"Beggar-the-kids"

[RayK 0]

In Ayn Rand's article "Don't Let It Go" she wrote that:

"In order to form a hypothesis about the future of an individual, one must consider three elements: his present course of action, his conscious convictions, and his sense of life. The same elements must be considered in forming a hypothesis about the future of a nation."

A nation, like an individual, has a sense of life, which is expressed not in its formal culture, but in its "life style"—in the kinds of actions and attitudes which people take for granted and believe to be self-evident, but which are produced by complex evaluations involving a fundamental view of man's nature.

A "nation" is not a mystic or supernatural entity: it is a large number of individuals who live in the same geographical locality under the same political system. A nation's culture is the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men, which their fellow-citizens have accepted in whole or in part, and which have influenced the nation's way of life. Since a culture is a complex battleground of different ideas and influences, to speak of a "culture" is to speak only of the dominant ideas, always allowing for the existence of dissenters and exceptions.

(The dominance of certain ideas is not necessarily determined by the number of their adherents: it may be determined by majority acceptance, or by the greater activity and persistence of a given faction, or by default, i.e., the failure of the opposition, or—when a country is free—by a combination of persistence and truth. In any case, ideas and the resultant culture are the product and active concern of a minority. Who constitutes this minority? Whoever chooses to be concerned.)

Similarly, the concept of a nation's sense of life does not mean that every member of a given nation shares it, but only that a dominant majority shares its essentials in various degrees. In this matter, however, the dominance is numerical: while most men may be indifferent to cultural-ideological trends, no man can escape the process of subconscious integration which forms his sense of life."

Later in the same article Ayn Rands writes:

"If America is to be saved from destruction—specifically, from dictatorship—she will be saved by her sense of life.

As to the two other elements that determine a nation's future, one (our political trend) is speeding straight to disaster, the other (culture) is virtually nonexistent. The political trend is pure statism and is moving toward a totalitarian dictatorship at a speed which, in any other country, would have reached that goal long ago. The culture is worse than nonexistent: it is operating below zero, i.e., performing the opposite of its function. A culture provides a nation's intellectual leadership, its ideas, its education, its moral code. Today, the concerted effort of our cultural "Establishment" is directed at the obliteration of man's rational faculty. Hysterical voices are proclaiming the impotence of reason, extolling the "superior power" of irrationality, fostering the rule of incoherent emotions, attacking science, glorifying the stupor of drugged hippies, delivering apologias for the use of brute force, urging mankind's return to a life of rolling in primeval muck, with grunts and groans as means of communication, physical sensations as means of inspiration, and a club as means of argumentation."

I do not see why a person cannot break the people of a nation into smaller subgroups such as generations according to certain demographics such as age and also form a hypothesis on that subgroup. And when a certain subgroup holds certain conscious convictions I am not surprised that they also choose a non-objective title for themselves, when their "nonexistent culture was and still is performing the opposite of it's function.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

As to the two other elements that determine a nation's future, one (our political trend) is speeding straight to disaster, the other (culture) is virtually nonexistent. The political trend is pure statism and is moving toward a totalitarian dictatorship at a speed which, in any other country, would have reached that goal long ago. The culture is worse than nonexistent: it is operating below zero, i.e., performing the opposite of its function. A culture provides a nation's intellectual leadership, its ideas, its education, its moral code. Today, the concerted effort of our cultural "Establishment" is directed at the obliteration of man's rational faculty. Hysterical voices are proclaiming the impotence of reason, extolling the "superior power" of irrationality, fostering the rule of incoherent emotions, attacking science, glorifying the stupor of drugged hippies, delivering apologias for the use of brute force, urging mankind's return to a life of rolling in primeval muck, with grunts and groans as means of communication, physical sensations as means of inspiration, and a club as means of argumentation."

I don't see THE culture. I see competing cultural trends. The irrational trends are huge but passive and moving only with the force of inertia. The rational trends are tiny but active, powerful, and growing.

Which will prevail? It's hard to tell. Regardless, I personally intend to stay rational and actively pushing the culture in the right direction with all the power at my command.

