Hypothesis: Dictators aren't altruists

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

Don't forget the word "betrayal."

That's a biggie with Rand's notion of self-sacrifice.

As I understand it, in Rand's meaning, you cannot willfully sacrifice a higher value for a lower one without first betraying the higher value. Maybe even coming to hate it, depending on the case. ("Hatred of the good for being good," etc.)

Betrayal is not only integral to Rand's concept of self-sacrifice, it's a prerequisite.

Why you betray the higher value is another issue. Philosophically, Rand said it was clever intellectual traps like altruism or Kantian doublespeak. So, in this case, you can be tricked into it. But a person could betray the best within him for power, too. Or other reasons.

Also, as I understand her meaning, betrayal of a higher value does not necessarily result in self-sacrifice or even lead a person to choose it. You could simply be an evil bastard who is evil because he cannot not be evil.

(I know I'm saying "self-sacrifice" and not "sacrifice," but I have not looked that deeply into the Randian notion of "sacrifice" as a general term.)

Michael

[studiodekadent]

Here's my opinion on the topic from reading the subject line.

Dictators aren't altruists.

They're profiteers from altruism.

The majority of Rand's argument against altruism is that those who promote altruism are doing so out of a desire to parasite off other people.

Dictators are "altruists" nominally, but parasites in action. Which proves altruism is really a control strategy rather than a moral principle.

[Brant Gaede]

Here's my opinion on the topic from reading the subject line.

Dictators aren't altruists.

They're profiteers from altruism.

The majority of Rand's argument against altruism is that those who promote altruism are doing so out of a desire to parasite off other people.

Dictators are "altruists" nominally, but parasites in action. Which proves altruism is really a control strategy rather than a moral principle.

There is no need to get wound up into semantics on this matter. Yes, dictators--I don't know about Cincinnatus--use altruism for the sake of power and control. So does religion. But we don't have a need, other than felt, to label him an altruist as such. Just put him against the adobe wall and shoot the bastard down like the low-down dirty dog he is.

--Brant

[anthony]

"Sacrifice" loses all its significance if used as giving up a lesser value for a greater. That makes nonsense of it.

I wonder if anyone in fact ever gives up something the person perceives as a higher value for the sake of a lower one.

There are circumstances in which a person might, for instance, sell something "at a sacrifice," meaning at a lower price than the purchase price and/or the perceived value of the item. But these are cases where the person judges the need for ready money as outweighing the loss - or maybe a need to clear out old inventory from a store, or to get rid of items a person can't take along in a move to a new location.

I think that what makes a transaction or a renunciation a "sacrifice" is that the value given up is difficult, to some extent, to give up for the sake of a perceived higher value.

I once heard a woman explain "sacrifice" in what I thought was an admirably clear fashion.

This was at a lecture meeting of the Connecticut Association for Jungian Psychology (CAJP). The subject pertained to Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac at God's command (which God then rescinded before the sacrifice was made).

Larry had attended the lecture with me that night, and in the Q&A he asked if the lecturer meant by "sacrifice" the giving up of a higher value for a lower value.

A woman sitting a few rows in front of Larry and me turned and promptly answered, "NO! That's backward. 'Sacrifice' is giving up something which is painful to give up for the sake of something more important. For instance, I want to take a trip to Europe this summer, but I want more to help my daughter with her college expenses, and I can't afford to do both. So I'm giving up the Europe trip to help my daughter. That's a 'sacrifice.'"

The lecturer concurred with the explanation, and other audience members nodded agreeing, some of them looking quizzically at Larry as if wondering how he'd gotten it so backward, while I sat there chuckling, since I'd told Larry for years that what people at large meant by "sacrifice" wasn't what Rand said - and Larry sat there looking astonished, and afterward commented on the woman's being completely clear on what she meant, and its being as I'd told him, backward from what Rand said "sacrifice" means. Rand, of course, would not have called the woman's giving up a European trip she wanted to take a sacrifice, since the woman valued helping her daughter more, although it was difficult for her to give up the trip.

My suspicion is that where Rand got her upside-down meaning of "sacrifice" was from the story of Christ. There's a passage in Galt's Speech which indicates this, but I haven't time now to look up and quote the passage.

Ellen

I think this is starting altruistic self-sacrifice at the wrong end of the stick - with explicit values. Sure, most of the time we recognize what's more important, and act accordingly: a long-held value is almost automatic - which it shouldn't be, as the best can get frittered away by assuming too much, or taking things for granted, I think. Sometimes it's as if we don't realise what exactly our high values are, until they come close to the point of being sacrificed or lost.

