zantonavitch

Fran: Happy endings? In Sci-Fi? Well, maybe This Perfect Day by Ira Levin. Or watch the movie Back to the Future. My all-time SF favorite novel, with a fairly happy ending, is The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldridge by Philip K. Dick. Truly rough sledding in the last third of the first time thru. But nothing better on earth the second time round. A minor masterpiece of fiction -- not just SF fiction. P.S. What the #!%$#!% are you doing in Greece?

Good vs. Evil by Kyrel Zantonavitch The battle of Good vs. Evil is mostly, fundamentally, and most importantly an internal phenomenon. Your main enemy -- and ally -- is the man in the mirror. The principal battlefield between life and death, health and sickness, strength and weakness, greatness and pettiness, pleasure and pain, happiness and misery is between your ears. Your main job in life is to work hard and smart. You're mostly dealing with -- not your fellow man, but -- physical and mental reality: with somehow filling 24 hours a day, finding meaning and purpose, and expanding and improving yourself. Your principal enemies in all this are being lazy and ignorant, as well as being dishonest and cowardly. You also need to try to avoid irrationality at all costs. Of course, work isn't everything. In the Game of Life, play and fantasy and rest are important too. These are valuable both for their own sake and pleasure, and to enhance and uplift your main and bedrock activity: working hard and smart. A balanced and diverse life, which contains all four crucial elements, certainly seems best and richest and the most fun. Naturally, external enemies can and do hurt you. This mainly includes tyrants, criminals, liars, and betrayers. But the worst enemy and focus of evil -- unless your social circumstances are truly extreme -- is always the low, slow, dull, weak, mediocre, inferior version of yourself. This ignoble, depraved, dark side of the Self is mostly what you have to strive to subdue, overmatch, and crush -- and on a generally continuous basis, no less. Christianity claims that for you to be truly good, and see evil defeated inside of you, you have to be "born again." Nietzsche claims you have to overcome your aboriginal self and become a "superman." However you look at it, the ferocious and never-ending battle between good and evil is mainly that of repeatedly choosing and being your best possible self -- or at least immensely trying for this. Shakespeare argues: "This above all: to thine own self be true." But it isn't easy or automatic. Aristotle calls such behavior a matter of developing and maintaining good habits. You seem to have to work hard and smart, to work hard and smart, if you want to be your best and truest self. Having Good triumph over Evil inside yourself is an unending challenge. In the Game of Life -- as you work away, and struggle along -- you also have to be brave and honest. This mainly means openly, directly facing yourself -- including your weaknesses, failures, and diabolical inner demons. This mostly means not lying to yourself -- the greatest of sins, but the easiest error to slip into. Courageously confronting external enemies and being straight with your friends is certainly important -- but this isn't the essence of the virtues of bravery and honesty. You mostly have to fiercely, intransigently fight the ever-present internal enemy -- and work hard and smart in this regard too.

She looks like a coiled snake about to attack. To which I can only say: right here, babe! Do your worst.

A truly great man. A rebel, scholar, religious skeptic, and radical individualist. He's up there with Douglas Adams, Arthur C. Clarke, and R. Crumb. Even Vonnegut's first novel -- The Sirens of Titan (1959) -- was truly great. *I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center. *Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand. *Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile! *There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president. *During my three years in Vietnam, I certainly heard plenty of last words by dying American footsoldiers. Not one of them, however, had illusions that he had somehow accomplished something worthwhile in the process of making the Supreme Sacrifice. *We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. *A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved. *New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become. *If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

I found almost every comment in this discussion thread interesting and illuminating. But unfortunately they seem to require substantial thought and then 500 or 1000 words to decently reply, and I simply won't have the time for 3 or 4 days. My original essay was a little like a really big and strong fullback fearlessly charging straight up the middle. But I know there's a lot more to the field of play -- especially what Michael alluded to.

One quick addition to Barbara's observation in Post #5! She writes: That may have been a bit of hyperbole. Verbal sins should be answered with verbal counter-measures, just as physical assaults are properly answered in kind. Everyone's views -- yours and mine -- should be "rudely, crudely, unceremoniously extirpated and extincted" if they're false and evil. The key point in today's rather radically bifurcated Objectivist world is: Does the intellectual opponent seem like a good person and is she worth debating? I think this comes down to: Does he practice censorship and excommunication? Does he condemn as "intellectually dishonest" and an "enemy of Objectivism" when it's clear he merits these labels. Does he regard Objectivsm as mostly a philosophy or a religion? Everyone makes multitudinous "errors of judgment" and "breaches of morality" -- but is the other person open to argument, discussion, criticism, and possible correction and improvement?

