Morals????

[SimonBrooke]

if there are sufficient scientists to do research for medicine, design the technology i use, why should i NOT become the proverbial 'hewer of wood' or 'drawer of water'. when is it rational to say, 'there are enough computer scientists, i'm going to be a street sweeper'?

Having done both jobs, I can answer that: never.

The way quite ordinary people treat you when you are a street sweeper is appalling.

 

[Stella_Omega]

If you want a curved ball, though, it just occurred to me that Ayn, the guru of reason, was one of them unreasonable creatures herself. What do you make of that? Should she be trusted?

She's telling the Big Men how wonderful they are, and how every woman wants to submit to a He Man -- what's not to trust?

 

[Boxlicker101]

Having done both jobs, I can answer that: never.

The way quite ordinary people treat you when you are a street sweeper is appalling.

I remember quite a few years ago, there was a big flap in San Francisco, because streetsweepers were said to be making $17,000 per year. This may not sound like much now, but at the time, it was more than cops or teachers were paid, for very undemanding work. No status to it, but good money, at the time. I would have gladly taken such a job then; it was much better than what I was doing.

 

[amicus]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/conflate

conflate
No entries found that match conflate.
Here is a list of similar words.
One entry found.

'complete'

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conflate

conflate
One entry found.

Main Entry:
con·flate Listen to the pronunciation of conflate
Pronunciation:
\kən-ˈflāt\
Function:
transitive verb
Inflected Form(s):
con·flat·ed; con·flat·ing
Etymology:
Latin conflatus, past participle of conflare to blow together, fuse, from com- + flare to blow — more at blow
Date:
1610

