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 Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 9:15 pm
Hello.
I'm new here. So far I've read some of the posted story, Anthem, as well as skimmed over several topics. I see the term "Objectivism" tossed around a lot. I'm not familiar with neither this word nor the background philosophy it undoubtedly entails. So, would someone mind explaining it to me please?
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Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 10:01 pm
The philosophy of Objectivism means certain kinds of people. Who though? Ayn Rand primarily invented the philosophy through the heroes of her two best novels Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead based on her estimate of man's mind (his capacity for reason). You will have no good idea of the philosophy until you read one or both of those books. Ayn Rand My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. Ayn Rand At a sales conference at Random House, preceding the publication of Atlas Shrugged, one of the book salesmen asked me whether I could present the essence of my philosophy while standing on one foot. I did, as follows: 1. Metaphysics: Objective Reality 2. Epistemology: Reason 3. Ethics: Self-interest 4. Politics: Capitalism If you want this translated into simple language, it would read: 1. "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed" or "Wishing won't make it so." 2. "You can't eat your cake and have it, too." 3. "Man is an end in himself." 4. "Give me liberty or give me death." If you held these concepts with total consistency, as the base of your convictions, you would have a full philosophical system to guide the course of your life. But to hold them with total consistency—to understand, to define, to prove and to apply them—requires volumes of thought. Which is why philosophy cannot be discussed while standing on one foot—nor while standing on two feet on both sides of every fence. This last is the predominant philosophical position today, particularly in the field of politics. In the space of a column, I can give only the briefest summary of my position, as a frame-of-reference for all my future columns. My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that: 1. Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man's feelings, wishes, hopes or fears. 2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses) is man's only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival. 3. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life. 4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man's rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church. Ayn Rand Objectivism is a philosophical movement; since politics is a branch of philosophy, Objectivism advocates certain political principles—specifically, those of [ laissez-faire capitalism]—as the consequence and the ultimate practical application of its fundamental philosophical principles. It does not regard politics as a separate or primary goal, that is: as a goal that can be achieved without a wider ideological context. Politics is based on three other philosophical disciplines: metaphysics, epistemology and ethics—on a theory of man's nature and of man's relationship to existence. It is only on such a base that one can formulate a consistent political theory and achieve it in practice. When, however, men attempt to rush into politics without such a base, the result is that embarrassing conglomeration of impotence, futility, inconsistency and superficiality which is loosely designated today as "conservatism." Objectivists are not "conservatives." We are radicals for capitalism; we are fighting for that philosophical base which capitalism did not have and without which it was doomed to perish.
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 6:28 pm
Thank you for outlining it. Wow, I agree with only one of those four points; I do think that there is an objective reality. But I don't think knowledge comes only from reason. I believe that knowledge also comes from two other sources-- special revelation and experience. But reason and experience are flawed, because different people have different reasoning and different experience which often won't square with the truth. And if there is an objective reality, then there must be a metanarrative. As for ethics, I disagree that man's own self-interest ought to guide him. Why? Because the only reason for obeying the law would be because you'd be punished if you didn't. And other than that, there can be no right or wrong. If that were true, then the Nazis who mass-murdered people were doing right because they had been ordered to kill people and would be shot if they didn't. Auctoritates Aristotelis A good man and a good citizen are not the same thing I also think that radical capitalism is too idealistic. But you may protest that iof everyone believed and followed these rules, then it would indeed work. Let me tell you that if everyone acted according to any philosophy, it would work. If people were all like the communist ideal, communism would work. So radical capitalism is too idealistic because I believe that people are flawed and sinful. So, that's my two cents.
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 7:38 pm
Knowledge from experience (I.e. induction) is half of reason, so just so ya know that part isn't in conflict with Objectivism. Now the special revelation part... well that's a problem mrgreen
You seem to have a shallow view of the implications of self-interest. A selfish person would obey the law (assuming a just law that is) not just because of punishment prescribed by the law, but because that law forms the basis of his own freedom, the international division of labor that produces the goods he relies upon, and many other things. Nazism cannot be justified by selfishness, for one thing they preaches altruism. For another, the selfish nation, the United States, slaughtered the Nazis as a result of their actions (and had they not, the nazis policies were a form of slow suicide anyway.) Also, it is false that the Nazis would have been shot for disobeying. Fighting for Hitler was voluntary. They might have been shot for speaking out against Hitler, but that's a different thing. Hitler couldn't draft soldiers, it wouldn't have worked considering his blitzkreig strategy, that relies on fanatical volunteers.
Capitalism also does not rely on everyone being an "ideal capitalist" Simply enough to be able to defend themselves.
You want to know a secret about communism though? It wouldn't work, even if everyone were the communist ideal. Especially if everyone were the communist ideal. Do you know why? Because the communist ideal is the paragon of nonproductivity, the paragon of incompetence, of helplessness. It is this man, the incompetent man, that communism rewards and seeks, that the communists immortalize in their every demand. If everyone were a perfect communist, absolutely nothing would be produced, merely distributed. Humanity would succeed, essentially, in dividing zero- and since every man is a zero by communist doctrine, they would divide by zero. An interesting problem biggrin
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 7:52 pm
To hell with your estimate of man, Brit. That person doesn't deserve to live in this world or any other. He would be a justification of Hitler's mass murdering, not a rejection of it. Your code begins by damning man as evil, then demands that he practice a good which it defines as impossible for him to practice. It demands, as his first proof of virtue, that he accept his own depravity without proof. It demands that he start, not with a standard of value, but with a standard of evil, which is himself, by means of which he is then to define the good: the good is that which he is not.
