Atlas Shrugged and so did I...

[Roxanne Appleby]

If she's opposing such things as anti-discrimination laws and a social safety net for the non-rich, but proposing the the intrusion of the state into our bedrooms and medicine cabinets, then it should be easy to know what category to put her and Ami both.

Oh puh-lease, Tony. Be advised that when Pure starts using my name in vain and ascribing various positions and associations to me it's with malice aforethought, and bears little relationship to the truth. I have more than 8,000 posts on this site, many of them political, so it's quite simple to determine for yourself what I do and don't think.

In a nutshell, I'm a libertarian, and think that the government should stay out of our bedrooms, medicine chests, businesses and other economic and personal affairs. That includes no subsidies or corporate welfare, no anti-discrimination laws, establishing environmental protection though rigorous and efficient protection of property rights ("what's your soot doing on my lawn or in our river?"), and much more along those lines. I'm not an anarchist but a proponent of limited government.

The reason I think this way is because I believe that command-and-control, one-size-fits-none, fatal-conceit, big government solutions to social problems bring about a net reduction in human well-being, prosperity, freedom and choice compared to the situation that would prevail in their absence.

The explanation for why this is true, I believe, is that big-goverment approaches fly in the face of three "existential" realities:

First, scarcity - resources are and always will be limited, meaning there will be trade-offs, and priorities must be established. (The ultimate scarce resource is time - every human only has so much of it.)

Second, human nature is what it is, and self interest broadly defined is an intrinsic part of it, so "solutions" that require the creation of a "new socialist man" (or "moving beyond homo economicus") are doomed to failure.

Third, every human has unique talents, skills, needs, desires, "holes in their head," etc., and so one-size-fits-all solutions are also doomed. Yet government is big and clumsy and not really capable of anything else.

In addition to not sufficiently appreciating the signifigance of these three points, apologists for statism delude themselves and others by always ignoring the costs of big-government approaches when pointing to the putative or intended benefits of such approaches.

I apologize that the last several paragraphs are a bit abstract, but as I say I've spelled this out in much more detail in other places on this website. Bottom line: When Pure starts characterizing Roxanne's views, it's time to stop reading and move on to the next post.

 

[amicus]

I second that emotion and happily subscribe, in general, to the aforementioned world view.

Happy New Years, Rox, Bon Appetit!


Amicus2K8

 

[SlickTony]

Hey, Rox, if I misinterpreted your views in error, I'm sorry.

 

[Pure]

ami The neverending quest for freedom by man

is certainly advanced, says, ami, by forcing women to bear a rapist's baby.

even ronnie reagan, with half his brain gone, figured this one out.

 

[Pure]

simple question to rox,

ok, you're beset on all sides by statists like myself.

but what, if anything, should be done, in the US, about the apparent reluctance of the poor, esp. black, to marry?

---

sorry if my initial characterization was off, a bit, re marriage. the problem was acknowledged within hours, however, and it was reasonably well fixed soon after. will be interested, if you care to, to hear your views, since i don't remember their details.

it is reasonably clear to me that you do not have the liking for 'blue laws' [legal enforcement of morality] that ami has, though i have not heard you address the 'marriage amendment'.

 

[Pure]

the substance of rox's post

rox In a nutshell, I'm a libertarian, and think that the government should stay out of our bedrooms, medicine chests, businesses and other economic and personal affairs. That includes no subsidies or corporate welfare, no anti-discrimination laws, establishing environmental protection though rigorous and efficient protection of property rights ("what's your soot doing on my lawn or in our river?"), and much more along those lines. I'm not an anarchist but a proponent of limited government.

The reason I think this way is because I believe that command-and-control, one-size-fits-none, fatal-conceit, big government solutions to social problems bring about a net reduction in human well-being, prosperity, freedom and choice compared to the situation that would prevail in their absence.

The explanation for why this is true, I believe, is that big-goverment approaches fly in the face of three "existential" realities:

First, scarcity - resources are and always will be limited, meaning there will be trade-offs, and priorities must be established. (The ultimate scarce resource is time - every human only has so much of it.)

Second, human nature is what it is, and self interest broadly defined is an intrinsic part of it, so "solutions" that require the creation of a "new socialist man" (or "moving beyond homo economicus") are doomed to failure.

