Here we go again on perfection

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here we go again on perfection

I came across a post by Anoop Verma on Facebook that referenced an article in The Objective Standard:

Dave Rubin and the Argument from Depravity

Once again, someone from O-Land takes a comment to ridiculous lengths to prop up his own ideology and show how more Objectivist than Ayn Rand he can be. Does anyone really believe that David Rubin thinks humans are not good enough for dictatorships because they are not perfect? Nobody thinks that. It's stupid to even say it. But that's what the author argues.

And that comes from the "man is perfectible" error present in all utopian thinking. (Unfortunately, Rand does make that error, although, oddly enough, most of the application of her philosophy--even in her own examples and discussions--does not depend on this as a foundational principle.)

I ended up writing a long post to this and thought, why on earth am I doing this over there and not over here?

So here is what I wrote, not even one hour ago:

Over time I have rejected the doctrine that man is a perfectible being. In practice, it always boils down to who wants to do the perfecting of others. And that always leads to control freaks. 

Everytime I look at this belief in practice, I end up seeing evil. At the most benign (like in O-Land), it leads to a hostile and snarky ingroup of conformers, not truly independent thinkers and high-end achievers. But at least nonviolence is baked into O-Land. Out in human history, this belief has led to some really nasty bloody and repressive utopic regimes. Millions and millions of people have been sacrificed on the altar that man is perfectible according to an ideology.

What's worse, in every case I have seen, this is only a belief. Actual perfection never comes. Not in reality.

Bleh...

There's even a logical problem with this in O-Land. There is an inherent contradiction in bashing original sin, but making a presupposition that man is born morally defective (or somehow becomes morally defective as he grows from an infant) and must morally perfect himself by choice. If that isn't a form of original sin, I don't know what is.

The more I study, the more I learn that the human brain evolved in different stages under different environments. Sometimes, a feature for obtaining and/or maintaining values that worked in one environment was not good for another, but once it evolved, it didn't go away. Each new feature piled on top of the former ones. That's why humans evolved having a few contradictory urges. 

For example, fight/flight responses constantly cause the brain to overreact to non-threats in urban environments. Humans rarely have to fight saber-tooth tigers these days. But stifling the fight/flight responses for, say, a car cutting you off on the road, leads to road rage, or at least anxiety--and you can't ignore these responses and hope they will go away. They won't. That creates a need for instructions on how to handle them and still feel OK inside. This has nothing to do with being perfect or depraved, or even choosing to be perfect or depraved. (That perfect/depraved thing is a false dichotomy if reality is the standard.) 

I once wrote a long time ago that man can do morally perfect actions, one action at a time. But once an action is done, man has to do the next and there is no guarantee it will be an equally morally perfect action. There is no way to automate this (i.e., be a morally perfect person who automatically never acts immorally under any circumstance). You have to use your brain wherever you go if you want to use morality. And a reality comes with that, starting with the law of identity.

Where choice is involved, the possibility of making a bad choice always exists. There's no way to guarantee that you will always make a morally good choice. Like all organic living things, your brain gets tired at times and you screw up. Add that to a few conflicting evolved urges and the true need for morality becomes quite clear (at least to me). Morality is not a straightjacket-like blueprint for creating perfect beings--for molding people into morally perfect zombies according to some ideology or other. 

Morality is a verbalized way (a code) for a person to keep a modular organic and complicated brain on track according to chosen values, some of which are extremely hard to gain and/or keep. Especially since the lower parts of the brain have a nature of their own that will not be ignored. You can--and should--want to do your best to the extent you are able (that is, if you want a good quality of life), but there is no guarantee of outcome.

In other words, you can do morally perfect things according to a standard of perfection because humans can isolate and delimit the context and variables, thus establish what perfection means, but you cannot be a morally perfect being because the standard of perfection for a whole human being is always the ideological brainchild of someone, not a condition of reality. Notice that these people never take the whole brain into account, only the part that fits their beliefs. Besides, no single person has the omniscience required to set such a standard for all people in all places and for all times, past, present and future. Man's size is limited by nature. And that goes for those who come up with ideologies. That is "the given."

To use a metaphor, you can project a horizon and strive toward it, but a horizon is always a limited perception and interpretation, not a thing in reality. So you never get there. The more you strive toward a horizon, the more it recedes--you literally chase after your own interpretation of what you perceive. You can, however, get to specific destinations like cities.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

The best one can do is hang his morally perfect hat on the non-initiation of force principle.

Objectivism never realized its natural gravitas through the integration of that principle with rational self interest. And libertarianism never found its moral footing by the same integration from the political perspective. The primary cause was Rand's blowing off libertarianism in what was obviously a turf war. She actually blew off politics, the weakest part of her philosophy, by blowing off almost all political soldiers, even avowed Objectivists--I mean, "students of Objectivism." So the libertarians blew her off, the likes of John Hospers notwithstanding.

Moralizing does not gravitas make. Starting with Galt's speech moralizing has been the leitmotif of Objectivism. What happened consequently has been the emasculation of would-be Objectivists always afraid of crossing Rand. Hence the evaporation of her intellectual empire under Peikoff, who tried to continue in kind until today's dead-end success.

The only way to transcend the religious gravitas of implicit American conservatism is through science and pantheism. Reality is God and God is Reality with its greater emphasis on empiricism. Jesus the son of God becomes Jesus the criticized prophet unless we all be--men and women--sons of God. Salvation through Jesus Christ becomes salvation through morality and rationality and right living. Hoi polloi can (could) and will (would) still find the Gestalt power of existential salvation through classical Christianity, no thinking required but still available for other uses through mental compartmentalization. Essentially faith is for the next world and reason is for this world. Or, faith is for the Sabbath and reason for the rest of the week, assuming no emergency requiring turning on the faith faucet when nothing else is to be done.

