"objectivism" my leathery, scaly fanny. Call it what it is: psychopathy

Yankadian shrugged.

"Luckily for me he doesn't agree with the game, he still seems to believe in objectivism."

Of course all teenage boys seem to believe in rational selfishness.

Shouldn't one's personal philosophical explorations take place in the context of reality?

He won't let his son play Grand Theft Auto, but he'll let him play Bioshock, where you can set female nurses on fire and then fling them into electrified water and watch their flailing bodies scream and die. Good call Doc!

N.B. I love both games.

We do not forgive. We do not forget.

Whoops...

Ayn Rand Institute!!!!!
So funny, yet so sad.
Overwhelming stupidity overwhelms.

#1 Takuan

Did we really need to know? Perhaps some lotion would help? ;)

This is as good a place to mention: I've always thought of Cory as a character from an Ayn Rand novel, and not one of the good guys.

Why do critics of Objectivism and Rand always resort to terms like "stupidity" and "psychopathy?"

Those are fine, descriptive terms if you're making fun of a religion. Since you can't prove a negative, you can't argue against someone's idea of God. Of course, you can criticize specific doctrines like creationism, but when confronted with the purely-spiritual side of things, there's nothing to do but throw up your hands and mock the practitioner mercilessly.

But this is a philosophical question, right? Why do people feel the need to treat Objectivism like Scientology? If you argue that selfishness isn't a valuable survival trait, then you might as well be a creationist, because you apparently occupy the same reality.

Disclaimer: I'm not a "Randroid" myself and don't have strong opinions one way or another about her writings (except that it sucked) or Objectivism in general (except that it seems to work in practice, if not in theory). I just don't understand the hipster practice of attacking a philosophy as if it were an undecidable religious matter.

#9, that probably makes some sense. Cory is from Canada and there are very few Libertarians here. Even the Conservative Party mostly agrees that socialized health care is a good idea. I haven't read Ayn Rand's books, but it's my understanding that in them, bad guy = not Libertarian. It's also my understanding that his parents are Trotskyists.

>Why do critics of Objectivism and Rand always resort to terms like "stupidity" and "psychopathy?"

That's simple: It's because they think Rand Objectivists are stupid and psychopathic.

That's simple: It's because they know Rand Objectivists are stupid and psychopathic.

Fixed.

#13: Well, so are Communists, but you didn't see us arguing against Communism that way, even though its practitioners actively worked for the destruction of a big chunk of humanity.

Neither Communism nor Objectivism is a good fit for human nature, but it's odd that the latter reduces otherwise-intelligent people to the level of howling, drooling rednecks. If it were so pernicious and wrong, you'd think there would be, well, objective ways to get that point across.

#5 Anaxaforminges

I like both games as well and your point as to the horrible things you can do to the nurses (why is their gender important though?) is well taken however, in Bioshock those nurses are actively attacking you and arguably barely or possibly not even human anymore whereas in GTA most of what you do affects harmless pedestrians.

Were I to raise a child I too would feel that it was an ok lesson that they defend themself (in a gruesome fashion) from attacks by genetically spliced monsters but that they refrain from killing random folks walking or driving on the street

To #14,

Both sides do it, though at least the individualists are rational. I have never read an objectivist screed anywhere near as mind bendingly irrational, emotional, and bigoted and intolerant to all who disagree as almost everything I have ever read written by a communist or socialist. Ask yourself who ships more people to gulags and commits more genocide -- the practitioners of which ideology? Then you have your answer as to who is more howlingly idiotic.

Collectivism is a house of cards built on a shaky foundation, it never lasts because ultimately we are and always will be individuals. It's the default human mode, it's objective, and it works .

#14: There is simply no need to make an objective point here. No one is debating Rand philosophy. It's ridiculousness speaks for itself and is generally understood and accepted. Only the very young and serious wingnuts (might include the president) take it seriously.
I mean, you're not trying to defend it.
Maybe you have a problem with people laughing at it?

#15 I too, feel that it would be an ok lesson for my children to learn to defend themselves (in a gruesome fashion) from attacks by genetically spliced monsters.

@ #14:

Hell yes we argue. I'm a Democratic Socialist and I think Russian Communism was an abomination. I rank Stalin as Hitler's equal in monstrosity; 20 million dead is 20 million dead, no matter how fancy the methods were.

@ #16:

No country has, as of yet, tried to implement Objectivism on the scale or to the degree that Russia attempted with Communism. I doubt that a society of selfish mistrust and brutal predation would last any longer or be any less savage than one of widespread totalitarian horror. Neither respects the value of human life.

misunderstood genetically spliced monsters

#17,

I'm not really convinced that serious wingnuts are all that objective when it comes to personal issues, just the economic side of things. Religion is a form of collectivism.
People on the left tend to be collective on economics, individualistic on personal issues.

