Fear when facing arguments/resistance to Objectivism

Psychology and Self Improvement
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If someone laughs at Ayn Rand and ridicules people who think her philosophy is worth studying I start to feel fear/anxiety and lose some of my composure. I’m trying to understand whether this feeling is serving me in an beneficial way or not, and whether it’s root is valid. Note that I usually haven’t seen philosophical arguments made I’ve just received overwhelmingly negative responses when trying to find people interested in studying on campus.

 

I feel powerless in response since I have not yet fully understand and worked through the whole philosophy. I’m just very confused by how what seems like a very positive system of ideas can be met with such strong resistance by so many people.

 

 

I’d like to get some feedback on the above and also my emotional response.

 

 

I think there’s a few things that cause this:

 

  1. If people think her philosophy is so bad as to be something to laugh at then the world is evil. These people outnumber me and therefore I’m powerless even if I consciously prove it to myself.

 

Response: I felt this way when I held invalid beliefs that were challenged too. I “felt” I was right and anyone who challenged my view was evil - I saw their ideas as causing pain, suffering etc. 

 

Is the world really evil because some people laugh at her philosophy? Are these people who laugh at the philosophy convincing everyone else? What power do they have? Should I concern myself with them? What purpose to my feelings serve here - they don’t help me at all. I’m not in this to help people but to make my life better and dedicating a portion of my time concerning myself with others ideas will not make my life better.

 

 

  1. I’m still studying and trying to consciously work through everything right from the base, so right now all I have is ‘feeling’ for some of her ideas. I don’t feel like I’m able to defend my beliefs against many arguments and every additional argument mean something else I’ll have to study - which overwhelms me as trying to work through epistemology is frustrating enough.

 

Response: this is a valid concern - how can I study philosophy properly when I keep getting thrown astray by all kinds of concepts I don’t understand. I’ve spent long enough as it is slowly working my way through OPAR.

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  This isn’t unusual for you or anyone else who has a set of ideas they value. No one likes being told that everything they believe is wrong, and everyone’s ideas are ridiculed by someone. 

 

  Ridicule is an act, a piece of drama, used to manipulate those with these kind of insecurities. No one wants to be stupid, gullible, or evil. So the person who engages in the ridicule will convince themselves of having knowledge, and then proceed to act as though your ideas contradict what they know to be true in such an obvious way that it would produce amusement.

 

  These people are really motivated by the fact that they themselves know very little about the either the ideas they are ridiculing or the ideas they are defending. The only fact is that Ayn Rand threatens their system and ethical beliefs and they can’t have that. So, not matter if it is true, they must convince others that Ayn Rand was a drug addicted, serial killer loving, cheating, cult leader who hates poor people but loves social security checks and whose main followers are insecure and pretentious teenagers. 

 

 In reality this is the exacts same kind of hate and ignorance that conservatives have for conservatives have developed for Karl Marx or Mohammed. They don’t know anything about the ideas but they are so threatened by them that they must find the easiest way to dismiss them. No matter how hysterical, hyperbolic, unfair, hypocritical, irrelevant, or just untrue the attacks are. 

 

  In the end, it isn’t your responsibility to defend a set of beliefs that you haven’t verified independently. That tendency is what creates the dreaded “Randroids”. Ayn Rand has some really good ideas, but reading her books isn’t enough, you need to understand them through your own personal efforts. In the end you may not agree with the whole of the philosophy, but I would rather have people who disagreed who knew what they were talking about rather than people who did agree and did not know what they talked about. 

2 Likes
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LoBagola,

 

I’d have to say that letting these kinds of people cause you feelings of fear and anxiety is not seving you in a benefical way.   All they’re doing is running the “Arguement from Intimidation” on you.   To help give you a better understanding of what that is please read this…http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/argument_from_intimidation.html

 

And since it sounds like you’re in an Educational enviroment I’d also recommend you read Rand’s essay “The Comprachicos”.   That should help give you some insight into why these people are behaving the way they are.    

 

Hang in there, I’m rooting for you.

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You should trust in Reason in general, and your own rational mind, in particular. If you have put a lot of thought into something, and arrived at a conclusion about it (be it a definitive conclusion or not), that should be what matters above all else.

If another person has some rational arguments for you, you should consider them, of course. If they don’t, then you should try to not let them affect you in any way.

