RoR: Forum

Post 40

Monday, June 21, 2004 - 10:22am

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Greetings.

Jeremy: Does a parent who loses a job impinge on the child's "right" to his former resources? Or a parent that dies? You will say "no, it's not their fault", but it is a denial of former resources that could crush any chance of a good childhood. What should the government do about this? It has an immovable duty to protect the rights of the child--so is Welfare a good idea again?

Mr. Stolyarov: If we examine Branden’s statement on parental obligation, the answer is to be found:

A reasonable expectation that they will be able to afford the basic minimum necessary for food, clothing, shelter and education, should be the prerequisite of rational parents' decision to have children. However, parents are not morally at fault if, due to the father's or mother's illness or some other unforeseeable economic disaster, they are unable to provide for their child as they had expected to; in such a case, they are obliged simply to do the best they can.

So no, the State should not intervene in these unfortunate circumstances, nor are they a basis for a Welfare system.

Jeremy: A woman who leaves a cheating spouse and moves to a new city with her children, securing a better job than she or her husband ever had, will still be denied protection under your law.

Mr. Stolyarov: Allow me to modify my position even further to accommodate this scenario.

The commission of adultery or infidelity is already a violation of the terms of the marriage contract; one cannot expect one party to loyally adhere to terms that the other party neglects or outright defies. Thus, I would suggest that it should be the right of a couple to obtain a divorce in any case where adultery has taken place, though this needs not happen if the couple voluntarily agrees to the contrary.

If children are present in the relationship, each party should still have the obligation to provide the equivalent standard of living to the children as had existed prior to the divorce. This could be managed through child support payments, for example. As for the synthesis of maternal and paternal care, the parent who retains the children could be encouraged to marry again (presumably to the person with whom he/she had the adulterous affair), and thus have the children taken care of by a stepparent in lieu of the parent who now lives apart (but who can, by all means, visit and be visited).

Jeremy: This contractual obligation--as I've said and which you've ignored--is not a guarantee. Neither is it "imminent" that an unmarried parent will neglect their child.

Mr. Stolyarov: Contractual obligation is not a guarantee that neglect will not occur, but it is an affirmation that an RG is a child’s by right, and that the government will be able to intervene in the event that neglect does occur. A marriage is a parent’s promise that he/she will not neglect the child, and, if that legally binding promise is broken, the State has the power to enforce it and punish the violator(s). Absent the legally binding promise, the State has no such recourse, and the parents are legally free to do whatever they wish to the child. The unmarried parent commits neglect by denying that what is a child’s by right (an RG) is a child’s by right and that the parent cannot abandon the child at whim if he sees fit.

Compare the situation to that of a monarch: a monarch does not directly oppress all of his citizens; he allows most of them to hold what property they have, in exchange for payment of certain taxes and duties. However, the monarch can, at whim, take everything anyone holds away without penalty! An individual’s rights are not recognized in an absolute monarchy; rather, what he has are mere privileges granted by the monarch to keep what he “owns.” I hope you agree with me that such a state is oppressive and immoral. How does parenting out of wedlock differ?

Jeremy: Children that play baseball are 100% more likely to be hit by a baseball than children who don't play baseball. Children whose parents have no vehicle are 200% less likely to die in a car crash caused by their parents than those children whose parents have two vehicles. Children that live in a house are 100% more likely to die from a house fire than those that live in a cardboard box. Should the State not prohibit parents from...well, doing anything of their own free will when it comes to their kids?

Mr. Stolyarov: Jeremy, you improperly compare relative likelihood to absolute likelihood. Let us say my likelihood of dying in a fire on a given day while living in a cardboard box is 0.000001%. 100% more likely than that is 0.000002%, still quite insubstantial.

On the other hand, the paralysis drug harms in 75% of all cases in which it is used. The absolute likelihood in this case is 75%, but the relative likelihood of harm, as compared to living in a house, would be 100% * (75/0.000002)= 3,750,000,000% greater than the latter scenario. Do you see the enormous difference?

