Objectivism: I don't like it.

[engineer-of-doom]

Post your rants here. Tell us WHY you don't like it.  

[OneOfLittleHarmony]

I got frusterated with the fountainhead and couldn't keep reading it, just at the part where Domanique started to try to test Howard Roark by going out with that other guy and all that ******** s**t. I just thought that was really ******** up, and that whole rape with an engraved invitation.  

[Sein_Ist]

Harmony,
You're taking things entirely out of context. Roark did not "rape" Dominique, thought Dominique uses that term to refer to the incident. It is excruciatingly clear to any adult with a functional reasoning mind that Dominique gave Roark her consent, though on a non-linguistic level.

In addition to your above mistake, you are not criticizing Objectivism, but a novel written by an Objectivist. If you have a beef with the philosophy, you may rant all you want, so long as you do so in a semi-decipherable manner, unlike your above post.

Best regards,
Jay  

[chibi_kasumi_108]

What was that other book the author of Fountainhead wrote? The one about the negativve utopia post apocalyptic society that didn't have technology. I rather enjoyed that book but I can't think of the name of it for the life of me. Sorry if this is a bit off topic.  

[Wordstreamer~Nifty Fairy~]

chibi_kasumi_108

What was that other book the author of Fountainhead wrote? The one about the post negativve utopia post apocalyptic society that didn't have technology. I rather enjoyed that book but I can't think of the name of it for the life of me. Sorry if this is a bit off topic.

That was Anthem.  

[Efstathios]

*For the sake of argument*

America once had a laissez-faire economy, it didn't work very well. If there are no controls put on the free-market system then monopolies can exist. Driving up prices on necessary items because people have no choice. Generic brands must exist to keep big business in check.  

[Sein_Ist]

Efstathios

*For the sake of arguement*

America once had a laissez-faire economy, it didn't work very well. If there are no controls put on the free-market system than monopolies can exist. Driving up prices on necessary items because people have no choice. Generic brands must exist to keep big bussiness in check.

Absolutely incorrect on every point.

1. America has never had a truly Capitalist economy. This country has never had a shortage of blood draining beaurocracy, mooching "businessmen" who use the power of state to break up larger, more efficient businesses, and never has there been a time when man was free to do exactly as he pleases on/with his own property in this country, though some periods have come closer than others.

2. Consumers always have a choice about the products they purchase. In a Capitalist society, no business can gain a monopoly save through the production and selling of the best products. In order to maintain this monopoly, they must maintain the quality of their products, otherwise, competition will re-emerge. Every harmful monopoly throughout history was the result of the initiation of force, whether by private means, or through the use of the governing apparatus.

If you want to see a truly harmful monopoly (one created through the initiation of force) look at the public education system, which has been systematically crippling the minds of American children for decades, robbing them of the cognitive functions of their minds, crippling their ability to conceptualize for the rest of their lives. They do not provide citizens with the offer of a free exchange, but an ultimatum of: "Your child, or years in a federal prison?"

On the other hand, we have "monopolies" created through the use of the reasoning mind and free exchange. The Ford motor company and Microsoft come to mind as prime examples.

If one challenges a state monopoly, he is answered by the muzzle of a gun. If one challenges a private "monopoly", he is answered by the honest competition of productive men.  

[Symptom of the Universe]

My main issue with Objectivism is that the theory itself commits a major fallacy- namely the naturalistic fallacy. I have not read The Fountainhead, but I have read Rand's book The Virtue of Selfishness which expounds on her objectivist theory. Her claim is that we should not displace our highest value (ie. our expression as human beings). This is a normative claim. Rand does not endorse psychological egoism, because that would take away human freedom. Her justification for objectivism, though, is that humans are built to live in the world this way. Her claim is essentially, because we are built to live like this, then we ought to live like this. However, the fact that humans may be built this way does not imply we ought to live that way, nor does Rand ever actually give any other reason. Its like she confuses "the way we ought to do things" with "the way we do things." Since she commits this fallacy, I cannot embrace her philosophy.

