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Post 120

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 5:51amSanction this postReply
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I recall from my own childhood refusing to engage in the Sunday School "end of class" prayer around age six until my mother called me onto the carpet for it.  In retrospect, I consider the entire church experience a collective act of willful self-delusion, i.e. mass evasion.
Luke, that's pretty amazing. What do you think inspired you?

I remember having questions about god way back then, but I guess it didn't seem possible that everybody could be wrong. I think I was eleven the first time I learned that there were people that didn't believe in god.

I was arguing with my parents about Social Insecurity when I was eleven or twelve, however. I often say that I was "born a libertarian."

Chris


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Post 121

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 7:44amSanction this postReply
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Chris asked:

Luke, that's pretty amazing. What do you think inspired you?

I just remember thinking how stupid and pointless the whole exercise was even at that young age.  It took them years of brainwashing to get me to "believe."  Now that I am 40, I am getting even.

John wrote:

I agree that in a general sense ideas are less important than actions. With the exception of those ideas that are, in the chain of reality, one step away from execution, especially mine!

I consider dhimmitude one such idea.  Hence, I cut a 12 year old Muslim boy who accepts this idea much less slack than I do a 30 year old man of any religious faith who believes in strong separation of church and state and freedom of conscience for all.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 8/10, 7:48am)


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Post 122

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 8:58amSanction this postReply
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Luke wrote,
While I still think belief in God and the supernatural requires some evasion to take root, I would not condemn such a believer in whole as an evader.
Luke, are you are telling me that at the age of nine, I was an evader, because I bought the priest's First-Cause argument for the existence of God? Do you really believe that you know my own mind better than I do, because I know that I wasn't evading. I know it from direct, introspective evidence. You need to seriously reconsider your position here. You're a smart guy; I can't believe you would hold such a prejudicial view, and it is prejudicial, because you're drawing conclusions about someone's mental state without adequate evidence. Not that people don't evade, but you can't infer that they're evading simply because they hold a philosophically untenable idea, like a belief in God.

- Bill

(Edited by William Dwyer
on 8/10, 9:03am)


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Post 123

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 9:21amSanction this postReply
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Bill (post #117): Your odyssey and mine have, er, "ominous parallels." In fact, EXACT parallels. I recall the same "infinite regress" logic being used to back up the First Cause argument in the Sunday school classes of my early youth. In fact, the completion of my "conversion" to Objectivism also didn't occur until about the age of 20 -- and it was also Nathaniel Branden's brief essay on the First Cause argument in The Objectivist Newsletter that did it for me, too!

Knowing that -- and knowing that our examples can be multiplied to many, many other individual cases -- I find it totally wrongheaded to conclude that a belief in God/the "supernatural" necessarily implies "evasion" or some character flaw. Many of America's Founders were deists, on grounds of reasoning quite similar to that of Aquinas and the scholastics; but they were most emphatically not "mystics" in the way that Rand describes them in Galt's Speech and elsewhere. (See Henry Steele Commager's brilliant history The Empire of Reason for dazzling portraits of Enlightenment philosophes, and their commitment to reason.)


A wider issue, raised by Joe, concerns what to make of the term "evil." It's a good point...but in its effect, I think it only reinforces the thrust of Barbara Branden's message, rather than refutes it.

For Rand, there was a bright-line distinction between "evil" and "errors of knowledge" -- between evasion and mistakes in reasoning. The blurring of that distinction by many Objectivists is perhaps understandable, though. It is very easy for a skilled novelist like Rand to concoct characters whose motives and mental workings she makes transparent to readers. So when we encounter actions by people in real life that seem, on their face, similar to those of the villains in her novels, it's tempting to assume the same motives.

But the same actions can be taken for a multitude of reasons and motives. It is thus far less certain how we, in daily life, can infer the extent of "evasions" that may or may not be occurring inside someone else's skull.

Barbara points out that since we do not have any privileged access to the inner workings of another's consciousness, it is extraordinarily difficult to determine whether someone is "evading," and hence "evil" -- and certainly to pronounce some sweeping judgment on his whole moral character. She therefore invites us to reconsider the promiscuous use of the term "evil." So does Joe, if perhaps for different reasons. But it gets us to the same place, really.