I think you can safely say that someone from either side can be a "wingnut".

Kicky,

Do you think Hitler and Stalin ideologically were much different? As far as I can tell, they weren't. They were both near total collectivists on everything.

I never got the impression that Rand advocated a lawless society built on selfishness and predation, that's a distortion commonly attributed to her by her detractors. I think, like all ideologues she resorts to the most extreme examples of her sides behavior and the other sides behavior to make the point that much clearer.

It's obvious collectivism is necessary and we all crave and need some form of it to have a civil society. I just happen to think we really don't need so damn much of it. The more you have, the less freedom and sustainability you have because personal responsibility is replaced by a phony "collective" responsibility -*cough* socialism *cough*- and then the whole rotten ass mess falls through the floor and is closely followed by years of war and revolution and the entire cycle begins again.

@ JCD,

Not really. Hitler was a Keynesian, putting him in the centre of the economic scale. Stalin was a Communist, putting him far to the left.

You're using "collectivist" in a funny way, there. I think that you might be attributing evil to the wrong area. The way they abused their power and the collapse they engineered in the value of human life (a term I borrow from Martin Amis's Koba the Dread, a book I'm sure you'd love) is the root of their monstrousness. Economic policy comes after, not before.

Let's not fight, okay? I have Majora's Mask to play and David Attenborough to watch.

I know very little of objectivism but Brook's quote rubs me the wrong way. Partly I'm just the type who is loathe to give my personal scruples and outlook a nice tidy name, and partly I'm a gamer who is tired of all the Grand Theft Auto bashing.

For the record, nothing I've seen in the 3-D GTA games has been as disturbing as the "Hot Dog Homicide" mission about 2/3 of the way through the two-dimensional second game in the series, and I've played through most of them (and loved them.)

ooh, but "I think, like all ideologues she resorts to the most extreme examples of her sides behavior and the other sides behavior to make the point that much clearer."

Stereotyping, yes. Makes me nervous. And the responsibility to other is not phony. Without other people I will die; I cannot avoid that fact, no matter how much bottled water I store or how many survivalist courses I take.

And I don't see Sweden collapsing, dude. Or dudette. Whichever.

I enjoyed the discussion, not looking for a fight. Have a good night.

Lol, ok. Socialism is NOT responsibility to the other, responsibility is predicated on freedom to choose who and when to support and what for. Socialism removes freedom from the equation.

It's ok if you don't want to argue, we're not going to agree anyway. Like I said I do anjoy the discussion though.

Yaron Brook seems like a nut case attention seeker. If he hadn't glommed onto Rand, he'd be Fred Phelps or Ward Churchill.

Objectivism was the personal reaction of Rand upon coming to America from Russia (becoming a screenwriter, no less). Like Communism, and now Capitalism, it started as a utopian ideal, then devolved into corruption and a Cult of Personality, as Rand seduced a married follower, then made all sorts of rationale for it.

At its theoretical best, it is incidental altruism; in practice, it leads to things like Enron and the Iraq war,both of which were fought over John Galt's sign--$.

...and, yes, around age 20, I had my Ayn Rand phase;>

Why psychopathy?

here's Dr. Hares checklist. Run through it as you think of any "Objectivists" you may have known.

"Hare's items

These items cover the affective, interpersonal, and behavioral features. Each item is rated on a score from 0 to 2. The sum total determines the extent of a person's psychopathy[3]

Factor1: Aggressive narcissism

1. Glibness/superficial charm
2. Grandiose sense of self-worth
3. Pathological lying
4. Conning/manipulative
5. Lack of remorse or guilt
6. Shallow affect
7. Callous/lack of empathy
8. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
9. Promiscuous sexual behavior

Factor2: Socially deviant lifestyle

1. Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
2. Parasitic lifestyle
3. Poor behavioral control
4. Lack of realistic, long-term goals
5. Impulsively
6. Irresponsibility
7. Juvenile delinquency
8. Early behavior problems
9. Many short-term marital relationships
10. Revocation of conditional release

Traits not correlated with either factor

1. Many short-term marital relationships
2. Promiscuous sexual behavior
3. Criminal versatility"

And Noen,I've been waiting , pants around ankles,for sometime now. I hear Ponds is nice.

People tend not to read Ayn Rand's statements in context. The stark terms and forcefulness of her writing also tends to polarize--it especially pushes the buttons of collectivists, who feel Objectivism is a personal attack against them. Then there are the seemingly random and insane asides throughout her writing, like when she compares cigarette smoking to Prometheus' theft of fire from the gods. It's easy to get sidetracked when you're reading Ayn Rand.

If you really examine the totality of her message, though, it's not so out of place among ancient spiritual texts.

Her choice of words was deliberately confrontational. She wanted to reclaim words from the mystics and collectivists, but she ended up only confusing them.