Outside of theory, Objectivism does create a number of harsh consequences (such as being to defend genocide if the genocide is the way the dictator feels he needs to express his highest value) that I'm not ready to embrace. While this can be avoided by an individual objectivist (who may not hold that value), it does seem to be a problem.  

[bluecherry]

That something is "natural" does not necessarily mean it it good, true, however I don't think this is at all what was the belief Rand held and/or put forth. Humans and all living things - life itself essentially- simply DOES function best when it supports itself and it's interests. The idea is if everybody really went all out and followed egoism fully (and believe me, this does not have to mean "all the poor would starve to death!" I could write more on why this is or find a good source to quote if you want later, right now I'm short on time) we'd all be pursuing the best lives we possibly could get, respecting each other's rights in order that we continue to be worthy of having our own respected, even to the point of when friends may fall in a rut for a while there is nothing wrong with temporarily helping them get back on their feat and to prospering again and then having them repay you because since the person is valuable to you it IS in your own interest to see them continue to live and live well. Egoism makes good life possible. If everybody were to follow altruism to it's fullest extent - not doing anything in their own interest - we'd all die. Everybody would never eat because somewhere there is somebody else who is starving and could use this food (likely they are themselves starving because they too are refusing to eat in order to try to pass the food off onto somebody else too) as just one of many possibilities.

Oh, and by the way, as I mentioned earlier about respecting other people's human rights, that IS a part of Objectivism, so you could never have genocidal real Objectivists. wink

 

[OneOfLittleHarmony]

Sein_Ist

Harmony,
You're taking things entirely out of context. Roark did not "rape" Dominique, thought Dominique uses that term to refer to the incident. It is excruciatingly clear to any adult with a functional reasoning mind that Dominique gave Roark her consent, though on a non-linguistic level.

In addition to your above mistake, you are not criticizing Objectivism, but a novel written by an Objectivist. If you have a beef with the philosophy, you may rant all you want, so long as you do so in a semi-decipherable manner, unlike your above post.

Best regards,
Jay

Is not the book supposed to reflect her "ideals"? And no, he did not rape her, which is why I put the term "engraved invitation," like those people on craigslist that ask guys to break into their house and do them while they're sleeping.

Fine, if you want more to debate the philosophy. Objectivism claims that a world is perfect when everyone has complete individual freedom in that there should be total respect for individual rights.

What if people want to ignore other people's freedom and use them for their own devices?  

[Katzorae]

Its not i dont like it? But i have not read any of those books...but i would like to know what this philossophy realy is. I can tell its important to everyone here...and it would be important to me if i could understand...im a type of person that needs to be informed on whats going on. Its just that right now im confused...  

[illovich]

OneOfLittleHarmony

Fine, if you want more to debate the philosophy. Objectivism claims that a world is perfect when everyone has complete individual freedom in that there should be total respect for individual rights.

What if people want to ignore other people's freedom and use them for their own devices?

I think the problem I run into is that proponents of Objectivism don't stop at a respect for total individual rights, but often demand them to the exclusion of requiring any concession on the part of an individual to live in a state. The error I run into often with the adherents of Objectivism is that the world is presented is a choice between Objectivism/Libertarianism & Communism/Socialism/Fascism (which are inappropriately conflated with each other, unfortunately).

There are alternatives to objectivism (for example liberalism in the classical sense) that ensure a fairly excessive amount of rights while not demanding an unreasonable amount of concessions from the individual.  

[illovich]

Sein_Ist

1. America has never had a truly Capitalist economy. This country has never had a shortage of blood draining beaurocracy, mooching "businessmen" who use the power of state to break up larger, more efficient businesses, and never has there been a time when man was free to do exactly as he pleases on/with his own property in this country, though some periods have come closer than others.

Well... I think this is partially correct, but it's safer to say there has never been a pure capitalist (I mean maybe anarcho-capitalist?) economic system on a large scale since the invention of the state, at lease in the West.

