"The Good Wife"

Great to see you back, Bill.  Good post.

The article you referenced shows us an exceptional man.  I liked this section in particular:

... question was posed to me just a few weeks ago in a philosophy honors class for gifted students at ... where I was teaching a section on Rand’s Objectivist morality. An earnest, idealistic and self-identified liberal-progressive asked me in class why, in my opinion Rand was so disparaged by philosophers and the mainstream culture at large.

...

Much of Rand’s work, I said, was about the moral status of the individual human soul in an age of mediocrity. What turned individuals away from Ayn Rand was not her atheism, not her defense of laissez-faire capitalism or even her rational demolition of altruism. It was something more visceral. It was their complicity in the destruction of the noblest and most idealistic sense of life that lay within their own souls. Somewhere along the way they told themselves that they had grown up. What they had done, though, tragically, was to annihilate the capacity to hold steadily to a vision of life’s better possibilities and their ability to be the chief engines of change within their own lives.

I agree.  The hatred we see for Rand, and the condescending dismissal, and the ridicule.... They all tell us that it is a visceral, emotional reaction that has to come out of the person and their personal relation to life.  And it has to be something that for the most part they have repressed or stand in denial to.  They hate her for her values, and because those are values that they have turned their back on in some way in their own lives.

Had Rand only written non-fiction the reaction would never have been as strong.  It is because her fiction is so extraordinary in making the heroic sense of life real and inspiring that it reaches into those who haven't given up on what is good and lifts them, and it reaches in and terrifies or outrages or disgusts those who have betrayed their own best.  

Here we usually focus on facts, theories, and principles - which is appropriate.  But, it is the powerful emotions that are needed to carry her philosophy to the forefront of tomorrow's culture.

 Is it really more important for me to make sure that everybody else has opportunity than it is to pursue my own values and interests?

If everybody were only having everybody else's interest at heart their dream would come true: a world with no beneficiary of all this goodwill, as everybody is busy pushing it on everybody else :D

I have such a 'wife' sitting opposite me in the office of my current customer - at first it was quite a bit annoying but after a week or two of ruffled feathers I now enjoy teasing her with my '12-year old's views' ;)

re that (in)famous Mr. President: I find it ironic that he finds enough value in Rands writings to feel it necessary to deliver a public statement about them - if they were really as puerile why bother outside Kindergarten? oups - I forgot: he works as a state nanny :D

Bill:

What is this, other than a sign that a writer who has been dead for a quarter of century is still irritating those of a certain bent?

She's dead for a quarter century, no longer actively in the fight.   She's coasting, purely on her written words and long expressed thoughts.  

And they still can't take her down with their now one sided arguments, after 25 years plus of trying.   In fact, she's their number one hairshirt.

She's more popular now than she's ever been.  

It's not like she has one hand tied her behind her back;  she's dead.   Deceased.   No longer animate.    All of the things once ascribed to that parrot in the Monty Python sketch.

And they can't land an effective punch.

They are now squarely aiming at those who acquire their worldview by consuming the art that is "The Good Wife."    

Which for these tribalists means, the absolute very cream of their crop.

Net effect, even if it is fringe; "Who is this Ayn Rand mentioned on The Good Wife?"

Many will gladly learn all they need to know from 'The Good Wife.'  Some few will freshly look her up.  

It is a kind of effective filter; idiots to the left.   On the short term, a Phyrric Victory of sorts.  In the long term, rot.     Well, .... tick tock.

There is no such thing as bad advertising.

regards,

Fred

Let them keep talking.  Even ten years ago, they could have ignored Ayn Rand.  Now, they feel the need to denounce her ideas.  That is progress: change directed toward a goal. 

I was criticized by a religious person once as being somehow morally and emotionally bankrupt for being a "non believer" he couldn't eve say the word athiest.  I pretty much told him he lacked the moral and emotional fortitude to be an athiest.  I also pointed out to him that NO ONE grieves more over the loss of a loved one as an athiest who knows that persons light is extinguished forever and that a religious person is not equipped to deal with that.  Then I asked him "Now who is the morally and emotionally bankrupt person in this conversation?"

Joseph:

My wife and I were asked the other day what religion we were(and explicitely, were we 'Roman Catholic?')   We said we weren't Roman Catholic.   But that wasn't enough, it was necessary to disclose what we 'were.'   This is a kind of shortcut for others to let them know what kind of people we were.   You know, decent types, or the other kinds.   My wife said 'We aren't members of a religion' and hoped that would be enough, but it was not.    Because then it moved on to "So you are non-believers?"

And of course, we knew what they meant; did we believe in this person's accepted concept of God?   There is a simple answer for that-- no-- , but for a devote agnostic tongue in cheek theist like me(who has become more devote in his agnostic tongue in cheek theism the older he gets) the truth of that question is that there is not a simple answer.   The simple answers are the mindless answers.