The Objectivist notion of "selfishness" was never about greed. Rand said that a moral man would never sacrifice a higher value for a lesser one.

Promoting the "ego" is supposed to be wrong, but what Ayn Rand promoted was reason--the only effective means of controlling the ego. The ideal man in her universe was a spiritual master in total control over his mental faculties. It was the collectivists who allowed their egos to lead them around like puppets on strings.

The great flaw of Objectivism, in my view, is that there's no beginner level. You're either the ideal human being or you're evil, and there's no clear path of how to get from one stage to the other.

Takuan you can take any 15-20 items from your lists and apply them to almost everyone you know, regardless of their particular chosen ideology.

Moonbat -

Agreed. Though in regards to your last paragraph I think she leaves this up to the reader to determine on their own, I don't really believe that we are to assume anything less than the ideal is truly evil, just varying shades of it. I don't think even Rand was that absolutist.

if you know someone who that many of those items apply to a significantly noticeable level - well, don't say you weren't warned.

I work in the mental health field. That's how I roooolll.

Objectivism the movement/cult/institute/etc. = super annoying, dumb, and contradicts Ayn Rand's own ideas.

objectivism the set of ideas = works for me.

Who is Cory Doctorow?

My problem with Ayn Rand, and I read her in high school too, is that she can't write a novel, and yet wrote many of them now considered classics. She gives a bunch of paper-thin characters and lame plots where the good guys are all good, bad guys are all bad, and everything in the world works out exactly the way she wants it to. That's not literature, it's not even philosophy - it's just bad, boring propaganda. I'm so glad I read a 50-page radio speech from John Galt, too.

However, I know one died-in-the-wool Objectivist, and she's a wonderful person. Not at all a psychopath and likely smarter than anyone here calling Objectivists stupid. People are more complex than their beliefs, or one of their beliefs. That does not, however, stop anyone from calling out Objectivism on more objective grounds. If it's bad philosophy, and I think that, like all other philosophies that promote elitism, it is, then you can say so without stooping to idiotic ad hominems.

Now Bioshock? Objectively awesome.

Who is Cory Doctorow?

Just some guy, I hear he has a blog.

It's true that people are more complicated than their beliefs but one's belief system is a leading indicator that tells others something about you. Objectivism is bad philosophy because it's really a religious/political ideology wrapped up in the trappings of scientific atheism. Objectivists don't do philosophy, they are just antisocial jerks who can point to a system of thought and rationalize their greed and their will to power.

"like all other philosophies that promote elitism, it is (bad philosophy)"

Why should the incompetent hold power over the competent?

Why shouldn't the good be recognized as such?

"Objectivists don't do philosophy, they are just antisocial jerks who can point to a system of thought and rationalize their greed and their will to power."

Identify five Objectivists and explain how they use rationalist philosophy to justify their greed and will to power.

As someone who considers himself a democratic socialist, I should point out that the overwhelming majority of Marxist and socialist scholars have dealt with the issue of distancing themselves from Stalin--this has been a major topic since the 1930's, and you can see it in writers such as Arthur Koestler or George Orwell.

However, in the discussion of the legitimacy of Objectivism, no one has yet brought up the fact that Objectivism is neither wholly original nor was it willing to submit itself to rigorous academic scrutiny (Rand refused to publish in peer-reviewed philosophical journals).

Objectivism is easily cribbed from a number of sources. Their rejection of metaphysics is straight from A.J. Ayer and Logical Positivism. Their social philosophies are straight from David Hume and Herbert Spencer, among others, and the economic principles in Objectivism are basic Adam Smith and Laissez-Faire capitalism.

I suppose if you want to praise Rand, she did combine them and give them the spin of a religious zealot.

However, just as communism's primary fault was to ignore the problem of human greed, the problem with libertarian and Objectivist philosophy is that gives greed free reign, in all of its worst possible manifestations. I think that in actual social practice, I'd much rather live in a society that recognized the value of social community and derived moral judgments from an ethical, community-oriented approach. Ultimately, crass individualism leads to the psychopathic belief in social Darwinism.

the overwhelming majority of Marxist and socialist scholars have dealt with the issue of distancing themselves from Stalin

Good luck with that. They've failed to do so for 70 years and will continue to fail.

@10

I don't typically use those terms but I'm overwhelmed by the number of Randian fanboys. I studied Philosophy for 6 years, and I've never stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, but, in terms of validity of argumentation, Rand gets low marks when compared to thinkers like Aristotle, Kant, Plato, Descartes, numerous philosophers of science, etc. That's probably why in all those classes I took, Rand was never on the reading list. I had to go out of my way to read some of that stuff. I also saw some film of her at an interview, and her responses to the questions were circular and question-begging. Those are the sort of responses you'd expect to hear from someone who has a definite coherent view, but of a made-up world that we don't live in.

