Corey Robin reviews the two new books on Ayn Rand, including my favorite among them by Jennifer Burns, in this week’s The Nation. It makes for a gripping read, if you can stand the posturing throughout.
The Nation serves up the predictable usual (wouldn’t it make life more interesting if political rags said something unpredictable from time to time?) but, even so, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read that Rand should not have been angry at the Soviets; on the contrary, the Soviets were her benefactors: “She got a college education thanks to the Russian Revolution, which opened universities to women and Jews and, once the Bolsheviks had seized power, made tuition free.”
There we see Robin’s core critique of Rand: in his view, Ayn should have stayed in Russia to experience the full glories of the socialist paradise rather than risk life and limb to come to the U.S. and then end up in Robin’s equivalent of the Gulag, which is of course Hollywood. He is absolutely aghast that she came to Hollywood “willingly, eagerly.”
I guess with some readers out there, this amounts to a devastating indictment?
Okay, it’s one thing to trumpet the communists, celebrate the Soviets, confuse Hollywood with a concentration camp, but surely, it would be too low even for The Nation to attempt to link Rand’s views with….Hitler. Well, apparently not: there are four or five paragraphs that do that very thing, however absurdly.
Robin must be following some sort of preset template that they give all reviewers. The only thing really fascinating here are the details he gleans from the books under review but even these are reported in the voice of the reviewer rather than to their source in the books themselves – a habit of reviewers I find extremely annoying but Rand herself would describe in more bitter terms.
To think that Henry Hazlitt was literary editor at The Nation between 1930 and 1933. They drove him away for refusing to endorse the central planning of the New Deal. He was astonished to see his old liberal friends come to embrace an obvious corporate/fascist scheme in which the government linked arms with industrial elites to muscle the population. Opposition to this very thing is what once defined what it meant to be a liberal. A review like this gives rise to the observation: these folks lost their way long ago.
{ 266 comments }
Refusing to e?
People on the left (and often on the right) tend to engage with a platonic vision of an evil Rand rather than directly with her work. That’s probably why the review is light on quotes and heavy on invective.But, if truth is subjective, after all, why go to the trouble?
You’re taking some liberties when you say that Rand was compared to Hitler – I read the section out of curiosity when you said that, and it’s not exactly what you imply. You oughta clarify, Jeff.
Well, I mean, he writes this: “if we strip the pronoun of its antecedent—and listen for the background hum of triumph and will, being and nonbeing, preservation and elimination—the similarities between the moral syntax of Randianism and of fascism become clear.” And then he quotes Goebbels and Hitler and attempts to quote similar passages from Rand. I don’t know what else to say.
You could say exactly what he said – that the rhetoric of meritocratic individualism and a few individuals leading progress is shared by Rand and many fascists.
You really don’t need to trump that up.
“that the rhetoric of meritocratic individualism and a few individuals leading progress is shared by Rand and many fascists.
”
Fascism is collectivist and Fascists, like all Socialists, are collectivists.
Not to question the mental comprehension of liberals but
“Individualism” and “Fascism” (collectivism) are same ?
“meritocratic individualism”
“fascism”
…in the same sentence…
That cackling bureaucratic laugh must have been the Himmler’s, insinuating itself through the dimensions.
Regarding the review
“the similarities between the moral syntax of Randianism and of fascism become clear”
…can only be written by some confusenik who doesn’t know what “syntax” actually means and that you don’t compare meaningfully by it.
- Rand has an individualist and meritocratic rhetoric that resonates with fascism.
- Von Mises felt Bolshevism should be put down forcefully and praised the fascists as “the saviors of Europe” for doing just that – that of course resonates with fascism.
- Keynes advocated macroeconomic management and public works to guarantee full employment, which also resonated with the fascists.
We shouldn’t shy away from any of these insights – and you shouldn’t accuse That Nation of “linking Rand’s views with Hitler” in the unelaborated way you do, particularly when mises.org makes regular Keynes-Nazi connections. There are a lot of complexities associated with inter-war intellectuals including Rand, Mises, and Keynes – and we should identify those complexities rather than white-washing them. We should also explain their relevance to the rhetoric of contemporaneous political movements.
But you dumb it down by playing this stupid game with The Nation, suggesting that they are implying something they clearly do not.
We’ve linked Keynes and Hitler because Keynes ENDORSED the Nazi regime explicitly. I’ve reread the Hitler section in this review and there is no question that he says she is a fascist and tries to say that her views were Hitlerian (despite her obvious abhorrence of fascism and Hitler and everything they represent). There are in fact 13 paragraphs to that effect in this review. I don’t see how one can argue about this.
Please don’t tell me you’re refering to the botched analysis of the German preface.
What’s botched about it?
Nothing was botched. Keynes just said how much easier and how great his planning would be under a fascist system.
Mr Kuehn really should go back to trolling Econlog, where pretty much everybody knows to ignore him.
michael (the dumb one), is that you?
Enough. It doesn’t matter how fed up everyone is with michael; stop insulting him. It makes this site look childish.
Do you know why the left wins?
Because they are effective at using Alinsky tactics. Cancers like michael should be ridiculed always and everywhere. We need to out Alinsky the Alinskyites.
I disagree, though I think we should point out when they are doing that…
I thought we’d agreed on “michael the douchebag” as an identifier for said idiot. Although I must admit, “michael (the dumb one)” is pretty clear.
I’m busy trashing freedom elsewhere. But give me some time and I’ll come up with some pithy crap.
Sauce? After reading OG I don’t believe Mises would call the fascists anything that could be said in polite company.
I’m not saying he liked them – he clearly didn’t. In the same paragraph that he called them the saviors of Europe he also berated them. This is my point – we can highlight these nuanced perspectives without crying “Nazi!”.
The same with Keynes – he did call attention to certain economic policies in the fascist regimes he approved of. And just like Mises, in the same paragraph he also berated them and pointed out what a terrible force they were.
Keynes fit in more with the Nazis than Mises did. In fact, Keynes was an ignorant anti-semite.
Here is a little saying from my auditor days, “If it wasn’t documented, it didn’t happen.”
Basically, the only place Mises praised Bolshevism is in your anonymous post on a blog.
“Von Mises felt Bolshevism should be put down forcefully and praised the fascists as “the saviors of Europe””
where does this quote come from?
He is a speaking of a passing remark in Liberalism (written in 1929) in which Mises blasted the fascist program but added that the fascists, from the point of view of politics, provided a welcome counterbalance to the Bolsheviks in Italy. Agree or disagree, it was a common view among Europeans liberals in 1929.
i think raico has a good podcast on (italian) fascism; somewhat less appalling than the german version. this might shed light on mises’ unfortunate comment.
http://mises.org/media/1542
Here’s a great article by Raico on related issues:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/12_1/12_1_1.pdf
BTW, why do you find Mises’ comment “unfortunate?” Surely you don’t doubt that a communist takeover of Europe would have been far, far worse than fascism?
“unfortunate” because it can be read as approval, as daniel kuehn has shown. the comment of mises deserved contextualization. and yes, i think the historical record of communism speaks for itself.
good paper of raico, too. thanks.
I really enjoyed the article that explained how Bolshevism-Communism and Fascism were two sides of the same coin. A competition to win the hearts and minds of those who are already like-minded.
By Rothbard I think it was…
I think Mises explained this in Planned Chaos.
And that’s all I’m trying to say – it’s a common view, and indeed an understandable one. I see Mises in Liberalism as no different than the coincidence between Keynes and fascists on public works. He blasted them as well, but somehow you all always seem to leave out that part of the quote when it’s Keynes.
This is my only point – Rand thought a few talented people pushed forward progress. So did Hitler. Mises though Bolshevism should be put down like a wild animal. So did Hitler. Keynes thought public works should be implemented to guarantee full employment. So did Hitler. None of this means that any of the three of them are Nazis.
Well, when you phrase those issues that way, then I agree with you, but Keynes said much more about Nazism and Fascism.
“Rand thought a few talented people pushed forward progress. So did Hitler”
Hitler was a nihilist and wanted retrogression.
Why on earth would an author draw such a comparison if they did not mean to somehow shock their readers and draw a connection? Yes, I can just innocently interject “like Hitler”.
It’s clearly an attempt to entrench the view that Rand was like a Nazi. What the hell otherwise is the point of saying “like Hitler”?
Here are the worst quotes I could find:
“Fascism can triumph today because universal indignation at the infamies committed by the socialists and communists has obtained for it the sympathies of wide circles. But when the fresh impression of the crimes of the Bolsheviks has paled, the socialist programm will once again exercise its power of attraction on the masses. For Fascism does nothing to combat it except to suppress socialist ideas and to persecute the people who spread them. If it wanted to really combat socialism, it would have to oppose it with ideas. There is, however, only one [emphasis in original] idea that can be effectively opposed to socialism, viz., that of liberalism.”
and worse yet:
“It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, is is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error.”
So, even though these views are extremely un-PC, and might get you landed in jail in certain central European countries today, they are extremely qualified praise, at best, and were expressed without foreknowledge of everything that Fascism was capable of. I think a lot of people forget how bad things must have been, and how close socialism came to taking over Germany, in the years directly after WWI. And the extreme left-wing groups were fought mainly by extreme right-wing groups.
And even then, he’s saying “of two evils, this is better…”, which is hardly a ringing endorsement. Considering how brutal and tyrannical communism -was- in practice, even compared to self-described fascist movements, it is more shocking that people would be shocked by Mises’s views. Though leftists will deny, deny, deny the crimes of communism until they turn blue in the face and only in that light would Mises’s proposition seem absurd. People are not fully aware of just how much blood was shed in the name of “communism” and socialism, whereas they’re constantly taught about fascism’s crimes. If they got some perspective, they’d understand Mises better.
But Germans had socialism as well: National-Socialism to be precise. Only Italians were unfortunate to experience fascism.
And indeed, it can be argued that in the end Hitler saved Europe from the Red plague when he attacked the Soviets in advance.
I meant the egalitarian variety.
“But Germans had socialism as well: National-Socialism to be precise. Only Italians were unfortunate to experience fascism.”
Mussolini was a socialist, too. He was explicitly a socialist in his earlier days. And Fascism per se was just the Italian version of nationalist socialism, as opposed to internationalist socialism. Or in other words, Nazism was just the German version of fascism.
Whenever anyone puts the name “Ayn Rand” in print or electronic print, people come out of the woodworks to lambast absolutely everything about her. I find it absolutely captivating, from an anthropological point of view. The degree to which people despise Rand never ceases to amaze me.
Frankly, I think it’s because they absolutely cannot argue with any of her reasoning. For all the time people spend dismissing her ideas as simplistic and re-hashed, I’ve never seen or read a single instance of someone actually taking down any of her beliefs. Typically what happens is that people over-simply her arguments and then defeat the over-simplification. This is some bizarre combination of the straw-man fallacy and reducio ad absurdum.
The fact of the matter is that virtually everyone misunderstands Rand’s views – including many professed Objectivists. It’s kind of sad, to me. When you actually study and apply her views, there’s virtually nothing that can be objected to, except for maybe the IP stuff. Even the IP stuff, though, is an ongoing debate in the libertarian community.
Oh, well.
P.S. – The “Ryan” who commented above is a different “Ryan” from me.
What would you recommend as an appropriate text for a first time reader of Rand?
Personally, I’d point you in the direction of either Philosophy: Who Needs It? or The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution. For my money, those two books do the best job of introducing the key concepts. Philosophy is probably best for the casual reader.
I concur on “Philosophy: Who Needs It?” It was the first Ayn Rand book I ever read. “The Virtue of Selfishness” is not bad, either. I would steer away from more polemical, critical books like “The New Left” until you understand where she’s coming from.
Thanks, appreciate it. She certainly does seem to polarise opinion, so there’s gotta be something worth reading there.
I also suggest “For the New Intellectual” for a concise statement of her ideas and Anthem as a Rand-novel-with-training-wheels. Anthem was the first Rand I read and I was comletely captivated.
I originally became libertarian and atheist at least partially because of Rand, but now, although I am still a libertarian and still an atheist, I don’t agree with a lot of her reasoning on why one should be an atheist or libertarian. That is, I don’t consider myself an Objectivist, even though I agree with many of its positions. Anyway, as long as you can avoid falling in love with her, or a knee-jerk hate reaction, she should stimulate thinking.
Even though i read Hoppe first, it is Rand that let me fully embrace libertarianism, if only because Hoppe was perhaps more technical and based on understanding Mises and Rothbard (which I didn’t then), and I couldn’t appreciate the severity of his arguments when I was first reading them. Rand, by contrast, eases the reader into her materials and assumes no prior knowledge, and takes the reader through every step. She might not have been on the level of some of the Austrians when it comes to intellectual power, but she did build a great system and was a great teacher.
As the resident Randroid, I agree with the list of readings. In particular, I like the first few pages of “Philosophy : Who needs it?”.
In addition to these, I would suggest (once you are through with these) “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”.
@Jon:
Once you get through the basics others recommended, I recommend “Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics” by Tara Smith and “Goddess of the Market” by Jennifer Burns.
The latter (I seem to recall) reveals what blew Rand’s mind and made her later writing so bitter: namely the cognitive dissonance of “man the rational animal” versus man as an emotional being exemplified in her relationship with Nathaniel Branden. Emotion is an incredibly strong force that shapes reality: she could not reconcile that fact with her idealism that only Reason is the basis of love/sexual relations.
Oh, and for a pitifully lame demonstration of the “Pope Peikoff orthodox formula,” check out “The Capitalist Manifesto” by Andrew Bernstein.
“The fact of the matter is that virtually everyone misunderstands Rand’s views – including many professed Objectivists.”
Indeed — consider Peikoff …
I have a hard time reading these stylized Objectivism-as-Cult screeds because they rely mostly on insinuation. In other words, first you have to believe that Objectivism is a cult, and from that, the rest follows. There is a long history of people who are just ticked off at the behavior of particular Objectivists, who write these things up. For my money, I can’t tell what’s fact from fiction in this stuff, but what I do know is what Rand laid out, which seems to make good sense to me. I don’t “speak for Objectivism,” but I do think people interested in such things should spend more time analyzing the ideas and less time analyzing the people who believe them.
Here’s a good critique from someone who actually spent time in Rand’s “collective.”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html
Good article Barry.
Thank you, Will.
I’d attack her arguments right in the heart, as in “A=A”. What is “A” beyond a subjective interpretation of an individual’s observations? To say that it equals itself is a tautology, does not compare the observation between individuals, and fails to demonstrate that “A” is correctly understood by the individual.