Relative likelihood compares the propensity of one event to occur to that of another. Absolute likelihood compares the propensity to nothing; it merely states the expected probability, given a set of any size, that an event will take place.

Here are some actual statistics: http://www.cbpp.org/6-15-01wel.htm. I would like to focus on a few figures in particular.

In 2000, of children with family incomes 200% or more above poverty level (i.e. all children who have any semblance of a decent standard of living), 83.6% lived with two married parents, and 16.4% did not. The absolute likelihood that a child not in a married household will enjoy an adequate standard of living is thus 16.4%, less than his chances of escaping harm by taking the paralysis drug! In the meantime, a household with married parents has a 100%* (83.6/16.4)= about 510% greater likelihood of adequately taking care of its children.

Is it fair to allow children to placed in such odds with impunity, given that most do not recover from the resulting deprivation?

Jeremy: And comparing a physical state, unchosen and irreversible, to a mental state is silly. If I am paralyzed I can't will my body to be un-paralyzed.

Mr. Stolyarov: FDR reportedly did, and other less famous cases likely exist—one hears once in a while about this mountain climber or that diver who suffered severe brain or nervous system damage from an accident, but who, after weeks or even months of rehabilitation had, through sheer persistence, managed to regain control of his limbs, speech, learning capacities, etc. It is possible, but not likely, just as statistics prove w.r.t. the households in which children are raised.

Jeremy: If I had a bad childhood, I can persevere and endure and one day make a decision to be a responsible, capable adult--I can will myself to be a worthwhile individual. G., bad stuff happens all the time. Children are remarkably resilient.

Mr. Stolyarov: But this does not mean that children should be deliberately thrust into bad situations! This is just like saying, “Crime happens all the time. So the government should be allowed to, if it wishes, commit a few acts of robbery here and there. They won’t really hurt; after all, people are very resilient and have been able to recover from the wrongs and deprivations dealt them.”

I am
G. Stolyarov II

Post 41

Monday, June 21, 2004 - 11:27am

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Greetings.

Mr. Rowlands: When someone says that marriage isn't the utopia you believe it to be, you say that they're trying to outlaw it.

Mr. Stolyarov: Actually, you equivocate on whether or not you want to outlaw it. For example, Mr. Howison’s statement clearly seeks to deprive the marriage contract of its binding nature: “Marriage may be an enforceable contract, but you cannot sell yourself into slavery - a contract that doesn't allow you to change your mind and leave the contract is invalid. In the case of Stolyarov, he says that an individual cannot leave a marriage unless both their spouse and the government agree - and then, not if they have young children.“

On the other hand, Mr. Lamont writes: “In an Objectivist world, people should be free to bind themselves to one another through a bizarre contract if they wish, but such agreements are unnecessary (value-neutral and not therefore not desirable) and regressive, harking back to a church, state or social sanction where the focus was the attainment of that sanction rather than the life of the relationship itself.” In this case, it is not the legal sfere, but the moral one, that is being challenged w.r.t. my argument. If I am to take the entirety of the words of Mr. Lamont, Mr. Howison, you, and Jeremy to be a single position, this position is self-contradictory; part of it espouses removing legal safeguards from marriage (thus effectively abolishing it), while another part merely condemns the morality of the institution. I oppose both views and have argued against both of them, though I do think that your more persistent focus is to deny the morality of the institution in order to set up a false moral equivalence between a responsible, married lifestyle and the relationship-shifting of the identity swapper.

Mr. Rowlands: When someone say that being stuck in a miserable relationship forever doesn't sound fun, you say that they're for indiscriminate sex.

Mr. Stolyarov: I only say they could be. Many people here, as I have noted from past conversations, have little problem with it. They think that simply because it is a high expression of one’s values, it is all right to express it in any context with anyone.

