New Cult of Darkness

[Ellen Stuttle]

One of my great concerns about global warming is the less-than-rational nature of the discussion. Here's part of an email I recently wrote to a friend that summarizes some of my thoughts:

"The problem with the global warming issue is that in popular public and political policy discussions the matter it is an ill-defined, epistemological mess. Asking 'Do you believe in global warming?' has the flavor of 'Do you believe in Jesus?' with lots of unstated implications. [....]

The other thing, Ed, in addition to the religious or near-religious frenzy people are being whipped up into is the railroading: the attempt to portray the purportedly impending threat as if it IS analogous to a civilization-destroying asteroid on a collision course with the earth. Now if there were such an asteroid headed toward earth, this would be a clear and present danger against which immediate action would be required to avert disaster. But the global warming scenario poses no such clear and present danger. It's a circumstance in which there are many uncertainties, not the least of which is whether it's even true that human CO2 production is making any effective difference even if there is a genuine warming trend. When you see various interests insisting that action is mandatory now, that there's no time for further deliberation, exploration, data sifting, then you know that the real urgency is monetary, the short-term hope of financial gain by those who see ways to profit from a widespread belief that apocalyptic measures are needed.

Ellen

PS: We visited the Lowell Observatory when we were touring parts of the Southwest and Colorado in September 2001 and we very much enjoyed seeing the observatory and the grounds and displays. The visit transpired in a strange mental frame because it was shortly after 9/11, so there was a shifting between the focus on astronomy and outbreaks of conversation about the current events which were preoccupying everyone's thoughts. Both Larry and I would like to go back to see the observatory again when we could concentrate better. He's taught astronomy courses a number of times over the years, starting back when he was doing teaching assistance while working on his degree at Temple. He'd sometimes go out to the Ambler Observatory, either with a group of students or by himself. (I'd sometimes tag along.) And he was good friends here for a number of years with a man named Charles (Charlie) Hammond, who was a well known amateur astronomer and had built his own small observatory on an elevation called a "mountain" around here -- actually what's left of a very old mountain, now not much higher than a prominent hill. Unfortunately, Charlie died a few years ago, and his son hasn't kept that small observatory active. There is another small one connected with U. Conn, but that's awkward to arrange to go to, so we haven't had the star-gazing opportunities we did have.

I've never seen the heavens from the Southern hemisphere. I would like to do that.

___

[Brant Gaede]

I was in Flagstaff for two years, 1962-64--going to Arizona State College (now Northern Arizona State University), but I didn't pay too much attention to the night sky; it was warmer inside and in the summers I was gone. It is in the middle of everything, especially archeology and geology. I hiked in the Grand Canyon with the legendary Harvey Butchart and my brother-in-law was the curator of anthropology at the Museum of Northern Arizona headed, interestingly enough, by Ned Danson, the father of Ted Danson, whom I probably met at the reception following his sister's wedding. Friend of my brother's.

In 1973 I slept under the stars near Kingman, AZ with my Mother as part of our trip to Tucson from Oregon. They filled the sky with a stunning brilliance I've not seen since but want to see every day. Those stars represent only a very small nearby part of the Milky Way.

Flagstaff is not a very good town to live in. A railroad town. Too cold. Cops--well, they hassle(d) you.

--Brant

[Judith]

Flagstaff is not a very good town to live in. A railroad town. Too cold. Cops--well, they hassle(d) you.

Hmmm. I've been considering it as a possible retirement destination. I like seasons. I'd miss the winter. (I already do, and it's just barely over!) I'd worry more about missing things like the symphony and the theatre, and climate aspects like the brush fires.

For what kinds of things did the cops hassle you?

Judith

Edited April 5, 2007 by Judith

[Greybird]

Thanks for an eloquent essay and for sharing your astronomical passions!

A beautiful view from space. The secret for we astronomers is to know where to find the dark parts!

I'd agree with its being beautiful. And one of my own favorite such views has both such beauty and — in support of your essay — a more subtle point ... made by the hole in the lights, where it is, and why.

Larger version, 800 x 600

[zantonavitch]

One of my great concerns about global warming is the less-than-rational nature of the discussion.

The other thing, Ed, in addition to the religious or near-religious frenzy people are being whipped up into...

Environmentalism itself is wholly legitimate. Despite some progress in the past few decades, we really do need to pollute less and/or clean up more, as well as stop or slow the current extinction of animals and plants. The great problem here is almost every single environmentalist favors socialist and coercive means to this pro-Earth end. Meanwhile, capitalist solutions are much easier, quicker, and cheaper. And there's no green Big Brother with his nasty accompanying ideology -- which often seems primary to the eco-nuts.