So what attracts people to Rand? Probably the fact that her stuff is wrapped in a fictional scenario where certain points of view are appealing. But once you start believing that the real world is a Rand novel, that's where you've gone wrong.

#39 Identify five Objectivists and explain how they use rationalist philosophy to justify their greed and will to power.

Duh, OK, I'll bite: Uncle Miltie Friedman. A well-known Ayn Fayn whose beneficent influence is rather thoroughly covered in Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine". At least go read the wikipedia entry. It's all there: Milt's retread monetarism has been the shield for several generations of greedy swine.

Be sure to read the "Criticism" section, which contains a real howler. Uncle Miltie basically tries to argue that, since the inhuman oppression and butchery of the Pinochet dictatorship his ideas helped create for Chile was eventually replaced by a democracy, therefore all of his ideas are vindicated. This is like Attilla the Hun making a bid for a Nobel Peace Prize based on his brilliant and innovative approach to population pressure in pre-Medieval Europe.

Come to think of it, I guess we could also use Klein's book to answer upthread claims about there being no widespread implementation of Objectivist ideas similar to those that have happened with Marx's ideas. As Klein demonstrates, all of Miltie's politico-economic rugrats, from Reagan on, are still running around setting policy for governments all over the world, and are arguably winning over every alternative.

But I won't go there. Doing so would, of course, treat us to the spectacle of Objectivists on this thread immediately trying to claim that "these are not really truly Objectivist" societies -- much like all my old Marxist buddies would try to do with Russia and China and North Korea, as we sat around drinking lemonade on a sunny afternoon and discussing the societal benefits of mass murder.

Don't you just love politics and economics? Yeah, me neither.

I've always miss read her name as Aryan Rand.

For most of my existence I only remembered the name as such, and knew nothing about it till a few years ago.

I've never considered myself a philosophic fashioniste, and the closest i came to looking directly into philosophy was reading about stoicism.

Philosophy has always been a two headed monster. In that some people adopt a philosophy in an attempt to change the world around them, and others have used philosophy as a way of rationalizing the world around them.

The difference is in that one sees the potential of reality and the other simply trys to codify current reality. I think that it's the same as idealism and pragmatism.

We all know that the founding fathers of America wanted all beings to be born and created, and treated equally, but reality suggests this isn't true. And I've yet to come to a conclusion as to whether a delusion of equality is a good thing.

We can do a lot of harm when we expect more from individuals than they're capable of, and we can also keep people from realizing their potential by smothering them with platitudes.

With all that said, I don't like ayn rand, but I also don't have any real basis to this opinion except on what she helped foster and create. The only people i know that liked her stuff seemed like selfish and emotionally troubled people.

The emotionally troubled people pick up on it because they've tried to work in society and find themselves put down time and again, and it's likely a panacea for their troubles. They say to themselves, "If only other people could see my self-worth, then they wouldn't harm me as so".

The selfish on the other hand use it as a way to justify the means. As they can easily suggest that they were just doing things that made them feel better, even when what they're doing is off loading grief, pain and other emotions onto other people.

I suppose this view point is relativist. Yet I can't really pull myself away from the idea that finding a way to effectively value the way in which we currently live, and not the potential of evolution, is still a very needful trait, and if we ever lose it, we enter just another dystopia.

Collectivists lash out at Ayn Rand because they feel personally attacked. They're free to behave however they want (they believe) because she started it. (This is the same reason they lash out at Andrew Keen in a similar fashion.) It all comes down to a mistaken priority placed on the ego.

When you assert that others owe you something--that the competent must support the incompetent--what are you doing? You're projecting "your" needs (the needs of your ego) into the outside world and trying to control that which you do not control and which you have no right to control. Properly understood, that goes against every spiritual teaching.

The second-hander draws his sense of well-being from the approval of others. What is the approval of others? It is sheer delusion. It's the story you tell yourself about yourself, multiplied by ten thousand; but zero times any other number always equals zero.

Every religion tells us to withhold our own judgment and accept the judgment of God. How can we determine the judgment of God? Only through the application of reason. Only through the scientific method. Anything else is just kidding ourselves. Mystic and collectivist systems do nothing more than allow the ego to run wild, asserting control over that which it has no right to control. Far from egotistical, rational self-interest is the most selfless of all thought.

The enlightened free market capitalist is today's bhakti yogi, today's zen master.

It only unfortunate that few "enlightened free market capitalists" exist. It's unfortunate that so many people think libertarian is synonymous with Objectivist and that one can take a few catchphrases disconnected from any philosophy and pretend that's a sound basis for living a moral life.

The ultimate question is whether suicide can be considered a selfless act.

I'm just hear to note that if you think sexual promiscuity portends psychopathy, you're fucking crazy.

I used to read Rand's stuff with quite a lot of passion, and while I think she's a really interesting person, I have the same trouble with Objectivism as I do all schools of thought - they always have trouble when their absolutes are deployed into a world made up of shades of gray and a universe that cares no more for rationalism than it does emotional or spiritual modes of thought.

