Michelle

It is easy (and understandable) to attribute a drive for achievement as an innate motive, but is it really that simple? For one thing, shouldn't one draw a distinction between a telos and adaptations made in response to one's environment? Consider a baby. It's mind is presumably unable to understand concepts, and thus would have no means of understanding goal-oriented behavior. And yet healthy babies show an incredible drive to first crawl and then learn to balance on two legs. Isn't this really just an inherited adaptation toward its environment? On the other hand, clearly goal-oriented behavior such as constructing an essay or cleaning a room aren't merely adaptations to the demands posed by a certain environment. People can write stories in any kind of setting that allows for one to put pen to paper (or finger to key). Of course, people must will themselves toward such actions. One does not just tend toward writing stories and cleaning rooms. It requires a clear exercise of one's will. As to your second major point, correct me if I'm wrong, but are you saying that because we experience something which we call mysticism, it implies that it points to inner needs which need to be addressed, akin to dreams? This seems like a fairly broad statement. You must distinguish between experiences which are part of our normal cognitive operations (such as "oneness with the universe") and experiences brought about by trauma or unnatural chemical fluctuations within the brain (general hallucinations, near-death-experiences, speaking with God, etc.). You would not say of a person afflicted with schizophrenia, "her hallucinations point to inner needs that need to be resolved," for example. Of course, traditionally religious feelings such as exaltation and reverence DO point to inner needs humans develop.

I'm not sure what you're driving at here. I don't mean this as an insult. I mean that your post confuses me. I would very much like to be enlightened as to what vexes you about my opinions, but I'll need your help to accomplish this. 1. 'You either get it or you don't' isn't an argument. I'm not saying you don't experience things which you would describe as 'mystical.' I can have no clue as to your experience, and have no intention to tell you what you do or do not feel. I am saying that the fact that you feel something is not the best way of determining the nature of metaphysics. And the question of mysticism is always, fundamentally, a question of metaphysics. The human mind is easily tricked. If you've ever hallucinated before, you know just how utterly real it feels at the moment when it is happening. But if nothing of a mystical encounter seems to exist outside the confines of my experience, if there is nothing about it that can be independently verified, and knowing the ways in which our brains can fool us, is it not better to consider such things to have no objective existence outside of our minds? 2. Yes, saying the brain is full of chemicals which affect your experience is a generalization. It is also fully and completely accurate. What is controversial about that claim? 3. I have no way of convincing you of this (and, to be frank, I don't really care if you're convinced or not), but I do not enter into discussions merely to verify to myself my own viewpoints. I enter a discussion because I believe my view to be fully rational and justifiable, and wish to share it with others. I have been proved wrong before, and my beliefs have altered accordingly. I'm delighted when a person is able to cause me to doubt my own beliefs, because it means that I'm on the path to adopting a more correct viewpoint. There is no sense in talking about rationality if one is not open to reason. As I said, it doesn't matter to me if you believe this or not, but since you chose to make it a part of the discussion, I'm responding to it. 4. I don't know everything about everything. I likely know very little. But the fact that I am human and am ignorant of many things does not justify me in abdicating the responsibility I have to myself of constructing a worldview which might guide me through life.