Here is an example: http://solohq.com/Forum/ArticleDiscussions/0556_1.shtml

Matthew Humphreys wrote: “Regarding Bond's promiscuity - he is certainly nowhere near as promiscuous in the novels. He does have a different woman (or sometimes women) in each book but for the most part they are attractive characters, and I don't personally think that that type of sex life should be a problem for Objectivists.”

Ross Elliot wrote: “James Bond is meant to be sensual, for Pete's sake! If you don't like Bond, that's fine, but don't make out that sensuality is a vice.”

Robert Bisno wrote: “In pornography, the only chemicals released are ones which naturally occur within the brain and which the brain is naturally able to handle just fine. Unless you wish to contend that dopamine is neurotoxic now.”

I am able to cite more examples of this mistake, in otherwise mostly rational thinkers whom I generally respect.

But, I also condemn a more specific mindset of yours in this debate, that of the identity-swapper who wishes for all values to be transient, who wishes to destroy the edifice of his life and rebuild it anew each day. I have given a sufficient exposition of why that mindset is one of man’s greatest impediments. If you hold to that mindset, do not disparage anything external to it as the root of the problem.

Mr. Rowlands: Futuristic certainty? How can anyone not think that's a rationalization?

Mr. Stolyarov: That snide, contemptuous argument from intimidation will not convince anyone who thinks rationally. The fact is, I wrote a treatise in which I clearly distinguished the difference between potential and futuristic certainty, and noted that birth was an entirely arbitrary standard of judging humanity. Simply because the term has about it a greater sofistication than accessible to the mantra-mumbler does not mean that it is an aritificial fabrication, or a rationalization, as you would call it.

Mr. Rowlands: So it's a problem, is it? A failing on the part of the individual? You've never been in a romantic relationship, have you? No matter.

Mr. Stolyarov: That fact is absolutely irrelevant and constitutes an ad hominem attack rather an attack on the actual argument. Perhaps I like to live my life according to principle and do not wish to get involved in a romantic relationship until I construct an explicit and coherent filosofical understanding of the nature of said relationships and the aims I would like to obtain in their undertaking. I do not believe in “learning by immersion” in such a critical aspect of life—I do not wish to get burned by inadvertently thrusting my hand into a fire; I would rather create a glove that would protect me first, and find out how to control the fire in the manner I seek.

Mr. Rowlands: Explain to the audience why you think that every extra minute you spend is better than the previous minute. What actually gets better? What's the source of your knowledge on this issue?....

The point is that you base your views on marriage on a theory of non-diminishing returns. And then you blame people if it's not true. You consider it a moral failing on their part. You probably can't or don't want to see that you're moving backwards from the conclusions, instead of forward from the facts.

Mr. Stolyarov: You, on the other hand, seem to think that it is human nature to be subject to the imperfections in a relationship (as you repeatedly accused me of accusing human nature of being faulty), such as “diminishing returns” or what have you. My observations prove to the contrary; recall my example of marriage’s role in the expatriate Soviet intelligentsia, my three examples of almost immaculate Presidential marriages, and the story of SOLO’s own Mr. Firehammer, to note that diminishing returns need not exist if the relationship is handled prudently. If it is not handled prudently, this is not the fault of the structures that helped bring the relationship about, but rather that of the people in the relationship. There is no escape from personal responsibility, Mr. Rowlands.

All I have to prove is that a happy marriage is possible and then you cannot legitimately argue that marriage and morality or marriage and happiness or permanence and happiness do not coincide. Bad marriages exist, no question about it—but must we hold the malevolent-universe premise of elevating bad marriage to the status of an inescapable filosofical truth? This contradicts the entire sense of life that Rand tried to establish for her filosofy.

Another rule when constructing rational filosofical truths: they must depend on the best that man is capable of, never the worst or the merely mediocre.

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

- Ayn Rand

This is what Rand focused on: man as he can be and should be; she did not dwell on boredom, flux, confusion, or incapacity to prioritize; she did not dwell on flaws, imperfections, and mistakes—she saw the good as possible in all sferes of existence.