--Brant

[anthony]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

The best one can do is hang his morally perfect hat on the non-initiation of force principle.

Objectivism never realized its natural gravitas through the integration of that principle with rational self interest. And libertarianism never found its moral footing by the same integration from the political perspective. 

--Brant

1

But what one does ~not~ do (NIOF) to others, is hardly the moral gauge, or the peak a person can achieve of moral 'perfection', however one defines it.

(I didn't hurt, steal from, defraud anyone today...how good I am ;)

 Said brilliantly in my favorite from Aristotle: "I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law".

It's clear from Rand that individual rights in society are the final derivation from man's life, the nature of man's mind and essential freedom to act, supporting an individual's choices, values and purpose. For any Objectivist, I argue - who knows well and ascribes to the reasoning of this conceptual chain, one deals with other individuals by a fundamental criterion - "man's life" - and the inviolability of their mind and body, not primarily from "fear" of imposing on their individual rights - or of initiating force. Which rather seems to be the libertarian standard of moral conduct.

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

9 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Notice that these people never take the whole brain into account, only the part that fits their beliefs.

This certainly applies to Ayn Rand. After she defined man as "rational animal" (with hat tip to Aristotle, genus and differentia and all), she dug in inducing, deducing and concluding all kinds of philosophical stuff on the rational part--and left out the animal part, except when, sporadically, something minor animal-wise caught her eye.

Moral perfection in Objectivism serves almost exclusively the rational part of the brain. In other words, it is based on misidentifying the nature of the human brain by leaving out the other evolved parts, why they evolved, how they operated back when they first appeared and how they operate now in current environments--including the observable conflicts all this produces in modern humans.

That's a big omission. 

To be fair, I hold Rand got the reason part right. She didn't factor in the rest of the brain, though, except in arbitrary instances. So moral perfection in Objectivism applies to only part of a human being, not all of him or her. That's why you don't find moral perfection in real people as defined in Objectivism. You do find glimpses of it but that's about the best you ever get. And that's as it should be since the whole brain is not considered in this view of morality.

But, that being the case, how misleading is it to call that perfection?

I say it's misleading like all high-powered marketing is. In other words, moral perfection in Objectivism is a sales message, not a metaphysical condition.

Frankly, I loathe coming to this conclusion after living most of my life with Objectivism as my moral guide, but facts are facts. I, myself, wanted that outcome when I first came across Rand's works and I swallowed that promise whole without a second thought. After all, who in their youth does not want to be perfect? So I went in the wide end of the sales funnel (where the big promised outcome is always made) and gradually lost my ability to move in reality as I went along an ever-narrowing path of adhering to a bunch of rules made up by others.

When does a principle become an arbitrary rule? When it is used to shape the narrowing tube of an ideological funnel, that's when. I.e., when reality stops being the standard and other people take over. When this happens, it happens gradually and you never notice it until you are in it. 

It wasn't easy to spit myself out of that, either. Who wants to give up being perfect?  

But once I let go of the illusions and just looked at reality as if I had never read a word of Rand, I was able to re-evaluate her ideas through a dispassionate rational lens, not through the lens that I was superior to others because I could be perfect and they not. Things actually started making sense in a way they never did before. I can tell you, I no longer have any secret anxiety nagging at my soul. 

Fortunately, there is an enormous amount of value in Objectivism--yes, even and especially moral value--if we manage to let the bluster go. We have to add neuroscience and modern psychology to the Objectivist view of the human mind to make that value universal--and we have to take the facts as what they are as they are discovered, not what we want them to be instead. That means we have to weed out the arbitrary overreach in Rand's rhetoric and keep the good stuff. I don't know about you, but when I do that, Objectivism becomes cool for me again--and best of all, without needing to follow any Objectivist tribe for validation.

If one adheres to defending Rand's bluster at all costs, we get idiocies like the conclusions in the article at the start of this thread, and we get all those snarky underachievers that permeate the Objectivist subcommunity.

Michael

[KorbenDallas]

I don't like the idea of moral perfection/imperfection, I think the dichotomy needs to be thrown out.  To me it's too close to a Christian idea.

It should be about attaining values, man's experience.  A man should attain his values, if he doesn't then figure out what went wrong and move on.  Keep striving for them, have self-fulfillment and enjoyment, and fight for values if necessary.  What is necessary is to have values, project them, strive and work for them---have high standards, but the moral perfection/imperfection dichotomy isn't necessary to hold in one's consciousness to have a happy, healthy life.

[anthony]

13 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

 

There's even a logical problem with this in O-Land. There is an inherent contradiction in bashing original sin, but making a presupposition that man is born morally defective (or somehow becomes morally defective as he grows from an infant) and must morally perfect himself by choice. If that isn't a form of original sin, I don't know what is.

 

 

 

Michael

 

Michael,

There're thoughtful points in your post. In line with "original sin", I've never seen anywhere Rand asserting moral defection at birth, or becoming so from infancy. The blank (conceptual) slate is what man is born as (AR wrote). Therefore morally neutral (innocently pre-moral, I'd put it) at first, as one grows the volitional consciousness comes to the fore and rationally moral choices start being made, or not.

