Am I still an Objectivist?

[Henrik Unné 0]

Most young people are concerned about such things as poverty, war, destruction of the environment, etc.

Are they? I would think that most young people are primarily concerned about things like finding a career, making money, and getting married. If someone figures that becoming an expert at, say, a field of medicine or a programming language can earn him a good living, I don't see why he should turn his interest toward politics or other more abstract ideas.

In fact, if someone's thinking is centered around the things you listed--"poverty [of the 'masses,' I suppose], war, destruction of the environment"--then he sounds very much like a second-hander to me. If these concerns of his lead him to study philosophy, chances are he'll reject Objectivism anyway. I'm rather puzzled you even mention this as an argument (or did I misunderstand you completely?)

I think that you are subjectivistic, if you say that a person today can concern himself exclusively with things like finding a career, making money and getting married. Today´s context is that our civilization is threatened with collapse. If our civilization collapses, then nobody will be able to achieve much happiness, by means of such values as career, money and love. How much happiness will your marriage give you, if our society collapses into anarchy, and your wife is kidnapped by a marauding gang, and made into a sex slave, to take one concrete example?

In today´s context, you are a subjectivist, if you do *not* concern yourself with such things as intellectual activism and philosophy, in order to defend your values, just because you feel that it is more fun to devote yourself to making money and building a family. Now you should make money, build a family and so forth, but you should also devote some time to intellectual activism and philosophy, to ensure that your values, such as your money and family, are not taken away from you. In today´s context, with encroaching statism and a collapsing culture, it is mandatory, if you value your life, that you defend yourself, by entering the field of ideas. A genuinely selfish man has to concern himself with the "big" issues and values, as well as the "small", personal ones (I am not saying that the "small" values are less important than the "big" ones, it is just a metaphor).

I can illustrate this. If you are sitting in a room at the top of a skyscraper, watching a funny episode of The Simpsons, and somebody tells you - "The skyscraper is burning! You must leave the building immediately!" - would it be rational to reply - "Don´t be an intrinsicist! I value the fun of watching the Simpsons. The Simpsons is my personal value. So I won´t leave the building until this program is finished-"? Well our collapsing civilization is like a burning skyscraper, and it is irrational to just "watch television while the skyscraper burns".

Remember that values, although personal, are also *objective*, not subjective. And they are also contextual. In today's context we cannot afford to refrain from entering the field of ideas, *if* we want to live. "*If* you want to live, *then* you must enter the field of ideas." to paraphrase Ayn Rand´s formulation of the principle ot the objectivity of values.

[Henrik Unné 0]

1) I divide people into 5 categories, not 2. The best kind of men are those who discover original abstract knowledge, on their own. They are people like Ayn Rand. The next best kind of people are those who do not discover original abstract knowledge themselves, but who are so intellectually active that they actively seek out the abstract knowledge that the people in the first category have discovered, in order to learn that knowledge. I consider myself to be in this category. The third best kind of men are those who are not intellectually active enough to discover abstract knowledge, or even to actively look for it, but who are mentally active enough to examine abstract theories when they are presented with them, and who are rational enough to prefer the good abstract knowledge to the trash (i.e. they will embrace Ayn Rand, and they will reject James Joyce and Immanuel Kant). The fourth category are the men who are intellectually slothful, but are not active evaders and destroyers. They are the better second-handers. They do not seek out abstract knowledge, and they just passively accept whatever ideas happen to be floating around them in the cultuer, without examining those ideas critically. The fifth category is the worst, this category consists of the evil members of mankind, those who actively evade, and who destroy values on purpose. They are the worst second-handers. Some of the types of people in this category are, criminals, dicatators, many priests and the bad kind of modern intellectuals. In my opinion the vast majority of the members of mankind belong in category 4 in this scheme of classification.

As you probably can see, this scheme of classification categorizes men by the amount of effort they put forth to perceive and understand reality. The more they try to perceive and understand reality, the better they are. And I think that you can see that I have found the "joints" in the chicken that I am carving up (to use Harry Binswanger´s metaphor), when I categorize people in this way. It makes sense.

