Objectivism Online run by hypocritical babies?

[caroljane]

NB's family. \Wife, sister, cousin, wife's cousin, cousin's wife.

[caroljane]

Ellen, does this family aspect figure into your Christology parallel? At least two of Jesus's disciples were supposed to be his brothers. If you can successfully proselytize your own family, you can just about persuade anybody.

Except here, NB would be the Christ figure, with Rand as the God.

[PDS]

And:

Bob (Ba'al, Mr. Cheeky Guy):

Why haven't you answered post #49?

Are you afraid you'll reveal that your description of Rand's "Den" as "rather strange people" was made in ignorance even of who most of that original group were?

Ellen

Potshots are sometimes hard to back up, it seems.

[Jonathan]

This thread has gone South, or maybe North.

I haven't yet had time to look up NB's discussion of "focus."

Meanwhile, a thought occurred to me, maybe as a by-product of Adam's statement - #47 - that "Becoming a fully rational human [whatever that means] is a choice":

Possibly Rand's pronouncements concerning the volitional nature of MAN would make some sense on the supposition that she confused consciousness with cognition.

For example, "Man is a being of volitional cognition" isn't so off the wall as the idea that any being is a being of "volitional consciousness."

Ellen

If Rand confused consciousness with cognition, her pronouncements would make some sense if they had been phrased as hunches or inquiries rather than pronouncements. That, or if they had been accompanied by serious research results as proof, rather than a dash of introspection and three tablespoons of brimstone.

J

[Jonathan]

I found this funny because recently my 28 year old son told me that I was his rock. |n fact, his father a true rock) once said the same to me. And my character has the consistency of a sponge wrapped in one ply paper towel, but two good men found rockiness in me.

Maybe you're being too poetic in interpreting their comments. Perhaps they weren't that deep, and just meant that your face has crags and fissures and a cold, grayish tone?

J

[caroljane]

I prefer to think that they found my outer beauty corresponded with my inner. They were enthusiastic amateur geologists.

[Brant Gaede]

Definition of man in Objectivism

"Man, the rational animal."

This means man can be irrational for rational implies that possibility, for other animals are neither rational nor irrational, rather non-rational.

Man, the moral being. This fixes the problem of irrationality not necessarily being immoral, but lacks the Objectivist punch.

Irrationality carries with it the possibility of man (a man or men [you too gals]) being and doing evil. As such he can be lower than a snake's belly, worse than any animal. Good and evil does not apply to killer whales.

I'm sticking with Rand on this one.

--Brant

[ginny]

Daunce, you're OL's rock. It's just who you are. Accept your destiny,

[caroljane]

Aw, thanks Ginny. Don't tell me Pet Rocks are coming back???

[ginny]

Oh, didn't you know you're a pet rock?

[caroljane]

Heck no, I thought I was a wild, untamed one.

[Harrison Danneskold]

J: Because I'm not primarily referring to "productive effort"; I see it as good but not nearly as important as cognitive effort.

If you'd prefer a different term I'd be happy to oblige.

And taxpayer rapers is out; what would the mascot be? What would it do???

[Harrison Danneskold]

The MN taxpayer rapers. Mascot: Mark Dayton.

[Selene]

The MN taxpayer rapers. Mascot: Mark Dayton.

Dude, if you have no sense of humor - keep your mind in check...

[Ellen Stuttle]

NB's family. \Wife, sister, cousin, wife's cousin, cousin's wife.

The cousin's wife only became so after the two met in Rand's group. Joan entered through being Barbara's best friend. I think that Greenspan entered through Joan. She and he were married briefly. The marriage was annulled. Mary Ann was a friend of Joan's. Harry Kalberman came in through being Elayne's beau.

I enjoyed talking with Harry. He was racy, street-savvy, funny. Elayne was kind, warm, pleasant. I could talk with both of them as if we weren't in an Objectivist context.

Ellen, does this family aspect figure into your Christology parallel? At least two of Jesus's disciples were supposed to be his brothers. If you can successfully proselytize your own family, you can just about persuade anybody.

Except here, NB would be the Christ figure, with Rand as the God.

I didn't think of a family-member parallel when I wrote the sketch. There was a section on NB as the Anointed who then became the Fallen Angel.

I think that NB had no trouble getting his sisters interested because he was interested. He was their darling. (NB's other sisters, Reva and Florence, and their husbands lived in Canada but attended Collective meetings when they were visiting NYC.) Florence and Hans Hirschfeld's sons, Leonard and Jonathan, became Objectivists. Leonard went with NB at the time of the break, Jonathan with AR, though he later patched it up with NB.