This doesn't imply skepticism or moral relativism. We certainly must uphold a moral standard of good and evil and apply it objectively to actions, based upon their real-world consequences to human life, well-being, and happiness. That's not only possible; it's a moral necessity. As we do so, we can describe, in common parlance, various ideas as "true" or "false," regarding correspondence with the facts of reality -- i.e., they are either "correct" or "mistaken." Loosely speaking, we sometimes characterize them as "good" or "bad," in the sense of their being "helpful to human life" or "destructive" -- if and when they are implemented in action.

But notice that caveat. There are dangers in attributing moral designations to ideas per se, and thus to those who hold them.

The conceptual distinction between "true or false" and "right or wrong" is important and useful, as it goes to the issues of someone's knowledge, intentions, and choice. This is clear in the criminal justice system, which must constantly distinguish between simple error and malicious evil. This (broadly and imprecisely) constitutes the distinction between a "tort" (a harm, usually accidental or unintended) and a "crime" (a deliberate, knowing violation of someone's rights). Generally speaking, for someone to be convicted of a crime requires sufficient evidence that (a) the perpetrator knew that what he was doing was wrong or illegal, (b) he intended the consequences of his actions, and (c) he had a choice in the matter.

By direct analogy, the same considerations ought to apply to moral judgments of people. Isn't there a fundamental difference between someone who deliberately does harmful things, and someone who does harmful things by accident? Is it just to equate the two -- and to call both individuals "evil"?

As idle notions or speculations never acted upon, ideas hardly seem to merit "good" or "evil" designations; nor do those who merely believe them without acting on them. What do we gain, exactly, by calling such people "evil" rather than simply "mistaken"?

More importantly: What do we potentially LOSE if we inflate what may be some isolated error, or an action that causes unintended harm, into a fundamental character flaw, impelling us to damn the individual in toto and have nothing to do with him? How many potential values do we lose in our own lives if we define "evil" so promiscuously that we cut ourselves off from others at the first sign of an intellectual error?

Here is where I believe that classical virtues such as "prudence" or "wisdom" come in. Wisdom or prudence, in my view, is rationality leavened with context and experience.

Context and experience tell us that not everyone who disagrees with our philosophical views is malevolent, or intends harm and destruction, or is about to act upon the most harmful logical implications of his mistaken views, or is immune to changing his mind. Thus, to treat people as if they are "evil" simply for holding mistaken ideas within the privacy of their skulls is not rational. It contradicts what we know about the people in our lives. In fact, it can be quite stupid, cutting us off unnecessarily from many potentially valuable social, personal, and professional relationships.

But in my forty-odd years of observation, such stupidity is no stranger to the Objectivist movement.


(Edited by Robert Bidinotto
on 8/10, 10:45am)


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Post 124

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 9:40amSanction this postReply
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Robert,

I particularly agree with this part:

Context and experience tell us that not everyone who disagrees with our philosophical views is malevolent, or intends harm and destruction, or is about to act upon the most harmful logical implications of his mistaken views, or is immune to changing his mind. Thus, to treat people as if they are "evil" simply for holding mistaken ideas within the privacy of their skulls is not rational. It contradicts what we know about the people in our lives. In fact, it can be quite stupid, cutting us off unnecessarily from many potentially valuable social, personal, and professional relationships.
Ethan


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Post 125

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 12:08pmSanction this postReply
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Bill asked:
Luke, are you are telling me that at the age of nine, I was an evader, because I bought the priest's First-Cause argument for the existence of God?
He is, Bill, but he is wrong.  And when Luke says:
I just remember thinking how stupid and pointless the whole exercise was even at that young age [six].
he is not justified in saying that he was not evading.  He gives you too little credit and himself too much.
Thanks,
Glenn


Post 126

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 12:30pmSanction this postReply
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I am reminded of the chapter on fear in Branden's Honoring the Self, in terms of the issue of evil and/or mistaken ideas.........

Post 127

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 2:53pmSanction this postReply
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Thanks, Glenn, for supporting me when I say that, contrary to Luke, I was not evading when I bought the First-Cause Argument for the existence of God.

But you also say that Luke "is not justified in saying that he was not evading," when he says, "I just remember thinking how stupid and pointless the whole exercise was even at that young age [six]." Luke is referring to his refusal to engage in the end-of-class prayer. How is that an act of evasion?

- Bill

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Post 128

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 3:22pmSanction this postReply
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Bill asks:
But you also say that Luke "is not justified in saying that he was not evading," when he says, "I just remember thinking how stupid and pointless the whole exercise was even at that young age [six]." Luke is referring to his refusal to engage in the end-of-class prayer. How is that an act of evasion?
Bill, I'm not saying that it is an act of evasion, I'm saying that, at age 6, I don't think he can say anything about whether he was evading or not.