1 a: to bring together : fuse b: confuse2: to combine (as two readings of a text) into a composite whole

~~~
I have noticed this word used by several, I neither use it nor like it; more of a visceral reaction than a rational one, I usually enjoy learning new words and usages, but not this one.


Pure...

. "... here's a problem,
ami,

and i ask open mindedly. your man of reason (and woman with slightly less), how does he decide on his goals. can he *reason* his way to them?..."

I am happy to address the, 'problem', although not in the manner you will most likely appreciate.

Walk with me here, along the, 'universal' trek that all humans engage in, from the instant of conception, (yes, I load my response to include the totality) onward.

A fascinating series of one of the 'geek' channels, "In the Womb", indicates, in broad generalities, that the human embryo. blank slate, tabula rasa, without knowledge or emotion of any kind, is formed and nurtured in the womb and is susceptible to the nature of the environment provided by the mother. This includes the kind and quality of what the mother ingests and breathes, her physical activity and overall health, and at birth, the totality of the environs the new human emerges into.

You may think I belabor the point, but I do not. Studies have shown that a new infant, abandoned, orphaned, raised in a sterile 'white' environment of a hospital, without the tactile attention of a loving mother, becomes sensory deprived and fails to thrive or flourish.

If that child does survive, it does so with a stunted ability to expand sensory use and thus, as the mind thrives only with sensory input of large and varied amounts, the mind fails to develop in a 'natural' manner.

Every second, every minute, day, week and year accumulate to provide this new 'human' with the sensory and mental equipment to arrive at the state of that, 'rational reason' you postulate in your above statement.

Factor in also those early formative years in which the brain is, by nature, best suited to acquire knowledge. It seems, according to a program on my 'geek' channel, that the mental ability to 'learn' a language, exists only for a few short years and then wanes, so that learning to speak is a time critical event in a child's life and the ability to learn a new or second language, also fades rapidly and becomes more difficult as time passes. And that too, depends on the opportunity provided the infant to both hear and mimic speech, 'babytalk', if you will.

None of this essentially changes regardless of where the new human is born and begins life.

The knowledge and skills acquired will vary, of course, with the sophistication of the social group the child is raised in, be it Uganda, New Zealand, Paris, New York City, or Podunk, Iowa. The skill may be how to peel a Yam in a village or change the channels on a television set, they are all acquired in the same, 'universal' human method.

In any circumstance the new human finds itself in, it will learn in a variety of ways that, 'reality bites'. I am sure you can follow my reasoning here, fire burns, water is hot or cold or warm, but always wet, the sun is always warm or hot or it is dark and there is no sun, aspects and glimpses of that absolute, 'reality', that all humans are universally subjected to during the growth period.

The natural ability of the new human child to learn also varies from individual to individual and can be years in difference, with many not ready for a school like regimen until between the ages of five and eight. That depends in part on the quality and quantity of the sensory input available to the child and the, 'freedom' to explore the surrounding reality. A child confined to a crib or a playpen will acquire knowledge at a different rate than a child free to roam and explore on a wider scale as it learns to move its limbs, crawl and walk.

This little trek, as you walk with me, can be tiring and we have only just begun(Karen Carpenter). But we are still some distance from that,'reasoning' individual, capable of making rational choices.

This, taken one way, may add weight to those who think individuals are so different that they have no universal common values. Taken the other way, will open a bright path towards the comprehension that all individuals share the same basic reality and thus do possess an, 'acquired' and universal knowledge of the black and white, yes and no, nature of existence.

I leave it there for the moment as the new space shuttle launch of Atlantis, is now approaching the Hubble Telescope for a repair mission and I want to observe.

Amicus

 

[Pure]

dear ami,

based on reason and reasoning, including investigation of the way the human species lives, how would one rationally decide upon a profession (assuming one's abilities allow several possibilities)?

do you agree with what some would say "well, if someone has a PASSION for music*, and the ability, then that's the way he should go?"

-----


*or designing buildings, or writing children's stories, or... etc.

 

[Boxlicker101]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/conflate

[
You may think I belabor the point, but I do not. Studies have shown that a new infant, abandoned, orphaned, raised in a sterile 'white' environment of a hospital, without the tactile attention of a loving mother, becomes sensory deprived and fails to thrive or flourish.

If that child does survive, it does so with a stunted ability to expand sensory use and thus, as the mind thrives only with sensory input of large and varied amounts, the mind fails to develop in a 'natural' manner.

Amicus

You are essentially right, Ami, but I do have a small quibble. It does not necessarily have to be the baby's mother or even a relative. There are people, mostly women, who go about in a hospital cuddling babies and very young children in order to help them thrive. They are performing a very important function, and I believe it would be a very heart-warming one too. This is for children whose own relatives are not available, for one reason or another.

 

[Stella_Omega]

based on reason and reasoning, including investigation of the way the human species lives, how would one rationally decide upon a profession (assuming one's abilities allow several possibilities)?

do you agree with what some would say "well, if someone has a PASSION for music, and the ability, then that's the way he should go?"

Only in a rising economy.

I have come to the conclusion-- at long long last-- that I can be happy with a day job, and let my creative passions remain creative, instead of production-oriented.

 

[Verdad]

She's telling the Big Men how wonderful they are, and how every woman wants to submit to a He Man -- what's not to trust?

I think that's about right, no kidding about it. I don't have much affinity for her as a philosopher, but she did have a way of painting and promoting a vision that appealed to many. She provided her audience with a mirror that was very seductive to look into, a mirror in which every man looked to himself a couple inches taller. This approach of appealing to humans (though particularly those of male variety!) to realize their full stature she took from one of her idols, Victor Hugo.

 

