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Post 40

Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - 11:42amSanction this postReply
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Steve:

 

Atlas Shrugged has sold as many copies as it has because of the number of people who experienced an emotional rush from that vision.

 

Yes, her art succeeded exactly because of her romantic vision, and her politics have had an influence because of the success of her romantic art.    It was her novels that most read first, and then her essays.

 

She was also successful , I think, in the placement/marketing of her art;  Anthem was a Jr. High on-ramp(her detractors might call it a gateway drug.)   It was still being assigned in the 60s, along with Animal Farm and 1984 and The Lottery and .Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron -- all decidedly political art in that America.     (My public Jr High School  teaching sister, in the 90s, fought attempts to remove these from the local curriculum by the onslaught of 'progressive' thinkers freshly patrolling public schools.)  Night of Jan 16th was an attempt at the theater, as a sifferent front.  (Ideas not well received by the critics?  No kidding.)   And her three novels -- We The Living, Fountainhead, and AS were a kind of personal progression, yet all screaming the same fundamental idea; this thing in my hands is my life and I will fight for it.   In total, a kind of broadside, aimed at the prevailing alternative collectivist ideas sweeping the world during the time that she wrote these works.    She wasn't subtle.   You would have to work especially hard to misunderstand her(and the gymnastics of those who purposely do is more revealing of them than her.).   When you consider the prevailing winds when she ... screamed these things at the top of her lungs at the world, it was a remarkable feat of personal will.    That she is still vilified today, in 2014, 30+ years after her death, is a testimonly to how clearly she hit her mark, and what a threat her ideas pose to her opponents, even today.  Rand is their hairshirt-- they protest a little too much how inconsequential and non-influential among 'right thinkers' she is -- and she serves as a kind of litmus, even long dead.

 

regards,

Fred.

 

 

 

 

 

 



Post 41

Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - 12:57pmSanction this postReply
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Steve:

 

I haven't read her book, probably will, just basing this on her talk.   I suspect that her definition of glamour is more focused on the reception as glamour, and not the process of how that occurs.   As something passively received, not actively projected.

 

Well, I wish.   I mean, I wish that was what glamour was; a self-valued resonance to some personal attractor,  pulled from some palette of neutral, passive candidates, visions of glamour from a neutral, agenda free  Library of Glamour..

 

In her view, charisma is an attribute of a person, whereas glamour is simply the response -- to anything, not necessarily a person -- by someone to a vision or idea presented to them.   Her claim is, one can have charisma, but can't decide to be glamourous; only others bestow that reaction on anybody or thing.   So... there is no glamour industry targeting exactly that reaction in others?

 

I'd wish, for example, that Hollywood was an agenda free neutral engine of romantic visions from which we all choose to be inspired.    I think it actually largely succeeds at that, even with the odd agendas thrown about, and even with a systemic bias to those agendas.   So maybe close enough.

 

As well, is the glamour industry of Madison Ave really a threat to freedom, or is it a manifestation of freedom?   A line has been drawn at subliminal messaging, and so, at least it can be said that we are on our own when deciding that Dove soap is the only way to capture that once glow of youthful radiance.    But clearly(to me)the projection of glamour is a studied art/science; an even manufactured art.   (It is one thing to seek out glamourous images, persist the images, and use them.   It is another thing to take reality and then airbrush it by design into an un-achievable perfection and represent what you are offering as a path to that unreality.  That is, at the very least, a kind of fraud.   Stealing.  A false offering of fake value for real value.)

 

So then, what of the short drive from K-Street to Madison Ave?  Is it really a threat to freedom that a well oiled Obama in perpetual modern campaign mode projects a manufactured glamour reaction,  not simply by passive happenstance and what others bring to their reaction, but by a cultivated, deliberate act?   Isn't that a far more dangerous fraud in the pursuit of what some want from others than selling Dove soap?

 

Is caving to that sad political fact just RealPolitik?   Better emotive clowns are needed to sell political soap, and so, as we fringe few ponder the failures to broadly engage these ideas, should we all join in an effort to provide more palatable clowns for the existing circus, and enter the fray to strive to be the most beloved clown?