I think whatever "perfectability", is of a target to aim for. There is no one watching and judging, of course. It is only oneself who assesses one's successes of meeting challenges - failing sometimes - and attaining values and virtues, by a *real* standard of moral perfection, what is right and proper to man. As one's knowledge can't be "perfect" or 'total' (by divine revelation, intrinsicism) neither can one's morality. 

This is a mind-body integrated philosophy, not dualist nor reductive materialist. (Whatever scientific findings are learned, I have seen no contradiction with neuroscience, biology, etc. Exactly the reverse: neuroscience and neural pathways are fully bearing out a volitional mind).

I also don't believe there is or should be a Utopia in Objectivism, which always, as you say roughly, must need force to attempt to achieve, and will self-destruct anyhow. I don't know, maybe "Galt's Gulch" has given some Objectivists this vision? There isn't going to be an O'ist society. Its worth is going to expand greatly, however, as a powerful influence on thinking, ethics, individual rights, politics - values - in several societies in these cynical or nihilist times..

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, anthony said:

In line with "original sin", I've never seen anywhere Rand asserting moral defection at birth, or becoming so from infancy.

Tony,

It's an inference. Rand never used the phrase "morally defective at birth," but she sure did use the concept. And, she probably used a tad bit of a blank-out. (Her explanation of how an infant "chooses" to learn to see, instead of this being an involuntary automatic growth process, is a bit of a concept-twister, for example. Just because a persan can choose to look at something, that doesn't mean the only way the person looks at something is by choice alone. I don't think she had much space in her black-and-white thinking for biological processes that are both automatic and partially volitional. But this exists, like breathing, for instance...)

Think about it. If, according to Rand, a person MUST become morally perfect by volition (starting by exercising the fundamental choice "to think or not to think") and there is no other way for humans to become morally perfect, the only conclusion you can make is that man is not born morally perfect. Right? That means he has to choose his perfection from a starting point of some sort, right? And that starting point is the rub.

What's the word for not morally perfect? It's imperfect. And by the standard of moral perfection, imperfect is a defect.

But I see where you are coming from, so let's look at it. Since a newborn has no language, thus cannot exercise rational volition, the question arises: At which point in growth, at which age, is a human being responsible for choosing moral perfection? Seven? Twelve? When? And what do you call the starting point? Perfect? Imperfect? Neutral?

Well, how does neutral work? Obviously, if the child can't be perfect, he or she has to be imperfect. If we can excuse newborns from this idea, we cannot excuse the later child when the volitional faculty matures. According to Rand's logic, the child will grow up to be morally imperfect unless he or she chooses otherwise. That means the automatic default growth position is moral imperfection. Man is born defective unless he chooses to perfect himself 

And that, my friend, is a form of original sin with moral choice being the only path to salvation. The only thing missing is the talking snake.  

Just because someone (like Rand) doesn't normally use a word or phrase when examining or writing about an issue, that doesn't give that person the right to ignore the underlying concept and still consider his or her conclusions about the issue complete and correct.

I once heard a very wise lady keep saying, "Check your premises."  

I don't believe the logic behind statements like, "Children are not moral until they become morally perfect or morally imperfect by choice," works in Objectivist epistemology. That's not based on any observation I can think of, so it's totally arbitrary. And that makes it a floating abstraction.

Speaking of observation, why not just look? Here's a great example: all children lie. You can see that the world over ever since the beginning of human history. I have never heard of a normal healthy child who has never told a lie. So how does that work in this moral perfection logic? That would obviously mean all children start out as immoral, as morally defective, since they have to choose to lie.

 

I don't see how any other inference using this standard can be arrived at.

btw - As I mentioned above, I no longer think in terms like moral perfection except for identifiable acts. So I have other explanations and observations about why children lie. For example, they're fucking brats, that's why. 

Michael

 

[BaalChatzaf]

12 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

It's an inference. Rand never used the phrase "morally defective at birth," but she sure did use the concept. And, she probably used a tad bit of a blank-out. (Her explanation of how an infant "chooses" to learn to see, instead of this being an involuntary automatic growth process, is a bit of a concept-twister, for example. Just because a persan can choose to look at something, that doesn't mean the only way the person looks at something is by choice alone. I don't think she had much space in her black-and-white thinking for biological processes that are both automatic and partially volitional. But this exists, like breathing, for instance...)

Rand erred when she insisted that humans were totally devoid of instinct.  Not so.  Humans have "wired in"  (i.e. genetically conditioned) modes of operation.  We are all -born- blabber mouths (almost all of us) and that is why speech exists in every human culture all the way back to the emergence of anatomically modern humans (about 100,000 - 150,000 ybp)  and that is why cultural artifacts can be found dating 50,000 ybp.  Humans  are wired to do language which means spoken language primarily.  Writing did not appear as a consistent language modality until  about  10,000 ybp. Writing includes marking days on bone and wood etc.  It is true that once past childhood humans are mostly regulated by learned rules and modes.  But we are bootstrapped by genetically "wired in" ways of operating.

 

[Brant Gaede]

10 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Rand erred when she insisted that humans were totally devoid of instinct.  Not so.  Humans have "wired in"  (i.e. genetically conditioned) modes of operation.  We are all -born- blabber mouths (almost all of us) and that is why speech exists in every human culture all the way back to the emergence of anatomically modern humans (about 100,000 - 150,000 ybp)  and that is why cultural artifacts can be found dating 50,000 ybp.  Humans  are wired to do language which means spoken language primarily.  Writing did not appear as a consistent language modality until  about  10,000 ybp. Writing includes marking days on bone and wood etc.  It is true that once past childhood humans are mostly regulated by learned rules and modes.  But we are bootstrapped by genetically "wired in" ways of operating.