(That reminder up top comes to mind:"The art of living consciously").

Ellen, for Rand's intention I suggest taking this back a few levels to virtues and principles. Here (with one's virtues) are the means to the end of "gaining and keeping our values".

Without our dedication to virtues, values themselves would eventually become null and void, and in fact probably meaningless.

It is those implicit virtues to first look at whenever one considers altruism and 'self-sacrifice'. Rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness and pride. None is a given - each has to be worked towards, conceptualized and implemented. These, or any combination, I'm sure are what are lost first, and what AR meant, when the self is sacrificed. It may be loss of independence, in not speaking up for one's principles against strong resistance; close to that is the injustice to reality when another person is wrongly vilified by his peers, while you who know his great character keep silent. In instances we come across many involve undercutting one's integrity and pride, and leaving one with that shameful, guilty feeling of letting oneself down.

The object (almost always I think) is to gain the credibility, acceptance, popularity or status of the many - at the cost of the self. The cause and effect are the same, elevating the consciousness of others to authority over one's own. Perhaps it requires only a tiny bit of self lost daily to create the self-fulfilled prophecy of a selfless man. The betrayal of virtue is mostly implicit, doing all the harm before we even get to 'the doing' of something for a significant other: going off to play golf instead of helping your child at homework, or some other fairly innocuous value-hierarchy-comparison.

But of course, betray those quite simple values often enough, and there is bound to be a backlash on one's virtues, too, since virtues can't be held indefinitely in a vacuum, but need testing against reality continuously.

Isn't the denial of virtue - for others' collective good opinion and 'benefit' -the worst expression of sacrifice, willingly surrendering the best in a person for what he believes others may or may not see in him? There's where altruism hits its lowest, in the self-sacrifice of something inestimable to something of zero worth, while also not being the slightest measurable or sustainable.

I feel people use "sacrifice" for their acts to indicate underlying premises they would rather not state openly i.e.

roughly: "There's no gain without pain for the truly virtuous". You as listener are supposed to judge them well, but not judge their doubtful premise, which is we must suffer to exist.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Tony,

Rand does say we have to suffer to exist. It's part of human existence.

She just says it's not important to a heroic view of existence.

That is, unless she's writing fiction. She tells students that they have to make their heroes suffer, then suffer some more. That's part of the essence of plot to her. (I can dig up quotes if you like.)

Michael

[Selene]

Tony,

Rand does say we have to suffer to exist. It's part of human existence.

She just says it's not important to a heroic view of existence.

That is, unless she's writing fiction. She tells students that they have to make their heroes suffer, then suffer some more. That's part of the essence of plot to her. (I can dig up quotes if you like.)

Michael

Excellent observation Michael.

Hard for the "true believer" to acept.

More later..

A...

[Samson Corwell]

Tony,

Rand does say we have to suffer to exist. It's part of human existence.

She just says it's not important to a heroic view of existence.

That is, unless she's writing fiction. She tells students that they have to make their heroes suffer, then suffer some more. That's part of the essence of plot to her. (I can dig up quotes if you like.)

Michael

Excellent observation Michael.

Hard for the "true believer" to acept.

More later..

A...

"No pain, no gain" rings quite true. Nothing wrong with it, either.

[Selene]

"No pain, no gain" rings quite true. Nothing wrong with it, either.

Lots wrong with it.

Depends on your interpretation of that meaningless cliche...

[Samson Corwell]

"No pain, no gain" rings quite true. Nothing wrong with it, either.

Lots wrong with it.

Depends on your interpretation of that meaningless cliche...

Hard work = success, no?

[Selene]

"No pain, no gain" rings quite true. Nothing wrong with it, either.

Lots wrong with it.

Depends on your interpretation of that meaningless cliche...

Hard work = success, no?

No.

Heinlein stated that most "progress" has been made by lazy folks...

[anthony]

Tony,

Rand does say we have to suffer to exist. It's part of human existence.

She just says it's not important to a heroic view of existence.

That is, unless she's writing fiction. She tells students that they have to make their heroes suffer, then suffer some more. That's part of the essence of plot to her. (I can dig up quotes if you like.)

Michael

Michael: No disagreement there. I see I put it poorly. I assumed that we take as a 'given' that all existence always meets with resistance- not to mention a thriving human existence - and not least, each individual's efforts to conceptualize existence in order to apprehend it.

The distinction as I see it, is that when altruism has become such an insinuated part of everyday morality, the 'social altruist' needs to make plain his sacrifices; perhaps summed up by:

Never let a good sacrifice go unnoticed.

Or: What's the point of sacrifice if I can't make some capital out of it?