Michelle, I have trouble with statements like this since there is much in emotions that is beyond conceptual manipulation. I do agree that, in what can be operated as you state, a properly integrated individual will function partly that way, with some emotional reactions flowing from internalized values and premises. Other emotions just don't. I have come across way to much evidence to accept Rand's oversimplification on this point. I recently posted a video of Paul Ekman's work (see here). The universal nature of his findings the world over in all levels of social structures speaks more to inherent human nature than integration of chosen conceptual values and emotional responses. Sylvan Tomkins did similar research with really young children. See here for an appetizer: The Wonderful Way Shmurak Faces Emotion. I believe integrating conceptual volition with emotions should be added to these things in order to be correct, not substitute them. Michael Michael, Thanks for the links. Although I don't see how the facts presented in the videos contradict what I said. I was not speaking of the experience of certain emotions, but of the stimuli which evoke such responses. I disagree with Rand to the degree that any person has ever existed without pain or fear, or that such a person would be an 'ideal' of any kind. Even if only in childhood, a person is most likely going to encounter something that will cause him pain and/or fear. In early childhood, a human has no immediate values save an instinctual drive to preserve its own existence. Which is why a baby cries when it is hungry or stays away from its mother/father for too long. I was speaking to the popular notion that we 'can't help' what we feel, that love and fear and hatred are all blind. All of which are false propositions. We can very much take charge of our own emotions by internalizing new, rational values. Consider fear. Many people are afraid of spiders. They've internalized the notion that spiders are scary, dangerous creatures to be feared. With proper training, however, a person can learn to overcome this fear, to internalize a new notion about spiders. The result is that the emotional response from then on is not one of fear and disgust, but of indifference or even affection. Humans cannot avoid being emotional creatures (as I said, emotion is necessary to proper and balanced reasoning), but they can control, over time, how they react to things. Thus why I assert that the fully integrated individual is one who's emotional responses are in harmony with rational internalized values. This does not mean that emotion no longer exists, but that what we actually think is not running head-on into what we profess to think. In many ways, it is a striving toward authenticity.

A few questions: 1) Why should it be marriage for heterosexual couples, but only "shacking up" for homosexual couples? 2) Why should heterosexual and homosexual couples be treated differently when it comes to a legal recognition of their marriages? 3) On what grounds should homosexual couples be denied the same adoption opportunities that are available to heterosexual couples? 4) Gender reassignment surgery (which, if properly understood, should be called "gender correction surgery" anyhow) falls under the same category as any other medical procedure. Why bring it up here when the topic has nothing to do with it? And one comment: "If gay people want to get married they are free to do so, just like Jim Mcgreevy. No law forbids a gay man from marrying a woman or fathering a child on her." This is a cowardly evasion and you damn well know it. The issue is homosexuals being unable to marry other people of their own sex.

No. I think that is "wired in". Bonding between mother and child or caregiver and child is a survival characteristic. That would have been "wired in" by Natural Selection. Ba'al Chatzaf The reason I brought up needs, and the reason I asked Michelle about them, was to look at aspects of psychological phenomena and see whether a claim can be made for some "truth" implicit within such phenomena. In other words, how do we differentiate the learned phenomenal experiences (individually-subjective feelings) from those experiences that are "wired in" to all human brains? For example, man is wired to achieve, to be an agent of productivity that Rand based Objectivist ethics on. This "achievement motive" is necessary for evolutionary success and survival. Therefore, by the same token should we consider mystical phenomena as "wired in" and a basis for human ethics? What are the arguments against this? Christopher Humans are not 'wired' to achieve. Neither are they 'wired' to be rational. 'Wired' instincts are outside of the province of morality. Achievement and the application of reason are both choices we make in ensuring our own survival and flourishing. As to your question on the relationship between emotions and reason in an earlier post, I'll only say this. The distinction between "emotionalism" and "rationality" exists only because we are taught from an early age that emotions and reason are two separate and equal enemies who vie for the domination of the human mind. The two choices, we are told, the two poles of human experience, is the deeply-feeling irrationalist and the cold, unfeeling rationalist. Like most other forms of dualism, however (mind/body, physical/spiritual, etc.), this is vicious nonsense meant to set a person on the path toward self-destruction. Emotion and reason are not meant to be torn apart on a rack and kept eternally at odds. Most psychologists will tell you that emotion is not the enemy of reason, but, indeed, being in touch with one's emotions is necessary for proper and balanced reasoning. Emotions are reactions to internalized values (which are different from adopted values: I can tell myself 'I value this' all I want, but it stands to reason that people who hold a certain value do not need to constantly remind themselves of it. Consider that a person's most basic internalized premises are found in what Rand called their 'sense of life'). A properly integrated individual is one who's emotional reactions follow from their internalized values and premises. I'm not sure where you're going with this discussion on mysticism, but let me make myself clear. Humans do seem to have a predisposition to believe in God (not stating this authoritatively, but this is what I have heard many times). This is the only 'wired' mysticism I can see in humans. But this does not have any necessary bearing on the ontological construction of reality. Without the existence of independently verifiable evidence, it has no implications outside of the fact of its own existence. It isn't uncommon for our brains to lie to us, after all, in certain circumstances. Ever hear of 'phantom leg syndrome?' And a person can actually be made to feel pain in a part of their body that isn't actually physically stimulated if their other senses are fooled. Our nervous system tells our brain to produce a certain reaction to certain categories of physical stimuli in order to ensure a proper reaction. Pleasure is generally good, and our brain rewards such stimuli. Pain is generally bad and threatens the continued existence of the organism, and our brain punishes such stimuli. But it is our brain that creates pain and pleasure as a response to certain stimuli. Pain is not a result of kicking a rock with your bare foot, but your brain wants you to think it is. That is how it conditions us for survival. And finally, I say this as a person who has made her own number of errors in this regard: do not hinge your understanding of reality too greatly on evolutionary psychology. It is not well-established enough to reference as if it were a given. Undoubtedly, many aspects of our instincts are inherited. We are not born tabula rasa. But that field is not yet established science.

