Quote:
Originally Posted by Wrathful_Buddha
I may be wrong about this, but I think your definition of altruism, and Ayn's definition, differ from one another. She defined altruism as a completely unselfish action, whereas most people define it just as doing something helpful, or nice, for another because it makes you feel good, or is conducive to something you value. What would be an example of voluntary altruism?
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My definition of altruism is "sacrificing yourself for the good of others." Ayn would agree with this definition. In fact, the reason that she thinks that altruism is evil is due to the presence of sacrifice. She seemed to think that sacrifice involed the idea of going backwards and removing benefits from the system. She thought that people who are hooked on to the idea of sacrifice will create a society in which there is a sort of suicide of policy. When the individual notion of sacrifice is applied to the society, all that is left is the sacrifice because a society cannot sacrifice itself and make itself better at the same time. Many freedoms are lost, and pain and suffering becomes the norm in the presence of good-feeling propaganda that doesn't solve any problems, but rather only serves to create a public that is more and more willing to sacrifice more and more until there is nothing left to give up at which point a societal suicide results.
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My enduring personal, original quote: Many mistake what should rightly be called "passivism" for pacifism. Pacifism and passivism are COMPLETELY different.
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"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." --President George W. Bush.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The12thMan
The rule should never trump the reason for the rule.
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Everything about the War on Terror(ism) is aggravating.