Further, the human mind is observed to be a complex machine that can hold contradictory ideas while giving them each an equal amount of trueness. So, to me, I might observe that “A=B”, but others might say “A/=B”, or even that “A/=A”. I might be able to reason that “the blue sky” is not really “the blue sky” by making further observations or deductions about the true nature of my initial idea of “the blue sky”.
I don’t find Rand particularly persuasive in any of her arguments, and at the same time I have no animosity toward her, and even respect her philosophic and literary works for what they are. But I can and do object to nearly every argument that she put forth.
“Further, the human mind is observed to be a complex machine that can hold contradictory ideas ”
The fact is that it is impossible for something to be both true and false at the same time and a contradiction cannot exist in reality.
Your post is a load of mince, as I have very quickly demonstrated.
Look who’s talking. Idiot!
You’re the idiot if you pretend that contradictions can exist.
Fine by me if you don’t find her ideas persuasive, but for what it’s worth, Rand’s non-fiction books are collections of essays, virtually all of which address your points directly. You’re talking mostly from the perspective that reality is what we perceive and is highly subjective. The point crucial to philosophies like Rand’s (but not Rand’s exclusively) is that some believe that the universe is exactly the same, no matter how we choose to perceive it, and that it is our task to observe it correctly – the more correct we are, the better off we are, etc. In my mind, that’s a pretty hard point to refute, but both opinions do come down to metaphysical belief, so we’ll never “really” know the answer.
Leading Objectivists have said that, in the 60s and 70s?, some religious people were attracted to Rand because she offered moral absolutism. They eventually left and/or were told to leave when the Objectivist virtue of independent judgment became clear.
>What is “A” beyond a subjective interpretation of an individual’s observations? To say that it equals itself is a tautology
It IS a tautology?! It IS a subjective interpretation? And if the sky IS not blue, then what color IS it? Rand noted that axiomatic concepts such as existence, identity and consciousness must be used even in an impossible attempt at refutation, an insight stemming from Aristotle.
Existence exists. Existence is identity. Consciousness is identification.
She delves into proofs/further discussions of the three basic tenets in her epistemological and other works. Some people act like she just asserts them.
iawai,
“I don’t find Rand particularly persuasive in any of her arguments…”
That makes sense. How could you find anyone’s arguments persuasive after throwing out logic, reality, and the law of non-contradiction?
“I’d attack her arguments right in the heart, as in “A=A”. What is “A” beyond a subjective interpretation of an individual’s observations? To say that it equals itself is a tautology, does not compare the observation between individuals, and fails to demonstrate that “A” is correctly understood by the individual.”
It’s an affirmation of the law of identity… saying it is a “tautology” is meaningless. So what? What does it matter if the individual understood it or not? It is merely to state that things have a particular identity (which in turn allows the law of non-contradiction to be formulated.)
“Further, the human mind is observed to be a complex machine that can hold contradictory ideas while giving them each an equal amount of trueness. So, to me, I might observe that “A=B”, but others might say “A/=B”, or even that “A/=A”. I might be able to reason that “the blue sky” is not really “the blue sky” by making further observations or deductions about the true nature of my initial idea of “the blue sky”.”
Which contradicts Rand… how? Have you read her book on the Objectivist epistemology? She considers identities subject to revision as knowledge advances…
“I don’t find Rand particularly persuasive in any of her arguments, and at the same time I have no animosity toward her, and even respect her philosophic and literary works for what they are. But I can and do object to nearly every argument that she put forth.”
It helps to understand her first.
>It helps to understand her first.
Isnt understanding a bit…difficult amidst all those contradictions?
To make what might seem like a minor correction, but is actually huge and fundamental one. It is not A=A. It is A is A. A thing is what it is regardless of what you might want to believe. BTW, this is not an original thought, but is handed down from Aristotle who Ms. Rand freely credited.
Rand is basically a free market version of Metallica. Everyone’s heard of Metallica, maybe even listened to a song or two, but they’ll claim they know everything about metal. That’s how people treat Rand. They’ll read a few Paul Krugman articles about her, maybe even skim through an abridged version of Atlas Shrugged, and will then assume they know everything there is to know about the free market philosophy.
Basically, she’s a big name among people who know just about nothing of free market principles. This holds equally true among statists or those Tea Partiers who frequently say “Go Galt” without comprehending what it means.
Great analogy…
Jeffrey you Randroid. Posting an article that does not call Rand a totalitarian out here, are you? You have some nerve to deny that she was a totalitarian.
Hey Bala,
Have you seen the John Galt videos by Richard Gleaves on youtube?
His channel is called “Galtspeaking.”
http://www.youtube.com/user/GaltSpeaking#p/u/13/00xStn_jXKo
Quoting from Robin – “The central plot device of her novels is the conflict between the creative individual and the hostile mass”
Is it?
“The chief conflict in Rand’s novels, then, is not between the individual and the masses. It is between the demigod-creator and all those unproductive elements of society—the intellectuals, bureaucrats and middlemen—that stand between him and the masses. Aesthetically, this makes for kitsch; politically, it bends toward fascism”
Nice little smear on Rand, after starting from a false premise.
“Unlike Kant, the emblematic modern who claimed that the rightness of our deeds is determined solely by reason”
Kant an advocate of reason? I don’t think so.
“Far from demonstrating a divergence from fascism, Rand’s economic writings register its impression indelibly”
Rand was a Capitalist and Hitler a National Socialist.
I don’t need to read any further because the writer of the article is illiterate and evil.
You obviously haven’t read or understood Kant. Maybe you ought to just shut up and quit embarrassing yourself.
“I don’t need to read any further…” says it all!
You have said nothing at all so I don’t need to do anything other than point this out and leave you to your nihilism.
Rand basically advocated man’s mind as moral guide. Hitler, applying Kant, advocated racial intuition.
These basic values are the context for understanding their derivative values. Ideas have meaning only relative to a basic context. A gun in the hands of an American soldier has a different meaning than a gun in the hands of a Nazi soldier. A gun out of context has no meaning.
Yeah, you’ve got it. Reading some of that Rand-as-Hitler stuff just smells funny. It’s like saying, “Rand ate steak, Hitler ate steak, Rand and Hitler have similar culinary values, ergo OMG RAND AND HITLER HAVE THE SAME VALUES.”
Also, she wrote such a scathing indictment of racial collectivism that drawing comparisons to her and Hitler borders on comical. She bore similarities to Nietzsche, though even then her philosophy differed in many ways. I guess he didn’t offer the shock value the author desired though. As for Keynes/Hitler etc. comparisons, the difference is that Keynes did actually push for economic policies the likes of which could be/were implemented under that form of state, as well as his supposed eugenicist tendencies…
lol. Hitler was a vegetarian. I’ve always thought that should have been an early indicator of his evil nature.
…hated smokers, too. “bourbon for breakfast” would have been amongst the first to be torched.
Acc/to the History Channel’s “High Hitler,” the 30 drugs per day his quack doctor prescribed caused him to frequently fart. Allied propaganda missed an opportunity…
Statists are always trying to get people to think in terms of a one-dimensional spectrum that goes from Fascists (what Mises called socialists of the German pattern) on the right, to Communists (what he called socialists of the Russian pattern) on the left.
As far as the left is concerned, “anti-communist” means “fascist.” Their feral brains can’t conceive of a political philosophy that isn’t trying to grab power.
Good point about trivial similarities advocated by pseudo-intellectual liberals.
Similarity and difference are contextual. Context must be defined by the basic, ie, widest, property. Potatoes and Hitler’s underpants (sorry!) are both made of atoms. So? Potatoes are not Nazis. In the _context_ of politics, Rand and Hitler are _basically_ different. Rand valued individual rights. Hitler did not.
http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2008/07/madness-of-king-leonard.html
rights for some, sure.
I don’t think it’s fair to impute Peikoff’s views to Rand; but I do agree that a lot of self-proclaimed “Objectivists” have gone crazily anti-Muslim/anti-religion since 9/11. That’s not exactly a uniquely Objectivist trend, by the way.
>a lot of self-proclaimed “Objectivists” have gone crazily anti-Muslim/anti-religion since 9/11
Rand’s philosophy is pro-reason, thus anti-religion. The current concern w/Islam is an application of a principle. Islam is at war w/America, a fact you evade w/a dishonest concern with out of context concretes. See churchill’s gathering storm for nazi use of allied appeasement
rand showed similar form.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N4KbLbGYgk&feature=related
citing churchill hardly lends any credibility to an argument. there’s plenty historical work on him by raico and others on this site.
http://mises.org/media/1061
Objectivism rejects all religion.
>rights for some, sure.
without even reading the comments at your link, rights are contextual, limited, limited to man as rational. Youre complaining that some context has been violated but the correct context is the issue. Some implies an all, an all which must be validated. Eg, Rand’s context excludes fetuses, an exclusion valid within her context, a context in which “all” excludes fetuses. Thus context must be identified and not bypassed.
ARCHN – Bad site. They are promptly deleting civil comments that seem to attack the foundation of their false arguments. I actually tried posting something on their article criticising the Objectivist axiomatic concept “existence” 3 times but had no success in having it stay on.
Just posting it to show that my comment was quite civil
*************
Andrew Priest,
I am sorry if I have been unintelligible, but I am afraid the main post is in itself unintelligent. I was trying to say that when we talk of the concept “existence”, we are fundamentally dealing with a “concept”. A “concept” is a concept of something. It is a mental construct used to understand reality and deal with it. It is a means of forming abstractions and working with abstractions.
When we Objectivists refer to the concept “Existence”, we do not mean one or more individual existents but the broader concept “existence”. Just to give a parallel, when I say “furniture”, I do not mean a particular item of furniture but the broader class of man-made items that serve a particular purpose in a household or office setting. Similarly, the concept “existence” refers to the class or collection of entities that ….. well….. er….. um……what do I say……how do I say it…… exist.
So, your attempt to defeat the axiomatic concept “existence” by referring to specific existents such as dogs or cats or even mythical concepts such as “unicorns” is pretty much a straw-man.
This is apart from other glaring errors in the article. Just giving an example below.
” Unicorns aren’t recognized as existing or as “real,” because no such entity exists in the world of fact and matter ”
This is a fairly unintelligent statement because at the very least, there is no way you can ever make a statement that “no such entity exists in the world of fact and matter”. It is patently unfalsifiable and hence inappropriate to use. You may say “as far as recorded and transmitted human observations go, no such entity has ever been observed by any human”, but not what you have said.
p.s. I do not understand why this comment keeps getting deleted. It has happened 3 times in 5 minutes. In case I have posted it multiple times and the original comment will appear after some time, I apologise for being hasty.
*****************
Sadly, this only confirms my suspicion about ARCHN – that they are not genuine or intelligent people out there.
Thank goodness mises.org is far more open and pretty much un-moderated. Feels so much better to be speaking on a site that welcomes dissenting views with open arms.
make that 5 times in 15 minutes. ARCHN seems nothing more than a bunch of sad people just looking for other sad people to confirm their own stupid beliefs.
Tried and failed again. That makes it 7 times till now. I don’t know if technical glitches last this long. If I could post one comment as “anonymous”, I should normally be able to post another similarly. It should at least work from another computer. The only inference I am able to draw from this repeated vanishing act of my comment is that they are deleting it because it is inconvenient to have it out there.
Hence, ARCHN must be a bunch of intellectually dishonest people.
Boy! Am I finding the article and the comments interesting!!!! I’m really missing a few of my dear friends out here. Wonder why they haven’t come over to trash this article and show those who seem favourable/charitable to Rand for the fascists and totalitarians they are.
Probably you’ll try then. It would be nice to see how a pro-individualist, anti-socialism, anti-collectivism author can be at the same time a fascist and a totalitarian.
I was being sarcastic. In case you haven’t noticed yet, I am one of the people who frequently gets called a Randroid out here. Out here, I am the guy who engages in the most spirited (if I may make the claim) defence of Rand and her ideas. I am just pleasantly surprised that a lot of people out here have good things to say about Rand and her works. I’ve seen the opposite for nearly the year or so that I’ve been on these boards.
Merely because she made some errors does not mean she wasn’t an important promoter of freedom. We’re human, we all make mistakes. A lot of Austrians, including Mises, weren’t anarchists but minarchists. Should we continuously lambast them for that? Credit where credit is due.
I agree that determinists will always find erroneous, the ideas of those who swear by free-will. Incidentally, what were those errors? Just curious.
A curious question from an anarchist and IP opponent.
OK. Are you saying that those are “the” errors? If not, please elucidate the remaining.
I’d say those were pretty much “the” errors, and I don’t even really hold them against her, since both anarchism and the invalidity of IP are logically implied by the fundamentals of Objectivism.
She accomplished a huge amount in developing a broad, consistent philosophy of reason and freedom. It would be silly to complain that she didn’t reach every last conclusion. (Especially when we’re talking about two ideas that have only relatively recently been fully developed. I mean, c’mon!)
There is probably even more work that could be done in developing the philosophy of Objectivism. It’s unfortunate that people like Peikoff and other unthinking zealots have done so much to misrepresent it.
Bala, we’ve been over this before but did not come to a conclusion. She made too many assumptions and so are you.
We’ve been over this, but never got to the point where you listed out the “assumptions” and explained why they are “too many”. So, please do.
I could give you a couple Bala, but I’m not sure if they are anything like what Peter is thinking about.
For example, Ayn Rand did not define “action”. Any fundamental definition of action must be formulated in terms of space and time. Yet where are space and time in her axiomatic formulation? They are simply assumed to be a part of existence. Existence, identity and consciousness are all fine and good, but you cannot derive “action” from them.
With each step in her chain of reasoning, she introduced more and more unstated and undefined assumptions.
Right to life? Where the hell did that come from? She arbitrarily decided it should be the source of all rights. But why? And what does it even mean?
Surely by now you must be aware of the giant gaping holes in the formulation of Objectivist philosophy. You found two (anarchism and IP) and you are to be congratulated on that. But if you look a bit deeper, I’m sure you will see many more.
(P.S. Sorry I didn’t have time to reply to your other posts in our “choosing values is circular reasoning” debate. Work got on top of me. I’m sure you understand. I did read your posts, so don’t think the effort was wasted. We’ll have to pick up where we left off on that debate at some time in the future. Hopefully mpolzkill (That’s BDM to you) will be available to commentate
)
Jay Lakner,
” For example, Ayn Rand did not define “action”. ”
I’ll leave this for a little while.