That 2-cents pitched, I was blown away by use of Objectivist rhetoric and the obvious winks to Rand (Andrew Ryan's name, for one) in the storyline. It made the game an intellectual as well as a sensory experience. It doesn't matter much the philosophy in play, I just like to see big and sometimes confrontational ideas in games.

Cthulhu ftagn

#45 MOONBAT

Nice strawmen ya got there. Looks like you're having fun setting them up, knowing them down. But... yawwwwwn... I think it's kinda boring myself.

#47 Joel Johnson

It's just one of many indicators but in general, a high level of sexual acting out is a red flag that something is wrong.

#45 Moonbat

I'm pretty sure you just outed yourself as a psychopath. You don't recognize the value of human life or demonstrate any kind of empathy whatsoever. Functional human beings can recognize another human being at a disadvantage, understand their plight, and generally want to help.

You, on the other hand, judge them as incompetent and assert that they deserve to suffer and die for not being as powerful as you. You see a man in a wheelchair and sneer at his broken legs.

> outed yourself as a psychopath

Or a corporation. Same behavior, different stockholders.

I think sacrificialgoat proved that the internet makes people psychopathic. As opposed to empathic.

"I'm pretty sure you just outed yourself as a psychopath. You don't recognize the value of human life or demonstrate any kind of empathy whatsoever."

What???

"You see a man in a wheelchair and sneer at his broken legs."

What the hell???

This deserves no response. I simply want to draw attention to what was written, so that thinking people can condemn it.

Please note that sacrificialgoat is not a strawman. He is a real person--and you can either condemn him or tacitly support him.

Commenters number one, three, four, and seven are not strawmen either. Nor is number 50. Nor was Cory Doctorow a strawman when he smeared Andrew Keen.

How exactly am I supposed to feel empathy for someone who has none?

"When you assert that others owe you something--that the competent must support the incompetent--what are you doing? You're projecting "your" needs (the needs of your ego) into the outside world and trying to control that which you do not control and which you have no right to control. Properly understood, that goes against every spiritual teaching."

I simply want to draw attention to what was written, so that thinking people can condemn it.

Your argument is that those less able are making some kind of predatory power grab by asking for help. What the hell???

"I know you are, but what am I?"

Infinity.

"Your argument is that those less able are making some kind of predatory power grab by asking for help."

No, my argument is what I wrote. You're trying to argue a different issue, because your ego is bruised.

If you were ask me about what other people have written, then, yes, that is roughly the argument against collectivist social policy. Just replace "asking for help" with "demanding time, money, and labor at gunpoint while simultaneously devaluing competence in all its forms."

When fat people demand "equality" of beauty, they are devaluing competence.

When ignorant people demand "equality" of knowledge, they are devaluing competence.

Broken legs are not the only handicap for which collectivists demand "help" from the competent.

Personally, I see no problem with helping people who have broken legs. It's the intellectual and moral handicaps of the mob that trouble me.

All of your arguments boil down to "when x people demand equality, they are denying that I am better than them and therefore entitled to all I can take"

The second-hander draws his sense of well-being from the approval of others. What is the approval of others? It is sheer delusion. It's the story you tell yourself about yourself, multiplied by ten thousand; but zero times any other number always equals zero.

This sums up the ethical immaturity of objectivism as well as its absolutism. It relies on the idea that we are not a social species and that "every man is an island." It denies the complexity of what creates a rich and fulfilling life even for an individual, much less society as a whole.

Moonbat - I don't think "Strawman" means what you think it means. I think you are confusing that with "sockpuppet".

Your argument is that those less able are making some kind of predatory power grab by asking for help.

That does seem to me to be a fair criticism of Objectivism. It is certainly a pathological view of humanity though I'm not sure (don't feel qualified to say) that it rises to the level of full blown psychopathology.

Moonbat, for virtually all of human history people have lived in small groups where everyone relied upon and depended on each other in order to survive. One of the central conceits of Ayn Rand, Objectivism, Libertarianism et al is the belief in an extreme form of rugged individualism. "Community? We don't need no stinkin' community." Usually put forward by pudgy white males from their mom's basement. Power fantasies by the powerless.

It's a delusion hun, you wouldn't last five days in the wild.

Millman, you should know that the paragraph you quoted relies much more on Hindu scripture than on the writing of Ayn Rand.

Noen, I've tried to ignore you for the last few comments now.

Please assume that I disagree with everything you've written and ever will write, unless I state otherwise.

You should probably know that we're all perfectly content to get ignored because we know you'll grow just out of it anyway :o]

#50 Noen
Re: #47 Joel Johnson

I believe what Joel was wittily suggesting was:

(Sexually Promiscuous) + (Psychopath) == (Fucking) + (Crazy)

ho ho :)

Do I really have to go through these comments and list all of the "claims" to show how many are baseless and insulting?

