jeffrey smith

And thereby makes Rand seem nastier. Mayhew's cut makes it seem that Rand was implying [instructing her disciples?] that she was setting herself apart on the grounds of moral superiority to contemporary culture. Rand's actual words imply (as I read them) that she was setting herself apart from contemporary culture simply because she felt she could not judge her own work impartially--IOW, that she was the one person in the world who would be unable to assert that her work was morally superior to contemporary culture: a vastly different, much less egotistical version from Mayhew's. This isn't the only time that Rand's actual words show her to be far less of an ideologue, less inclined to delineate things in monochromatic terms of black vs white, than the Authorized Hagiographies would make her out to be. Despite the actual nastinesses scattered through her responses, I've found much to respect and think on in this material, and am coming away liking her (as a person) more than I did before. Robert, I'd like to thank you for your tremendous work in letting us see Rand's ipse dixits. Jeffrey S.

In other words, anyone is free to originate his own philosophy, if he has the ability to do it; but then he has to start from scratch. He has to start on his, defining moral premises and then be able objectively to demonstrate that his system is right. And then, whether anyone wants to practice it or not, he can practice it on his own; and then his own mind is the sole determinant from scratch. Only I don't know of any human being who would even theoretically be able to do that. Including someone known as Ayn Rand, I assume. Is that why Mayhew left that sentence out of his version? Jeffrey S.

Jim Lennox, for starters. Before Russian Radical came out, I doubt any of the ARI contingent had any idea what Lossky's own philosophy was like. Once they found out, they wanted to put as much distance between him and Ayn Rand as they could. Robert Campbell It's always a trifle more confusing when whim worshipping subjectivism is engaged in by people who loudly assert they are not subjectively whim worshipping. Only question is whether they are successfully fooling themselves, or unsuccessfully trying to fool others. Jeffrey S.

I read Russian Radical a few months ago, and am quite puzzled why anyone would object to it. But of course, I am not an Objectivist, much less an Orthodox Objectivist. The philosophical aspects seem too obvious to be argued in principle: Rand was exposed to a variety of philosophical influences in Russia and in her early years here in the USA, and it's helpful to see what they are so we can see what she changed or invented, and the implications of those changes and inventions. The biographical aspects were also interesting, although now with the publication of the Heller and Burns volumes, they may have been superseded. Jeffrey S.

I've found that Wiki is best for intensive knowledge of subjects that draw on geekery or fannishness for their base, and the less controversial and the less in the academic mainstream, the better, because it's usually taken in hand by people who have the geekery or fannishness necessary for the subject. Of course, this does not always apply. For instance, the articles on Objectivism--which ought to (in terms of explaining what Objectivism says and what Rand did and wrote) be non-controversial and are not exactly academic mainstream... AS actually has plenty of Venerable Plot Devices. For instance, the tunnel disaster is the result of one--Foolhardy or Malevolent Character Insists On Doing Something Dangerous Despite Being Warned With Inevitable Consequences. Ferris's weapon is a Venerable Plot Device all on its own (see the "Death Star" for a modern and more powerful version), and the eventual catastrophe with it is really just another variation on the FOMCIODSDDBWIIC Plot Device used in the tunnel disaster. The Incognito Sage Wandering Around and Getting People To Do Things is another one, and so is The Hero/Heroine Pursuing the Incognito Sage As He Wanders About Believing Him To Be A Villain Until He/She Discovers The Incognito Sage's True Nature...and so on. If you want to have some fun someday, go through TV Tropes looking for how many Venerable Plot Devices Rand made use of in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged (although TV Tropes probably doesn't use the names I just gave these examples). Of course, while almost all bad literature makes use of VPDs, so does most great literature. You pointed out in the post that started this thread how Rand took many cliches and turned them on their head to turn out a great book. I don't think that AS is that great a book, but the methodology applies to most great writers: it's not whether a VPD is used, but how effectively and what new twist is made to make the VPD seem fresh and non-cliched. Jeffrey S.

