Thanksgiving:

[mweiss]

Gary Hull published a wonderful article on the Objective meaning of Thanksgiving in Capitalism Magazine.

He argues that it is man's mind, not God, we have to thank for the plentifulness of our existence in America today.

Read the full article here:

http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3279

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mark,

I fully agree that we should give thanks to the men and women who created wealth, but I really have trouble with things like the following passage from the essay:

Many Americans make Thanksgiving into a religious festival. They agree with Lincoln, who, upon declaring Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, said that "we have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven." They ascribe our material abundance to God's efforts, not man's.

That view is a slap in the face of any person who has worked an honest day in his life. The appropriate values for this holiday are not faith and charity, but thought and production. The proper thanks for one's wealth goes not to some mystical deity but to oneself, if one has earned that wealth.

I don't believe that it is a "slap in the face any person who has worked an honest day in his life" to feel a "metaphysical" gratitude for being alive, being born and living in a land where things grow with ease rather than the North Pole, and having a rational capacity to be able to produce to begin with.

I also don't think it is "slap in the face any person who has worked an honest day in his life" to set aside a day where it is OK to feel benevolent toward the weak and fragile among us and nurture feelings of wishing to share our abundance and make like easier for them.

And I also don't think it is "slap in the face any person who has worked an honest day in his life" to reflect on what existence as a human being means in terms of basic survival and wishing well for all of humanity. We all have to die, anyway, so we might as well go out on a full belly.

As a producer, I see nothing wrong in feeling all of this AND thanking the other people who produce, including myself. One set of feelings does not wipe out the other.

What an idiotic false alternative.

I HATE this side of Objectivism where people try to ape and twist Ayn Rand's rhetoric, holding it a virtue to try to eradicate their empathy and feelings of gratitude for being alive, and finding fault with decency towards others as a member of the human species. It is perfectly possible to be a rational and productive egoist, be aware that the universe is larger than oneself and feel lucky to be a part of it, and even care about other people, all without becoming Hank Rearden before he joined the strike.

In fact, it is good to be that way.

Michael

[mweiss]

Mark,

I fully agree that we should give thanks to the men and women who created wealth, but I really have trouble with things like the following passage from the essay:

Many Americans make Thanksgiving into a religious festival. They agree with Lincoln, who, upon declaring Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, said that "we have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven." They ascribe our material abundance to God's efforts, not man's.

That view is a slap in the face of any person who has worked an honest day in his life. The appropriate values for this holiday are not faith and charity, but thought and production. The proper thanks for one's wealth goes not to some mystical deity but to oneself, if one has earned that wealth.

I don't believe that it is a "slap in the face any person who has worked an honest day in his life" to feel a "metaphysical" gratitude for being alive, being born and living in a land where things grow with ease rather than the North Pole, and having a rational capacity to be able to produce to begin with.

I also don't think it is "slap in the face any person who has worked an honest day in his life" to set aside a day where it is OK to feel benevolent toward the weak and fragile among us and nurture feelings of wishing to share our abundance and make like easier for them.

And I also don't think it is "slap in the face any person who has worked an honest day in his life" to reflect on what existence as a human being means in terms of basic survival and wishing well for all of humanity. We all have to die, anyway, so we might as well go out on a full belly.

As a producer, I see nothing wrong in feeling all of this AND thanking the other people who produce, including myself. One set of feelings does not wipe out the other.

What an idiotic false alternative.

I HATE this side of Objectivism where people try to ape and twist Ayn Rand's rhetoric, holding it a virtue to try to eradicate their empathy and feelings of gratitude for being alive, and finding fault with decency towards others as a member of the human species. It is perfectly possible to be a rational and productive egoist, be aware that the universe is larger than oneself and feel lucky to be a part of it, and even care about other people, all without becoming Hank Rearden before he joined the strike.

In fact, it is good to be that way.

Michael

Frankly, on the surface, I find nothing wrong with the two paragraphs you cited. I myself have been in situations where I slaved for hours, preparing a breathtaking TG day meal, and one of the guests thanks God. I felt like throwing that woman out on her ear! It was MY labor that put that meal on the table for all of us to enjoy that day. Some people are so stuck in the religious that they almost think it's a part of required table ediquette to thank "God".

While I agree that charity to those less fortunate is perfectly okay and a good thing to do, I don't think Gary's point was to bash those who practice it. That you can interpret the above paragraph in that manner disturbs me slightly. It means that the dozen or so Socialists that I sent it via e-mail to this afternoon will probably take it even farther and call me a "God-hating, poor person-hating heathen".

I think those two paragraphs sum up my own stance on the issue, and I believe in giving to those less fortunate. My friends know that I, a person living below the Federal poverty level for most of my life, am very generous with the little bit of surplus that I do have. While I agree with you that there are those with genuine hardships and that it's good to help them, I think you misread Gary's overall position with this article. He is simply pointing out the difference between the producers and the slothful parasites (by their own choice).