Why don't you just admit that you conduct yourselves in a shameful manner, apologize, and try hard to do better?

What is missing? What knowledge could I add to you that would make you a decent person?

I've only known two devoted fans of Ayn Rand in my life, two people who'd volunteer that they were Objectivists to anyone who'd listen.

One was a homeless man who begged for money at my subway stop and slept at its foyer (when he wasn't in jail). The other was a friend who majored in philosophy, never got a job, and lived with his mother until the day he committed suicide. I wonder which kind Moonbat is?

Before that, my only experience with Rand was reading "The Fountainhead" for some essay contest put on by the Ayn Rand Institute promising scholarships to high school students. Having finished it, I committed my one and only act of vandalism against a book (to my eternal shame now that I've become a librarian), and poured hydrochloric acid on it during chem lab. It was truly the most pernicious and tendencious piece of bloviating agit-prop it had ever been my displeasure to read, and I was angry to have let my greed sucker me into wasting time on it, when clearly the essay contest was just a thinly veiled recruitement drive among a vulnerable demographic (angsty geeky teens).

"Why should the incompetent hold power over the competent?"

Let's phrase statements so that they mandate tautological answers!

The obvious answer is that they shouldn't, of course. But the unassumed elitism of Objectivism splits all human beings into two categories - the incompetent ("looters") and the competent. Rand and other Objectivists play language games to bias the approach to their already decided categories. Incompetent and competent at WHAT, is my question. I'm reminded of the scientific experts in the UK arguing for eugenics - sterilization of the mentally "incompetent" - and a certain priest said, "I'm a moral expert, and I find you all to be morally incompetent!" Elitism is stupidly polarizing, and rarely takes into account the nuances (this is not relativism I'm arguing!) of human existence and behavior. So yes, if all you care about is material success, then of course the economically competent should rule the economically competent. But if we notice that there are other ways to define human value (and additionally that the multiplicity of such definitions argues for a fairly wide definition, such as species-wide) and additionally that those who most want power are those least likely to do well with it, then, I will say that I am against Objectivism, its oversimplified values, and its unnoticed assumptions.

"Why shouldn't the good be recognized as such?"

Define "good" in a way that no one can disagree with you.

Oh hey.

I'm all for accuracy, but most Objectivists tend to look like this:

http://www.affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/Horse_with_blinders_small.jpg

I'm sure you look very well, as long as you're looking in the direction you want to look.

Oh yeah, I've never seen "tendentious" spelled "tendencious" although it's listed as a correct spelling in the dictionary. Is that British?

What is it with the anti-Objectivists that make Objectivism seem so suddenly attractive? It might be the tendency to take any attempt at rational discourse and turn it into a name-calling contest.

Empathy is something that is felt by mentally-healthy human beings as a chemical response to seeing other objects in a state of dereliction or danger. These objects can be people, places, animals or physical structures. A psychopath is incapable of feeling any of that.

Furthermore, the idea that human life has inherent value, conceptually, is terribly flawed by the fact that life is far too cheap to be valuable. It is a commodity. That's not a judgement of mine, that is a fact. An otherwise healthy four-year-old will die from simple diarrhea while decidedly empathetic people march in futile protest to keep a vegetable on life-support.

So, at least try to attack ideas rather than resorting to name calling.

(disclaimer: I'm an Absurdist, I stopped knowing when I was kidding and when I was being serious a long, long time ago)

Bob the Angry Flower triumphs over the Pirates and Looters.

I see someone else has joined the club.

I plan to do this for all of your comments, so don't feel jealous if you want attention--just wait your turn.

O3 writes: "I've only known two devoted fans of Ayn Rand ...

"One was a homeless man....The other was a friend who majored in philosophy, never got a job, and lived with his mother until the day he committed suicide."

If we were discussing any other topic, or if O3 were arguing for Objectivism, one of you friendly people would call him on his bullshit. Specifically, you would say that personal experience is not scientifically valid and a sample size of two is far too small.

"I wonder which kind Moonbat is?"

O3 rounds it off with the personal attack (or punchline).

"I committed my one and only act of vandalism against a book..."

Finally, he admits to having held this irrational grudge for his entire adult life. I wonder if a short biography would shed some light on this.

The party line at BoingBoing is that collectivism is super and anything anti-collectivism is evil. Therefore anyone who posts anti-collectivist comments (or comments in support or defense of an anti-collectivist) may suffer ostracism, ridicule, devowling, comment deletion, or an IP ban. Anyone who posts baseless and rude comments directed toward an anti-collectivist can expect either explicit or tacit approval. If anti-collectivist comments continue despite all this, comments for the thread may be locked or comments may be disabled entirely. This is how norm enforcement works on all online forums. The process is not unique to this forum or this issue.