Who does Whom gets done. Therefore always be a who and try not to be a whom Jeffrey S.

Leading the list as issue No. 1: "Protect the Constitution: Require each bill to identity the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. That would be easily circumvented: wave the Commerce Clause and almost anything Congress passes would be accepted by the courts, given the state of modern jurisprudence. Which points to the fact that the current US Constitution is hopelessly compromised, and what's not needed is a return to the "original" (which was, in any case, written to favor a centralized government) but a completely new one that clearly spells out the limitations on government power and can be easily enforced (for instance, by allowing any individual the explicit power to refuse to obey a law that can be reasonably viewed as unconstitutional). As you would expect, there is a wide divide between the Political Class and Mainstream Americans on these questions. Interesting, but how are "political class" and "mainstream American" defined? To which one does a small town mayor or a Tea Party organizer belong? Jeffrey S.

Corrective note on Zen Buddhism, Japanese militarism, etc. The religious orientation associated with the Japanese imperialistic expansion of 1890-1945 was called State Shinto: the native religion of Japan (reaching back before the introduction of Buddhism into the centuries BCE) developed to support nationalism, the concept of the divine emperor, and ethnic superiority. These strains were already native to Japanese culture, but were developed to a degree approaching perversion in order to support the militaristic state that developed in the first half of the 20th century CE. Buddhism had an effect on this, like it did on all of Japanese culture, but State Shinto actually involved a slight suppression of Buddhist activity. Defeat in WWII brought an end to State Shinto but remnants of its thinking still linger on, especially those that simply re-iterated ideas that were common before the Meiji modernization, such as the unique status of the imperial family, and can not be claimed as solely due to State Shinto. Zen is one school of Buddhism, and one which had an unusually high degree of attraction to Westerners because it pares Buddhism down to essentials; but it was hardly the only important Buddhist school of thought, even in Japan. It is possible to over-estimate the role of Zen in Buddhist culture. There were Buddhist monasteries organized in Japan which were devoted to the concept of warrior monks and sometimes were the core of armies that fought with each other or with Japanese political factions, but they were not necessarily Zen. The military impact of Zen centered on the development of a warrior ethos we think of as Japanese, the samurai or Bushido, which focused on living in the current moment, having no fears of the future nor concerns with the past, and doing one's job. A similar approach to the warrior life, btw, is found in the Bhagavad Gita of Hinduism, which starts off with Arjuna balking at the idea of going into battle and killing so many other men, many of them his relatives; and Krishna explains that, essentially, this is what Arjuna was born to do, so what he needs to do is to go and fight and not bother over the moral implications. Despite this cultural application to warriors in Japan, there is nothing very militaristic about Zen; in fact, in its Western form it became the basic philosophy of the Beatniks and their followers in the middle of the 20th century CE--hardly a rabid group of militaristic zealots. This living in the moment, existentialist approach to life is what attracted many Westerners to Zen, and made it so popular in the 1950s-70s; although its attraction seems to have waned, and more overtly religious forms of Buddhism have become more popular, particularly the Vajrayana (Diamond Vehicle) schools based on Tantra, of which Tibetan Buddhism is the most famous but not the only example. Jeffrey S.

Perhaps it's changed since the last time I looked, but doesn't the Constitution Party promote the idea that America is a "Christian nation" founded on "Christian principles", and seek to impose Christianity on everyone through school prayer, legislated morality, and similar means? Jeffrey S.