I do not see why a person cannot break the people of a nation into smaller subgroups such as generations according to certain demographics such as age and also form a hypothesis on that subgroup. And when a certain subgroup holds certain conscious convictions I am not surprised that they also choose a non-objective title for themselves, when their "nonexistent culture was and still is performing the opposite of it's function.

There is no reason not to subdivide the culture by age groups, but it does require that one does so accurately. The fact is, that baby boomers were evenly split and those who were older tended to oppose Obama, while Obama did get overwhelming support from younger voters.

[RayK 0]

I don't see THE culture. I see competing cultural trends. The irrational trends are huge but passive and moving only with the force of inertia. The rational trends are tiny but active, powerful, and growing.

Which will prevail? It's hard to tell. Regardless, I personally intend to stay rational and actively pushing the culture in the right direction with all the power at my command.

I do not see why a person cannot break the people of a nation into smaller subgroups such as generations according to certain demographics such as age and also form a hypothesis on that subgroup. And when a certain subgroup holds certain conscious convictions I am not surprised that they also choose a non-objective title for themselves, when their "nonexistent culture was and still is performing the opposite of it's function.

There is no reason not to subdivide the culture by age groups, but it does require that one does so accurately. The fact is, that baby boomers were evenly split and those who were older tended to oppose Obama, while Obama did get overwhelming support from younger voters.

"The dominance of certain ideas is not necessarily determined by the number of their adherents: it may be determined by majority acceptance, or by the greater activity and persistence of a given faction, or by default, i.e., the failure of the opposition, or—when a country is free—by a combination of persistence and truth. In any case, ideas and the resultant culture are the product and active concern of a minority. Who constitutes this minority? Whoever chooses to be concerned"

The majority acceptance of ideas is what makes a culture. When Ayn Rand's ideas become accepted by the majority then we will know we have changed the culture for the better. Right now we are still competing for that accpetance, but we have not gained majority acceptance as of yet.

That might be so, but in the mid 1960's it was the older group that was raising all the commotion at the universities and not the younger group.

[Mindy Newton 0]

Ewv, I am not, let me repeat, I am not stating nor do I agree with the idea that any arbitrary age group is any more corrupt than another. I was stating, or at least attempting to state, that from a quick glimpse into the total size (whether objectively defined or not)

It matters that there is no objectively defined group and that the sizes of the groups are much different because the ages arbitrarily selected are included in ranges of different sizes, in addition to arbitrary cutoffs.

of the baby-boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) and the fact that they are the wealthiest group, spend the most money, and some studies support the idea that the baby-boomers set the social/political and economic direction of this country, that they play a large part in keeping better ideas from being heard.

Adults of all ages in influential positions are doing that. The whole focus on age as such is irrelevent. The cultural and political trends are getting progressively worse as time passes.

For example, you are the one that has written on this forum about all the financial road blocks that are thrown in the way of innocent individuals while trying to defend themselves. It is also you that has written about the "army of lawyers" that the corrupt groups have and that play a large part in making it so difficult for the innocent to defend themselves which causes the innocents to give up. So, I ask, do you think it is the individually corrupt young person that is supporting these groups with hundreds of millions of dollars, or is it the individually corrupt aged person that is making a "significant" impact on the furthering of corrupt ideas?

It is both. A lot of the money comes from previous generations, including the fortunes of past industrialists long since dead and now used to finance non-profit viro and other leftist pressure groups to the tune of billions. The activists coming out of the universities for the last twenty five years (i.e., post "baby boomers") have been worse than ever. They are in influential positions regardless of age, with many of the younger ones running political pressure groups and inhabiting government agencies where they wield extraordinary power (some of them barely out of college). They have far more impact than hoards of "baby boomers" who happened to have accumulated more money in their personal lives. Those with a significant impact in any realm are a minority of the population or any age group however specified.

If you are willing, I have another question. Why is it that using the term The Enlightened Age is okay to describe the people from that time period, which also varies in accordance to who defines it? And, why is it that using a term such as the baby-boomers to generally describe the people from that time period is considered irrational?