 

I can believe that it isn't possible for an individual to without fail trigger a glamour reaction in a particular individual, but that isn't the goal either of Hollywood, Madison Ave, or even politicians in a democracy.  Their goals are not based on individual reactions, but on 'enough' individual reactions, no matter who individually has those reactions.

 

The politics is rigged, I think, by a Universe that runs mainly downhill.   In the end, no matter how you dress it up, it is easier to run downhill than uphill.   That is strike one.      Strike two is, it is apparently pretty easy to convince folks that they should want to run downhill, as their goal.   The reason is, see reason one.    Strike three is, if the game is democratically winnable only by the strength of collectivist numbers, than paradigms inherently based on fissiles will struggle against paradigms based on fusiles.

 

Libertarians, I think, are entering a game with three strikes on them before they even take a pitch.    It is a kind of a paradox-- I call it the Paradox of Freedom -- that a nation must be won by convincing others it is in their best interest to mob up to defend their right to be free from each other...except under a model of free vs. forced association.   The challenge of libertarians, I think, is to simplity that message and make it palatable.  Any paradigm with 'except' in its explanation is going to lose 80% of the electorate.    By comparison,  "It's the economy, stupid!" -- although highly effective, was taking a huge risk by including that comma.

 

regards,

Fred



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Post 42

Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - 1:50pmSanction this postReply
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Fred,

 

In addition to the 'running downhill' advantage of the collectivists, there is another large advantage they have.  They stand to gain hugely from their efforts to steal from others, and they promise to share their loot - it is a promise that we can make running downhill work - whoppee, no more hard work, no more needing skill or knowledge.  

 

Whereas the people who recognize that real growth can only come out of an uphill climb, aren't motivated by the promise of gains by fighting the collectivists - at least that isn't how it presents.  They see a large battle, with lots of time and energy in addition to their normal work load, and at best they will temporarily gain freedom from some proposed small increase in taxes - or something like that.

 

I remember an ex-cop I knew who would point out things on the street that I (who am pretty observant) wouldn't have noticed.  He'd say, "You get up everyday to go to work. So do the crooks. It's their job. They work at finding ways to rip you off."  Because the location of our political infection's reservoir is the universities, they work at finding new ways to dress up collectivism and to move the next generation further to the left.

 

At some point we run into that old saw about people getting the government they deserve. You mentioned in another post that people 'woke up' to the loss of liberties whereas the surprise was that it took that long and that we should have been on top of it from long before that.

 

Madison Ave and the politicians will always seek out what works best. It is a kind of evolutionary arms race going on where there hasn't been as much evolution among consumers as there should have been. But the capacity to see what an ad is doing, or what charismatic moves a politican makes that have no substance is never far away. It is an evolutionary growth that can be quickly attained even though never guaranteed. Wise consumers is the cure for many ills.

 

Where the quest for super-effective glamor type of ad falls just short of explicit promises to the guy that if he uses their after shave lotion they will get laid by gorgeous young models the justice department could always go after them for fraud. It would require creating a rational definition of what constitutes fraud as opposed to puffery. But the better approach is to simply teach critical thinking as part of every single year of schooling. And I suspect that free market competition in the schools would bring that about on its own.

 

Bad products (or defective political ideas) need to use glamor instead of reason, and if some text is expected they will create lies or misdirection. Good products have lots of advantages: stronger word-of-mouth (they work better), good reasoning to go with the image instead of lies and shallow promises that don't make sense, better integration with similar ideas or products, and their reputation, and the reputation of their purveyors is more likely to increase over time. Whereas the socialists had to start calling themselves liberals, then they had to start calling themselves Progressives. They find they have to toss an idea or a purveyor under the bus every now and then.  Notice that after every heavy dose of progressive politics, there is a strong drive to more sensible ideas.  I think that can be partially attributed to the glamor effects that brought in the progressive orgy, wore out it's mystery, and its illusion.  