side note here: the "Renaissance" as usually dated was in the fifteenth-sixteenth centuries CE, and the Enlightenment was an 18th century phenomenon--in other words, no more than 200 or 300 years between them. Aquinas was squarely Medieval. And scholars now recognize a Carolingian renaissance (meaning during the times of Charlemagne and his immediate successors) and a twelfth century CE renaissance of which Aquinas was one of the eventual results. Also, while religious toleration began during the 17th century CE, separation of Church and State, a rather different thing, was an American invention and one that did not take root in Europe until the 19th century CE or even later. It took Europeans a long time to get used to the idea that one faith could peaceably coexist with other faiths (and even then, at first it was only a comity extended to fellow Christians); but the idea that one does need to be a member of the established religion of the realm in order to exercise full political rights took even longer. The nineteenth century was half way over before the first non-Christian (a Jew, one of the Rothschilds) was allowed to be a sitting member of Parliament, and another generation before the first non-Christian (again, a Jew, not coincidentally, son of the just mentioned first non-Christian MP)was admitted to the House of Lords. Catholics in the UK did not recieve full political rights until 1830; and even today members of the British royal family can not marry Catholics without losing their rights as royalty, while the marital history of the House of Windsor was dramatically impacted by the fact that the monarch is still legal head of the Church of England. And that's just England, despite its history as leading the way in political rights compared to the Continent... Jeffrey S.

Forget the movie; read the book: it's one of Faulkner's best (and also one that's an easy read in comparison to some of his "big" books like Sound and the Fury), although blemished (from our modern POV) by a mild defense of segregation. And it's not only the son, but the lawyer father who plays a strong and admirable role, and also a fairly strong willed Southern lady who's equally concerned about seeing justice done. And of course the aforementioned black man who values his self esteem (to cast an Objectivist light on it) more than he does his physical survival. It's essentially Faulkner's take on To Kill A Mockingbird (which probably deserves a mention on its own merits in this connection). Jeffrey S.

I had no idea this was your point, perhaps because reading your posts is not high on my "Things to Do Today" list. In any case, there is no conflict between Rand's ethical theory and evolutionary theory. Nothing in evolutionary theory entails biological determinism. That's a different issue. (Maybe you didn't mean to defend biological determinism, but I had to take a wild guess what your point was, and that was it.) Well at least we're getting somewhere. "In any case, there is no conflict between Rand's ethical theory and evolutionary theory. " Yes there is. Start with premises that are just slightly more sophisticated and in better congruence with Evolution's picture of what man's standard of value might be. Go ahead and jump the is/ought gap if you want to, but start with a gene-centric premise and not Rand's. Man's standard of value is a mixture of his own life and the lives those he loves, especially family (take the gene perspective). Hell, I don't even believe this, but it sure the hell is better than Rand's because her idea is indeed in conflict with evolution. What we're left with: 1. Her ethics are dead in the water if you can't make the leap (different argument though) 2. Her ethics are dead in the water if do make the leap (and don't start with a retarded premise) Biological determinism has nothing to do with anything - strawman. It is just as foolish as saying we're not affected at all by biology. Bob Evolution is pertinent to ethics only if you accept biological determinism, and posit that our biological inheritance includes psychological conditioning that forces us into certain types of action, in which case it it not possible to have an ethical theory, only a psychological theory. Ethics is premised on the idea that the human mind is (or should be) free to choose among alternatives despite any prior conditioning; and that whatever conditioning our biological inheritance includes is not the determining or defining factor in how we make our choices--in other words, that evolution is irrelevant to ethics. This is so basic a point that it applies not only to Objectivist ethics but to all theories of ethics. Evolution did not give us morality: the human mind did. Jeffrey S.

I think that by "worse sins and crimes" Rand meant something along the lines of what JR wrote: "Their smug self-satisfaction, the open pride they take in their ignorance and stupidity, is enough to sicken anyone of any intelligence." Apparently the idea is that it's understandable that Rand rated the smug self-satisfaction of the ignorant masses as a worse crime than the mutilation of a little girl, but it's disgusting (and perhaps proof of smug, self-satisfied ignorance) for people to take Rand a little too literally and to be disturbed by her sense of proportion -- her queasiness over ignorant smugness and her comparative tolerance for mutilation. J Self satisfaction and being proud of being ignorant and stupid--are they not denial of the human mind? Is that not an act of voluntary self mutilation? Why wouldn't Rand be enraged at what is, in an Objectivist framework, the "sin against the Holy Spirit", the act that can not be forgiven because it so fundamentally destroys the self? Jeffrey S.

