Charles R. Anderson

Fran makes a good point here that the majority of people are not ever going to devote much effort to becoming abstract thinkers. As she points out, this has very important implications in democratic societies. If we want a society with rationally limited government, we must find ways to get these people to buy into sufficiently libertarian viewpoints that we can come to enjoy much less government interference with our individual lives. To be Objectivists, we must be independent thinkers. Most people will not become independent thinkers and will not become Objectivists. We will always be a minority. This does not mean that we cannot hope to live in much more rational and free societies than we presently do. But, the path to achieving a freer society will have to involve the kind of out-reach that Ed Hudgins makes with his op eds, that many hard-nosed Objectivists so dislike. People are different and clearly they are not all like us. Fran pointed this out, with further assistance from Judith, in an interesting way by correlating these differences with the Meyer-Briggs Type Indicator. With 16 different types, it would seem that we can expect quite a range of responses to Objectivism and that to get the most favorable outcomes with respect to developing a healthier, more rational, and free society, we have to be prepared to educate and sell people on the many aspects of Objectivism in at least 16 different ways. It does not appear that most present Objectivists are committed to doing this, but Fran has given us all a valuable idea to think about.

For the most part, I believe that Diana was associated with TOC because she chose at one time to be a member and chose to attend its seminars. I am no more aware of her being approved by TOC as a spokesperson than I am. Though I have been a member of IOS, TOC, and now TAS for years, no one has ever reviewed my statements on-line and pronounced judgment on me. I have had the occasional compliment on a particular post, but I am sure there are many among my posts that no one at TOC/TAS would wish to adopt as the TOC/TAS viewpoint. Fortunately, I am allowed to be an independent thinker and to attend TOC/TAS seminars and events, despite being an individualist. Come to think of it, TOC/TAS seems to think that individualism is important, despite being occasionally untidy! Values are neither intrinsic nor subjective, but since values must be held by an individual, they must be defined in terms of an individual life. Michael Stuart Kelly and I cannot share the same values, even if we were the most rational possible people. For one thing, my sense of rhythm makes it impossible for me to be a conductor. Perhaps there is some reason why he would not function well as a materials physicist/engineer/chemist. If we were alike in our values, then either Kat or Anna would have a problem. But, the fact that values are very individual does not mean they must be subjective. In fact, the only way they can be objective is if they are consistent with the reality of our individuality. Most of us who come to OL, and indeed most people who go to any of the Objectivist oriented forums, earn a living in some profession other than philosophy. Our interest in philosophy is as an aid in living our individual life, which is busily populated with many other activities. We are not experts on Objectivism, but we may be experts on the subject of our own life. We come here to learn a bit more about Objectivism, but many of us come here even more for the purpose of being able to communicate with others who share far more of our values and interests than our next-door neighbors or our co-workers are likely to. We are interested in how other individualists who share some of our values and a commitment to reason view the many topics of discussion here. We respect their different perspectives and experiences in life and we learn from this exposure. Oftentimes we find a great joy in identifying the values we share, though we may have arrived at an appreciation of that value by very different life experiences. For instance, no one's childhood could be more different in many respects than Angie's and mine. Despite that, we see many things in a similar way, but with many richly different nuances of meaning. And, of course, this idea that Objectivism is a philosophy for living one's life is exactly what Objectivist Living was set up as a forum to promote. In my opinion it has been run in a manner fully consistent with that purpose and should not be criticized for not being the Philosophy Department of Ayn Rand University.

Chris, I am happy to hear that you suffered little damage. Please take care so we can continue to enjoy your company, not to mention so you can enjoy ours. Anna may have made up some of your medicated IVs or filled an order for pills. She is a pharmacist in the Washington VA Hospital In-Patient Pharmacy. We wish you a rapid recovery.

Here is something else to think about. What would be worse for man? 1) A modest global warming such as man might be able to cause, or 2) The next Ice Age, which is surely coming Indeed, perhaps a delay in the onset of the next Ice Age would be a good thing, if man actually does cause some global warming. We tend to accept the market place for ideas and for goods and services. Perhaps we should accept the exercise of people's choices in where they choose to live as an indicator of whether they favor warmer or cooler weather. Note that far more people seem to be moving from the Dakotas, Illinois, Ohio, Maine, and New York to places like Arizona, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida than in the reverse direction. If Canada were to become part of the United States, the population of Canada would probably fall precipitately. We have had a mild winter in Maryland until recently and almost everyone enjoyed it. Now that we are a couple of weeks into a cold snap, everyone is wishing for mild winter weather to return. Since the global warming models mostly predict warming when it is cold and dry, as winters tend to be, it sounds a lot like something most people would actually welcome, if they were not being scared to death. Come to think of it, they are being scared to death and they are still welcoming warmer winter weather!