Third, every human has unique talents, skills, needs, desires, "holes in their head," etc., and so one-size-fits-all solutions are also doomed. Yet government is big and clumsy and not really capable of anything else.
=====

Perhaps only in the US, does labeling those who disagree as favoring "big governement" work in debate. With this crude brush stroke Carter, Reagan, Bush, Hitler, Churchill, Stalin, and Indira Gandhi are all lumped together.

OTOH, since there are almost no examples of "limited governement" in our time, it's easy to claim that one has a 'limited governement' solution. Usually it's some disastrous idea such as "de regulate" the saving and loan associations, or "privatize airport security.' Proven non starters, but of course the reply would be "piecemeal measures fail, but *wholesale* limited government across the board would certainly work to the glory of the human race." But there's no evidence for this.

Having lumped together all 'big government" approaches from Roosevelt, to Churchill, to Pol Pot, rox finds they ignore certain realities. The fact of various big governments, democratic one, actually dealing with issues, is apparently not relevant to Rox. I mean for example, Norway and Holland. I suspect, for these cases, Rox has the usual American retort: "Europe is a tired old man: its citizens are really unhappy. They suffer from delusions [explaining their voting behavior, re 'big governement', i.e. old age pensions]."

Taking these W. European instances, we can address R's specifics: Do these governments' approaches violate or go against the realities of--

Scarcity. Hardly. The rationing of medical care, providing of free basics, e.g. emergency hospitalization precisely recognizes scarcity. No government allows a consumer to put her $500,000 'plastic surgery' for old-age wrinkles, on the state plan.

Humans as self interested. Citizens of France, Holland, etc are not THAT different from American save in a couple respects: less Jesus talk, and less fear of bugbears conjured up by American politicians, such as 'socialized medicine.' They have private lives. Their children don't have to join the "Young Pioneers." [of Stalin's time]. The 'new socialist man' referred to by Rox, is a fairly desperate attempt to reach back to Stalin's time, in an attempt to meet actual present-day liberal and social democratic arguments.

Unique talents of every humans. Rox conjures up the lock step of Mao's 'great leap forward' and Stalin's 'five year plans.' She ignores such obvious points, such as those in her own premises. A government can only do so much, e.g. provide an infant with adequate medical care. It can attend to basics, the generic medical needs of an infant, as a generic human. After that, her parents can look to 'uniqueness'. If one takes Sweden, whose infants die at half the rate of American ones, one sees that Sweden allows its very young children, at least, to survive, so as later to find uniqueness. The US, favoring 'limited government' in approaching infant health, simply buries thousands of these 'unique' little beings, disproportionately the black ones, every year.

To give some numbers: About 28,000 US infants die each year. Were the US to devise an approach as effective as that of the Swedes, 14,000 [corrected, 17,000] fewer infants would die each year. Taking a less extreme comparison, namely with France or Germany, with their large immigrant populations: Were the US to find an approach as effective as that of the French or Germans, about 9,000 [corrected, 12,000] fewer infants would die each year (corr: i.e. 16,000).

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5422a1.htm

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004393.html
===

Harvard Public Health Now,

Dec 10, 2004.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/now/dec10/apha_infant.html

For the first time in 40 years, the infant mortality rate in the U.S. has increased, with seven out of every 1,000 children born in America dying within their first year of life, according to the annual report "America’s Health: State Health Rankings," issued by the United Health Foundation, together with the American Public Health Association (APHA) and Partnership for Prevention.

The report, available online at http://www.unitedhealthfoundation.org, was released at the APHA meeting in Washington, D.C. on November 8.
[...]
The U.S. infant mortality rate is about double the rate found in Hong Kong (3.1) and Japan (3.4), according to "America’s Health." Those numbers were drawn from a 1999 report from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In that NCHS survey, the U.S. ranked 28th among 37 nations.
==

Interesting analysis, still largely valid, since the data haven't changed much:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/62xx/doc6219/doc05b.pdf

FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO
THE INFANT MORTALITY RANKING
OF THE UNITED STATES
February 1992

Congressional Budget Office

 

[trysail]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aYe2VsLOl7LU

( Fair Use Excerpt )

Ayn Rand Popped Pills, Fooled Greenspan With Blather
Interview by Zinta Lundborg

Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Though Ayn Rand, who liked to flaunt a brooch shaped like a dollar sign, died in 1982, her books are on track to sell two million copies this year. Both big novels - - “The Fountainhead,” and “Atlas Shrugged” -- advance her philosophy of Objectivism, which argues that the sole purpose of life is to be happy and that reason trumps all.

