Ayn Rand's concept of a Hero

[Brant Gaede]

Imo Selene has a hearty dislike of you.

That's quite obvious.

Just another example of valuing being a subjective issue.

I have a hearty dislike of you too. That's why I don't let you get away with your getting away with it.

--Brant

[Selene]

Phil:

Agreed as to your clear statement on the Eddie Willers "issue", and of course my perennial thanks to Steve's input {#110 post}, his abilities to produce these links with the info in a format that even a moron like me can use is a testament to his commitment to the ideas of Ayn.

Additionally, some uninformed, misinformed subjectivists have such low self esteem that they compensate, or at least they think they compensate, for dragging down greatness.

Folks who present themselves in that manner create a sadness within me because I want to shake them awake and say look at this beautiful place reality and sweep my hand across my field of vision.

Moreover, carping and careless critics substantially avoid the underlying assumption of any work of fiction ...the willing suspension of disbelief when they are evaluating Atlas Shrugged. I used to make that mistake when I would get in a pique with one of her statements that I disagreed with. Invariably it was in the arts.

As I said, a have struggled with the "meanings" and "intentions" of the "Cheryls", the "Eddys" and the Wet Nurses, but, they are essentially the background human text that Ayn uses to illustrate that even though they have the integrity, and even the desire, they are not the prime mover producers.

They are good morally, but not good enough practically to create great works. I particularly loved Jennifer's muted statement that Ayn was inspirationally speaking to each and everyone in her "populism" when she explained that "...and you know, she really sets independence as her *standard of value...so...you can be mediocre, but as long as you are independent, it's all good."

Beautifully put by Jennifer. I think I may order her book.

Adam

*Psst. xray, you could almost hear Jennifer say "objective" between the words - her and standard. So when you read this, DO NOT think of the word objective

when you get to the BIG red asterick

[Christopher]

Long thread that I'm just stepping into, and some good ideas about reasons for showing tragic downfall of Eddie Willers. I always thought Eddie was still dependent on Dagny and thus unrepresentative of a truly selfull (did I use that right?) individual.

[Xray]

I have a hearty dislike of you too. That's why I don't let you get away with your getting away with it

.

Unsuccessful attempts at disproving the points made in someone's posts often result in getting angry at the messenger.

But since "hearty (likes or) dislikes" in no way affect the truth of statements, what is your point?

Your post serves as an illustration though of what you always close your eyes to: likes/disilikes are subjective value issues, whereas facts are facts.

The beauty of truth about facts is that it is consistent, contradiction-free, and independent of personal preference.

Edited October 18, 2009 by Xray

[Selene]

Long thread that I'm just stepping into, and some good ideas about reasons for showing tragic downfall of Eddie Willers. I always thought Eddie was still dependent on Dagny and thus unrepresentative of a truly selfull (did I use that right?) individual.

Chris:

Not sure about that word...did you mean full of self?

At any rate, "tragic" yes. Dependent clearly.

Downfall...that word does not feel right to me to describe Eddy or the others. They were all able to "see" reality. It was their refusal to believe that evil existed, that it had a name and that it had a face that destroyed them.

Downfall...seems moralistic. like the fall from Grace, [hmm I remember a few "falls with ole Grace" that were spectacularly enjoyable]

Adam

[Xray]

Xray -

I strongly suggest that

1) you work to acquire a passing familiarity with the novel you are asking questions about.

2) you make a best effort to avoid equivocal use of terms. Don't take a term Rand used many, many times - giving many examples and extended discussion - and attempt to apply some other definition for that term, and then suggest there's a contradiction because Rand's use of the term doesn't coincide with yours.

Bill P

Bill,

See what you get?

Have you read my reply to Bill where I gave him links to my posts re AS? If he thinks I'm not familiar with AS, he is mistaken.

As for "Rand's definitions", the question to ask is do they coincide with reality?

MSK:I read a comment on a Communist forum once (doing a Google search for something else) that has stayed with me. I don't remember the forum, but I do remember that the person was German. He said that arguing with a Jehovah's Witness was futile because you can win the argument and still not convince the person. He or she will simply come back, ask questions for outreach and repeat the JV dogma.

I would have asked that communist if he doesn't behave in the same way when it comes to his own 'Bible', the Capital?

I have been in discussions with orthodox communists too and have found them to be as uncritical of the Capital as JWs are of the Bible, and them elevating Marx to an almost god-like status. Fervent believers are the same everywhere.