Thanks,
Glenn


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Post 129

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 4:22pmSanction this postReply
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Robert writes:
Generally speaking, for someone to be convicted of a crime requires sufficient evidence that (a) the perpetrator knew that what he was doing was wrong or illegal, (b) he intended the consequences of his actions, and (c) he had a choice in the matter.
This is incorrect.  What is required of a crime is a actus reus (voluntary act) and mens rea (intent).  Not all of the levels of mens rea require that a person know what he is doing is wrong (part a) or that he intends the consequences (part b).  The mens rea of negligence for instance (like in a criminaly negligent homicide) states that he should have forseen the risk and the possible consequences of his actions.  The law holds considers him culpable even though he did not grasp the consequences.  This (along with the mens rea of recklessness) are valid because one must be be held accountable for one's failures to perceive dangers where harm is created.  This does NOT excuse one's actions. 

Furthermore, why, Robert, consider mens rea at all?  According to Barbara in her speech and you above, we should only be concerned with "actions", which in that case only an actus reus would be enough.  This would also mean that you would end up equating a malicious killer with a negligent one.  Is that just? 

But how can we judge a mental state if, as Barbara states, we cannot look into another human mind? This is true, by the way, we cannot directly perceive the consciousness of another.  But does this excuse not only a criminal intent, but also the failure of individuals to exercise responsibility for their thinking, of excusing any moral judgment?  Certainly Rand did not see it that way:
Morality is the province of philosophical judgment, not of psychological diagnosis.  Moral judgment must be objective, i.e., based on perceivable demonstrable facts.  A man's moral character must be judged on the basis of his actions, his statements, and his conscious convictions--not on the basis of inferences (usually, spurious) about his subconscious.  (Italics are Rand's from "The Psychology of Psychologizing")
Notice she does not restrict the category of objective moral judgment to actions, but also includes "statements" and "conscious convictions".  Do you disagree with Rand here, Robert?  Should we restrict it to "actions" alone, like judging a piece of meat that is somehow compelled to act?

Also notice that Rand warns of the pitfalls of psychologizing and urges us to stick to statements and actions.  Now compare that to what Barbara did in her speech whereby she launched into a psychological analysis of "ragers" that is absolutely breathtaking in both its scope and its depth.  Mind you, this is right after she said psychology is a "youthful" discipline and we cannot be certain of our motivations at times, much less somebody else's.  So how in God's name does she grant herself a license to an absolutely unbelieveable psychological workup of the supposed "ragers", which includes other's lack of empathy, them being bullies, wanting to seek comfort in "group dynamics", unthinking true believers, and, once again, suicide bombers.

If I wanted to dwell on this point again, I could easily draw a limited psychological comparison between suicide bombers and many TASers.  I wonder how they would except such a comparison?  I think once you starting making vicious psychological comparisons like that (in any sense) against one's Objectivist intellectual adversaries, especially if one thinks one is being objective about it--one has admitted defeat, both intellectually and morally.

Michael

(Edited by Michael Moeller on 8/10, 4:30pm)


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Post 130

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 4:52pmSanction this postReply
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Before we go any further, I need a crucial question answered:

Can an Objectivist engage in segmented judgment of a person's character?

In other words, can I judge a whole person based on the sum of his virtues and vices, each weighed according to their benefit or detriment to human life, and judge him as overall good or evil, overall focused or evading?

If so, I can let a decent person's Deistic belief go as a vice unworthy of addressing, whereas a belief in dhimmitude I cannot.

If not, exactly how do I benefit from smearing the whole Deist as an evader when he otherwise manifests the virtues of rationality, productiveness and pride?

I do not take issue with accusing someone of small evasions so much as I take issue with smearing the whole person as an "evader" when the term "flawed character" would much more accurately describe him.

Bill, I plainly stated earlier that "I would not condemn such a believer in whole as an evader."  So I find your question, "[A]re you are telling me that at the age of nine, I was an evader, because I bought the priest's First-Cause argument for the existence of God?", puzzling.  If I say you evaded a little, that no more means your whole character is that of an evader any more than a small error means that your whole capacity to reason is flawed.

As for children, perhaps we need some guidance about exactly when the rest of us need to start holding them accountable for their mental actions.  I know a number of effective parents who basically disciplined their children, i.e. held them accountable for focusing, from birth.  Others obviously do not.  Still others actively teach the art of evasion to their children via religion, etc.