Moonbat - The reason you are not being successful here is because you want to preselect the terms of the debate. Your "strawman" is the assumptions that you take as given and assert without proof. When people disagree with you and put forward different assumptions you object but you have yet made no attempt engage in honest debate. Repeating yourself or raising the volume does nothing to further your position.

Real debate involves meeting the other where he or she is at and entering into a discussion. It is not predefining your terms so that all objections are automatically nullified. This is not how things work in the real world. In every intellectual discipline, yes even in mathematics, you have to make assumptions and there is a trade off between theory and pragmatism.

There is no such thing as a complete hermeneutically perfect system. Objectivism attempts to be that system and to the extent that it does it must therefore be false. The mistake that Ayn Rand and all objectivists since make is to confuse the map for the territory. You mistake your description of the world for the world. This is the same error that Logical Positivism and other 19th century philosophies made. They mistook science and mathematics for Nature's Own Language.

#69 posted by UrinalPooper

What is it with the anti-Objectivists that make Objectivism seem so suddenly attractive?

That would be a question for you to answer. Why do you feel attracted to something simply because it is unpopular?

...the idea that human life has inherent value, conceptually, is terribly flawed by the fact that life is far too cheap to be valuable. It is a commodity.

Then you won't mind if I take yours. No? Then I'd suggest there is a flaw in your thinking somewhere.

#71: The party line at BoingBoing is that collectivism is super and anything anti-collectivism is evil.

I don't think that's necessarily the case. The party line, if there is one, is more like, "Blatant stereotyping is OK, since I self-identify as an enlightened liberal." (In other words, I've only known two African-American people in my life. One of them's in prison for rape, and the other was killed by a crack dealer he tried to rip off. I wonder which kind O3 is?)

#66 reminds me of nothing so much as my Baptist friend in high school who, when warned by his youth group leader that his prized copy of Motley Crue's Shout at the Devil glorified Satanism, promptly torched the cassette with homemade gunpowder. The next day, he replaced it with a copy of RATT's Out of the Cellar. When your soul's at stake, I guess you've got to compromise your innermost desires.

still into that participatory reality thing eh?

more mud

"Jorge Moll and Jordan Grafman, neuroscientists at the National Institutes of Health and LABS-D'Or Hospital Network (J.M.) provided the first evidence for the neural bases of altruistic giving in normal healthy volunteers, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. In their research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA in October, 2006,[7] they showed that both pure monetary rewards and charitable donations activated the mesolimbic reward pathway, a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food and sex. However, when volunteers generously placed their interests of others before their own by making charitable donations, another brain circuit was selectively activated: the subgenual cortex/septal region. These structures are intimately related to social attachment and bonding in other species. Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.[8]"

#72 NOEN "Then you won't mind if I take yours. No? Then I'd suggest there is a flaw in your thinking somewhere."

Actually, I wouldn't. I gain no benefit from existing, I only continue because I am convenient to others. (which is a result of empathy)

See, since you obviously love your life you are incapable of considering the philosophical considerations taken by those who have transcended their biological compulsion to be alive in the first place.

Now disengage the pathways your brain has been using to reroute around grim truths and start using some logic.

'kin yew say thet?'

"BRAIN PLASTICITY Capacity of the brain to modify the organization of its neuron networks according to the particular experiences of the body.
Plasticity is the ability of the brain to rearrange the connections between its neurons . It is the foundation of the memory formation and learning processes, and can also be important in compensating for brain damage by allowing the brain to create new networks of neurons. These local changes to brain structure depend on the environment and represent an adaptation to it."

Takuan: does that mean you've rethought your FP? Or...

this conversation is still about how we value things when we're not around to observe them.

I never really read Rand because every person I ever met in real life who was a big Rand fan was a dick and also rather dull. The altruistic folks were more fun to hang with and they threw much better parties.

You know the old saying, "So many books, so little time." So never mind about Rand...

But about psychopaths and borderpaths and Machiavellian types, I just picked up a copy of "Evil Genes" by Barbara Oakley. This is my idea of an interesting book.

nope, nope! ain't sayin thet tat-all, at-all, yessir! jist allowing as how it t'aint so simple, thet's all,

Truth of it is, any who helped me never had to declare their philosophy and any that hurt me didn't matter.

As for my own actions;per St. Vonnegut: Be Kind.

"When you assert that others owe you something--that the competent must support the incompetent--what are you doing? You're projecting "your" needs (the needs of your ego) into the outside world and trying to control that which you do not control and which you have no right to control. Properly understood, that goes against every spiritual teaching."

I just thought I'd point out how completely ass-backwards this is.

"Every spiritual teaching" (this a totally flim-flam category, so whatever...)