One refers to an identifiable period in history in terms of ideology and the other focuses on a narrow range of dates of birth without regard to any intellectual trend or shift. The Age of Enlightenment refers to enlightened intellectuals who happened to live then, with the time period selected to encompass the enlightenment, not the other way around. "Baby boomer" refers to people because they were born during a particular time: The beginning of that time period was selected because of the "boom" in the number of babies born when the GIs returned home from the war and to nothing else. It is a result of sex, not thinking. The whole notion of identifying groups like "baby boomers", "Generation X", etc. in terms of arbitrary dates and then using that for cultural analysis with no identifiable essential characteristics of the groups is an example of the anti-conceptual mentality.

Obviously, not all the people born during The Enlightened Age were actually enlightened. And, it is also obvious that not all the people born during the time defined as the baby-boomer generation are all corrupt. I also understand that the time periods, no matter how they are defined, vary by a large amount. And, I recognize that there were many more grand minds during The Enlightened Age in comparison to the baby-boomer generation. And, although one was the culmination of reason, I am not sure we have seen the culmination of anti-reason although we are headed in that direction. So, if we changed the age's name from baby-boomers to The Anti-Reason Generation would you still hold that we cannot put the blame or praise on a culture as a whole or part thereof.

The cutoff dates around 1945-65 do not define the age of unreason. That range has nothing to do with the state of the culture or any change in intellectual trends.

Remember also that Enrik originally started with a focus on the borrowing as a way of political life, which began in a big way in the 1930s, not with the "baby boomers". Statism, not government borrowing as one form of it, is the fundamental. During the rise of fascistic statism popular in the 1930s, Social Security was deliberately conceived as a Ponzi scheme, and the economics profession based an entire theory on Keynes's "in the long run we'll all be dead". No one then or now seriously expected the borrowed money to be paid back, by either those alive or those in future generations. Rather, the borrowing is simply a statist financial mechanism for re-routing investment into government spending in a continuous, ongoing transfer of wealth from private ownership through inflation, taxes and hijacking of "borrowed" investment capital, all corrupting the economy and private consumption all the time, with a future collapse of the whole rotten shell game on the horizon (or now sooner). It's not a matter of an otherwise normal economy with only a problem for the future to pay back borrowed money, which would be a lot cleaner than what is happening. What we are facing makes 'credit default swaps' look innocent in comparison.

That 1930s foundation quickly became entrenched in American government long before the "baby boomers" were even born. Clinton's "Age of Depends on the Meaning of Is" and Bush's "Compassionate Conservatism" (the only two "baby boomer" presidents) were extensions of the "New Deal", "Great Society", etc. spending and borrowing long already entrenched. The "We Generation Hopey Changey" movement is post "baby boomer" and has already exceeded in the last few months the borrowing of all all previous presidents combined. The ages of "baby boomers" also taking part in that are irrelevent. Things are becoming progressively worse through time as the philosophy of the culture disintegrates in accordance with very old premises regardless of anyone's age.

Nice analysis! You know a lot about this stuff, obviously.

[Henrik Unné 0]

There seems to be some misunderstanding of what my position is in regard to various persons´ and groups´ moral responsibility. I am definitely aware that moral assessments have to be *individual*. There are many baby-boomers who are better than the average baby-boomer. Some individual baby-boomers are even heroes. Having said that, I have to say that the *majority* of the baby-boomers are, as far as I can see, pretty morally corrupt.

However the average baby-boomer is *not* worse than the average child of the baby-boomers. He is, if anything, better. Today's young are, if anything, still worse, on the average, than their parents. The trend has for many decades been that each new generation is till worse, on the average, than the preceeding one. That is of course due to the corrupting power of bad philosophy.

I do not see anything wrong with making moral assessments of groups, *provided* that one makes clear that one is only judging the *predominant* trend or pattern in that group. In other words, one can only say that the *average* member of a group is good or bad or whatever. The group´s dominant philosophy determines the moral character of the average member of that group tends to be.