Even if you do not advocate abolition of marriage, you wish to remove it from the moral high ground. You wish to focus on people’s flaws, imperfections, incompatibilities, exasperations, and discontent in order to grant them moral license to shift about in their values and relationships as many times as they see fit—this in fact erases moral blameworthiness from the harlot who engages in eighty different amours, or the wife who has promised the world to five different husbands and then abandoned them because she “just felt like it.” By dwelling on the capacity of man to be less than heroic, you thereby embrace the dark, superficial, hedonistic side that an individual could have but need not have, by any means.

I will write more in the future.

I am
G. Stolyarov II

Post 42

Monday, June 21, 2004 - 11:56am

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"This is what Rand focused on: man as he can be and should be; she did not dwell on boredom, flux, confusion, or incapacity to prioritize; she did not dwell on flaws, imperfections, and mistakes—she saw the good as possible in all sferes of existence."

Ayn Rand recognized that freedom was necessary to man to be this heroic being. You fall into the trap of trying to force through legislation and license what should amount to personal choice.

Post 43

Monday, June 21, 2004 - 3:00pm

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Greetings.

Mr. Rowlands: People realize they can do almost anything they want once their married, and it's difficult for the other person to get out of it. You see the advantage that they can't leave, but I see the fact that they no longer have to try to convince the other person to stay. You can neglect all you want, and they won't go away.

Mr. Stolyarov: Once again, this assumes a flawed individual mindset, which does not have to exist! I would not behave this way in a marriage, nor would any of the other successful examples I had cited. For them, happiness in a marriage is possible, so I do not see why you elevate the follies of certain individuals to immutable filosofical principles.

Does my analogy of the frugal investor who invests his love bit by bit into an emotional bank account even remotely resemble the scenario you put forth? Here is the difference between us, Mr. Rowlands: I assume that there will be individuals who will behave at their best in a marriage, who will display prudence, frugality, and affection—you assume that all individuals will be immersed in boredom, disinterest, and neglect, and proceed to proclaim that happiness is unattainable in a marriage. It is your dreary sense of life, and your malevolent-universe starting premises that cause you to think this way.

Mr. Rowlands: As for your mother's advice that if you get bored with something, it means your boring, I think it's a load of crap. That's subjectivism, pure and simple. Are you suggesting that there is nothing that is objectively more boring than something else? And what make something boring? When it requires so little brain-power that their's nothing interesting about it. Repetition. Same thing day in and day out. When you first start dating someone, you know nothing about them. You learn details about how they think, what their childhood was like, what's important to them, etc. This is very interesting. Your brain is constantly going, learning new things, and everything is new and different. Now what happens after a couple of decades of that. How many childhood stories does one have?

Mr. Stolyarov: Wait a minute… I thought you were accusing me of intrinsicism, not subjectivism.

Anyway, boredom is a subjective state of mind. It is not a metafysical primary, nor an aspect of the external reality, and should not be treated as such, nor as a foundation for any filosofical insight. The fact is, man has the ability to determine his own mental state, including that of his emotions, and he needs to exercise active control over his surroundings in order to remedy negative emotions of boredom, despair, or frustration. If you are bored, do something! If you tire of hearing the same childhood stories from your partner, tell some of your own, or introduce her to the works of a filosofer, or go to a concert with her and discuss what you have heard afterward! Find something new to do together and do it! Happiness does not come about by passivity and lack of personal initiative; you falsely think that marriage is a license to neglect one’s partner, but this is only true in a bad marriage with people who are unready to be married in the first place! No romantic relationship lasts in an environment of neglect, and this is true whether or not it is contractualized. The contractual security of marriage merely serves to provide individuals with the secure foundation needed to make further investments into their emotional bank accounts; it is like insurance against hard economic times. The permanence it establishes helps bring about increasing familiarity and increasing propensity for the two individuals to do exciting, new things together.