” Any fundamental definition of action must be formulated in terms of space and time. ”
While I would not disagree that it is impossible to define the concept “action” without using position and time, I am not sure this is critical to the discussion at all.
” Yet where are space and time in her axiomatic formulation? ”
They are not present in her axiomatic formulation because they are not exactly axiomatic.
” They are simply assumed to be a part of existence ”
They are, aren’t they? If they are not a part of “existence”, what are they? Do they exist outside of existence?
Frankly, space and time are concepts of consciousness, not concepts of existence.
” Existence, identity and consciousness are all fine and good, but you cannot derive “action” from them. ”
That’s because “action” is an attribute of living entities, i.e., existents with “life”. It is a particular aspect of their nature. It can only be observed, not derived. The important point to note is that “action” happens within existence.
” Right to life? Where the hell did that come from? She arbitrarily decided it should be the source of all rights. But why? And what does it even mean? ”
You can’t understand this if you fail to define the concepts “life”, “values”, “action” (which I am saying you still do not understand for all the time you spend talking of it), “morality”, “man”, “volitional consciousness”, “free-will”, “freedom”, “coercion” and “rights”.
Without these definitions, a statement like “Rights are a moral concept defining and sanctioning man’s freedom of action in a social context” or “Rights are a recognition of a condition of existence essential for man’s survival qua man” will sound like complete gobbledegook to you.
” She arbitrarily decided it should be the source of all rights. ”
Not exactly arbitrary if you understand the concepts I have identified above. In any case (and I hope this discussion does not get diverted to this), it is no more arbitrary than saying “all rights are property rights”.
” Surely by now you must be aware of the giant gaping holes in the formulation of Objectivist philosophy. ”
Probably. Except that I also see that your theory is all hole and no substance.
” But if you look a bit deeper, I’m sure you will see many more. ”
Please help this blind man find them.
Bala,
“They are not present in her axiomatic formulation because they are not exactly axiomatic.”
That’s where you’ve got it wrong. They are axiomatic. The identity of any entity is characterised by the spacial configuration of its component parts and the temporal changes in these spacial configurations. And all this is in relation to spacial and temporal aspects of the one doing the identifying.
Identity itself is dependent on space, time and mass.
“Frankly, space and time are concepts of consciousness, not concepts of existence.”
This is not true. Both space and time define the identity of existents.
To be conscious is to be conscious of something. Space and time are aspects of objective reality, otherwise we could not possibly be conscious of them.
The claim that space and time are only concepts of consciousness is a denial of the law of identity.
“That’s because “action” is an attribute of living entities, i.e., existents with “life”. It is a particular aspect of their nature. It can only be observed, not derived.”
“Action” is simply a change in spacial configuration with respect to time. “Human Action” is a subset of all action and is defined by purposeful behaviour.
Rand may have, to some degree, indicated what “human action” was, but she never defined what “action” was.
You need to define “action” if you are going to base an entire philosophy on it. Rand never did this.
“You can’t understand this if you fail to define the concepts “life”, “values”, “action” ({… ad hominem…}), “morality”, “man”, “volitional consciousness”, “free-will”, “freedom”, “coercion” and “rights”.”
I agree. And both Rand and yourself have failed to specifically define these. You both rely on unstated assumptions for the majority of these definitions.
“Not exactly arbitrary if you understand the concepts I have identified above. In any case (and I hope this discussion does not get diverted to this), it is no more arbitrary than saying “all rights are property rights”.”
Yes arbitrary if you bother to form SPECIFIC definitions for the concepts you identified.
And no, “all rights are property rights” is not at all arbitrary. It is derived from the nature of existence, specifically the inherent scarcity of all that exists.
“Except that I also see that your theory is all hole and no substance.”
Please point out the “holes” in my (personal) explanation of property rights.
Jay Lakner,
I do understand that to exist is to exist as something somewhere in some configuration. That necessarily means being spread over a collection of points. That does not make space and time existents or axiomatic. They are both pure mental constructs used by rational human beings trying to form concepts of distinct entities. They are tools created and used by our consciousness.
“Space” is just a 3-dimensional construct created to define a position for every existent that we are capable of identifying. “Time” is just a construct that accounts for continuity of existence and changes that happen within existence. They are tools of mathematics, the science of measurement, and physics, the science that seeks to understand the nature of the physical world.
” The claim that space and time are only concepts of consciousness is a denial of the law of identity. ”
I do not agree. Try defining “space” and “time” without an observer.
” specifically the inherent scarcity of all that exists ”
It is not the “inherent scarcity” that creates the concept “property” but the human faculty of choosing to “value” something. “Scarcity” only makes the concept “property” necessary for a human being who chooses to value the said object and act rationally in his own long-range self-interest. Are you trying to tell me that there would be “property” in a world without life, human life in particular? That would be an interesting notion.
Bala wrote:
“That does not make space and time existents or axiomatic. They are both pure mental constructs used by rational human beings trying to form concepts of distinct entities. They are tools created and used by our consciousness.”
The interpretation we give to space and time are mental contructs, but space and time must be aspects of objective reality otherwise we would have nothing to interpret.
Don’t you see, they can’t be purely mental constructs. Our brain interprets sensory information of objective reality. If we “see” entities separated by a “distance” then that distance has some objective meaning. If we “see” event B occur after event A, then this sensed sequence of events has some objective meaning.
The mental constructs we form of time and space are generally inaccurate in that we assume them to be absolute. As it turns out, they are not. (I will discuss more on this point below)
Bala wrote:
““Space” is just a 3-dimensional construct created to define a position for every existent that we are capable of identifying. “Time” is just a construct that accounts for continuity of existence and changes that happen within existence.”
If you synchronise two clocks and then place one in orbit around the Earth and the other stays on the Earth’s surface, they slowly lose synchronisation. The conclusion: time passes at different rates depending on your circumstances.
This has nothing to do with “mental contructs”. It has to do with the objective existence of what we call “time”. And the rate at which time passes is dependent on what we call space and what we call mass. Individually, neither space nor time are absolute.
However, Einstein demonstrated that both space and time are aspects of “space-time”, a four dimensional “fabric” of existence, which is absolute. ie what is invariant in relating two events is not their spatial distance, nor their temporal distance, but only their distance in space-time.
I wrote:
“The claim that space and time are only concepts of consciousness is a denial of the law of identity.”
Bala replied:
“I do not agree. Try defining “space” and “time” without an observer.”
Space-time: the four dimensional manifold of existence.
Bala wrote:
“It is not the “inherent scarcity” that creates the concept “property” but the human faculty of choosing to “value” something. “Scarcity” only makes the concept “property” necessary for a human being who chooses to value the said object and act rationally in his own long-range self-interest.”
Regardless of whether one “chooses” one’s values, or if they are predetermined, or random, or whatever, multiple organisms cannot possibly utilise the exact same object at the same time.
If two organisms both don’t simultaneously try to kill each other for the resource, then that resource will become the property of one of them. Maybe property will be decided by who has the bigger stick, or maybe they will communicate and come to some agreement, it’s irrelevant really.
What is relevant is that it is the state of scarcity of things, coupled with the existence of multiple organisms, that gives rise to the concept of property.
“Choosing of values” is irrelevant. An organism’s values could be assigned by pure random chance and yet “property” will still exist.
Jay Lakner,
” The interpretation we give to space and time are mental contructs ”
The interpretation we give to anything at all is a mental construct. All concepts are mental integrations of the perceptual material provided to our cognitive faculty by our sensory apparatus.
” but space and time must be aspects of objective reality otherwise we would have nothing to interpret ”
This is utterly meaningless. It completely confuses what is actually being observed. Further, you cannot infer that something “must be” an aspect of objective reality. Either it is or it isn’t.
” Don’t you see, they can’t be purely mental constructs. ”
How do you “see” them? On what basis do you say that they are anything beyond mental constructs?
” Our brain interprets sensory information of objective reality. ”
No problem with this
” If we “see” entities separated by a “distance” then that distance has some objective meaning. ”
Firstly, what is “objective meaning”? I thought you are one of those people who says that all “meaning” is an interpretation of the mind and is hence subjective? Please clarify.
Secondly, an “entity” is just a mental abstraction of a particular aspect of objective reality differentiated from other aspects of objective reality and integrated into an “entity” by our mind. So much for entities “existing”.
Thirdly, even assuming two entities exist and if they do they must exist at 2 different positions because they would not otherwise be 2 distinct entities, “distance” only refers to the length of the line joining the positions of the two entities. The line is only an imaginary one that helps us understand the two entities relative to each other. It could, for instance, be a measure of how much one entity has to move before it runs into the other. The line has no real existence unless one is speaking of a line made of something material and which connects the 2 entities.
” If we “see” event B occur after event A, then this sensed sequence of events has some objective meaning. ”
It’s strange to see you use the phrase “objective meaning” repeatedly.
” If you synchronise two clocks and then place one in orbit around the Earth and the other stays on the Earth’s surface, they slowly lose synchronisation. The conclusion: time passes at different rates depending on your circumstances. ”
So far so good.
” This has nothing to do with “mental contructs”. ”
Arbitrary claim.
” It has to do with the objective existence of what we call “time”. ”
Even more arbitrary claim. If I were in your position, I would start with the basic understanding that a clock is a device that indicates time based on certain understanding of the working of the mechanism used to measure time. I would then go on to ask the question “What is influencing the time indicated by the time measuring device I call the clock? What is the mechanism I am using to measure time and how is it influenced by the circumstances?” I wouldn’t make the leap of faith (leap of ‘faith” it is) to claim that time exists.
” And the rate at which time passes is dependent on what we call space and what we call mass. ”
More claims. You could be mistaking correlation for causation.
” However, Einstein demonstrated that both space and time are aspects of “space-time”, a four dimensional “fabric” of existence, which is absolute. ie what is invariant in relating two events is not their spatial distance, nor their temporal distance, but only their distance in space-time. ”
As Dr. Harriman said, this “space-time” thing sounds like someone or something I know. Some people I know also call it God.
” Space-time: the four dimensional manifold of existence. ”
Deduction does not establish existence.
” Regardless of whether……yet “property” will still exist. ”
You are yet to answer my basic question. In a world where there is no life, would “property” still exist? If not, “property” is not a direct result of “scarcity”.
Further, “scarcity” is not an inherent aspect of existence. It is only a living entity that prefers one particular aspect of existence that perceives “scarcity”. It is thus a perception, born though it is out of the law of identity. Since A is not B, a living thing that needs B and not A will find a limited supply of A to be “non-scarce”. It is only the choice to prefer possession of A over non-possession of A and the preference for peaceful coexistence in a social setting that produces the concept “property”. Absent a living entity capable of preferring and expressing such preferences in a social setting, “property” has no meaning.
Bala wrote:
“Firstly, what is “objective meaning”?”
There is the subjective meaning – the meaning an observer assigns to their observations.
And there is the objective meaning – what is actually occuring.
I am meerly saying that something absolute must be occuring. An observer may never even be able to ascertain the objective nature of the universe, but that does not imply that there is no objective reality to existence. In fact Objectivism assumes that objective reality does, in fact, exist.
The fact remains that we perceive entities to be separated by “distance”. I’m saying that this distance represents an objective aspect of the universe.
Bala wrote:
“Even more arbitrary claim. If I were in your position, I would start with the basic understanding that a clock is a device that indicates time based on certain understanding of the working of the mechanism used to measure time. I would then go on to ask the question “What is influencing the time indicated by the time measuring device I call the clock? What is the mechanism I am using to measure time and how is it influenced by the circumstances?””
And that is exactly what Einstein did. He understood, better than anyone, that observation is a process and he formulated relativity on the basis of this.
He understood that an objective reality must exist – that objective reality is absolute. He went further and looked at what varies for different observers and what remains invariant. He argued that that which is invariant is an aspect of objective reality.
Different observers measure entities to be separated by different distances. Different observers measure events to occur at different times.
However, Einstein was able to describe events as a set of space-time coordinates for which all observers agree. He effectively formulated a theory which describes objective reality. He discovered the “objective meaning” of what observers perceive to be “space” and “time”.
This is not too different (but more advanced) to the work performed by your beloved Isaac Newton. Newton took all observed events as his guide and formulated a theory upon which all observers agree. Universal gravitation was the result.
Einstein went the next step. He took additional observed events (the constancy of the speed of light) and factored in the fact that observation is a process (something Newton did not do) and formulated a more precise theory of gravity. Furthermore, Einstein completely demolished the mystical absurd notion of “action at a distance” in the process.
Bala wrote:
“You are yet to answer my basic question. In a world where there is no life, would “property” still exist? If not, “property” is not a direct result of “scarcity”.”
Yes I did. Did you not read “… it is the state of scarcity of things, coupled with the existence of multiple organisms, that gives rise to the concept of property”?
Bala wrote:
“Further, “scarcity” is not an inherent aspect of existence.”
Yes it is. Unless you wish to argue that everything is infinite in number and infinite entities can occupy the same space-time coordinates simultaneously. Scarcity implies the mutually exclusive nature of actions. No entity can undergo two distinctively different actions at the same time.
Bala wrote:
“Absent a living entity capable of preferring and expressing such preferences in a social setting, “property” has no meaning.”
That is why I said “coupled with the existence of multiple organisms”.
Scarcity + multiple organisms = property
“Prefences” are irrelevant. Like I said, these organisms could choose randomly and property would still exist. The only important detail is that if organism A uses entity X, then it is impossible for organism B to use X. Property requires only that A and B exist and that X is scarce. Any additional criteria are not relevant.
“Furthermore, Einstein completely demolished the mystical absurd notion of “action at a distance” in the process.”
FYI, according to the Bell Theorem, along with Alain Aspect’s experiments, quantum mechanical theory can be interpreted either as local but non-deterministic, or deterministic but non-local. AFAIK, there is no way to determine with current knowledge which is the case; either is a possible interpretation of the theory. So, non-local “spooky action at a distance” is possible, according to current quantum theory.
Or so is my understanding. I am not a quantum physicist, nor do I play one on TV.
Russ,
You probably don’t realise that I reject Bell’s Theorem for a variety of reasons. For one, I consider scientist’s concept of hidden variable theories to be too narrowly defined. Also, faster than light travel seems logically possible when one factors in the effects of higher dimensions. There are other numerous reasons too but I don’t need to go into them at this point.