[Chris Grieb]

Steve; Thanks for the map of the Korea peninsula. Remember the lights never go on in that sad country.

[Ellen Stuttle]

One of my great concerns about global warming is the less-than-rational nature of the discussion.

The other thing, Ed, in addition to the religious or near-religious frenzy people are being whipped up into...

Environmentalism itself is wholly legitimate. Despite some progress in the past few decades, we really do need to pollute less and/or clean up more, as well as stop or slow the current extinction of animals and plants. The great problem here is almost every single environmentalist favors socialist and coercive means to this pro-Earth end. Meanwhile, capitalist solutions are much easier, quicker, and cheaper. And there's no green Big Brother with his nasty accompanying ideology -- which often seems primary to the eco-nuts.

Both Ed and I, in the quoted comments, were talking specifically about global warming, not vaguely "environmentalism." Global warming is a different issue from polluting, although I've encountered a number of people who get these issues confused, believing that the reputed AGW -- anthropogenic global warming -- is being caused by "pollutants." The reputed culprit in AGW is CO2, which is not a pollutant. Pollutants might be produced along with CO2 in the burning of fuels, but CO2 itself doesn't "pollute" the atmosphere. Also I wonder what the source is for your ideas of "the current extinction of animals and plants."

Ellen

Addendum: In checking the full post of Ed's which was being quoted (his post #17), I see that he started the post by referring to "environmentalism" broadly speaking.

(He wrote:

Elizabeth -- I do know that a lot of environmnetalists who really are human haters. But, of course, not all are and many do have legitimate concerns. I indicated there are self-interested reasons to want, as an individual, to conserve. And it is also rational to want to live in an environment in which you're not coughing because of all the black soot from the air doing into your lungs.

)

The sentence I picked up on and commented about, however, and the material which followed pertained to global warming.

___

Edited April 5, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[John Dailey]

~ Without the 'pollutant' of CO2, where would our plants...ergo, the whole 'chain-of-life'...be, on our planet?

LLAP

J:D

[Brant Gaede]

Flagstaff is not a very good town to live in. A railroad town. Too cold. Cops--well, they hassle(d) you.

Hmmm. I've been considering it as a possible retirement destination. I like seasons. I'd miss the winter. (I already do, and it's just barely over!) I'd worry more about missing things like the symphony and the theatre, and climate aspects like the brush fires.

For what kinds of things did the cops hassle you?

Judith

Oh, I was never personally hassled. They focus on transients. You would find Flagstaff too much winter, not enough spring and fall. All the "culture" is probably at the university. Real estate is to the expensive side. Try Vegas for its somewhat easy access to LA, SF, Portland, etc through airplane flights to everywhere. Boulder would be much, much better than Flagstaff, but expensive and no 4 seasons. Consider Seattle and Portland and Eugene and Santa Fe. Sedona is great but not for culture things. Santa Fe is the best place I can think of overall, but it's not a place for someone like myself who wants a real city.

--Brant

[Philip Coates]

> People, this is not Atlas Shrugged. This is not a fiction novel wherein the characters act as indisputible villains or heroes....Imagine that we knew, definitively and doubtlessly, that human emissions due to technology and industry WERE in fact causing global warming. Imagine that we knew, definitely and doubtlessly, that unless we took some action, mass floods and catastrophic storms would take place all over the planet within ten years...Now can you honestly tell me that any person who acts to prevent this disaster is, in Kyrel Zantonavitch's words, a "socialist, altruist"? That they are "driven by 'deep malice'"...These people in Sydney are trying to save their lives - in the best way they know how. There is nothing altruistic about this!

Elizabeth, your points are very well taken (whether or not global warming is valid which is totally irrelevant to the discussion of this point). One reason Objectivists are not taken seriously is this incredibly stupid blindness about never seeing people that they disagree with could be operating with honest motives.

You can't beat it out of them with a stick.

When you are so far out of touch with reality that you assume that people all around you (who were not raised on Ayn Rand) deserve some negative -moral- evaluation simply because they are wrong or don't accept some Objectivist premise, the more intelligent and perceptive and well-adjusted the person you want to convince, the more likely he will (to some extent semi-correctly) view you as a "nutcase" or at least as someone so out of touch with actual human psychology that he would be unlikely to have any interest in listening to what you have to offer or say on any other topic.