And your definition of "instinct" is . . .?

--Brant

 

[BaalChatzaf]

19 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

And your definition of "instinct" is . . .?

--Brant

 

Genetically determined modes of operation --- as opposed to learned modes of operation.  If we had to learn everything needed for our survival we would not survive.

 

[anthony]

On 3/25/2018 at 3:58 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

It's an inference. Rand never used the phrase "morally defective at birth," but she sure did use the concept. And, she probably used a tad bit of a blank-out. (Her explanation of how an infant "chooses" to learn to see, instead of this being an involuntary automatic growth process, is a bit of a concept-twister, for example. Just because a persan can choose to look at something, that doesn't mean the only way the person looks at something is by choice alone. I don't think she had much space in her black-and-white thinking for biological processes that are both automatic and partially volitional. But this exists, like breathing, for instance...)

Think about it. If, according to Rand, a person MUST become morally perfect by volition (starting by exercising the fundamental choice "to think or not to think") and there is no other way for humans to become morally perfect, the only conclusion you can make is that man is not born morally perfect. Right? That means he has to choose his perfection from a starting point of some sort, right? And that starting point is the rub.

What's the word for not morally perfect? It's imperfect. And by the standard of moral perfection, imperfect is a defect.

But I see where you are coming from, so let's look at it. Since a newborn has no language, thus cannot exercise rational volition, the question arises: At which point in growth, at which age, is a human being responsible for choosing moral perfection? Seven? Twelve? When? And what do you call the starting point? Perfect? Imperfect? Neutral?

Well, how does neutral work? Obviously, if the child can't be perfect, he or she has to be imperfect. If we can excuse newborns from this idea, we cannot excuse the later child when the volitional faculty matures. According to Rand's logic, the child will grow up to be morally imperfect unless he or she chooses otherwise. That means the automatic default growth position is moral imperfection. Man is born defective unless he chooses to perfect himself 

And that, my friend, is a form of original sin with moral choice being the only path to salvation. The only thing missing is the talking snake.  

Just because someone (like Rand) doesn't normally use a word or phrase when examining or writing about an issue, that doesn't give that person the right to ignore the underlying concept and still consider his or her conclusions about the issue complete and correct.

I once heard a very wise lady keep saying, "Check your premises."  

I don't believe the logic behind statements like, "Children are not moral until they become morally perfect or morally imperfect by choice," works in Objectivist epistemology. That's not based on any observation I can think of, so it's totally arbitrary. And that makes it a floating abstraction.

Speaking of observation, why not just look? Here's a great example: all children lie. You can see that the world over ever since the beginning of human history. I have never heard of a normal healthy child who has never told a lie. So how does that work in this moral perfection logic? That would obviously mean all children start out as immoral, as morally defective, since they have to choose to lie.

 

I don't see how any other inference using this standard can be arrived at.

btw - As I mentioned above, I no longer think in terms like moral perfection except for identifiable acts. So I have other explanations and observations about why children lie. For example, they're fucking brats, that's why. 

Michael

 

Michael,

From several places in Rand's writing, I've seen there is no responsibility for a child to be moral, or in any way 'perfect'. Just recall her theory "sense of life": a child's pre-conceptual, emotional and subconscious appraisal of existence. At his/her stages of immature, pre-conceptual dependency on parents, all the while, not, or partially, or poorly, - identifying, -integrating and -evaluating, the youngster - until what age I am not sure, but well into his teens - cannot be capable (yup, lying, included) of being either moral or immoral. (Pre-moral innocence, I like). At that stage, life is 'what happens to you' - in effect - you have no power and no ability to see or select alternatives.

On a volitional, i.e. not automated, non-determinist mind:

"Just as man’s physical survival depends on his own effort, so does his psychological survival. Man faces two corollary, interdependent fields of action in which a constant exercise of choice and a constant creative process are demanded of him: the world around him and his own soul (by “soul,” I mean his consciousness). Just as he has to produce the material values he needs to sustain his life, so he has to acquire the values of character that enable him to sustain it and that make his life worth living. He is born without the knowledge of either. He has to discover both—and translate them into reality—and survive by shaping the world and himself in the image of his values". (The Romantic Manifesto: The Goal of my Writing).

Very much forgotten by O'ists, when discussing volition vs. determinism, is the "psychological" element of survival - "character", broadly (containing one's chosen, self-made virtues) with which one achieves values (A character recognized and appreciated also by similar people around one).

The consciousness according to AR in short, has two inter-relating capacities, action and content, and both are volitional. The second, a mind's content or "soul" is shaped "in the image of his values" and so, literally, forms a reasoned, volitional and chosen *state* of consciousness..

So-called - physical - "muscle memory" well known to sportsmen, motorists, artists, and to any manually skilled, has been validated for a while by neuroscientists and their "neuroplasticity". I think it is plain the brain doesn't stop there: the equivalent in mental terms performs the same thing, simply, new brain pathways being continuously formed by new, regular, revisited and repetitive cognitive experience - the individual "shaping ... himself".

 Aristotle who had self-awareness about 'neuroplasticity', before anyone: 

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act but a habit".

(I think we can dispense with individual "perfection" with its impossible, mystical baggage - and not overplay the single, and possibly random, uncharacteristic "act" - instead to be aimed for is a habit of excellence, in character and action).

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 hours ago, anthony said:

From several places in Rand's writing, I've seen there is no responsibility for a child to be moral...