I am really interested in the justification of this statement. I came to this conclusion or at least strong suspicion that this motivation was indeed at the true top of her value system and that truth and rationality consistently took a back seat. I do not know this to be true. Can you elaborate a little? It seems to me to be the simplest explanation of why an intelligent person would make such obvious mistakes and then never correct them. Bob If that's what she meant then we should looking for tautological arguments within her system. Well... I find that her "Objective" ethics that outline the moral code of a good Objectivist are fundamentally based on man's life qua man and the "qua" part simply means a good Objectivist. That's about as tautological as you're gonna get. Bob I wouldn't say that the faults are tautological per se (except for the famous incipit--"Existence exists"--which not even Plato nor Kant denied). But the key point of Objectivism rests not on any logical argument, nor any argument from facts, but simple assertion: that man's nature is that of being a rational and productive being ("man qua man"). That's really stating an ubervalue, so to speak: the basic and foundational value principle from which all others flow. Nothing in the universe dictates this foundational value as being the only possible choice, and it is possible to construct other value systems based on different ideas of what man "qua man" might be. Nor is the choice of survival as the principle on which to decide what is and is not moral as brilliant as it seems. In the end, we are all going to die, and if survival is your guiding light, then your efforts are ultimately doomed; all you can do is stave off the inevitable for as long as possible. Probably heroic, but ultimately futile, and what is ultimately futile can not be ultimately valuable. Jeffrey S.

That's the only option, of course. I've never posted on a board with so many people who jump to extremes and see no middle ground. I can see what you call "middle ground," but I would probably call it a "swamp." Ghs You can't see the middle ground and what you imagine in its place is swamp. I'm sure that's what you meant as you obviously can't objectively know what I mean by middle ground. If you did, you might come to visit - and you'd be surprised, you wouldn't need boots or bug spray. First you need to shovel your way out from where you are and that might take a while - seems you have been at this a long time. Swamp is pretty good metaphor, at least. In theory, this is nothing more than the fedgov adding another layer of regulatory bureaucracy to that already in place at the state level--or perhaps replacing it--and spraying out tax-funded (in as much as they are funded by anything, and not merely paper promises) subsidies in all directions, while selectively imposing new taxes. Nothing that the government hasn't been doing for decades now. But what it is in fact is a federal takeover of an important industry that directly impacts every individual at some moment, and opening up the spigot of federal funding to do it with no possibility of actually paying for it. The entities that will most benefit, if they can adapt to the federal embrace, are the insurance companies and the health related industries. Actual delivery of medical services to the average individual will continue to vary from good to bad, and people will continue to deal with arbitrary insurance company bureaucracies, although (one good part of the bill) some of the arbitrariness has been declared off limits. (I've dealt enough with medical insurance for both myself and my parents to see in practice that all the problems with rationed care predicted of socialized medicine are already in place, courtesy of the insurance companies--refusal to fund prescribed medicines or necessary procedures, on arbitrary grounds, and no realistic alternative available to make choice of insurance companies a real option.) So, yes, swamp is a good term to use. Jeffrey S.

Wait a minute! Total Passion for the Total Sewer... Perigo's favorite nom de insult for you is Michael Sewer... Does this mean that Perigo's rage at you rests on a simple case of unrequited lust for you? Adds another dimension to the intrigue here. Jeffrey S. If it isn't obvious by now--I long ago stopped reading this thread for anything other than its entertainment value.