Why would Dragonfly be kidding? If his program does not allow him to enjoy sports then he is simply left out. That he may not enjoy, so he wishes the rest of us, who he thinks are programed to enjoy sports, to go elsewhere before we rub our ability to enjoy sports in his nose. We are saying that we have a better program than he does. Ha, Ha, Ha. Of course, it is more important that his program tells him that he and all of us are unable to control our thoughts, so it is his turn to laugh. Our programs are defective in that way because they delude us.

From what I have read, it is clear that there have been major temperature changes over periods of several hundred years that are large compared to the temperature increases of the last 30 years, which some people attribute entirely to man. So, even in this worst case scenario, which is not at all proven, it seems that life went on historically despite even much greater temperature changes. The fact that bigger changes occurred in 3 decades when man's production of CO2 was not very great certainly suggests that there should be a strong burden of proof upon those who claim that man is the primary cause of the warming of the last 30 years. Then, if they substantiate that claim, can they substantiate the claim that global warming will do more harm than good? May we should want global warming. On the other side of equation, man certainly does manage to change the temperature of high density population centers on a local basis. It is plausible that when there is widespread destruction of forests and they are replaced with plowed farm fields, that there might be some measurable change of temperature. But, the net effects of all man's actions on the weather sure have not been understood sufficiently to claim that he has created global effects comparable to those that occur naturally. Studying the causes, both natural and man-made, of global and local climate makes sense, if it is done with scientific objectivity. Our political and societal environment is clearly not in favor of such an enterprise at this time, however.

It is a truly deadening message to give to a child. I heard today on the news that teenage suicides were up 20% in 2004. Now maybe teenagers suddenly changed their diets and stopped getting exercise in 2004 and that explains the increase. But it strikes me as a good thing to study the effects of curricula that insist that in real life adults and children can only look forward to misery and tragedy and the life of the anti-hero, to see if there is a correlation between what kids are being given to read in school and the suicide rate. We also note that depression is generally being diagnosed more commonly in teenagers, though that could simply be due to paying more attention to depression or becoming better at diagnosing it. Counting the number of suicides per 100,000 however is pretty straightforward. A jump of 20% in teenage suicides should hit parents and any real professional educators very hard. It is a clear sign that current school policies are critically in need of examination. In addition to the curricula being anti-life, some of the schools I have been in project the sense that the children are under lock-down and the school is a prison. I find visiting some of our local high schools to be very depressing and actually threatening. My middle daughter went to such a school and I believe it had a very bad effect on her.