There is an Objectivist? concept called "distance from reality" to measure the degree of irrationality of any view.

And if you are an interstellar distance from reality about -people- in such a basic, fundamental psychological way as thihs you are in very deep trouble as someone who wants to persuade, to change the world. You have no chance.

[studiodekadent]

Ed,

Excellent article. Its sad to say, as an Australian, that "The Sky Is Falling" global warming hysteria has truly swept my country and turned most of my countrymen into unwitting carriers of intellectual misanthropy.

Most people look at Global Warming with genuine concern, in that most people have some sort of understanding that there is anthropocentric value in a level of environmental conservation; i.e. we should preserve the environment when it is in our interests to do so. Objectivists would agree with that obviously. However, not only is the case for "the sky is falling" very flawed, but most environmentalists are not sensible, anthropocentrically-interested types, but demented misanthropes.

Their philosophers, like Aldo Leopold, are Intrinsicist Deontologists that believe the environment has an intrinsic value, humans have an acontextual duty to leave not a footprint, and use a G E Moore style 'method of isolation' to determine intrinsic value. They are emotionalists (claiming to be intuitionists) and eventually misanthropes. To them, humans are a virus. See the Church of Euthanasia and the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement for more examples of these fruit loops.

[PalePower]

> People, this is not Atlas Shrugged. This is not a fiction novel wherein the characters act as indisputible villains or heroes....Imagine that we knew, definitively and doubtlessly, that human emissions due to technology and industry WERE in fact causing global warming. Imagine that we knew, definitely and doubtlessly, that unless we took some action, mass floods and catastrophic storms would take place all over the planet within ten years...Now can you honestly tell me that any person who acts to prevent this disaster is, in Kyrel Zantonavitch's words, a "socialist, altruist"? That they are "driven by 'deep malice'"...These people in Sydney are trying to save their lives - in the best way they know how. There is nothing altruistic about this!

Elizabeth, your points are very well taken (whether or not global warming is valid which is totally irrelevant to the discussion of this point). One reason Objectivists are not taken seriously is this incredibly stupid blindness about never seeing people that they disagree with could be operating with honest motives.

You can't beat it out of them with a stick.

When you are so far out of touch with reality that you assume that people all around you (who were not raised on Ayn Rand) deserve some negative -moral- evaluation simply because they are wrong or don't accept some Objectivist premise, the more intelligent and perceptive and well-adjusted the person you want to convince, the more likely he will (to some extent semi-correctly) view you as a "nutcase" or at least as someone so out of touch with actual human psychology that he would be unlikely to have any interest in listening to what you have to offer or say on any other topic.

There is an Objectivist? concept called "distance from reality" to measure the degree of irrationality of any view.

And if you are an interstellar distance from reality about -people- in such a basic, fundamental psychological way as thihs you are in very deep trouble as someone who wants to persuade, to change the world. You have no chance.

Thank you. Yeah, that's one of my beefs with Objectivism. . . the black-and-white view applied to human motive. You can definitely determine the objective EFFECT of their actions, but I find it quite ignorant to slap that same "EVIL!" label on the thought process that led up to it. I'm young, so I have a lot still to learn and experience of life, but so far I haven't heard of one "bad" act that absolutely did NOT have any sort of "good" motive behind it - however twisted it may be. Rape, murder, theft - they're indisputably mucked up, but the reasons for such are some kind of psychological disturbance aimed at self-preservation. Even Hitler, when he wasn't reeling on drugs, wanted to make a "more perfect" society. I'm not justifying immorality, obviously, but I invite you to give me an example of a real-life villain whose sole intention was just To Destroy - the world, people, himself, without any benefit whatsoever, without ANY pleasure taken from it - just to kill, and kill, and kill, like a machine.

It doesn't happen! (Unless you're mentally ill.) That's not human nature. There's always got to be something in it for yourself.

(I'm on an idea rant, bear with me.)

That's also a problem I have with Rand in a literary sense - mainly with her villains in Atlas Shrugged. (I hope to Galt I don't get shot down for the following.) I found them unreal. They were robots, not people. Now I perceive this as Rand's purpose - to make them as such - because certainly the world may seem to act like that at times, like senseless, malevolent automatons. But are people ACTUALLY like that? Not that I've observed. As such, I had a hard time summoning any kind of feeling - be it fear, annoyance, hate - for the oodles of oddly-named diplomats and bureaucrats. And that doesn't make for good story-telling. Jim was a little better, since he was more developed, but the part of the book that bothered me the absolute most was his demise - his "revelation" when Galt gives him The Look and he suddenly "realizes" that he is, objectively and doubtlessly, a depraved, evil, death-mongering human being.

