KacyRay

This is a new "improvement" from the forum software upgrade. (Long story...)

To work around it, after you push the quote button, turn the WYSIWYG editor off (see an image of how to do that here). You'll have to copy the open and close tags for each block of the quote you want to respond to, but at least it works. Then you can turn the WYSIWYG editor back on before you post just to make sure everything is in order.

Michael

Ah, thanks! Much better.

"Self-respect can't be taken or given by anyone. It is gained only by one's assessment of one's self and actions. If the assessment is positive, self-respect is gained."

Exactly. And would someone who assesses the degree of respect they deserve to be healthy subject themselves to disrespect just to gain someone elses favor? (Hint: Would Ayn Rand have done that?)

"I agree with you, self-respect is a prime value. However, others may not consider it to be a prime value."

The same could be said of any value, including the value of rational self-interest.

"They may be perfectly willing to sacrifice self-respect for a greater value. It depends on one's value hierarchy."

And what I'm asserting is that there is no one alive who *gaining favor with* is objectively a higher value than *ones own self respect*. This is my contention.

Sorry for not having yet firgured out the blockquote feature... I know how to push the "quote" button, but I don't know how to break that quote up into bite-sized pieces.

"What have you really lost" - Self respect is pretty important. I'd say that it's more important than anyone elses respect. I am suggesting that forfeiting your self-respect for the sake of practically begging for social alms from someone else is pretty self-sacrificial, by definition. It is forfeiting a greater value for a lesser one, or none at all.

Am I the only one who cringes at the thought that people would ask Rand honest questions, only to be humiliated and publicly lambasted, then just sit down and lick their wounds? At the idea that she was able to weild this cruel hammer of disrespect toward anyone she pleased while simultaneously demanding complete respect from all she associated with? Am I the only one who feels that capitulating that power to another human being is one of the most selfless things one can do?

Capitulating that power is the altruism I speak of.

I think this will link you straight to the post I'm referring to.

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=60#entry1490

But my question is larger than just that story. Reading the stories in that thread, I find myself feeling extremely irritated at the way Rand allegedly treated people. I find it contemptable to fail to grant people a basic level of human decency and respect.

I mean, I get it. To a young intellectual, she was the equivalent of a rock star. And who doesn't wanna buddy up with a rock star, right? I realize that people would tolerate a lot in order to have that privledge. But is that privledge a rational value? More valuable than one's self-respect?

I just don't think so.

I was reading in the 'Nathaniel Branden Corner' all the stories of people who knew Rand from the NBI days and I came aross the story from Tibor Machan on the treatment that he ultimately received from her despite being a fan of hers. His last communication with her involved him attempting to express appreciation for her and what she had accomplished only to be coldly hung-up on.

I am in a profession in which a high premium is placed on respect - not just the respect we treat others with, but the self-respect we convey in our dealings with others.

And I am being very specific with the word "respect". I don't mean some Hollywood version of it where everyone snaps to attention where you walk in the room. I'm talking about a meritocratic environment where all present begin with a mutual respect and appreciation for what everyone else is, wha they do, and what it took to get where they are.

That's why reading this story seemed so foreign to me. The idea of willingly incurring such disrespect, and then upon receiving it, just shrugging it off and chalking it up to someone elses quirky behavior seems abhorrant to me. Respect is such a valuable thing (as a wise man receintly put it - "so hard to earn, so easily burned") that to relinquish it for the off-chance that someone may sprinkle you bits of social pittance, or not to respond in kind when such social injuries are incurred, seems like a psychological self-martyrdom worse than any I can imagine.

Objectivists believe (and I agree) that physical force in justified in retalion to and in order to protect onesself from physical force (or injury). I hold that the same applies to the forceful breach of what ought to be among the most cherished values - one's self respect.

So here's my quesiton: If a person were to contact someone of the status and accomplishment of Rand with the specific intent of expressing grattitude and respect, and is met with an entirely disrespectful response, is one justified in saying "Alright, then, F@#$ you!" and refusing to do anything at all that might afford any value whatsoever to that individual?

If not, what is the proper response?