Allan Blumenthal came in despite NB, with whom he didn't get along.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

And:

Bob (Ba'al, Mr. Cheeky Guy):

Why haven't you answered post #49?

Are you afraid you'll reveal that your description of Rand's "Den" as "rather strange people" was made in ignorance even of who most of that original group were?

Ellen

Potshots are sometimes hard to back up, it seems.

Possibly he didn't see either of my posts about his potshot, or the post where I challenged him when he made the same irresponsible charge earlier. I think he sometimes posts on a thread and then doesn't look to see if anyone's replied to what he said.

His describing those people as "strange" does irritate me, and I hope he won't do it again. If he does and I notice, I'll correct him again.

Funny thing is, he was often quite complimentary to Barbara when she was posting here, and then he lumps her, willy-nilly, amongst the "strange people" of Rand's circle.

My hunch is that he's simply thinking of Peikoff and not pausing to consider who the others were.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

...since the world abounds in instances of successful human parasites with disgustingly long lifespans, Rand and the Objectivists must resort to the "qua man" hat trick. It goes something like this: since reason is man's necessary means to survival, man's goal in life must be to live as a rational being.

The problem is that the second part of the proposition does not follow from the first. The fact that you need a boat or an airplane to get from London to New York does not imply that the goal of your journey is to be on a boat or an airplane.

Nor does it follow that that those who prey on others are acting without reason. Any serious study of modern government will show that the system by which wealth is regularly transferred from from the productive class to the non-productive class is quite ingenious. It is not a system invented by an animal.

The "'qua man' hat trick" is, I think, most clearly and forcefully presented in these passages from "Galt's Speech":

[bold rmphasis added]

There is a morality of reason, a morality proper to man, and Man's Life is its standard of value.

All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.

Man's life, as required by his nature, is not the life of a mindless brute, of a looting thug or a mooching mystic, but the life of a thinking being - not life by means of force or fraud, but life by means of achievement - not survival at any price, since there's only one price that pays for man's survival: reason.

Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose. If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man - for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your own life.

Since life requires a specific course of action, any other course will destroy it. A being who does not hold his own life as the motive and goal of his actions, is acting on the motive and standard of death. Such a being is a metaphysical monstrosity, struggling to oppose, negate and contradict the fact of his own existence, running blindly amok on a trail of destruction, capable of nothing but pain.

Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. [....]

But neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, so he is free to seek his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the happiness proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

[....] The only man who desires to be moral is the man who desires to live.

No, you do not have to live; it is your basic act of choice; but if you choose to live, you must live as a man - by the work and the judgment of your mind.

No, you do not have to live as a man; it is an act of moral choice. But you cannot live as anything else - and the alternative is that state of living death which you now see within you and around you, the state of a thing unfit for existence, no longer human and less than animal, a thing that knows nothing but pain and drags itself through its span of years in the agony of unthinking self-destruction.

No, you do not have to think; it is an act of moral choice. But someone had to think to keep you alive; if you choose to default, you default on existence and you pass the deficit to some moral man, expecting him to sacrifice his good for the sake of letting you survive by your evil.

No, you do not have to be a man; but today those who are, are not there any longer. I have removed your means of survival - your victims.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

I'm sticking with Rand on this one.

--Brant

I think you aren't understanding which one is being talked about:

"Man is a being of volitional consciousness."

Here's something from the past which I posted on that - part of a section of my 34 years' ago book outline. I've also posted elsewhere on this board about the issue, but I've had enough posting for one night and don't want to go searching now.

5. Heaven and Earth (continued)

B. Rational but non-human Man

"Man is a being of volitional consciousness," Rand wrote in Galt's Speech. It took me some while before I thought that I understood what she meant, although in a way she says her meaning in the speech: Being biologically human doesn't qualify one as "man.". To be "man," one must activate, and keep activated, a particular type of consciousness which exists only as a result of effort. If one makes the effort of activating "volitional consciousness," then certain results follow in one's actions, desires, and likes and dislikes, including in one's sexual responses and aesthetic tastes.

[....]

[Additionally], I think that Rand isn't correct in the fundamental distinction she draws between humans and other animals. There are other animals besides humans which have category recognition - an ability which I'd call first-order conceptual functioning - and a limited ability to draw inferences. But no other animal, as best I'm aware at this time, has the human ability for symbolic expression. I think that man would better be called "the symbolic animal.". This is a major thesis, and I don't know to what extent I'd get into it. To some extent.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

And:

Bob (Ba'al, Mr. Cheeky Guy):

Why haven't you answered post #49?

Are you afraid you'll reveal that your description of Rand's "Den" as "rather strange people" was made in ignorance even of who most of that original group were?