That... would never happen. Forget theories of romanticism, forget lambasting naturalism: fiction derives its power from facts of reality; and, as a reader, I just am not ABLE to formulate a response, because there's nothing in my mind and experience to do it with. There's no worth to the literary observations as such; how would I apply them? How do they affect me? They don't - there's no such thing as a James Taggart in the real world. So why should I care?

Toohey's an altogether different story. (Pun intended, ah-ah-ah.) He's one thing: FASCINATING. And that makes for good story-telling. He's different because he KNOWS what he's doing (and it doesn't break him, like Jim - key). Plus, he does seem to derive a sick sort of power-pleasure from his depravity, so there's your psychological substance. The villains in The Fountainhead are so much more realistic; and as such so much more frightening; and as such there is so much more tension and intrinsic drama.

If you think about it, Ayn Rand's all into the benevolent world view, but how non-benevolent is it to think that there are ACTUALLY people out there who honestly work for Death? Totally depressing. I prefer to view them as lost sheep! Bring them back to the fold, that's where they belong - there's no place for evil in this world.

I look forward to applying that concept of "evil" to my own future literature. There's that Buddhist (Hindu? Eastern.) idea that there is no such thing as evil, only an absence of good. What about an "excess" of good? Good gone wild -- with all the sincerity, intent, passion and intransigence of the Right, but terribly wrong. I want to make my villains altogether alive, sympathetic, recognizable. Not characters you love to hate, but hate to hate, yet hate nevertheless. You want them dead, but you feel like a piece of you's been ripped out when they do go. Or maybe they don't go. . . and you feel an odd sort of victory. There's just so much more to do with literature besides proselytize.

Fun!

~Elizabeth

[Victor Pross]

"I invite you to give me an example of a real-life villain whose sole intention was just To Destroy - the world, people, himself, without any benefit whatsoever, without ANY pleasure taken from it - just to kill, and kill, and kill, like a machine."

Elizabeth,

There’s a lot that I could say about this thread, but I would rather ask questions for now.

For example: Would you say that there are certain Environmentalist types who don’t want a more “perfect society” because they view human beings as a plague---and they would, if they had the power, see to the alienation of mankind?

I’m not saying anything right now….just asking questions.

-Victor

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

If you think about it, Ayn Rand's all into the benevolent world view, but how non-benevolent is it to think that there are ACTUALLY people out there who honestly work for Death? Totally depressing. I prefer to view them as lost sheep! Bring them back to the fold, that's where they belong - there's no place for evil in this world.

Elizabeth,

That is precisely my view. Christianity, Islam and almost any religion has Objectivism beat hands-down in terms of spreading because of how many vocal Objectivists generally view this attitude.

Either you start with the attitude that people are good and do stupid and ugly things sometimes, or you start out thinking people are depraved and need to discipline their minds and lives—and especially discipline others—to root out the evil. You build from there.

Where I want to go with Objectivism is from the first. I recognize a kindred spirit in you.

Michael

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Judging the world, Judging people, Judging one's opponents

Elizabeth and Michael and Studentdecadent,

My view [disagreeing with Elizabeth] is (i) that there certainly -are- vicious people and there are evaders. And psychos who want to destroy. And people motivated by malice.

But:

(ii) [disagreeing with Studentdecadent and with hordes of Oists who say the same thing] They are a tiny, tiny twisted minority and not the majority of the environmentalist movement or any other movement that involves millions of average people.

(iii) One should not focus on the few sick and twisted people, but on the -ideas- and, in the case of global warming and most other issues, the science and the evidence and the ethics/individual rights issues.

That said -- continuing with (i) -- there -are- bad or twisted people out there (just listing dictators or wannabes: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, "Tooheys", the ayatollahs, the Taliban....). And one's survival can sometimes depend on recognizing the walking IED's, especially if they have power.

Plus some out-front destructive or homicidal movements such as Islamo-fascism or other ideologies of outright murder are not motivated virtuously by very many of their participants. That movement, unlike environmentalism which is motivated largely by the things Elizabeth listed in her long post, is motivated largely by envy and humiliation and desire to submerge oneself to enslavement or to die for martyrdom. Not exactly healthy benevolence or psychological health. Or self-interest. That is different in major degree from Islam itself as practiced by one billion (which is (iv) nonetheless a worse, more sacrificial of mind and life, religion than contemporary mainstream Christianity).