Sorry about the slowness of this reply. I didn't realize my essay was posted till a few hours ago. (I'm still working out the system here.) I'm going to initially confine myself to Post #3 and Barbara Branden's answer to my (ahem!) rather flamboyant piece. Barbara writes: First off, thank you for the detail and passion of your reply! The basic answer to most of your comments are: I try to distinguish carefully between murderers and those who justly execute them. Both involve inflicting death, but there is no real equivalence here that I'm aware of -- especially not morally. And no-one is allowed to "decide" who his enemies or the evil-doers are. The bad guys have to be genuinely, objectively bad. Otherwise, if you hurt them, you're a criminal or bad guy yourself. It's not a matter of arbitrarily choosing enemies. They have to be truly, objectively evil. And "black hatred" has its proper place in the world, just as does sweet love. I don't think you can have one without the other. The "glory" comes from seeing evil defeated. But pain and suffering absent this, and for their own sake, aren't of value. We may simply differ on this one. I favor full justice here, and not a mere escape from evil. If I avoid criminal harm, that's nice, but it isn't good enough. My enemies and would-be attackers need to be brought to complete justice, in my view. And the joy comes from seeing justice done -- not agony out of context or without a reasonable purpose. In my view, adults generally only pollute and become polluted when they're vicious and cruel -- not just. Uh, no. Perhaps not. ;-) Drinking blood has no value per se, and in the Game of Life is usually a disvalue. It's only proper when a true criminal or bad guy is made to suffer proportionate to his evil acts. Only possibly in the most absolutely extreme circumstances -- such as a reply in kind. But not for children. Even adults may very rightly choose not to view or inflict this. It's a bit interesting to note, Barbara, that in other discussions you seem to be on record as favoring torturing the jihadis more than me. (But that's another discussion, admittedly.) This seems to come back to the main point -- yours and mine. Appropriately and justly punishing enemies and evil-doers doesn't seem to be the same behavior as the evil activity that they do to us. I never advocate aggression or the initiation of force. I never advocate cruelty or disproportionality. This would be morally wrong. But in the most recent battle between liberalism and Islam -- involving Britain and Iran and those 15 hostages -- no justice was done or equality achieved, in my opinion. So I certainly think Britain should seek revenge and make them pay. And yes, perhaps, glory in seeing this justice done. Religion and altruism teaches us that we "lower ourselves to their level" or "permanently debauch ourselves" if we take pleasure in seeing people get what's coming to them. I think this is only sometimes true. This is a very mixed bag. All merit different levels of opposition and personal distaste. Maybe it isn't hatred, but a love of truth and justice. Altho' I do think this necessarily entails hatred of lies, injustice, immorality, wanton destruction, unnecessary pain, etc. I'm just not sure how to have one emotion without the complimentary other. Everyone says you can, but this seems to be merely the loose, false claim of religion and altruism. The key point in this discussion, perhaps, is that my thoughts in all this reply-and-revenge business are forever with the forgotten third party -- the victims. This includes others and myself. I hope this addresses some of your concerns! Your reply was very dense, Barbara, so I tried to confine myself to your main points.

Environmentalism itself is wholly legitimate. Despite some progress in the past few decades, we really do need to pollute less and/or clean up more, as well as stop or slow the current extinction of animals and plants. The great problem here is almost every single environmentalist favors socialist and coercive means to this pro-Earth end. Meanwhile, capitalist solutions are much easier, quicker, and cheaper. And there's no green Big Brother with his nasty accompanying ideology -- which often seems primary to the eco-nuts.

Barbara: I'm going to take your -- as well as Michael's -- suggestion on this, and try to deal with some of the controversial issues raised here in a seperate discussion thread. I just finished writing a brief, but fiery (as always!), article on various related points, and hopefully it will be available some place in OL in a day or two.