Edited October 18, 2009 by Xray

[Selene]

"I have been in discussions with orthodox communists too" No way, I only speak to reform communists, the paes gets in the way of objective listening.

"Fervent believers are the same everywhere." ...especially those subjective zealots. Even those fervent believers that animals have rights like PETA.

By the way xray your little fascist pal O'biwan is beginning to eradicate sport fishing and hunting with his little subjective marxist super state.

Why doesn't a good German like you apply for a Czarina position with the statist?

Adam

[Brant Gaede]

Your post serves as an illustration though of what you always close your eyes to: likes/disilikes are subjective value issues, whereas facts are facts.

Before the colon your statement is false. After the colon your statement is true. You either don't read what I write very well or you deliberately misrepresent it.

--Brant

[Xray]

Your post serves as an illustration though of what you always close your eyes to: likes/disilikes are subjective value issues, whereas facts are facts.

Before the colon your statement is false. After the colon your statement is true. You either don't read what I write very well or you deliberately misrepresent it.

--Brant

My point was that you tend to mix things up. Like in the post where you wrote "objective facts lead to objective values."

[Brant Gaede]

Your post serves as an illustration though of what you always close your eyes to: likes/disilikes are subjective value issues, whereas facts are facts.

Before the colon your statement is false. After the colon your statement is true. You either don't read what I write very well or you deliberately misrepresent it.

--Brant

My point was that you tend to mix things up. Like in the post where you wrote "objective facts lead to objective values."

To say that--if that's exactly what I said--is not to say all objective facts lead to objective values.

--Brant

[Selene]

Your post serves as an illustration though of what you always close your eyes to: likes/disilikes are subjective value issues, whereas facts are facts.

Before the colon your statement is false. After the colon your statement is true. You either don't read what I write very well or you deliberately misrepresent it.

--Brant

My point was that you tend to mix things up. Like in the post where you wrote "objective facts lead to objective values."

To say that--if that's exactly what I said--is not to say all objective facts lead to objective values.

--Brant

He's too fast for you honey!

[Xray]

Stephen Boydstun:

There is another element necessary for capitalism and the modern life it makes possible. That is savings. Entrepreneurship is not enough. There has to be savings withheld from consumption in order to form capital. I wonder if one could construct a novel or short story or poem displaying saving as noble and momentous. Even if saving (particularly for lending) is an endeavor in which heroism is not occasioned, it remains worthy of commendation.

A novel about the value of saving?? Evokes in me lectures about how to get one's household better organized or something to that effect.

Sure, there is La Fontaine's famous fable about "La Cigale et la Fourmi" which raises a threatening finger at those who dance through life instead of saving ahead for times of need, but wouldn't a whole novel having that topic be pretty boring?

Edited October 20, 2009 by Xray

[Selene]

Stephen Boydstun:

There is another element necessary for capitalism and the modern life it makes possible. That is savings. Entrepreneurship is not enough. There has to be savings withheld from consumption in order to form capital. I wonder if one could construct a novel or short story or poem displaying saving as noble and momentous. Even if saving (particularly for lending) is an endeavor in which heroism is not occasioned, it remains worthy of commendation.

A novel about the value of saving?? Evokes in me lectures about how to get one's household better organized or something to that effect.

Sure, there is La Fontaine's famous fable about "La Cigale et la Fourmi" which raises a threatening finger at those who dance through life instead of saving ahead for times of need, but wouldn't a whole novel having that topic be pretty boring?

Only if you write it xray. I think your posse is shrinking fast babes...I knew Ma Barker and sweetheart you are no Ma Barker

[Brant Gaede]

Stephen Boydstun:

There is another element necessary for capitalism and the modern life it makes possible. That is savings. Entrepreneurship is not enough. There has to be savings withheld from consumption in order to form capital. I wonder if one could construct a novel or short story or poem displaying saving as noble and momentous. Even if saving (particularly for lending) is an endeavor in which heroism is not occasioned, it remains worthy of commendation.

A novel about the value of saving?? Evokes in me lectures about how to get one's household better organized or something to that effect.

Sure, there is La Fontaine's famous fable about "La Cigale et la Fourmi" which raises a threatening finger at those who dance through life instead of saving ahead for times of need, but wouldn't a whole novel having that topic be pretty boring?

Only if you write it xray. I think your posse is shrinking fast babes...I knew Ma Barker and sweetheart you are no Ma Barker

You knew my Mother? I don't think so.

--Brant (Barker)

[Xray]

Selene: He's too fast for you honey!

Trying to sound 'cool' like Humphrey Bogart again, Selene? Like Allan Felix in 'Play it Again, Sam'?