(For example, when Machan was hung up on by Rand, would he have been justified in proclaiming "I'll never lift another finger to further the Objectivist cause, I'll never advocate for Rand again, I'll never spend a dime on her materials, and I'll never say another good thing about Objectivism in spite of the fact that he may recognize the value of Objectivism and still intend to live his life by those principles for his own sake?)

So, as I understand it, the prevailing consensus is that while we may not be in direct control of what we believe right this moment, we do have the capacity to take deliberate steps with the express instent of transforming that which we believe if we so chose. Does that accurately sum it up?

If cause and effect predestine us to our beliefs then we have no choice ... and no discussion is worthwhie. You are condemned to make your case and I and predestined to accept or reject it.

Why would no discussion be worthwhile? For one thing, I never said beliefs were predestined, I said they are not volitional. Two different things.

My point is that belief is a response, not a volitional act. I cannot believe my father is alive right now, however hard I might try, because all evidence tells me he passed away. I remember the grief, I remember the funeral, the FB memorial page is still up and running, he never calls my phone, etc... I have no choice but to believe he is dead right now. It has nothing to do with predestination and everything to do with a response to available evidence.

The reason it's worthwhile to discuss is because holding that belief is a volitional act places it into the realm of ethics. Holding that it is not removes it from moral consideration.

I believe that understanding this is useful, particularly in light of the absurdity of religious doctrine that demands belief. If belief is non-volitional, it is all the more absurd to demand it of someone.

Of course, I can imagine that Orthodox Objectivists would cringe at the idea that belief is non-volitional for the exact same reasons... tough to condemn someone for something they have no direct control over. And them types is all about condemnation, eh?

"Welcome to the serving US military man and former hardliner! What an interesting arrival. Over at The Other Place, I suspect Kacy would have been already beaten to death for not holding true to the Randian evermores and nevermores, edicts and dicktat.

In years to come, he will perhaps eat Leonid's head. Who can tell in a determined world like Objectivist Living?

Again, welcome Newest New Guy."

Thanks William. My ability to participate will probably come and go depending on where I'm at and what I have going on, but I like the idea of a forum that is informed by objectivist principles without the dogma.

I know at least one hardliner that still refuses to accept that Rand had an affair with Branden. Blows my mind.

Kacy: Do you feel you could start believing in God right now if you so chose?

No, but that's because my psycho-epistemology is what it is. There are others, most others I think, with different 'programming'. I could try lying to myself but I know it wouldn't work, and that's actually part of the programming.

Now, if I had a mystical revelation like Neil's, who can say?

If you did have what Neil called a "full cognitive experience", as real as any you've ever had, in full sobriety, with a being claiming to be god... would you be able to "choose" whether or not you believed that being existed? Or would you be compelled to? (Whether or not you take it at its word that it is "god" is not at issue, by the way).

[Accidentally instered garbage edited out]

ND - I can't see any streaming video. I'm on a ship at the moment.

"I think a more important question is whether they can stop believing in whatever they had drilled into them at an early age."

Perhaps, but it's a different question. And I ask the question I asked in the OP for a more subtle reason...

I was having a converastion with my Fundamentalist uncle a while back, and at some point he suggested that I should believe in (his) god. And I asked him, "But what if I don't?" It occurred to me at that moment that, even if I made up my mind to accept Christianity at that very moment, I couldn't make myself believe any of it.

I then asked him "If I don't believe your god exists... I mean I truly don't believe it, would you suggest I ought to accept it anyway?

Obviously I was asking him, in a roundabout way, whether my loyalties should lie with the judgment of my own mind or with the authority of his dogma. Naturally he answered that I should accept his religion (notwithstanding whether or not I actually believe it), and that cemented his fate in my mind.

But the point remained... I realized that what I believed was not really up to me.

Yet... you seem to believe it is.

Do you feel you could start believing in God right now if you so chose?

A belief is volitional if the process that led to that belief is.

I'm not sure the conclusion necessarily follows from the premise, but even so, not all beliefs are arrived at via any process, and even among those which are, not all of those processes were initiated by choices the believer in question was free to make.

An example of the former is Neil Schulman (having read through the thread and taking his testimony at face value for the sake of discussion).