How do you deal with enemies? How do you deal with evil people who hurt you? The best way -- if they aren't beyond all redemption -- is to do as Nathaniel Branden sometimes advises: Attempt to wisely and heroically "make a friend out of an enemy." But you can't surrender your sacred self or your ideals in the process. You can't abdicate your convictions, your honor, or your soul. Thus, often enough, this idealized convert-enemies-into-friends hope can't be realized. And if you can't honorably escape or avoid them, then you simply have to fight and defeat your enemy. In 1977 when Ronald Reagan explained his basic plan and strategic vision for America's enemy, the Soviet Union, he said: "We win and they lose." * * * * * The basic way to deal with enemies -- despite what religion and the Judeo-Christian ethic teaches -- is to hate them and then destroy them. You're supposed to glory in hurting them, seeing them suffer, and making them die. Think of Batman, Spiderman, or any other comic book superhero. Altho' it was meant as a wildly un-PC joke, the recent film Borat essentially got it right: The over-arching desideratum is to seek to "drink the blood of every man, woman, and child" of your enemies. And such a clean, pure act of Good triumphing over Evil does not pollute or degrade you, despite what everyone says. The goal and wholly legitimate desire to overcome your foe ultimately comes about because, ideally, you're a good person who doesn't attack your fellows, but who works hard and smart and successfully. Thus you properly and justifiably have a high self-regard. You have great respect for your own self, life, character, integrity, values, honor, and even public name and reputation. So you revile any would-be destroyers. * * * * * In this regard, Christian charity, tolerance, forgiveness, and love is an immense evil. This masochistic, "turn the other cheek" ideal violates the lofty standards of justice and social morality. It virtually treats good and evil the same. The poorly thought-out and deeply-flawed moral code of Christian "grace" and "love thy enemy"-ism essentially regards creators and destroyers as being equivalent; violators, attackers, and criminals are considered about equal to their victims. Now this is a great act of ideological depravity and a stunning repudiation of the holy individual and of rational, civilized society. It is a betrayal of the best version of yourself, and results in the destruction of your part of the world. To equate good and evil, and to not discriminate thereof, is simply monstrous. Sympathy for the evil is treason to the good. * * * * * Evil today comes in many forms. This includes: Plato, Kant, philosophical skeptics, conservatives, progressives, neo-cons, environmentalists, Christians, Muslims, fundamentalist jihadists -- and even libertarians and "not overly religious" lapsed Catholics and non-practicing Jews. But it also takes the form of Ayn Rand at her most faithful and authoritarian. However painful this may be to Objectivists, it also takes the form of this highly charismatic and intellectually seductive cult-of-personality leader who could be so maliciously and hatefully moralizing and psychologizing. It takes the form of this part-time cult leader who could be so angry, manipulative, and anti-social, as she repressed her emotions and rationalized her personal weaknesses. Evil today often takes the form of nothing less than "false prophet," Eastern Orthodox, true-believer, religious, cult Objectivism. * * * * * It's worth noting that all the people and beliefs listed above are evil in their own way. And all need to be fought in their own way. All have their special lacunas and vulnerabilities -- usually based on the nature of their evil. And all these limitations need to be learned, exploited, and ruthlessly attacked by the good guys. But "reaching out to" or "extending the hand of friendship to" these various evil people and beliefs, under most circumstances, is morally wrong and practically counter-productive. Tolerating and forgiving those who don't and won't tolerant and forgive you is profoundly mistaken and often depraved. Especially if they're fundamentally in the wrong and you're in the right. Generally speaking, if someone openly hates you and actively works to destroy you, you need to reply in kind, and seek mighty revenge. You need to hit him, in effect, twice as hard as he seeks to hit you; and four times as hard, if he actually succeeds in hitting you. This is justice and morality. This is also often the best and only effective method of deterrence. If there's ever going to be "peace" on earth and bountiful "love" in the world -- with the Brotherhood of Man ascendant and triumphant -- then these miscreant enemies of yours need to fall to their knees and cry a Niagara of tears. They need to be forced to surrender -- and to beg you to forgive them. If you, the would-be victim, can't or won't reduce the bad guys to this level of debasement, dishonor, and humiliation, then war will be the permanent state of mankind, and of all our various philosophical movements. * * * * * Evil needs to be smashed and defeated at all times -- not engaged and appeased. Enemies need to be unambiguously stopped and crushed -- not accommodated or reasoned with. "Peace" and "love" is only possible when evil is destroyed. You can't bargain or compromise with it, nor can you somehow befriend it. Once your enemy has been found to be strongly and objectively evil, no long-term truce is even possible. All such pathetic and depraved attempts to secure a "time-out" or "detente" in this timeless battle will be correctly regarded as craven debasement and shameful weakness, by both the evil-doers and the world. All such negotiations with evil constitute a horrific act of appeasement and surrender to the forces of blackness. In the end, enemies and evil-doers need to be fought. Unforgivable and unrepentant opponents need to be openly, loudly, proudly, energetically, zealously hated; and then rudely, crudely, unceremoniously extirpated and extincted. This is as true for Ahkmoud Amadinijad and Leonard Peikoff as it is for Plato and Kant. It's as true for Jesus and Marx, as it is for all the lesser malicious ARIans and bizarro Randroids.

