Alexander Warner

4 hours ago, moralist said:

...then it obviously does NOT mean equal in ALL respects does it, Bob.

The only equality is that everyone is accountable to exactly the same moral law... and the only difference is how everyone responds to that law.

 

Greg

You are right Greg -- every one should be accountable to the same moral law -- but as the OP says, the Dems have used a totally inverted meaning of equality, viz. all men are equal in terms of consuming the products of what they call as "society's wealth" which in reality is individual producers' wealth. That is the start of America's descent to today's state. With that idea they have created such a huge vote-block for themselves that they are almost unbeatable.

If we want to undo this deterioration we have to start with such basic ideas. else we are playing in the dark. That also is the reason why nobody has been able to stop America's slide so far.

I think others should be treated as they deserve to be treated. there is no reason to treat a low-life and a genius in the same manner. it is not just

It is degrading on a personal level but since it does not take away anyone's rights, it is alright on a legal level

Emotions can cloud judgement but that doesn't mean they make a person blind totally. The most essential step to not let them cloud judgement is by acknowledging to oneself first that one is affected by emotions and is acting on them currently

Architecture is not an art. A building is more for utilitarian purpose than it has got to do with "selective re-creation" by an Architect to represent his sense of life

The Dominique character is so twisted out of shape to make her fit into the story-line as to make her unrecognizable as a human being, frankly, as contrasted to Roark who is merely incomplete or undeveloped.

I had a hard time believing how someone like Roark can love a woman like Dominique. Aside from being a twisted, misguided idealist, I don't understand what was the quality in her which can possibly make a man like Roark love her

The Fountainhead is one of my favorite books and one I often come back to, however something has always bugged me about it thematically. The fundamental conflict between Roark and Toohey was best seen in the Stoddard Temple, its theme being Human potential, its enemy an ascetic delusional old man yet the ending conflict was about ..... public housing decorations?

The theme of the novel was summed up by the Temple perfectly, its enemies summed up the theme perfectly. The apartment building's theme was .... um .... something about welfare? The enemy was Peter Keating's enemies? The great crime was having a building you never admitted to designing being altered? The penalty for the crime was arson? Arson that was found legal? What??

Would the novel had been better if it had been based around the Temple and its fate?

PS - I get the conflict about the apartment building, and why Roark did it, and what Rand was trying to prove.

A good point. Had hardly thought about this before. After reading your post, I too think that the temple incident would have kept best at last.

There can be nothing like "Christian Objectivism" because it is a contradiction. Not only that Christianity is a religion and hence employs the means of faith and objectivism that of reason, but there is so much difference in ethics and everything. Christianity advocates altruism and Objectivism, rational selfishness. There is no connection

A common objection to hard atheism would be: in order to know that there is no God, you'd have to know everything that is in the universe. How can you know that there isn't such a thing as God anywhere in this huge universe? How do you know it isn't possible?

1. by definition God is contradictory so you can know just as certainly that there isn't a God as that there aren't any round squares. This begs the question, how do you know that there are no round squares? how can you make a claim on knowledge past your context? I believe the Objectivist answer to this would be: a) the law of identiy b) knowledge is contextual. b) is to mean that in order to be certain of something, you must not have any reason to assume otherwise within your observable context.

now to the question: can you know that there is no god? you might answer yes if the definition of god is contradictory on the grounds that no contradictions can exists. what, however, if the definiton of god is not in itself contradictory? such as: can you know there are no unicorns (those without superpowers)? according to point 2. you'd have to say yes because there is no evidence of them. but is it really proper to use the word "know" here? i mean it could be very possible that on some distant planet a thing that we'd call unicorn could exist?

it would seem proper to state: there are no unicorns, since you have no reason to say that there are. but does such a statement entail certainty and knowledge; same for a statement about the existence of a deity?

thanks for taking part in the discussion.

It is only possible to prove that something exists. It is not possible to prove that something doesn't exist because what doesn't exists leaves no evidence behind to prove anything related to it.. We cannot say that a fragment of our imagination (such as dragon or unicorn or tomorrow I may come up with some creature of my own imagination entirely), to be existent maybe because we have not proven that they do not exist. Since they don't exist, we can't prove anything about their not existing; we need a proof for showing that something exists. And till we don't have any proof which suggests its existence, we naturally give it the status of non-existent

Horror Story - Fun or Psychopathology?

In the essay "What is Romanticism?" (found in The Romantic Manifesto), Ayn Rand had some harsh things to say about horror stories. She flat out stated they did not belong within the field of aesthetics, but instead, within the field of mental illness....

Aristotle's whole emotional throughline in tragedy is that a hero has to start out provoking pity in the audience (by being in an unfortunate situation), then provoke mounting fear (generally through danger). When this gets unbearable, a climax resolves the reason for the fear (and any other tension) and these negative emotions experienced by the audience are purged in a process called catharsis.

Now for the obvious question. Are terror and pity the only emotions in a horror story? Hell, didn't Rand learn about catharsis? Isn't the pleasure of relief an emotion for her? That's definitely part of the horror aesthetic. It's not like this idea was absent in Hollywood in her fiction-formative years. And I won't even go into the emotion of hope.

Of course she knew this stuff. She just didn't apply it to the Horror Story for whatever reason.

And how did she miss child play? The sight of kids horsing around about gory stuff is ubiquitous, even in her time. Wherever there are kids, you see this.

I'll give her a pass on missing the theme of grace under terrible circumstances, but not much of one. She was certainly intelligent enough to see it if she wanted to. I won't give her a pass on missing the theme of good and evil, though. That would be ridiculous for someone like Rand and condescending to boot.