Ellen

Potshots are sometimes hard to back up, it seems.

Possibly he didn't see either of my posts about his potshot, or the post where I challenged him when he made the same irresponsible charge earlier. I think he sometimes posts on a thread and then doesn't look to see if anyone's replied to what he said.

His describing those people as "strange" does irritate me, and I hope he won't do it again. If he does and I notice, I'll correct him again.

Funny thing is, he was often quite complimentary to Barbara when she was posting here, and then he lumps her, willy-nilly, amongst the "strange people" of Rand's circle.

My hunch is that he's simply thinking of Peikoff and not pausing to consider who the others were.

Ellen

What about Mary Ann? Did you know her? I see her as being more like Peikoff than the others. Maybe not to the point of being "strange," but at least severely "icky."

J

[Jonathan]

The MN taxpayer rapers. Mascot: Mark Dayton.

Dude, if you have no sense of humor - keep your mind in check...

Actually, Mark Dayton would be the perfect mascot for the Minnesota Taxpayer Rapers.

J

[PDS]

The MN taxpayer rapers. Mascot: Mark Dayton.

Dude, if you have no sense of humor - keep your mind in check...

Actually, Mark Dayton would be the perfect mascot for the Minnesota Taxpayer Rapers.

J

My thoughts as well.

[Brant Gaede]

I'm sticking with Rand on this one.

--Brant

I think you aren't understanding which one is being talked about:

"Man is a being of volitional consciousness."

Here's something from the past which I posted on that - part of a section of my 34 years' ago book outline. I've also posted elsewhere on this board about the issue, but I've had enough posting for one night and don't want to go searching now.

5. Heaven and Earth (continued)

B. Rational but non-human Man

"Man is a being of volitional consciousness," Rand wrote in Galt's Speech. It took me some while before I thought that I understood what she meant, although in a way she says her meaning in the speech: Being biologically human doesn't qualify one as "man.". To be "man," one must activate, and keep activated, a particular type of consciousness which exists only as a result of effort. If one makes the effort of activating "volitional consciousness," then certain results follow in one's actions, desires, and likes and dislikes, including in one's sexual responses and aesthetic tastes.

[....]

[Additionally], I think that Rand isn't correct in the fundamental distinction she draws between humans and other animals. There are other animals besides humans which have category recognition - an ability which I'd call first-order conceptual functioning - and a limited ability to draw inferences. But no other animal, as best I'm aware at this time, has the human ability for symbolic expression. I think that man would better be called "the symbolic animal.". This is a major thesis, and I don't know to what extent I'd get into it. To some extent.

Ellen

You oughta take bigger bites when ya quote me instead of just biting off my head and displaying the results.

"Volitional consciousness": that's when you decide to go to bed, turning it off by going to sleep. If the alarm clock wakes you up it's because that's the time you decided to turn your consciousness back on. As humans we cannot choose not to be volitional so we say man has consciousness of a certain sort enabling a great number of possible choices from the purely reactive to highly conceptual. If you want a better "man" definition than "rational animal" then it might be "conceptual being" or "conceptual animal." "Rational" has more punch and sweeps in the moral aspect of choosing. We could also say "Man is the moral animal," but that mutes by obscuring what "man" is doing with his brain. He's thinking. That's a conceptual thing. He then uses that to make choices. They are moral because they are rational--this is not using rationality for immoral (irrational) ends, another discussion--hence, "rational animal." ("Moral" here has three subcategories: moral, immoral, amoral. Or, moral has two referents, one more basic than the other. In turn are subcategories as we further particularize into the moral/immoral/amoral and what they are referring to.)

moral

--moral

--immoral

--amoral

--Brant

the King of Lucidity

[Brant Gaede]

Becoming a fully rational human is a choice,

A...

Not for John Galt. He was born that way.

No one has this choice; it's impossible. One chooses to be as rational as one can even to the point that ostensive irrationality might have value as a tool of creation or inquiry.

--Brant

rational and irrational at the base is like good and evil at the base: the potential for either is a biological build in and at any point in time--at least out of babyhood--there is an aggregated ratio between them as part--a big part--of the sum of our moral lives, which is mostly tied up in what we actually do existentially

[Selene]

Becoming a fully rational human is a choice,

A...

Not for John Galt. He was born that way.

Speaking of biting a head off and posting...

Precisely Ellen.

Additionally, using his "male" syntax and semantic, Morlist was making the same points.

Becoming a fully rational human is a choice,

A...

The full quote was commenting on Moralist's statements.

[ginny]

Good point, Brant. Galt was kind of born that way. Personally, I find it more interesting to make mistakes and learn from them. And is anyone seriously saying young people don't make mistakes?