For postmodernists, anyone who claims that there is a reality which limits whim-worship is a fascist.
Newson is duly showing the repulsive videos. PR nightmare, this sad, strange woman.
I don’t know, Bala. It’s Tucker’s site – if he wants to embrace her, people interested in working on a universal philosophy of humanity and peace will have to go elsewhere, I reckon.
It’s only too obvious how many people are attracted to this site who can easily live with fascism (on the comfy side of it, of course) if they think it’s their only bulwark against the spectre of Communism and their Empire’s very real colonial victims. Blech.
She’s compared to Hitler a lot because she reminds a lot of people of Hitler. Similar ideas can develop when egomaniacs skim Nietzsche.
she certainly seemed to have no problem “objectifying” arabs.
” It’s only too obvious how many people are attracted to this site who can easily live with fascism ”
“Obvious” to you with your special well-dead brain, perhaps. There’s something else that’s fairly obvious to those who were born human (rather than as monkeys) and whose brains are still not dead – that’s your complete intolerance and your unwillingness to even attempt to learn. That you can only do a cut-paste job and do not do even that when someone else pre-empts you to it is also equally obvious.
” She’s compared to Hitler a lot because she reminds a lot of people of Hitler ”
That’s because they are freaking idiots who do not know or understand either of the two.
Mpolzkill, I don’t understand: you suggest Rand is an enemy of humanity and peace (she may well be, I’ll have to dive into the suggested reading above and make up my own mind (although I could just pretend to have read her, post a lot of verbatious nonsense and illustrate my misunderstanding by lifting quotes from Wikipedia’s page on Rand, I’ve seen it done)). But then the parallel to Nietzsche suggests you’re saying that Rand is falsely compared to Hitler because people don’t read her properly, as is certainly the case with Nietzsche.
I find it very hard to fit Nietzsche into any political theory, to go on a complete tangent. Libertarianism would give most room to “become what one is”, but I would say he is apolitical. Although perhaps such an absence of interest was only possible at the end of the 19th century. He did view rising German nationalism with unequivocal disgust and disdain.
” although I could just pretend to have read her, post a lot of verbatious nonsense and illustrate my misunderstanding by lifting quotes from Wikipedia’s page on Rand, I’ve seen it done ”
mpolzkill is much worse than that. His cut-paste smear jobs are to be seen to be believed.
Oh sorry Bala, I was talking about our resident troll, he-whose-name-I-will-not-say, not mpolzkill, whose short barbs I have to say I enjoy! He (assumption, but I think he) is pretty black and white, but I don’t have a dog in the race and enjoy the banter. He does come up with some good lines, I have to say.
bala you should stop playing with your penis
Ahh!!!! The descent from man to monkey having been completed, now starts the descent to a lower life-form. It was inevitable, I guess. Rotting follows death like night follows day.
“bala you should stop playing…”
Not cool, that was *not* me. But being in a way pithy (I think we’d see a new Bala if he partook in more human pastimes), it’s an amusing spoof, I have to say. But really, can someone here get that email or IP address and do something about such naughtiness? I don’t know, maybe the rascal’s too *computer* sophisticated for that.
Bala, you know I never say anything like that. I don’t know where you are getting this “cut and paste” stuff either. I do often quote people, but I always attribute the quotes unless they are extremely famous ones and I don’t feel the need.
- – - – -
Thanks, Jon, I really work at crafting these zingers and if Bala had the first clue about literature or humor (he’s over 20, and a Randian), my feelings would really be hurt.
I spend the minimum amount of time on this fourth-rate pulp novelist, and then only for purposes of disassociation, but in short: you bet she’s an enemy of peace; unlike Nietzsche, she was political. I’m really busy this week, or I’d love to talk to you about both of Freddie’s most famous half-wit children. For now, I’d leave you with this picture which is a war cry to most of the world:
http://www.theintellectualdevotional.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/popup.jpg
” I do often quote people ”
Oh!! You do something else as well? That, if true, would be quite a revelation.
p.s. I didn’t count swearing and ranting in that list of things you do.
>universal philosophy of humanity and peace
ie, sacrifice and compromise in the short run, the ethics and politics, which was so very practical for 1930s and 1940s Germany. Maybe Adolph should have joined a commune with Charlie Manson
and listened to Joni Mitchell’s “Back to the Garden. Your intentions are the road to Hell.
>fascism
Fascists, contra Rand, are advocates of sacrifice, the first sacrifice being one’s mind. Fascists, like you, reject man’s mind for emotion.
” if he wants to embrace her, people interested in working on a universal philosophy of humanity and peace will have to go elsewhere ”
More proof of how stupid you are. Rand’s ethics of rational self-interest is not incompatible with peace, prosperity and community living. It just places the individual at the centre of the ethical framework and sees other people in relation to it.
p.s. Where and who did you copy this line from? Just curious. You just couldn’t have thought it up yourself.
Extremist Muslims and extremist righties hate each other so because both of their religions define “peace” as “submission”.
Carry on!! You are are funny. Or should I say ludicrous?
Everyone should submit to reality, including individual rights and the laws of economics. Tell us what its like to be independent of the laws of reality. Oh, wait, Timothy Leary already did that.
“what its [sic] like to be independent of the laws of reality. Oh, wait, Timothy Leary already did that.”
And the Vietcong could tell us too, right? When they drove you and Ayn’s slave army out of Vietnam.
>She’s compared to Hitler a lot because she reminds a lot of people of Hitler. Similar ideas can develop when egomaniacs skim Nietzsche.
If 6 was 9.
JIMI HENDRIX
If you want things to come into sharper focus, Jon, ask this lunatic here to tell you all about American ubermenschen and Vietnamese untermenschen in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
French ubermenschen in the 40′s and 50′s over there too, Grossman? I bet that would stick in your craw.
Youre mad as hell about something. Care to share? Care to provide a context?
You bet. I think I’ve said it about a thousand times here. Read “Heart of Darkness” for context. I don’t want to be robbed any longer to pay for these schemes and expeditions. That won’t happen until Americans clean up or wise up. Well, this *will* end, looks like most of you want it the really hard way.
I think part of mpolzkill’s hostility towards you might have something to do with this:
http://blog.mises.org/11637/arguments-against-anarchy/comment-page-3/#comment-668611
That’s right, Jay, I have the same problem with Grossman that I would have with Osama Bin Laden if I had been born around all that cheap oil.
- – - – - – - – - – - -
And nice job by Newson below, getting the rot straight from the source’s mouth.
PLAYBOY: . . . And that any free nation today has the moral right — though not the duty — to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba, or any other “slave pen.” Correct?
RAND: Correct. A dictatorship — a country that violates the rights of its own citizens — is an outlaw and can claim no rights.
PLAYBOY: Would you actively advocate that the United States invade Cuba or the Soviet Union?
RAND: Not at present. I don’t think it’s necessary. I would advocate that which the Soviet Union fears above all else: economic boycott. I would advocate a blockade of Cuba and an economic boycott of Soviet Russia; and you would see both those regimes collapse without the loss of a single American life.
http://www.ellensplace.net/ar_pboy.html
quite a foreign policy hawk. pity she wasn’t here to cheer on the iraq adventure.
What are you trying to show with this?
Wouldn’t you agree that when someone’s rights are being violated, you are justified (though not obligated) in helping to defend them against the aggressor? (Provided they actually want your help, not like the Iraq disaster.)
That by itself doesn’t imply that the US government has the right to draft anyone into helping. So, besides her not being an anarchist (and neither were a lot of great thinkers) what exactly is her fault here?
Also, she was opposed to both the wars in Vietnam and Korea. As I’m sure she would be this one.
thanks for sharing.I enjoy it.
>mpolzkill :And the Vietcong could tell us too, right? When they drove you and Ayn’s slave army out of Vietnam.
Are you advocating mass murder from a Libertarian or Marxist perspective, assuming, of course, a basic difference? Are you evading the most influential protector of individual rights in history, America, from a Libertarian or Marxist perspective, assuming, of course, a basic difference? Inquiring minds want to know. Oh, wait, both Marxism and Libertarians both reject the state for socially approved whim-worship. Never mind.
1) Not all Libertarians are anarchists.
2) I think Matthew was commenting on the irony of a war fought by an army of draftees being supported by a supposed supporter of liberty. Or do you believe that essentially enslaving people to fight in wars is justifed?
>Not all Libertarians are anarchists.
Did you know that Socrates discovered a method of knowledge with some advantages over random association? Plato, Aristotle and Rand developed it. Its called definition by essentials. It hasn’t been basically influential in universities for centuries so your confusion is understandable, tho unfortunate. Libertarianism is essentially anarchism, whatever random associations, and contradictions may lurch and slither into the “thought” of individual Libertarians.
>I think Matthew was commenting on the irony of a war fought by an army of draftees being supported by a supposed supporter of liberty. Or do you believe that essentially enslaving people to fight in wars is justifed?
Again, the essence, this time of individualist America and of collectivist Marxism, is ignored for random associations ,definitions by non-essentials and contradictions. America, whatever problems it has, was defending individual right against mass murderers. Your ignorant and evasive concern with non-essentials does not change the fact that America is the last stand of individual rights. Of course, Libertarianism is anarchism, not individualism, so your evasive hatred of the state needed to defend individual rights is understandable. As is your depraved moral equivalence between America and Marxist nations on the non-essential fact that they both have states. Well ,you and Hitler both have assholes. It doesnt mean youre a Nazi.
Stephen Grossman wrote:
“Libertarianism is essentially anarchism, whatever random associations, and contradictions may lurch and slither into the “thought” of individual Libertarians.”
Wrong. Those libertarians who follow a more deontological, Kantian approach are essentially anarchists, it is true, if they are logically consistent. But if one is more interested in trying to determine that social structure which maximizes individual freedom, that is not the case.
“America, whatever problems it has, was defending individual right against mass murderers. Your ignorant and evasive concern with non-essentials does not change the fact that America is the last stand of individual rights.”
I fail to see how slavery is non-essential to someone who claims to care about freedom.
“Of course, Libertarianism is anarchism, not individualism, so your evasive hatred of the state needed to defend individual rights is understandable.”
I do not hate government, per se. I am not an anarchist. What I hate is government that overreaches itself and takes power it has no right to. For instance, when a government violates the rights of its own citizens to protect the rights of non-citizens in other countries, that is wrong.
“As is your depraved moral equivalence between America and Marxist nations on the non-essential fact that they both have states.”
When did I ever say America and Marxist nations were morally equivalent??? I never did. That doesn’t change the fact that sometimes the American government makes big mistakes, and seriously overreaches. Or should a good person simply be a yes-man for whatever the government does?
>that social structure which maximizes individual freedom
A freedom you evade defining because Libertarian whim-worship rejects the mind’s need for definition. Rejecting the definitions of your ideas leaves only emotion. Libertarians want to be politically free to be free, with no limits, to follow their whim of the moment and a contradictory whim in the next moment. Obviously, any state, individualist or collectivist or theocratic, would limit that. Thus the consistent anarchism of Libertarianism, whether Christian ,Marxist, Pragmatist, leftist ,hedonist, whatever. It is, as Rand notes, a rejection of political philosophy itself. Libertarians are nihilists basically.
>I fail to see how slavery is non-essential to someone who claims to care about freedom.
Yes, you fail to identify the individual rights effect of American foreign policy in attempting to stop Viet Marxism. The military’s recruitment method, volunteerism or slavery, is irrelevant to the policy. BTW, Rand condemns military slavery because it violates rights. Libertarians condemn it because it violates whim-worship.
>I do not hate government, per se. I am not an anarchist.
Im discussing the anarchist principle of Libertarianism, not you and your inconsistency. Sorry, your emotions are not the center of attention.
>When did I ever say America and Marxist nations were morally equivalent???
Its your implicit context, a context common in Libertarian literature.
Stephen Grossman wrote:
“BTW, Rand condemns military slavery because it violates rights. Libertarians condemn it because it violates whim-worship.”
It’s impossible to have a meaningful conversation with you, because 1) you don’t take anybody else’s thoughts seriously enough, even provisionally, to try to understand them, and 2) you insist on expressing yourself in Randian thought-cliches, instead of in actual thoughts. The fact is, many kinds of libertarians condemn conscription because it violates the rights of the individual.
I was going to say that it’s ironic that an Objectivist use the term “libertarian” as a pejorative, when Objectivists are libertarians, but maybe in your case, I am wrong on that count. You apparently do not understand what political freedom even is. Political freedom is not the “freedom” to do the right thing according to Saint Ayn. That is the kind of “freedom” that an radical Islamic imam would understand. Political freedom can only be defined by its delimitations or boundaries. Within those boundaries, it is undefined, of course, or it wouldn’t be free. Political freedom means that a person can follow his “whims”, and as long as he stays within the prescribed boundaries, this is permitted, whether or not you approve. In other words, political freedom means that as long as a person stays within the prescribed limits, he can follow his “whims”, and you do not have the right to use force against him just because you disapprove of his behavior.
>Forgioni: There is probably even more work that could be done in developing the philosophy of Objectivism. It’s unfortunate that people like Peikoff and other unthinking zealots have done so much to misrepresent it.
I’m glad that you didn’t provide any evidence. It’s such a distraction from whim-worship. Objectivism, as we all know, has no definite doctrine or method or limit. Its anything that anyone wants it to be. Maybe its poetry and should be read with Tibetian temple bells and incense. Ommmmm……
Grossmani,
Let’s talk about whim-worship.
Would that term apply to someone who betrays their own stated principles (say, individualism and the non-initiation of force) when they believe that other means (say, violence against a perceived collective, or violent control over others and their property by gangsters) would be a more pragmatic means to their range-of-the-moment ends?
Nice straw-man with the poetry, temple bells, etc., but the real question is this: is Objectivism a meaningful, principled, and consistent philosophy that can be understood through reasoning, or is it a body of dogma to be accepted on faith.
Let’s talk about .
Would…[whim-worship] apply to someone who betrays their own stated principles (say, individualism and the non-initiation of force) when they believe that other means (say, violence against a perceived collective, or violent control over others and their property by gangsters) would be a more pragmatic means to their range-of-the-moment ends?
“The “libertarians” . . . plagiarize Ayn Rand’s principle that no man may initiate the use of physical force, and treat it as a mystically revealed, out-of-context absolute” . . . .In the philosophical battle for a free society, the one crucial connection to be upheld is that between capitalism and reason. The religious conservatives are seeking to tie capitalism to mysticism; the “libertarians” are tying capitalism to the whim-worshipping subjectivism and chaos of anarchy. To cooperate with either group is to betray capitalism, reason, and one’s own future. [PEIKOFF]
I’ll assume you don’t see any irony in accusing someone of relying on the “mystically revealed” even as you quote your high-priest making his usual unfounded assertions.
