MQM?

[George H. Smith]

When Aristotelians speak of "man qua man," they mean human beings considered in terms of their essential characteristics.

Our genome is our essential characteristic. Without it we are not humans. With it we are.

The notion of essence does not fit particularly well with the physical-scientific approach. Aristotle and many of his ideas have been purged from science, which is why science succeeds and philosophy doesn't.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I'll let this pass, since it is obviously your "I don't know what the hell I'm talking about" genome speaking. But if I'm ever in the mood to hear another ignorant generalization, I'll be sure to consult you first.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

I'm through with teeth pulling on this thread.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

This thread has become a mess -- the typical result when "Xray" gets into it. I do wonder if "Xray" is someone's attempt at an elaborate Turing Test game. The lack of "integration" from one discussion to another is extraordinary.

Dan said post #19:

I initially thought Bob was trying to get at who the humans are.

That's what I thought too, although not from the same angle from which Dan seems to have been coming. I.e., I wasn't wondering if the question pertained to Bob's "genocidal fantasies" (post #3). Instead, I took it straight as wondering if Rand included all humans as representatives of "man qua man." I think there's a case to be made that she didn't -- although...depends on which passage you read.

I've re-read the section of The Speech (Galt's) I referenced in my post to George (post # 7). She doesn't use the term "man qua man" there. Instead just "man," with rather a capitalized effect -- and both capitalized and italicized in "Man's Life." (Thanks, George, for that quote from a letter of hers to Hospers -- post #8.)

I'll type in the passage of which I was thinking when I can -- I am having a difficult stretch here for getting list time.

One point semi-addressing Xray.

No, of course, not all humans live by Rand's ethics. But if no one lives by her ethics at least to a sufficient extent, long enough often enough to provide subsistence-level food, no one survives.

Ellen

[Xray]

This thread has become a mess -- the typical result when "Xray" gets into it. I do wonder if "Xray" is someone's attempt at an elaborate Turing Test game. I do wonder if "Xray" is someone's attempt at an elaborate Turing Test game. The lack of "integration" from one discussion to another is extraordinary.

Fascinating to what wild speculations online debates can lead. Don't worry, Ellen, I'm not playing any Turing test games.

Ellen Stuttle.: The lack of "integration" from one discussion to another is extraordinary.

Since Rand's philosophy has produced several catchwords, they will emerge in any discussion pretty soon: objective morality; praise of capitalism; altruism, sacrifice, life proper to man, etc. (This phenomenon btw can also be observed in OL discussions long before I joined this forum).

What you interpret as "mess" is actually the process of drawing mearer the core of the issue. Rand's philosophy rests on her specific idea of what constitues "man", and don't you think a thread bearing the title "MQM" has place for a discussion which also takes into account recent research about "man" and comparison to the philosopher's concept?

I gave a link to biopsychological research which revealed that so-called "altruistic" behavior is perceived as pleasurable:

"The results were showing that when the volunteers placed the interests of others before their own, the generosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex. Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable."

http://www.washingto...7052701056.html

I found the link on an older thread on "Man qua Man": http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3826&st=20

I initially thought Bob was trying to get at who the humans are.

Bob's question was meant to get us all to think. Did Rand mean quantity or quality with "man qua man"?

That's what I thought too, although not from the same angle from which Dan seems to have been coming. I.e., I wasn't wondering if the question pertained to Bob's "genocidal fantasies" (post #3).

Imo Dan wasn't really wondering about that. For his remark to Ba'al clearly had a sarcastic touch:

If he truly meant "MQM" as "man qua man," perhaps he was looking for a way to rationalize his genocidal fantasies.

ES: Instead, I took it straight as wondering if Rand included all humans as representatives of "man qua man." I think there's a case to be made that she didn't -- although...depends on which passage you read.

Imo her use of terms like "subhumans", and "suicidal animal" indicates that she did not include everyone.

ES: One point semi-addressing Xray.

No, of course, not all humans live by Rand's ethics. But if no one lives by her ethics at least to a sufficient extent, long enough often enough to provide subsistence-level food, no one survives.

Thanks for concretely addressing a specific point, Ellen. I always prefer the direct approach.

Since humans are biologically programmed for survival, they have fared successfully in that field for ages without any philosopher having to tell them that they "ought to" provide substance level food if they are to survive.

