john42t

Xray: See what I mean? This kind of talk is what prompted Rand to talk about the issue at all.

Thanks ever so much for mentioning Gustave Le Bon. I didn't yet know him, just read the German Wikipedia article. This man appears to be a very important vertex on the map of influential intellectuals. I just wanted to ask how demonic compares to her other books and whether it's the book you'd recommend on the French Revolution regarding mob mentality... but damn, there's just too much to read.

What article is that? The link "Why a lack of empathy is the root of all evil" doesn't work and it appears not be by Baron-Cohen. Is it really him you refer to? One person in the thread spells it out, thanks for this. Sometimes I feel very lonely. Because I don't trust any single one of you that "empathy" is going to stop your participation in a mob on a killing frenzy once irrational ideas are taking over.

True. It is irrelevant in that context what kind of concepts humans form. The point is that they do possess the rational faculty to form them, depending on a certain stage of their cognitive and linguistic development. With this statement I conclude we're in perfect agreement and also very likely in perfect agreement with Rand. Nothing else was claimed to my knowledge. Your premise: "Man's rational faculty is tabula rasa". The premise contains a substantial error: A faculty cannot be tabula rasa. The faculty has some memory to store concepts. Either you consider that part of that faculty (like I did) or not (like you do). That memory for concepts is empty, ie tabula rasa. Rand's concern was only about this memory: If it is assumed not to be empty initially, it could contain concepts that can assist in establishing a moral imperative, such as "God" or "duty". Kant and many others assumed innate knowledge. It's often implied in the statement "There are things human beings just know." I don't think so. In terms of concepts, we learn it all from scratch.

But he and Tea Party folk do often talk as if they draw the legitimacy of governments out of majority will. As in: "we, the people, must be heard" - if you're not a democrat, how's what "we, the people" want or say of any relevance to legitimacy of governments? I was thinking on this level. I'm sure you're right on that he opposes direct democracy. But even Germans oppose direct democracy rather strongly! (This is in harsh contrast to Switzerland, who also speak German to a large extent.) They are still totally democratic in their believe that the only legitimate government can be one that resulted out of general elections.

How do you define the total lack of democracy? For example, would you say that China lacks democracy totally? Or is there some element of democracy in China? If so, where is it? Or when only landowners can vote, is that lacking democracy totally or is a little bit of democracy in it because *some* can vote?

Near the end of the article there's an ad depicting H.H.Hoppe, who promotes monarchism as anarcho-capitalism (long theory short: it's not a real state if it's owned privately, intriguing argument). Now if that's anarchism, it can work as everybody knows. Is that the question? If not, what is the question? The article already admits that certain businessmen (I suppose the successful ones) have to defend themselves. Everybody knows that Somalia is poor. Once there will be someone who really gets some wealth he will have to have some real army to defend himself against the looters that wealth attracts. If he already has that army, he's naturally going to use it to provide others with security too. He will make agreements with other such armed entrepreneurs about where their respective "jurisdictions" end for practical reasons. If that happens within a failed democratic state, it's called organized crime. But outside it, it's traditionally called a monarchy. What do "anarchists" want?

I agree as well, I'm even rather anti-democratic. The thing I care about most in terms of government is the rule of law. Well there was France 1800 which resulted in an irrational mob devastating Europe, but you could argue that it was only the democratic ideology, not the actual voting process that lead to the disaster of the French Revolution. But then there's German post-WWI where a democracy was put onto Germany and the guy that got elected after a good decade started WWII. Then there's the UK, which was, like America, never considered a democracy before the advent of collectivism. It was considered a constitutional monarchy, America a constitutional republic. In both systems voting rights were extremely restrictive (in the UK much more than in the US though). The idea of a mob rule, that means the egalitarian idea that any man's voice should influential as that of any other, crept in later in both cases. (Although maybe George could point to some material for me about when and how that happened in the US?) I feel as you do, but he sees himself to the leftists establishment (and in the comparison he's correct of course). In the video I linked above he's raving non-stop against the "leftist pricks" in the BBC and the government. "We the people" and democracy are values promoted strongly by the Tea Party and Glenn Beck as well. But strictly speaking they are leftists too in that regard. These leftists are just everywhere!

My pleasure.

Very interesting article. Also that it was a feminist ideology back then is an interesting statement, I haven't heard that yet.

Continued here.