[amicus]

My apologies for not being attentive over the past day or so, have a daughter undergoing surgery at this moment a thousand miles away, had a long conversation with her last evening and she pretty much fills my mind.

I just want to add a few words after reading the above posts, in that Rand glorified mankind, not just men, but women also. For example the youthful vigor of Dagney Taggart as a teen age girl learning to run a railroad. In Anthem and We the Living, it was also the honor and dignity of a young woman that was the focal point.

It is the genderless human spirit, the quest for truth and dignity that Rand exemplifies in her novels, that knowledge that one can achieve happiness and honor and dignity in life that is and has always been the central theme in her fictional works.

It is also a statement concerning how women can be strong when spineless men fail to uphold the common values of humanity.

amicus

 

[WRJames]

This conversation has taken a few strange turns since the last time I took a look at it. Most of these posts seem to be related to my assertion that there is a dark side to the human character.

Some, like Pure, Stella, and Verdad are saying that this dark side only emerges under exceptional circumstances. I would have to reply, sadly, that these "execeptional" circumstances occur with more frequency and consistency than we would care to admit. We would like to think that we have progressed beyond such horrors. Yet France before the Terror, Germany before the Holocaust, were the most advanced, enlightened cultures of their time.

Certainly, eliminating poverty, ignorance, oppression -- all these are desirable things. But it is naive to think that doing so will eliminate "bad behavior".

Amicus goes beyond this to argue that there IS no innate human nature -- so of course, no problem of latent behavior. My observation raising my own two children is that their personalities were distinctly different, and evident from the very start. There was nothing in their environment to account for such distinct differences. Certainly environment and culture shape us to an enormous degree, but there are innate, inborn factors that cannot be denied.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I don't get how he can state that there is no innate human behavior-- but that there are moral absolutes.

As far as mine, and Verdad's points go, I would say that you misunderstand the nature of "exceptional circumstances." At times those circumstances can be very common.

("France before the terror," by the way, was hardly "enlightened as far as the commoners were concerned. It wasn't a great place to be if you were a peasant-- and most people were.

Germany before the holocaust was in horrible trouble, with inflation running rampant, no jobs for the middle class and a continent's worth of nations who had collectively turned their backs on Duetschland.)

 

[WRJames]

"France before the terror," by the way, was hardly "enlightened as far as the commoners were concerned. It wasn't a great place to be if you were a peasant-- and most people were.

Germany before the holocaust was in horrible trouble, with inflation running rampant, no jobs for the middle class and a continent's worth of nations who had collectively turned their backs on Duetschland.)

It wasn't the starving peasants that created the Terror -- it was a bunch of intellectuals steeped in the Enlightenment.

And while you describe Germany before Hitler, by the time World War 2 started Germany was prosperous once again.

Of course, we could go back in history just a bit. The Native Americans in the Northeast had a culture of recreational warfare. The habits of the Meso-Americans are more widely known.

Rome had a culture based on constant expansion to provide pillage and slaves. The Huns, Mongols, and Tartars were all pillage based cultures -- as were the Vikings.

Of course, at this very moment a large portion of Africa is embroiled in old fashioned conflicts featuring a lot of violence against civilians, particularly women.

Closer to home, gang related violence follows much the same pattern.

These behaviors are so consistent, so universal, so pervasive, that dismissing them as aberrant is hard to do. It might be equally well argued that they are the norm.

Of course, it has been pointed out the typically the kill and rape behavior is aimed at a group of "others" -- and the cure for this might be to make our definition of "us" so all inclusive that there are no "others" who can be victimized.

Unfortunately, just as a building that is too large develops its own internal storms, this universalist approach eventually fails. Plus, it requires us to blur all the diversities that make us human.

 

[amicus]

Box, your post #131, yes, I did not create this out of a vacuum, but discovered in my studies both the non thriving syndrome and the often, 'volunteer' care of women to alleviate the lack of tactile intimacy of abandoned children.

The point is, of course, to illustrate and underline, the 'normative' and universal similarities of not just our species, but many mammals whose young are dependent for varying lengths of time.

If I may extend my thoughts...medical science and the knowledge of human nature did not appear, as if by magic, in easy to read recipe's; the knowledge and expertise, as with all things, came about from the focused, non contradictory pursuit of information, accumulated and substantiated over time. This observation will play a role in addressing several of the posts that follow yours on this thread.

Amicus

 

[Stella_Omega]

James, I think you are confusing two different behavior systems, which look similar. One is the group altruism behavior which helps the group, although that might seem harmful to outsiders. The 'cure' for that is indeed, to extend the definition of the group, and indeed it's easier said than done. *

The other type of violence occurs in individuals, alone, with whatever motive that might be driving that person-- which may be symbolically linked to some group, or might not be.
Given the that Cat's first post was about personal morals, that's the direction I've been thinking this whole time. *shrug*



*I don't know what you mean by "blurring all the diversities that make us human." but I can guess you're complaining about political correctedness... I'm pretty sure you already know what I think about it from a minority POV.

 

[amicus]

based on reason and reasoning, including investigation of the way the human species lives, how would one rationally decide upon a profession (assuming one's abilities allow several possibilities)?

do you agree with what some would say "well, if someone has a PASSION for music*, and the ability, then that's the way he should go?"

-----


*or designing buildings, or writing children's stories, or... etc.