When I was in the 2nd grade, I had no interest in reading. Nothing I read and little that was read to me was interesting to me. It was not until 4th grade that I discovered books about historic heroes that I developed any joy in reading. Once I found something that interested me, I read voraciously. Meanwhile, I did fine in math, but I did not greatly enjoy it. It was not until we started doing word problems in math that it really became interesting. In the 5th grade, I solved a word problem involving the dimensions of an aircraft carrier flight deck and the necessary take-off distance and how many airplanes taking up some area of space could be stored on the flight deck. My Dad was a naval aviator at that time. Suddenly math was a means to solve real problems. The fact that your son already reads for hours is a great indication that he is interested in learning, if only those things that interest him. This is the real point. Really what is important is whether a kid learns that there are interesting things to learn and that he become committed to embarking on a lifetime of learning. This is a race that goes to the tortoise, not the hare. School is sometimes counterproductive. When your boy plays soccer, is he thinking at all about the strategy of the game, or only the mechanics as yet? When and if he is thinking at all about strategy, then this is a sign he is a problem-solver. This is important, because it gives you a great means to sell him on learning. It gives him the tools he wants to solve problems. I always tried to show my kids (3 daughters) that I was interested in learning myself. When I could find something interesting in what they were learning, I tried to make a point of it. In addition, I was often reading myself. But, in the end, you lead children to the water, but they have to decide that they want to drink it. Some simply want to please their teacher or their parents. Others want to find direct pleasure in the learning for themselves. My oldest and youngest daughters seemed to be motivated to please others and also seemed to be personally interested at least a substantial part of the time. My middle daughter was seldom interested in pleasing anyone else and was only sometimes interested directly herself. But, she does seem to like reading and she is intelligent and tends to choose only intelligent friends. My youngest daughter is in her 2nd year in the Honors Program at RIT in biotechnology and has a 4.0 through 4 quarters and is assisting a professor in research. She had so many advanced placement credits and has taken a heavy course load at RIT and during the first quarter this year became classified as a 3rd year student. My oldest daughter got her B.S. with High Honors in Mechanical and Materials Engineering at the U. of Texas at Austin and a Certificate with Highest Distinction in a Business Management Program for Engineers. She now leads a team at Accenture on Supply Train Management. My middle daughter dropped out of college and is trying to figure out what she wants to do. As parents we can help, but in the end, they decide what they will do. I tried to give them responsibilities and as much as possible to talk to them in the expectation that they were capable of rational understanding. Mostly they were. I also gave them greater freedoms than many parents will give their children. They generally proved that they deserved these freedoms. Some kids will not do so and have to be treated differently. I tried to give my daughters as much freedom as possible, pulling back only when they showed they could not handle it. Mostly they appreciated this and tried to earn their freedoms. I believe it helped them to become more self-responsible and to expect self-responsibility from their friends. It is very important to observe who they choose for friends as a gauge as to how they may act when they are on their own and to judge what their values really are. Each kid is an individual and raising any one of them is a complicated job fraught with uncertainties. Good luck. Every parent needs some of that to leaven their parenting skills.

Judith, The factor that you have pointed out does play a role and with a subset of kids it probably is primary. The schools do tend to be very authoritarian and this did really rankle my middle daughter, who rebelled strongly against it. It does appear to me that there is actually increased favoritism in the schools as they now try so hard to inculcate their social program through out-and-out propaganda and as they elevate those groups blessed by government as the oppressed and the underprivileged. This tends to leave white males out and behind, which I am sure some resent greatly. But it is also true that those who buy into the government-mandated propaganda that anyone who is successful in society (for example, the rich) must have become so by oppressing some group of people, then why should these convinced people not also assume that academic success is a result of the academically successful making victims of those who are not academically successful. People are being made to eagerly identify themselves as victims. It is the perfect excuse for all failures and, in the present school environment, it is actually a badge of honor to be a victim. The alternative is to be an oppressor. So, one can be lazy and morally superior at the same time! This has a very great appeal to some kids. Sorting such feelings out from envy is not a simple and straightforward thing to do.

Basically, envy is the root cause of socialism, though paternalism is a secondary cause and may be more common in America. Envy is widespread in America but I find it even more common in the people I meet from other countries. It really is despicable. Anna's parents had 20 acres of good farmland in the western Ukraine, which between the world wars was part of Poland. When the Germans and Soviets invaded Poland to start WWII, the Soviets took over this area and her Dad had to flee as a known Ukrainian patriot. The farm stayed as was with his wife doing all the work. Then the Nazis took over and her Dad returned home, until the Soviets swept back in again. This time, the Soviets came to take Anna's Dad away, but found him not home at the moment. They debated whether to take Anna's Mom, but did not. As a result her Dad left the Ukraine again and her Mom took her son and Anna's older sister and walked hundreds of miles to the west to rejoin him. The abandoned farm was then heavily damaged by envious neighbors. Absolutely pointless destruction. They were so envious that they heavily damaged the very fine orchard that covered several acres of the farm and damaged the buildings and the gardens. It is hard even to understand why a mere 20 acres of land caused so much envy, but it was a much more productive farm than most in the area and it was bigger. There are always people who resent good students and the grades they get. In some communities even in the US this is really rampant. It is a good part of the destructive culture of many African American and Hispanic inner city slums. Even in wealthier communities such as Prince George's County or still wealthier Montgomery County in the Washington, DC Maryland suburbs, there are large groups in which envy of good students is so strong and the accompanying resentment is so strong, that large groups of students will not allow anyone of that group to do well in school. It is less common to see such an attitude applied to athletics, however. Envy also seems to cause a lot of resentment of better looking people. Since character is even more important than looks, it is not surprising that there are many who actually resent people because their character is too good. I have often seen cases where to prove that you belonged to a group, you had to show the group that you were willing to compromise your character. In other words, you had to prove that they were as good as you, though they were not willing to put in the effort to develop good character. This form of envy and of distrust of anyone who does not bow to it is a strong component of many corporate cultures, whether in industry, government, or education.

