Being an objectivist should feel like having superpowers

[moralist]

What happens when they retire?

--Brant

I can't speak for others, only for myself. I'll retire when I'm dead and someone else will take my place.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Marcus, I think you think you came up with something terrific and brought it here to benefit us and Objectivism. I appreciate your effort and generosity in that and there is certainly much to think about in what you wrote, but what OL wants--I want anyway--is firewood--or food for thought. Not a finished product. The finished product gets de-finished, torn open, manipulated, examined and re-examined. Rebuilt. Thrown away, maybe. Stomped on to see if it breaks and kicked in the ass if only for fun. If you didn't know this is a proving ground and not a school room you can get traumatized if only by the shock of finding out.

--Brant

[moralist]

This is a small matter, regardless. The (religious) trap is in thinking one's pride is necessarily sinful.

--Brant

Now, that all depends in what a person takes pride...

Many people take great personal pride in the evil they do. While those who love goodness derive much personal satisfaction in What they allow to express Itself through them.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

What happens when they retire?

--Brant

I can't speak for others, only for myself. I'll retire when I'm dead and someone else will take my place.

Greg

Will you be a dead Objectivist--if you were a living Objectivist--or a used-to-be-Objectivist because you ain't workin' no more?

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Marcus,

You might be interested to know that in copywriting for marketing, when they talk about crafting an origin story, they emphasize that you must provide a clear explanation of the "superpower" you have and how it came about.

Since most marketing is premised on how to position fulfilling a need or solving a problem, the superpower is whatever you have that the prospect and customer does not.

That's why they call it a superpower.

As to the responses, one of the best superpowers you can develop is what I call the cognitive before normative approach. Try to understand the reactions before judging them. This is very hard to do when something speaks to your gut and causes a visceral reaction. That's what makes it a superpower.

(It's something the ones who reacted could have done better, too, but they're generally very good at it. I know what they're reacting to, which is one of the reasons I initially didn't want to post on the thread.)

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

The trick to the issue or matter presented by Marcus is to render it out of Objectivism, in whole or part or parts, and see if it can stand on its own.

--Brant

instead of Objectivist man, just as a man or human being

[anthony]

Reaching for the best within you, doing the best you can do, is not the same as being the best as a goal. That last can powerfully motivate someone as in sports, but it's not to be found in the writings of Ayn Rand, even her advocation of moral perfection--wrong as it was--was not to be the best morally.

--Brant

Yes. It's easy to look at the apparent "best" in their field of talent, and draw heroic qualities from them. Naturally we do it; so far as sportsmen go, I've also had my favourites - always (for me) individuals who portray quiet strength and character under pressure. The intense work and commitment they undertake to get there, is *implicit* in their partially-completed product, not so much their *explicit* deeds. At times I find the "best" in the man or woman who didn't win.

(There again, a few famed athletes are murderers, so that's how much we know of sportsmen's characters, or any public personae, in reality).

This "perfection" thing (in Objectivism) is fraught with potential harm.

If one fails to recognise that plenty - maybe most - behind O'ist ethics, politics etc., is indeed implicit (in hard won character, conviction and virtue) it is going to be a handful to take in - and to live by. The explicit is derived from the implicit - or should, otherwise we drop the context.

Undoubtedly, an individual is similar to an iceberg: most of him buried below the water line - you can't see it, except by extrapolation, deduction and induction over a lengthy period, and of course, by comparing what he/she acts on, in word and deed. Their integrity. Even then, most stays hidden.

Roark for instance is a great and memorable character, but if the reader doesn't connect the dots, to what emotions and thoughts he must have had, underneath it all, you end up with an over-rationalistic, 'explicit hero', one of no use to us ultimately - since he is implicitly 'unreal'.

I think an artist (Rand, here) presumes on a thoughtful and experienced reader, one who surmizes deeper: I suppose she presumed, like every artist, that "obviously" there is more to her creation than "what you see, is what you get". A rational person is always a work in progress, aiming at perfection but not conclusively arriving. (Thank god).

Yet, it's telling that her non-perfect protagonists were, to her "my ideal men and women".

For that reason apparently she upheld Romanticism as the exponent of "Man is a being of volitional consciousness".

Many of a living person's private heroic deeds will go unseen and unacknowledged, known only to himself.

Looking only for the surface results (one's own, especially), in a rationalistic and intrinsicist manner, is a sure-fire formula for an Objectivist to become a disillusioned ex-Objectivist, I believe.

[moralist]

Will you be a dead Objectivist--if you were a living Objectivist--or a used-to-be-Objectivist because you ain't workin' no more?

--Brant

Can't answer that because I'm not an "ideologically pure" big O Objectivist. My relationship to the ideology of Ayn Rand is through being an independent American Capitalist producer doing business out in the real world, and not through the intellectual study of Objectivism.