Ellen, do the test and imagine for a second that all OLers would be put in a survival camp on a desert island for a few weeks - do you think any of us here would believe that food will be served to us without any effort on our part?

Edited June 20, 2010 by Xray

[Xray]

The notion of essence does not fit particularly well with the physical-scientific approach. Aristotle and many of his ideas have been purged from science, which is why science succeeds and philosophy doesn't.

I'll let this pass, since it is obviously your "I don't know what the hell I'm talking about" genome speaking. But if I'm ever in the mood to hear another ignorant generalization, I'll be sure to consult you first.

Ghs

Imo Ba'al does have a point in stressing that the scientific approach can expose possible errors clearly.

Like you said in another thread

It is always a risky matter for a philosopher to link her philosophical views to a particular interpretation of a scientific issue -- for if that interpretation eventually proves untenable it can take the philosophical theory down with it, unless the two types of claims are clearly distinguished.

Statements about "man qua man" are statements about the nature of man. Would you agree on that?

Suppose research shows that a philosopher's idea of "man qua man" has become untenable becuase it has been disproven by science, what you outlined in the above quote can happen.

Who for example would still call themselves a "Rousseau-ian" today, believing in a tabula blua rasa premise which has long since been exposed as false?

Or can you think of people who would still call themselves "Comte-ians" today, advocating his prescriptive ethics of "altruism"?

On the another "Man qua Man" thread, Daniel Barnes wrote:

Rand is the Comte of self-interest.

Witty remark by D. Barnes. ;) What do you think of his comment?

Edited June 20, 2010 by Xray

[Dragonfly]

This thread has become a mess -- the typical result when "Xray" gets into it. I do wonder if "Xray" is someone's attempt at an elaborate Turing Test game. I do wonder if "Xray" is someone's attempt at an elaborate Turing Test game. The lack of "integration" from one discussion to another is extraordinary.

Fascinating to what wild speculations online debates can lead. Don't worry, Ellen, I'm not playing any Turing test games.

Ach, Du weißt Du bist nun einmal das Prügelmädchen hier...

Of course when Rand talks about "man qua man" she's referring to a small subset of all human beings, namely those who exemplify Objectivist virtues, suggesting that only those represent the "true" human nature. The others must be subhumans, missing links, Untermenschen. "What are your masses but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?".

[BaalChatzaf]

Yes, other species don't have genomes.

--Brant

Suggestion Google <genome definition>

All living things on this planet have genomes. There genomes make them what they are.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

I initially thought Bob was trying to get at who the humans are.

I was trying to get at what use the locution MQM (man qua man) is. My conclusion: very little use. You will learn more from Craig Venter's mapping of the human genome than you will from -Atlas Shrugged-.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited June 20, 2010 by BaalChatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

MQM as per Rand and MQM as per reality. Mix these two up and talk and argue about it forever. But what makes man--humanity--different than other species is the ability to drastically modify his environment though what is productive work, which is the creation of wealth through better tools over time and trade; the accumulation of capital. It takes a reasoning mind to do that, helped by an opposable thumb and a sanctioning social unit which might even encompass almost the entire planet. The mind and the thumb can be described as man's basic biologically given tools. The mind needs programming--i.e., education of various sorts. Things really start to get complicated when we realize we aren't exactly talking about woman qua woman here or family qua family or tribe qua tribe as we build up the natural social units of human existence. The basic commonality, though, is found in rationality, productivity and the need therefore for freedom. Freedom is both a human need and a human invention. Human rights are an idea, like God is an idea, and only exist as an idea but validated by referencing human nature at the basic level of one person thinking and the sanctioning and celebration of individuality. To complain about Rand's MQM formulations, a lot of which are frankly wrong, is at the core to complain about her individualistic orientation--that she was at the core an individualist. It is regrettable how much is so many ways she turned against individualism or did not properly honor it by what can be described as a wrong kind of elitism. So in the 1960s there were officially only two Objectivists: Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden and, if you were a libertarian, get thee to a nunnery, go!

--Brant

not teeth pulling

Edited June 20, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[Brant Gaede]

I initially thought Bob was trying to get at who the humans are.

I was trying to get at what use the locution MQM (man qua man) is. My conclusion: very little use. You will learn more from Craig Venter's mapping of the human genome than you will from -Atlas Shrugged-.

Ba'al Chatzaf

To wit?