I hope that my post is not seen as promoting eschewing political action. It isn't. American politics is a dirty game and, as uninterested as I may be in the science of pull, I realize that the politicians are very interested in me. Any person with a proper interest in their own long-term prosperity will pay at least a little bit of attention to the country's political situation. And practical political action is fine. I'd love to see more Objectivists getting directly involved with government. But mass movements, by and large, are impractical to principled individuals. What always, inevitably, ends up happening is the people with the most sway, who are usually, without exception, second-handers (as second-handers make it their business to rule over other humans), draw the movement away from principles and toward a perverted and rigid dogma. A mass movement can only flourish in an atmosphere that is singularly anti-individualistic. This even occurs with smaller groups of people. Which is why Rand's ironically named "Collective" developed into a cult of sorts.

A judgment that is not a subjective value judgment is a contradiction. All judgments are necessarily subjective. But do not confuse subjectivity with relativism. Even though I am not convinced of several aspects of Rand's ethical objectivism. For instance, the statement that survival is the ultimate telos of all life is blatantly false - survival is only a means to an end, which is reproduction - thus, survival is only the telos of all life in the sense that it leads to the survival of the species ... this need not have the otherwise devastating effect on Objectivist ethics that it would seem to imply when you consider that, unlike any other known lifeform, the human is a creature capable of self-created telos. Survival still factors heavily into the equation, but even though strong instincts draw us toward reproduction, it is not a necessity for a person to a live a full life. Survival, however, is.

I have two friends who are both men and married to oneanother. They make a great couple. They're happy, productive people who fell in love. But because of the inordinate amount of attention the statists have been paying to this gay marriage issue, they're constantly having to battle to be recognized as a married couple. It is shameful. The state needs to just stay the hell away from it and let individual churches work out whatever issues they have with homosexuality.

There is a Christian concept of a "living epistle." The idea is that the best way for Christians to persuade their fellow man to turn to Christ is to not try persuading others of their views at all, but merely to go about their lives and demonstrate with their actions the essential goodness of Christianity. I dare say it is a terrific idea, if you make some slight modifications. People respond to examples around them. Our society is filled with unprincipled criminals like the Enron execs. and cronies of the Bush administration who made their fortunes through fraud and pull. They now see businesses crawling on their hands and knees like shameless whores (strong word, maybe, but is there any other more appropriate?) begging the government to please save them from their own incompetence. These examples fill the airwaves. And this is called "Capitalism." Consider this--consider that this is what is now considered "capitalism"--fraud and dishonesty and pull--and it will come of no surprise that we now exist in such an unhealthy alarmist atmosphere. Want to take action? Then take it. Take right action every day of your life. Live as great and heroic a life as is possible to you--show people that happiness on this Earth is possible, and that it can be accomplished by respecting reality consistently--show them that a selfish existence need not be an unprincipled one--and you'll do more to win people over than any half-baked mass movement ever will.