Or let me rephrase that a bit: The sole purpose of life is for superior men to triumph over stupid men and be assisted by compliant women.

Alan Greenspan was among the many who fell under her spell, as Anne Heller relates in her new biography, “Ayn Rand and the World She Made” (Doubleday), where Heller refers to the former Federal Reserve chairman as Rand’s “most famous follower.”

We spoke over lunch at Bloomberg world headquarters in New York...

*****​

...Lundborg: Don’t Rand’s views seem incredibly naive?

Heller: What’s remarkable is that she erected a fantasyland that others stormed into and remained in.

To think Greenspan might actually have bought this stuff for 45 years, while he was at the pinnacle of economic power. It’s impossible to believe!

*****​

 

[Handley_Page]

Apart from which, I've never seen any definition of liberal (capital L or otherwise) that includes 'works for an apparently liberal organisation'.

Would anyone call Tony Blair a socialist?

Only in the same breath as 'Champagne' .
[ the lying little so & so ]

 

[Pure]

i wonder

Third, every human has unique talents, skills, needs, desires, "holes in their head," etc., and so one-size-fits-all solutions are also doomed. Yet government is big and clumsy and not really capable of anything else.

perhaps 'big' IS clumsy. isn't the 'big Mac" the perfect example of 'one size fits all'? McD works, quite explicitly, for standardization.

surely the same applies to Walmart. how are they able to sell a high quality electric drill for 100 bucks?

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=11410371

 

[SlickTony]

There's a lot to be said for standardization. A LOT. As anyone looking around for a place to charge his Razr, when he's surrounded by people with Nokias, can tell you.

Ayn Rand, and the Objectivist movement, were undone by hypocrisy. In Atlas Shrugged, Dagny Taggart left Hank Rearden when she met John Galt; if she'd had the courage of her convictions, or Dagny's convictions, she'd have left Frank, and persuaded Nathaniel Branden to leave Barbara, and they'd have told everybody else to go to hell. But no, she was worried about what they'd say. And then when Branden dumped her she had to give out that he'd betrayed the philosophical ideals of Objectivism, leaving thousands of young Objectivists confused and bewildered and in tears, instead of acting like a halfway normal woman and doing a Carrie Underwood number on his car.

The irony is that Patrecia Wynand, the actress/model Branden fell in love with, looked like most of the heroines in Rand's stories--blonde and thin, with light eyes. Rand hated the way she looked--she wasn't bad looking for her type, but she didn't like her type. That's why the amphetamines--she took them to keep her weight down. I'll bet she'd have undergone a transformation to look like, say, Dominique Francon the way the protagonist did in The Life & Loves of a She-Devil--the British series, not the kinder and gentler American version with Roseann Barr in it--if the technology had been there at the time. (Interestingly enough, it's there now--surgery to add height is getting more and more common in China.)

But then, Rand wasn't a normal woman--I've said upthread that I thought she was an Asperger person, and I'm stickin' to it. The lack of empathy is a fairly common symptom. That's not to say that all people on the autism spectrum lack empathy--they just acquire it late and need people who care about them to pound it into them.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

But then, Rand wasn't a normal woman--I've said upthread that I thought she was an Asperger person, and I'm stickin' to it. The lack of empathy is a fairly common symptom. That's not to say that all people on the autism spectrum lack empathy--they just acquire it late and need people who care about them to pound it into them.

Exactly. It has taken a long life to develop what little understanding I have of other people. And a very patient wife!

 

[SlickTony]

Exactly. It has taken a long life to develop what little understanding I have of other people. And a very patient wife!

Yes, if we had to get all our learning when we were young, we'd be screwed.

 

[YarnSpinner]

I read Rand when I was in college ... sophomore year, I think. I'm an Anarchist ... so I think she didn't go far enough, lol. Don't want to debate anarchy verus government - just stating my stance.

