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Post 20

Monday, December 2, 2013 - 1:33pmSanction this postReply
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Fred,
What struck me in your description of the process, with the role of education, is how potentially dangerous the politicization of education is. Before you know it, "socialization" means far more than what sociologists claim it is, and it becomes political indoctrination-- including, our understanding of what individualism is. "Socialization", today, includes the systemic obliteration of individualism, including the redefinition of self-fulfillment to be the achievement of the collective's goals uber alles.
EXACTLY! It is so disheartening. And it starts with the well-meaning socialization of kids to just play well together. Instead of being taught how to be an individual, pursuing his or her self-interest in a group setting, they are being taught to sacrifice to the group. That first layer of "Be a good boy, Tommy. Share your toys. Help Billy." Teaching that as The Good, lets the politicization follow. The intellectual path has been greased.

Post 21

Tuesday, December 3, 2013 - 6:31pmSanction this postReply
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Why do you fellows use Tibor's thread for so much else besides discussion of his article?
I think I would be very discouraged if I were Tibor.

Post 22

Tuesday, December 3, 2013 - 7:24pmSanction this postReply
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Hi Stephen,

The heart of Professor Machan's thread was about Humanism expressed in collectivist forms and how unfortunate that is, given that individualism is essential for a number of reasons. And that "...if humanism remains wedded to collectivism, it will turn out to be a false and dangerous alternative to faith based ethics." (I'd say that it will, and has, become its own faith based ethical system.)

Fred offered a new paradigm for understanding individualism versus collectivism - his free association versus forced association in which you can freely engage in collaboration.

Ed, Mike and I discussed the ethical understanding of collectivism. Now that is starting to move away from the article - but not by very much. I think it was on the subject matter, but not directly on the article itself. And that is the first question I'd have: Should we only address the article (not just the subject apart from the article)? Should we only address the author? Or is it appropriate to let the thread take on a life of its own - to some degree.

I've worked on the theory that each post should be a response to one or more of the posts already made, even if it means the thread changes directions to some degree. I'm open to being corrected if that's not the proper thing. I certainly mean no disrespect to Professor Machan or anyone else who has taken the time to start a thread. And I welcome feed back about my tendencies - do I go to far, or not. I can always start a new thread if that's the proper thing to do.

(And I freely admit that my post #19 - which I'm fond of - was entirely about Obamacare was NOT in line with the thread and just barely hooked onto something that Fred had mentioned. And #20 was also part of a conversation no longer hooked to the article.)

Would it improve the site if we were far stricter in only addressing the articles? Isn't there significant value in letting the thread have some life of its own?

Post 23

Wednesday, December 4, 2013 - 3:39amSanction this postReply
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Yes, I do think it would improve the site to post close to things put forward in the root post of the thread when that post is an article. Putting some research and thought into that subject would be the most attractive for the site, but if one does not want to do that, then at least questions for the author of the article that could further develop the topic would be nice. Posting nothing in the thread would be better than posting distractions to what was in the article, where the article really is an article, as in this case.



Post 24

Wednesday, December 4, 2013 - 9:49amSanction this postReply
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Stephen,

Maybe a better posting system would be one that is more like a tree instead of a chain. Then branches of topic shift could easily be collapsed or ignored, and branches that you are interested in could be expanded.

I proposed this at one point but Joe didn't really think it was worthwhile.

Due to the mechanics of the site its kind of hard to make branching threads of conversation while maintaining easy access to prior conversation context. Huge areas of text have to laboriously be copied, or if linked to its hard to specify which linked range of posts are related.

So I generally agree with your wishes, but due to practical reasons with the website's current functionality I wouldn't really consider your suggestion as necessarily enforceable or desirable.

As for improving this website, I think its more a dinosaur at this point and instead we'd probably try to transfer the forum to a new forum engine, with loss of some unique features to this website that some really like.

Post 25

Wednesday, December 4, 2013 - 1:21pmSanction this postReply
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Some thoughts on thread etiquette regarding hijacking

Sanction: 6, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 6, No Sanction: 0
Post 26

Saturday, January 4, 2014 - 4:55pmSanction this postReply
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Feuerbach, being only ten years senior to Marx, was not his teacher. Perhaps Tibor is referring to Hegel, who indirectly served as a teacher to both, who considered themselves 'Hegelian'.

Yet Feuerbach and Marx despised each other, as oil to water, socialist to objectivist. This is because Feuerbach's Hegel demonstrated an evolutionary progress through the dialectic of ideas, culminating with the Christianity of his time.

Marx, oth, was the materialist who hated religion as the opiate of the people, the heart of a heartless (capitalist) world. For him, Christianity just covered up the real misery. His Thesis on Feuerbach stated that the role of philosophy was not to contemplate the world, but rather to change it.

Humanism means that humans only have their own reason to serve as a means of understanding truth. Religious beliefs are not to be taken as a priori true.

To this end, religion can contain humanist truths only to the extent that their statements fall within the discursive boundaries of 'rational basis'. Feuerbach and others accepted this permise in writing that Christianity is rationally- real  because it leads to better cooperation among people.