To begin with, this classification is not based on effort. Ayn Rand was not only focused on reality and always thinking and integrating, she was also brilliant, which is a completely different matter. Effort does not guarantee ability. This connects to your related discussion where you try to say that intelligence is a product of morality, which it is not. And by this standard you are implying that everyone who fails to equal Ayn Rand's achievement is her moral inferior, which is certainly not the position of Objectivism.

Secondly, what of those who are highly successful in fields other than philosophy? Are they morally inferior because they chose to become doctors, CEOs and basketball players rather than "discovering original abstract knowledge"? Your ideal better resembles Plato's philosopher kings than Ayn Rand's heroes.

And thirdly, you say that the vast majority of mankind belong in your category 4, which is still better than category 5 where Hitler belongs, contradicting your earlier position. I would recommend that before you start writing a book, you get your story straight.

I would recommend that you get what I am saying straight, before you criticize me.

As to your first point, my view that the people in the "higher" intellectual categories are morally better than the ones in the lower categories is based on the premise that intelligence is almost exclusively volitional. *If* that premise is mistaken, and I admit that it is a very uncertain premise, then the people in the higher intellectual categories are not *morally* better, but only intellectually better. Morality, of course, is exclusively a question of matters that are volitional. So the key point in my position is that, the more *effort* to understand reality that he puts forth, the better a person he is. It is the effort that matters morally, not the result (unless the result is exclusively a consequence of the effort, then the two cannot be separated).

As for your second point, a person who puts forth a lot of effort to become a good doctor, CEO or basketball player is equally moral as a person who puts forth an equal amount of effort to become a good philosopher. But I strongly suspect that it takes a lot more effort to become a great philosopher, such as Ayn Rand, than it takes to become a great doctor, CEO or basketball player.

As for your third point, I have not contradicted myself. I have not previously said that the vast majority of mankind is as evil as Hitler, I have said that, in a sense, they are more depraved and more disgusting. Hitler at least had some pseudo-ambition. He was not just passive and indifferent. But he was much more evil and destructive than the Joe Sixpacks of the world.

[Capitalism Forever 0]

So, first of all, Henrik, since you don't address it in your response, am I correct in supposing that you withdraw your argument about young people being concerned about the environment etc., which should lead them to enter the field of ideas and eventually discover Objectivism?

Now, with regard to:

I think that you are subjectivistic, if you say that a person today can concern himself exclusively with things like finding a career, making money and getting married. Today´s context is that our civilization is threatened with collapse. [...] Well our collapsing civilization is like a burning skyscraper, and it is irrational to just "watch television while the skyscraper burns".

You are assuming that young people know that our civilization is collapsing. How are they supposed to know that? Nobody is telling them, and at a young age, it isn't possible to see historical trends, and it isn't possible to know what civilization was like a century ago. What most young people are aware of is simply that "politics is dirty" and that "intellectuals talk a lot of nonsense," and I do not fault them for reacting to that by avoiding politics and scorning intellectuals.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

Posts by "riddle" and the responses to them have been moved to a new thread titled "Einstein and Nirvana " here.

[Capitalism Forever 0]

Posts by "riddle" and the responses to them have been moved to a new thread titled "Einstein and Nirvana " here.

I like the title.

[Ed from OC 0]

Henrik, you've presented a number of premises that I disagree with.

I think that you are subjectivistic, if you say that a person today can concern himself exclusively with things like finding a career, making money and getting married.

Like Roark did? By his own choice, he was explicitly not an intellectual activist. He had no interest in persuading others in matters of philosophy or politics. The exceptions were the court cases, where his product and his freedom were on the line. The threats were immediate and concrete, and he defended himself.

Today´s context is that our civilization is threatened with collapse.

Is it really? How close to collapse is it? Do you have a shack in the forest stockpiled with guns and food? If not, how immediate is this threat? One could legitimately ask at what point has civilization NOT been threatened. It is true that certain key trends, if continued, will lead to collapse... eventually. I don't think it would be in my life time. 100 years from now, perhaps. So if you knew society would collapse say 50 years after your death, as opposed to next month, that changes the impact of this premise in shaping the rest of your argument.

In today´s context, you are a subjectivist, if you do *not* concern yourself with such things as intellectual activism and philosophy, in order to defend your values, just because you feel that it is more fun to devote yourself to making money and building a family. Now you should make money, build a family and so forth, but you should also devote some time to intellectual activism and philosophy, to ensure that your values, such as your money and family, are not taken away from you. In today´s context, with encroaching statism and a collapsing culture, it is mandatory, if you value your life, that you defend yourself, by entering the field of ideas.