Getting to know the other person is only step one of a relationship; familiarity in further steps implies precisely active engagements with that individual-- cooperation in all sferes of life. So long as a rational individual still breathes, the new opportunities open to such cooperation should never be exhausted.

No, if you cannot find these opportunities when they occur all around you every single moment of every single day, you are a boring person (and that does not mean you in particular, Mr. Rowlands, just whomever it may concern).

Do you know that, ever since my mother has told me the maxim I had mentioned above (I think I was around ten-years-old at the time), I had never been bored? It is possible to extinguish certain undesirable emotions from oneself entirely.

Check your premises, and check them well.

I am
G. Stolyarov II

Post 44

Monday, June 21, 2004 - 6:44pm

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[optimal compatibility ] "is attainable, as historical relationships, such as those of George and Martha Washington, Andrew and Rachel Jackson, and Ronald and Nancy Reagan demonstrate."

Are you sure it was optimal? Are you sure they were acheiving maiximum value? Could they possibly have been unhappy?

"The intention in a romantic relationship must always be to approach the other party genuinely and to exchange as many values as humanly possible. This is a commitment that, in order to reach to the fullest depth of the values that the other individual can offer, must remain exclusive and unshared."

Really? No relationship other than the one you approve of is capable of maximum value. Must they all be maximum value? Is it okay for people to be married/partnered and not acheive maximum value if it is their choice? Choice, Freedom, free will, self-determination? No?

"This is why, except in the harems of decadent feudal overlords and playboys, polygamy, even in countries where it was legal, had been shunned by the majority of men. "

The majority of people beleive in some irrational theistic beleif too, so that is good, right?

"No matter how much time one has, however, it is prudent to invest it into one romantic relationship as opposed to many."

I have a little line my mother taught me when I was about ten: "Fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me." One does not continue to hug a cactus after feeling the thorns.

"No man is obligated, either legally or morally, to enter a romantic relationship in the first place, but, if he does seek one, he should exercise the moral fortitude and consistency to render it everlasting. "

Sacrafice as a moral virtue?

"divorces should not be granted to couples with children until the children reach functional maturity."

Choice, Freedom, free will, self-determination? The freedom to be an admitedly bad parent? No? I find being a parent to be my top priority and greatest value. I choose to be so.

"Objectivists cannot legitimately argue against this ideal by calling the requirements of parents in certain situations to be a “sacrifice” of their individual prerogatives"

Not sacrafice, removal of personal choice and freedom. The freedom to choose right and wrong.

"Male and Female"

This whole sectio is BS somantics with the goal of satisfying your existing belief. It's none of our damn business and, really, why do we care what others do if it doesn't harm us?

Post 45

Monday, June 21, 2004 - 10:32pm

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Greetings.

Mr. Rowlands: You claim that I was thoroughly refuted in my views that collectivism can consist of two people. Unfortunately for you, your wrong. Entirely wrong. 100% wrong. Collectivism does not require great numbers. You think you need at least 100 people to be a collective? 200? Ridiculous. The size of the group does not matter. A collective has nothing to do with the number of people involved.

Mr. Stolyarov: If numbers do not matter, can one person also be a collective?

If you reject voluntary contracts as heinous collectivism, then the definition of collectivism indeed loses its meaning. It ceases to identify with state-based coercion, it ceases to distinguish between free association and forced altruism, and it comes to proclaim that atomistic solipsism, or “lone-wolfism” is the only proper way of life—any sort of commitment to cooperation with others is branded as ”collectivist” despite Rand’s repeated emfases about the colossal benefits this cooperation can bring.

Mr. Rowlands: After two people are "joined", they're a "couple". They do things for "the relationship". Sometimes they sacrifice their own interests to "make the relationship work".

Mr. Stolyarov: If they value each other, and seek to spend more time with each other, or try to understand one another’s perspectives, you call this a selfless sacrifice! “Making the relationship work” is just intellectual shorthand that implies the question: “Relationship, with whom?” Why, with one’s partner, of course! So, “making the relationship work” is in fact the equivalent of “pursuing the value one sees in one’s partner.” Ergo, there is nothing selfless about this; Rand repeatedly emfasized that individuals can hold other individuals at a very high position on their list of values.