Not sure what you mean about two laws side by side. If there is a federal law which covers the same ground as a state law, generally the federal law will trump it--though there are exceptions (basically, if the feds restrict something,a state can restrict it even more; if the feds allow something, the state can allow even more; but only if the feds said the state could do so; and even then there are exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions.) Obamacare is coming in two laws. Law one was finally passed by the House on Sunday and was signed by Obama today, so it is now law. The House also passed a series of amendments called the reconciliation bill on Sunday, which have to be approved by the Senate, and the GOP is saying it will obstruct that part of the process as much as possible. But once the reconciliation bill is passed (and the Republicans don't have enough votes to keep it from being passed) Obama will sign it and the law will be finally in place, until someone changes it again. The real test comes through the regulatory process, where the details left unclear by Congress are spelled out by bureaucrats who don't need to worry about what voters think. There is a standard process for issuing regulations; essentially people will have a chance to oppose or influence the regulations, and eventually fight them in court And that's where mandates for brain chip implants would be most likely to appear.

The article boils down to this: there are a lot of new governmental mandates (not all of which are actually new, being simply adaptations of state mandates already in place) and a lot of new taxes. Some of them are meaningless. No. 13, about hospital expansion--that sort of limitation is already in place at the state level; this merely adds a new layer of bureaucracy (and in some cases, the federal standards may actually be an improvement on those used by the states). And then there is No. 11: If you are a physician and you don’t want the government looking over your shoulder? Tough. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to use your claims data to issue you reports that measure the resources you use, provide information on the quality of care you provide, and compare the resources you use to those used by other physicians. Of course, this will all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like the government will ever use it to intervene in your practice and patients’ care. Of course not. Perhaps he is merely objecting to government being the information collector; but it so happens that data is exactly the sort of information a consumer would want to have in picking a doctor. Jeffrey S.

Pt1. Should what you mention be accepted by insurance firms, I'll only wait until those companies realize that the government is favoring one or two of them through "pull" which brings to mind - strings which have something on the other end... and as I can visualize: A puppet. Pt2. When that time comes, I'll be laughing so hard and with teary eyes say, "I'm not laughing with you, I'm laughing at you." I'd do that, because it is so absurd that with all their supposed "powers to see the future" of their clients' health, stock market, etcetera, they could not foretell their own because they were blindfolded when they accepted. Pt3. And from where will the government get the funds to subsidize that large portion of the populace? Hmm, I'd like to see them do a hat-trick on this one just for spite. Question: What's on the calendar of activities in 2014 that would warrant civil disobedience Jeff? Re: Pt1 and Pt2--the insurance companies are already intertwined through regulation and legislation to the state governments that this will only add one more layer of complexity. Nor will it necessarily be a bad idea from the perspective of the insurance companies. All they have to do is find out who to get in bed with at the federal level. They're already sharing the appropriate beds at the state level. Pt3. Absolutely correct. Question--the individual mandate goes into effect in 2014, so that's when government will start forcing things on individual persons. Until then, there's nothing an individual can do that would draw a civil disobedience consequence. Jeffrey S.

Unfortunately, there won't be anything on the part of individual citizens to disobey until 2014. The entities directly impacted by the first changes included in the law are the insurance companies, and despite those initial changes, they are the ultimate beneficiaries of this law: they're facing a future in which every person in this country will be forced to buy their product whether they want to or not, and a large portion of those people will be doing so by paying premiums subsidized at least in part by the US government. Jeffrey S.

I think that if Stupak and company had voted against the bill, some other Democrats would decided the ship was sinking and abandoned it by voting no; so the margin of defeat would have been larger than the real world margin of victory. Of course like all counterfactual history, it will be impossible to prove me wrong Somewhere on one of these threads, I predicted that Stupak would find some reason as a cover to vote for the bill. I was wrong about the specific excuse he used, but I seem to be correct about the general result. The only wonder is that it took so long for Pelosi and Obama to come up with the cover story for his benefit. Jeffrey S.