"some spiritual teachings" (Christianity, Islam) are very clear about the wealthy giving to the poor. The whole argument there, that YOU are the one doing the demanding, represents the awkwardness of objectivism so well. It's about YOU giving freely to others, not demanding to be given to--and the idea that giving to the needy is somehow reprehensible is certainly not espoused by at least those two major religions.

All of this business about the ego is bizarre as well. Selfishness is the territory of the ego; the idea that it must uphold itself in some sort of battle for survival with others at all times. And that is the core of objectivism.

The idea that objectivism is somehow the heart of rationality ("man is inherently an individual") strikes me as even more insane. Rationality gave rise to democracy, to monarchy, to socialism and communism, all "collectivist" ideas to some degree.

The closest we had to a true objectivist era for mankind was when human beings were fighting for survival in the ice ages. I see nothing utopian about that existence.

nothing funnier than an Objectivist with two broken legs on the floor in front of you with his crutches out of reach

...I never said I wouldn't give them to him... eventually

Pfft, it's in your rational self-interest to charge him 50 bux for the crutches

do you think you could put a price on my satisfaction of making him accept them for nothing?

This is my rough summary of the thread so far. I've paraphrased for brevity and clarity, doing my best not to distort or misrepresent the spirit of any comment. Where I have not offered specific comment, assume that I condemn the poster totally. I didn't quote anything here to say something good about it.

** = anti-abuse comment

If this continues to interest me tomorrow, I'll post some diagrams.

###

1. TAKUAN - "Objectivism is psychopathy."

2. Off-topic comment, or possibly dismissive ridicule.

3. "Objectivism is for teenage boys (implied)."

4. On-topic comment, or possibly dismissive ridicule.

5. On-topic comment.

6. Off-topic comment.

7. "The Ayn Rand Institute is so funny, yet so sad, and overhelmingly stupid."

8. NOEN - Explicit support of comment #1.

9. **MOONBAT

10. **MAN ON PINK CORNER (anti-abuse commenter)

11. Response to #9.

12. Response to #10. Neutral tone. However, gives tacit support to abusive commenters by not condemning them.

13. "Rand Objectivists are stupid and psychopathic."

14. **MAN ON PINK CORNER

15. On-topic comment.

16. **JCD

17. "Objectivism's ridiculousness speaks for itself and is generally accepted. Only the very young and serious wingnuts take it seriously."

18. "Objectivism promotes a society of selfish mistrust and brutal predation and does not respect the value of human life."

These comments were made by an admitted Socialist.

19. TAKUAN - On-topic comment.

20. **JCD

21. **JCD

22. **JCD

23. Response to #21, sub-topic.

Dubious claim: "You're using 'collectivist' in a funny way, there."

People who have a personal stake in controversy tend to claim their ideological enemies have misused words or are incoherent, usually for no good reason.

24. On-topic comment.

25. Response to #22.

26. **JCD

27. **JCD

28. "Yaron Brook seems like a nut case attention seeker. If he hadn't glommed onto Rand, he'd be Fred Phelps or Ward Churchill."

29. "Objectivism was the personal reaction of Rand upon coming to America from Russia."

This is an all-too-common ad hominem attack. The idea is that immigrants from totalitarian societies are unbalanced and come up with crazy ideas--that explains why so many of them support American capitalism and Democracy. Of course, Socialist immigrants are all right in the head.

"In practice, (Objectivism) leads to things like Enron and the Iraq war, both of which were fought over John Galt's sign--$."

The Enron executives were classic Randian villains! This is like pointing to the actions of a Satanic cult and saying, "This is what happens when Christianity is put into practice."

Then, of course, he claims the Iraq was fought over money. Classic, classic, Moonbat shit.

30. TAKUAN - "Objectivism fits X points on the checklist for psychopathy."

This "argument" appeared in an anti-capitalism documentary and was soon after used to smear Bush. It never was a good argument, and at this point it says far more about the person making the claim than it does about any point he might have had.

31. **MOONBAT

32. **JCD

33. **JCD

34. TAKUAN - Response to #32, defending his use of the "psychopathy checklist."

35. JCD

36. Neutral comment.

37. **Anti-abuse comment.

Dubious claims:

"Ayn Rand can't write a novel."

"All philosophies that promote elitism are bad philosophy."

38. NOEN - Response to #37.

"Objectivists don't do philosophy, they are just antisocial jerks who can point to a system of thought and rationalize their greed and their will to power."

39. **MOONBAT

40. Another comment from an avowed Socialist.

"(Objectivism) gives greed free reign, in all of its worst possible manifestations."

"Ultimately, (Objectivism) leads to the psychopathic belief in social Darwinism."

41. Off-topic comment.

42. "University courses don't include Rand on their reading lists because she's a bad philosopher."

"I also saw some film of her at an interview, and her responses to the questions were circular and question-begging."

Of course, I'm sure he can provide examples of Ayn Rand giving circular and question-begging answers. He did see some film of her a