I happen to really dislike Nathanial Brandon. He didn't say they had an affair or come out with his tell all book about Rand until AFTER she died when she was in no position to speak out. So, I take everything he says with a huge grain of salt.

Having said that, I really loved We the Living - her first book. The Fountainhead was ok, but starting to get a little longwinded and boring. Atlas Shrugged ... I was never able to read every page. I skipped a lot. I don't think she was the best writer in the world, but I do like her style.

I also think she has turned off A LOT of people simply because she used words and phrases that tend to stir deep emotions. She was provocative in a negative way. Those deep emotions/reaction, I think, put a wall between most people and Rand's ideas. I also think she should have kept her preferences as a woman to herself, as opposed to coming out with statements like "I'd never vote for a woman president" (said in some interview). As radical as she was, feminist she was not!

I read somewhere that there was a book coming out about Objectivism. It was unique in that this was the first "scholarly" book that looks at Rand's ideas. Apparently, there hasn't been one like this yet.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Well, there's this.

 

[SlickTony]

I read Rand when I was in college ... sophomore year, I think. I'm an Anarchist ... so I think she didn't go far enough, lol. Don't want to debate anarchy verus government - just stating my stance.

I happen to really dislike Nathanial Brandon. He didn't say they had an affair or come out with his tell all book about Rand until AFTER she died when she was in no position to speak out. So, I take everything he says with a huge grain of salt. She'd have sued his ass off, and since those were different times, he probably would not have had the foresight to keep back an unlaundered set of bed linens to back up his assertion. I remember reading that after Patrecia died in a freak accident (mild epileptic seizure + being too close to the edge of the pool) he found a woman of a similar type and he's been married to her. I never read his stuff but I don't wish him ill.

Having said that, I really loved We the Living - her first book. The Fountainhead was ok, but starting to get a little longwinded and boring. Atlas Shrugged ... I was never able to read every page. I skipped a lot. I don't think she was the best writer in the world, but I do like her style.

I also think she has turned off A LOT of people simply because she used words and phrases that tend to stir deep emotions. She was provocative in a negative way. Those deep emotions/reaction, I think, put a wall between most people and Rand's ideas. I also think she should have kept her preferences as a woman to herself, as opposed to coming out with statements like "I'd never vote for a woman president" (said in some interview). As radical as she was, feminist she was not!

I read somewhere that there was a book coming out about Objectivism. It was unique in that this was the first "scholarly" book that looks at Rand's ideas. Apparently, there hasn't been one like this yet.

I can understand where you're coming from WRT Nathaniel Branden and the fact that he didn't come out with Judgment Day until she was dead. She and the collective were, in a manner of speaking, his family--a lot of the kids that joined that cult felt estranged from their own kin and sort of reinvented themselves. And I'll bet you there are a lot of writers out there who are waiting for some of the members of their family to shuffle off before they release something to the wide world. Cuz, face it, your family really doesn't want to know what you think about some things. To publish a work of literature when you're in a family who knows a lot about you and reads and judges what you write is (on a smaller scale of course) a little like being a dissident in a totalitarian country--in the outside world, you're getting kudos and rave reviews and even the Nobel Prize; at home, it's Re-Education Camp, with 10 hours' labor in the rice paddies and self-criticism sessions for 5.

 

[YarnSpinner]

And I'll bet you there are a lot of writers out there who are waiting for some of the members of their family to shuffle off before they release something to the wide world. Cuz, face it, your family really doesn't want to know what you think about some things.

I snipped the part of your response to which I'm writing ... hope that's Ok.

You make a good point. And it may be true. Or he could be more like David Sedaris in his approach about writing on family/friends, and only waited because his information is false. Not that there is any way to tell, of course. Like you said, he didn't keep sheets for proof. But, you do bring up valid points.

I definitely don't deny that Rand was sort of ... unusual, to put it delicately! So, it all could have happened as he claims.

I'm the type of writer who would just write what I think of my family while they're alive ... so waiting to me always seems suspicious! But, then again, my family can't speak or read the language in which I'd be published (if it ever happens) so I feel a margin of safety due to that.

 

[SlickTony]

But, then again, my family can't speak or read the language in which I'd be published (if it ever happens) so I feel a margin of safety due to that.

Well, there ya are.