Succinct and well-written. Just because we've fallen into the mud does not mean we also need to roll around in it.

If this helps, this is from the "Introduction to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition" of my copy of The Fountainhead. She's speaking of an error in the book she wishes to clarify. "The error is semantic: the use of the word 'egotist' in Roark's courtroom speech, while actually the word should have been 'egoist.' The error was caused by my reliance on a dictionary which gave such misleading definitions of these two words that 'egotist' seemed closer to the meaning I intended (Webster's Daily Use Dictionary, 1933)." Yes. Irrational selfishness as you saw in Nietzsche and Max Stirner.

Was. I had been attending a community college in Colorado until we got situated here. So I'm going to save up some money so that in a year or so I can finish at a school here, where I'm planning on transferring over to a four-year. But why a community college in the first place? Because, in High School, I chose to rebel against the irrationality around me in the wrong way. I blew off my classes and spent days in the library reading. Royally screwed up my GPA, as you can imagine, which is why I'm paying for it now. This resulted in the bizarre situation of me both having a lousy GPA in High School and having teachers/Senior students coming to me whenever they were having problems understanding something. I refused to do work for them, but I won't refuse to help a person understand something. I plan on making fiction writing my life work, but I'm not naive enough to think I'll be able to support myself on that for a long time. Not sure what I'll study in the mean time to help support myself in the long run. Something I enjoy, at least.

And you have a fine forum here!

If only what were that simple?

Such confusion is to be expected when a person uses words in a way different than they are normally used. In the context of Objectivism, you can only prove what Rand meant by referencing her exact words. I'll edit this post with quotations later once I dig out my Rand books, but by altruism and unselfishness she meant the mentality which finds value in the appraisal of others. An altruistic act, then, is an act that originates from a desire to attain the approval of others. Keating taking Cortlandt for Roark to design was, by this definition, an unselfish act, because he wanted to save face by doing so (I believe; if I'm incorrect on Keating's motivation here, feel free to correct me). He was motivated by what others would think of him. He wanted the good rep. that would come with designing Cortlandt. Notice he isn't too interested in the money. He offers Roark the money. If I remember correctly, this takes place not too long after the March of the Centuries fiasco. He is criticized in the press (including by his own dear Ellsworth Toohey) and loses business as a result. Too many people think Rand contradicts herself because they're still oriented to the idea that unselfish acts are necessarily benevolent. Acts are not inherently selfish or unselfish. If you loan money to a poor friend because you think she deserves some help, it is not an unselfish act. But if you give that same friend money because you think she'll think poorly of you if you don't, it is an unselfish act. Would it be wise to use this definition of unselfishness in a court of law? No, probably not. We don't live in an Objectivist society, after all. It is also worthwhile to note that Rand is not an advocate of selfishness, but of RATIONAL selfishness.

Sounds awful. I always thought the Libertarian Party sounded too good to be true. Now I know why it seemed that way to me: because it is. Last year was my first opportunity to vote (having not turned 18 until after the 2004 election), but I felt a kind of paralysis when I realized what was being asked of me. I was being asked to choose between putting a fascist and a socialist into office. Now, you might say this is true of most recent elections, but it seems to me that not since Nixon have we been asked to choose anybody so unprincipled as McCain and Obama are. What sort of choice is that? It is like being asked which of your arms you want to be cut off. And the practical results wouldn't be all that different. Just two people who intend to spend and spend and spend and spend and spend. I can't believe the day has come that I actually wish Bill Clinton was back in office.

