I'm an Objectivist. Debate me.

This does, indeed, seem to be an implication of her philosophy. She argued that there is no such thing as innate talent, that we are all born the the same blank slate.

 

Funny how all that talk about morality came from a known PERVERT like her.

Spiro Agnew, Bill Cosby, Jim & Tammy Bakker, Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart ~ all preached morality but did all kinds of foul smelling sh!t behond closed doors. Rand is just another example of the SOS we see from right wing professing do-goodies in this country.

 

I don't even know what this means. Physical reality, by definition, has a "material" basis. And it's not subjective in any exciting sense.

This neither makes reality "nonmaterial" nor "subjective."

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the meaning of "materialism."

No, it has nothing to do with a "conscious awareness." You could watch the double-slit experiment in person and get an interference pattern.

 

I once knew a physicist that taught philosophy of science that was asked to work in the Manhattan Project. And I discussed the particle/wave issue with him in writing of my Master Thesis and I must tell you that you do not understand the problem and its implications that Gelecski is describing. You have no idea what subjective means. Your epistemology is that of a five year old...and stay off my lawn! LOL!

 

Wait until Adorno Avatar hears about this. The last guy that brought up Nietzsche lost so bad that he deleted his post and ran away.

 

I think you can count on neither of those happening.

 

I used to think that Nietzsche and Rand were similar, especially because they valued egoism and individuality, but I'm glad that I know now that they are very very different.

 

Well, you know karma, you get what you give.

 

Wow, that's pretty bad writing. By the time I get half way through the sentence, I forgot what heck she is talking about. LOL! It proves Ayn is a terrible writer! Her writing fillibuters thinking! I guess long sentences are truer than short sentences. LOL!

 

You have to admit she was a little arrogant in naming it 'Objectivism'.

 

One of the troubles I see with Rand is she does not draw a distinction between capital that derives from natural resources and capital that derives from men.
(Read up on Geolibertarianism for further information about the economic distinction. This is important because it carries deep inherent ethical implications and we are discussing an ethical theory.)
I think much of her philosophy was just reactionary [to other things].
As the most primary example, she did not like the totalitarian-type of Communist control over the individual she saw happening in the Soviet Union.

 

Well, your lack of comprehension is within yourself, not the writer.

Simpl, for those with the unfortunate handicap of being college graduates: is justice earning your “just deserts”?

Or is it “Robin Hood”.

You get that, right?

Maybe this will help:
Does justice state: You belong to society; we won’t let you forget.

Or is it: My life is mine to live; not society’s to own, the state to control, or God’s to command?

 

I'd rather you gave your best (succinct) description of the difference rather than giving me homework on some topic that I care nothing about.

 

Rand's error seems to be the implicit assumption that all capital was the product of human labor.
That's a rather dubious supposition to make ethically in the case of something like real estate in Manhattan.

If it wasn't the product of human labor then her ethical arguments fall apart.
(Or at least she didn't do a good job of delineating them)

I'm not claiming she was all wrong; I'm just saying she may have been fundamentally half-wrong.

 

While I consider myself an Objectivist and Rand-fan, and I agree with her general sentiment in your quote, I can point out the error in it rather quickly: We are all capable of great evil and great heroism in the moment, and judging someone on that basis alone may lead to incorrect assumptions. "Sully" Sullenberger, the hero pilot who landed a plane on the Hudson and got everyone out safely, mentioned it this way, and I can't find the direct quote now, so this is a paraphrase... "I've flown planes for 20,000 hours and all anyone will remember me for is the last two minutes." Clearly a career criminal can be classified as a rotter and a firefighter can be classified as a hero, but with most people, it isn't so clear-cut.

Edit: A hero cop turned out to be a pedophile and a career criminal saved a young girl from being abducted, so even in my examples, it isn't so clear-cut.

I'm not sure you're correct on this score, but taking your statement as accurate, it's defensible. Take real estate in Manhattan... why is it more valuable capital than real estate further down the coast? Is it not because of the human labor involved in laying out streets, building buildings, creating infrastructure, starting businesses? Take any kind of capital you choose, whether it's gold in the ground, trees in the forest, or fish in the sea. Does it serve any particular purpose where it is? Or rather does it gain its value when human labor is added to dig it up, cut it down, or fish it out? Even the land itself only has value in regard to what it can be turned into from human labor. Land that has been set aside as wilderness has almost no economic value to anyone, and anyone who ends up with land that cannot be built upon frequently ends up turning it over to the state because no one will buy it.

 

Arrogance personified itself just long enough to come down to Earth and call Ayn Rand an *******.

She's not terribly awful at writing her philosophical nonfiction. She is flat out abysmal at fiction, her novels being early examples of 'camp' "so bad it's good" in that field.

While she vehemently denies it, (she LIVED vehemently) most critics see her as an anarchist, mainly in the mold of Max Stirner

My own opinion is that her appeal is mainly through her aesthetics, which finds the beauty of human character nearly entirely in individual heroism. It makes for good movies, (she is majorly known for writing the movie "The Fountainhead") but is really hard to take when set in her jejune "Objectivism" philosophy.

 

What? That’s Marxim, and nowhere even close to Objectivism.

Ayn Rand on the source of values:

“Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions—and you’ll learn that man’s mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.”
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/money.html


You must not very familiar with her works.