~~~

Let me begin by stating something that will also apply to several following Posts, that seem to place me personally at the nexis of defending reason and rationality as a source of human actions. Although I may be the focal point on this forum, out there in the 'real' world, away from a Porn board, those of reason, while in a minority it seems, do make contributions to the realm of thought and ideas.

You touch upon, I think, an area of interest in genetic inheritance concerning proclivities towards certain aspects of specialization that is of great interest to many.

The current state of knowledge does not provide, as yet, an understanding of how and if, certain proclivities/abilities; art, music, mathematical genius, savants', and anything else, erupts or is present in any given individual.

We do know, that at the beginning of the 20th Century, with the work of Gregor Mendel, inherited characteristics formed a foundation for later experiments in Eugenics, which took a rather unsavory direction.

We also know, with the fairly recent determination that, 'family history', plays a role in determining those women 'more susceptible' to breast cancer, if the disease has occured in other family members.

And of course, in the 'macro' world, if one assumes or, 'believes' certain conclusions to be fact, then, the human mind demanding consistency and congruency, then, certain other conclusions must follow.

I prefer to view my participation here as a search for understanding and truth, but we usually bog down at very basic levels, even as they concern how the mind functions and the nature of life and especially how to define and interpret human nature.

Amicus

 

[amicus]

I think that's about right, no kidding about it. I don't have much affinity for her as a philosopher, but she did have a way of painting and promoting a vision that appealed to many. She provided her audience with a mirror that was very seductive to look into, a mirror in which every man looked to himself a couple inches taller. This approach of appealing to humans (though particularly those of male variety!) to realize their full stature she took from one of her idols, Victor Hugo.

~~~

Your affinity to Rand as a philosopher is a personal choice and totally yours. I would suggest, however, that her portrayal of man as, 'heroic', was balanced by the way she presented the protagonists as 'archetypes', and much like make-up on stage characters that exaggerates perception from a distance.

Critics then and now, find that objectionable as they decry that there is a little good in the worst, and bad in the best. It is rather like sociologists claiming that since no one is, 'perfect', therefore no one should attempt to achieve perfection.

The, 'ideal man', of Rand, is an abstraction, quite like the concept of 'perfection', that enables man, and gives him the incentive to reach higher than he can grasp at the moment.

It is usually referred to as a 'Romantic' view of life and I personally adhere to it.

Amicus

 

[amicus]

This conversation has taken a few strange turns since the last time I took a look at it. Most of these posts seem to be related to my assertion that there is a dark side to the human character.

Some, like Pure, Stella, and Verdad are saying that this dark side only emerges under exceptional circumstances. I would have to reply, sadly, that these "execeptional" circumstances occur with more frequency and consistency than we would care to admit. We would like to think that we have progressed beyond such horrors. Yet France before the Terror, Germany before the Holocaust, were the most advanced, enlightened cultures of their time.

Certainly, eliminating poverty, ignorance, oppression -- all these are desirable things. But it is naive to think that doing so will eliminate "bad behavior".

Amicus goes beyond this to argue that there IS no innate human nature -- so of course, no problem of latent behavior. My observation raising my own two children is that their personalities were distinctly different, and evident from the very start. There was nothing in their environment to account for such distinct differences. Certainly environment and culture shape us to an enormous degree, but there are innate, inborn factors that cannot be denied.

~~~

I suggest you either misquote or misunderstand my attempts to clarify the basic nature of the species as I do argue that man has a basic nature and that it is our province to attempt to understand it.

I also fathered multiple children, but I never expected them to turn out like Mendellian peas in a pod, and they certainly did not.

On a very general level, I insist that one take into consideration the very short period of time wherein man has had the freedom and the opportunity to explore the depths of his nature.

We have barely shrugged free of the oppressive nature of Religion and oppressive political regimes that in many way prohibited the quest for knowledge concerning those basic issues of existence.

We are but a few steps removed from 'bloodletting' as a cure, and 'frontal lobotomy' as a legitimate treatment for insanity.

As I noted before in another thread, there is a 'self evident' axiom that confirms the nature of man as basically good, simply because we have survived as a species and have a history to prove it. Were man not naturally good, we would have gone extinct long, long ago.

There seems to be an underlying, unspoken assumption made by many that dictates opinion or thought on the nature of man, that being an almost Religious concept of man as a definable existent preordained by either God or Nature; immutable and unchangeable.

Man is a product of evolution, both mentally and physically. What we are and what we become, is in large part, a matter of choice, in that area of existence wherein we have at least some influence.

We have little to say in terms of mutation in terms of the atomic structure of the gene as affected by solar and cosmic radiation, and little to say in terms of the basic requirements of life in terms of food, water and shelter; those are some, 'absolutes', even self evident ones, concerning human existence.

