Do you sometimes hesitate to call yourself an objectivist?

[BaalChatzaf]

I am genetically obtuse.

This sounds quite painful. Does it hurt?

rde

Acute is much more painful. Sharp point.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[basimpson22]

Well, personally, I hesitate in using any label, such as objectivist, to describe myself. Many labels have stigmas associated with them for various groups of people. Also, I believe that in many instances labels may prevent people from getting to really know one another. Labels may put up barriers between individuals. For example, labeling yourself democrat or republican, christian or atheist. It seems that often times a labels purpose is to allow for automatic dissociation. I think a huge mistake that can be made is to be intolerant or dismissive of people who label themselves differently. At the end of the day we're all still, well, "people". Labels are often extremely misrepresentative(something else that doesn't allow us to really get to know someone). Anyways, thats my bit.

Edited April 18, 2011 by Aristocrates

[Brant Gaede]

I always hesitate. It's the key to making a left-turn without killing the guy on the motorcycle.

--Brant

I'm an, uh, uh, I'm an, uh--with qualifications--an, uh, an Objectivist: SPLAT!

oh well

[Philip Coates]

> Labels may put up barriers between individuals. For example, labeling yourself democrat or republican, christian or atheist. It seems that often times a labels purpose is to allow for automatic dissociation. I think a huge mistake that can be made is to be intolerant or dismissive of people who label themselves differently. [Ari, 52]

I agree. People I meet casually have to know me for a pretty long time before they find out I'm an Objectivist or what my politics is.

[IamBalSimon]

Anita - I am a pure-bred mutt - both genetically (Russia, Poland and Palestine - and perhaps other strains if I go beyond my grandparents) and culturally. I am second-generation American. I stand with no particular group other than American, a citizen of a country for which I have great love and affection of for which I will die to protect if necessary. I swing by no one else's ideology. My intellectual moorings lie with the General Semanticists, with the 1970s psychologists/anthropologists (like Gregory Bateson, John C. Lilly), with the popularizers of "mysticism" (Alan Watts in particular, but also to a small extent Gurdjieff, Krishnmurti, and Idris Shah (through is tales of Nasrudin). I am a huge fan of Ayn Rand, but temper her portrayals with a good dose of other writers (like Herman Hesse, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov (I'm big on good scifi). I am a student of science, and my teachers here are Korzybski, N.R. Hanson, Bateson, and to a lesser extent, Polyani). All of this (and more) is ultimately amalgamated and melded through my own thinking, for whatever that is worth.

I don't have a one- or two-word label for this snarled up catastrophe that is my mind. If you can come up with one, I'd love to hear it.

- Bal

[anthony]

I've often thought about this, and it usually comes down to the same answer.

I'm grateful I was born to dual-religion, and irreligious,- parents. I am happy not to have had any inherited political tendency to influence me. I'm pleased to have citizenship of three nations, but little patriotism remaining for any of them. (Excepting strong ideological support for Israel).

Despite or because of, such a lack of acquired allegiances, I am still proud I chose to be individualist, and Objectivist.

Tony

Edited April 18, 2011 by whYNOT