[Mindy Newton 0]

There seems to be some misunderstanding of what my position is in regard to various persons´ and groups´ moral responsibility. I am definitely aware that moral assessments have to be *individual*. There are many baby-boomers who are better than the average baby-boomer. Some individual baby-boomers are even heroes. Having said that, I have to say that the *majority* of the baby-boomers are, as far as I can see, pretty morally corrupt.

However the average baby-boomer is *not* worse than the average child of the baby-boomers. He is, if anything, better. Today's young are, if anything, still worse, on the average, than their parents. The trend has for many decades been that each new generation is till worse, on the average, than the preceeding one. That is of course due to the corrupting power of bad philosophy.

I do not see anything wrong with making moral assessments of groups, *provided* that one makes clear that one is only judging the *predominant* trend or pattern in that group. In other words, one can only say that the *average* member of a group is good or bad or whatever. The group´s dominant philosophy determines the moral character of the average member of that group tends to be.

Morality isn't a natural characteristic like height and weight. It can't be described by a bell-shaped curve, and statistically predicted according to mean, mode, etc.

The only way to come to a valid conclusion that most baby-boomers are immoral is to check that more than some are immoral. That means making a lot of individual judgments about the lives of a lot of people. To judge the life of an individual, you have to gather the necessary knowledge of that individual. You haven't done that.

Does a group's "dominant philosophy" determine the moral character of the average member of that group? Average member? That speaks to characteristics that are distributed across a population as per the bell-shaped curve. Morality just can't be used in that way.

The influence of people such as Kant is huge. But would you parcel that harm out to estimate the "average morality" of the people who lived when he did? His thought dominates whole periods of time. Its dominance is, in part, due to the fact that no other individual formulated an opposing view. Are all individuals who failed to do so guilty?

I don't understand the rush to condemn whole groups of loosely associated individuals, on moral grounds.

[RayK 0]

I don't understand the rush to condemn whole groups of loosely associated individuals, on moral grounds.

It is the state of the culture and not some "loosely assoicated individuals" as you keep attempting to state.

I offer that you read or reread Ayn Rand's article that I mentioned and quoted in an earlier post.

[Henrik Unné 0]

There seems to be some misunderstanding of what my position is in regard to various persons´ and groups´ moral responsibility. I am definitely aware that moral assessments have to be *individual*. There are many baby-boomers who are better than the average baby-boomer. Some individual baby-boomers are even heroes. Having said that, I have to say that the *majority* of the baby-boomers are, as far as I can see, pretty morally corrupt.

However the average baby-boomer is *not* worse than the average child of the baby-boomers. He is, if anything, better. Today's young are, if anything, still worse, on the average, than their parents. The trend has for many decades been that each new generation is till worse, on the average, than the preceeding one. That is of course due to the corrupting power of bad philosophy.

I do not see anything wrong with making moral assessments of groups, *provided* that one makes clear that one is only judging the *predominant* trend or pattern in that group. In other words, one can only say that the *average* member of a group is good or bad or whatever. The group´s dominant philosophy determines the moral character of the average member of that group tends to be.

Morality isn't a natural characteristic like height and weight. It can't be described by a bell-shaped curve, and statistically predicted according to mean, mode, etc.

The only way to come to a valid conclusion that most baby-boomers are immoral is to check that more than some are immoral. That means making a lot of individual judgments about the lives of a lot of people. To judge the life of an individual, you have to gather the necessary knowledge of that individual. You haven't done that.

Does a group's "dominant philosophy" determine the moral character of the average member of that group? Average member? That speaks to characteristics that are distributed across a population as per the bell-shaped curve. Morality just can't be used in that way.

The influence of people such as Kant is huge. But would you parcel that harm out to estimate the "average morality" of the people who lived when he did? His thought dominates whole periods of time. Its dominance is, in part, due to the fact that no other individual formulated an opposing view. Are all individuals who failed to do so guilty?

I don't understand the rush to condemn whole groups of loosely associated individuals, on moral grounds.

I don´t see that I have to judge a person´s moral choices over his *whole life* before I can judge him morally. Of course, I should not rush and make moral judgments hastily, but whenever I interact with people, and see that they characteristically choose not to think, then I concemn them morally, at least in the privacy of my own mind. I usually do not have to interact with people for a terribly long time, before I notice that they pursue a policy of habitually not putting forth mental effort (and that is what most people do, that is to say most people habitually *don´t* put forth much mental effort).