There is no such thing as a "mystical experience." The only thing you're experiencing when deep in meditation or when you have a near-death experience is a change in consciousness produced by chemical secretions. You're not experiencing a 'truer reality.' You're usually experiencing the variety of hallucinogens your brain is secreting. There can be no knowledge discovered through this, moreover. A doped-up brain is no reliable judge of experience. You'll know what I mean if you've ever had a stoner friend. If in doubt, look at the track record of a method's application. Scientific reasoning has given us all the luxuries and necessities of our modern society. Mysticism has given us those remarkable asian people who think lighting themselves on fire is a proper form of protest, as well as the modern Western man who thinks his inability to coherently grasp the nature of reality gives him a claim over how other people should conduct their business. These don't 'prove' the validity of scientific reasoning or the invalidity of 'mysticism,' of course. That would be nothing more than a pragmatic approach. It helps to see the fruit born of the application of each approach, though. I don't agree with Objectivists and Rand on some things. I think many students of Objectivism treat Objectivist circles as a way to escape the necessity of coming to one's own conclusions, garbing themselves in the language of rationality and individualism while simultaneously betraying their own rational capacity. I think Rand was wrong to trust Leonard Peikoff and that she had a very poor understanding of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. I don't consider myself an Objectivist or a student of Objectivism, frankly, because I hate group identities and consider my own rational judgment superior to many of the judgments of Ayn Rand. I admire and respect her artistic and philosophical legacy, but I won't make myself subservient to it. However, this is one area where I've always agreed with Rand, many years before I ever heard about her. Because she is correct. There is no God and no 'mystical' aspect of existence. For the same reason, any number of the mystical boogeymen of our time, from the concept of a seperate mind (as distinct from the brain, I mean: mind is the function of the brain, not some floating abstraction that resides in a world of ideas) to the phantom substance of qualia (for a good refutation of this absurd belief, refer to Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained, where he demonstrates how the concept of qualia is not only unprovable, but incoherent) add nothing to the philosophical debate. The proper way to approach reality is found by sailing in-between (and past, into calm water) the Scylla and Charybdis of reductive materialism and idealism. Rand, as flawed a figure as she was, continues to be influential and appealing precisely because, when you get down to it, she was so utterly right about so many things. This, I firmly believe, is one of those things.

*Spoilers, I suppose* It goes without saying that the movie is no match for the original comic series (later GN), but I'm not sure if this is fair. What adaptation is superior to the original? The filmmakers did an excellent job adapting what was considered an "unfilmable" story to film. Did it lose a lot in the process? Sure. But it made for good cinema, and has probably drawn many people toward the GN. Some changes I wasn't happy with (counting out the exclusion of the Black Freighter story-in-a-story, which made good sense to exclude from the movie-version) - Nite-Owl II's changed costume (In the comic, he looked like an...owl...but the costume in the movie makes him look like a batman reject) - The soundtrack (For two reasons: 1. I hated the choice they made to stick with almost nothing but commercial songs. Why not give it a full original score like it deserves? 2. The placement of the songs makes no sense to me. I was taken completely off-guard during a scene where nothing of substance is happening, and then all of a sudden...BOOM! 99 Luftballons starts playing. Its inclusion felt so senseless and random). - Matthew Goode as Ozymandius. I went to see this film with a friend who'd never read the GN before, and the moment after Goode's character was introduced, he turned to me and said: "I think he's the one who killed the guy at the beginning of the film." I wasn't surprised. Everything about him, from the way he talks to the manner in which he dresses, screams: VILLAIN! HEY, HEY, THIS GUY IS THE VILLAIN! He's like a bad parody of a Bond villain. Quite different than the under-the-radar guy we meet in the GN. - The story tones down Rorshach's philosophy too much. It seems to remove the atheism as well as the existentialistic aspect (Rorschach believes that existence is morally blank, and that humans impose meaning onto it in the GN). - All depth and dimension was taken from Rorschach's psychologist. - Too much superfluous violence added to the story. It just felt immature after a while. - I suppose it had to be expected with this director, but the overly-stylized slow-motion bits were irritating. They make the film feel very insecure and needy, like it can't trust audiences to have their attention drawn to the film's content, so it jumps up and down, waving its arms in the air, calling: "Look at me! I'm nice and shiny and pretty. Please like me." Then again, most of the casting was good, with a few GREAT choices (Crudup as Manhattan and Haley as Rorschach, in particular). The film's pacing was excellent. I thought the change made to the ending was actually a good idea (it might have worked in the comic, but nothing would have redeemed the film had some CGI beasty suddenly popped up on screen, which would have been the likely choice, as EVERYTHING seems to be CGI now). The film is intense and involving. It isn't perfect, but I never would have expected an adaptation of Watchmen to turn out so well.