All of humanity could have remained, as it appears Cloudy desires, that of a nomadic, tribal creature, coexisting with nature in a non invasive pattern.

Only a few short hundreds of years ago, the concept of the individual as primary, was unknown as before that time, we were either creatures of God or dependents of Kings and Warlords.

There are even those yet today who question the, 'free will', of man and prefer to cozy up to deterministic theories of one type or another, which dictate our behavior; Behaviorism, being the psychological equivalent of a slave state.

I will always defend individual human liberty and freedom, but I hasten to advise those of you who see man as an uncontrollable beast, to extend your thinking to the ultimate and inevitable conclusion of your assumption; that man can exist only under complete control and regulation.

No wonder most of you folks tuned out, turned on, and dropped out. Were my vision of the future as dreadful as yours, I might have joined you.

Amicus

 

[Verdad]

~~~

Your affinity to Rand as a philosopher is a personal choice and totally yours. I would suggest, however, that her portrayal of man as, 'heroic', was balanced by the way she presented the protagonists as 'archetypes', and much like make-up on stage characters that exaggerates perception from a distance.

Critics then and now, find that objectionable as they decry that there is a little good in the worst, and bad in the best. It is rather like sociologists claiming that since no one is, 'perfect', therefore no one should attempt to achieve perfection.

The, 'ideal man', of Rand, is an abstraction, quite like the concept of 'perfection', that enables man, and gives him the incentive to reach higher than he can grasp at the moment.

It is usually referred to as a 'Romantic' view of life and I personally adhere to it.

Amicus

Hi, Ami, good to see you. I hope your daughter is well.

I agree with you that Rand's view is romantic and also that it's not a dirty word. That's why I mentioned Hugo's influence on her, plus it was Rand's own stated goal to write so as to inspire humans to strive for their best. There's no contention about that.

In the meantime, though, a curious association came to my mind. I'm almost afraid to mention it so you don't think I'm poking fun at something you like; all of us have our favorite authors, philosophers, musicians, and so on, and it would be rather silly to argue about whose are better. If you'll accept that's not what I have in mind, here's the thought: Rand's vision of man reminds me of (gulp) bronze statues of soc realist art.

The comparison might strike you as outrageous, but bear with me for a moment, as I'm not leading this toward some negative "Rand is no good" conclusion; it's just something I noticed and wondered what to make of it.

Someone intent on underlining the differences can, of course, immediately point out that Rand glorified the individual, whereas soc realism glorified the collective. That is true, and by no means trivial. Yet when you look at the similarities, you can't help noticing some. For one, soc realism is a bit of a misnomer, as it would probably be more fitting to call it soc romanticism. That firm, upward gaze of a perfectly muscled up, bronze workman sitting atop a tractor, not only glorifies and romanticizes but also seems to me like a perfect visualization of a Randian hero. Surprisingly enough, despite the core differences in ideology, the glorifying part and the shared era almost make the two aesthetics more similar than different.

Which got me thinking about zeitgeist. For it is the zeitgeist that makes for this unexpected similarity. It makes the polar opposites of one day appear oddly similar once enough time passes.

Since both of us like sci-fi, I thought of the zeitgeist's reflection in that brand of literature. The 50's were the era of limitless enthusiasm about technology, limitless faith in human achievement and ability to overcome nature, and sure enough, while giving birth to both Rand's Individual and the Fearless-but-Nameless Hero of the Working Class, they also generated space opera, technological utopias, etc. Shared by all of them is unfettered optimism and ambition, a belief in progress, expansiveness, a striving for upward, outward, forward motion, a mentality that says, "we're going to take the stars and make the universe our bitch."

The 60's bring New Wave in sci-fi, though, and the focus turns inwards. The stories are no longer about shiny rockets so much as they are about internal states, psychology, spirituality, retellings and reexaminations of old myths. The next big movement comes with Cyberpunk of the 80's, and suddenly it's dystopia after dystopia after dystopia. As with the 50's, these literary preoccupations reflect the real world events, and they're just one out of countless examples I could have used to illustrate the connection.

Now, as to the point of all this, I'm not sure if I have any, but if you feel like following up, the questions can be as many as you like. Such as, how much of Rand's view could have been an 'objective', absolute, timeless insight into the potential of humankind and how much of it was due to her historical context? Or maybe, if you prefer, there are questions along the lines of the role of art and its relationship to propaganda. Perfect answers to these questions are pretty much impossible, but if you just feel like chatting, there they are…

 