....

I realized after writing the above that I've had to make five contrasting points to cover this topic [which is why I went back and numbered them to make that stand out and to be able to clip this and go back and reference it].

Judging people is not a simple topic. There is no magic bullet. No simple rule. No instant judgments short of knowing the people involved and short of hearing what they say.

People are messy and complicated. And often slow to understand...and be understood. Intellectuals, who don't like mess and want to deduce it out of existence, constantly oversimplify evaluating people. They are often impatient and often want an easy shortcut they can put in a three line syllogism. They either make the Elizabeth mistake of "everyone (or everyone who opposes me) is innocent". Or the Studentdecadent mistake of "everyone (or the majority of those who oppose me) is guilty (in one way or another)".

Phil

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil,

Having lived a very interesting life so far and personally meeting and interacting with people from the entire spectrum, from homicidal maniacs (yes, I have lived among some extremely dangerous and hellishly imbalanced people) to the very wise and productive (both famous and not so famous), I happen to agree with you about the complexity and messiness of people. (I presume you are talking principally about moral and psychological terms, and secondly life interests, talents, etc.)

I have no problem with identifying black and white where things can be black and white. In dealing with ethics, this is always a value judgment and implies degrees of value. I mentioned a starting point since this is extremely complex when you get to people.

You mentioned Islamo-fascism. This could be identified as similar to Nazism or the hardcore bloody Communism of Stalin. Let me ask you an emotional question. In your heart, when you think about what a Nazi or Communist sympathizer must have been back then, do you feel the same revulsion for and fear of him as you do for a fundamentalist Islamist?

I would bet that from the hindsight of history, your condemnation is only for the ringleaders, not for the general people who lived under the Nazi and Communist regimes. Their suffering is pretty well documented and so is their recovery. Yet at the time these ideologies were in full force, party meetings were just as enthusiastically (by some) and fearfully (by many) attended as the mosques are today in the fundamentalist Islamist world.

Once we get to the environmentalists, we have a similar, but more subtle situation. For the present, the use of the police state by environmentalists is not nearly as intense as it was (and is) used in these other radical systems. The environmentalists are trying to get there, though. Yet most people are voting them in power (or supporting them acquiring power) because they want a better world for themselves and their loved ones—just like what happened with the other ideologies. I don't think any large group of people really wants a master cracking a whip on their own backs.

Now here is where I begin to see black and white. The bloody ringleaders and power mongers get about as close to black as is humanly possible. The general people are more like cattle, but I find them to be basically good cattle (even those in radical Islamist regimes). Parts of their ideas—not the entire ideologies, but specific parts—are both evil and lethal.

So I focus on the ideas, first understanding them, then trying to take them apart with correct identification of what is good and what is bad.

At this point, I also have a slight difference in focus from traditional Objectivism. I do not find Altruism or collectivism to be the greatest evil.

I find crowd control methods more dangerous and noxious instead. These methods call on people to follow and not to think. Once you convince a person to do this (not only appealing to his intellect, but also to certain built-in emotions), it doesn't matter what ideas you feed him. You have him and he will carry out atrocities if induced. I consider the whole process evil, even when the ideas fed are good.

Let me be clear. I think lynching a person, even a murderer, is naked evil. The blackest of the black. The individuals in the crowd have surrendered their wills, not to an objective and demonstrable reality, but to other people. (I am a HUGE supporter of due process, unless in a battle-like environment. Thus I am not against harsh punishment, even capital punishment under certain circumstances.)

Maybe this is what you find so disturbing in the Islamic philosophy: it is explicitly based on surrender of the individual will to a dogma. But isn't that what Nazism and Communism were?

One of the values I foster here on OL is sincere independent thinking. This is top value for me in social interaction. I can trust a man I disagree with if I know he thinks for himself. There is something inherently right about him and you can sense the goodness emanating in everything he says and does. Evne his conflicts transmit this. I can't trust a blind follower unless I control the person he follows, and I have very little interest in controlling anyone. To me, the independent thinker is the greatest good in terms of how to be, even when he is wrong.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

What about an "excess" of good? Good gone wild -- with all the sincerity, intent, passion and intransigence of the Right, but terribly wrong. I want to make my villains altogether alive, sympathetic, recognizable. Not characters you love to hate, but hate to hate, yet hate nevertheless. You want them dead, but you feel like a piece of you's been ripped out when they do go. Or maybe they don't go. . . and you feel an odd sort of victory. There's just so much more to do with literature besides proselytize.