Thanks. If I was living by myself, I wouldn't even have cable. Too many reality and talk shows, and too little truly original programming. Three things: 1. Geography: I live in Wayne Country, TN. So, I relate to nobody out here. The land is gorgeous. I'd call it God's Country, if I believed in God. But the people are incomprehensible to me. 2. Rand: I've been a fan of her writings for years now. This'll give me a chance to discuss them without having to tolerate boorish jeers from vexed leftists. 3. Necessity: Other political/philosophical communities tend to be intolerable. Republican communities are full of traditionalist half-wits who only like capitalism because it's nice and old and we don't want any atheists or intellectuals exposing our delusions, thank you very much! Liberal communities are full of people who hate success and happiness and try to find racism everywhere they look. And, anyhow, I have no sympathy for any group of people that tiredly croons on about how great Hugo Chavez is and how socialism would work fine if people just weren't so gosh-darned greedy! The libs seemed like a natural choice, then, until I realized what Libertarianism actually is is a group of people who just don't like government for some reason. This means the wild-eyed anarchist, the conservative who merely wants taxes lowered, and people who want to privatize EVERY service now provided by our government (including police protection, national defense, the courts, etc.) are ALL considered Libertarians equally. How could they not be? It's too unprincipled for a consistent and principled defense of its values. As proof, I submit the fact that this nutjob is a Libertarian REPRESENTATIVE: http://www.kevincraig.us/

Yes, Casino Royale does make something of a brute out of Bond, but it is still, by far, the most heroic portrayal of him in the cinemas since Dr. No. Note that a sense of individualism, self-confidence, intelligence, and respectability had been restored to the character. Note also that for the first time in decades audiences were again presented with a Bond that didn't chase any random broad who wandered within sight of him. He has one relationship in the film, and it is a deeply passionate and compelling one at that. I'd say Pierce Brosnan is the worst offender. He gave the Bond character all of the suave of a used car salesman.

Heh, Rand would have hated most of the subsequent Bond films, but I can't imagine any of them would have seemed more contemptible to her than Goldfinger. From Russia With Love, for all it did to devolve Bond's character to the level of a playboy with no values, still took him seriously. Bond, even if on a lesser scale, was still heroic. Compare this to Goldfinger, which turns the character into a certifiable clown. He somehow manages to botch up almost anything he tries to do. His only distinction, and the only thing that makes him the film's "hero," is that he is rewarded for his incompetence, and gets a chance to stop the bad guys at the end. But only through sheer thick-headedness on the part of the villain(s). Bond is so loutish that he even manages to botch up his skirt-chasing and gets a number of girls killed throughout the film.

It wasn't the first Rand tribute to appear on The Simpsons, and it most likely won't be the last. I actually caught it quite by accident. I don't watch The Simpsons, but my sister does. She was watching it in the living room the day this episode aired. I wasn't paying much attention at first, but by the time a preschool teacher named Ellsworth Toohey was informing parents that there was absolutely nothing special or remarkable about their children and walked around knocking down skyscrapers made out of blocks, I was heavily amused and thoroughly engaged. It was a parody of The Fountainhead, but not a mean-spirited one like you'd find in most other TV comedies. It was a bow to Rand, not a pie flung at her face.