But what´s the point in having a negative view of the majority of the members of mankind? If you would like to see one of the reasons that I am so inclined to condemn people morally, you should read my two most recent posts in the psychology section. Especially the post "The Psychological Value of Contempt" explains what the "cash value" of my attitude is.

[Mindy Newton 0]

There seems to be some misunderstanding of what my position is in regard to various persons´ and groups´ moral responsibility. I am definitely aware that moral assessments have to be *individual*. There are many baby-boomers who are better than the average baby-boomer. Some individual baby-boomers are even heroes. Having said that, I have to say that the *majority* of the baby-boomers are, as far as I can see, pretty morally corrupt.

However the average baby-boomer is *not* worse than the average child of the baby-boomers. He is, if anything, better. Today's young are, if anything, still worse, on the average, than their parents. The trend has for many decades been that each new generation is till worse, on the average, than the preceeding one. That is of course due to the corrupting power of bad philosophy.

I do not see anything wrong with making moral assessments of groups, *provided* that one makes clear that one is only judging the *predominant* trend or pattern in that group. In other words, one can only say that the *average* member of a group is good or bad or whatever. The group´s dominant philosophy determines the moral character of the average member of that group tends to be.

Morality isn't a natural characteristic like height and weight. It can't be described by a bell-shaped curve, and statistically predicted according to mean, mode, etc.

The only way to come to a valid conclusion that most baby-boomers are immoral is to check that more than some are immoral. That means making a lot of individual judgments about the lives of a lot of people. To judge the life of an individual, you have to gather the necessary knowledge of that individual. You haven't done that.

Does a group's "dominant philosophy" determine the moral character of the average member of that group? Average member? That speaks to characteristics that are distributed across a population as per the bell-shaped curve. Morality just can't be used in that way.

The influence of people such as Kant is huge. But would you parcel that harm out to estimate the "average morality" of the people who lived when he did? His thought dominates whole periods of time. Its dominance is, in part, due to the fact that no other individual formulated an opposing view. Are all individuals who failed to do so guilty?

I don't understand the rush to condemn whole groups of loosely associated individuals, on moral grounds.

I don´t see that I have to judge a person´s moral choices over his *whole life* before I can judge him morally. Of course, I should not rush and make moral judgments hastily, but whenever I interact with people, and see that they characteristically choose not to think, then I concemn them morally, at least in the privacy of my own mind. I usually do not have to interact with people for a terribly long time, before I notice that they pursue a policy of habitually not putting forth mental effort (and that is what most people do, that is to say most people habitually *don´t* put forth much mental effort).

But what´s the point in having a negative view of the majority of the members of mankind? If you would like to see one of the reasons that I am so inclined to condemn people morally, you should read my two most recent posts in the psychology section. Especially the post "The Psychological Value of Contempt" explains what the "cash value" of my attitude is.

OK, I did go and read it. It makes you feel good, it keeps depression away, is that right?

You might consider that that might actually be a trap, and a very dangerous one. Any false basis for feeling good about oneself works like a drug, and, as happens with drugs, one would have to increase his "dose" until he comes to need to act out those thoughts --such as you say you now keep private. You discussed why you didn't act out your contempt, the social problems it would involve, etc. The possibility that keeping those feelings hidden wouldn't be enough to "work" as it does now is a consideration.

A similar psychodynamic occurs when somebody "trades in" feeling guilty for feeling injured. It is much more comfortable to feel that I am the injured party. Blaming somebody else for one's pain is emotionally a good deal. But it requires me to maintain the lie about being injured. Maintaining lies means maintaining evasions of the truth, and of all the concrete facts that point at the truth. Evasion grows, and it cripples one's judgment and competence in increasingly large segments of life. (I'm just using guilt and injury as an example. Trading in anxiety for depression is another example of a downward-spiraling strategy of rationalizing one's emotions to oneself.)