In any case, I see no point in obsessing over this.  As others have noted, I can more easily point to a person's statement as "wrong" than I can point to his mental processes as "evasion."  So if I understand Branden, Bidinotto, et. al. correctly, I should just leave it at "honest error" and not attempt to psychologize how that person arrived at that conclusion unless I can see plain evidence "out here" of that evasion.  Is that accurate?

I should note that I seldom associate "rage" with people's real or apparent evasions unless they pose a direct threat to me.  Unfortunately, on election day, their votes count just as much as ours.  So even their "innocent errors" cost us.  I just question how much of it is really "innocent."  Am I wrong to question it even if I do so without "rage"?

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 8/10, 4:58pm)


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Post 131

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 6:48pmSanction this postReply
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Glenn wrote,
Bill, I'm not saying that it is an act of evasion, I'm saying that, at age 6, I don't think he can say anything about whether he was evading or not.
Oh, okay. But I can certainly remember at the age of 9 being convinced by the First Cause argument. If I was convinced by it, then my belief in God was not the result of evasion, was it? I didn't accept it on faith -- unless, you want to say that it was possible I realized the argument was fallacious, but evaded that realization for reasons of peer pressure or something. I can certainly tell you that I hadn't the slightest inkling that the argument was fallacious. I was not remotely that sophisticated philosophically. I bought it hook, line and sinker without a second thought. :-)

At any rate, I think we have to bear in mine that a person is innocent until proven guilty, and that the mere possession of an idea is not by itself sufficient evidence that one is guilty of evasion and therefore morally culpable for having accepting it, certainly not at that young an age. :-)

- Bill

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Post 132

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 7:28pmSanction this postReply
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Bill, is there any circumstance where a 9 year old can be held responsible for any philosophical belief? I'm inclined to think no, even if you were at 9 years old subjected to Rand and still held onto the first cause argument, I still think a 9 year old is way too young to be capable of that kind of level of reason to be held responsible. We're talking very abstract thoughts here and your typical 9 year old doesn't have that level of maturity. When I was 9 I had no convictions, I was too busy watching G.I. Joe cartoons and bothering girls to be concerned with adult issues like god. Perhaps I just had a slow start in childhood compared to the rest of you folks? :)


Post 133

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 7:43pmSanction this postReply
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I'm on deadline, and will try to reply to Michael's post #129 in a few days.

Till then...I very much agree with the comments by Bill and John, immediately preceding.

Post 134

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 8:19pmSanction this postReply
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Here's something else: When I was 5, I can remember losing a shiny new coin that my grandfather had given me. I was quite upset that I couldn't find it, but my mother told me not to worry. She said that if I prayed to Saint Anthony (the patron saint of people who lose things), I would find it. So, I prayed very hard, and then proceeded to look again for the coin. Immediately, I saw it in the grass, reflecting the sunlight with an intensity so bright I could scarcely believe my eyes! Did that make a believer out of me? You bet it did! There's nothing like the empirical method to confirm your belief in the supernatural! ;-)

- Bill

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Post 135

Friday, August 11, 2006 - 12:30amSanction this postReply
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Robert B., I'm not satisfied by your post 123.  Let me try to formulate my objections.

First, you say that ideas are only either correct or incorrect, and that we could say they are bad or good "if and when they are implemented in action".  I think we can distinguish the ideas as good or bad even before we put them into practice, else how would we avoid performing evil actions?  11*11=111 is an incorrect idea.  Believing that murdering people is moral is an incorrect idea.  I personally wouldn't stop there, and can't imagine anyone else would.  Maybe you're just trying to argue that we should equate a person with the ideas they hold?

You ask:
As idle notions or speculations never acted upon, ideas hardly seem to merit "good" or "evil" designations; nor do those who merely believe them without acting on them.
Your sentence seems to argue that some ideas may be accepted by a person, but he doesn't really take them seriously and has no intention of acting upon them.  That's far different from someone who genuinely believes it and just hasn't yet acted upon it.  But if we try to treat ideas as merely "true" or "false", we're missing the whole point.

Let me add, to counter this suggestion that it's "extraordinarily difficult" to tell when someone is evading, isn't it equally difficult to know how seriously they take an idea?  Why should we assume they don't mean it?  I can answer this by saying that we can know a bit about them, and we can judge whether they take it seriously.  But I don't argue that their minds are somehow kept a mystery from us.  We may not have direct access, but we certainly have plenty of observational data.