 

All in all the good ideas and good products have the advantages, but they are coming from too far behind in terms of planned, energetic, institutionalized promotion.  And they have not learned how to sell the sizzle not the steak (as the Madison Ave. people put it).

Libertarians, I think, are entering a game with three strikes on them before they even take a pitch. It is a kind of a paradox-- I call it the Paradox of Freedom -- that a nation must be won by convincing others it is in their best interest to mob up to defend their right to be free from each other...except under a model of free vs. forced association.

Sad but true.



Post 43

Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - 2:56pmSanction this postReply
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Fred, That was Teresa's link, not mine...  I just wrote directions on how to embed the video and showed the results.



Post 44

Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - 4:35pmSanction this postReply
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After watching the video, I have more to comment...

 

Victoria mentioned during the video about how today she no longer understands how a computer works.  This is another kind of problem people have with the viewpoint of just looking at the meta level causes and effects... without looking at the underlying workings of the system.  So the problem is, when some component of the system changes... the best actions you've derived from your previous experience don't work anymore, they produce entirely different results.

 

Just for a quick example... my son at one point knew that pushing with his legs pushed him higher while he was holding on to something.  So when it came time to see if he could stand balancing on his own... as soon as he started tipping to one side he would spring his legs out, which did successfully get his head higher for a moment, but then caused him to tip over like a stiff pole and smash his head down harder into the ground further away.  So then in this new context where he has to balance, he has to figure out a different way to keep himself up.  (And until he can balance, he had to learn to let his legs collapse so that he'd land on his butt instead of his face).

 

The Federal Reserve's Quatitative Easing policy is exactly the same in this respect as my son trying to stay up longer by straightening and pushing his legs.  They are printing more money to keep the financial system going for a little bit longer (son pushing off to stay up longer)... but its going to result in an even bigger collapse of the dollar and financial system (son falls quickly like a stiff pole and smashes his face in the ground).

 

But I don't know how much this relates to Deontological versus Consequentialist...  I guess... I'd just say that both using principals and learning effects of causes and going with the best action is important.  But when using principals, you should know the reason why the principals were made to be followed in the first place (and when they don't apply), and when forming new principals via learning cause and effect, one should start off with a sound base of knowledge of prior learned principal understanding so that you don't waste time/energy/life relearning things the hard way.



Post 45

Thursday, March 6, 2014 - 10:00amSanction this postReply
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Machan:

 

Deontological v. Consequentialist

 

Contrast with Sowell's "Outcome vs. Process" based view of justice.

 

Would admirers (not to be confused with worshippers) of Mills utilitarianism and advocacy of autonomy also generally be advocates of outcome based justice(brought about by coerciv paternalism)?   It would seem, to me, to dependent on what we cherry picked from Mills, and what we left unregarded.

 

I suspect it is in the details, such as, Mills special advocacy of autonomy...suitable for a kind of elite(the non-'backwards' of society; for the 'backwards' of society, coercive state paternalism was justified by Mills, as long as the elites/emperor/dictator was of a benevolent instance.)  

 

Mills vs. Kant seems like a rigged fight; sort of like, the Bloods vs. the Cripps.    On the right political axes, weren't they simply elites of their times at least partially arguing for paternalistic rule by elites? (Or in Kant's instance, laying the groundwork for elites to follow to advocate for paternalistic rule by elites?)

 

I for sure don't speak for Objectivists in this regard, but wonder; has this issue long been decided?   All tribal politics shall be 'paternalistic rule by elites', and the only real politiical struggle left is, by which competing groups of elites?

 

FInally contrast with the choice given to the American electorate in modern times:

 

2008:  Obama/Let me Run The 'Still' Economy/No I'm not going to show you my college transcript vs McCain/Well, I got Cs in Economics, but I know enough to run the Economy

2012:  Obama/Let me Still Run the Still Stalled Economy and I'm still not going to show you my college transcript  vs Romney/No! Let ME run the economy, because I'd be really good at it!