Because I do believe in something;  I believe in the Universe, as it is.   It is a belief beyond faith, because the Universe is forever offering up actual proof to me of its existence.  The Universe does not require my belief without evidence.  The Universe requires nothing of me except one thing, which it enforces absolutely; that I obey its actual laws, not its imagined laws.    I suppose that makes The Universe, as it is, one of the lessor God the Creator candidates in some Hall of God Fame in Ohio somewhere.    Not only that, I am absolutely convinced that, at the very least, I and everyone I love (as well as billions of others)were all created by the Universe, as it is.    So am I a 'non-believer?'   Is my 'belief' in a Universe as my creator, as it is, a form of allowed theism, (as a belief in a creator), or is it a form of diss-allowed atheism (a belief in a not creator enough to have created me and everyone I love as well as billions of others?)

Too much magic?   Or not magic enough?

Allowed or diss-allowed by whom?   I recognize the semantic ability of mankind to imagine conundrums, such as the concept of a God that is forever outside the Universe we live in.   Totally safe and unimpeachable, an authority beyond approach, and totally non-complaining when that authority is easily borrowed by now millions of fellow naked sweaty apes as their imagined own.

My wife and I watched the movie 'Her' this weekend.   (We also went to see 'Neighbors' and it was awful; a complete rip off of The Stiffler, right down to the rubber dildos, only they weren't blue this time around the well worn track surrounding the by now cob-webby frat house.  Could hear a pin drop in the packed movie house, it was that tiredly un-funny. People filed out afterwards with that "I can't believe I fell for the manufactured plastic industry hype surrounding this movie and paid to see it" look on our faces...)

"Her" was fascinating and asked really intelligent questions; what does it mean to be intelligent, and what does it mean to be in a relationship?  No spoilers follow, just some setup.  The story is set just a few years off into the future, maybe 10 or so.   The vision is a kind of successful but technologically isolated cold but pristinely beautiful new world.    'His' job is a perfect metaphor for the times; he works for something called 'handwrittenletters.com' -- a kind of Hallmark card of the barely future, who specializes in writing 'handwritten' custom heartfelt letters for special occasions, complete with personal details.   Clearly, folks are so otherwise busy with their lives that even these personal tasks are outsourced.   "He" is especially gifted at writing these letters and enjoys his work, has a collection of steady customers for whom he is the paid designated wordsmith.   But 'He' is recently split from his wife, her idea, not his, and he is somewhat broken.    "He" ends up in a 'relationship' with his new Operating System (O/S 1) which is the then latest generation of adaptive A.I.    He chooses a female voice when he fires up his new O/S -- there is a  funny moment where the start up instructions asks him a personal question, watch for it.   Then 'Her' shows up, and that is the entire rest of the story.

My wife had trouble accepting the technological premise that A.I. would ever be that good(as in, able to pass the 'Turing' Test as well as 'Her' in this movie).    I made the Kurzweil argument; that if today and 'Siri' on her I-Phone is the Kitty Hawk of A.I.,  then 'Her' is inevitable in the not so distant future.  She asked "But how?"   And I asked "Well, how do we do it?   Is it any less magic?"

Because yes, the Universe as it is, is overwhelmingly mostly Hydrogen; a single electron orbiting a single proton.   All that we see around us that is not simple Hydrogen -- including most of us -- is made up of the heavier elements, and all of those were forged inside of stars long dead.     And some of those fringe rare heavy elements formed planets, and some of the heavy elements on some of those planets became self aware and what we call 'intelligent.'    And that process of evolving creation, if it self organizes into a silicon based form of what we call 'intelligence' and 'self awareness' is all, all of it, occurring inside the Universe, as it is.   So why would that be any more or less amazing than what has already long happened?

I won't spoil the movie by telling the ending(but please look for the gradients in this and every story.)

What does it mean to be intelligent in a Universe made up mostly of Hydrogen?   And why would we expect that evolution of intelligence to stop with us?   Kurzweil has a lot to say about that, and so does Wolfram with his NKS, and ... so does this movie.   Enjoyed the Hell out of it.

Yes, I'm a believer; in the Universe, as it is.  And I get more-so as I get older, though indeed, less Roman Catholic; I started out at 0 on that.    I was confirmed as a Lutheran Protestant at age 13, last time I willingly went to church as a member of a religion. 1968.   I was a member of that church for exactly one day, an obligation to my parents.   As I get older and closer to my end here, do I feel myself filled with an urge to run back to some Evangelical church and/or religion?   Not in the least; perish the thought.  Would I take comfort in being sold a bill of goods on my death bed?   That would be a sign of my senility only, so only if I am gone enough not to recognize that.   I hope when that time comes I take comfort in the certain knowledge that I was here.

I have one irrational fear about my passing, and that is, that a religious relative would invite some spooker to the event to say a few words.   But that is irrational because I won't be here; it makes me uncomfortable only in imaging some future event I won't be at. 

regards,

Fred