In my mind, Laissez-Faire capitalism is bullshit, because it still uses the state to
protect property rights (so for example, the DCMA is still fair game) and enforce contracts, but offers no contrary mechanism to prevent corporations from being socially malevolent. Another good example is Wal Mart, which succeeds in being a fairly damaging entity in many ways, while contributing little to the overall good.

While anarcho-capitalism is a bit more alluring to me, since a pure form would dispense with IP, patents, etc., which I think would go a bit further to level the playing field.

Sein_Ist

If you want to see a truly harmful monopoly (one created through the initiation of force) look at the public education system, which has been systematically crippling the minds of American children for decades, robbing them of the cognitive functions of their minds, crippling their ability to conceptualize for the rest of their lives. They do not provide citizens with the offer of a free exchange, but an ultimatum of: "Your child, or years in a federal prison?"

What are you talking about? The American Public Education system is not the greatest, but on the other hand it's free to all citizens and offers opportunities that would not exist if education were a purely private economic arrangement because as history shows, most people received very little formal education before the creation of public schools.

Additionally the US system is incredibly flexible - not only is there competition for consumers in the form of private and parochial schools, there is also great freedom for community organizations to form charter schools and home schooling is allowed in instances where that isn't feasible.

The problem with public schools is two-fold:

1) The quality of a public school is directly related to the wealth of a specific school district. I went to public high school in a community that had many rich families and big businesses. They spend around $20,000/year pper student in that district, and believe me it was a great school -- about a quarter of my graduating class went to Ivy League Universities for college. In Philadelphia nearby, the spending is closer to $6,000 a student, with additional complications caused by the greater numbers of students who's families live in poverty or near-poverty (kids don't get breakfast, aren't in good health, neighborhoods are dangerous and stressful, etc.) This brings me to my next point:

2) Even the greatest of schools can not compensate for deficiencies outside of school. Bad parents, poverty, social problems can not be fixed by schools. There is a fallacy in american public life where schools are blamed for high drop-out rates, but every one I ever knew who dropped out of school doesn't blame the school at all, but something else in their lives, like family troubles or having to go to work because their family was poor, or because they made a bad decision like having a kid too early. But those things can't be blamed on public schools.

And I think the other problem is that Americans are fairly anti-intellectual, which I believe has already set the clock ticking on the American Era - a nation of barely literate entertainment consumers who laugh at egghead foreigners for being good at science, math and computer programming has a poor prognosis as a future super-power.

Sein_Ist

On the other hand, we have "monopolies" created through the use of the reasoning mind and free exchange. The Ford motor company and Microsoft come to mind as prime examples.

Microsoft is a terrible example of a "good" monopoly. The company began with incredibly terrible ethics, and the goal of creating a monopoly surfaced very early. They made weird contracts with PC makers (like they got licensing money for every computer sold, even ones that didn't have an MS product on them) and made competing products in every industry that surfaced that used their operating system, it seems anyway.

This isn't to say that they make bad products (although many of their products are pretty mediocre, if not terrible). And they continue today - they're now going after Adobe, although it seems like this attempt will fail.

Sein_Ist

If one challenges a state monopoly, he is answered by the muzzle of a gun. If one challenges a private "monopoly", he is answered by the honest competition of productive men.

I think your latter statement is incorrect. If one challenges a private monopoly, one is answered by frivolous lawsuits, patent disputes, uneven enforcement of regulations, unfair distribution of government subsidies and the power of the monopoly in the specific business community.

I can provide examples if you need them wink

Totally true on the state monopoly, though. Do not mess with the state. It makes them angry. scream  

[The 7th Hero]

I don't like it when people ask me for the time and point to their wrist. I Know where my Freaking watch is, where's your's?  

[naive melody]

Engineer-of-doom, why don't you like objectivism? Is it because you are more of a spiritual person and are more concerned about the nonphysical?
I kind of like the idea of objectivism, though it may be regarded as more selfish than other philosophies, but I like that it sort of revolves around aesthetics.