(Which could be called psychological altruism - or NB's "counterfeit egoism".)

The dishonesty and self-contradiction is plain. Even when 'doing for others', this altruist will make his act public, as secondary altruism, in effect.

The other distinction is that between the endless effort for moral purpose and values - and 'necessary' suffering. The line between them is blurred when self-sacrifice is the unquestioned moral standard. Not just is there no gain without pain, but more: one should seek pain in order to gain. Those two become equivalents. Second, whatever one sacrifices for another person must, can only, eventuate in demands upon others, as well. Your sacrifice, theirs', what's the difference? When the boundary breaks down, suffering becomes the common currency. (All in the name of brotherly love).

Certainly Rand showed that life is not defined by suffering - and certainly not by guilt, resentment or entitlement, all the products of self-sacrifice, accepted and given.

Since Romantic fiction requires tension, she showed the struggles between man and men, and man and the elements. In her plots, the more the conflict, the greater the victory for the men and women of volitional consciousness.

[Brant Gaede]

Generically, choosing something over something else means all the choices not made constitute sacrifices to the choice you made (for a perceived higher value)--they were sacrificed to your selfishness. A sacrifice on you is Rand's dusting the furniture when your house is on fire instead of saving your ass. By pouring water on it you are sacrificing the fire to your selfishness. The question then is whether sacrificing to personal selfishness is generally moral--I say yes--and if so, particularly? Depends. First of all, socially, are rights being violated? Then criminal prosecution may be a prosecutor sacrificing you into jail for the sake of the selfishnesses of non-rights' violators.

--Brant

sin loi!

[Samson Corwell]

"Altruism" is an overstuffed word.

All the terms individually in the BAD rubric - mystical, altruist, collectivist axis - are overstuffed. The rubric came to be used simultaneously as a catechism and as a magic incantation for dismissing opposition. Objectivists I knew would especially quail at having something they said called "mystical."

All three of those words, I feel, have duly screwed up my thinking. "Collectivism" never seems to be an accurate word, "altruism" was just defined poorly, and "mysticism", though I occasionally use it myself, now, was used against philosophers for things that hardly seem mystical. Objectivism is so intriguing, but I feel like its vocabulary is used to tie together Gordian knots, figuratively speaking, of course.

[caroljane]

Objectivist vocabulary has screwed up the thinking of many before us, Samson. Rand's mission to precisely define, or redefine, English words and phrases in the context of her thinking, have been ongoingly interesting since she started doing it.

[Brant Gaede]

Objectivist vocabulary has screwed up the thinking of many before us, Samson. Rand's mission to precisely define, or redefine, English words and phrases in the context of her thinking, have been ongoingly interesting since she started doing it.

Are you a Martian cultural anthropologist come to Earth?

--Brant

no such thing as an intellectual anthropologist

[anthony]

If one can only get past the words, the concept of altruism-collectivism boils down to living by others' standards. It's a starting place and a direction, based on irrational premises and heading for immoral consequences. So individual volition becomes other people's volition; conviction, 'their' convictions; virtues and values, theirs' too.

Politically/socially we proceed to identify ourselves with (and are identified by) some or other Group. Always the direction is towards greater collective polarization: "us" and "them" - less and less, me and you. As 'profiling' gets ever more sophisticated, so political masters come forward who can fashion the leash for the largest collective neck, and the people are led to destinies they may bleat and moan about, but tacitly asked for.

[Brant Gaede]

If one can only get past the words, the concept of altruism-collectivism boils down to living by others' standards. It's a starting place and a direction, based on irrational premises and heading for immoral consequences. So individual volition becomes other people's volition; conviction, 'their' convictions; virtues and values, theirs' too.

Politically/socially we proceed to identify ourselves with (and are identified by) some or other Group. Always the direction is towards greater collective polarization: "us" and "them" - less and less, me and you. As 'profiling' gets ever more sophisticated, so political masters come forward who can fashion the leash for the largest collective neck, and the people are led to destinies they may bleat and moan about, but tacitly asked for.

It's not the philosophy. It's the pure economic dynamic of the situation as one group of people use the state to bloat up at the expense of producers. It's the built in curse of democracy. The United States as constitutionally constructed is like the Titanic with the bad steel of democracy headed for the iceberg. Many people, including me, see this unfolding situation with alarm, especially since we're on the damn boat psychologically, physically, economically and any other way you might imagine with few if any ways to get off. I think I will possibly live long enough to see and experience the political transmogrification into something quite new and likely worse. Obama wants to be king and will fall short. The king, if we get one--doesn't have to be so called and won't be--will be conservative-fascist and one with the military with an impotent legislature and judiciary. If not, the country will split up into large conflicting blocks. The hinge point absent a war might be massive de facto (inflation) or de jure debt default.

