Objectivist Dropouts

[Betsy Speicher 0]

What about the countless people who back away from Objectivism because they are tired of the moralizing (one year, Peikoff claims that anyone not voting his way is 'immoral." Then - oops. My bad. This kind of moralizing is as smart a reason for leaving Objectivism as I can imagine.

Those "countless people" are not making the necessary distinction between ideas and the people who hold them.

A philosophy isn't judged true or of value based on which people advocate it. That would be the logical fallacies of argumentum ad populum or argumentum ad verecundiam and an example of intellectual second-handedness.

[Claire 0]

Those "countless people" are not making the necessary distinction between ideas and the people who hold them.

Agree totally, but let's be fair, the many 'people who hold them' have probably done countless damage to Objectivism by turning many reasonable people away.

[toyohabu 0]

Agree totally, but let's be fair, the many 'people who hold them' have probably done countless damage to Objectivism by turning many reasonable people away.

Wouldn't they be then unreasonable?

[Carlos 0]

Agree totally, but let's be fair, the many 'people who hold them' have probably done countless damage to Objectivism by turning many reasonable people away.

Wouldn't they be then unreasonable?

No, just understandably mistaken.

[ewv 0]

"Moralizing" is not making moral judgment, which is proper and necessary. Those objecting to "moralizing" the loudest are often package-dealing moral evaluation with running around inappropriately and unnecessarily personally denouncing people, especially without in-context explanation. Sometimes it's hard to know which they hate the most, especially among a-philosophical 'libertarians' who are subjectivists complaining about morality/moralizing. In the political realm, moral judgment is especially important against both nihilistic egalitarians and religious mystics trying to 'seize the moral high ground' to morally intimidate the rest of us in the face of their supposed idealism.

[Claire 0]

Agree totally, but let's be fair, the many 'people who hold them' have probably done countless damage to Objectivism by turning many reasonable people away.

Wouldn't they be then unreasonable?

No, just understandably mistaken.

i don't consider it unreasonabe not to distinguish betwee people and ideas if all I see at first is a bunch of people who've been arguing since 1968; It's more than understandable to not want to pursue the ideas. It's a loss, yes, but i hardly blame the person. I'm sorry, the so-called people have done themselves a tremendous disservice.

[ewv 0]

Which people arguing about what since 1968 and how would you know if you didn't look at what ideas they were talking about and the relation to what is published in writing? The public source of Ayn Rand's ideas is her published written work and lectures, not someone arguing. Most people interested in Ayn Rand's ideas are interested because they have read some of it and want to know more. How could you expect to discover it solely from people arguing about something you don't know because you haven't read it? The vast majority of public arguing has been from people attacking and smearing Ayn Rand in some way. People attacking and misrepresenting something always do it a disservice. Those who are interested in something they have read should know for themselves what they are interested in and not stop reading because someone else is arguing.

[ruveyn ben yosef 0]

Wow. I guess if somebody thought Ayn Rand was so wrong about everything, I guess they should proceed to be wanton self-sacrificial altruists who reject logical thought and embrace communism. Oh, did they become Democrats?

They became libertarians and friends of Barbara Branden.

What about people who became libertarians and not friends of Barbara Branden?

And what about people who simply gave up on American politics.

Trying to suck water from a dry pipe decade after decade is an exercise in futility.

Things will change only when the entire rotten structure falls to the ground.

ruveyn

[ewv 0]

Wow. I guess if somebody thought Ayn Rand was so wrong about everything, I guess they should proceed to be wanton self-sacrificial altruists who reject logical thought and embrace communism. Oh, did they become Democrats?

They became libertarians and friends of Barbara Branden.

What about people who became libertarians and not friends of Barbara Branden?

Betsy respnded specifically to a post about the Blumenthals. Most people have never heard of the Brandens.

And what about people who simply gave up on American politics.

What about them? That's a lot of people who know nothing or almost nothing about Ayn Rand, libertarians who plagiarize and contradict her, or anyone's personal diversion into the muck of the Brandens, and have no personal use for politics at all for good reason.

Trying to suck water from a dry pipe decade after decade is an exercise in futility.

Who do you think is doing that?

Things will change only when the entire rotten structure falls to the ground.

Things will change a lot, they will become much worse with no idea of what is a proper social system or why. The almost blindly followed, mindless momentum of adhering to Constitutional limitations and procedures with no understanding of what they are for -- to the extent they are still followed now at all -- will be gone completely. You will wish you still had the lesser of the two previous evils.

[JohnRgt 0]

I've never understood why people with at least some respect for individualism think that a collapse will be followed by something like what the Constitution prescribes.

[jacassidy2 0]

_{WONDERFUL, Not just Betsy's OP but what it sparked - More sense data for consideration. For me, I get the idea that young people latch on during the separation phase from their parents and then, the skeptics say, they smarten up. Truth, they don't smarten up, they fade off into nowhere, which may include graduate school in philosophy - mostly into pragmatism and existentialism. I know why I came across Objectivism in college but then, still cling at age 58 - it was the metaphysics and epistemology. The ethics got me as a kid and the met/ep got me forever. I was not a philosopher then, but I think I am now in retirement. I read Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology at about age 22 in grad school while trying to figure out true knowledge and after reading all the Rand fiction and available non-fiction. (AT least I think so, does the timing work out right?) It was her analysis of concept fromation, abstraction, concepts of consciousness, and Peikoff's work on the A/S dichotomy that hooked me. RESTATE: not the authors, but the ideas. Txs for this opportunity to speak Betsy.}