Fran, Was that because some Green Card quota had been filled already by UK immigrants? Or is that because US government policy is not wise enough to welcome intelligent and hard-working professional immigrants with legal status?

Victor, Yes, there are some strange things that happen on immigration issues. Anna's nephew is an oral surgeon in the Cleveland area and married a young lady from Toronto (they are both Ukrainian). He paid a lawyer handsomely to get her citizenship papers, but he did not file some form or other. The result was that she had to return to Canada for many months after they were married, which strikes me as insane policy. I have myself had to deal with some pretty ridiculous requirements to help one of my Indian employees return to the US after she visited India. The bottom line is be careful to cross all your t's and dot all your i's. Good luck. I hope you and Angie have a great time when she visits Toronto. By the way, I found Toronto a nice city to visit the three times I have been there. The last time was great fun, being the wedding of Anna's nephew and his soon to be deported bride.

Rich, There are many Americans and others who are enough in touch with reality to understand that values are best achieved when earned. They understand that fewer values are secure or come into existence when government seeks to take them from some and give them to others. But, the rules of the game have become so skewed that many have lost much of their hope for a better system for living. This is further cemented in their minds because they see so little intelligent defense of views consistent with reality and of the values of achievement and individuality. Objectivism as a philosophy has had almost no presence, due to the infighting and the second-handedness that has dominated the movement. Finally, with TAS and its TNI, there is a sane and rational voice talking to them. Right now there might be 0.01% of Americans who are Objectivists. There must be at least 10% who basically believe strongly in the use of their minds, in productive achievement, in the importance of the individual, and that man should strive to achieve happiness on this earth. Wouldn't it be completely wonderful if most of these people could be brought to at least regard Objectivism as the best philosophy yet developed. Surely, with proper presentation at least 1 to 3% of Americans could be brought to identify themselves as Objectivists or at least neo-Objectivists. In any case, TAS and TNI (and OL on a smaller scale) are doing the things that have to be done if there is to be any success in getting the attention of and then convincing large numbers of Americans to think about Objectivism. Too bad that they have such limited manpower to get things rolling!

Victor, Welcome to the USA! If you are not here yet, at least we know your heart is here. There is always room here for someone with intelligence and a commitment to hard work, this being the Land of Opportunity. Canada is a good place and I have some fine customers up there, but the USA is where it is happening. Besides, Angie lives here! Well, at least way off there in CA.

It is not surprising that benevolent feelings toward others are commonly part of our evolutionary inheritance. In fact, for reasons I have argued elsewhere, this is to be expected. What matters to us rationally is whether we are free to choose how and when we wish to express any benevolent feelings we may have. I will point out that many people, including Objectivists, are inclined to equate benevolence with altruism, which hardly need be the case. The rational man will find many reasons to be benevolent, which do not actually translate into sacrificing his best interest. What he demands is that no one else force him to sacrifice his best interest or relieve him of the judgment of when, how, and if he might choose to exercise a benevolent action. One of the things that needs to be looked at carefully in this study is whether there is some confusion about rational benevolence and sacrificing one's own interests. How careful have the investigators really been in resolving this difference? The fact that differences in activity in a part of the brain exist among people with respect to still another set of perceptions of life is still another reason to point to the critical importance of individuality. We are not of a universal nature and hence it is essential that men live in a society that allows them to define their own interest and chose how they will live their own individual life. Another recent study pointed out that there are also widespread differences between people in the number of expressions of certain genes which seem to affect behavior. The earlier popular knowledge that most genes were of sets that varied little did not take cognizance of how often segments were repeated. The number of repeats turns out to be important and here there is much variability. Again, the importance of individuality is supported, which should make it clear that different individuals should be expected to have different values and a rational society should allow them the freedom to pursue those values. So, we have every reason to demand Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness as we seek to rationally live the individual life we each have.