Fun!

This is way off track from global warming issues, but your comments brought to my mind some literary recommendations re interesting "villians":

(1) The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Augustine is a "hiss-boo" bad guy for O'ism, and there's no denying that he was the major philosopher of a darkly anti-flesh form of Christianity; but his "confessions" are an abundantly rich psychological portrait, often considered the first depth-psychology autobiography.

(2) The first three in Susan Howatch's Church of England series -- and if you like those, the others as well, though the intensity of the story-telling declines later in the series: Glittering Images, Dangerous Powers, Ultimate Prizes. I thought of Howatch because she never presents anyone as a "hiss-boo" villian*; she always shows the inwardness in a way such that, though the results of the character's actions might be harmful, the motivational wellsprings can be sympathized with. The character of Jardin in the first book -- Glittering Images -- is especially complex, as Jardin is an erudite and cultured as well as politically powerful (within the Church heirarchy) personage. I'd be especially interested to hear how you react to Jon Darrow in that book. (Jon Darrow is engaged as confessor/instructor for the young clergyman who's telling the tale.)

(3) The Devil's Advocate by Taylor Caldwell. This contains a reversal of expectations as to who's the "bad guy." (I checked Amazon and found that none of Taylor Caldwell's books are still in print, but they can be obtained through used-book sources.)

(4) The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis, which contains a major reversal of myth in the way it presents Judas. It also presents Christ in a far from standard way. The book was predictably banned and condemned by various Church authorities. Eventually a movie was made from it (and was duly banned). I liked the movie, but consider the book far better. I rank the book as a masterpiece.

* An exception to that generalization is a character in Cashelmara, someone who rapes one of the main female characters. But he isn't shown from an inner perspective. He's an "incidental" character, though significant to the plot development.

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

Adding a comment about this:

If you think about it, Ayn Rand's all into the benevolent world view, but how non-benevolent is it to think that there are ACTUALLY people out there who honestly work for Death? Totally depressing.

That reminds me of an incident from fairly early in my acquaintance with Objectivism. It was a grey day, a light drizzle. I'd taken two of my siblings to a shopping mall and I was waiting in the car while they made their purchases. I was gazing out at the drizzle and started to think, What if the world of human beings -- the large majority of human beings -- really were as Ayn Rand presents it? The thought was one of the bleakest thoughts I can ever recall entertaining, much drearier in prospect than the grey drizzle of that day.

Ellen

___

[Philip Coates]

> I prefer to view them as lost sheep! Bring them back to the fold, that's where they belong [Elizabeth]

I like the benevolence of this attitude.

[Victor Pross]

> I prefer to view them as lost sheep! Bring them back to the fold, that's where they belong [Elizabeth]

I like the benevolence of this attitude.

I consider myself a very life-affirming and benevolent person, and yet, I recognize the fact that evil exists, that not everyone shares my outlook. I think this is a very hard pill for most others here to accept. Sadly, I don’t think that everyone can be “brought back to the fold”...as cheerfull as that sounds—perhaps even naive.

-Victor

Edited April 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Victor Pross]

If you think about it, Ayn Rand's all into the benevolent world view, but how non-benevolent is it to think that there are ACTUALLY people out there who honestly work for Death? Totally depressing. I prefer to view them as lost sheep! Bring them back to the fold, that's where they belong - there's no place for evil in this world.

Elizabeth,

That is precisely my view. Christianity, Islam and almost any religion has Objectivism beat hands-down in terms of spreading because of how many vocal Objectivists generally view this attitude.

Either you start with the attitude that people are good and do stupid and ugly things sometimes, or you start out thinking people are depraved and need to discipline their minds and lives—and especially discipline others—to root out the evil. You build from there.

Where I want to go with Objectivism is from the first. I recognize a kindred spirit in you.

Michael

There isn’t a vast continuum of shades between these two perspectives?? Yes, we are not born with some sort of “original sin” or “original virtue”—we have free-will. That, I would think, spells it out. You know, it seems to me that there is a great hesitation to grasp the simple fact that some people are simply evil, as an observable fact—and recognizing this does not reflect ill upon you, people. Really, it doesn’t.

-Victor

Edited April 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[PalePower]

Ellen,

Thank you for the book suggestions!! I haven’t read any of them. Luckily I know that we do have a copy of The Devil’s Advocate around here. I’m excited – sounds like fascinating stuff. I’ll let you know when I start reading them. =)

Adding a comment about this:

QUOTE(ENonemaker @ Apr 7 2007, 12:46 PM)

If you think about it, Ayn Rand's all into the benevolent world view, but how non-benevolent is it to think that there are ACTUALLY people out there who honestly work for Death? Totally depressing.