This is how rational men see the matter. The fact is: people exist who do not sacrifice anything in a relationship, and are amply benefited by a state of marriage. It is a great vice to undermine these, the best of men, by rejecting the moral significance of marriage, simply because certain others, outside those relationships, are unable to live up to their standards.

Mr. Rowlands: What exactly do you think collectivism is? How will you rationalize your need to have a collective be 3 or more people, but not count if it's just 2 people?

Mr. Stolyarov: A collective is by definition arbitrary; there is no existential justification for it—my life in a society and my interaction with others who live in a society does not count as my subservience to a collective, nor does my establishment of voluntary contracts with anyone. There can be no question about a collective existing w.r.t. one’s friends, relatives, children, or spouse. These are just not any people grouped by some fiat into a metafysically senseless category. These are people who clearly share material and intellectual values with the individual far above those given by the average man off the streets. Harmonious life with those people is selfish, not self-sacrificial, especially if they are trying their best to earnestly trade values with oneself.

If a person acts arbitrarily w.r.t. establishing a marriage, and he has no specific affinity for his partner, nor finds that he has any values to gain, he may well call the relationship a collective, but not before calling himself an imprudent, rash, licentious lust-monger who cannot accept any but the lowest possible standards to enter into the highest possible commitment.

But functional families and friendships cannot be collectives by definition.

My, the non-sanctions keep coming, presumably from the same person who was responsible for the 5-second incident! I really seem to have struck a nerve and annoy people far beyond the capacity of a mere adversary in discourse. Perhaps it is because my activities here have always been in accordance with a maxim of the great Aristotle, applied to the situation: "SOLO is dear to me, but dearer still is the truth."

I am
G. Stolyarov II

Post 46

Monday, June 21, 2004 - 11:21pm

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Stolyarov,

I find it interesting that you dislike Philip's post. "In the case of Stolyarov, he says that an individual cannot leave a marriage unless both their spouse and the government agree - and then, not if they have young children". I also think that if that's what you want marriage to be, then certainly it should be outlawed. Slavery is repugnant to most of us, except obviously those who "think of the children" and assert a positive right to married parents.

This leads me to one conclusion. All your talk about love and compatibility are non-issues to you. For you, marriage is government enforced relationships. That's why you classify a loving relationship at the point of a gun with a coerced relationship at the point of a gun. The only thing you care about is forcing people to stay together. Very interesting. We've finally discovered the foundation of marriage. Slavery it is. I'm sure it's for their own good, right?

Your views of indiscriminate sex still only reflect your own mindset. You classify everything that isn't a permanent marriage as indiscriminate. Here's something to ponder. Isn't it possible to discriminate out side of marriage? Can't you pick someone you like?

"But, I also condemn a more specific mindset of yours in this debate, that of the identity-swapper who wishes for all values to be transient, who wishes to destroy the edifice of his life and rebuild it anew each day."

No, the problem is yours. Your own desperate need for security drives you to begging the government to enslave mankind so you can maintain a firm foundation. Your want stability at the price of happiness. You want to take away the chance that someone might just leave you if they don't like you anymore. Your theory is based on fear of being alone.

I have a different view. I don't feel the need to enslave a woman to stay with me. I offer her a choice. I offer value for value, and try to make it worth her while to stay. I don't care for a relationship based on coercion and fear. I want someone who chooses to be with me. My relationship is based on trust and mutual respect. If my relationship last, it's because we both choose to make it last. Permanence isn't the goal...that's a goal founded in fear. Happiness is our goal. And any attempt to force the relationship to last would destroy it. But good luck with that whole coercion thing.