 

Some choice!  Run it where?   To a better outcome, we are free to imagine, using better means, we are also free to imagine.   Modern politics needs to inform us neither of the ends nor the means in order to realize power; the electorate is free to imagine either.

 

regards,

Fred



Post 46

Thursday, March 6, 2014 - 10:27amSanction this postReply
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Machan:

 

And yet, the woman who defined Objectivism made it clear:

 

The basic and crucial political issue of our age is: capitalism versus socialism, or freedom versus statism.

 

The basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man—or group or society or government—has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use.

 

And from that I'd conclude, the only ethical role of state elites is to enforce a prohibition of elitism; the only justified application of forced association by the state is to prohibit acts of forced association, not only by individuals, but by groups, both internal and external, and especially by the state itself.   That defines and limits a free state.

Freedom ultimately is, freedom from each other.  Not bears or hail or acne.   From forced association with each other; our wishes, our dreams, our visions, our hopes, our failures, our lives.   An idea so powerful that it is worth mobbing up to defend.   An idea so dangerous to the tribal herdists that it is worth them mobbing up to attack.

 

The asymmetry of this dispute among peers walking the earth is clear; a free state would readily tolerate (and even, protect) a commune, co-op, or non-profit freely established in its midst; a national socialist state could never tolerate the inverse, nor long survive in its midst.   Instead, those rapists tell their victims to sit back and relax and enjoy it, against their victims will, because they will like it.

 

regards,

Fred

 

 



Post 47

Saturday, March 8, 2014 - 8:03amSanction this postReply
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Tibor:

(I'm not sure which you prefer, as I've seen people refer to you either way.   Please let me know what your preference is.)

 

I've been wondering about the (Kant/Mills Deontological v. Consequentialist axis) vs the (Sowell process/outcome based justice axis).   It seems to me that there must be some twisting of the axes(by me)along the way.  Or maybe not.   Math/physics is odd that way, with unexpected orthoganality showing up.

 

Both axes are real axes, but can't be the identically same axes.

 

I think I can resolve that by realizing there is a trasnformation of axes along the way.   So in my mind:

 

Kant/Mills Deontological v. Consequentialist axis

 

Admirers/abusers of Kant   v.  admirers/abusers of Mills axis

 

Sowell outcome bases justice v. Sowell process based justice axis

 

 

Somewhere in that progression of axes there is a shift in polarization by 90 degrees;  individuals who align themselves on those axes(in my mind at least) tend to align themselves as follows:

 

 

A] Admirers/abusers of Kant, Sowell outcome based justice camp.

 

B] Admirers/abusers of Mills, Sowell process based justice camp.

 

The shift isn't directly from Kant's Deontological to Sowell's outcome based justice; that would be a sudden(in my mind)90 degree shift in polarization.

 

The shift isn't directly from Mill's Consequentialist to Sowell's process based justice; that would be a sudden(in my mind)90 degree shift in polarization.

 

The shift happens along the way; we are missing an intermediate axis.

 

 

 

So lets forget the math/physics analogy.   Is(my problem)the following:  Kant is like the guy who invented 'C4.'   Kant's admirers are like bombers who came along and used C4 in their car bombs.    What Kant's intentions or motivations or worldview was when inventing C4 has little or nothing to do with those who came behind and found a use for C4 other than clearing stumps and building tunnels.   It turns out, C4 has mega-political applications as well.   Like, blowing up children in school busses, which would be a 90 degree shift in polarization.(Damn math/physics keeps creeping in.)

 

And, maybe Mills is like the guy who invented transistors.   And, the same guys blowing up children in school busses with their C4 also use transistors in their detonating circuits.    So when children die in school bus explosions, who do we blame?  The guy who invented the C4, or the guy who invented the transistor?

 

I'm not sure that helps me see anything except that it is possible, but, somewhere along the way, today, politically,  the same folks who admire Mills the consequentialist also embrace Sowell's process based justice, and the same folks who admire the abusers of Kant the deontologist  also embrace Sowell's outcome based justice.   And so, my head-snap.

 

regards,

Fred



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