That reminds me of an incident from fairly early in my acquaintance with Objectivism. It was a grey day, a light drizzle. I'd taken two of my siblings to a shopping mall and I was waiting in the car while they made their purchases. I was gazing out at the drizzle and started to think, What if the world of human beings -- the large majority of human beings -- really were as Ayn Rand presents it? The thought was one of the bleakest thoughts I can ever recall entertaining, much drearier in prospect than the grey drizzle of that day.

Ellen

That is extremely interesting. Interesting because that’s a legitimate reaction – and interesting because the same ideas which produced that reaction can produce the exact opposite. After I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, it was like, “Oh my God. What if people really CAN be as Ayn Rand portrays them?” (Referring to the heroes.) It was just mind-boggling. Breath-taking. And a thousand other adjectives that will never come close to communicating the exact thrill I felt after taking a sojourn through Rand’s world. It was like a window had opened up in a room which you hadn’t noticed was dark until after all the light spilled in. Like literally stepping into another dimension – there’s no way you could’ve conceptualized it without actually experiencing it, and no way you can conceptualize life without it after HAVING experienced it. Like the whole world was stumbling around with their eyes locked on the gray pavement, and the only reason they kept living is because there’s a legend that’s been in existence since the beginning of time that speaks of something called “gold,” whatever that is. Then one day someone calls your name and you lift your head – and you never lifted your head before, for whatever reason – and all the sudden, you see it: gold, all around you. You didn’t know what it was before but you recognize it when you see it. Gold, shooting out from the trees, from the sky, but mostly from yourself. And then one of the people with the perpetually weighted eyes bumps into you and sighs, eyes still on the ground, “Oh my, gold. . . do you ever think we’ll find it? Do you even think it exists?” Dumbass! Lift your head! You ARE it!

I kept thinking about fairy tales and historical quests for mystical items. About how humanity has always been driven by the need for a “something,” that magic object – that never gets found, that always eludes, whose only evidence of existence is our inexplicable thirst for it.

And then you find it.

You actually find it.

There’s no word for it. Probably because Rand wasn’t around when they invented language. =D We should make a new that’ll just serve to describe that feeling of waking up to Rand’s literature. I propose, “lawlthisist3hshit-ocity.”

I ramble so much!! I’m sorry. I honestly never talk to people like this, just in my writing – don’t mean to come across as bombastic, if I do.

ANYWAY. My point was, it’s interesting that Rand’s work can legitimately produce both those types of reactions – the magical one, and the dismal one; and I wonder if, and HOW, she lived with both of those concurrently. It would seem to me that one would cancel the other out.

I mean to respond to Phil, Victor, and Michael soon, but I have to go run and play the Easter Vigil mass. *sigh* Oh well, I get to accompany the Hallelujah chorus – that’s pretty fun.

~Elizabeth

[Ellen Stuttle]

Elizabeth,

Please don't apologize to me for your style of posting. I love reading your posts, with your fresh and immediate use of metaphor. I do think that you would be an excellent novelist.

Something didn't translate in the way I meant it, though, about the scene I described, when I felt depressed at the thought of the large majority of humans really being as Rand described. I was responding to your saying that you find the thought of going around thinking of people as "evil" depressing. The experience I described happened more than two years after I'd first read Atlas Shrugged, which was the first of her novels I read. (I didn't read The Fountainhead until nearly two years later, followed then by We the Living and Anthem.)

Reading Atlas the first time was once of the most exhilarating novel-reading experiences I've ever had -- up to the speech. I've always had highly mixed feelings about the speech, even on first reading. I didn't read the whole of the speech until some weeks after I'd read the rest of the novel. On the first attempt, I was stopped short, as if I'd suddenly run into a brick wall in a headlong run, when I got to the paragraph with the statement "Man is a being of volitional consciousness." WHAT?, I wondered, did THAT locution mean? (I still wonder why she used what continues to strike me as an incredibly odd locution, though I later developed what I think is the explanation of why she used it.) I raced through the rest of the speech, trying to find anything which explained, didn't find anything, and after awhile closed the book to think about it the next day. I was very tired in any case, though on a major high, since I'd been reading the book at night while hosting a horseback riding party during the day for some friends whom I'd invited home from college for a few days of riding.