As for "imperfections in a relationship", you have determined through a process of rationalization what kind of human beings it would take in order to justify your views of marriage. You've started with marriage as your fundamental premise, and worked backwards. If diminishing returns contradicts your views, you damn it as a human imperfection. But who ever said diminishing returns was evil? You view personal growth as evil, if it gets in the way of a permanent relationship. You worship stagnation, and sacrifice happiness. You view permanence as your own standard of value. And that's your own problem, not mine.

Post 47

Monday, June 21, 2004 - 11:47pm

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"I assume that there will be individuals who will behave at their best in a marriage, who will display prudence, frugality, and affection—you assume that all individuals will be immersed in boredom, disinterest, and neglect, and proceed to proclaim that happiness is unattainable in a marriage. It is your dreary sense of life, and your malevolent-universe starting premises that cause you to think this way."

Of course, I beg to differ. Your view of marriage, clouded in terms of coercion, is based on the dreary sense of life assumptions. Your initial posts on the subject showed your own motivation. You thought that two people, who otherwise love each other, would simply abandon one another over the smallest of problems. You justify marriage, and your need for government interference, on an example of two pathetic people who are either too stupid to see the value they gain from each other, or really don't belong. In either case, it is this kind of relationship you want to save.

I did bring up some issues with your latest defense of marriage, since you ignored the possibilities that people might grow in new directions, their interest might diverge, and that they might actually want to spend time with other people as well. You reject all of this as evil by the standard of marriage, and consider anyone who would pursue their own selfish pursuits at the expense of the marriage as imperfect.

Your comments on boredom carefully avoided discussing whether something can be objectively more boring than something else. You claim boredom is just a state of mind, which you have full control over. But that's not right at all. You can't just turn off boredom, or pretend to be excited. That's evasion and lying to yourself.

You can, on the other hand, avoid boredom by finding something more interesting to do. Something interesting. But this just confirms that some things do get boring. You have to find things to spice up your relationship. Certainly possible, although not guaranteed. I know your answer to everything is that if man can't live up to marriage, he's evil. But for those of us who don't think marriage is the standard of value, the question is "why"? If you get bored with the relationship, why is it that you should struggle to make it the slightest bit interesting? Why not move on?

You're answer is obviously that permanence is the highest value. And that's why we'll never agree on this.

Post 48

Tuesday, June 22, 2004 - 12:30am

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Regarding Collectivism,

"If numbers do not matter, can one person also be a collective?" Is that the famous Stolyarov wit?

"If you reject voluntary contracts as heinous collectivism..." I don't necessarily. The difference is, sometimes they are. There's no denying that some people treat their relationships as a form of collective. They sacrifice themselves to make it work.

I asked you what a collective is, and you said "A collective is by definition arbitrary". You didn't actually define it. You really need to, or you wouldn't say things like "There can be no question about a collective existing w.r.t. one’s friends, relatives, children, or spouse." Funny, I would include families as something that's often treated as a collective. But let's stick to marriage.

My definition again:
"At the root of this ethical standard is the belief that a collective is more than just individuals interacting together. It is the belief that the group is an entity itself, more important than the sum of the individuals. The individuals become secondary to the collective."

First, let me note that you said "It ceases to identify with state-based coercion". Collectivism is an ethical position, not primarily a political one. One manifestation is statism, but that's a consequence. The primary fact is the belief that the group is an entity, with it's own values and interests, and the individuals are to be sacrificed to the collective.

Now pay attention here. The "collective" does not exist metaphysically. It's not a real entity. What it is is the perception of the individuals involved in it. When an individual treats the group as if it were a living being, and he's just a cog in the wheel, you have collectivism. None of this is invalidated by the fact that the individual volunteered to be part of the collective. If they treat the relationship as a collective, they are collectivists.

I'm surprised you can seriously suggest that no married people treat their marriage as a collective. It happens all the time. They sacrifice for the marriage. They care what other people think of the marriage. They stick with it long after they've given up on being happy in it because they're afraid of letting people see it fail.

