body’s welfare or injury, a barometer of its basic alternative, life or death—so the emotional mechanism of man’s consciousness is geared to perform the same function, as a barometer that registers the same alternative by means of two basic emotions: joy or suffering. Emotions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man’s values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him—lightning calculators giving him the sum of his profit or loss.

But while the standard of value operating the physical pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is automatic and innate, determined by the nature of his body—the standard of value operating his emotional mechanism, is not. Since man has no automatic knowledge, he can have no automatic values; since he has no innate ideas, he can have no innate value judgments.

Man is born with an emotional mechanism, just as he is born with a cognitive mechanism; but, at birth, both are “tabula rasa.” It is man’s cognitive faculty, his mind, that determines the content of both. Man’s emotional mechanism is like an electronic computer, which his mind has to program—and the programming consists of the values his mind chooses.

But since the work of man’s mind is not automatic, his values, like all his premises, are the product either of his thinking or of his evasions: man chooses his values by a conscious process of thought—or accepts them by default, by subconscious associations, on faith, on someone’s authority, by some form of social osmosis or blind imitation. Emotions are produced by man’s premises, held consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly.

“The Objectivist Ethics,”
The Virtue of Selfishness, 27

There you go. Were you testing me or something? I assume you've read the same books I have.

Edited May 2 by Pokyt

[tadmjones]

So memory is infallible ?

 

Edited May 2 by tadmjones

[Pokyt]

1 hour ago, tadmjones said:

So memory is infallible ?

People sometimes misremember things and now it's turtles all the way down.

Make the point you want to make. Playing games like this is dumb.

Edited May 2 by Pokyt

[tadmjones]

You are chiding a critic because you doubt their grasp of the subject matter. If emotions are products of recall, then it should stand to reason that an explanation of how the functioning of memory as an aid to cognition would be pertinent and its lack could suggest a less than conclusive investigation.

As it is obvious by my use of the webs , I do not see an entry in the Lexicon for 'memory', are you aware of other sources , or do you think that subject isn't as tied to emotional response as I am considering? 

[Eiuol]

On 4/19/2024 at 11:29 PM, Ogg_Vorbis said:

Aristotlean ethics is sorely needed here. 

If you're asking what Aristotle would say, he would say that you cannot look at a virtue in isolation, but in regard to an integration among them all. You could be "productive" in terms of an immediate product, but productivity must be analyzed in relation to all the other virtues. 

On 4/20/2024 at 8:56 AM, Ogg_Vorbis said:

"Nothing but" productivity? Workaholism.

Each of your examples is an example of looking at virtues in isolation without regard to integrating them. 

 

On 4/19/2024 at 11:29 PM, Ogg_Vorbis said:

Should one always be rational, productive, and proud? Run that question through the lens of the Golden Mean and see what comes out.

The Golden mean is a way to find out what counts as virtue. Once you figure out what virtue is, then you ought to always be virtuous. So excessive pride by Aristotle's standards is not actually pride, but vanity. He doesn't say that the excess of any virtue is bad. There is a certain quality that is in excess, but is not the virtue in question. The quality is a kind of self regard, where vanity is the excess, humility the deficiency, and pride is the right amount of it. Vanity is pride in a superficial way, but it isn't actually pride. 

"In all the states of character we have mentioned, as in all other matters, there is a mark to 
which the man who has reason looks, and heightens or relaxes his activity accordingly, and there 
is a standard which determines the mean states that we say are intermediate between excess and 
deficiency, because they are in accord with correct reason."

Book 6, Chapter 1, Nichomachean ethics

As much as you say that you spent a lot of time studying this, you make some elementary errors of reasoning, even misinterpretation of philosophers you use to support your positions. You aren't making substantial critiques, your positions are more like what I've heard people say when they haven't spent much time actually working out what Rand is right or wrong about. Or what people say when they have only been introduced to her recently.