To be clear about this--what I am saying that it is possible that there are existents that don't exist in time and place--but that it is impossible for us, as existents that exist in time and space, to know anything about them. We can't say that they actually exist; but we also can't say that we know they don't exist. The same bar that keeps us from knowing anything about them also keeps us from knowing that they don't exist--and therefore to state, rather categorically, that nothing can exist outside of time and space is to make an invalid statement. If time and space are seen as types of relationship, than they are linked inextricably with existents. You can't have a relationship without at least one existent--and generally, there are at least two. Jeffrey S.

Yes. Your basic idea seems reasonable to me, but I would amend the 360 degrees to reflect the fact that we would need to think not of a 2 dimensional circle, but a 4 dimensional mapping involving horizontal, vertical, and temporal directions. The portion I bolded reflects an unwarranted assumption--that existence necessarily involves time and space. You are, in essence, asserting that to exist, a thing must be comprehensible to the human mind, whereas all one can legitimately say on that point is that for us to make any legitimate statement about an existent, it must be comprehensible to the human mind. Things may exist in a way that does not involve space and time--but we can make no valid statements about them (even that they definitely do or definitely do not exist). If you assert that comprehensibility (at least in potentio) is a necessary trait of anything existing, you are actually making a Kantian style argument--the difference being that where he applied his categories to epistemology, you are applying them to ontology. You may be correct that all things existent are of necessity comprehensible, but it is a bit odd to have Kant revived even if revised under the Objectivist umbrella. Jeffrey S.

Reference the law of the excluded middle, meaning the comma is either there or not. Result of reality check: It’s there. William F. Buckley, in one of his forgotten spy novels, depended on a report stating that on a certain date: Beria, aids executed. It should have read: Beria aids executed. He dramatized Beria dying a year late as a result. Damn commas. Pretty tiresome topic. This is nearly as fun as debating Xray. Well, then have a joke (or sort of a joke) that's partially related to your comment, for your sake and Bill P.'s Soviet Union, Moscow, approximately 1930. Stalin convenes a meeting of the Politburo in great excitement. "Comrades! A telegram from Trotsky! He concedes everything to us right thinking Marxist-Leninists!" Everyone perks up and listens intently as Stalin reads the telegram. "You are right. I was wrong. I will recant all I have said or written to this point if you ask me to do so. Regards, Trotsky." "Isn't this wonderful?" Stalin exults. "On the contrary," says one of the older members of the Politburo. "It's a scurrilous insult." "What! How is that!" "Allow me to read it with the correct punctuation, Great Captain of the People." He takes the telegram, clears his throat and begins. "You are right? I was wrong? I will recant all I have said or written to this point if you ask me to do so? Regards," he ends with a great sneer, "Trotsky!" Jeffrey S. No, it's got nothing related to the current topic, but it's probably a lot more interesting.

I'm curious to hear responses to the theory that not only matter and space, but time itself began with the big bang. I find myself frequently asking: "Well what was there before that?" since it's counterintuitive that something came from nothing. Unfortunately our standard model has no answer for this quandry. Seeing as we as humans define "existence" by what we can empirically measure, and at some point in the past there may have been a "time" when there was no measureable matter or space or time, then by our limited definition existence didn't always exist. Then, what did exist instead? --Brant Before and after imply the presence of time. What we have to think of is a state of being that is outside of time and space--for which not only no time, and therefore no before and no after, exists, but for which none of the seven directions apply--no left, no right, no ahead, no behind, no above, no below, no center. Whatever sort of relationships apply to such a state of being, they can be only analogous to time and space, and we will at best only be able to dimly understand them, because they are so far out of our experience. But that does not mean they do not exist. A thing does not, of necessity, need to exist in time--in a state that includes before and after--nor need to exist in space--in a state whose relations are expressed by the six directions. It's simply that such states of existence will not be comprehensible to us: existing in time and space is a necessity for our comprehension of particular things. A very good point, Mr. G. In vino veritas. Jeffrey S.