[amicus]

"Wow!", exclaimed Amicus, as a frisson of delight coursed through his veins at the discovery of a like minded soul, "Wow"; with the shared, "the spirit of the age and its society", Zeitgeist, that suddenly clarifies.

"...Rand's vision of man reminds me of (gulp) bronze statues of soc realist art..."

The similarities are apparent, but may I expand that to include the Greeks and even prior civilizations that glorified man in the service of one thing or another? And of course, the, 'worship', of the feminine form goes back as far as we can uncover past works of art.

Might I also inject that Rand was born Russian and was educated there and may I also suggest that the Russian people, have a long, long history and huge continent that spawned many monuments of heroic stature and grandeur befitting, in addition to some very dark Literature ala Tolstoy and Dostoevsky but wonderful compositions ala Rachmaninoff?

Because you put so much in your post, I started from the bottom up and rather than just discuss art and propaganda, why not go whole hog and deal with art and humanity? Or even just Art as a stand-alone?

"... Such as, how much of Rand's view could have been an 'objective', absolute, timeless insight into the potential of humankind..."

I prefer to think that it is possible for one to rise above their own, 'Zeitgeist', even their own history, in all aspects, nation, gender, ethnicity and origin, to at least attempt an abstract overview of humanity in general.

Some may prefer to look upon Marx or Lenin, or Freud, or Einstein, or even Mao Tzedong and Thomas Jefferson, in that manner(add your own), as well as a handful of Literary giants beginning with the 'Bard', or Homer.

".... As with the 50's, these literary preoccupations reflect the real world events, and they're just one out of countless examples I could have used to illustrate the connection..."

'Countless examples', heh, I am always faced with choosing which to include and which to omit in my sermons here, quite a dilemma, is it not?

I really enjoy your composition in those two paragraphs describing an era, or a generation, and the progression of thought and expression. I think you have a wonderful grasp on the essentials of that period.

I will close this by posing a question of sorts right back at you, and that has to do with the expressed hatred of Rand and Objectivism, that seems such a staple on this forum. At least you appear to give a grudging respect to her thoughts and attempts to address the major issues of our time and the past; but what is it that stirs such rage among many here?

And thank you for the inquiry concerning my daughter, she is recovering and we are in close contact.



Ami

 

[WRJames]

James, I think you are confusing two different behavior systems, which look similar. One is the group altruism behavior which helps the group, although that might seem harmful to outsiders. The 'cure' for that is indeed, to extend the definition of the group, and indeed it's easier said than done. *

The other type of violence occurs in individuals, alone, with whatever motive that might be driving that person-- which may be symbolically linked to some group, or might not be.
Given the that Cat's first post was about personal morals, that's the direction I've been thinking this whole time. *shrug*



*I don't know what you mean by "blurring all the diversities that make us human." but I can guess you're complaining about political correctedness... I'm pretty sure you already know what I think about it from a minority POV.

Well -- I'm not talking about bad behavior for the good of the group. I'm talking about the group taking the lid off of individual inhibitions so that indiviuals can indulge in bad behavior without fear of retribution or group disapproval.

 

[past_perfect]

Well -- I'm not talking about bad behavior for the good of the group. I'm talking about the group taking the lid off of individual inhibitions so that indiviuals can indulge in bad behavior without fear of retribution or group disapproval.

I'm not getting the point you are trying to make. Bad behaviour, as you call it, is always an instrument in the hands of those directing the group, creating a rationale for it, objectifying and demonising/dehumanising the "others" outside the group. That is actually creating the schizophrenic mindset of war, where it is perfectly alright to kill "the enemy" including women and children, but at the same time that doesn't mean this applies for members of one's own group also, unless there is a rationale for that (deserters asf) too.

We are actually quite good at creating instruments to enable us to deal in the most atrocious ways with objects, targets, whatever you want to call it. A bomber pilot has no problems sending thousands of people to hell by the mere push of a button or a pull on a lever - try giving him a knife and order him to kill the same amount of people, including children and women and see what happens.

I don't think you are taking a "lid off inhibitions", but the inhibitions are intact - it is just that you are been given a reason why they don't apply - you are dealing with objects/targets/the enemy/abstracts, something less than human or less human than your own group.

 

[Verdad]

"Wow!", exclaimed Amicus, as a frisson of delight coursed through his veins at the discovery of a like minded soul, "Wow"; with the shared, "the spirit of the age and its society", Zeitgeist, that suddenly clarifies.