She is saying: Ideas, not force, is the source of the world of wonders we life in....and if she’s wrong about that, then Mankind is doomed, let alone her philosophy falling apart.

Simply put: The mind is the source of all values, not muscles.

 

Really: “It is in regard to a free market that the distinction between an intrinsic, subjective, and objective view of values is particularly important to understand. The market value of a product is not an intrinsic value, not a “value in itself” hanging in a vacuum. A free market never loses sight of the question: Of value to whom? And, within the broad field of objectivity, the market value of a product does not reflect its philosophically objective value, but only its socially objectivevalue.”
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/market_value.html

In other words: The market valuing pop stars over scientist doesn’t the deny the metaphysical value of scientist over pop stars.

Nor is the fact the gold is mined and art is created make any philosophical or economical difference; each requires a thinking mind, and it’s that which gives it value.

 

Nietzche hinted at egoism as well, but he would have seen Rand as purely "Apollonian." He thought that man needed both Apollonian (purely rational, logical, etc.) aspects in life and Dionysian (ecstatic, non-rational, egoless) aspects. Like Rand he saw the need for Romanticism after the Enlightenment, but yes, the comparisons are over-exaggerated. It isn't even clear if Rand had ever read Nietzche, and I believe she claimed that she hadn't. She certainly would have rejected his indirect realist epistemology.

 

Kazenatsu's observation in no way requires what you mention above. He's basically talking about the tragedy of the commons, which, yes, posses a problem for ethical egoism.

 

I grew up during the Cold War and had older members of my family who fought the Communists in North Korea and Vietnam, so I was well aware of what Socialism was by the time I read Anthem in 1986. At that point the crumbling edifice of the Communist Bloc was beginning to crumble all around us - three years later the Berlin Wall would fall and the protests in Tiananmen Square were taking place, and five years later the Soviet Union ceased to exist. In fact, this November 9th will mark the 30th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall - be sure to catch the commemorations.

Which brings me to the problem we face today - how did Communism/Socialism survive the fall of the Communist Bloc? Why are we seeing history's mistakes being repeated in Venezuela and why do the socialists in the United States and elsewhere wish to repeat them in our own countries? The late French philosopher Jean Francois-Revel explored this in book you might want to consider reading titled Last Exit to Utopia: The Survival of Socialism in a Post-Soviet Era. Here are a few quotes, including the notes from the book jacket:

Back to your post:

Nice list. I was wondering if you had exposed yourself to Mises' work yet. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom is a classic, too - Chapter 12, The Socialist Roots of Nazism, is particularly informative. Historian George Watson explored the same subject in this article that you should read when you get a chance:

Hitler and the Socialist Dream
http://socialismtoday.info/blog/2018/01/15/hitler-socialist-dream/

As I mentioned earlier, you might want to study the history of Socialism and Communism - there are plenty of books and articles for you to choose from. Soviet scholar/historian Robert Conquest traced its philosophical origins all the way back to Plato, although the proto-socialist movements in England (the Levelers and Diggers) and the birthplace of the Modern Left in revolutionary France, led by the Godfather of Socialism, François-Noël Babeuf and la société des égaux, would come centuries later.

I just read a fascinating book about the history of Western liberalism, Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism, by scholar Larry Siedentop, that you might want to add to your list. It's a dense, difficult read but it's well worth the effort. The book begins with Ancient Greece and ends around the Renaissance and Protestant Reformation - pretty much at the dawn of the Modern Era - and it might shatter all your preconceived notions about what preceded and led to the Enlightenment. If I have one bit of advice for you in your studies, and its relevant to Siedentop's unorthodox thesis, it's keep your mind open and be prepared to unlearn what you have already learned. Don't allow yourself to become rigid ideologically. One of my few criticisms of Ayn Rand is that she allowed this to happen to herself.

Again, my congratulations to you, Appleo. It's young people such as yourself who give me faith in the future. Always know that your older brothers and sisters in spirit and intellect are with you. Don't ever be afraid or too shy to seek our knowledge, insights and advice.

 

But that’s what it is... it’s objective.

I really enjoyed listening to this video:

 

That's a great list, too, xwsmithx.

Coincidentally, I happen to be reading Locke's Two Treatises of Government, and the work that he refuted in his First Treatise is Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, or the Natural Rights of Kings.

 

Another book you might want to add to your list is David Horowitz's The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America's Future. It's a little outdated - 1998 - but it contains timeless gems such as this:

I would argue that radical nihilism is a war of destruction with no other objective than destruction - which is pure unadulterated Nihilism.

Interestingly enough, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky explored this in his semi-historical book Demons (or The Possessed), which is set in pre-revolutionary Russia. If you study history, you'll find that revolutions such as the ones that took place in France (the birthplace of the Modern Left) and Russia, were preceded or accompanied by destructive Nihilist currents that resulted in the extreme human and social excesses that took place in both countries. You can see some of that Nihilistic current running here in America



Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn observed the manifestations of this Nihilism in one of the quotes I cited earlier.

 

Right wingers love to idolize Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn but fail to note that he remained a socialist (like Lenin) and a nationalist (like Hitler and Trump):

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/solzhenitsyn-wasnt-western/


Note that once again my source is CONSERVATIVE.