An example of the latter would be those unfortunate children who have been raised in cults such as WBC for Scientology - environments where the information flow is carefully controlled and tailored in order to almost guarantee the desired outcome.

Can those sorts of folks in the former category (folks who are convinced they've seen something that contradicats their entire metaphysical paradigm) or those in the latter category (who have arrived at beliefs via processes they had no control over) really be said to have arrived at their beliefs volitionally?

I was recently reading a thread called "Is Neil Schulman Justified (logically) in believing in God?"

This provokes a question that I have, during my life, changed my opinion on. It's obvious to me that accepting a certain proposition is volitional. But is believing it volitional? Can one choose what they believe?

A belief is a conviction of the truth of a certain proposition.

To accept a proposition is something any one can do at any time. If you tell me you have cancer, I can choose to accept it at face value, hold out until sufficient evidence is in, or arbitrarily reject it outright. But an inner conviction required to consider your acceptance "belief" ... I am not convinced this is something we control. I certainly don't choose what I believe.

If the answer is no... then is it even reasonable to demand that someone justify their beliefs? Can someone reasonably be expected to justify a conviction over which they have no immediate control?

Hopefully I'm not bringing up something that has beaten to death in these forums already, as I am new to OL. Cheers.

Kyle,

Great articles, and it appears the argument I formulated on my own has already been vetted quite thoroughly through the objectivist/intellectual commuity. Now I almost don't even want to go bringing up the topic seeing as how exhaustively my own argument has already been covered.

I had no illusions that I was the only one thinking that the idea of free will runs into conflicts with the law of identity... I just didn't realize the argument had been made so well by so many other folks. I also see the counter arguments, and I'll probably weight them on my own before bringing them up in a forum. Thanks for sharing those links.

Kacy,

If you don't already know of these articles and discussions, you might find them interesting.

http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/BissellRE/Objectivism_and_Determinism.shtml

http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Rowlands/Thoughts_on_Free_Will_and_Determinism.shtml

http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Machan/Free_Will_or_Not.shtml

I especially enjoy reading Tibor Machan's "Free Will or Not" and the subsequent discussion. I often use the discussion as a referent whenever I return to, think about, the idea of determinism.

As a former Objectivist hardliner, I'm not unfamiliar with the Objectivists position on free will... but I will try to find some time to read these articles before I start going into topic. It's not like I am arbitrarily rejecting the idea, and the last idea I ever thought I'd accept is determinism of any sort whatsoever. Believe me, it still doesn't even "feel" right coming off my tongue... but as I'm sure you'll agree, we have to go where the evidence demands, not where our convictions dictate.

I'm writing these posts at work (actually, I live at work, so it's never easy to find a bunch of time), so I'll get over to an appropriate discussion forum soon, I promise.

Good to hear from you, Kacy. You have an interesting life, and ideas.

Welcome! Glad your free will brought you on board...

Thanks!

I'll head over to one of the other boards and start talking about free will in a while. Just as a preview... I haven't yet heard an argument in favor of free will (even from Rand) that didn't involve either mysticism or special pleading. Anyhow, hope to see you there.

Hey there Dennis... Eric led me here. He told me you were here - I'm just glad I'm able to reach this site from the ship, although I'm not sure I'll be able to once we head East. I know he postws here, but he likes to make sure no one can identify him. It drives his legions of fans, admireres, and stalkers absolutely crazy, but there's no accounting for preference.

I've moved to Virginia for now, based out of Norfolk. What new with you?

Greetings all - name is Kacy Ray. I'm a 40 year old married guy, currently serving as the Combat Cargo Officer on the USS Kearsarge. I became interested in Objectivism about 23 years ago by listening to early Rush albums, but have since transitioned to a lower-case objectivist, and then to an independant philosphy heavily informed by objectivist principles.

I solidly agree with objectivist metaphysics. I hold reason as a primary absolute and I find Rand's theory of concepts to be the primary influence on my own epistemological views. The most significant point in which I break with Objectivist epistemology is on the topic of free will - I don't believe free will can necessarily exist. This is something I would like to discuss on one of the forums when I get a chance.

I look forward to participating in these threads - the ones I've read so far seem pretty intersting and the quality of posting seems pretty high. Cheers.