The similarities are apparent, but may I expand that to include the Greeks and even prior civilizations that glorified man in the service of one thing or another? And of course, the, 'worship', of the feminine form goes back as far as we can uncover past works of art.

Might I also inject that Rand was born Russian and was educated there and may I also suggest that the Russian people, have a long, long history and huge continent that spawned many monuments of heroic stature and grandeur befitting, in addition to some very dark Literature ala Tolstoy and Dostoevsky but wonderful compositions ala Rachmaninoff?

Because you put so much in your post, I started from the bottom up and rather than just discuss art and propaganda, why not go whole hog and deal with art and humanity? Or even just Art as a stand-alone?



I prefer to think that it is possible for one to rise above their own, 'Zeitgeist', even their own history, in all aspects, nation, gender, ethnicity and origin, to at least attempt an abstract overview of humanity in general.

Some may prefer to look upon Marx or Lenin, or Freud, or Einstein, or even Mao Tzedong and Thomas Jefferson, in that manner(add your own), as well as a handful of Literary giants beginning with the 'Bard', or Homer.


'Countless examples', heh, I am always faced with choosing which to include and which to omit in my sermons here, quite a dilemma, is it not?

I really enjoy your composition in those two paragraphs describing an era, or a generation, and the progression of thought and expression. I think you have a wonderful grasp on the essentials of that period.

I will close this by posing a question of sorts right back at you, and that has to do with the expressed hatred of Rand and Objectivism, that seems such a staple on this forum. At least you appear to give a grudging respect to her thoughts and attempts to address the major issues of our time and the past; but what is it that stirs such rage among many here?

And thank you for the inquiry concerning my daughter, she is recovering and we are in close contact.



Ami

I'm relieved that post made some sense! You're of course right in pointing out that Rand's immersion in a particular time and space isn't different than that of any other philosopher or artist. Only in time will we be able to say whether she ages badly, kind of like say, Heinlein's fiction, which already appears more than a little yellow around the edges, or whether she hit upon some universals that will retain their luster as the years go by.

As for why I don't much like her—though I wouldn't go as far as to call it hatred—I guess there are two ways to respond. One way would be 'objective' and attempt an impartial critique of her philosophy or fiction or both. I kind of think you must have read and heard a lot of those, plus it would take me far too much to do it justice, so I'm going to be lazy and not try for an essay. Instead, for the case you or anyone else is interested, I'll provide a link to an essay that deals with just one of the problems in Rand's philosophy, but one about which we most often argue on these boards. It kind of brings us back on topic, too, which was morals.

http://mises.org/journals/jls/7_1/7_1_4.pdf

The essay is a bit of a thick reading, but worth it for elucidating the central problem of Rand's ethics, that of claiming to have managed objectivity. The essay is written by a professional philosopher who's neither hateful nor disinclined to Rand and who doesn't forget to mention that the problem she failed to solve (bridging the is-ought dichotomy) wasn't solved by anyone else either. What exposes Rand in particular to more criticism is that she expressly claimed to have done so. Even though most of us here aren't pro's, I think the opposition her thought encounters comes from intuitively seizing on that weak point. Perhaps more than the content of her ideals, it's the questionability of her claim to objectivity that keeps spurring the debates.

As for my entirely subjective answer, I guess it's no different than with any other taste. I, personally, don't feel much resonance with Rand. She doesn't give me that special little thrill of recognition that makes one fall in love with an idea. How much of it is generational, how much a combination of factors in my experience and personality, I don't know, but beyond the respect for individual in a broadest sense, I find little about her I could take inside me and make use of it in dealing with the world. I enjoy nuance (the thing for which you're bound to tease me as being feminine!) and in her worldview there's a certain rigidity and monochromatism that fail to satisfy me.

Discussing her is as good a way as any to stir up the questions we all like to ponder, though. I thank you as always for having learned more.

 

[Verdad]

Well -- I'm not talking about bad behavior for the good of the group. I'm talking about the group taking the lid off of individual inhibitions so that indiviuals can indulge in bad behavior without fear of retribution or group disapproval.

I think your argument remains essentially that of slippery slopes, only muddied further by crossing wires from one type of behavior to another.