Tony,

I'm surprised you haven't read "The Comprachicos" by Ayn Rand.

Here's a relevant quote for you from that article (my bold):

Quote

The evidence indicates that some graduates of the Progressive nursery schools do recover and others do not—and that their recovery depends on the degree of their "nonadjustment," i.e., the degree to which they rejected the school's conditioning. By "recovery" I mean the eventual development of a rational psycho-epistemology, i.e., of the ability to deal with reality by means of conceptual knowledge.

It is the little "misfits" who have the best chance to recover—the children who do not conform, the children who endure three years of agonizing misery, loneliness, confusion, abuse by the teachers and by their "peers," but remain aloof and withdrawn, unable to give in, unable to fake, armed with nothing but the feeling that there is something wrong in that nursery school.

These are the "problem children" who are periodically put through the torture of the teachers' complaints to their parents, and through the helpless despair of seeing their parents side with the torturers. Some of these children are violently rebellious; others seem outwardly timid and passive, but are outside the reach of any pressure or influence. Whatever their particular forms of bearing the unbearable, what they all have in common is the inability to fit in, i.e., to accept the intellectual authority of the pack. (Not all "misfits" belong to this category; there are children who reject the pack for entirely different reasons, such as frustrated powerlust.)

The nonconformists are heroic little martyrs who are given no credit by anyone—not even by themselves, since they cannot identify the nature of their battle. They do not have the conceptual knowledge or the introspective skill to grasp that they are unable and unwilling to accept anything without understanding it, and that they are holding to the sovereignty of their own judgment against the terrifying pressure of everyone around them.

These children have no means of knowing that what they are fighting for is the integrity of their minds—and that they will come out of those schools with many problems, battered, twisted, frightened, discouraged or embittered, but it is their rational faculty that they will have saved.

The little manipulators, the "adjusted" little pack leaders, will not. The manipulators have, in effect, sold out: they have accepted the approval of the pack and/or power over the pack as a value, in exchange for surrendering their judgment. To fake reality at an age when one has not learned fully to grasp it—to automatize a technique of deception when one has not yet automatized the technique of perception—is an extremely dangerous thing to do to one's own mind. It is highly doubtful whether this kind of priority can ever be reversed.

The little manipulators acquire a vested interest in evasion. The longer they practice their policies, the greater their fear of reality and the slimmer their chance of ever recapturing the desire to face it, to know, to understand.

The principle involved is clear on an adult level: when men are caught in the power of an enormous evil—such as under the Soviet or Nazi dictatorship—those who are willing to suffer as helpless victims, rather than make terms with the evil, have a good chance to regain their psychological health; but not those who join the G.P.U. or the S.S.

Even though the major part of the guilt belongs to his teachers, the little manipulator is not entirely innocent. He is too young to understand the immorality of his course, but nature gives him an emotional warning: he does not like himself when he engages in deception, he feels dirty, unworthy, unclean. This protest of a violated consciousness serves the same purpose as physical pain: it is the warning of a dangerous malfunction or injury. No one can force a child to disregard a warning of this kind; if he does, if he chooses to place some value above his own sense of himself, what he gradually kills is his self-esteem. Thereafter, he is left without motivation to correct his psycho-epistemology; he has reason to dread reason, reality and truth; his entire emotional mechanism is automatized to serve as a defense against them.

It's in her own words.

The heroic child does the moral fight for his mind. The "little manipulator" sells out.

By choice.

Granted, the understanding of morality to the child is on a young child's level, not an adult's, but Rand is clearly talking about morality and the child's share of volitional responsibility. 

On another point, I want to be clear that the dichotomy you keep referring to, that is volition versus determinism, applies to your frame, not mine. I do not see these things in humans as a dichotomy, as either-or. I see some things determined (like the way heartbeats or digestion work), some things volitional (like planning, learning complex materials, etc.), and some things a combination of both (like breathing).

The way the combination generally works is that the faculty runs automatically (deterministically) but can be overridden by will for limited times and efforts (volition). Once volition disengages, the autopilot returns without any conscious choice involved.

btw - Rand, in her nonfiction including the quote above, constantly says stuff like "the evidence indicates," and then leaves out the evidence. This used to cause me an enormous amount of cognitive dissonance. Nowadays, it merely pisses me off.

Michael

[anthony]

Michael, Yes I remember it. There are past echoes for many of us in there, I am sure. For me it was a directionless rebellion against any authority continuing until about my 30's. And we see it go on worse today, especially from youth in public schooling. However, the overwhelming gist of that essay doesn't place the moral responsibility on the child to understand what's happening to him, and respond rationally. I read it as almost wholly sympathetic to children, with 90% of Rand's blame on the adults/teachers who force conformity on a young mind. There are too, the children who've given in to pressure, accepted the mind-control premises from authorities, (possibly believing it is for their own 'good') and become an imitative "manipulator"in turn. He/she "is not entirely innocent", since their emotions are always informing them of the attack on their values. But how many can have the courage to fight it without knowing it? In my experience, there exist children who have a pronounced, sense of life, independence--perhaps aided by good parenting -- while many don't. I've wondered why some have independent spirit, and how much it can be taught.

That passes the buck back onto other adults even more important than teachers to the young, their parents. Nobody can totally fault a young, impressionable, pre-conceptual mind for what happens to them, they suffer the effects of others' causation much more than initiate cause, themselves. I think you may be too hard on Rand, reading too much into those terrible effects upon minds, Rand describes. For instance, AR- "The manipulators have, in effect, sold out". But "in effect" indicates a consequence without deliberate purpose.