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Yes, other species don't have genomes.

--Brant

Suggestion Google <genome definition>

All living things on this planet have genomes. There genomes make them what they are.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I'm sorry in that I thought I was addressing people who were educated enough to know that; not think I might not know that.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

This thread has become a mess -- the typical result when "Xray" gets into it. I do wonder if "Xray" is someone's attempt at an elaborate Turing Test game. I do wonder if "Xray" is someone's attempt at an elaborate Turing Test game. The lack of "integration" from one discussion to another is extraordinary.

Fascinating to what wild speculations online debates can lead. Don't worry, Ellen, I'm not playing any Turing test games.

Ach, Du weißt Du bist nun einmal das Prügelmädchen hier...

Of course when Rand talks about "man qua man" she's referring to a small subset of all human beings, namely those who exemplify Objectivist virtues, suggesting that only those represent the "true" human nature. The others must be subhumans, missing links, Untermenschen. "What are your masses but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?".

Objectivist virtues: rape, robbery, murder, kidnapping, assault, aggression--no, she wasn't making philosophy for those folk, just a small elite "subset of all human beings."

--Brant

Edited June 20, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[BaalChatzaf]

To wit?

--Brant

To wit the physical (and therefor) the objective reasons we humans are what we are.

Contrast Craig Venter's work on what makes humans human with a long novel containing little in the way of scientific data.

Venter's work is factual. By the way, Venter and his team have made the first example of living matter which has no living ancestry. Sort of like Joshuah, Son of None.

If I had to find out about Man Qua Man I would consult Venter, et al before I would consult Rand.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

To wit?

--Brant

To wit the physical (and therefor) the objective reasons we humans are what we are.

Contrast Craig Venter's work on what makes humans human with a long novel containing little in the way of scientific data.

Venter's work is factual. By the way, Venter and his team have made the first example of living matter which has no living ancestry. Sort of like Joshuah, Son of None.

If I had to find out about Man Qua Man I would consult Venter, et al before I would consult Rand.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Let's say there are 100 species of animal extant upon the earth, including man. Each has a different genome but all genomes are essentially, at root, the same thing serving the same purpose. All very interesting and valuable. Venter, however, already knew and used his essential human characteristics to do his scientific work. So he added to his and our knowledge but he did not subtract from it as you are determined to do by gratuitous animadversion upon a novel--thereby all novels--as if your chickens were an argument against Rand oranges. Rand never dismissed science as you are committed to dismiss philosophy. OL is 97% philosophy and 3% science, more or less, so wotcha doing here? You got next to nothing from Atlas Shrugged? What a fool for reading it.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

To wit?

--Brant

To wit the physical (and therefor) the objective reasons we humans are what we are.

Contrast Craig Venter's work on what makes humans human with a long novel containing little in the way of scientific data.

Venter's work is factual. By the way, Venter and his team have made the first example of living matter which has no living ancestry. Sort of like Joshuah, Son of None.

If I had to find out about Man Qua Man I would consult Venter, et al before I would consult Rand.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Let's say there are 100 species of animal extant upon the earth, including man. Each has a different genome but all genomes are essentially, at root, the same thing serving the same purpose. All very interesting and valuable. Venter, however, already knew and used his essential human characteristics to do his scientific work. So he added to his and our knowledge but he did not subtract from it as you are determined to do by gratuitous animadversion upon a novel--thereby all novels--as if your chickens were an argument against Rand oranges. Rand never dismissed science as you are committed to dismiss philosophy. OL is 97% philosophy and 3% science, more or less, so wotcha doing here? You got next to nothing from Atlas Shrugged? What a fool for reading it.

--Brant

That is like saying a three masted schooner is essentially the same thing as a 747 jetliner. They both are vehicles. What you have said is close to nonsense. Two different genomes are different. They both are collections of genes and that is as much as you can say.

I pay attention to details. What do you pay attention to?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

OL is 97% philosophy and 3% science, more or less, so wotcha doing here? You got next to nothing from Atlas Shrugged? What a fool for reading it.

--Brant

I enjoyed reading AS. The bad guys lost. I took AS as alternative time line fiction, not a substantial lecture in philosophy. If I wanted to study Aristotle I would read the best translation I could get a hold of (the Joe Sachs translations are first rate).

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

To wit?

--Brant

To wit the physical (and therefor) the objective reasons we humans are what we are.