Fast forward: After nearly a week of perplexing over what she meant, I realized I wouldn't figure it out then; so I finished the story from the speech to the end, skipping the rest of the speech. My family was slated to leave for a vacation in Colorado, and there was a lot to do preparing to depart. It was while we were in Colorado that I read the rest of the speech.

Parts of the speech, even the first time through, I thought were extremely unfair and overgeneralized: her discussion of "the soul of the mystic," her talking about a morality of Death, her account -- such as she says about it -- of the history of religion. The exaggeration in the context of a novel I can accept for literary license purposes. But, you see, she then says "And I mean it" in the postscript to the book. Later, upon beginning to study Objectivism, I came to think that she really did mean it (at least some of the time). The day I described in my post was a day when I was asking myself, for the sake of argument, suppose she was right.

I didn't mean to sound as if I was describing an immediate reaction to her novels. I found Atlas electrifying, as a novel. And reading Anthem the first time was a peak experience, when she gets to the word "I." I knew this was coming, but, still, the way she does it I thought was tremendously skilled. The Fountainhead I actually ended in a mood of angst, because of Gail Wynand's fate. I went for a long drive the night after I finished The Fountainhead, explaining to myself why, by the logic of her story, she had to end the story of Wynand the way she did. Nonetheless, I didn't like it. We the Living I enjoyed very much, as a more or less "standard" novel. It isn't so...deformed by philosophic purposes as the others.

---

Re The Devil's Advocate, a copy of which you said you have around: Check to be sure by which author. ;-) There are at least two other novels of that title, I discovered upon looking on Amazon to see if the Taylor Caldwell novel was still in print, one by Morris West (one of his which I haven't read; I like his work), and one by an author I'd never heard of before, someone named Andrew Neiderman.

---

LOL at your having to go off to play for the Easter Vigil. Reminds me of the days when I played the piano for the children's choir at a Methodist church in my hometown. Playing for the Christmas services, in which the children's choir participated, I didn't mind at all. I LOVE Christmas music. But the Easter service was a drag.

Ellen

___

Edited April 8, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[studiodekadent]

(ii) [disagreeing with Studentdecadent and with hordes of Oists who say the same thing] They are a tiny, tiny twisted minority and not the majority of the environmentalist movement or any other movement that involves millions of average people.

I admit, saying "most" are cast in the Aldo Leopold mold is probably too pessimistic. But if you are familiar with Leopold's philosophy (see his article "The Land Ethic"), then you would realize why Im pessimistic. I did acknowlege the existence of sensible yet mistaken environmentalists, however. I just havent seen enough of them (or more correctly, not enough of them are in the highest rungs of the green movement).

(iii) One should not focus on the few sick and twisted people, but on the -ideas- and, in the case of global warming and most other issues, the science and the evidence and the ethics/individual rights issues.

Well, Leopold WAS an ethicist. I hope you are right about the sick and twisteds being few.

Or the Studentdecadent mistake of "everyone (or the majority of those who oppose me) is guilty (in one way or another)".

I did say 'most' (so 'majority' is probably correct) but I did not say everyone is guilty. I am a TOC Objectivist after all. There are honest mistakes. And its not Studentdecadent, its Studiodekadent.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Either you start with the attitude that people are good and do stupid and ugly things sometimes, or you start out thinking people are depraved and need to discipline their minds and lives—and especially discipline others—to root out the evil. You build from there.

There isn’t a vast continuum of shades between these two perspectives?? Yes, we are not born with some sort of “original sin” or “original virtue”—we have free-will. That, I would think, spells it out. You know, it seems to me that there is a great hesitation to grasp the simple fact that some people are simply evil, as an observable fact—and recognizing this does not reflect ill upon you, people. Really, it doesn’t.

Victor,

You really should bone up on your reading skills. I was very clear about these two perspectives being a starting attitude toward mankind in general and not a final judgment of any particular person. As a starting attitude, I have not observed too much continuum. Some people tend to like others as a default attitude and some tend to be very judgmental. (This has nothing to do with extrovert and introvert, but it is similar.)

There is no great hesitation at all on my part in condemning evil, either. For instance, there are some people who call themselves Objectivists who I believe practice pure evil (crowd control type manipulation) and I roundly condemn them as such. They are horrible human beings.

But there are others who call themselves Objectivists who I believe deserve a second chance (and a third and fourth, etc., until the moral lesson sinks in, or until I judge that it never will).

This is just within the very minuscule Objectivist subculture. I also extend this to the rest of humanity.

Michael