This is a speculation, of course, but it seems possible that it fits what you have described. From the point of view of psychological growth, being emotionally independent of what other people think of you is important. But what you are describing seems to put how you compare yourself to others at the heart of the matter, and that isn't a position of independence. I know myself that it is tempting to turn the tables on all those people who want to put me down by just putting them down, and in spades. That doesn't last, though, and it is a shaky place to be when things go wrong, when stress gets high, etc. Won't that boomerang back on you when you actually do make mistakes or have set-backs? Also, how would it work if you suddenly found yourself in Galt's Gulch? If I needed to remind myself of how contemptible Reardan and Dagny are in order to feel OK, I'd be in deep cocoa.

The better reason is, you don't need it.

Mindy

[Henrik Unné 0]

There seems to be some misunderstanding of what my position is in regard to various persons´ and groups´ moral responsibility. I am definitely aware that moral assessments have to be *individual*. There are many baby-boomers who are better than the average baby-boomer. Some individual baby-boomers are even heroes. Having said that, I have to say that the *majority* of the baby-boomers are, as far as I can see, pretty morally corrupt.

However the average baby-boomer is *not* worse than the average child of the baby-boomers. He is, if anything, better. Today's young are, if anything, still worse, on the average, than their parents. The trend has for many decades been that each new generation is till worse, on the average, than the preceeding one. That is of course due to the corrupting power of bad philosophy.

I do not see anything wrong with making moral assessments of groups, *provided* that one makes clear that one is only judging the *predominant* trend or pattern in that group. In other words, one can only say that the *average* member of a group is good or bad or whatever. The group´s dominant philosophy determines the moral character of the average member of that group tends to be.

Morality isn't a natural characteristic like height and weight. It can't be described by a bell-shaped curve, and statistically predicted according to mean, mode, etc.

The only way to come to a valid conclusion that most baby-boomers are immoral is to check that more than some are immoral. That means making a lot of individual judgments about the lives of a lot of people. To judge the life of an individual, you have to gather the necessary knowledge of that individual. You haven't done that.

Does a group's "dominant philosophy" determine the moral character of the average member of that group? Average member? That speaks to characteristics that are distributed across a population as per the bell-shaped curve. Morality just can't be used in that way.

The influence of people such as Kant is huge. But would you parcel that harm out to estimate the "average morality" of the people who lived when he did? His thought dominates whole periods of time. Its dominance is, in part, due to the fact that no other individual formulated an opposing view. Are all individuals who failed to do so guilty?

I don't understand the rush to condemn whole groups of loosely associated individuals, on moral grounds.

I don´t see that I have to judge a person´s moral choices over his *whole life* before I can judge him morally. Of course, I should not rush and make moral judgments hastily, but whenever I interact with people, and see that they characteristically choose not to think, then I concemn them morally, at least in the privacy of my own mind. I usually do not have to interact with people for a terribly long time, before I notice that they pursue a policy of habitually not putting forth mental effort (and that is what most people do, that is to say most people habitually *don´t* put forth much mental effort).

But what´s the point in having a negative view of the majority of the members of mankind? If you would like to see one of the reasons that I am so inclined to condemn people morally, you should read my two most recent posts in the psychology section. Especially the post "The Psychological Value of Contempt" explains what the "cash value" of my attitude is.

OK, I did go and read it. It makes you feel good, it keeps depression away, is that right?

You might consider that that might actually be a trap, and a very dangerous one. Any false basis for feeling good about oneself works like a drug, and, as happens with drugs, one would have to increase his "dose" until he comes to need to act out those thoughts --such as you say you now keep private. You discussed why you didn't act out your contempt, the social problems it would involve, etc. The possibility that keeping those feelings hidden wouldn't be enough to "work" as it does now is a consideration.

A similar psychodynamic occurs when somebody "trades in" feeling guilty for feeling injured. It is much more comfortable to feel that I am the injured party. Blaming somebody else for one's pain is emotionally a good deal. But it requires me to maintain the lie about being injured. Maintaining lies means maintaining evasions of the truth, and of all the concrete facts that point at the truth. Evasion grows, and it cripples one's judgment and competence in increasingly large segments of life. (I'm just using guilt and injury as an example. Trading in anxiety for depression is another example of a downward-spiraling strategy of rationalizing one's emotions to oneself.)