Contrast Craig Venter's work on what makes humans human with a long novel containing little in the way of scientific data.

Venter's work is factual. By the way, Venter and his team have made the first example of living matter which has no living ancestry. Sort of like Joshuah, Son of None.

If I had to find out about Man Qua Man I would consult Venter, et al before I would consult Rand.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Let's say there are 100 species of animal extant upon the earth, including man. Each has a different genome but all genomes are essentially, at root, the same thing serving the same purpose. All very interesting and valuable. Venter, however, already knew and used his essential human characteristics to do his scientific work. So he added to his and our knowledge but he did not subtract from it as you are determined to do by gratuitous animadversion upon a novel--thereby all novels--as if your chickens were an argument against Rand oranges. Rand never dismissed science as you are committed to dismiss philosophy. OL is 97% philosophy and 3% science, more or less, so wotcha doing here? You got next to nothing from Atlas Shrugged? What a fool for reading it.

--Brant

That is like saying a three masted schooner is essentially the same thing as a 747 jetliner. They both are vehicles. What you have said is close to nonsense. Two different genomes are different. They both are collections of genes and that is as much as you can say.

I pay attention to details. What do you pay attention to?

Ba'al Chatzaf

You are not differentiating the boat and plane by reference to genomes are you? Or looking that way for their essential characteristics? Even if they had genomes you wouldn't have much use to go looking for them for the purposes of essentialities and differentiations, now, would you? You go into biology and get stuck there and for no good reason other than making a religion out of science.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

ote]

You are not differentiating the boat and plane by reference to genomes are you? Or looking that way for their essential characteristics? Even if they had genomes you wouldn't have much use to go looking for them for the purposes of essentialities and differentiations, now, would you? You go into biology and get stuck there and for no good reason other than making a religion out of science.

--Brant

I make a science out of science. Physical science is the best way we have of knowing the world. Everything else pales in comparison. Science succeeds, philosophy and religion fail.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

ote]

You are not differentiating the boat and plane by reference to genomes are you? Or looking that way for their essential characteristics? Even if they had genomes you wouldn't have much use to go looking for them for the purposes of essentialities and differentiations, now, would you? You go into biology and get stuck there and for no good reason other than making a religion out of science.

--Brant

I make a science out of science. Physical science is the best way we have of knowing the world. Everything else pales in comparison. Science succeeds, philosophy and religion fail.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Do you have a philosophy, and has it failed you?

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

Here's the material from Galt's Speech which I said (post #28) I'd type in when I could.

Excerpts from Galt's Speech,

pp. 146-151, original 1961

Random House hardcover,

For the New Intellectual

[...] the anti-mind is the anti-life.

Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. [....] To remain alive, he must think.

But to think is an act of choice. The key to what you so recklessly call "human nature," the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically [...]. In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival--so that for you, who are a human being, the question "to be or not to be" is the question "to think or not to think."

A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions.

[skipping: Discussion of the meaning of "value," the dependence of the concept "value" on the concept "life," the functioning of plants and animals.]

Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice. He has no automatic knowledge of what is good for him or evil, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires. [....] Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer--and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.

[....]

Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice--and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man--by choice; he has to hold his life as a value--by choice; he has to learn to sustain it--by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues--by choice.

A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.

Whoever you are, you who are hearing me now, I am speaking to whatever living remnant is left uncorrupted within you, to the remnant of the human, to your mind, and I say: there is a morality of reason, a morality proper to man, and Man's Life is its standard of value.

All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.

Man's life, as required by his nature, is not the life of a mindless brute, of a looting thug or a mooching mystic, but the life of a thinking being--not life by means of force or fraud, but life by means of achievement--not survival at any price, since there's only one price that pays for man's survival: reason.

[....]

Since life requires a specific course of action, any other course will destroy it. A being who does not hold his own life as the motive and goal of his actions, is acting on the motive and standard of death. Such a being is a metaphysical monstrosity, struggling to oppose, negate and contradict the fact of his own existence, running blindly amuck on a trail of destruction, capable of nothing but pain.

[....]

[Contrary to those who] tell you that the purpose of morality is to curb man's instinct of self-preservation[:] It is for the purpose of self-preservation that man needs a code of morality. The only man who desires to be moral is the man who desires to live.