[anthony]

19 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

 

On another point, I want to be clear that the dichotomy you keep referring to, that is volition versus determinism, applies to your frame, not mine. I do not see these things in humans as a dichotomy, as either-or. I see some things determined (like the way heartbeats or digestion work), some things volitional (like planning, learning complex materials, etc.), and some things a combination of both (like breathing).

The way the combination generally works is that the faculty runs automatically (deterministically) but can be overridden by will for limited times and efforts (volition). Once volition disengages, the autopilot returns without any conscious choice involved.

 

Michael

 

If you take (hard) determinism, defined from one source: "... the thesis that there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future". (P. van Inwagen). 

That is evidently false - for humans.

And Man's physicality and biology is a given, and of course - "naturally" - works in determined, automated ways: a. without any interference by the conscious mind - until, or if and when, one chooses to. And b. (in reverse), when the consciousness necessarily answers to the needs of one's biology.  If one accepts rational-animal, mind-body integration, the dichotomy vanishes. 

"A being of volitional consciousness" is carefully and precisely formulated, and doesn't promise "volitional" and 'wished for' actual outcomes more than what it states. It also (I think) doesn't reject the soft determinists' argument that background, upbringing, etc.etc. may have some effect on what we think and do. Which is superficially obvious enough it can be ignored. What it states - we have the choice to aim our consciousness at reality where we want, to think what we want to think and how intensely focussed, and change direction of thought, or end it - or not to begin observation or think too much in the first place. The constant act establishes the conceptual content of a mind, makes value-assessments which embed our values (automating our emotions, finally). All of that action/content, self- initiated and self-made, is physically existing in those 'plastic' neural passages of the brain, the volitional consciousness which has been finally proven.

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

4 hours ago, anthony said:

However, the overwhelming gist of that essay doesn't place the moral responsibility on the child to understand what's happening to him, and respond rationally. I read it as almost wholly sympathetic to children, with 90% of Rand's blame on the adults/teachers who force conformity on a young mind.

Tony,

I never said anything about the overwhelming gist of the essay. And just so we're clear, "90% of Rand's blame on the adults/teachers," is a far cry from this:

23 hours ago, anthony said:

From several places in Rand's writing, I've seen there is no responsibility for a child to be moral...

No responsibility is a lot different than 10% responsibility.

Isn't it?

 

btw - I don't know where your statistic came from. I suspect it is in the same category as I came up with for Napoleon Hill. I once outlined a Think and Grow Rich project--a good one I may add that I still intend to do--but I kept bumping up against a few problems. One was his constant stats assertions like, "95 percent of all human beings procrastinate whenever they... (etc. etc. etc.)." Where did that 95% come from?

Then I decided there was a category of expression in vogue in self-help literature back then (and even today) where specific numerical data bleeds out the math in the numbers and the numbers are used as rhetoric for emphasis, not fact. I coined the term "rhetorical statistics" for myself and wrote this up as part of the project. Once that became clear, my cognitive dissonance went away whenever I came across such statements. I suspect your 90% adults/teacher responsibility that you attributed to Rand falls into this form of expression. I'm not judging this to be good or bad. I'm just mentioning it for the sake of awareness. Probably something to do with my semi-Aspie nature.  )

4 hours ago, anthony said:

Nobody can totally fault a young, impressionable, pre-conceptual mind for what happens to them...

Nobody, and especially not me, is "totally faulting" anyone for anything. I've been clear about that. I even posted Rand's full quote where that is clear.

But, according to your previous statements, you totally exonerate children from moral responsibility. The "total" is on your end, not on this end. However, that's not even constant. In your last post, you gave children 10% moral responsibility and attributed that stat to Rand, if I understood you correctly. But if 10% is present, then something is present and that raises the question of moral perfection in children in Rand's meaning. I agree the adult part (in this context) is evil oppression. But that 10% part better damn well be aimed at moral perfection. Otherwise, the child will be an immoral manipulator. Right?

 

Once again--and let me emphasize this since you have ignored it up to now--I am talking about moral understanding at the level of a child. I get the impression you only refer to the moral understanding of an adult, transpose this to the child, observe that a child does not understand things like an adult does, then say, "See? Ayn Rand was right." That's like saying a child pouring over a picture book and mouthing the words can't read at all because he can't read Kant.  

(Incidentally, don't you ever get tired of the Rand was right/Rand was wrong frame for proving stuff to yourself? That's such a tiresome subtext when digging into an idea. I suppose it's exciting against a true Rand enemy, but I'm not that. Hell, my default worldview came out of reading her books when I was young and that worldview is still intact. So I'm not bashing you for this frame. God knows, that's all I used to use in discussions. But, after I started a deep study routine, the ideas have become far more interesting to me than defending Rand from criticism or jumping for joy when she was proved right.  )

4 hours ago, anthony said:

But how many can have the courage to fight it without knowing it?

Of course you mean "moral courage," right?

Children with moral courage?

And morally perfect moral courage?

Or is the moral courage of such a child ultimately corrupt and depraved?

   

4 hours ago, anthony said:

I think you may be too hard on Rand, reading too much into those terrible effects upon minds, Rand describes. For instance, AR- "The manipulators have, in effect, sold out". But "in effect" indicates a consequence without deliberate purpose.

Not too hard on Rand at all. I'm taking her at her word. I'm not the one saying Rand's phrase doesn't really mean what she said. You are.

In my understanding, "in effect" means if transposed to an adult context. Rand used this phrase a lot when transposing an idea from one context to another.