The two phrases I put in bold are equivocations. What do they mean, precisely? If I write one letter to the editor opposing socialized medicine, I have spent "some time" "entering the field of ideas" but that surely will not be enough to stem the tide. The question then is: how much is enough? How does one balance intellectual defense with other interests? What's the standard for determining how much time to spend on activism?

[Capitalism Forever 0]

I think that you are subjectivistic, if you say that a person today can concern himself exclusively with things like finding a career, making money and getting married.

Like Roark did?

I was going to mention Roark myself, but I supposed Henrik considered him OK because he did start looking for "the principle behind the Dean."

(Now, one might ask, don't all young people meet a person like the Dean, or have other similar experiences that ought to get them thinking about there being something wrong with the intellectual climate? I think they probably do, but perhaps not at a young age--and even if they do notice the problems, they might just be too busy to spend much time thinking about them, and even if they do think, there is no guarantee they must find the answer.)

Today´s context is that our civilization is threatened with collapse.

Is it really? How close to collapse is it? Do you have a shack in the forest stockpiled with guns and food? If not, how immediate is this threat? One could legitimately ask at what point has civilization NOT been threatened.

Another thing I was thinking about mentioning in my response (you seem to have a way to bring these out of me ) was that he was equivocating on "threatened with collapse" vs. "collapsing." My own view, as you might know from my essay from a year ago, is that a collapse has been in progress for nearly a century now--and I suppose that, even if the trends continue unchanged, it might take about another century for civilization to fully disintegrate. But "the trends will continue unchanged" is a HUGE assumption; I don't think they will. In the 20th century, the world was completely under the influence of the ideas of the anti-Enlightenment, but the 21st century might see something entirely different.

It is true that certain key trends, if continued, will lead to collapse... eventually. I don't think it would be in my life time. 100 years from now, perhaps.

Hah! GMTA.

The question then is: how much is enough? How does one balance intellectual defense with other interests? What's the standard for determining how much time to spend on activism?

I've been having a difficult time making sense of Henrik's position myself, but I think what he means by "entering the field of ideas" is not intellectual activism by people who are already Objectivists, but "average" people starting to look at politics and becoming interested in "abstract ideas" and eventually discovering Objectivism. Somehow like this:

1. Average person is born.

2. At young age, average person becomes concerned about poverty, war, environment, etc.

3. His desire to save the planet etc. causes the young average person to take an interest in politics.

4. His interest in politics causes the young leftist to read up on the various ideologies.

5. Among others, he reads about Objectivism, which eventually turns our young crusader into a rational man.

When I expressed my doubt about #2 being the case with the majority of young people and pointed out the implausibility of #5, the story apparently changed to:

1. Average person is born.

2. At young age, average person becomes interested in making lots of money.

3. Soon, though, he recognizes that the impending collapse of civilization will prevent him from making money.

4. His desire to save civilization causes the young capitalist to read up on the various ideologies.

5. Eventually, he reads about Objectivism and becomes an Objectivist.

My current objection, of course, is to #3.

[B. Royce 0]

Henrik, you've presented a number of premises that I disagree with.

I think that you are subjectivistic, if you say that a person today can concern himself exclusively with things like finding a career, making money and getting married.

Like Roark did? By his own choice, he was explicitly not an intellectual activist. He had no interest in persuading others in matters of philosophy or politics. The exceptions were the court cases, where his product and his freedom were on the line. The threats were immediate and concrete, and he defended himself.

Today´s context is that our civilization is threatened with collapse.

Is it really? How close to collapse is it? Do you have a shack in the forest stockpiled with guns and food? If not, how immediate is this threat? One could legitimately ask at what point has civilization NOT been threatened. It is true that certain key trends, if continued, will lead to collapse... eventually. I don't think it would be in my life time. 100 years from now, perhaps. So if you knew society would collapse say 50 years after your death, as opposed to next month, that changes the impact of this premise in shaping the rest of your argument.