Beautiful. A well-written, thoughtful, insightful, inspiring article by Ed Hudgins and TAS. In so many ways the claim that there's an energy "shortage" is absurd. The whole known universe consists of nothing but energy and matter. So how can there be any "crisis" or shortage of either one? What we actually have is a surplus of government. I wonder if Ed's Cult-of-Darkness friends have a slogan for their evil? Back in the 1970s and '80s the enviro-wackos used to say "Small is beautiful." This referred to houses, cars, energy-use, and -- secretly -- life and pleasure. You can't get much more philosophically depraved than that! "Small is beautiful" is like Orwell's "War is peace." I think the ideology of the greens is plainly socialist, altruist, and even irrationalist. They're driven by "deep malice," as Ed's article notes, and seem almost openly anti-human. Their overall philosophy is very opposed to human triumph, and the individualism-based vivacious dynamos and conquering heroes of mankind. (cross-posted, which is sometimes pushy and rude, but sometimes quite legit, IMHO)

The whole area of sexual activity, and the prevention of violations and trespasses thereof, is the most subjective part of the law I know. Context is hugely important here, and in many cases you seem to need an extremely flexible law and a hugely insightful judge to even hope to render justice. The great disideratum, of course, is to uphold individual rights by preventing one person -- young or old -- from invading the space of a pre-adult minor in this very intimate realm and possibly doing terrible, or even a lifetime of, damage. The general standard here seems to be there should only be complete freedom granted to two (or more) people of similar maturity in every sense of the word -- such as age, sexual development, experience, psychology, etc. But what happens if someone much older decides to perhaps gently, sweetly, decently "initiate" someone much younger into some aspect of sexuality -- and there's no real force or fraud used, and the youngster is willing and eager? Our purblind law and knee-jerk, militantly-stupid, prohibitionist society hates this. And yet there's a ton of anecdotal evidence that suggests many youngsters suffer no damage from such experiences, have a lot of fun, and -- as advertised -- learn a lot in the process. Having Big Brother and our moralizing, nosey, do-gooder society intervene and "help" in this delicate, intimate part of life seems god-awful.

Barbara: I have a lot of respect for you, as I've long stated, but I have a few disagreements with you too, as you well know. Pretty much all of them have to do with the phenomenon of cultism. So too here. Still, I'm happy to have your views on just about any topic you care to discuss. When you say "Life is precious, and it is not the sanction of the victim to hope for its continuance, even among people who have treated us badly," that sounds to me exactly like the sanction of the victim. It's evocative of Christian tolerance, forgiveness, and love. I wonder: How rotten does a person have to be before we're allowed to wish them ill? What about Jerry Falwell and Al Sharpton? What about Kim Jong-Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinijad? I think self-esteem and the specialness and holiness of our own values, prosperity, and existence demand more. I think society demands more. I read his evil, hateful comments about you, Greybird. Typical. Are you sure that the above is an appropriate, self-respecting, moral, just, Objectivist, rational, or noble response? I have memories of my own, Michael. He treated me worse than Greybird above. He went far out of his way to be malicious and destructive to me on ObjectivismOnLine.Net and 4AynRandFans.com. I was censored and banned repeatedly despite extraordinary efforts to be polite, self-effacing, dronelike, and cultist. But they don't allow any independence or openness to anyone else. Where's the hope in that? --------------------------------------------------------------------- I wonder -- does anyone actually see this issue for what it is? I'm pretty sure I can channel Ayn Rand with complete accuracy from the grave: Sympathy for the evil is treason to the good.

My best wishes to Chris!

Everyone is wishing him well. If the circumstances were reversed, would he wish you well? Would he even say hi or give you the time of day? Does he let you comment on his forum without censoring it and excommunicating you? What of the sanction of the victim? What of justice? What of self-respect and the sanctity of your own life?

Some rare sensible thinking about the on-going crisis from Melanie "Londonistan" Phillips.