--Brant

[Samson Corwell]

Objectivist vocabulary has screwed up the thinking of many before us, Samson. Rand's mission to precisely define, or redefine, English words and phrases in the context of her thinking, have been ongoingly interesting since she started doing it.

To be fair, I don't fault her entirely. I think her ethical is more palatable if worded differently and I believe most people already believe in some parts of it like standing up for your principles. That's something I've heard many times before Rand. That line of thinking isn't new.

[Samson Corwell]

If one can only get past the words, the concept of altruism-collectivism boils down to living by others' standards. It's a starting place and a direction, based on irrational premises and heading for immoral consequences. So individual volition becomes other people's volition; conviction, 'their' convictions; virtues and values, theirs' too.

Politically/socially we proceed to identify ourselves with (and are identified by) some or other Group. Always the direction is towards greater collective polarization: "us" and "them" - less and less, me and you. As 'profiling' gets ever more sophisticated, so political masters come forward who can fashion the leash for the largest collective neck, and the people are led to destinies they may bleat and moan about, but tacitly asked for.

Typing of words...

[anthony]

Typing of words...

Something original would be appreciated. You put me in mind of that definition of a cynic as one who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.

[Selene]

Typing of words...

Something original would be appreciated. You put me in mind of that definition of a cynic as one who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.

My favorite definition of a cynic is a humanist with experience.

[anthony]

If one can only get past the words, the concept of altruism-collectivism boils down to living by others' standards. It's a starting place and a direction, based on irrational premises and heading for immoral consequences. So individual volition becomes other people's volition; conviction, 'their' convictions; virtues and values, theirs' too.

Politically/socially we proceed to identify ourselves with (and are identified by) some or other Group. Always the direction is towards greater collective polarization: "us" and "them" - less and less, me and you. As 'profiling' gets ever more sophisticated, so political masters come forward who can fashion the leash for the largest collective neck, and the people are led to destinies they may bleat and moan about, but tacitly asked for.

It's not the philosophy. It's the pure economic dynamic of the situation as one group of people use the state to bloat up at the expense of producers. It's the built in curse of democracy. The United States as constitutionally constructed is like the Titanic with the bad steel of democracy headed for the iceberg. Many people, including me, see this unfolding situation with alarm, especially since we're on the damn boat psychologically, physically, economically and any other way you might imagine with few if any ways to get off. I think I will possibly live long enough to see and experience the political transmogrification into something quite new and likely worse. Obama wants to be king and will fall short. The king, if we get one--doesn't have to be so called and won't be--will be conservative-fascist and one with the military with an impotent legislature and judiciary. If not, the country will split up into large conflicting blocks. The hinge point absent a war might be massive de facto (inflation) or de jure debt default.

--Brant

I think the outcome is as you put it, but disagree that philosophy was not a large causal factor.

As I see it, one big problem is with many Americans wanting badly to be accepted and appreciated in the world at large - which means, in reality, by Europe and the European. Europe - if I may be very generalistic- has become an increasingly greying mass, collectivized and Statified by the will of the majorities, with only variance in culture etc. defining who the European actually IS. So that proportion of Americans craving acceptance by them desires to be a copy of a copy of a hodge-podge collective, ultimately.

Correct me if I'm off here.

Don't get me wrong: I enjoy culture and having different cultures around me. I see no reason that culture (like everything we are born into- family, nation, etc.) should be in contradiction to individualism. It's a benign backdrop to who we are, after all. But when culture begins to supplant individualism, then start the problems. Somehow (I think) your present President tapped in to that desire for the people to be like 'everyone else', at *some* cost not only of the American culture, but to their independent spirit.

[caroljane]

|I can't agree that so many Americans care about being "accepted and appreciated by the world at large" aside from the political necessities for maintaining advantageous economic relations and national security. My impression is that over the past three decades they have become far more concerned about internal conditions and the "culture wars."

[dldelancey]

|I can't agree that so many Americans care about being "accepted and appreciated by the world at large" aside from the political necessities for maintaining advantageous economic relations and national security. My impression is that over the past three decades they have become far more concerned about internal conditions and the "culture wars."

Agreed. That is, I agree that I can't agree with that statement. ;-)

[caroljane]

Certainly Obama's international background was considered, on balance, to be an asset by the Democratic Party. It's interesting to think about whether he would have entered politics at all if, like his mother, he had married a foreign student, instead of a pluggedin Chicagoan. The wife factor is too often discounted!