People talk about the end of the world as if it was a final universal event, when it is constantly unfolding. The simple truth is, this world comes to an end for you when you die.

As to what we are or aren't after that is another topic entirely.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Will you be a dead Objectivist--if you were a living Objectivist--or a used-to-be-Objectivist because you ain't workin' no more?

--Brant

Can't answer that because I'm not an "ideologically pure" big O Objectivist. My relationship to the ideology of Ayn Rand is through being an independent American Capitalist producer doing business out in the real world, and not through the intellectual study of Objectivism.

People talk about the end of the world as if it was a final universal event, when it is constantly unfolding. The simple truth is, this world comes to an end for you when you die.

As to what we are or aren't after that is another topic entirely.

Greg

The more you talk the more you revert to the mean.

--Brant

I mean the more sense you make

[Brant Gaede]

The central flaw in Rand's philosophy--Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand , not necessarily Objectivism the philosophy of anyone else--is the idea of human perfectibility, aka, the perfect man. The communists and the Nazis had the same idea. In spite of some mistakes, Marcus's proposition that started this thread is more congruent with Ayn Rand than I am so it was no wonder he was confused at its reception here.

The proper starting place for consideration of a philosophy is human beings as they are--and the ending place--not as they might, could or ought to be; that's up to them. Rand said this is my way or the highway but if Objectivism doesn't mean objectifying it's a cult and that's what happened to it. This is the moral construct for John Galt and her other fictional heroic characters. This human utopianism carried over to political utopianism sweeping up the libertarians. It's one thing to advocate for human rights and the human rights tradition qua government, it's quite another to imagine and insist on perfection in government any more than perfection in a human being. The libertarians--some of them--quite rightly noted the impossibility of such governance through what they saw as state politics--rights would have to be violated if for no other reason than to rake in taxes to pay for it plus the problem they saw of consent (which I consider bogus)--so get rid of government in exchange for some kind of voluntary governance. At least they didn't feed at the Rand table of human perfectability and let you breathe.

Now Rand was no totalitarian, of course. Her ideas of perfectibility were for individual human beings not any collective of them, much less a political one. But she did not much encourage critical thinking and the individualism needed for that. She left us with a catechism. Culturally her philosophy died with her. That was 90% of the whole, give or take whatever. It's somewhat replicable. To the extent that would be rational is up to the would-be replicators. It's something I do myself for myself referencing myself. Just as people are universally the same qua human being ("qua man"), every one of them is different even in the rare instances of identical DNA.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

The central flaw in Rand's philosophy--Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand , not necessarily Objectivism the philosophy of anyone else--is the idea of human perfectibility, aka, the perfect man.

But Rand's art also can be interpreted as representing the opposite idea: That human's are fated to their individual deterministic natures. After all, her fictional heroes and heroines didn't actually choose their live's courses freely or struggle to develop talents which they lacked. Rather, they followed the path that was placed in front of them by either their family traditions of employment or by their pre-existing natural talents and interests. They were born able. The one character who wasn't a villain, and wasn't born with a golden spoon in his mouth or pre-existing focus/interest/talent, Eddie Willers, wasn't able to escape his destiny and rise to the level of those who were born giants.

J

[Brant Gaede]

The central flaw in Rand's philosophy--Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand , not necessarily Objectivism the philosophy of anyone else--is the idea of human perfectibility, aka, the perfect man.

But Rand's art also can be interpreted as representing the opposite idea: That human's are fated to their individual deterministic natures. After all, her fictional heroes and heroines didn't actually choose their live's courses freely or struggle to develop talents which they lacked. Rather, they followed the path that was placed in front of them by either their family traditions of employment or by their pre-existing natural talents and interests. They were born able. The one character who wasn't a villain, and wasn't born with a golden spoon in his mouth or pre-existing focus/interest/talent, Eddie Willers, wasn't able to escape his destiny and rise to the level of those who were born giants.

J

Houston, we've got two problems.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Rand started with adults and had no idea of them struggling through childhood and teenage years the little she touched down there at all. She didn't even have a good grasp of male sexuality in her fiction. She didn't have time to rewrite The Fountainhead to get Roark going sexually sooner as she wanted to, but that wasn't the problem with Atlas Shrugged. The sexual dynamics are all wrong, muted, sacrificed to plot structure. The novel was written by the numbers, but the narrative power was so great and the ideas so big as to obscure that.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

The doctrine of "man is perfectible" is the root of all evil with utopias.

Setting aside the issues of perfectible according to what standard, the result is always the same: a big honking us-versus-them mentality dividing mankind into those who adhere and those who don't, increasing frustration by those who promote the perfectibility doctrine because people just don't become perfect the way they are supposed to, domination by a central figure, and bitter power struggles at the core.