This is a speculation, of course, but it seems possible that it fits what you have described. From the point of view of psychological growth, being emotionally independent of what other people think of you is important. But what you are describing seems to put how you compare yourself to others at the heart of the matter, and that isn't a position of independence. I know myself that it is tempting to turn the tables on all those people who want to put me down by just putting them down, and in spades. That doesn't last, though, and it is a shaky place to be when things go wrong, when stress gets high, etc. Won't that boomerang back on you when you actually do make mistakes or have set-backs? Also, how would it work if you suddenly found yourself in Galt's Gulch? If I needed to remind myself of how contemptible Reardan and Dagny are in order to feel OK, I'd be in deep cocoa.

The better reason is, you don't need it.

Mindy

I do not feel any temptation whatsoever to condemn people at random, because I know that it is not justified. Any particular individual that I meet *could* be one of the relatively rare exceptions. And I do not think that my evaluation of the typical average man is a rationalization. I did not come to this evaluation lightly. I started out taking it for granted that most people are morally innocent. But over the course of several decades I have seen so many average men characteristically choose not to think, that I have been almost *forced* to form my current negative evaluation of the majority of men. I do think that I have followed the principle of following the facts wherever they lead. It is theoretically possible that my sample of average men is not representative, but I doubt it. I must have interacted with hundreds of average men over my life, and I estimate that somewhere around at least 90% have been mentally slothful, as far as I could tell. Of course, I cannot objectively prove that claim to you, so you are free to doubt it.

I feel no temptation whatsoever to "put down" those friends of mine, who are the kind that I would find in Galt´s Gulch. So I do not think that I would have any problem if I lived in Galt´s Gulch. I would have my hands full earning the respect of those other residents.

To sum up, I think that my attitude is based on an objective assessment of the people that I have interacted with over the course of my life. I do not think that it is a rationalization or a defense mechanism. But it does provide me with a feeling of relief. It feels good to know that the world is *not* full of injustice.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

It is theoretically possible that my sample of average men is not representative, but I doubt it. I must have interacted with hundreds of average men over my life,

I haven't. I have literally known and interacted with tens of thousands of people in my life so far and I have yet to meet a single average person.

I have known men and women of great virtue, but even among them, they vary in ability, knowledge, experience, temperament, and which personal values we share. I have known people who are mixtures of good and bad and they differ as to whether the bad is the result of a correctable error of knowledge or a breach of morality, how much of value their good characteristics are to me, and to what degree their bad points are threats to my values or merely unimportant and/or amusing.

Since I judge a person for the purpose of determining if I will deal with him, in what respect, and whether there are things I can look forward to or should be wary of in my dealings with him, I must judge him as an individual. Even if there were such a thing as an "average" man, it wouldn't help me one bit in judging and dealing with real men.

[Henrik Unné 0]

It is theoretically possible that my sample of average men is not representative, but I doubt it. I must have interacted with hundreds of average men over my life,

I haven't. I have literally known and interacted with tens of thousands of people in my life so far and I have yet to meet a single average person.

I have known men and women of great virtue, but even among them, they vary in ability, knowledge, experience, temperament, and which personal values we share. I have known people who are mixtures of good and bad and they differ as to whether the bad is the result of a correctable error of knowledge or a breach of morality, how much of value their good characteristics are to me, and to what degree their bad points are threats to my values or merely unimportant and/or amusing.

Since I judge a person for the purpose of determining if I will deal with him, in what respect, and whether there are things I can look forward to or should be wary of in my dealings with him, I must judge him as an individual. Even if there were such a thing as an "average" man, it wouldn't help me one bit in judging and dealing with real men.

Maybe the term "average man" is innappropriate. Maybe it would be better to stick to the term "typical man". By "typical" I mean typical in one particular respect - the amount of thinking that he tends to do. I have seen that most of the men that I have interacted with over the course of my life, do not care to put forth much mental effort, and they especially do not bother to think about abstract issues, such as philosophy, or even politics.