Your refusal to see the obvious leads you to suspect me of "lone-wolfism". You think I'm condemning any relationship as collectivism. I'm not, nor have I ever. What I said was that marriage can be a collective. Not that it necessarily is. Just that it can be. Your fear of lone-wolfism has got you pretending that collectivism doesn't exist. Both beliefs do, but they're not the only two choices. You can have interactions with other people that are non-sacrificial, where you treat them as trading partners.

Why did this get brought up? Because Citizen Rat claimed marriage was good because the participants are loyal to the marriage, and not to the state. I answered that that was just collectivism of another stripe. It was intentional collectivism, as an alternative to a more national kind of collectivism. You both claimed that you can't have a collective of two, even though you certainly can. You've still not given a reason why marriage can't be a collective, and that somehow the people involved can't treat it as an entity in itself. I'll conclude you can't.

And again, your dismissal of marriage as a possible collective because the people willingly volunteered for it still doesn't change the nature of it. The question is, do they treat it as an entity in itself, with it's own interests and values, and they have to sacrifice for it? How does voluntarily going into it make this impossible? It doesn't.

What does this have to do with our conversation? Not much. I asked you why communal property is bad when it's three or more people, but not when it's two. You claimed this was based on my view that marriage could be collectivist. I think the two are completely different issues, and that you're wrong about both of them.

Post 49

Tuesday, June 22, 2004 - 6:22am

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Just another example of Joe's strawman bullshit when he can't engage an argument on its own terms:

>>Because Citizen Rat claimed marriage was good because the participants are loyal to the marriage, and not to the state.<<

Never said it, Joe. I've already admonished you before on this point. Why do you persist in misrepresenting those of us who think marriage ain't such a bad thing? Oh, that's right, because you haven't any rational argument to the contrary.

[For those who missed the earlier exchange, what I wrote was that loyalty is derivative of the virtue of independence. It represents an exchange of values. If the exchange is rational, it is a means to happiness. Hardly a remarkable insight on my part, and certainly not controversial.]

Regards,
Bill

Post 50

Tuesday, June 22, 2004 - 6:38am

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Greetings, Mr. Stolyarov.

I wish to congratulate you upon your perserverence in explicating the truth against Joe's army of strawmen. You have done a fine job of making the case for marriage, as traditional understood, in terms of what I call natural law -- i.e., those universal principles that objectively reflect human nature. Looking in from the outside, I would have to say Joe is looking pretty silly by now to any normal person.

Many libertarians (I'm using the term broadly) shrink at opposing license. I'm not sure why. Anyone with a decent head on his shoulder can comprehend that what we SHOULD do (morality) does not endanger liberty. Indeed, morality is vital to sustaining it. Only when that "should" is transmogrified into a "must" by the initiation of force would there be a threat to liberty. You have repeatedly made clear that your "shoulds" regarding marriage are not "musts", yet your opponents irrationally make it otherwise to stir up an argument when none truly exists.

I'd be pulling my hair out by now in response to their irrationality. You have chosen to patiently tutor them instead. Admirable, though perhaps futile against invincible ignorance. Good luck.

Regards,
Bill Tingley

Post 51

Tuesday, June 22, 2004 - 6:55am

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Filip:

>>By advocating otherwise Stolyarov is no friend of liberty (and, by the way, he isn't getting an apology from me).<<

I didn't seriously expect any would be forthcoming.

With a couple of notable exceptions, I have found the hosts of this fine site to be rather lacking in graciousness. But then Objectivism tends to attract those who find even though most minor consideration of others, like courtesy and common decency, to be a burden -- and so no surprise when you fellas act little better than Hobbesian beasts. Indeed, I often smile when the courtesy of participants like Stolyarov and Firehammer is remarked upon here, because their courtesy is unremarkable out in the real world.

But I won't waste any more of your time on the topic. I suspect it is all over your head. When the time comes when it is more important to you to be right than to be seen as right (in other words, to care more about what YOU think of yourself than what others think), you'll understand why you owe an apology to Stolyarov.

Regards,
Bill

A Rational Defense of Marriage