The young lady in those photos sure is a beauty.

I had 3 daughters attend high school and middle school in Montgomery County, MD, a supposedly good and progressive school system. The books assigned to them in their English classes were heavily weighted with novels about minorities and the disabled, while major literary works were ignored. These books were clearly chosen to prove to the kids that society was basically unfair, which serves very well as fodder for the notion that government should be given more power and more tax money to provide basic just to those society has been unfair to. Heroes are remarkably absent from this literature. Everyday people are supposedly enshrined, with all of their uncertainties and self-doubts. The mood is gloomy and hopeless most of the time. Many of these books are used as a form of propaganda for the views of socialists. Most people are to be seen as helpless and oppressed. Then the feeling socialist or progressive will use the power of government to sustain them in this hopeless vale of tears we call life. Heck, some demi-god like Theodore Roosevelt or Slick Willy will vigorously and colorfully proclaim himself their champion and sustain these many poor ineffectual unfortunates. How such literature is supposed to encourage children to want to read is beyond me. My kids could hardly stand many of these books. They wanted to scream at these kids that they should take charge of their own lives and pay less attention to what others thought of them. But, mostly, they just found many of these books to be boring. Occasionally, there was something good. Two of them read Huckelberry Finn. The books of Mark Twain are vanishing from many schools, but they always provide some interesting ideas to think about. Among them, there is usually something heroic about his characters and they always do some thinking outside the box.

Jeff, Is this a Christian protection scheme?

My daughter Karen had to endure a similar torture a bit less than a year ago. In Maryland, teenage drivers have to run an incredible gauntlet of driving courses to get a provisional license. This provisional license becomes a regular license if they get no moving violation tickets in that year. If they do, they have to take another course, and then the 1 year clock starts ticking again. Lots of young people are tortured for years. It is fun to be back. There are both interesting and nice people here. A few are real honeys!

Loving a second good person, while loving a first good person does not strike me as anti-life. Perhaps a really good second person is sufficiently rare in the sphere of your personal life that one will not likely be so fortunate as to be in love with two people at once, but being in love with two people need not be immoral. In fact, one could argue that not giving one's love to a really good person is an injustice. Jealous gods and jealous people are both demeaning. The wish that another cannot enjoy or love someone other than oneself is small-minded. Observing that most people are small-minded does little to justify joining their ranks. If one loves someone who loves you and another, that need not diminish your love for them. Their character may well be as sterling as ever it was when you first came to love them. With love, as with friendship, one should focus on the larger context of a person's life and character. If Dagny spent one night every two weeks with Francisco, I'll be darned if I can see why John should love her any the less for it.

You and the other contributors to The New Individualist are doing great work. Thanks!

My grandfather's name was Charles Burns Anderson. Sounds rather more interesting than Charles Robert Anderson. It has been a long time since I read any of Burns poetry, but I remember enjoying some of it.

Baseball was my first sports love. Played it a lot in NJ then played it constantly in VA. Moved to RI and started playing a lot of basketball, at first because we lived in the sticks and I could do it by myself, then a kid a year older moved in and he liked basketball. Later started spending Friday nights at the Marine gym playing basketball. Then moved to Tulsa and football became the dominant game, though I had played some in RI and VA.

Jeff, Your being here and thinking about the things you are thinking about indicates that there is some balance in your life. There is nothing wrong with playing football professionally if that is your goal.

Jeff, Michael's advice sounds really good, especially the parenthetical advice. Your Mom may be acting irrationally (therefore ineffectively), because she is afraid you will stop loving her. My Mom is a Christian who takes her belief quite seriously. When I told her that I did not believe in God, she called me a Communist and compared me to Hitler. Nothing rational there! But, she went to bed angry and the next day, though she still disagreed with me, she told me she loved me and that she should not have said the things she said. Most likely, your Mom will get over her fears, especially if you reassure her of your love. Very irrational behavior is most often brought on by fear and mother's often have a horrifying fear that their sons will stop loving them. They put a lot into raising you and they hope it will not be forgotten. It is interesting that your Dad is fine with discussing Objectivism with you. Is it possible your Mom is worried that you are encouraging his interest in Objectivism and she will then lose him or simply be outnumbered by the two of you?