I can back this up with Rand's words and habits, too. On a words only level and just for the sake of tediousness, here is an example of Rand using the term "in effect." It's from Chapter 5, Definitions, in ITOE (my bold):

Quote

The existential causes of sensations can be described and defined in conceptual terms (e.g., the wavelengths of light and the structure of the human eye, which produce the sensations of color), but one cannot communicate what color is like, to a person who is born blind. To define the meaning of the concept "blue," for instance, one must point to some blue objects to signify, in effect: "I mean this." Such an identification of a concept is known as an "ostensive definition."

Now, on the conceptual level of Rand trying to see through the eyes of another--or from a frame different than the one she was using--in some places she tried to imagine what young people thought. (I think the form of her approach came from being a fiction writer before philosopher, but that's an interesting tangent to get into elsewhere.) For example, from Chapter 2, Concept Formation, in ITOE:

Quote

A child is not and does not have to be aware of all these complexities when he forms the concept "table." He forms it by differentiating tables from all other objects in the context of his knowledge.

Why would not that pattern and principle apply to morality? It obviously does. 

Another quote from the same chapter:

Quote

In order to form the concept "length," the child's mind retains the attribute and omits its particular measurements. Or, more precisely, if the process were identified in words, it would consist of the following: "Length must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity. I shall identify as 'length' that attribute of any existent possessing it which can be quantitatively related to a unit of length, without specifying the quantity."

The child does not think in such words (he has, as yet, no knowledge of words), but that is the nature of the process which his mind performs wordlessly.

I say ditto for understanding of morality.

I don't see how Rand would have--or could have--argued the contrary, either.

(Incidentally, she got some things right and some things wrong about the mental development of children, but that is a longer discussion.)

On an anecdotal level, I once got into an offline dare with Daniel Barnes. He wanted me to go with him to an English language usage Internet group and ask them--without identifying Rand--about whether she rightly or wrongly used English in her statement: "I shall identify as 'length' that attribute of any existent possessing it which can be quantitatively related to a unit of length, without specifying the quantity."

I said sure, so long as he explained to the group that the author was trying to convey in words a preverbal mental process of understanding of a child.

(Rand was trying to say what the meaning was "in effect"--what the child "in effect" was thinking if he had the words to express himself.)

Daniel didn't agree with my condition--he wanted to present the statement without context--so I didn't agree to his experiment. I concluded he only wanted to bash Rand as stupid with me as witness to provide some credibility, not understand her or even critique her writing in any substantive way.

Like I said, I'm well versed in this frame and have done my share of Rand defending.

Now my thing is the ideas.

Besides, I ultimately concluded that Rand did a better job of defending herself than I could.  

Michael

[anthony]

Michael, "Rand trying to see through the eyes of another": For someone not at all connected to "empathy", the many insights Rand commonly made were in fact, empathic, in its proper definition. [Empathy: the power of projecting one's personality into (and so fully comprehending) the object of comprehension. COD]. I believe her ability to project into minds that way meant she could make dozens of true, psychological observations (recall her many about the souls of altruists/collectivists). Right, I'm sure the artist/author in her lent her these insights.

The children who have surrendered to teachers' manipulation, becoming little manipulators themselves, cannot be totally let off the hook. 

Even at a young age, a child is aware of other human beings' 'separateness', along with their shared human capacity to feel physical and emotional pain. Selling out, or passing on the lessons of dominance learned from immoral adults, which would manifest itself in bullying, emotional blackmail, deceit, dishonesty - and various types of manipulation - repeated upon other children. There has to be a measure of self-responsibility in that, since he/she will 'feel' the consequences, emotionally, usually experiencing a sense of shame and guilt, mixed with the sickly pleasure of controlling someone else's mind. They ignore the emotional "warning", as Rand put it, of selling their selves short. Here is the start of sacrificial altruism, I am sure Rand could add.

But for this group who have 'gone along' and "sold out", and for the others who have retreated into bitter and confused rebellion, there isn't "by choice", since choice presupposes a conceptual ability and conscious judgment and moral base. The second group I think simply has a better subconscious grasp of reality and individual sovereignty, and are "heroic", in effect, although Rand stipulates they don't know what they're fighting for. For all their later problems, they will have managed to rescue their rationality and independence, eventually.

"Rand was right/Rand was wrong", maybe you misunderstood my enthusiasm for true ideas, for an unswervingly faithful support for "what Rand said". They can amount to the same thing, but are separate. I remarked earlier I was in rebellion against authority for a long while, and that included for many years stubbornly refusing to accept (even) Rand's 'authority'. (Excepting her ethics, capitalism and rights). If anyone can be accused of trying to re-invent the wheel, that was me! Until I finally delved into studying the epistemology and had validated nearly all of her principles, pronouncements, etc., by my own experiences and thinking, I remained a cynic. Now-- I can point out how spot-on correct she was (and is) when the thinking and principles are properly applied in depth. They aren't *her* principles anymore, after one learns the methodology and makes one's own concepts.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

7 hours ago, anthony said:

But for this group who have 'gone along' and "sold out", and for the others who have retreated into bitter and confused rebellion, there isn't "by choice", since choice presupposes a conceptual ability and conscious judgment and moral base. The second group I think simply has a better subconscious grasp of reality and individual sovereignty, and are "heroic", in effect, although Rand stipulates they don't know what they're fighting for. For all their later problems, they will have managed to rescue their rationality and independence, eventually.

Tony,

If you remove choice, you remove responsibility. What you are essentially saying is that some children are predestined to become immoral and others to become morally good since neither have choice.