So yes, you should work towards learning to ignore irrational ridicule, when directed towards something you have approached rationally. Whether it’s one person’s irrationality, or a thousand’s, should not affect you differently. Especially if you live in a country where everyone has the right to free speech on the subject of Philosophy.

Do not let majority opinion sway you, only consider rational arguments, and based only on their quality, not the number of people saying them.

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No scornful responses is one perk of living in a country where hardly anyone has heard of her.  :stuart:

Though she does seem to have a boogyman status on humorous websites http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2968#comic .

And if its her position that’s attacked its nearly always only the conclusion and never her method.

1 Like
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Yeah okay so having been through this for a few days now I realize most of my fear/anxiety is from the personal attacks on Rand and the arguments from intimidation. I guess it’s me thinking “this philosophy is the first one I find which appears to be positive and make sense and I’m getting an overwhelmingly negative response when searching for others interested in just *studying* the basics of her philosophy” ???. It makes me feel powerless and very confused about the situation. I’m not 100% sure why I feel powerless, but I know why I feel confused - because something just really doesn’t make sense. Either I’ve missed an elephant in the room or there are terribly evil people, as I just don’t see how someone can condemn these: “Man is an end in himself.” (not sacrificing himself OR others), and  “Give me liberty or give me death.”.

 

 

I don’t try argue about things I don’t understand - I’m very much about completely understanding first before fighting for something. 

 

I put up an advertisement in a 300 member philosophy society at my university. There was not that much activity there or response to any posts before I came in. I post something about starting a study group and in a few days I get nearly 100 responses - all of them negative with posts to random videos about why Rand is stupid or how she liked serial killers or why it’s only for rich white kids etc etc etc

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In her article “Faith and Force”, appears the following "A friend of mine once said that today’s attitude, paraphrasing the Bible, is; “Forgive me, Father, for I know not what I’m doing–and please don’t tell me.”

 

A comprehensive systematic understanding would be a threat to those seeking the reassurance that no answers are possible.

 

The personal attacks on Rand and the arguments from intimidation are geared not so much to throw you off balance, as to try to insulate their own evasions.

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My first experience with Rand was her fiction AS, one of those ad cards fell out describing her nonfiction(!!???) ah yeah I’ll take some of that please!

Maybe instead of advertising to academic philosophy students, try and organize a showing of one of the films that were made from her works coupled with a discussion group thingy, all the real thinkers at your university may not be in the philo depts. :slight_smile:

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I’m not 100% sure why I feel powerless, but I know why I feel confused - because something just really doesn’t make sense.

I would take that as a good sign; you don’t understand how anyone could hate the truth.  You probably feel powerless because the one and only thing you have on your side is the truth- and if that doesn’t matter then nothing does.  (that’s my hypothesis, anyway)

 

“Man is an end in himself.” (not sacrificing himself OR others)

If you deeply, truly grasp that then you do understand Objectivism; the rest are details.

 

I post something about starting a study group and in a few days I get nearly 100 responses - all of them negative with posts to random videos about why Rand is stupid or how she liked serial killers or why it’s only for rich white kids etc etc etc

Recently, I’ve been trying to philosophically dissect each and every thing that bothers me.  :thumbsup:   It might help; try reverse-engineering their arguments against Rand to see what they really mean and what it’s based on.

 

“Rand liked serial killers” isn’t true, so why would people believe it/ base their arguments on it?  Well, Rand said that altruism is evil and serial killers don’t practice altruism, so it must make sense.

This shows that, whoever made that statement, thinks that everyone would be a serial killer without the leash of altruism.  (beneath that is a fundamental hatred for man)

 

“Rand is only for rich white kids” is particularly interesting, as it’s sort of a compound of two different ideas.

“Rand is only for the rich” because rand rejected altruism; therefor the only people who don’t need help (the rich) could ever agree with her.  This is based on the premise that everyone’s personal philosophy should be based on their needs, i.e.:

“When I am poor, I’ll demand welfare; when I am rich I’ll endorse Rand”.  This means that truth is subjective; the person who made this assertion knowingly evades the truth or doesn’t at a moments’ whim, and had assumed that everyone else did the same.

“Rand is only for white kids” because Rand was born with white skin, therefor only people with similar skin conditions could agree with her ideas.  I don’t think I need to name or refute this malicious idea, but that’s what it amounts to.

 

So that’s how I cope with such difficulties.  I’m not sure if it’ll help or not, but it can be almost therapeudic.

 

http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=24958