The thing with slippery slopes is that one 'step'—provided you even have cause to arrange disparate behaviors in a gradation, which is the problem in the first place—doesn't lead to the next. No law of universe dictates the leap, like for instance from showing some cleavage today to cheating on your spouse tomorrow. Only if the connection has been empirically proven can you say something like, "People who engage in behavior A are that much likelier to also engage in behavior B," and only if you've examined the correlation and found it's not due to some intermediating factor can you say that doing A increases your chances of doing B. Without getting up from the armchair and counting the proverbial horse's teeth, no amount of theorizing can tell you whether nudists display more, less, or equal 'sexual license' in regards to the general population, or how exposure to something like say, porn, affects actual sexual behaviors.

These are, admittedly, tempting to speculate about due to a certain commonsensical connection that seems like it should be there, but once you cross from one category of behavior to another, even that vague connection is lost. When you talk of taking the lid off inhibitions, I think you're groping for concepts such as desensitization, or habit, or positive reinforcement, which come with repeatedly engaging in a same behavior. The operative words are "same behavior", though. If you have sex with five strangers, you might be more open to doing it with the sixth. If you beat up five strangers, you might be more open to doing that to the sixth, too. To say that having sex with the five makes you readier to beat, mug, rape, or kill the sixth, is entirely without foundation.

 

[WRJames]

I think your argument remains essentially that of slippery slopes, only muddied further by crossing wires from one type of behavior to another.

The thing with slippery slopes is that one 'step'—provided you even have cause to arrange disparate behaviors in a gradation, which is the problem in the first place—doesn't lead to the next. No law of universe dictates the leap, like for instance from showing some cleavage today to cheating on your spouse tomorrow. Only if the connection has been empirically proven can you say something like, "People who engage in behavior A are that much likelier to also engage in behavior B," and only if you've examined the correlation and found it's not due to some intermediating factor can you say that doing A increases your chances of doing B. Without getting up from the armchair and counting the proverbial horse's teeth, no amount of theorizing can tell you whether nudists display more, less, or equal 'sexual license' in regards to the general population, or how exposure to something like say, porn, affects actual sexual behaviors.

These are, admittedly, tempting to speculate about due to a certain commonsensical connection that seems like it should be there, but once you cross from one category of behavior to another, even that vague connection is lost. When you talk of taking the lid off inhibitions, I think you're groping for concepts such as desensitization, or habit, or positive reinforcement, which come with repeatedly engaging in a same behavior. The operative words are "same behavior", though. If you have sex with five strangers, you might be more open to doing it with the sixth. If you beat up five strangers, you might be more open to doing that to the sixth, too. To say that having sex with the five makes you readier to beat, mug, rape, or kill the sixth, is entirely without foundation.

I don't think I ever mentioned slippery slopes, and if I did mention nude beaches and raping armies in the same post, it was not to imply that one could lead to the other. I have attempted to explain this several times without much success, but let me try again.

First, you may THINK that I am talking about slippery slopes, but I am not.

Second, you may THINK that I am "groping for concepts such as desensitization, or habit, or positive reinforcement," but I am not. I am talking about changing social expecations so that it is now "okay" to engage in behaviors which might not have been "okay" in other contexts. It has little or nothing to do with repetitive behavior modification.

Once again, you are constructing and destroying your own strawman -- with little regard to what I am actually saying in my posts.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I don't think I ever mentioned slippery slopes, and if I did mention nude beaches and raping armies in the same post, it was not to imply that one could lead to the other. I have attempted to explain this several times without much success, but let me try again.

First, you may THINK that I am talking about slippery slopes, but I am not.

Second, you may THINK that I am "groping for concepts such as desensitization, or habit, or positive reinforcement," but I am not. I am talking about changing social expecations so that it is now "okay" to engage in behaviors which might not have been "okay" in other contexts...

...Okay.

And yes, you are correct-- a number of societal expectations have changed in fairly rapid timing, so that certain behaviors are more generally considered acceptable. Unmarried sex, girls wearing pants, boys wearing kilts, women having careers, men staying home with the kids, lesbianism, and (to a smaller extent as far as straight men are concerned) homosexuality...

Examples of things are, for some of our society, no longer considered a matter of morals.