I factored this out from Phil's thread, the last comment being this one. Which are written by its founder I presume? I can't see how that doesn't amount to the same thing. This is not a definition but a personal value judgement voicing what this philosophy means to you. It's bit like saying "Jane is my one, true love, the most wonderful woman on earth." Not a bit. The analogy would be "I define the name Jane to refer to whomever is my one, true love." Which is a confusing and impractical definition, but perfectly valid. The implicit assumption being that you do not need a word for the one that is actually true. Because you believe there is no such thing as the true philosophy. Tell mathmaticians that you come to appreciate "Calculus, the mathematics of Issac Newton", and when they do calculus that go beyond Newton, you scold them that Newton never said such a thing, they are wrong in believing it to be calculus. When they point out to you, like I did with with philosophy, that they really don't give a thing about who invented it, only that it's true, you laugh at them: Do they really believe one is actually true? Oh, those silly absolutists.

I believe Mises translated his work into English himself after he emigrated due to Europe's descending into collectivism. I have the English version of "The Theory of Money and Credit" in my shelf. It is is two chapters longer than the older German edition, but much, much less expensive. :-) Austria was considered as German as anything, that's true. In fact the whole idea of Germany is a collectivist idea. Without collectivism, we still had the Prussian and Austrian monarchies plus many little kingdoms. About when the Zeitgeist changed to collectivism, during the 19th century, Germany's intellectual power wavered. It suffered severly with the unification, imploded totally with the advent of Nazism and has not yet recovered. [EDIT: And of course the Austrians are not known in modern Austria either! From all I know about Austria, it's a good deal worse than Germany in terms of intellectual climate.] If you have an example lecture you consider a good teaser, I'd be interested. So far, Rand herself continues to surprise me. Lately I found that Rand wrote on Randroids! This lady just couldn't be more perfect.

He sometimes makes such speeches lately. Pat is great and there is the spirit of the Tea Party in his words. Here's one that touches religion but is aimed strongly against the secular (!) left: http://www.youtube.c.../10/D4YMbsEm3ms

Sorry about that. A: There are old ones which are out of print. I don't know how good they are, but that "We, the living" has been translated with "undefeated by life" isn't a good sign. B: I was investigating the curious phenomenon of the Tea Party. People demonstrating for more capitalism seemed weird. I don't know for sure, but maybe the name Rand was on a sign or maybe I saw it on a related website. I rember some Randist's ranting in an article about how capitalism must not be justified on pragmatic grounds but only on moral grounds. That was so way out of anything I could categorize in my map of known ideologies that I got very curious. I like to understand how people tick, at least roughly, and being able to categorize them. The world around the Tea Party, the libertarians and especially Rand (who I believe greately contributed to the former) was entirely new to me. Austrian economics aren't known to Germans either. C: The first thing I read after quotations on the net was "Philosophy, who needs it." I can't tell you just how much of an impact it had on me. For a short while I was so completely alienated from others, I felt like a tragic hero in a zombie movie - and that was only the first little set of articles. I didn't went on a mission to convince everybody of Objectivism or something like that, in fact I barely mentioned it. But I tested people by asking questions about their premises. Rand turned out to be right - and believe me, I wished she was wrong. Many of them liked me only because, and only in so far, I pretended to be as immoral as them. All I considered good in me they considered evil. Not all of them, but family and many of those I considered my closest friends. In a way I always knew it, but did not dare to draw conclusions. I didn't really need her ideas so much, I needed her courage and the knowledge that I'm not alone. That is one thing you can use for your quest for how to spread the word. As to the rest, I'm familiar with some of the Objectivist movement and such by the biography "Goddess of the market" and various internet sources. I'm not familiar with Peikoff's courses or the NBI courses and I'm very much in the dark about their quality. As of now, I don't see much reason to delve into those (maybe you have one?). There are still some pieces of Rand I haven't read (art of fiction, art of non-fiction and all the articles that are not in book form; also didn't read WTL yet) and of course there's always other stuff to do. While we're at it, I don't have a very strong opinion about Peikoff, the ARI and related issues closed vs. open either. I read "Fact and Value" and "A Question of Sanction", but I'm not sure what to make of it all. It's very difficult and tedious to analyse these splits and there's little in it for me in doing so. I rather advance my knowledge in other fields. I should say that the amount of disagreement I have with Rand is tiny and inconsequential, but it took me a long while to arrive there. There's another tiny point I want to mention: Our disagreement about the American natives. I read Rand's statement relatively early in my discovery and agreed with it instantly. There's two things to this point: 1. The argument itself is non-trivial and the conclusion appears monsterous to the do-gooder (it makes him evil, after all). 2. The author seems to relish in the expected agony of the potential do-gooder. Rand provoked. That appeals to me and the do-gooder reaction made her more visible. If you want to spread the message, don't ally with do-gooders, don't engange in smooth-talking. That approach will only get you ignored.