 

[SlickTony]

I read somewhere that there was a book coming out about Objectivism. It was unique in that this was the first "scholarly" book that looks at Rand's ideas. Apparently, there hasn't been one like this yet.

Wow, Leonard Peikoff would permit it to come out? I'll have to check it out, if it actually goes down.

I always thought David Sedaris was immensely amusing. You say his info is false--how do you know? It's not like I'm challenging you, I'm just curious.

 

[YarnSpinner]

Wow, Leonard Peikoff would permit it to come out? I'll have to check it out, if it actually goes down.

I always thought David Sedaris was immensely amusing. You say his info is false--how do you know? It's not like I'm challenging you, I'm just curious.

Ah, I wrote that a bit confusingly. I meant that Brandon may be like Sedaris in that he doesn't care what family thinks, but waited due to his information being false. I wasn't commenting on Sedaris work, just using him as an example. I apologize for the confusion.

I do love Sedaris, though. I discovered his books in the library, started reading, and had to leave so as not to disturb the other patrons with my loud giggling ... more like cackling.

My dad told me about the scholarly book, I'll have to ask him about it. He's a philosopher, and reads every philosophy book known to man. So, he was pretty interested in this one as it's supposed to be different than others. Not just a "oh Objectivism is so great because ..." but an actual analysis by various scholars/professors not affiliated with the movement. Good point about Peikoff, though! I'll email my dad and ask for the link to where he read it.

 

[SlickTony]

Well, so are Sedaris' stories true or not? I'm still confused?

 

[YarnSpinner]

Well, so are Sedaris' stories true or not? I'm still confused?

lol, my communication skills must have gone by the wayside lately! I should get out more.

I have no idea whether they're true or not. I haven't met him. I always assumed they were true with some exaggeration thrown in for comic affect.

 

[SlickTony]

lol, my communication skills must have gone by the wayside lately! I should get out more.

I have no idea whether they're true or not. I haven't met him. I always assumed they were true with some exaggeration thrown in for comic affect.

Ha! I read in an article written for Atlantic by Sandra Tsing-Loh that Sedaris' mother drank herself into a glaze one time and locked all 5 of her kids out of the house on a snow day.

 

[Pure]

reply to slick

hi slick,

i'm not sure i agree with your assessment, below. people having affairs often do not leave, as you call for. similarly, if AR was pissed about the 'other woman' [or the lying about it], that's understandable.

i'd say what's clear is a kind of imperious quality [not really a defect], accompanying ordinary jealousy, feelings of betrayal, etc. HOWEVER, her habit of trying to 'KILL', or UTTERLY BLACKEN those who fell out with her, is rotten. iirc, she accused Branden of being a lying cheat OUTSIDE of the affair, e.g. haveing stolen money or misappropriated funds.

disagreement is treasonous and a sign of immorality. unfortunately the main Randists, the designated sucessors, such a Peikoff, have this same habit, which causes splintering, as well as the loss of some good people like David Kelley, one of the best philosophers in her group. Kelley in fact disagreed over a central tenet of "objectivism embodied in Rand": that if you reject points of the 'official objectivism,' you are morally corrupt. one is not allowed to be simply a fool for disagreeing, but is also a knave (consciously evil).

all of this amounts to her making herself leader of a cult centered on herself, kind of like Mao, for example. this is ironic given her professed devotion to reason, freedom, laissez faire, minimum state. in effect, she set up a religion *while professing to hate religion and dogma.* we have the paradox(?) of a dogmatic defender of 'rationality' (as she sees it).

otoh, philosophically one can see the issue. Reason is something that can't be opposed, in many ways. Hence anyone who preaches reason, e.g. Kant, is going to tend to brand those who fundamentally disagree, as irrational. a Kantian doesn't simply tell a Benthamite, "you're wrong," but "you're not being rational." [which is next door to being deranged].

j.




slick There's a lot to be said for standardization. A LOT. As anyone looking around for a place to charge his Razr, when he's surrounded by people with Nokias, can tell you.