Anarchism is not some childish wish to do as one pleases. It’s the only system logically consistent with Objectivist ethics, and the non-initiation of force. It’s your Platonic idea of “good government” that’s mystical. Even a “philosopher-king” is a tyrant who rules by force, initiating violence against those who did not initiate it, including those who would otherwise sell the services of security, defense, and conflict resolution at a competitive price and level of quality.
“There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob.” -AR
As for “plagiarism,” I could choose to accuse Rand of “plagiarizing” Mises’ economics, or Aristotle’s laws of identity or non-contradiction (and let’s not bring up Garet Garrett), but I won’t because that would be stupid. She didn’t “plagiarize” them, and libertarians don’t “plagiarize” her when they build on her intellectual accomplishments.
Rand was brilliant, but she wasn’t omniscient (and Peikoff is neither). You stunt your growth when you hold to all of someone’s conclusions, unquestioningly. Even great philosophers.
>your high-priest making his usual unfounded assertions.
A brief quote is not the place for a full, systematic presentation of evidence. That’s why Rand wrote books and articles.
>Anarchism is ….the only system logically consistent with Objectivist ethics, and the non-initiation of force.
Your evasion of Rand’s comment on the anarchist evasion of the rational base of rights is awe-inspiring. How do you twist your mind into the needed conceptual pretzel? Again from Rand, ““libertarians” are tying capitalism to the whim-worshipping subjectivism and chaos of anarchy.” Libertarians drop her context of reason and rational selfishness, grab an isolated “non-initiation of force” (as if meaning can be split from context) and then claim that its justified by any arbitrary definition of freedom about which Libertarians have agreed to disagree.
Libertarians oppose rights for hatred of _any_ state limit to their whims. Libertarians and Marxists are essentially similar, whatever non-essential similarities exist. Reasoning is logical, contextual and hierarchical, not a random selection of out-of-context claims. Reason is built step-by-step from perception, requiring the moral responsibility of the mental effort hated by subjectivists like Libertarians.
“Libertarians oppose rights for hatred of _any_ state limit to their whims.”
You keep chanting that incantation, but for some reason it doesn’t get any more true. Looking past your emotional smoke-screen of accusations, you’re not actually making an argument. (Accusing me of “twisting my brain” to “evade” the unquestionable fact of your rightness is not an argument.)
Here’s a brief quote for you: “Check your premises.”
We have all been brought up to believe that the gangsters who call themselves the state are our legitimate masters, or at least a necessary evil. Even Rand didn’t fully see through that myth, though she did say that taxation could only be justified if it was voluntary.
So let’s do a thought experiment.
Imagine your (or Rand’s) ideal benevolent state. Taxation is voluntary, and the state does not use violence against anyone who did not initiate it. (Of course if you realize that taxation cannot be voluntary by definition, then you’ve already reached your contradiction.)
In this perfect state, would you be allowed to purchase other protections, such as fire-arms, or the services of private security guards?
If not, then please show that either (a) doing so would constitute the initiation of force (on my part or those I hired) justifying the use of force to stop me, or (b) that I or those I hired could always be peacefully persuaded not to make the exchange.
If I do have the right to hire security, (and taxation by the state is voluntary) what makes the state different from a private security firm? (Is it that the official title and/or fancy hats grant it’s members greater integrity to the law than private citizens have?)
The fact is that every “government” is above it’s own laws by definition. Everything that defines a criminal is what defines the government, and that’s all they are.
Also, when we imagine a “limited government” like the one above, we necessarily leave out the question of what limits it. Who does the limiting? (The closest thing we had was the second amendment, and we all know how well that’s going.)
Limited government is a contradiction in terms, but of course you don’t really want a government that is actually limited, just one that only does exactly what you want it to (or to use your language, one that carries out your whims).
You justify your wish for total control by telling yourself that you would only order people to make their own decisions (in Atlas Shrugged, John Galt tells Mr. Thompson exactly what a rational person would do with such an order).
“Libertarians drop her context…”
We can put aside the fact that you clearly don’t know much about actual libertarians (other than the bitter opinions handed down to you as revealed truth), because with a statement like this, you’re talking to the wrong guy. We agree on the fundamentals of Objectivism. It’s what some of the logical implications of those fundamentals are that we disagree on.
So far your argument runs: Rand advocated reason, therefore her reasoning was infallible, and she reached every last conclusion implied by the axioms of existence and consciousness, therefore, to deny any of her conclusions is to deny reason and/or reality. (That would also mean that nothing meaningful will ever happen again in philosophy.)
That’s the same kind of argument I’ve seen Peikoff give. He had made a prediction about the consequences of a military strike on Iran, to which an interviewer responded, “but what if you’re wrong about that?” Peikoff then screamed, “What if two plus two isn’t four?!”
Watch it yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoAWCwm-UXw
Listen for the part where this “individualist” justifies the use of nukes on a whole country by claiming that the innocent civilians who live under that government are just part of the collective enemy.
“…consequences of a military strike on Iran…”
Correction: it was Afghanistan.
>mpolzkill: You bet. I think I’ve said it about a thousand times here. Read “Heart of Darkness” for context. I don’t want to be robbed any longer to pay for these schemes and expeditions. That won’t happen until Americans clean up or wise up. Well, this *will* end, looks like most of you want it the really hard way.
Is there any way that you can be persuaded to provide a logical organization of facts? I’m sure that posters here would contribute toward a beer or two…
Real complicated stuff. I realize that instead of marauding out of mercantilist pursuits and just plain insanity, you believe that your government marauds to spread “Democracy” (or “freedom” or some such inanity), you’re insane. You want me to write an essay about what your government sends its slaves and mercenaries abroad for? No. If you weren’t insane I’d suggest you try reading the collected writings of Lysander Spooner, Lord Acton, and General Smedley Butler, for starters.
Personal attacks, begging the question about purpose of US foreign policy, and arguments from authority are illogical, not that whim-worshipping, Libertarian subjectivists care a fig about logic. Your opposition to slavery is not a defense of freedom ,as you make explicit, but a defense of anarchy, as your opposition to judging the purpose of foreign policy makes clear. Youre a subjectivist, lost inside the chaos of your whims, knowing only that a state, whether individualist or collectivist or theocratic, may forcibly stop you from expressing whatever whim you may have at any moment. But, as Rand recognized, existence, not consciousness, is metaphysically primary. The universe cares not for your whims. It is what it is. And you must act accordingly or die.
“Personal attacks, begging the question about purpose of US foreign policy, and arguments from authority are illogical”
And all things you’re doing here. Of course we have two different opinions as to why your government slaughtered millions of Vietnamese. I have an informed one, you have one based on your emotions.
Why on earth won’t you answer Russ’s questions?
Im pleased that we agree that your arguments are illogical. Your claim that my argument is emotional has no evidence, not even invalid evidence, a repetition of your earlier evasion of evidence and substitution of the arbitrary. But, in that, you are consistently Libertarian. Congratulations.
My govt slaughtered many as part of the morally obligatory destruction of the Libertarians of the Left. BTW, Rand opposed the Viet War as a trivial way of fighting Marxism and because the govt hurt itself by justifying it with altruism and multiculturalism (we were protecting the right of S. Viet. to vote Marxist if they wanted).
>Why on earth won’t you answer Russ’s questions?
1. I dont feel like it. Wow, this Libertarian whim-worship is liberating. I think I’ll moon my neighbors.
2. I unforgivably left the blog to eat supper. Can I ever find redemption?
Well, I guess you win, I do not possess The Truth. Thank God the thousands of cults who all say they do can’t agree with each other, the one in D.C. is bad enough.
(and thank God maybe only a handful in that cult, a few nutty Repubs, ever take Grossman’s cult seriously)
You know, Jon, that this insanity doesn’t just go for murdering people who reject the sad excuse for capitalism that exists in the world. The master nut, Ms. Rosenbaum said that if you didn’t share her laughable tastes in music (she was even more ignorant about that then she was about philosophy and literature), you were a mere “whim worshiper”.
And if Buck Turgidson here is getting you down, this always cheers me up:
http://www.emba.uvm.edu/~wilson/aynrand.pdf
“My govt slaughtered many as part of the morally obligatory destruction of the Libertarians of the Left.”
Morally obligatory? Wow, I thought the only moral obligations of Objectivists were to honor the rights of others as long as they did likewise, and pay one’s “voluntary” taxes to support the necessary minimal government. Since when did Objectivists go in for Kantian notions such as positive political imperatives?
Well, you seem to be unable comprehend that state is just an organisation created by humans. It does not have identity, capabilities and desires other than those of the humans participating in it. It cannot act other than through the acts of individuals. Also, the participation is enforced, so the state and its citizens are not identical. Statists see state as a supernatural being.
I have criticised this explanation extensively as a non-sequitur. You die anyway, so you cannot use life or death per se as a criterion for decisions. You have to use additional criteria.
I have criticised this explanation-you must act accordingly or die-extensively as a non-sequitur.
Regale us with your adventures of defying reality and surviving. Start with the time you had
a rat poison martini.
>You die anyway, so you cannot use life or death per se as a criterion for decisions.
Curiously enough, your extensive study of non-sequiturs doesnt help you to identify yours here. Perhaps a rationally systematic context will help. Of course, whim-worshippers have no rational method of making decisions so they will be self-destructive, with, as you say, no difference from natural death. See Rand’s rational selfishness as alternative to the libertarian indifference to living or dying.
I see you joined Bala at the conference of Dadaism, enjoy yourselves there.
“Your opposition to slavery is not a defense of freedom ,as you make explicit, but a defense of anarchy, as your opposition to judging the purpose of foreign policy makes clear.”
Are you saying that foreign policy considerations could justify slavery (i.e., conscription)? Because that’s what it seems like you’re saying.
No. He changed the topic from the end to the means of foreign policy.
He condemned the end because of the means. Of course, they should be consistent.
Well, if the ends and means of foreign policy should be consistent, then I can’t see why you criticized Matthew so. Is pointing out internal logical contradictions “whim-worshipping”? And Matthew is under no obligation to take into consideration the purpose of the foreign policy in doing this; pointing out the logical self-contradiction itself is sufficient.
(I’m defending Matthew? Methinks I hear the gentle tinkling sound of icicles cracking in Hell. *shrug*)
Deafening, not tinkling. STOP FORTHWITH.
As I said above ,he changed his concern among means, end ,and consistency and contradiction.
Its valid to be concerned with any and all of these but not to change from one to the other in the middle of an argument.
sure, slavery under arms, but the slave-driver is a nice guy, whose heart is in the right place.
>the prescribed limits
As intuited, revealed or observationally-rationally known? Your whim-worshipping, nihilist subjectivism is comically obvious. For libertarians, any whimsically selected limit is absolutely fabulous. Libertarians have agreed to disagree about limits because they have rejected objectivity. Of course, when practical action provides a situation with a conflict among many limits, the objective, historically known, consequences of anarchy become painfully obvious. Reality is real. It won’t vanish because you don’t like it.
>And if Buck Turgidson here is getting you down
Swollen relative to whim-worshipping?
Jesse Forgione
>>“Libertarians oppose rights for hatred of _any_ state limit to their whims
>You keep chanting that incantation, but for some reason it doesn’t get any more true.
Are you now favoring some state limit to your whims? Your Libertarian t-shirt will shrink and get ratty. Your Libertarian coffee mug will drip.
>every “government” is above it’s own laws by definition
What definition contradicts the US Constitution’s grant of power to govt? Is it an objective definition?
>you clearly don’t know much about actual libertarians
Have they agreed to disagree about the their fundamental, ie, which subjective meaning of liberty each libertarian will use?
>In this perfect state, would you be allowed to purchase other protections, such as fire-arms, or the services of private security guards?
Yes,with regulations to protect the rights of people in potential danger from these, as there are now. Eg, private security as supplement, not competitor, to govt police. Convicted criminals and the insane have no right to weapons. Children’s use has been and can be safely the responsibility (w/consequences) of parents. Again, the key is rationality.
“Are you now favoring some state limit to your whims?”
I’ll put this in a way you should recognize. Your statement contains a fallacious package-deal.
The (anti-)concept that you keep trying to sneak past any critical analysis is your assumption that without a coercive monopoly on the industries of defense and conflict resolution, there would be no limit to any violent behavior that anyone engaged in. (If I indulge in whims that are self-destructive, but do not violate the rights of others, it is immoral, but no one has the right to use violence to “save me from myself”.)
You (correctly) believe that in all other industries, the market is more fair and just, as well as more efficient and productive. But you also (incorrectly) believe that when it comes to security, it’s coercive socialism that’s required.
“What definition contradicts the US Constitution’s grant of power to govt? Is it an objective definition?”
Yes. It’s an objective definition. The US Constitution is only enforced by the very organization that it is meant to regulate. That idea has worked out just as we should have expected.
And that’s the basic problem. A “government” is always the arbiter of it’s own case. You keep imagining your ideal “state” like Superman flying around making sure no one is violating each other’s rights. But there are two problems with that idea.
(1) It’s not Superman, it’s politicians.
And
(2) even if it was Superman (and for some reason he didn’t want to be paid to perform this service), that would simply retard development of our own security, while preserving the fundamental problem, namely, an unchecked arbitrary power over our lives (even if it happens to be benevolent).
“Have they agreed to disagree about the their fundamental, ie, which subjective meaning of liberty each libertarian will use?”
Short answer: not the way you’re implying.
Longer answer: I can’t speak for anyone else, but as you can see, libertarians/anarchists/minarchists/Objectivists/etc. tend to have very strong convictions and will carry on heated debates over exact definitions, and the logic of of rights in all kinds of esoteric hypothetical situations. If your accusation were true, I might have just said: “Ok, buddy, I guess we’re both sort of right.” or some BS like that.
Oh, and I noticed you completely avoided the problem of taxes. Is taxation something other than theft?
rand’s world is full of supermen.
I disagree. Her fiction is certainly full of heroes but they aren’t super-human.
There are people like that in the real world too; people with integrity, people with great ability, etc.. To call them supermen is to grossly underestimate human potential.
her world view was manichean, and her fictional characters reflect this. little wonder she polarized people. not just socialists dislike her and her views.