If you really love your kitty -- be sure to regularly give her a good spanking. !

Steve, it wasn't as simple for me as weighing gains and losses. It wasn't that sort of calculation that kept me there. It was Ayn Rand who kept me there. I had seen so much in her for so many years that moved and touched me, so much that I admired and honored and loved -- I had been with her through the writing of Atlas Shrugged and had seen the steady maturing of her philosophical ideas -- I had been beside her through the publication of Atlas and the agony that followed it. We had been comrades-in-arms in a difficult battle. She was my teacher, my mentor, my friend, my fellow-fighter. I had seen the qualities in her that were pure gold -- the determination, the fearlessness. I had seen the fighter who did not know how to yield -- and the ecstatic child who still sometimes shone through the dross of the years. I had seen the power of a giant intellect and of a will to understand that was equally powerful. These were the things that held me to Ayn. And something more. I wrote in Passion -- and this is not directed to you, Steve, because your meaning is somewhat different: "I thought of the people, through the years, who had said to me, 'How could you have stayed with Ayn all those years? How could you have allowed yourselrf to be a party to her affair with Nathaniel? How could you have been willing to endure all the pain of so many years:? I would never have done it.' I undertood their perspective, but each time I heard the comment, I had thought: No, you would not have done it. The moments of joy and the passionate engagement, the struggle for the highest possible, would not have been worth their cost in agony. But they were worth it to me." Barbara I find this all very easy to understand -- very easy to accept. The interest and pleasure of being around Ayn Rand was probably so valuable and intense that you'd have to lack most sense not to want it. People have put up with "mad geniuses" and prima donna behavior since time immemorial. "Difficult" people traditionally cause a lot of pain -- including to themselves -- but they're often worth it.

Adrian: First off, Welcome to Objectivist Living! I'm only a light participant here, but I think I'm allowed to say that. You write: I think the business of business is business. So it's very unreasonable for the general public or Objectivists to expect too much from practical, hard-headed, nose-to-the-grindstone, naturally-amoral, philosophically-indifferent businessmen. Still, we can demand something. Mainly we in society need to command businessmen not be collaborators with criminality or tyranny. They don't have to be "nice" to the consumer or the general public, but they must always be generally honest. I think this is an easy moral weight to bear -- an easy social duty to discharge. Honest and reputable businessmen tend to prosper, and be well-loved besides. So some of what Mark Skousen said about "consumer sovereignty" is correct. But he looks at it from the wrong perspective and context. This probably all has many implications for your business ethics class, Adrian. How is that, by the way? What do you teach?

Muslims are all human beings. As such, they all have potential as well as certain living healthy parts. The philosophy of Islam even has a small but important tradition of rationality and open debate. Still, the sheer evil of their ideology is not to be underestimated. Islam isn't a religion like Christianity, Judaism, Mormonism, "Moonie-ism", Hinduism, etc. It stands quite apart. There is savagery and horror here unknown to most Westerners. And most Objectivists too. I consider Ibn Warraq -- who gave the final speech at that recent Reforming Islam conference in Florida -- to be the greatest expert on Islam on this planet. A few months ago I asked him in private conversation how he compared the ideology of Islam to that of Naziism and communism. According to him: "It's worse." His thinking here is that at least the Nazis and communists "are focused on life." Muslims mostly think about and aim for death -- theirs and ours.

I agree with Robert B' that it's a real pleasure to see a realistic, macho, tough-guy, sometimes down-and-dirty-and-bloody version of James Bond. This is a terrific reinvention. Still, I kind of hate the "movieola" way every fight is evenly-matched and every problem or tricky situation is of equal difficulty. I'd like to see a 007 who devastates single or weak opponents, but then has to think his way out of situations where he's overmatched or even physically loses. It gets numbing when every battle is virtually a tie. How about occasional scenes where James crushes evil with ease -- scenes of sheer exhileration and pleasure?