Man, talk about determinism... Moral determinism at that...  

Now all we gotta figure out is what determines their morality as kids: genes, society, instincts (oops, I forgot, Rand doesn't agree with human instincts)...  

On another note, I only have access to the fake news over here in America about South Africa where you live.

We've never discussed this, but I presume you are white. (Sorry in advance if I made the wrong presupposition).

In the mainstream news over here, they are killing off whites in South Africa, and/or imprisoning them and confiscating their property.

Is it bad or is this baloney? 

And are you in any danger?

I do worry about you.

Michael

[anthony]

On 4/2/2018 at 6:52 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

If you remove choice, you remove responsibility. What you are essentially saying is that some children are predestined to become immoral and others to become morally good since neither have choice.

Man, talk about determinism... Moral determinism at that...  

Now all we gotta figure out is what determines their morality as kids: genes, society, instincts (oops, I forgot, Rand doesn't agree with human instincts)...  

On another note, I only have access to the fake news over here in America about South Africa where you live.

We've never discussed this, but I presume you are white. (Sorry in advance if I made the wrong presupposition).

In the mainstream news over here, they are killing off whites in South Africa, and/or imprisoning them and confiscating their property.

Is it bad or is this baloney? 

And are you in any danger?

I do worry about you.

Michael

Michael, Thank you for the concern. It's both not quite that bad, and also worse than perceptions from media. While whites like everyone, are at risk from this country's high murder/robbery rate and general lesser disregard for life, there appears a disproportionate rate of white victims, particularly on vulnerable farms. The fact that the stats and figures aren't easily accessible and are most ambiguous from the police, tends to suggest this. You get used to a level of risk and go on, basically.

I am most pessimistic about the direction we are going: it comes down to a dirty, despicable, arrogant and inept ANC government that has gradually been losing ground to both the moderate DA Party (the "white party" it is called, but growing black support contradicts that)  - and to the EFF, a Marxist left party - and corruptly chose the bad option, turning Leftwards to steal back radical voters. With maybe a coalition on the cards also. How better, than extending the bribe of "land for the people", for free? The plan is of seizing "unused" - and guess who judges that - farmland without compensation from traditional white farmers (many of whom have well-looked after their workers, sometimes ceded them parcels of their land) and has had the predictable, not-unintended effect of declaring an open target on any and all white, private property. And so, there have been several so-called 'grassroots' uprisings by mobs in some parts. Of course the issue has been framed racistically, the 'rich' white against 'dispossessed' black by these racists (a minority of the minority of whites are still wealthy, or still here). Only aimed at "the whites", they believe - but there is little public realization that blanketed under this law, future black owners will arbitrarily lose property to the state, too. To say nothing of reducing outside investment coming in, now nationalization of banks and mines is being touted - or the future of food production by the inexperienced farmers. 

There's been frustrated anger expressed by Party leaders, Leftist intellectuals, and others, after a lengthy period of exacting a very plain revenge on whites for the apartheid past - used largely as justification - I saw this coming and worsening, but it passed over our white liberal appeasers who, as usual, don't want to see how much we are hated by the powers that be - and supporters in the street. "You can't keep a good man down", but by the ANC's reckoning the whites should all have been driven under or out, by now, but contrarily we have borne various increasing burdens, "given back" in many ways, while all of us by color have been permanently cut off from finding employment (Gvmt, private or corporate) or business contracts, from gaining state tenders, and have limited university entrance allowances - enforced by over 20 past years of onerous regulations: South Africa's version of Affirmative Action which punishes the minority ... not 'uplifts' as in the USA. Despite that, many of these 8-9% remaining able, ex-producer and creative whites, still seem to manage to adjust, recover and survive (in small businesses, for one.). Who knows for how long the good people - the responsible, competent white AND black citizens - and therefore the country, can last under official policies and laws directed against the good "for being the good"?

[anthony]

On 4/2/2018 at 6:52 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

If you remove choice, you remove responsibility. What you are essentially saying is that some children are predestined to become immoral and others to become morally good since neither have choice.

Man, talk about determinism... Moral determinism at that...  

Now all we gotta figure out is what determines their morality as kids: genes, society, instincts (oops, I forgot, Rand doesn't agree with human instincts)...  

 

Michael

2

Michael,

Not much or at all "predestined" to become immoral/moral - by which we mean ever having reasoning, independent minds - but in that situation, programmed and manipulated. A choice in the matter is severely limited - for a child's preconceptual mind. The cause is 'psychological force' by the very authorities who are charged and trusted with helping develop their minds. Many parents wouldn't be able to see and fault the damage being done to socialize (etc.) their children by these teachers, so what hope has the child to a. understand b. resist it? The early harm to minds isn't carved in stone, but few of those who surrendered might pull out of it, later on - while the 'hold-outs' will usually recover by strength of mind. (We know how some individuals do turn their lives around, perhaps you, personally, too). "A volitional consciousness" continues to apply, for life.

However: certainly there'll be a reduced capability to undo their early inroads on selfhood (individual 'sovereignty') and the majority will remain stuck in that moral determinism, which has to have an immoral outcome . A belated conceptual effort, to start to identify and evaluate, selfishly, could prove too much for minds that were groomed to fit into the collective and live for the sake of others.

(These are the young people - heh, and all ages - who are, and will continue being, easily steered or manipulated by their peers and media and politicians - by 'the group consciousness' - whom you are observing in schools and colleges, as I am seeing on campuses and the streets here, also).