Jesse Forgione wrote:
“I’ll put this in a way you should recognize. Your statement contains a fallacious package-deal.
…
You (correctly) believe that in all other industries, the market is more fair and just, as well as more efficient and productive. But you also (incorrectly) believe that when it comes to security, it’s coercive socialism that’s required.”
I believe that the fallacy here is not a package-deal, but the fallacy of floating abstraction. Anarchists (correctly) believe that the market is the best way of providing most goods and services. They (incorrectly) continue this logic on to the conclusion that it is the best way of providing all goods and services. Their fallacy is in the assumption that a free market can simply exist, without taking into account the conditions under which markets come into existence, or with the assumption that a free market can pick itself up by its bootstraps. In short, the free market is the “abstraction”, and it is “floating” because the anarchists fail (or refuse) to notice that free markets exist within a framework of law and law enforcement provided by a government.
to russ:
even illegal organizations like the mafia, camorra and ‘ndrangheta have rules of conduct, breaches of which are internally “policed”.
property precedes law, or rather, it is the existence and challenges of managing property that give rise to the rule of law; i just cannot see that you’ve proved the benefit of its monopoly provision.
the historic “law merchant” gives the lie that the state is necessary to enforce contracts.
bruce benson is your go-to guy!
http://enxurrada.blogspot.com/2010/01/117-bruce-benson-to-serve-and-protect.html
Of course legitimate businessmen pick themselves up by their own bootstraps. In their ignorance *they* FULLY support the State as well. Just a matter of finding a more economical way of defending themselves. One in which they didn’t use lawyer/criminals against other criminals would be nice.
The statement: “free markets exist within a framework of law and law enforcement provided by a government” is not just wrong, it’s the exact opposite of the truth.
A free market is precisely that state of affairs where interpersonal arrangements are contractual. As soon as one individual or gang becomes a “government” it’s no longer a free market by definition. To the extent that relationships become hegemonic, the market breaks down.
That fallacy about the market relying on the state instead of the other way around, is based on the following myth:
One day while we were all acting like animals trying to kill each other, some wise leader stood up and invented civilization, saving us from ourselves. After that we could trade and grow food and all the rest, but only so long as our wise leader maintained total authority through violent coercion. For on the day we can defend ourselves and stop forking over half our product to the wise leader, we will surly descend back into chaos.
Of course, it’s obvious who propagates that kind of transparent stupidity; the parasites who drain the product of everyone else who would be far better off without them.
The fact is, the “government” (read: defense-cartel) is the reason we are not safe, just as the Fed is the reason we don’t have sound banking, and “public” education is the reason almost no one is educated.
It’s precisely statists who don’t “tak[e] into account the conditions under which markets come into existence…”
Actually, I beg to differ.
The first problem is in that have the implication reversed (roughly speaking). Rather than market not being able to exist without the state, it is the state cannot escape economic reality and cannot solve the economic calculation problem.
The second problem is that you are mixing a positive and a normative argument. It is, of course, possible that a territorial monopoly will always arise eventually, so that a state would be unavoidable. But it does not follow that a state is able to provide better security services. It only follows that it is better at subjugating others.
The third problem is the problem of externalities. I believe it was Hoppe that summarised the argument of statists as in a free market there would be an underproduction of security and a state is necessary to make the level of production “right”. I.e. there is a disconnect between the individual utility and social utility due to externalities. Again, this has been handled in anarchocapitalist literature.
Last but not least, as I said on two occasions, even if you were right, the policies in place now are objectively counterproductive.
Libertarianism is whim-worshipping nihilism, a consciously amoral desire for the destruction of all values because they are values. For Libertarians, even an objectivity-guided state constitutionally limited to the protection of individual rights is rejected because it protects a value, individual rights.
Libertarians are man without mind, the reduction to momentary sensation and an unreasoning hatred toward any limits on sensation-seeking. Libertarians are not for rights, they are against the state as the enforcer of morality because they have rejected morality, even irrational morality, for momentary sensation. Libertarians are simply an unusual type of postmodernist, who are temporarily attracted to various capitalist movements as a tactic or because they have not yet recognized a consistent libertarianism. Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism is a radical, systematic rejection of the consistent subjectivism of libertarianism. Libertarians are no more respectable than Nazi death camp guards or drug addicts. Both are man without mind, little better than brute animals. The basic idea of all libertarian posts here is the rejection of objectivity, of the mind’s logical focus, thru the senses, onto the concrete material universe. Libertarians are dead inside and want a society that mirrors that outside. Libertarianism is not basically political but metaphysical and epistemological, a rejection of reality and reason. Libertarians are the walking dead.
like i said, rand was manichean.
That guy doesn’t speak for Rand. He’s just the kind of religious zealot that could latch onto any philosophy and pervert it, because to him it’s just so much dogma to put his faith in, memorize, and swing around like a club.
Look at that last comment. He’s falling apart. I could almost feel bad for him… but I don’t.
I disapprove of, disagree with, and have no connection with, the latest aberration of some conservatives, the so-called “hippies of the right,” who attempt to snare the younger or more careless ones of my readers by claiming simultanteously to be followers of my philosophy and advocates of anarchism. Anyone offering such a combination confesses his inability to understand either. Anarchism is the most irrational, anti-intellectual notion ever spun by the concrete-bound, context-dropping, whim-worshiping fringe of the collectivist movement, where it properly belongs. [AYN RAND]
Well I guess if Ayn Rand said it, it must be true.
Then again she also said: “A blind follower is exactly what my philosophy rejects.”
Let me ask you something, Grossman. Are you an Objectivist because you understand its ideas and find that they agree with your own reasoning, or because you trust that Rand’s reasoning was so perfect that it justifies substituting her mind for your own?
What advice do you think Rand would have in that regard? My guess is that it wouldn’t be “just keep regurgitating all my conclusions no matter what.”
You said “Libertarians … are against the state as the enforcer of morality…”
But Rand said: “Do not ever say that the desire to “do good” by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.”
The irrationalist/subjectivist essence of Libertarianism applies as dropping the context of reason in politics. Thus the state’s rational and morally obligatory protection of man’s mind in action is dropped, evaded, for the claim that the state, without this function, has no function at all, which, given the Libertarian context, is true. States cannot produce morality but they can and should protect it from whim-worshipping nihilists like Libertarians, environmentalists, Marxists, feminists, race and ethnicity-lovers, hedonists, queer theorists and other postmodernists. You moral freaks are an important cause of the return of religion. And both groups are enemies of man’s mind.
“Thus the state’s rational and morally obligatory protection of man’s mind in action is dropped….”
You are committing a floating abstraction fallacy here; you are considering the state abstractly, not in context. A state only has an moral obligation to protect its own citizens. Or are you saying that the US government should altruistically and selflessly help the citizens of other states, even if it is not in our best interests?
Is there a way to find out if “Stephen Grossman” is actually a computer program designed to keep re-posting the same reshuffled sentences no matter what anyone else writes?
“The irrationalist/subjectivist essence of Libertarianism applies as dropping the context of reason in politics.”
Translation:
“irrationalist/subjectivist” = something other than what Grossman thinks.
reason = whatever Grossman is asserting
Conclusion: to disagree with Grossman is to violate morality, existence, and reason itself. To require any evidence for this claim is to “drop the context” of reality, proving yourself to be some kind of mystic, and morally no better than someone who makes out with Nazis.
Rand denied any power to evil and regarded the material universe as man’s proper home.
>Russ
>>“Thus the state’s rational and morally obligatory protection of man’s mind in action is dropped….”
>You are committing a floating abstraction fallacy here; you are considering the state abstractly, not in context. A state only has an moral obligation to protect its own citizens. Or are you saying that the US government should altruistically and selflessly help the citizens of other states, even if it is not in our best interests?
I identified the context, reason. BTW, an abstraction is a type of context, a selective, logical focus upon a concrete which abstracts, ie, takes away, some properties. The width of a state’s obligation, ie, who is protected, is a derivative issue, not the basic issue of the justification of the very principle of the state. Moral obligation is our rationally selfish need to choose to value our own lives as our highest value. Altruism and other types of selflessness are immoral. As Rand repetitively clarifies, morality is not a contest among whims, its a rational guide to man’s survival in the concrete, material universe.
So, if the goal is to survive, which of the choices leads to immortality?
I just saw “Cast Away” yesterday. I thought that had a lot of the answers you are looking for, especially Chuck Noland in front of the fire in the penultimate scene. Check it out. Maybe you can still become less of Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 and more human.
OK. I know no choice can lead to immortality. Where does that leave me? Does it mean that there is no choice to be made?
I also wonder why many people spend a substantial part of their life to study how to have a long and healthy life. They must be working on random impulse, mustn’t they? What does Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 have to say on that?
Bala,
to use your own terminology, you are using floating abstractions. In the past, you recognised that “state” and “IP” are such floating abstractions and rejected them. Now you are only left with recognising that the others, such as “life” or “freedom of action” are also such.
Once again. It is you who claims that the a floating abstraction (e.g. “life”) is the basis for a decisionmaking process. I demonstrated that it cannot be a basis for decision, since in strict sense it is not present in any of the options. This requires you to rephrase your definition in a way that this deficiency is defeated. You already attempted this twice, however not satisfactorily. Once you redefined “life” as “length of life”, then you redefined it as “freedom of action”. You might recall how Kerem Tibuk is arguing for IP: when you point out to him that the terms he uses are too vague, lead to ambiguousness and are inadequate to distinguish whether a rule applies to a situation or not, he comes up with another vague term that is still inadequate for a distinction. I hold the same objection against you: the formulations of criteria you are using are too vague and insufficient to divide the options available to you into those that match the criteria and those that do not.
The reason for your confusion lies in failure to use elementary logic. If A does not lead to B, it does not mean that A and B cannot coincide, rather it means that the causal relationship is absent. I might have accepted the claim for longer life if it was made with a ceteris paribus restriction. However, that is not what you are claiming. You are claiming that it takes precedence over all the other conditions. This is easily refuted, as I did many times.
People also spend a lot of time thinking about food and sex. Based on this, can you make the conclusion that the ultimate goal of your endeavours that takes precedence over the others is food and sex?
Ha Ha Ha!!! There you go evading the answer. I asked a straight question – Is there a choice to be made or isn’t there?
“Life” is a floating abstraction. Wow!!! Brilliant. Wonderful proof that you are indeed Cyberdyne Systems Model 101.
If I say “Life is the possession of the capability for self-generated action”, would that still be a floating abstraction?
Why are you asking me this? The definitions and goals are provided by you, not me. I am merely putting them together using logic. You seem to be unable to connect the dots on your own.
The definition you provided does not feature the ability to evaluate the options available to you. While it is true that some actions lead to an earlier death than others, and some do not have an understood causal relationship to the time of your death, none of them result in immortality. The definition leads to the conclusion that all the choices are wrong. But that conclusion does not seem to be the one you proclaim.
Therefore, you need to reformulate your theory. Which you did, however I demonstrated that the alternative definitions also suffer from the same issue (admittedly though, perhaps to a lesser extent). Instead of fixing the error, you accuse me of whatnot. It is you who is incapable of expressing a correctly formulated theory.
There are two main possible ways to fix the error. Either you fix the assumptions or the conclusions. You seem to perform cosmetic changes to the the assumptions, while trying to avoid altering your conclusion. On its own, there is nothing wrong with it, but it indicates an emotional bias in that you consider the conclusion desirable. That almost sounds like whim-worshipping, wouldn’t you say?
” Why are you asking me this? ”
It’s in many ways a primary question. Is there a choice and does man choose? My answer is clear and I have said “yes” many times over. I would like to know where you stand on this.
” The definition you provided does not feature the ability to evaluate the options available to you ”
It did not because it need not. I was defining the fundamental concept “life”. This definition could apply to any form of life, not necessarily human life alone.
Now tell me whether or not it is a floating abstraction. Once you respond, this discussion can proceed. I do not want to go more than 1 step at a time.
” It is you who is incapable of expressing a correctly formulated theory. ”
It is probable that I am incapable of expressing it. I do admit that my communication skills may not be as good as I think they are.
” On its own, there is nothing wrong with it, but it indicates an emotional bias in that you consider the conclusion desirable ”
Probably I am just a fool worshipping my whim to act such that I live longer and happier.
This is a separate issue that also needs to be addressed independently. I seem to concentrate on the issue of logical consistency of a rights theory, while Jay seems to concentrate on the dichotomy between is an ought. I would recommend you contact him regarding this specific question, he seems to have a deeper understanding of it than me.
My point is that if there is a set of rules for the “right” behaviour, these rules must lead to the ability to rank the options available with regard to their “righteousness”. The definitions of the “right to life” you provided so far do not have that ability.
While this might be correct, it is also irrelevant without further definitions.
“Life” as such in my opinion is. In order for it not be be a floating abstractions, additional qualifiers (such as timeframe) are necessary.
You seem to turn emotional when pressed, I think for the purposes of this debate it might be sufficient if you avoided that.
Once again, I did not claim that such a goal is wrong or foolish. I shy away from making moral judgements and try to stick to logic. The problem I am pointing to is the inadequacy of the rules supplied to make conclusions. With regards to the goal of “longer and happier life” you do not explain what rules are to be applied when this goal is in conflict with your other goals, and when your goal is in conflict with other people’s goals. Once you said something like “there is no conflict”. But there must be, since human bodies are scarce resources. One action leads to unavailability of other actions, not only for you but also for others, even if no other objects besides people are involved.
The reason why I insist on this is that this issue does not exist If you assume the concept of self-ownership, since all possible conflicts are mapped to one rule. In the objectivist framework, they sometimes map to different rules.
Peter Surda,
” “Life” as such in my opinion is. In order for it not be be a floating abstractions, additional qualifiers (such as timeframe) are necessary ”
I gave a definition of life as “possessing the capability for self-generated action” and aksed you whether the concept “life” as per this definition is a floating abstraction or not. Tbis definition does not require any additional qualifier such as a time-frame. An existent either possesses the capability for self-generated action or it does not. So, please answer the question of whether or not this definition of the concept “life” makes the concept itself a floating abstraction.
You seem to insist on the irrelevant. For argument’s sake, let’s say I accept that definition. Let’s further assume that the estimated length of life does play a role, often even a decisive one, in the decisionmaking process of people (I never denied this). How does that affect the validity of anything that I said?
Peter Surda,
Please answer a simple question. If I define the concept “life” as “possessing the capability for self-generated action”, does that make the concept “life” a floating abstraction?