Ayn Rand, and the Objectivist movement, were undone by hypocrisy. In Atlas Shrugged, Dagny Taggart left Hank Rearden when she met John Galt; if she'd had the courage of her convictions, or Dagny's convictions, she'd have left Frank, and persuaded Nathaniel Branden to leave Barbara, and they'd have told everybody else to go to hell. But no, she was worried about what they'd say. And then when Branden dumped her she had to give out that he'd betrayed the philosophical ideals of Objectivism, leaving thousands of young Objectivists confused and bewildered and in tears, instead of acting like a halfway normal woman and doing a Carrie Underwood number on his car.

The irony is that Patrecia Wynand, the actress/model Branden fell in love with, looked like most of the heroines in Rand's stories--blonde and thin, with light eyes. Rand hated the way she looked--she wasn't bad looking for her type, but she didn't like her type. That's why the amphetamines--she took them to keep her weight down. I'll bet she'd have undergone a transformation to look like, say, Dominique Francon the way the protagonist did in The Life & Loves of a She-Devil--the British series, not the kinder and gentler American version with Roseann Barr in it--if the technology had been there at the time. (Interestingly enough, it's there now--surgery to add height is getting more and more common in China.)

But then, Rand wasn't a normal woman--I've said upthread that I thought she was an Asperger person, and I'm stickin' to it. The lack of empathy is a fairly common symptom. That's not to say that all people on the autism spectrum lack empathy--they just acquire it late and need people who care about them to pound it into them.

 

[SlickTony]

hi slick,

i'm not sure i agree with your assessment, below. people having affairs often do not leave, as you call for. similarly, if AR was pissed about the 'other woman' [or the lying about it], that's understandable.

i'd say what's clear is a kind of imperious quality [not really a defect], accompanying ordinary jealousy, feelings of betrayal, etc. HOWEVER, her habit of trying to 'KILL', or UTTERLY BLACKEN those who fell out with her, is rotten. iirc, she accused Branden of being a lying cheat OUTSIDE of the affair, e.g. haveing stolen money or misappropriated funds.

I don't think that's all that uncommon an attitude--it's just that most people don't have the advantage of being the head of an organization with a vast array of PR people at one's back.

disagreement is treasonous and a sign of immorality. unfortunately the main Randists, the designated sucessors, such a Peikoff, have this same habit, which causes splintering, as well as the loss of some good people like David Kelley, one of the best philosophers in her group. Kelley in fact disagreed over a central tenet of "objectivism embodied in Rand": that if you reject points of the 'official objectivism,' you are morally corrupt. one is not allowed to be simply a fool for disagreeing, but is also a knave (consciously evil).

This is the problem the Republican party is having. Either they've got to acquire a bit of tolerance, or they have to assume an iron rule over their members, with no hint of dissent. But they tried that already, and human nature being what it is, it broke down. Unfortunately, you see this kind of attitude permeating politics in general

all of this amounts to her making herself leader of a cult centered on herself, kind of like Mao, for example. Lots of Queen Bee types do this with the crowd of people they've achieved ascendancy over. As an Asperger girl, she'd have had next to zero chance to do this in high school. So when she had the opportunity in later life, she didn't know when to pull back, bless her poor troubled heart. this is ironic given her professed devotion to reason, freedom, laissez faire, minimum state. in effect, she set up a religion *while professing to hate religion and dogma.* we have the paradox(?) of a dogmatic defender of 'rationality' (as she sees it).

Ironic, indeed, in light of the fact that she viewed objective truth as a self-evident, self-existing concept outside of human perceptions and emotions. Recall my comment upthread about Newton and Gravity: Newton might have discovered and defined gravity, but since/if an objective truth exists outside of human perception, he didn't own it: if he'd been rash enough to balance-walk on the roofbeam of his house, he'd have had the same chance of falling off and breaking his neck as anybody else. You can't own something that exists outside of human perception--you can identify it, discover it, codify it, but you can't rule over it.

otoh, philosophically one can see the issue. Reason is something that can't be opposed, in many ways. Hence anyone who preaches reason, e.g. Kant, is going to tend to brand those who fundamentally disagree, as irrational. a Kantian doesn't simply tell a Benthamite, "you're wrong," but "you're not being rational." [which is next door to being deranged].

(shrugs)Reason has its limits.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Well said. I have long regarded an obsession with 'reason' as no better than blind adherence to any other dogma. Logic is a tool invented by humans, not a universally pervasive force, IMO. Everything we think we know is merely "in light of current knowledge". It can always change tomorrow with some new discovery.