One has to identify something correctly before one can evaluate it correctly. I contend Rand missed by a mile on identifying in this case. I can't take her evaluation of Horror Story seriously. She's evaluating something to fit a theory, not what actually exists--neither the motives of the audience nor how the emotions play out.

Horror stories are not a proper form of fiction not because the author may or may not be a psychopath; the main objection is that it serves no such purpose which can be properly ascribed to a work of art. First of all, metaphysically impossible, and in that, not an impossibility which shows some connection to human values(like in some good fantasy), but of negative values such as the primitive, baseless fear which Rand appropriately calls it. Second, it has no aesthetic function. Aesthetic value of a work of art lies in its beauty. I don't know who claims that horror is something aesthetic and hence beautiful. But if some people find entertainment from it, that doesn't make it a work of art. There are thousands of such things which are entertaining but which cannot be called an art. And finding pleasure in portrayal of ugly and impossible distortions, showing man not as he should be or even as he is, but such depravity which lowers things to such a depth that it is impossible in reality. Horror is not any kind of representation of reality, or even anything which has to do with reality, but a projection of mental fear in its worst form; fear for something which doesn't exist at all.

And for god's sake, don't apply concept of Catharsis to horror. When Aristotle talked about fear and pity, he talked about different kind of fear and pity and not a primitive fear and projection of mental illness. He was even very specific about which kind of a hero can arouse fear; he knew very well that every kind of fear is not a proper fear and everything cannot arouse it. A tragic hero should be virtuous but not flawless, because if he is not a very good man and just some depraved person, we will think he deserves the tragedy befallen on him. And if he is too flawless then we won't be able to relate to him. So a question of a hideous monster who is not even something like a human, leave aside a hero, or a victim in some horror story haunted by some distorted creatures who don't even exist is the last thing Aristotle was talking about when he talked about fear and pity. Fear and pity implies fear caused by something which really exists or has some connection with reality. Horror is just an exaggeration of the most depraved negative.

I have listened to many lectures by major members of Ayn Rand institute and I too think that some of them lack that communicative and persuasive skills. One has to be interested enough in Objectivism by reading AR's works to focus on those lectures; otherwise a newcomer whose first contact with O'ism is the lectures of these speaks will most probably withdraw himself. But that is not a problem with the philosophy as such, it is with the speakers today. Ayn Rand herself was interesting enough to listen to, though her accent was more or less of a flat kind.

Something like gun control only helps in increasing the number of victims. Gun control laws are made on the premise that humans have a general evil tendency to commit crime and if they have any weapons, that much easy it becomes for them to do so. But that it not the case clearly. Those who want to commit crime can commit it anyhow and those who will not, will not irrespective of gun; but surely they will get to defend themselves. Allowing guns will infact keep criminals more on guard and ordinary citizens more fearless, with a feeling of security.

I ran across this idea recently and it's left me scratching my head. One person I was reading said that no taxation means that there is no government. This seems a little counter-intuitive to me. Do you think taxation is an necessary to that government exists? I can easily imagine, say, a small town with town hall meetings that might not have taxes. Likewise, I wouldn't be surprised if some or many of the initial settlements in America were without taxation given the lack of infrastructure.

It's impossible to run a government without taxation. How are they supposed to get money for defense, maintaining police systems etc? As simple as that.

This is how to fight a war...

You should read 'Art of War' by Sun Tzu to know it.

One of the most common arguments I hear against laissez-faire capitalism is that it by definition supports the creation and preservation of so-called intrinsically evil monopolies, and that the only way to keep these monopolies in check is through government regulation. Why is this wrong? Is the Gilded Age a good example of monopolies running wild? I ask these questions knowing I probably sound like a moron, but I am young and new to objectivism. So when people make these arguments, I genuinely have no idea how to refute them. Thanks in advance for your help.

It is not possible to maintain a monopoly under Capitalism because of how the market operates under capitalism. And if suppose we assume that some organization is having something which is near to monopoly, then it is because it proves such a superior quality that its competitors can't afford and are not able to prove that, and not that it can anyhow stop the competitors from entering the market.

There can be no universal answer to this question. Each individual realizes his own purpose in his own unique way. But there are some factors which can determine it; for instance, one's natural inclination towards something since childhood, something which one had liked since childhood and continues to like even now. Something which keeps one interested, in which one is good at and enjoys doing even in leisure. One has to take conscious efforts to recognize what is best like by one without the thing being forced to one by external environment, people etc

I think the primary reason why people become Islamic extremists is the way they are brought up. Since childhood, they are brainwashed much more to adhere to their religion than people from other religion are brainwashed. And Islam is a religion which is meant more as a political agenda for spreading itself unlike other religions which though irrational, are inclined more towards the ethics parts. When one strictly adheres to faith in religion and that religion is this barbaric, they tend to become more of extremists than people following other religions in comparison.

Also, people from other parts of the world have changed as compared to their predecessors. There has been renaissance in the west but nothing like that has happened to any considerable degree with Islamic countries. They are almost as they were before a few centuries. Rationality and development in science, technology etc happening all over the world has not touched them to any considerable degree.

Just like anything else, marriage and state ought to be separated. Marriage is a personal choice among two consenting individuals. There is no reason why if state and religion or state and economy ought to be separate ideally, state and marriage shouldn't be.

There can be nothing like anarchism logically over a long period of time. It will eventually become tribalism or a mob rule. In absence of government or any proper laws to protect rights of citizens, there is noting to stop one group to subjugate the rights of other weaker ones; and everyone can never be of equal power. So it will only be a matter of time that some or the other distorted form of governance will come up but it will have no objective laws, will keep changing with change in power with different groups, and will resemble a tyrannical dictatorship or oligarchy in relation it its effect on society . What starts in anarchy will generally end in tyranny.