In today´s context, you are a subjectivist, if you do *not* concern yourself with such things as intellectual activism and philosophy, in order to defend your values, just because you feel that it is more fun to devote yourself to making money and building a family. Now you should make money, build a family and so forth, but you should also devote some time to intellectual activism and philosophy, to ensure that your values, such as your money and family, are not taken away from you. In today´s context, with encroaching statism and a collapsing culture, it is mandatory, if you value your life, that you defend yourself, by entering the field of ideas.

The two phrases I put in bold are equivocations. What do they mean, precisely? If I write one letter to the editor opposing socialized medicine, I have spent "some time" "entering the field of ideas" but that surely will not be enough to stem the tide. The question then is: how much is enough? How does one balance intellectual defense with other interests? What's the standard for determining how much time to spend on activism?

Good questions. Note also that in the first sentence of Henrik's last paragraph "making money and building a family" are "fun" things, and that one should "concern yourself with such things as intellectual activism and philosophy" (which are apparently not "fun") in order to defend these "fun" things. Two sentences later we have, "it is mandatory, if you value your life"---which does not seem to refer to "fun" things. Is "life" here something different than "making money and building a family" (and is it a "sin" to be single?)? And, what if philosophy IS fun for you, what if it's not a difficult burden (a cross to bear?)? Conversely, if there were not "encroaching statism and a collapsing culture" should one simply ignore the area of ideas?

[Henrik Unné 0]

So, first of all, Henrik, since you don't address it in your response, am I correct in supposing that you withdraw your argument about young people being concerned about the environment etc., which should lead them to enter the field of ideas and eventually discover Objectivism?

Now, with regard to:

I think that you are subjectivistic, if you say that a person today can concern himself exclusively with things like finding a career, making money and getting married. Today´s context is that our civilization is threatened with collapse. [...] Well our collapsing civilization is like a burning skyscraper, and it is irrational to just "watch television while the skyscraper burns".

You are assuming that young people know that our civilization is collapsing. How are they supposed to know that? Nobody is telling them, and at a young age, it isn't possible to see historical trends, and it isn't possible to know what civilization was like a century ago. What most young people are aware of is simply that "politics is dirty" and that "intellectuals talk a lot of nonsense," and I do not fault them for reacting to that by avoiding politics and scorning intellectuals.

I did not neglect to adress the argument about young people being concerned with the environment because I wanted to evade the issue. I just do not have time to respond to every individual point in other´s posts, so I respond to what strikes me as most important. Now, that I reflect more on it, I realize that it is possible that the intellectual state of the young has deteriorated so much since the 1960s and 1970s, when I was young, so that the young persons of today are not even interested in such bogus causes as environmentalism. Well, environmentalism and other such issues are still all over the place in the newspapers and in the news programs on TV, and a young person today does not even bother to read the papers, or watch any news programs, then he is inexcusably negligent. He is like an intellectual drunken driver. So I fault him. Even if he thinks that "politics is dirty", he has no reasonable excuse to be disinterested in the workings of the world he lives in.

Also, my main complaint is about the people who go throgh an entire lifetime without ever bothering to acquire any abstract knowledge (of relevent subjects) to speak of. And even if you are ignorant when you start out, you will discover the need for abstract knowledge as you mature, if you are not braindead.

[Henrik Unné 0]

Henrik, you've presented a number of premises that I disagree with.

I think that you are subjectivistic, if you say that a person today can concern himself exclusively with things like finding a career, making money and getting married.

Like Roark did? By his own choice, he was explicitly not an intellectual activist. He had no interest in persuading others in matters of philosophy or politics. The exceptions were the court cases, where his product and his freedom were on the line. The threats were immediate and concrete, and he defended himself.

Today´s context is that our civilization is threatened with collapse.

Is it really? How close to collapse is it? Do you have a shack in the forest stockpiled with guns and food? If not, how immediate is this threat? One could legitimately ask at what point has civilization NOT been threatened. It is true that certain key trends, if continued, will lead to collapse... eventually. I don't think it would be in my life time. 100 years from now, perhaps. So if you knew society would collapse say 50 years after your death, as opposed to next month, that changes the impact of this premise in shaping the rest of your argument.