Re "fast": it was me who had been too fast in typing here (going against my habit of checking quotes), not taking the time to check the exact wording of the quote this time.

That's what Brant wrote verbatim:

Brant: Objective truth, you know, leads to objective value.(quoted in # 74)

So Brant did not write 'objective facts lead to objective value', but "objective truth leads to objective value".

My mistake, Brant, sorry.

But even if you should add the modifier, "that is not to say all objective truth leads to objective value", the notion of "objective value" is a fallacy.

Since you have just posted about this (as well as on induction) on another thread too, I'll continue the dicussion there if you don't mind:

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7060&st=220&gopid=81585entry81585 # 226

Edited October 20, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

Only if you write it xray. I think your posse is shrinking fast babes...I knew Ma Barker and sweetheart you are no Ma Barker

Who are you trying to sound like now , Selene? John Wayne or some other he-man type ? ;)

Selene: By the way xray your little fascist pal O'biwan is beginning to eradicate sport fishing and hunting with his little subjective marxist super state.

Just curious: Why all that Obama-phobia? Is that the 'selfless' man threatening your "objective values"?

Long thread that I'm just stepping into, and some good ideas about reasons for showing tragic downfall of Eddie Willers. I always thought Eddie was still dependent on Dagny and thus unrepresentative of a truly selfull (did I use that right?) individual.

Chris:

Not sure about that word...did you mean full of self?

I suppose Christopher was trying to construct, in analogy to Rand's term "selfless" the opposite ("self-full").

But there exists no such thing as selflessness or self-fullness, "rational selfishness" or "irrational selfishness", whether in 'Rand's meaning' nor elsewhere.

One can jettison it all and replace it by the neutral term self-interest, which is biologically hardwired in us humans.

What Rand did was to value/disvalue the various self-interests according to her personal preferences, which in her opinion were 'rational'.

Edited October 21, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

It's because of her enormous empathy for the -victims- that she includes people crushed by the system, she includes tragic victims, she makes their fate and the enormous injustice they suffer palpable to us.

Imo Rand's hero John Galt is very remorselss when it comes to the many victims as a direct result of his going on strike, e. g. when he tells Dagny how planes are going to crash and much more will be destroyed, (which includes of course human lives too).

Are all these victims mere 'collateral damage' in Galt's eyes?

Edited October 21, 2009 by Xray

[Philip Coates]

> John Galt is very remorselss when it comes to the many victims as a direct result of his going on strike. He tells Dagny how planes are going to crash and much more will be destroyed, (which included of course human lives too). Are all these victims mere 'collateral damage' in Galt's eyes? [Xray]

So, the alternative is you can't walk out and must remain as a sacrificial victim, else people will be hurt? And in a war when a dictator invades you country, you can't fight back because innocents are always killed in any way..because in anything of any scale, there is almost always collateral damage?

[Alfonso Jones]

> John Galt is very remorselss when it comes to the many victims as a direct result of his going on strike. He tells Dagny how planes are going to crash and much more will be destroyed, (which included of course human lives too). Are all these victims mere 'collateral damage' in Galt's eyes? [Xray]

So, the alternative is you can't walk out and must remain as a sacrificial victim, else people will be hurt? And in a war when a dictator invades you country, you can't fight back because innocents are always killed in any way..because in anything of any scale, there is almost always collateral damage?

Well and succinctly put, Philip. Context matters, eh?

Bill P

[Brant Gaede]

If that were true, then e. g. the knowledge a bank robber has acquired in opening the safe would be of "objective value" also to those he robbed.

So again, it is always value to whom, i. e subjective. The notion of "objective" value is a fallacy.

No. Particular knowledge is not an objective value. Knowledge generally is and it appertains to people generally. Particular knowledge is only a subjective value. A specific food is not an objective value, but food generally is for people generally. A better way to put all this might be that all value experience is subjective. One cannot experience an objective value objectively. There is no special objective zing.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

It's because of her enormous empathy for the -victims- that she includes people crushed by the system, she includes tragic victims, she makes their fate and the enormous injustice they suffer palpable to us.

Imo Rand's hero John Galt is very remorselss when it comes to the many victims as a direct result of his going on strike, e. g. when he tells Dagny how planes are going to crash and much more will be destroyed, (which includes of course human lives too).

Are all these victims mere 'collateral damage' in Galt's eyes?