It does not matter who then becomes the profiteer on his renounced glory and tormented soul, a mystic God with some incomprehensible design or any passer-by whose rotting sores are held as some inexplicable claim upon him—it does not matter, the good is not for him to understand, his duty is to crawl through years of penance, atoning for the guilt of his existence to any stray collector of unintelligible debts, his only concept of a value is a zero: the good is that which is non-man.
The name of this monstrous absurdity is Original Sin.
A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can be neither good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold, as man's sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality. To hold man's nature as his sin is a mockery of nature. To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason. To destroy morality, nature, justice and reason by means of a single concept is a feat of evil hardly to be matched. Yet -that- is the root of your code.
Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with free will, but with a "tendency" to evil. A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice. It forces man to struggle through the effort of playing, to bear responsibility and pay for the game, but the decision is weighted in favor of a tendency that he had no power to escape. If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not of his choice, his will is not free.
What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call his Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge—he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil—he became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor—he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire—he acquired the capacity of sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy—all the cardinal values of his existence. It is not his vices that their myth of man's fall is designed to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he was—that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love —he was not man.
Man's fall, according to your teachers, was that he gained the virtues required to live. These virtues, by their standard, are his Sin. His evil, they charge, is that he's man. His guilt, they charge, is that he lives.
They call it a morality of mercy and a doctrine of love for man.
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Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 2:15 pm
What a pretty Mushroom Cloud. smile
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 5:00 pm
I think there should be more than self interest in our lives. We are all part of a socio-economic group - a tribe of sorts. There are others around us that we need and need us. Were we to be consumed with simple self interest, what would happen to them?
We can't escape the ties that bind us.
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 11:48 pm
You have made a common mistake when it comes to understanding what Objectivism means when it advocates selfishness and independance. Most people's ideas of these things have become skewed over time to include things which are not really in one's best interest when considered wide range and long term. Objectivism supports "rational self interest", meaning you can't just act on whatever stupid whim may come to you at any moment. Objectivism does not support violating other people's rights and/or being a general a*****e for many reasons including strongly that rights come from facts common to the nature of all human people, so to deny the rights of other innocent people is to deny reason for you to have rights either. Also, though this would take a significantly longer explanation and it is also a common misunderstanding, Objectivism's support of independance does not mean you have to go live out alone in the woods as a hermit making everything you use. Nor does it mean you can't care about and want to aid any other people ever. Other people can provide value in your life, thus it is fine to care about other people who do so. Objectivism does not advocate indifference to the rest of humanity - the rest of humanity has a lot to offer you in the way of being able to improve the quality and quantity of life you may have in many ways over what you could have by your lonesome as that hermit in the woods. Here's a little more info on things related to these subjects, most of which the first one or two excerpts on the page should give you a fine enough general idea on what the philosophy holds on the subjects to let you know either where you misunderstood what the philosophy advocates (like the mistaken belief it is against valuing other people) or why it is against something (namely, I mean your suggestion of some need to be tied to tirbes like economic class): IndependenceIndividualismSelfishnessCollectivismCooperationLonelinessLoveTribalism
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Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 6:11 pm
True capitalism, sadly, doesn't exist. A few people end up controlling the whole thing through corrupt means. 2% controlling 95% of the wealth? How is that a good idea?
Also, capitalism encourages the status quo as big business has a vested interest in maintaining things as they are. Oil companies anyone?
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Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 7:41 am
*sigh* I'd spent some time writing a longer, more comprehensive response to this, but in which time I got logged out and it ate my post when I hit "submit" and had me log in and made me start over. gonk The quick, crappy summary of the old post which I am no longer in the mood to rewrite all over again is as follows: Yes, we don't really have capitalism anywhere on Earth right now and haven't been even close for quite a long time. What we have is a really screwy "mixed economy" where we have some freedom of choice in our economic activities, then other aspects where the government coerces us in myriad ways for ends ranging from supposedly aiming to force aid for unfortunates to paying off or keeping in office politicians. I had longer, better examples and explanations of how this plays out to generally damage people, typically the very people the laws are supposed to aid, but oh well. The third and sixth quoted sections here are good and relevant on why I think some small number of people having more wealth than the majority of people is not necessarily always wrong, though granted due to our current mixed economy, government force (or maybe occasionally committing some other legitimate crimes like theft or fraud) has lead to some people becoming richer than they legitimately should be: Money. As for oil, there's a couple good articles on why you need not fear oil under capitalism either, but only the first section of those is available online for free, so just know that there does exist out there somebody who has done careful examination of this issue and come up with oil not leading to crazy bad stuff under capitalism. He's got a book he's working on on that topic coming out in the near future I think too actually. Ah well, end of cruddy post re-write.
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