Let us address the issue of relevance once you answer this (not necessarily immediately). The question requires just a 1-word answer – Yes or No. Please give it. I will take my next step ONLY after you address it.
p.s. The issue is not yet about whether or not you accept this definition. It is only about whether or not this definition makes the concept a floating abstraction. So, please stick to that.
Bala, that is something only you as an objectivist can do, not me. The concept of “floating abstractions” is not a part of my framework. In order to answer that, I would need to pretend I’m an objectivist.
Peter Surda,
Wait a second. You said this
” “Life” as such in my opinion is. In order for it not be be a floating abstractions, additional qualifiers (such as timeframe) are necessary. ”
You expressed a considered opinion on the issue. You called something a “floating abstraction”. How did you do so if that was not a part of your framework? Or did you first shoot your mouth off and then “realise” that the concept “floating abstraction” is not a part of your framework only after I kept pushing you to answer my question?
Based on your statement above, I think you are in a position to say whether or not the concept “life” as I had defined is a floating abstraction or not. Please do so.
These were attempts to make you defend and/or explain your position. Admittedly, I stepped over to the area of personal opinion instead of sticking with proper scientific argumentation. Let’s agree that it was an error of mine. So, for argument’s sake, let’s assume that the definition of life you provided isn’t a floating abstraction. Back to my question: how does it affect the validity of my claims?
Peter Surda,
Please stop being condescending and doing things for “argument’s sake”. Is the concept “life” as I defined it a floating abstraction or not? This discussion cannot proceed if the possibility exists that you can go back on it sometime mid-discussion and then claim to have defeated my arguments. So please. Is the concept “life” defined as “possessing the capability for self-generated action” a floating abstraction. Just say an irrevocable “Yes” or “No”.
Further, why the hurry to see my ultimate conclusions? I have decided to be very patient and develop my argument small step by small step. This is going to be a long-drawn out and possibly painful affair. So, I request your patience (unless of course you think I do not deserve your patience).
Bala, stop dragging the discussion into the irrelevant. The concept of “floating abstractions” is specific to objectivist framework. I’m not an objectivist. On a related note, have you stopped beating your wife? Yes or no please.
There is no hurry. I merely do not want to waste my time on playing dodge. It is simple to explain a refutation to a satisfactory level without hiding behind a barricade of vague assumptions.
Peter Surda,
Since you seem to refuse to address what is an important question, let me move on to the next step. Do you agree with the definition of the concept “life” as “possessing the capability for self-generated action”? In case you agree, please just say “Yes”. If you do not, please offer an alternate definition. There is no sense in discussing anything if we do not agree on fundamental definitions.
How is this relevant? It will become apparent in a couple of steps.
Personally I consider the definition at the same time too specific and too vague. However, since I do not have an alternative definition and I do not consider it a factor that influences the validity of my claims, I have no problem accepting it for the purposes of our debate.
Peter Surda,
It looks like you are already manufacturing the means to make debate impossible. Throwing vague insinuations, that too stuff like “too specific and too vague”, at the definitions to be used in the debate indicates a wish to shout out “I told you this is why the definition is too specific/vague” and muddy up the waters at a time when you are feeling stuck. I quite fail to understand what you mean by “too specific and too vague”. Please tell me what essential characteristics it misses out to be called “too specific” and what clarity it fails to offer to be called “too vague”.
As I said, this is going to be long and painful and I do not wish to give wiggle room. So, do I take it that the definition is henceforth non-negotiable and will not be the reason for the debate entering a deadlock situation?
Peter Surda,
” It is simple to explain a refutation to a satisfactory level without hiding behind a barricade of vague assumptions. ”
You seem to think that it is possible to develop a philosophy standing on one leg. That sounds rather difficult to me.
Bala, you are supposed to present an argument, however it is not forthcoming. Instead, you are accusing me of being difficult. However, the validity of an argument does not depend on other people’s cooperation.
Peter Surda,
The issue here is not the validity of the argument but the important point that in a debate, if the 2 opposing parties differ substantially over the fundamental definitions of the terms/concepts being used in the debate, the debate is going to be pointless. Each can come out thinking they are right and that the other party has made errors in reasoning. So, please tell me if the definition of the concept “life” as I have given is irrevocably accepted. In addition, explaining why the definition is “too specific and too vague” simultaneously is important to avoid avoidable disagreement after spending considerable time and energy.
And what is this bit about “supposed to present the argument”? I am not working on your orders, am I? I said very clearly that I am going to go painful step by painful step. If you are not prepared for it and want it all in one go, say so right now and I will stop this discussion.
Bala,
the issue that I’m arguing about is not that your argument contradicts mine, but that your theory is logically inconsistent. I am analysing your theory in isolation from other assumptions. I demonstrated that your claims do not follow from each other. You counter that I’m wrong, but don’t explain why and protest when I push you. Although you have been explained exactly which parts need to be addressed, you do not do that.
I don’t mind if it turns out I’m wrong. Refutation is a standard part of the methodology of falsificationism and it drives knowledge forward. Asking questions about corner cases is a perfect way of finding logical errors. However, people who do have emotional attachment to the theories they ascribe to tend to take such questions personally and insulting.
Peter Surda,
I am not concerned with your past attempts at refuting my theory because they stem from differences over fundamental definitions. I said I am ready to lay out the entire argument step by step. Towards that end, I started with a definition and asked if your acceptance of that definition is irrevocable. Instead, you seem intent on repeating your claims all over again. Do I take it as a way of saying that you are not interested in the discussion? If not and if you are ready to start working from the definition, I will take my next step.
Bala,
once again, a definition does not require an approval from someone who claims that a theory built upon it is self-contradictory. Whether they approve of it or not has no effect on whether a theory is self-contradictory or not.
The definitions are for you to provide, not for me to approve.
Peter Surda,
A definition does not require approval, but a debate requires that we agree on definitions of basic terms before the debate proceeds further. Failing that, we risk creating a Tower of Babel.
Incidentally, it was not approval I was seeking but agreement. Either we agree at this stage or seek agreement over a mutually acceptable definition. Any debate without that is pointless.
Bala,
it is pointless to try to agree on definitions in isolation from an argument. In order to determine whether an argument is self-contradictory or not, it is necessary that a sufficient proportion of the argument is formulated. This process does not depend on the agreement and cannot lead to the conclusion about “correctness” of specific definitions.
Basically, you are attempting a rhetoric trick. I don’t care if it’s deliberate or not, I’m not playing. I presented my argument, you haven’t presented a response so far, other than you don’t like it.
Peter Surda,
” it is pointless to try to agree on definitions in isolation from an argument ”
This is the most nonsensical statement that can ever be made. Definitions of terms precede proper formulation of argument. Definition does not require an argument to follow but an argument definitely requires proper definition of every term involved.
” In order to determine whether an argument is self-contradictory or not, it is necessary that a sufficient proportion of the argument is formulated. ”
In order to make a valid claim that an argument is self-contradictory, you need to establish that you are indeed attacking the argument and not a straw-man of the same. You seem to sense that your straw-man is about to be exposed and wish to run away from the debate.
” You counter that I’m wrong, but don’t explain why and protest when I push you ”
Oh please!!! Continue this debate as I am requesting you to and it won’t be long before your straw-man is exposed.
” Basically, you are attempting a rhetoric trick. I don’t care if it’s deliberate or not, I’m not playing. ”
Basically you are attempting a smear and scoot trick. I don’t care if it is deliberate or not (though I think it is pretty deliberate), but it is clear that you do not wish to have your straw-man exposed.
” I presented my argument, you haven’t presented a response so far, other than you don’t like it. ”
It’s not that I do not like it. The real issue is that you are claiming victory by attacking a straw-man and do not wish to have that exposed.
Definitions are a part of the argument. A specific sequence is not necessary. Indeed, when using deductive reasoning, a definition might be the conclusion of an argument, thereby succeeding rather than preceding the other parts of the argument.
It does not, however it is pointless to debate its validity outside of the context of the argument.
Again, a specific sequence does not follow out of this.
Correct, however there must be a distinction between the straw man and the real man. So far, you have alleged such a distinction, yet have not specified it.
Let us summarise what has happened. I have presented my argument, together with definitions. You disagree. You have not explained whether the problem is in the definitions or in that I am committing logical errors. You have not presented a counterargument. You insist that my assistance is necessary to formulate a counterargument. And from this you somehow deduce that I am running away from the debate? I’m merely not playing your game.
You have had weeks, nay months, to formulate a refutation, but have not done so. It does not require my cooperation. I also noticed from debates in the past with other people that even if I do cooperate, a refutation never follows, rather I am expected to be drawn further and further away. So I’m not wasting my time with it anymore.
Once again, exposing the alleged strawman does not require any cooperation whatsoever from me. You have yourself alone to blame for the results of the debate.
The one claiming victory is you, not me. A falsificationist believes a defeat is inevitable. I am expecting a counterattack, but it never comes. The result is a stalemate.
Peter Surda,
” I have presented my argument, together with definitions. ”
This is a lie. I have nothing more to say.
Peter Surda,
” So, if the goal is to survive, which of the choices leads to immortality ”
Here is your straw-man. Even if the goal of life is to survive, there is no requirement for any of the options to lead to immortality. All it requires is survival till a further point in time. More (read in terms of “expectation”, i.e., sum of (expected benefits*respective probabilities)) is better than less. Life works on real-world options based on the nature of life – its use-by-date.
More is better than less simply because it increases the probability that one attains immortality. Each moment of life has the potential for the attainment of immortality. It could just be to do with the fact that more time means having more shots at it. It could be to do with the march of science and technology and the chance that someone somewhere figures it out.
Peter Surda,
You know what? It’s not that God is immortal. It is immortality that is God.
If I have not presented an argument together with definitions, then there is no reason for you to disagree with me. Yet, you disagree. Thus, you contradict yourself.
You have not said anything coherent in the first place.
Such a conclusion requires additional assumptions (e.g. the specification of the relevant time frame), which you have not provided. Indeed, at an earlier phase of our discussion I asked you how to determine the relevant scope of action other than the utilitarian perspective of the actor.
The probability of attaining immortality is zero. However, even if it wasn’t, the probability distribution might present choices which require additional assumptions. I already explained the problem of probability distribution, you have not responded.
Let’s say that you can take part in an experiment, which results with 99% chance in immediate death and with 1% chance in immortality. If you don’t participate, you will live a normal human life as we know it. How does any of the assumptions you presented allow to decide which of those choices is correct one?
Or, another one: let’s say that the experiment will have a 100% chance of granting you immortality, but it will alter you so much that social interaction would become impossible.
Also, I wonder if it means that goals which might result in shortening of your life are invalid, or whether goals that are expected to occur after your death are invalid.
I don’t understand what that means. I’m an atheist and to me the concept of god makes no sense.
Peter Surda,
I’ll leave the smear aside and address the attempts to make sense.
” Such a conclusion requires additional assumptions (e.g. the specification of the relevant time frame), which you have not provided. ”
Such a statement reveals a complete failure to understand what I said. No particular time frame needs to be specified. It just needs to be in the future. The exact point in time in the future is a matter of the individual’s choice.
” Indeed, at an earlier phase of our discussion I asked you how to determine the relevant scope of action other than the utilitarian perspective of the actor. ”
Why should there be anything other than the utilitarian perspective of the actor? Why should ethics be anything other than that which serves the interests of the actor? Why should he be worried about anything else but his own immortality?
” The probability of attaining immortality is zero ”
Nonsense. It is not zero. It is just very low.
” However, even if it wasn’t, the probability distribution might present choices which require additional assumptions. ”
It might, but they are not relevant to the current discussion.
” Let’s say that you can take part in an experiment, which results with 99% chance in immediate death and with 1% chance in immortality. If you don’t participate, you will live a normal human life as we know it. ”
Hey Model 101…. Make the 1% 0.00000001% and you would be talking of normal life as we know it.
” How does any of the assumptions you presented allow to decide which of those choices is correct one? ”
Irrelevant question, especially if immortality is a non-zero probability event. That which enhances the chances of attaining immortality is the correct choice if immortality is the goal. Immortality being a non-zero probability event also means that I CAN choose life over death.
Incidentally, all this does not necessarily mean that a longer life-span is better than a shorter life-span. A longer-life span full of pain and suffering could lower the chance of immortality below the level offered by a shorter life-span filled with well-being.
” Or, another one: let’s say that the experiment will have a 100% chance of granting you immortality, but it will alter you so much that social interaction would become impossible. ”
So what? If I am immortal, I may have no need for social interaction. What would I gain from that? Nothing.
” Also, I wonder if it means that goals which might result in shortening of your life are invalid, or whether goals that are expected to occur after your death are invalid. ”
Once again…. it is not about “shortening your life” that is important but the “might”. Further, if immortality is not a zero probability event, go back to my previous explanation.
” I don’t understand what that means. I’m an atheist and to me the concept of god makes no sense. ”
I am an atheist too. I was just trying to say that the concept “God” is probably nothing more than the concept “immortality” personified. Seen from that view-point, seeking God would then be no different from seeking immortality. That helps me get a whole new perspective on ancient Indian philosophy. You know….. concepts like “jivatma” and “paramatma”…..
What a pleasant surprise, you actually provided proper answers. I will respond in detail later, for now I just wanted to thank you.
Once again, please watch “Cast Away”. It may open even your robotic eyes.
I don’t know what you mean by “the goal” but the very fact that there are goals, ie, values, means that life, with its conditional nature, exists. A value exists in the context of alternatives and the basic alternative, existence or non-existence, exists only for life. See Rand’s “Obj. Ethics” for more. Only because life is conditional are there goals, with the basic goal as life or survival. This does not imply immortality nor is immortalty real. I haven’t the foggiest idea why you mention it.
Morality is a guide to man’s life in the concrete, material universe, not a blind search for an impossible dream.
Let me remind what you said:
Clear now? If survival isn’t the goal, then why do you use a sentence like this?
Now you’re evading. The very fact that death is inescapable makes survival impossible, so your claims make no sense.
>If survival isn’t the goal
Ive stressed Rand’s use of life as the context of morality, thus your claim that her context is not life is bizarre.
>The very fact that death is inescapable makes survival impossible, so your claims make no sense.