In today´s context, you are a subjectivist, if you do *not* concern yourself with such things as intellectual activism and philosophy, in order to defend your values, just because you feel that it is more fun to devote yourself to making money and building a family. Now you should make money, build a family and so forth, but you should also devote some time to intellectual activism and philosophy, to ensure that your values, such as your money and family, are not taken away from you. In today´s context, with encroaching statism and a collapsing culture, it is mandatory, if you value your life, that you defend yourself, by entering the field of ideas.

The two phrases I put in bold are equivocations. What do they mean, precisely? If I write one letter to the editor opposing socialized medicine, I have spent "some time" "entering the field of ideas" but that surely will not be enough to stem the tide. The question then is: how much is enough? How does one balance intellectual defense with other interests? What's the standard for determining how much time to spend on activism?

You ask some good questions.

1) It is not clear from The Foutnainhead, just how influential persons like Ellsworth Toohey had become in the culture that Roark lived in. But if Howard Roark lived in America or Sweden today, and he did not put forth some significant effort to stem the tide of irrationalism, statism, etc. then I *would* condemn him for that, although I would also give him a lot of credit for being productive, even more than I give people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs.

2) We do not know how close to collapse our culture is, but we do know that something is wrong, and so we should act on principle, and concern ourselves with such subjects as politics and philosophy, until we know that the "coast is clear". Otherwise we would be chancing it.

3) What´s the standard for determining how much time to spend on activism? Well, your own happiness, which is not subjective. But I can´t put any exact figure on it. However, verybody, who is not in such a difficult situation that he has to work something like 12 hours a day to make a living, can devote at least a few hours a week to such activities as reading books, writing debate pieces and the like, and still have time to pursue his own happiness. I got married a bit more than 2 months ago, and I work 40 hours a week to make a living, but I have no trouble managing to devote something like 10 hours a week to intellectual activities. However I do not think that anyone *has* to do that. But I would condemn anyone who does not at least spend, say, a couple of hours a week to reading books, and to dashing off a letter to the editor.

[Henrik Unné 0]

Good questions. Note also that in the first sentence of Henrik's last paragraph "making money and building a family" are "fun" things, and that one should "concern yourself with such things as intellectual activism and philosophy" (which are apparently not "fun") in order to defend these "fun" things. Two sentences later we have, "it is mandatory, if you value your life"---which does not seem to refer to "fun" things. Is "life" here something different than "making money and building a family" (and is it a "sin" to be single?)? And, what if philosophy IS fun for you, what if it's not a difficult burden (a cross to bear?)? Conversely, if there were not "encroaching statism and a collapsing culture" should one simply ignore the area of ideas?

I experience intellectual acitivism as being "fun". I know that not everyone does. But everybody must in reason have some value(s) in his life that gives him happiness. And regardless of what that value(s) is, he *must* act, if he wants to gain and keep it. Which means that if his values are threatened by encroaching statism, he must do something to fight the encroaching statism. Sure, he may not see a direct connection between his own intellectual activism, and the saving of his own personal happiness. But he should act on principle, and he should not settle for a life of being a paraiste on *other* people´s thinking and activism. Just as it is not in your interest to be a welfare bum, even if you can get away with it, it is not in your interest to be intellectually passive, even if you can get away with it.

You ask - "Conversely, if there were not `encroaching statism and a collapsing culture´ should one simply ignore the area of ideas?" I am very glad that you asked that question. Because it gives me the opportunity to explain why I am so condemnatory of people who do not bother to try to acquire abstract knowledge. How can you know whether or not you are living in a society that is threatened by irrational ideas *before* you have entered the field of abstract ideas? You cannot. So you *must* enter the field of abstract ideas and find out whether you are living in a society that is threatened by irrational ideas. But how can you know that you must do that? You have to act on principle. The principle is that, in general, you need abstract knowledge if you are to be able to deal with the world you live in. And everybody who lives in a modern society knows that there is *some* kind of abstract knowledge that is valuable to *him*. And if he starts to explore that field of abstract knowledge, then by following the leads that he comes across, he will eventually discover the field of philosophy, and, if a philosophy such as Objectivism is available, then he will be able to determine if he lives in a society that is threatened by irrational ideas. First after he has ascertained that the society he is living in is *not* under an intellectual assault, so that the "coast is clear" can he rationally permit himself to ignore the field of abstract ideas. And he could, in fact, not ignore the field of abstract ideas completely, since he would need to keep an eye out for new threats. Vigilance is the price of liberty, and intellectual vigilance is the price of safe living.