Wasn't Clinton fiscally conservative? What damage did he do?

I don't define Objectivism as "the philosophy of Ayn Rand". That would be a definition by non-essentials. I define it as the one, true philosophy. If I detect and correct errors, I don't leave Objectivism, I approach it. The fact that this works in terms of communication obviously depends on Rand's excellence as a philosopher. [EDIT: Meaning: the two defintions lead to almost identical concepts - only very rarely (like in the discussion we're having right now) you will have to distinguish the two.] I'm confident that this is a definition Rand would have approved of more than the former. In the absence of neomystical corruption, there would be no need for the term "Objectivism": "philosophy" would suffice. There is no such thing as "a" philosphy, any more than there is "a" mathematics. Maths is an integrated whole, so is philosophy. Anything else is masturbation. Man's *rational faculty* is tabula rasa, I made a about it.If you disagree, name one *concept* (not instinct) that you believe is inate. I hope your case is better than the "but I feel pain and I haven't learned that"-strawman, which is really cheap. As if Rand didn't know about that.

Now, that's the spirit.

So that means you a) call yourself an Objectivist and have b) meet others who call themselves Objectivists and c) it turned out that they actually believed the same as you do regarding Objectivism? That's amazing! When did you read OPAR?

Meaningless chart, I agree.

We're again largely in agreement then. By revolution you mean a revolution at the ballot box? As an American I'd probably be more pessimistic myself. The major aspect in which Atlas Shrugged has turned out not to be prophetic is what happened to countries other than America. Rand was right about middle and south America, but not Europe and the Far East. It's America that is more and more dependent on importing goods. My optimism is primarily for the world, not America, even though I think there's change on the horizon for her as well.

No, my knowledge about China is very limited. The reason is that I don't know any source I trust. In particular, I don't trust sources that consider China to be Communist. I don't know what it is, but it's not Communist. Complaining Muslims, who would have thought it possible. [EDIT: I'm *so* glad the Chinese have them too.] That is surely a local issue. China is one of the most fiscally conservative countries on the planet. You wouldn't get those horror stories back in 1960 when the Chinese were starving in the millions. That's when they were actually still Communist and then the media loved them. Now that they are the world's factory for low-cost production the media don't love them any more, and now each factory suicide is worse than a thousand who starved in 1960. I'm with Rand to believe that a country's wealth is the barometer of their morals. They are a lot more moral than in 1960. And whether they will out-do America in terms of wealth (and thus, morality) still remains to be seen. However, I firmly state that the Chinese administrations have done a fairly good job over the last 3 decades and I might add that this is in harsh contrast to the American ones. If Americans don't want their democracy to fail they really ought to stop whining about China and start voting for less evil presidents. -- In response to the "social consciousness" link to wikipedia: leftist crap beyond redemption - I wouldn't know how to define it any meaningful way.

I even think having the word "social consciousness" in one's active vocabulary is a bad sign. I suppose it is meant to imply a duty/responsibility to society (ie people I don't even know)? That would be very irrational, yes.

Mostly I take this from the leftists whining that people only care about money these days (their pessimism and despair is the new thing), together with a lack of political activity especially in the usual suspect groups students and professors. Most of the young have moved from very leftist, highly political to pragmatic/consumerist. I don't think that it's only me who sees it this way. That's true and we will see this to continue for a good while, but I think this is more inertia of past ideologies passing by than the future. This is your personal opininion. All I say is my personal opinion. What else could it be? I'm not talking about groups that, within Germany, are considered leftists. I'm only talking about ideas that I consider leftist corruption. Many of those ideas are mainstream to an extent that even the majority of conservatives hold them, such as much of environmentalism. I don't think there's much of a difference between German party lines.

Then we're in agreement and I was mistaken to sense anything else. Well, strictly speaking I object primarily to the (democratic) state doing it. I could say two things here. First, what would a "good society" be like and second what should one personally support or do given the contemporary one. To the first issue, I've probably become a child of the 19th Zeitgeist in the sense that I believe that some people just can't provide for themselves and that everyone is, and should, ultimately be selfish. People who can't provide for themselves will have to live under the rule of those who provide for them. They should be free, but if they want to eat more than they are worth, they should be humbled first. This is, of course, a violation of human rights, but I consider those to be evil. So I'm authoritarian in that sense, but I want all authority to be private, not public. To the second point, I think that striving for a "good society" is utopian. One should work on oneself, not others. One should concentrate on alleviating the danger to oneself that women like this can pose (moving to a better neighborhood, for example), rather than trying to think about how to prevent that from happening. I sympathize deeply with the old Puritan thought that you cannot save the souls of others.