Mark Skousen on Ayn Rand and 'Atlas Shrugged' by Kyrel Zantonavitch On January of 2001, libertarian investor, economist, and author Mark Skousen called Ayn Rand "the greatest novelist of the 20th century." He says he enjoys the way Rand portrays businessmen and money-making in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and finds her views on these phenomena admirable and unequaled. Skousen lauds her for her pure laissez-faire economics and "uncompromising defense of freedom," and he notes "No one has written more persuasively about property rights." For all of this, however, Skousen doesn't much agree with Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. This is apparent in his recent essay 'Atlas Shrugged -- 50 Years Later.' For the most part, this ideological disdain isn't surprising. Despite having written for and worked at seemingly half the libertarian and Austrian publications and organizations in existence, Skousen is still highly religious. He attended university at Brigham Young, quotes the bible frequently, writes approvingly of religion in general, and his recent piece on Rand was published in The Christian Science Monitor. All this godliness colors his views considerably. So while it's nice that he thinks so highly of Rand -- religion and Rand just don't mix. In the end -- and probably more than even he realizes -- Mark Skousen rejects a solid majority of Ayn Rand's epistemology, ethics, and even politics. On the one hand, Skousen observes in his article that "Rand articulates like no other writer the evils of totalitarianism, interventionism, corporate welfarism, and the socialist mindset." But on the other hand, he heavily condemns the way she promotes capitalism. He derides "her defense of greed and selfishness, her diatribes against religion and charitable sacrificing for others who are less fortunate, and her criticism of the Judeo-Christian virtues." In February of 2000 he also passionately condemned the ethical system which directly underpins Rand's politics by saying flatly "selfishness is not a virtue, nor is greed." The most disappointing part of Skousen's recent essay -- and his approach to Rand and Objectivism in general -- is how simplistic and shallow it is. Despite evidently having read and admired her two main novels, plus her two main books on morality and political science, Skousen doesn't seem to have much idea what Rand is about. Or at least he seems determined to see her thru the distorting prism of monotheism and Christianity at all cost. This misrepresents her and does great injustice. Seeking allies and ideological alternatives, Skousen promotes the overall philosophy of Adam Smith and Ludwig von Mises, among others. But the reality here is Rand far exceeded these two capitalist greats. She covered philosophical subjects they could never imagine, and with a brilliance they could never equal. Ultimately, Skousen's evaluation of Rand's various views is primitive, surface, caricatured, and even anachronistic. He refutes her very little. On its 50th anniversary, Mark Skousen's essay claims there's "much to condemn in Atlas Shrugged, principally its "inversion of Christian values." He fulminates against her principled opposition to "altruism" and the Judeo-Christian ethic calling it an "extreme canard." In 2001 Skousen argued that the "true capitalist spirit" can best be summed up in the Christian commandment 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' Rand, it seems, got it all wrong. Indeed, with her consistent individualist and egoist ethical perspective, she's in serious danger of "giving capitalism a bad name." But Skousen's essay isn't entirely wrong-headed. In contemplating this radical utopian novel and the idealized world it portrays and champions, Skousen seems correct in saying Rand doesn't adequately deal with the concepts of children, family, and local community. And maybe her sex scenes really are too sudden and violent. But Skousen misses the boat a bit when he says real businessmen "wouldn't give a hoot for Galt" and the novel's labor strike against world tyranny. Skousen's basic argument is that businessmen are natural "compromisers" and "deal-makers" who almost always "work within the system." He notes elsewhere that real businessmen aren't "ideologues and true believers" but rather practical folk who seek to make money "by whatever means." What Skousen doesn't seem to remember is that none of this is really possible in the tyrannical and crumbling world of Atlas Shrugged. Thus struggling and desperate captains of industry might well welcome a visit from someone like John Galt if he can explain why all this is happening and what one can do about it. Previously Skousen has attacked Rand's novel The Fountainhead and especially the approach to business by its hero Howard Roark. Skousen says that Roark -- in all his idealism and artistic integrity -- fails to understand "the very raison d'etre of capitalism -- consumer sovereignty." Because the architect Roark boasts of working exclusively for his own pleasure and benefit, this supposedly reveals the fact that "Rand's ideal man misconstrues the very nature and logic of capitalism -- to fulfill the needs of consumers and thereby advance the general welfare." Skousen heartily rejects Rand's "egotism," "hedonism," and "extreme self-centeredness." So too her "materialist metaphysics" and overall "godless world." Rather than having business geniuses like Roark and Galt living and working only for themselves, Skousen claims "if society is to survive and prosper, citizens must find a balance between the two extremes of self-interest and public interest." Ultimately, as a superior alternative to Randianism, Mark Skousen promotes a depressingly familiar "stakeholder" philosophy which seems to come directly out of old-style monotheism and socialism -- the irrational, illiberal banes of the past 150 years. Skousen wants society to reject too much individualism and work toward an "Aristotelian mean" between selfishness and selflessness in ethics, business, and government. But all these tiresome, proposed solutions to non-existent problems just reveal Skousen hasn't read Rand deeply or correctly at all. The true "golden mean" which our world needs to achieve pure capitalism and social utopia is an ethics wherein the individual avoids the twin evils and extremes of sacrificing others to himself and himself to others. We need a society where each man can prosper without limit under unfettered individualism and liberty, and with nobody acting as a sacrificial animal. Under Ayn Rand's philosophy of unrestricted personal freedom and concomitant wealth, the sacred individual and cynosure of the known universe can be as "selfish" and "greedy" as he wishes with no resultant social destruction. A principled individual of virtuous work and play ultimately benefits all of us collectively. Despite what religion invariably teaches, humans aren't naturally evil and anti-social. Thus they don't need to serve god or society to create the ideal world, as Skousen repeatedly claims. Indeed, the symbiotic and poisonous ethical ideals of serving the deity and serving the collective end up destroying society, as Rand has explained countless times. It's too bad Mark Skousen's persistent religiosity doesn't allow him to understand these obvious points.