So you believe that by “survival” I mean that living organisms are immortal, not, as we all know from common human experience, mortal? That’s one of the most bizarre interpretations Ive ever encountered. Your creativity is awe-inspiring. Have you any personal recollections of alien abductions? Is your interpretation sufficient as your rationalization for evading the values needed for your mortal survival and, instead, indulging in libertarian whim worship without learning from the past and planning for the future? Is heroin your drug of choice? Have you considered political advertising as a career? You clearly have the motivation and aptitude.
I am eagerly expecting you to provide an argument, instead I get a sermon.
Peter Surda,
Your repeated appeal to the need for immortality is your ultimate strawman
Peter Surda,
Take this line up again when the option of immortality exists and people reject it.
If it is a strawman, then it is up to you to explain why. You say that I’m misinterpreting it, because the argument is within the context of a time frame. However, that is exactly the same thing I said at one of the early stages of the debate.
Peter Surda,
Very simply put, your use of the impossibility of immortality is your straw-man argument. It attacks something other than my theory but you use it to claim to attack my theory.
As I have shown elsewhere, your premise is incorrect and hence your conclusions nonsensical.
Since today is the first time ever that you actually mention this assumption (immortality is possible), I consider it disingenuous to portray the result as a deficit of mine. If your participation in the debate was sincere, you would have mentioned it immediately after I postulated the argument (which, if I recall correctly, was about two months ago), and only after that you would have said that I am attacking a strawman. What you did instead was a deus ex machina. You have been escalating the tension, and then in a dramatically appropriate moment, present something new which resolves the conflict.
I’m not playing your games.
Peter Surda,
Did it ever occur to you that I could have realised it this morning when I was enjoying my morning swim? Do you think I had the answer like an ace up my sleeve all these days and sprung it on you at what I thought was an appropriate moment?
Frankly, the answer did hit me like a bolt from the blue this morning when I was enjoying my early morning swim. I apologise if it appeared otherwise.
Yes Bala, it did occur to me that until today you had no idea how to refute my argument, but were afraid to admit it, so you were stalling. That does not make you any less disingenious.
Peter Surda,
Until today, I just felt vaguely uncomfortable with your line of reasoning. I was quite convinced you were wrong but couldn’t place a finger on the precise error. It’s not even that you have mentioned the statement that led to the answer for the first time today. However, if I had not been uncomfortable and trying to fight your argument, I doubt if the answer would have struck me.
I couldn’t care less what you think of me. I am just happy that I managed to pull down your argument. As an Objectivist, that makes me doubly happy.
That’s odd, you admitted yourself that you have been disingenuous and yet you seem to take pleasure from it. Never mind that. I’ll also skip over the issue of parsimony in your counterargument, or the validity of the assumption, as these are more methodological issues and we disagree on methodology.
Now that you have introduced the assumption of possibility of immortality, I have new questions, if you don’t mind? It will take a while to construct them properly, I’ll take the first place you mention the possibility of immortality as a starting point.
Peter Surda,
” That’s odd, you admitted yourself that you have been disingenuous and yet you seem to take pleasure from it. ”
Not “from it” but “in spite of it”. It’s like saying “I don’t mind the mud I got all over myself because what I got in the process is my weight in Gold”.
Bala … really?
Your defense of Objectivism comes down to assuming a non-zero chance of attaining immortality?
Really??
I’ve been away for a week (stupid work!) and come back to discover that your debate with Peter has degenerated into this.
Before I even touch on the implications of this statement from the standpoint of relativity, I’m curious to see how Bala intends to overcome the obvious self-defeating nature of any claim of the possibility of reaching infinity. I eagerly await to see how this discussion unfolds.
Jay Lakner,
” Your defense of Objectivism comes down to assuming a non-zero chance of attaining immortality? ”
You misrepresent my argument. When a person claims (like Peter Surda did) that death is inevitable and hence that it is foolish say that one can value life over death, the counter-argument is “What makes you so sure death is inevitable?”. That’s all I did. Try addressing it if you can rather than try to argue by intimidation
” Bala … really? ”
and smear.
” I’ve been away for a week (stupid work!) and come back to discover that your debate with Peter has degenerated into this. ”
Incidentally, do you realise that Peter Surda has acknowledged my answer as a proper reply? In case you think otherwise, please explain why.
” I’m curious to see how Bala intends to overcome the obvious self-defeating nature of any claim of the possibility of reaching infinity. ”
When and where did I make a claim like this? Are you mistaking your interpretations for my actual point?
By claiming immortality to be possible, you are claiming that an objective infinity can exist. I consider such a claim self-defeating. Infinity, by it’s very definition, cannot ever been attained. I’m curious to see how you try to justify this.
To make things clear, I will say here and now that immortality is an impossibility. I don’t even need to go into relativity or the second law of thermodynamics to make this claim. My reasoning is simply that it’s impossible to ever reach infinity, by the very definition of infinity.
Bala wrote:
“Incidentally, do you realise that Peter Surda has acknowledged my answer as a proper reply? In case you think otherwise, please explain why.”
I don’t deny that your reply is proper. You made a logical case and you indicated a primary assumption. I am merely demonstrating a major glaring problem with this assumption. I’m just completely shocked that anyone, especially an Objectivist, could even make this assumption. My apologies if I offended you, you caught me completely offguard with this one.
Jay Lakner,
” By claiming immortality to be possible, you are claiming that an objective infinity can exist ”
No. I am not. To understand what I am saying, you first need to understand what the term “immortality” means. To do do, you first need to understand the definition of the concept “life”. I defined it as “possessing the capability for self-generated action”.
Under this definition, “immortality” means the situation where a living being never loses the capability for self-generated action. Since life is fundamentally a manifestation of a complex bio-chemical process, what it takes to attain “immortality” is to understand the bio-chemical processes and tweak them such that natural ageing and death never set in. To take a step further, complete “immortality” requires the ability to tweak the bio-chemical processes further to return life to a dead organism.
By no stretch of imagination can this be called a claim that an objective infinity exists.
Of course, if one makes the erroneous assumption that time “exists” as something physical, one would be tempted to make the statement that a claim of “immortality” means that time can ever exist in infinite measure. If so, that would be your error, not mine.
” I am merely demonstrating a major glaring problem with this assumption. ”
And I am merely demonstrating a major glaring problem with your assumption that time “exists”.
” My apologies if I offended you, you caught me completely offguard with this one. ”
Apologies accepted. I’m human; not Cyberdyne Systems Model T-1000.
Bala wrote:
“Under this definition, “immortality” means the situation where a living being never loses the capability for self-generated action. Since life is fundamentally a manifestation of a complex bio-chemical process, what it takes to attain “immortality” is to understand the bio-chemical processes and tweak them such that natural ageing and death never set in. To take a step further, complete “immortality” requires the ability to tweak the bio-chemical processes further to return life to a dead organism.”
So when the sun and every other star in the universe dies, what are you going to do then? Pray to Ayn Rand for a new universe?
Immortality is impossible.
Bala wrote:
“Of course, if one makes the erroneous assumption that time “exists” as something physical, one would be tempted to make the statement that a claim of “immortality” means that time can ever exist in infinite measure. If so, that would be your error, not mine.”
What the hell are you babbling about?
a) When did I ever say time can exist in infinite measure? You seem to have zero understanding of my viewpoint. It makes me sad that I’ve spent so much time and effort explaining any of it to you.
b) Immortality means your life can go on forever, ie that you can continue to generate actions for an infinite amount of time.
Your definition, ““immortality” means the situation where a living being never loses the capability for self-generated action”, completely illustrates my point.
“Never loses” means that at any future point in time, the being still has “the capability for self generated action”.
This is the whole point of your debate with Peter.
You can’t use the “choice to live” as the basis of all decision-making since eventually you will die. That is, at some future point in “time”, your life will end.
When you try to counter this by saying that this is not necessarily true, you are saying that there is a non-zero chance of an organism performing self-generated action for an infinite amount of time.
My initial objection is that infinity cannot exist. I was sure I knew what your counter to this was going to be, but instead you completely demonstrate an utter lack of comprehension of what immortality entails.
Here I was getting ready to explain the first two laws of thermodynamics to you, and preparing an argument from the standpoint of general relativity. But instead I end up explaining your own definition of “immortality” to you.
Bala wrote:
“And I am merely demonstrating a major glaring problem with your assumption that time “exists”.”
Where have you done this? Did you type it in invisible ink?
What I find most amusing is that you assume the existence of time in virtually all your arguments but you seem to be completely unaware of it. Furthermore, you treat time to be absolute without even knowing it.
Jay Lakner,
All I can see is arrogance and refusal to understand what I said or even what you said.
” By claiming immortality to be possible, you are claiming that an objective infinity can exist. ”
Since you claimed that I failed to understand this statement, could you please explain what that “objective infinity” is that I seemed to imply existence of with my claim?
Jay Lakner,
Does it occur to you that the statement “Immortality is impossible” is a claim just as much as the statement “immortality is possible” is?
Jay Lakner,
Forget about immortality for a second. What if human beings figure out how to extend life-span from 70 years to 700? Or even 7,000? Even better to 70,000? Are you saying that any attempt to slow down ageing is pointless bullshit based on a nonsensical premise?
Bala wrote:
“Since you claimed that I failed to understand this statement, could you please explain what that “objective infinity” is that I seemed to imply existence of with my claim?”
By claiming that immortality is possible, you imply that time continues on forever. This is the objective infinity you are assuming.
Bala wrote:
“Does it occur to you that the statement “Immortality is impossible” is a claim just as much as the statement “immortality is possible” is?”
Does it occur to you that an argument that relies on infinities generally tends to be self-defeating?
In some cases the infinities render the argument logically inconsistent, in other cases absurd, and in yet other cases completely lacking in justification.
Here you propose that the time-aspect of existence is infinite. I cannot accept that any type of infinity can possibly ever exist because then causality could no longer hold. With the introduction of an infinity, the underlying mathematical equations that define existence would not make any sense.
But, since you still don’t “get” my argument on the objective existence of space-time, you are unlikely to be pursuaded by this reasoning. I might have to settle for a less fundamental level of reasoning.
The first and second laws of thermodynamics should suffice to convince you of the impossibility of immortality. Have you ever heard of the “Heat Death” of the universe? You might want to look it up.
Bala wrote:
“Are you saying that any attempt to slow down ageing is pointless bullshit based on a nonsensical premise?”
How could you possibly have come to the conclusion that this is the argument I am making? You know very well that I’m not saying that slowing down aging is impossible or bad. All I’ve said is that immortality (ie infinite life-span) is impossible.
Jay:
I have also been occupied, I’m in the middle of a database design migration and it’s 2:30 am here, and only slowly I’ve been catching up with mises.org blogs.
Don’t worry, I will reply when I find time to phrase carefully. I share your point of view that Bala’s manoeuvre regarding immortality is silly, but, as you probably already know (I just want to explain this to other readers), my attempt is to prove that the concepts presented by Bala and other objectivists are self-contradictory, rather than making judgements about assumptions they make. I also want to research a bit what other objectivists say about immortality, just to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
Peter Surda,
” The very fact that death is inescapable ”
As of now. Who knows what the future holds? What if I follow Cyberdyne Systems Model 101′s approach, become indifferent, do something that diminishes my capability for self-generated action and tomorrow, someone figures out a way to be immortal? Of course, the day someone figures out a way to repair the damage done and maybe even bring dead men back to life, all this will cease to matter.
Further, “death is inescapable” does not mean I cannot hold off death. It only means that whatever I do, one day or the other, my life will come to an end. How well you go around creating straw-men.
” makes survival impossible ”
Ha Ha Ha!!! Total nonsense. Survival forever is what is ruled out. There you go creating straw-men and pretending to make sense.
Bala, you apparently completely miss the point of my argument, although I have tried very hard to explain to it.
The issue is not whether I agree or disagree with the concept of “life” as a foundation of a philosophy or with its definition. The issue is whether such an assumption leads to the ability to rank the available options. I have provided many examples which, according to my understanding, do not have a ranking that follows from the assumptions.
Cyperdyne Systems Model 1010…. oops….. Peter Surda,
And you miss my point completely. A very fundamental part of your “argument” was
” The very fact that death is inescapable makes survival impossible, so your claims make no sense. ”
You used this (and rather repeatedly) to say that one cannot choose life over death and hence that my theory is inconsistent.
I have just shown that if there is a probability, however small, of immortality, this statement of yours is complete nonsense.
What I have done by using the non-zero probability of immortality is to show that your attempt to state that one cannot choose life over death is completely incorrect. Hence, your attack on my theory has been completely demolished right from its root.
Your latest response only reveals your blanket refusal to grapple with the fact that you have based your argument on a nonsensical premise.
Peter Surda,
Sorry. That should have read Cyberdyne Systems Model 101.
Peter Surda,
” I have provided many examples which, according to my understanding, do not have a ranking that follows from the assumptions. ”
Now that your basic argument has been disposed of, it would not be too difficult to address your examples. I will do that shortly.
Peter Surda,
” The issue is not whether I agree or disagree with the concept of “life” as a foundation of a philosophy or with its definition. The issue is whether such an assumption leads to the ability to rank the available options. ”
The non-zero probability of immortality means that I can choose life over death. This in turn means that I can choose to value life. This further means that I can choose “life” to be the standard of value, which in turn means that it is possible to evaluate various options in terms of the extent to which they enhance my life. Thus, such an “assumption” as I have made (though as I has shown, it is not an assumption but actually a metaphysical possibility) does lead to the ability to rank the available options.
“Altruism and other types of selflessness are immoral. As Rand repetitively clarifies, morality is not a contest among whims, its a rational guide to man’s survival in the concrete, material universe.”
That is absolutely correct. And in absolutely no way does it justify a gang of thugs enslaving the inhabitants of a given territory.
> And in absolutely no way does it justify a gang of thugs enslaving the inhabitants of a given territory.
You forgot to logically relate your floating abstraction to this discussion. You may as well talk about chocolate ice cream and sprinkles, which, by the way, I will very soon be enjoying far more than the conceptual fragmentation necessary to rationalize anarchy.
>[Surda]“life” as a foundation of a philosophy or with its definition. The issue is whether such an assumption leads to the ability to rank the available options.
Assuming your options are means to the end of life, Rand’s “Objectivist Ethics” and Tara Smith’s _Virtuous Egoist provides this ability with discussions of basic virtues. But your question is so out-of-context (the essential libertarian psycho-epistemology), that you may mean something else.
>Peter Surda>I am eagerly expecting you to provide an argument, instead I get a sermon.
Argument is based on observation. I observe that people die. But you, apparently, dont.
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