RoR: Forum

"Oblique? Let me do better you are a cretin, literally."

Your momma's a cretin.

What Ayn wrote has nothing to do with whether you are judging someone else's choices or making your own decisions.

It DOES have to do with judging morality (evil is evil) and deciding on a course of conduct (this course of conduct means the evil has less of an impact on me personally).

What Ayn wrote was: call evil, evil. Don't subscribe to the faulty reasoning that so many do, that every approach has equal merit, every idea has some value. Do not accept the idea that all approaches are equally right and equally wrong. Do not fall for the PC approach that it is rude and inaapropriate to tell someone they are wrong when they are. Be clear about what is good and what is evil, because your acqueiscence to the evil rewards it, while punishing the good.

Now, separate and apart from the issue of recognizing, identifying, and calling evil, evil, is the issue of valuing your life, and recognizing that some things are less evil than others. Some consequences of evil are worse than others. Because of man's nature, it is ESSENTIAL that he make these distinctions, because reality has primacy over conciousness, or in other words, YOU CANNOT CONTROL THE WORLD WITH YOUR THOUGHTS, YOU MUST USE YOUR THOUGHTS TO DO THE BEST YOU CAN FOR YOURSELF. That is each man's duty--to use his mind to reach his self-defined goals. Doing this is NOT sanctioning evil, as Robert D. suggests, but rather, it is simply making distinctions necessary for living your life qua man. Otherwise, your analysis never proceeds beyond the initial determination that a 'thing' is evil. You suspend further thought, and Ayn had a name for that, too. Evasion. Simple.

And for clarity's sake, Robert D., and once again, your momma.

Post 61

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 9:38am

So, Guys,

What positive action are you taking in order to reap the benefits of these personal resources you have recently expended?

I'm not being sarcastic, is there a concrete goal to be achieved here? Will it be achieved? What is the pay-off?

Curiouser and curiouser it is.

Sharon

Post 62

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 10:06am

A quick tangent...

Do not fall for the PC approach that it is rude and inaapropriate to tell someone they are wrong when they are.

In my general education courses at my college, the only professor who would tell students they were wrong was my psychology professor. That just struck me as odd since this "no one is wrong" crap in schools is all about self-esteem.

Edit: I guess it wouldn't really be self-esteem since it's coming from someone else. Maybe I should call it other-esteem. To borrow from Machan's article, here's another aspect of schooling that's making kids sick. They're being taught that the only esteem they have comes from others rather from themselves.

(Edited by Sarah House
on 6/29, 10:11am)

Post 63

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 10:26am

Sharon:

"I'm not being sarcastic, is there a concrete goal to be achieved here? Will it be achieved? What is the pay-off?"

One: it is a personal vlaue to me to try to clarify for other readers what IS and IS NOT Objectivism, because, in my mind, one of the most important functions of SOLO is to present the philosophy as accurately as possible, while eliminating the crackpot contingent. Someone who cannot distinguish "bad" from "worse" is precisely the type of person who scares potential Objectivists away. I agree that my nastiness isn't exactly a "Welcome" doormat for them, either, but I an not willing to be Robert D's doormat, either.

Two: I get an emotional sense of satisfaction from cutting through oblique insults and bringing them to the forefront. I think that if a person thinks I am a cretin, SOLELY based on my ideas, that fact should be transparent, so that I and others may then judge HIM and the worthiness of his thought process thereby. I also think that all this oblique insult business is for pussies, if you will pardon the crass term. I can at least respect Robert D. for finally being forthright in his dislike of me and my ideas, even though I think her is terribly, terribly wrong.

Post 64

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 12:15pm

Scott,

Now you add pragmatism to your sins and suggest that Rand too was a pragmatist.

Post 65

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 6:39pm

We must all be pragmatic in living our daily lives, just not pragmatic in deciding whether something is evil or not. And, under no circumstances should be be Pragmatists, who only identify good and evil with respect to their current circumstances, and without reference to objective standards.

Post 66

Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 11:17pm

Robert D writes:

>Since you seem to be polite I will try again.

Thanks for that. Unfortunately, I do not think think your arguments add up. The main reason is this:

Robert D: > Compromising a principle is choosing gray...Working for someone whose ideas you do not share is not a compromise, pretending that you agree with his ideas is. For example, if he makes a racist remark, you must let him know you disagree.

Tell me, why do you think it�s *not* a compromise of principles to work for a racist? To take his money, yet only *verbally* protest about his attitude? After all, saying one thing and *doing* another is usually considered the *ultimate compromise of principles* - it's just hypocrisy, or paying �lipservice� to a principle. Are you really arguing that this is a morally 'white' position? It is surely as 'gray' as they come.

Of course, I would not expect you to work for extreme racists such as the KKK or perhaps Robert Mugabe. I expect you are referring to a milder form, perhaps a harmless redneck who comes out with the odd unpleasant remark. Would I be right?

But if this is true, then I immediately notice that *you personally* have made a choice of *a degree of evil*. You're not just judging a person at a distance, *you yourself are choosing between an alternative*. You�ve said working for a mild racist is ok, so long as you speak out against it, but you obviously would not work for a radical racist, even if you could still speak out freely against such an employer. In other words, you've chosen between a light grey, and a very very dark one.

Trouble is, if you take this stance it immediately contradicts your earlier assertion that "..for you personally, in your life, there should be no shades of gray". Thus, according to your principles, it should surely be equally acceptable to work for *both*! I for one do not think that any principle that makes it completely 'white' to take money in the service of Robert Mugabe or the KKK can be a very moral one, no matter how much hot air said employee might expel...;-)

There are other reasons as well why your positon � or Rand�s if it is actually hers � seems very weak, but that will do for now.

- Daniel

Post 67

Sunday, July 3, 2005 - 8:32am

Daniel,

Tell me, why do you think it�s *not* a compromise of principles to work for a racist? To take his money, yet only *verbally* protest about his attitude?

A man does not know everything about an employer when taking a position, he is simply marketing his skills. Once he learns more, it may be appropriate to find employment elsewhere.

Specifically to your question:

First, a man has a right to be a racist. Second, I was not talking about working for someone whose raison d'etre is racism like Thomas Robb. This would, as you say, be wrong.

If instead of making racist remarks the employer had said,
"communism is great in theory, but not in practice", it would be a moral duty to disagree.

By hopping on my specific example you avoided the larger question, a clever debating technique which implies to me that your mind may already be made up and that you just want to win this agrument.

Post 68

Saturday, July 16, 2005 - 4:41pm