No, you do not have to live; it is your basic act of choice; but if you choose to live, you must live as a man--by the work and the judgment of your mind.

No, you do not have to live as a man; it is an act of moral choice. But you cannot live as anything else--and the alternative is that state of living death which you now see within you and around you, the state of a thing unfit for existence, no longer human and less than animal, a thing that knows nothing but pain and drags itself through its span of years in the agony of unthinking self-destruction.

No, you do not have to think; it is an act of moral choice. But someone had to think to keep you alive; if you choose to default, you default on existence and you pass the deficit to some moral man, expecting him to sacrifice his good for the sake of letting you survive by your evil.

No, you do not have to be a man; but today those who are, are not there any longer. I have removed your means of survival--your victims.

Edited June 23, 2010 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

Xray miscopies me:

This thread has become a mess -- the typical result when "Xray" gets into it. I do wonder if "Xray" is someone's attempt at an elaborate Turing Test game. I do wonder if "Xray" is someone's attempt at an elaborate Turing Test game. The lack of "integration" from one discussion to another is extraordinary.

Fascinating to what wild speculations online debates can lead. Don't worry, Ellen, I'm not playing any Turing test games.

Note: The sentence "I do wonder [....]," which Xray duplicated, appears only once in the original post -- see.

In case anyone except Xray -- and maybe literal-minded Bob Kolker -- didn't understand this: I was being sarcastic. Some of Xray's response patterns remind me of a fake-therapist computer program which was an Internet amusement for awhile, but I don't really have any suspicion that Xray is playing a Turing Test game. I think that her main purpose here is proselytizing for her particular variant of absolutist relativism, and that she tries to manipulate people into responding to her -- and that her typographical sloppiness is disrespectful to her readers.

(If I scan rapidly down a page of a thread where Xray is posting, I can tell just sailing past which posts are hers from the messy appearance. Requiring of readers that they make extra effort simply to discern where paragraph breaks are, and sometimes who's being quoted, and to untangle other instances of poor typographical display is an imposition on one's readers' time.)

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

A comment about the survival/flourishing issue:

When I copied the excerpts from Galt's Speech posted in #45 -- from which I left out some segments with details I think need working on -- it became really clear to me that Rand did *not*, as I've often thought she did, and as I've read numerous people saying she did, make a flying leap in her logic from "sheer" survival to "flourishing" survival.

What she's arguing is that her ethics is the only ethics by which a biologically human creature *can* survive, that all other ethics lead to literal or varying degrees of living parasitic death.

"Correlatively," or something -- I'm not sure of the correct term for the logical relationship -- another way of stating her view (she doesn't explicitly state it this way) is that her ethics is the only ethics which can successfully be universalized. All other codes require, so to speak, robbing Peter to pay Paul. They require victims to parasitize from among those who (at least to a subsistence-providing extent) *don't* live by the code.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

It looks like Xray is not to be trusted. Does every time she quote me mean I have to go back and compare word for word? And all her other quoting? Does Michael need to go back and put a disclaimer on all her posts to the effect she is a misquoter? I also wonder about her basic sincerity. The Moslim hordes are at the gates of Vienna--and she throws them open?

--Brant

this is the end, my friend, the very end

Edited June 25, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[Ellen Stuttle]

MQM as per Rand and MQM as per reality. Mix these two up and talk and argue about it forever. But what makes man--humanity--different than other species is the ability to drastically modify his environment though what is productive work, which is the creation of wealth through better tools over time and trade; the accumulation of capital. It takes a reasoning mind to do that, helped by an opposable thumb and a sanctioning social unit which might even encompass almost the entire planet. The mind and the thumb can be described as man's basic biologically given tools. The mind needs programming--i.e., education of various sorts. Things really start to get complicated when we realize we aren't exactly talking about woman qua woman here or family qua family or tribe qua tribe as we build up the natural social units of human existence. The basic commonality, though, is found in rationality, productivity and the need therefore for freedom. Freedom is both a human need and a human invention. Human rights are an idea, like God is an idea, and only exist as an idea but validated by referencing human nature at the basic level of one person thinking and the sanctioning and celebration of individuality. To complain about Rand's MQM formulations, a lot of which are frankly wrong, is at the core to complain about her individualistic orientation--that she was at the core an individualist. It is regrettable how much is so many ways she turned against individualism or did not properly honor it by what can be described as a wrong kind of elitism. So in the 1960s there were officially only two Objectivists: Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden and, if you were a libertarian, get thee to a nunnery, go!

