| | Mike,
Ed, all of that brings us back to "Which Ideas Matter?" I'm glad you asked (again). Mortimer Adler asked the same thing and formed a research team and spent several years researching -- and came up with the 103 ideas out there that actually matter (to humans). They are viewable as a list on this page. My guess is that, if you were to become happy, my guess is that over 90% of the variables in your happiness will be captured by this list of 103 human ideas.
One idea that seems not to matter is respect for those with whom you disagree. But to respect (as a verb) can mean two different things. Here's Merriam-Webster's online def'n:
1 a: to consider worthy of high regard : esteem
b: to refrain from interfering with <please respect their privacy>
Using the second sense of the term, you can respect things which you don't even consider worthy of high regard/esteem -- simply by not acting (interfering with them). In that "respect" (pardon the pun) having respect for those with whom you disagree is nothing other than not attempting to control them. In that sense, you could say that Ayn Rand always -- or very nearly always -- had respect for those with whom she disagreed.
I expect that if we begin with the same premises, we must reach the same conclusions, and if we do not, someone must be wrong. And that may well be true. But there is a difference between wrong and evil. Okay, but here's the rub: we never have all of the same premises (exactly) and we never have identical scopes of integration. Evil's tough to diagnose. M. Scott Peck wrote about human evil in his book: "People of the Lie." He said the best tip-off is the consistency, the consistency of someone's inconsistency or shiftiness, slithering, scape-goating behavior. This jives well with Aristotle, who said just doing something once doesn't define you -- but that you are what you repeatedly do.
I flew a plane once, but I'm not a pilot. Folks who repeatedly fly planes though, are "pilots" whether they like it or not, whether they know it or not, and whether they admit it to themselves or others, or not. Folks who smoke once aren't smokers, but folks who smoke everyday are. Folks who once vote Democrat aren't necessarily panzies, but folks who always vote Democrat are. Do you see the logic unfolded there?
:-)
A lie doesn't make you evil, but a life of lies does.
That said, I believe that there are, indeed, evil people associated with Objectivism. You might say that they are on a lower rung of personal development. That would be kind -- and, in fact, charitable... Actually, I'd say that the full-blown evil ones have actually let go of the ladder (they are not on any rung at all!).
:-)
Another way to say this is that I'm not sure if the thoroughly evil could ever be deprogrammed.
Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/11, 8:56pm)
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