[Christopher]

The more I read about psychology, the more it is impressed upon me that humans are psychologically built to form into groups. Group hierarchies, categorization of self into group, adoption of group values,... the list goes on and on, and the evidence accumulates to show that group organization is not a maladaptive cognitive side effect, it is a deeply embedded and seemingly purposeful design.

We need people. We need people not just to trade with, not just to romance with, we need people to feel inclusive with. We need inclusion. So how does this fit in with Objectivism?

I don't think NBranden ever suggested that people don't need others. It is almost intrinsic within the concept of self-worth that there is a wider context against which the self is judged. NB's position appears to be that we do need others, but not at the cost of sacrifice to one's own values. This means that groups, such as a group of Objectivists who support independent thinking and independent values, could actually be quite healthy (provided they actually acknowledge one's unique beliefs and offer more than judgment).

I recall Branden discussing two factors that bring beings together: the first was his observations of a plant in which he derived a sense of shared experience with the plant in-so-far as both he and the plant were alive and struggling to survive. His second observation was the Mutnick Principle, in which he states that people need to feel visible to other life, people need to be responded to as they see themselves. Rand additionally stated that people need others to admire, perhaps being the opposite side of the Mutnick coin.

So that's it. We need people. It's easy I suppose to disregard our need for people given strong Objectivist values, but that fractures our psychological integrity.

And while discussing this thread, it integrates well with spirituality. For one, compassion is a way of seeing other people and eventually all life through a certain lense. The lense of compassion, usually trained through practice and meditation, seems very similar to NB's first observation of shared experience with the plant. Compassion is just self-love, then extending that self love (based on one's life) to the lives of all others. I actually think this is a more natural state of being than being callous and cold to others. One could call practices which nurture compassion to be mystical, but really they are practices to rid oneself of cognitive illusions that hide more fundamental human-value circuitry. Certainly what we think is not entirely who we are.

Christopher

[Selene]

"We need people. We need people not just to trade with, not just to romance with, we need people to feel inclusive with. We need inclusion. So how does this fit in with Objectivism?"

Perfectly.

[Darrell Hougen]

Christopher, on May 16 2009, 07:22 PM, said:

We need people. We need people not just to trade with, not just to romance with, we need people to feel inclusive with. We need inclusion. So how does this fit in with Objectivism?

We should be careful about how we use the word "need." Did Robinson Crusoe need other people? If he did, how was he able to survive without them for a time? Of course, Robinson Crusoe is fictional, but the character is based on real life episodes of people being stranded by themselves on desert islands for extended periods of time. In my understanding of the Objectivist view, people don't need each other, but other people can be valuable.

The values that a person can gain from being around each other are knowledge and trade. But, knowledge goes beyond the kind of abstract knowledge that one might obtain from a science book and trade goes beyond explicit transactions. A friend is basically someone to bounce ideas off of and someone that will be there if you need him. Whether you're discussing philosophy or how to create a better fish lure, you're gaining knowledge. And, because your relationship is mutually beneficial, you know you can trust the other person to help you if something were to go wrong in your life that was beyond your control. He might even try to help you when it was totally your own fault, knowing that his life would be better if he could help you get back to your old self.

Friendship is just one example, and there are legitimate examples involving more than two people as well. But, the point is that there are generally all kinds of advantages to being around other people and Objectivism recognizes those advantages. Of course, there may come a point when there are disadvantages as well, and at that point Objectivism would council moving in a different direction.

Darrell

[Judith]

Darrell Hougen, on May 16 2009, 11:11 PM, said:

We should be careful about how we use the word "need." Did Robinson Crusoe need other people? If he did, how was he able to survive without them for a time?

I think that Nathaniel Branden and others use the word "need" to refer to things that lead us to flourish and live at our best, not to things without which we would literally die. Think more along the lines of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I don't necessarily agree with Maslow's hierarchy; for example, he rates sex pretty high in importance, and many nuns and monks seem to choose lives of celibacy quite voluntarily and at the ends of their lives show no regret whatsoever.

Judith