--Brant

not teeth pulling

Brant,

You express things in a way I often find valuable but often difficult to respond to because of the imprecision of it.

A couple points:

Freedom is both a human need and a human invention. Human rights are an idea, like God is an idea, and only exist as an idea but validated by referencing human nature at the basic level of one person thinking and the sanctioning and celebration of individuality.

Rights -- (a correct negative, not positive) idea of rights and rights-respecting behavior -- are, as AR said in one of her essays (quoting from memory), "conditions of human [or "man's"?] survival." I'd alter to: "conditions of rational survival in society." (At minimum one has to not be killed to survive at all in any society.)

It is regrettable how much is so many ways she turned against individualism or did not properly honor it by what can be described as a wrong kind of elitism. So in the 1960s there were officially only two Objectivists: Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden and, if you were a libertarian, get thee to a nunnery, go!

I think you've bought into too much negative press against Rand, and that she didn't ever turn against individualism, and that the stuff about her "not properly honor[ing]" it doesn't well bear close examining. Not wanting to start a debate again about who Ayn Rand really was. Her philosophy has been misrepresented time and again as partaking of "elitism."

--

About Xray: No, you can't trust her quotes. She gets them botched up too often to make any assumption that she's gotten a quote right.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

MQM as per Rand and MQM as per reality. Mix these two up and talk and argue about it forever. But what makes man--humanity--different than other species is the ability to drastically modify his environment though what is productive work, which is the creation of wealth through better tools over time and trade; the accumulation of capital. It takes a reasoning mind to do that, helped by an opposable thumb and a sanctioning social unit which might even encompass almost the entire planet. The mind and the thumb can be described as man's basic biologically given tools. The mind needs programming--i.e., education of various sorts. Things really start to get complicated when we realize we aren't exactly talking about woman qua woman here or family qua family or tribe qua tribe as we build up the natural social units of human existence. The basic commonality, though, is found in rationality, productivity and the need therefore for freedom. Freedom is both a human need and a human invention. Human rights are an idea, like God is an idea, and only exist as an idea but validated by referencing human nature at the basic level of one person thinking and the sanctioning and celebration of individuality. To complain about Rand's MQM formulations, a lot of which are frankly wrong, is at the core to complain about her individualistic orientation--that she was at the core an individualist. It is regrettable how much is so many ways she turned against individualism or did not properly honor it by what can be described as a wrong kind of elitism. So in the 1960s there were officially only two Objectivists: Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden and, if you were a libertarian, get thee to a nunnery, go!

--Brant

not teeth pulling

Brant,

You express things in a way I often find valuable but often difficult to respond to because of the imprecision of it.

A couple points:

Freedom is both a human need and a human invention. Human rights are an idea, like God is an idea, and only exist as an idea but validated by referencing human nature at the basic level of one person thinking and the sanctioning and celebration of individuality.

Rights -- (a correct negative, not positive) idea of rights and rights-respecting behavior -- are, as AR said in one of her essays (quoting from memory), "conditions of human [or "man's"?] survival." I'd alter to: "conditions of rational survival in society." (At minimum one has to not be killed to survive at all in any society.)

It is regrettable how much is so many ways she turned against individualism or did not properly honor it by what can be described as a wrong kind of elitism. So in the 1960s there were officially only two Objectivists: Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden and, if you were a libertarian, get thee to a nunnery, go!

I think you've bought into too much negative press against Rand, and that she didn't ever turn against individualism, and that the stuff about her "not properly honor[ing]" it doesn't well bear close examining. Not wanting to start a debate again about who Ayn Rand really was. Her philosophy has been misrepresented time and again as partaking of "elitism."

--

About Xray: No, you can't trust her quotes. She gets them botched up too often to make any assumption that she's gotten a quote right.

Ellen

Drat! I've been exposed!

That's just it, Ellen, there have always been two Objectivist philosophies by Rand. One is official, mostly explicated in Galt's speech and by Nathaniel Branden in the 1960s, and one is unofficial and references her Nietzschean influences. The latter mostly informs her fiction writing. There is also the sexual elitism as seen in her masculine biases--the anti-emotionalism and lack of nurturing orientation.

--Brant

Edited June 26, 2010 by Brant Gaede