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mark,

I didn't mean to spoil the good vibes. This is a long subject and I hurt myself badly once trying to ignore "the given" (and that is Rand's expression) in exercising my will.

I agree that production is important and needs to be remembered. But so is "the given." I certainly didn't will myself into being. I just happened.

I completely disagree with the interpretation that when a sincere person is giving thanks in prayer, he is blanking out acknowledgment of the people who produce. Most of the religious people I have been around very much appreciate the value of hard productive work, even when they give thanks to their God.

When I look objectively over my lifetime, I have never known any sincere religious people who are slothful parasites intent on slapping producers in the face on holidays like Thanksgiving. I know they must exist somewhere. I just have not met them.

I am not sure that President Lincoln was one, either. I always got the impression that he valued human productivity.

Michael

[mweiss]

Mark,

I didn't mean to spoil the good vibes. This is a long subject and I hurt myself badly once trying to ignore "the given" (and that is Rand's expression) in exercising my will.

I agree that production is important and needs to be remembered. But so is "the given." I certainly didn't will myself into being. I just happened.

I completely disagree with the interpretation that when a sincere person is giving thanks in prayer, he is blanking out acknowledgment of the people who produce. Most of the religious people I have been around very much appreciate the value of hard productive work, even when they give thanks to their God.

When I look objectively over my lifetime, I have never known any sincere religious people who are slothful parasites intent on slapping producers in the face on holidays like Thanksgiving. I know they must exist somewhere. I just have not met them.

I am not sure that President Lincoln was one, either. I always got the impression that he valued human productivity.

Michael

Michael,

Let me ask you a question: Do you hold the position that because a person is born (as you say "happened"), that he has an innate right to the spoils of others (Ie., the labor and production of others)?

This is a very fundamental point that separates Objectivists from Socialists and Fascists.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mark,

To answer your question properly, we have to define terms. Specifically, what is a person?

For example, an infant is a person and he certainly needs to be cared for. That is a metaphysical condition of being human and the laws in most societies reflect this. I know of a few Objectivists who make some boneheaded kind of assertion that a newborn has no rights, and he must live solely by charity until he is old enough to trade value for value, otherwise it is morally correct to let him to starve to death. But I don't know many.

What does this have to do with what we are talking about, though?

The issue I was discussing was the feeling of gratitude at Thanksgiving. Hull & Co. claim that feeing gratitude toward a Deity is a slap in the face of a human producer. Why? Where is it written that a human being is capable of feeling only one kind of gratitude at a time? That's pure bull.

It is perfectly possible to feel gratitude to both Deity and human producer (if you believe in God), or gratitude "in general" for being alive plus gratitude to producer (if you don't).

I don't see the slap. Hull does. I don't buy it. But I do see a slap in the face of my intelligence.

I personally am grateful to be alive and I am grateful to all (including myself) who have produced for what they have produced. Why is it impossible to have both? Just because someone says so?

EDIT - If I sound aggressive, please don't take it personally. I have become a bit exasperated at the complete lack of common sense I see displayed by some recent writing on Objectivism.

I read something somewhere that I think you will agree with. If someone offers to say grace in your presence, let him do so and be respectful. Then at the end, ask to say a word and offer a special thanks to the producers who have provided the abundance.

Try it. You might be surprised at how many religious people and even liberals will solemnly agree with you instead of slapping your face.

Michael

[mweiss]

Sorry. I was referring to an adult human, skipping the child growth stage. I meant a viable adult, capable of self-sustained life.

The connection to this was the notion that people who thank God for abundance usually hold the corollary belief that man's labor belongs to all mankind (Socialism). Perhaps that connection is a bit tenuous, but there is my attempt.

Now as for feeling gratitude toward diety and producers, I have never gotten that impression from the people who thank God for abundance. They're attitude is exclusive about this matter: one cannot have abundance without God. Therefore, I extrapolate that man's production means nothing without God. Therefore, thanking God is a condition where those who do so, deem that man's productivity is conditional, because only God makes that productivity possible. And there in lies the slap in the face of the rational producer.

Does that argument make sense?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mark,

You have a good daisy-chain of logic and I even used to think like that. But I have been unable to find those people among the sincerely religious. I keep finding other types. Like I suggested, try out thanking the producers after grace. It's an eye-opener.

The most I have heard is that "God helps him who helps himself."

From that philosophical distance, I have no quarrel with this.

(Well... there was a young woman once who was throwing herself at me. She did a heavy-handed "God provides all our needs" thing like you stated, but she was highly interested in the financial returns on a project I was working on and was trying to tie me up with bullshit. She doesn't count as sincerely religious to me, but boy, could she preach up a storm when her spirit got entangled in thinking about her bank account.)

Michael