Well, they are not his victims. This reasoning is no more valid than saying that if Galt had never been born people would have died consequently--as his victims. There are over 6 billion people alive today. Most of them, even in this and other western countries, are functioning sub-optimally, mostly because of the lousy political-economical-intellectual-cultural climate. Think of all the wonderful things these people could be doing--of all the geniuses that could be loose upon the world instead of never having had much chance, wallowing in disease and poverty.

--Brant

[Selene]

Just curious: Why all that Obama-phobia? Is that the 'selfless' man threatening your "objective values"?

Actually, the fact that you ask that question is why I was suspicious of you from about ten or twenty days after you joined. We are a Constitutional Republic with a tri level laterally hierarchical structure of governance based on the concept of "comity", ie., we have three different vertical gangs, local state and federal that are supposed to carve up the turf that they have jurisdiction over.

At the top level of the structure lies the federal government that has jurisdiction over all legally federal citizens. Within that top level, we have separate powers in three branches that are co-equal and intended to dissipate power and create slow measured change. Additionally, we have and individually possess rights which do not belong to any of these mentioned branches or levels. They are ours.

The marxist who occupies the White House does not believe in that model. He believes that America, our Constitutional form of a republic and capitalism is 1) evil 2) responsible for the rape of the worlds energy 3) the great oppressor and a long litany of sins.

Essentially, your basic ignorance of Americans and Rand is palpable. You are a smart little _____, very clever, but very transparent.

Long thread that I'm just stepping into, and some good ideas about reasons for showing tragic downfall of Eddie Willers. I always thought Eddie was still dependent on Dagny and thus unrepresentative of a truly selfull (did I use that right?) individual. Why worry about justifying your subjectivity? It never stopped you before.

Chris:

Not sure about that word...did you mean full of self?

I suppose Christopher was trying to construct, in analogy to Rand's term "selfless" the opposite ("self-full").

That is amazing xray...I believe you are actually correct for once xray... just goes to prove that even a blind squirrel will find a nut every now and then...

Adam

[Michelle]

Michelle

You said I needed to "learn" something. What do I need to learn? Moral relativism? How to permanently retard my rational faculties?

Life is one big learning experience, Michelle. When I think back at what I believed in at your age as opposed to now, the difference is dramatic.

You too will be surprised at what lies ahead of you. Fasten your seatbelt, for it is going to be a rough ride at times.

I have always been eager to learn, and have never asked myself the question "What do Í need to learn" with the connotation that I needn't learn because I know already.

Moral relativism?

Do you really believe that exists anything like objective morality?

Will such claim stand up to the scrutiny of checking its premises? It won't, Michelle.

How to permanently retard my rational faculties?[

On the contrary, how to tap into to their full potential and use it.

If you honestly seek for the truth and don't stop in your quest, you will get there.

[MSK]:

It's your life and your time. It's all yours, but you don't get the present back once time passes. Think down the road a bit. Wouldn't it be something to discover that you spent your entire life spinning in circles and never went anywhere?

How would that be for something new to learn?

Well said, Michael. Life experience is one of the best teachers anyway.

You said that you taught "empathy" and "independent thinking," then fingered me and someone else as needing to "learn" these things. You did not just spout the obvious generality that "everyone needs to learn something." As I don't see how I am lacking in either empathy or independent judgment, I found this puzzling.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michelle,

It's an NLP technique called "presupposition." It doesn't matter whether she believes you need to learn "these things" or not. The purpose of the comment is to manipulate your behavior and thinking. It's a form of inducing you to go in a certain direction.

(These are formal techniques that are taught across a variety of schools, so the jargon terms, even the name neuro-linguistic programming, are often different. But the concepts and routines are very much the same in the things I have studied.)

As I've said elsewhere, she constantly repeats the attempts, but she's inept at "these other things" because she botches setting up the basic conditions for them to work.

Michael

[Michelle]

Michelle,

It's an NLP technique called "presupposition." It doesn't matter whether she believes you need to learn "these things" or not. The purpose of the comment is to manipulate your behavior and thinking. It's a form of inducing you to go in a certain direction.

(These are formal techniques that are taught across a variety of schools, so the jargon terms, even the name neuro-linguistic programming, are often different. But the concepts and routines are very much the same in the things I have studied.)

As I've said elsewhere, she constantly repeats the attempts, but she's inept at "these other things" because she botches setting up the basic conditions for them to work.

Michael

OK. I've never studied NLP. How exactly is the comment supposed to influence my behavior and thinking? Influence/manipulate it in what way? I thought she was just taking a shot at me, but this is actually interesting.

Edited October 22, 2009 by Michelle R