There have been times people who thought like this gained political power. The results have not been good. Human engineering kicked in to perfect everyone and and mass murder ended up being the result.

Rand made it personal that God was supposed to be moral perfection--she said she found this offensive. Not only that, she is said to have come to this conclusion as a child.

I wish she had come up with a more organic form of thinking about morality. For an example of organic, what would perfect growth look like? Death? That's where it always goes. Does perfect mean anything here? No. The idea of perfect is just not applicable unless the person saying it is doing a bait and switch in meanings.

Morality is a "code of values to guide man's choices." That's the Objectivist canon. So what would a morally perfect person be according to that standard? Infallible in choosing values pegged to a code? Infallible in intending to choose such values? Infallible commitment? Infallible choice of code? Or how about this? Claiming that infallible does not belong to the concept of perfection. I could go on, but none of that makes any sense.

Besides, we live in waves of awareness and temperament within constantly changing contexts.

I can almost hear objections pointing to the other side of the dichotomy, but I don't think the solution is to say man is imperfect.

I think it is to blast the idea of perfection as a standard out of moral thinking altogether. It just doesn't apply.

I can understand a strong commitment. Rational decisions. Things like that. Strong and weak work for me as moral standards. Perfection and imperfection do not.

Way back when, my conducting master, Maestro Eleazar De Carvalho, always used to say that perfection was the beginning of decadence because you had nowhere to go after you reach perfection but down. That used to bother me because it clashed with Rand's pronouncements, even though I could never logically refute it. Now I believe it is one valid way of looking at the issue, especially seeing that if you stop moving you die.

In this way of thinking, death is perfection and life is not. Or you could say that life itself is perfect. But none of that really means anything about volition, so I think perfection has nothing to do with it.

I do believe in perfect actions--one by one--because they can be measured against a standard, but not perfect moral lives. That kind of standard takes agency away from the individual--or worse, puts him in a situation where his only fundamental choice is to follow (or not) a single path that someone else has determined.

In the way I think now, someone who accepted that would be a perfect fool.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Man is NOT perfectible but in many respects man is improvable. We can upgrade our health. We can adapt healthy habits and live longer. And we can learn new stuff and become somewhat smarter. That is not perfection, but it is substantial improvement.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

My point is I don't even know what a perfect man would look like.

Do you?

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Bob,

My point is I don't even know what a perfect man would look like.

Do you?

Michael

Look like? Sure. There's a statue of him in Florence. The replica is outside; the original inside.

--Brant

now, we gotta get him moving

[Selene]

TUSCANY PICTURES > FAMOUS STATUE OF DAVID FLORENCE CITY TUS...

I thought you meant this one...

Or, this one ... I have always liked this statue even before I read Ayn,,,

[Brant Gaede]

Not the best angle, Adam.

--Brant

I think Ayn said use sight and touch

[Selene]

Not the best angle, Adam.

Well that would depend on your point of view now, would it not?

[Brant Gaede]

Not the best angle, Adam.

Well that would depend on your point of view now, would it not?

Not if we objectify the esthetics.

--Brant

stay out of this, Jonathan

[moralist]

Man is NOT perfectible but in many respects man is improvable. We can upgrade our health. We can adapt healthy habits and live longer. And we can learn new stuff and become somewhat smarter. That is not perfection, but it is substantial improvement.

That's a good approach, Bob.

An ideal should be perfect. And like the horizon, we can constantly aspire to journey towards it with the understanding that we can never arrive.

Greg

[Selene]

Not the best angle, Adam.

Well that would depend on your point of view now, would it not?

Not if we objectify the esthetics.

--Brant

stay out of this, Jonathan

Lol!

[tmj]

Perfection is hard. I think you can only find it in Plato's forms.

I mean look at baseball , a perfect game is a little onesided, a 'real' perfect game couldn't be, 27 up and down vs 27 up and down , tie, extra innings.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The video below, to me, presents an attitude about as close to moral perfection as you can get. (I shouldn't say that because I don't believe the standard of perfection applies, but I'm mixing it up and getting in the middle right now.)

And it's about making mistakes.

Brian Goldman: Doctors make mistakes. Can we talk about that?

As the good doctor well showed, the quest for perfection always leads to the land of shame and exhaustion. (Does that remind you of anything in your past... Hmmmm?... ) Like Death Valley, there are many ways in and only one way out:

Change the quest.

Keep the nobility, the rationality, the heroism, the struggle, the triumph, the productivity, the achievement, the self-interest, even the competitiveness (when appropriate), all of it, but base it on human nature.

Do not base it on a deduction from a projection, from a mental construct that ignores observation.

Michael