Humanism also believes in volition, or 'agency. The world that humans live in is of their own will, created by free choice. This, of course, is the legacy of The Enlightenment. By obtaining knowledge, we can use our natural reason to make better choices.

To this end, humanism began as a progressive political movement by default, around 1800. Its conservative opponents emphasized tradition for its own sake, and somewhat opposed the entire enlightnment project as such.

Therefore, humanism became inadvertantly wedded to collectivism. But as Objectivism as eloquently demonstrated, this association was ad hoc, and not necessary. We can, indeed, have a Humanism that's based upon the individual.

Now, back to Marx: pre-1848 Manifesto yes, a humanist, but for the next forty years or so, definately not.

His doctrine of 'dialectical materialism' is rather clear. Humans are shaped by real, objective forces beyond their immediate control. Proletariat and bourgeoisie --exploited and exploiter--are subject-independently real entities, hence, 'objective'.

Moreover, to suggest that the revolution to obtain a socialist order is somehow driven by garden-variey 'agency/volition misses the point. Driven by misery anger to overthrow the oppressing class, Marx's workers are hardly models of contemplative wisdom. Rather, their creation will be a naturalist outcome: the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Lastly, most socialists have always rejected Marx--a fact obscured by the advent of Soviet Communism, which adopted Marx as a father-figure. Rather, socialists--for better or worse-- have constantly endeavored to demonstrate why certain forms of collectivism are of benefit to all.

Clearly within the humanist tradition, socialism rejects Marxist violent overthrow as irrational, of ultimate benefit to no one. Tibor,therefore does no one credit by having conflated the two diverse tendencies. The issues with a humanist-based collectivism are real, and dragging Marx into the picture just muddies the waters.

EM


Post 27

Sunday, January 5, 2014 - 3:15amSanction this postReply
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Thanks, Eva. I glanced over the article when it first appeared, but did not give it much focus. Your comments took me back to it. I have a totally different understanding of the historical development of humanism than does Tibor. Perhaps his best analysis is much deeper, but that short statement left much unaddressed.

Humanism began expressly in the Renaissance, 300 years before Karl Marx. Humanism grew and flourished through the 17th and 18th centuries - the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment. Alexander Pope's bitter praise for himself and us all began: "Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is Man." Pope also wrote Newton's epitaph: "Nature and Nature's truth lay hid in dark of night, then God said, Let Newton be! and all was light." That was 100 years before Marx was born.

As for Comte, he did, indeed propose a collectivist humanism. He first called sociology "social physics." He sought to find universal truths about people in society. He failed miserably - at least his prescriptions did; as an observer, he might have been all too insightful. On the other hand, Herbert Spencer also at the very same time independently sought a "social physics" and also used the label "sociology" for his study of the evolution of social organizations. Spencer, of course, was a liberal and an individualist who early on advocated for the right to vote for women (of course), but also for children.

The general collectivist slant to modern humanism is only a reflection of the broader discourse in all academic studies: altruism and collectivism are the defaults. But individualist humanism certainly should exist. It is only that Objectivism does not specifically identify with that tradition.

By the same measure, I point out that we here tend to be generally disappointed that Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others never come to grips with the problems in political collectivism. Like Karl Popper and many others, they want an open society but they never get to the core of the problem. So, here we are.

But, Objectivism is very much in the humanist tradition. Man is the measure of all things.





Post 28

Sunday, January 5, 2014 - 7:56amSanction this postReply
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Michel,

Thanks for the response.

Renaissance 'Humanitas' was what we now call 'The Humanities'. It was the cover term for bringing the classics into the curriculum.

As an -ism it seemd to have retrospective application for the 1840-ish generation-- to look upon the enlightenment's intellectual struggles with the god-justifiers as reason versus faith, volition versus god's proclaimed natural order.  

To this end, the intellectual fly in the ointment appears to be the advent of science as applied to humans. Agency (volition) is called into question to the extent that we exist as natural, predictable objects of study.

To the list of modern anti-humanists, one must add to Marxists the endeavor of psychoanalysis, Nietzsche, most modern French philosophy and anyone else that observes predictive regularity where free will was hitherto assumed to have existed.

In this respect, it's hard not to admire Comte, who neatly squared this apparent circle; a net gain in human knowledge about our nature is precisely what makes us free. To this extent, his 'failue' might be intrinsic to the problem itself, which may offer no solution. 'Sort of like Copenhagen: volition and cause on alternate days, perhaps....

Do you mean to say that within (present day) academia, collectivism is the default humanist position? Here, one might posit three reasons as to why:
    * impetus from the past struggles with a religious social order that defended their brand of conservatism with anti-humanist positions.
     * a virtual tally of assorted arguments won and lost.
     * social pressure from within.

# 3 seems to be the default position taken by several on this board, nearly as a default posture of faith! Perhaps, to paraphrase Rand, it's not so much the assumptions that need to be questioned as the product of discourse itself. Surely, calling Nobel laureates in economics 'idiots' will not win any points in a free and open debate.

Otherwise--pure trivia!-- Pope was an anti-humanist. The famous citation from his poem, 'proper study...' was written in sarcastic jest.

Eva


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