Let's not get too depressed here for the fate of the world! :poke: History is so cyclical. The strong tendency is for mankind to evolve and ascend -- usually "two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward..." The more the Muslims hit us after 9/11, the more the West will tend to reexamine itself, and probably improve. This especially includes uplifting ourselves from the rather odious post-communist era of 1991-2001 when a kind of lazy, sloppy, self-indulgent, Western triumphalism dominated, as we all experienced "the end of history." Now that rather ugly smug smirk has been wiped from our faces. Time for energy and ambition to reappear. In many respects, the lowly anachronistic Mulsims and their new holocaust threat represent an opportunity. We can now rethink our pat familiar ideology of religion, self-sacrifice, and welfare statism which virtually all Westerners imagine doesn't hurt us too much. But the truth is, it does. The rival belief of Islamic jihadism holds up a kind of mirror to Western liberalism. Among other things, it let's us see just how similar we are to our hated, truly wicked enemies. The current War on Isalm/Jihad could easily prove to be a big direct or indirect motivation to move toward a far more liberal world culture. And please note -- starting in about 1985 or so, by my reckoning -- the West is currently experiencing a Renaissance. And there's a very good chance that the coming Second Enlightenment will be heavily driven by Objectivism or something very similar. So there's still a lot of hope in the world right now! But Brant is right in saying the key to everything is improving our philosophy. Enough already with this pre-modernist monotheism, post-modernist welfare statism, and relio-socialist ethic!

Barbara and Judith -- Americans are like 19th century fictional damsels-in-distress: knowing no evil, we fear none!

For me, the most interesting questions are: How far are the Muslims going to push their demented logic and this self-shielding tactic? How foolish, fatuous and philosophically/morally corrupt will the West be in accepting the Muslims' status as non-combatant civilian innocents? How much can enemy human shields actually shield the enemy? Perhaps a few months down the line the Lebanese jihadis will attack Israeli cities (or perhaps the Iraqi jihadis will attack American military bases) on tanks with unarmed women riding on top. These will be, in effect, invincible attack forces with their human shields evidently rendering them untouchable by Western moral standards. The tanks will be blasting away, perhaps killing Westerners by the hundreds, while the Muslim women shout:"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! We're non-combatants! We're completely harmless unarmed civilians! We're INNOCENT!" Meanwhile, all the women will probably be de facto jihadis who service the tank when it breaks down, keep spare ammo in their backpacks, and have recently sold their cars, so as to send their pre-teen sons to a Taliban camp in Afghanistan. But these women will continue to shout atop the tank: "Don't shoot! You filthy kikes, don't you dare shoot at us innocents. Think of your moral stature, you filthy Jew-bastards! Hitler didn't finish his job -- but we soon will. Meanwhile, don't shoot! And if you vermin do brazenly stage an unprovoked attack upon us innocent civilians -- why, next time we won't leave our guns at home. We'll slaughter you all, and dance on your graves, while we drink your blood! Meanwhile, right now we're INNOCENT! So don't shoot!" I find this whole situation absurd, laughable, ugly, and obscene to infinity. But the West currently accepts much of this bizarre Muslim logic and moral posturing. And in the coming months the West is likely to accept even more. The unofficial philosophy of the West seems to be suicide. In many ways -- you can't really blame the Muslims for their actions.