I did not have any inkling of the value of philosophy at the outset. But when I was 20, in 1974, I knew that I valued freedom, but I could not explain why, in words. So I decided that I had to find out why freedom was a value, so that I could defend it (I realized that freedom needed an intellectual defense). So I asked people around me to recommend good books that defended freedom. People recommended The Road to Serfdom by Hayek, and Capitalism and Freedom by Friedman, so I read those books. I was not satisfied, so I kept on looking. In 1979, 5 years and maybe 15 books later, I discovered Objectivism, and became aware of the value of philosophy. So I know from my own experience that it really pays off to act on principle, and pursue abstract knowledge.

[Henrik Unné 0]

I've been having a difficult time making sense of Henrik's position myself, but I think what he means by "entering the field of ideas" is not intellectual activism by people who are already Objectivists, but "average" people starting to look at politics and becoming interested in "abstract ideas" and eventually discovering Objectivism. Somehow like this:

1. Average person is born.

2. At young age, average person becomes concerned about poverty, war, environment, etc.

3. His desire to save the planet etc. causes the young average person to take an interest in politics.

4. His interest in politics causes the young leftist to read up on the various ideologies.

5. Among others, he reads about Objectivism, which eventually turns our young crusader into a rational man.

When I expressed my doubt about #2 being the case with the majority of young people and pointed out the implausibility of #5, the story apparently changed to:

1. Average person is born.

2. At young age, average person becomes interested in making lots of money.

3. Soon, though, he recognizes that the impending collapse of civilization will prevent him from making money.

4. His desire to save civilization causes the young capitalist to read up on the various ideologies.

5. Eventually, he reads about Objectivism and becomes an Objectivist.

My current objection, of course, is to #3.

Your first scenario is the one that I went through myself, when I was young. I started out by valuing freedom, realized that I could not explain in words why freedom was a value and decided that I needed to find out, by reading books by various defenders of freedom. I read books by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman first. And after 5 years of looking for a good defense of freedom (I was not satisfied by Hayek and Friedman) I read a newspaper article that stated that somebody by the name of Ayn Rand had made a philosophical defense of capitalism. I went to a large bookstore in Stockholm, found some books by Ayn Rand and purchased two of them. Then I became an Objectivist. So I think that it is realistic, in the sense that it is metaphysically possible to "average" persons, althougj it is statistically unusual.

I think that your second scenario is more statistically probable. There are, probably many more young people who are interested in making lots of money, than who are idealists, as I was. I do not see what your objection to #3 is. Sure, most persons who are interested in making lots of money will not see that civilization is collapsing, and that their values are threatened. But that is because of their own (volitional) mental turpitude. My point is that everyone who is interested in making lots of money *could* go through the process that you have outlined, if only they bothered to think enough. But I know that most of them don´t. That is why I condemn the majority of people. They do not do enough thinking to ensure their survival. If they survive, they only do so by dint of luck, and by dint of the thinking and intellectual activism of better men.

Incidentally, if you wish to really understand my viewpoint, you should read my long post in the psychology section - "The Causes of My Schizophrenia". That post will show you "where I am coming from".

[Capitalism Forever 0]

Now, that I reflect more on it, I realize that it is possible that the intellectual state of the young has deteriorated so much since the 1960s and 1970s, when I was young, so that the young persons of today are not even interested in such bogus causes as environmentalism.

But Henrik, if a person is not interested in bogus causes, he might still be interested in legitimate causes--such as his own career. The reason he does not care about the bogus cause may well be that he is intelligent enough to recognize it as bogus.

[Henrik Unné 0]

Now, that I reflect more on it, I realize that it is possible that the intellectual state of the young has deteriorated so much since the 1960s and 1970s, when I was young, so that the young persons of today are not even interested in such bogus causes as environmentalism.

But Henrik, if a person is not interested in bogus causes, he might still be interested in legitimate causes--such as his own career. The reason he does not care about the bogus cause may well be that he is intelligent enough to recognize it as bogus.

But if a person recognizes that environmentalism is a bogus cause, then, provided that he realizes that it is serious enough (i.e. not in the category of astrology and alien abductions) he would in reason want to *fight* it. And he would need knowledge to do that.