Also, there's the question of what constitutes putting an idea into practice.  If someone promotes pedophilia, genocide, or murdering cartoonists in Denmark, do we simply say that they didn't actually do it so we shouldn't judge them?

I also don't like the focus on action.  Moral judgment does not revolve around judging a particular action as beneficial or harmful.  I think an important part of it is judging the motivations, values, and character of the individual.  Actions don't occur in a vacuum.  In fact, I'd venture to say that the point of moral judgment isn't to judge a past action, but to speculate on future actions.  And that's possible to do even before they perform the action.

Obviously there's some difference between someone who says they believe something and those who actually put it into practice.  This is true not just with bad ideas, but with good. I don't care if a guy says he believes in honesty if he doesn't practice it.  Similarly, someone may say he believes he should be a prudent predator, but it might be more wishful thinking than anything else.  Still, I wouldn't let him near my money.

It looks to me like your major focus is on avoiding damning a person as evil through and through.  You say:
What do we potentially LOSE if we inflate what may be some isolated error, or an action that causes unintended harm, into a fundamental character flaw, impelling us to damn the individual in toto and have nothing to do with him?
This kind of statement is exactly why I posted asking exactly what do people mean by evil.  You're arguing against something I consider obviously true.  But the original speech is about moral outrage.  If this is the only possible form of moral outrage, condemning a person as evil incarnate, then it would clearly be a bad thing.  But I question that premise.  I think I can be morally outraged by some position you take or action you make, but recognize that it's only a part of who you are.  Only if I perceive that these positions or actions are a thorough part of your character would I go the next step of condemning you in general.  And even then, I can still acknowledge the good elements in you.

I also see this judgment of a person as independent of whether they can change or not.  If they turn themselves around tomorrow or next week, I'll adjust my perspective (given sufficient evidence that there is a change).  But I don't think that should alter how I judge them today.  It would judge it if I was using the caricatured version of "evil" where I thought I have to evaluate them as thoroughly and irrevocably evil.  But that's a ridiculous standard since there is free will.  We'd have to go around pretending there is no evil in the world because the mad Muslims killing people might grow out of it someday.

I questioned the view of evil because when it gets thrown around loosely like this, it always ends up taking this weird traditional view that evil is some inherent quality that it permanent and complete.  I would prefer people avoid the term when having this kind of conversation because it muddies the water.  You can argue against condemning people as that kind of evil, but it's pointless and actually distracts from the real difficult questions that come with moral judgment and condemnation. 

Questions like:  How do we evaluate how important a character flaw is? How do we remain objective about their good qualities.  How do we limit our interactions to avoid their character flaws.  What values do they hold and how seriously do they hold them?  At what point do you judge their flaws as being too significant to deal with?  Do their flaws actually negate their virtues?  How seriously do we take their professed beliefs?  What cost is there to overlooking their flaws?  Are we perpetuating an injustice by dismissing them?

If the goal is to argue against this condemnation of a person in toto because of some isolated error or flaw, I think there are far better ways of making that argument.  We don't need to resort to the skepticism of not being able to detect when someone is evading, or trying to judge actions isolated from the ideas that spawned them, or judging a person without reference to the ideas he holds, or calling people neurotic or group-thinkers.  Instead, we can making distinctions based on how seriously they take their ideas.  We can evaluate their values, ideas, and moral ideals.  We can emphasize the need to look at the whole of the individual, and not ignore the good by exclusively focusing on the bad.  We can weigh the importance of the character flaws.


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Post 136

Friday, August 11, 2006 - 3:08amSanction this postReply
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Bill and John, I agree that a child cannot have as much moral accountability as an adult.  So I will not preoccupy myself with the issue of young children and evasion regarding highly abstract issues like theology, etc.  I will relent from my earlier statements and err on the side of error when judging young children and abstract issues.

There comes a time, however, when a child grows into an adult fully accountable for his actions, including his statements of conviction.  I know many people old enough, intelligent enough and educated enough to know better than to promote fairy tales like "rapture."  They do so anyway.  I normally keep my mouth shut about it in every day conversation unless asked explicitly or implicitly.  When they do ask, however, I politely inform them, in effect, "You are old enough, intelligent enough and educated enough to know better than to accept fairy tales."  They asked and I told.

I am honest but not very nice.  Our world currently drowns in a bloodbath of "niceness."  The time for "niceness" has passed.


Post 137

Friday, August 11, 2006 - 6:05amSanction this postReply
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Nice post, Luke.

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Post 138

Friday, August 11, 2006 - 7:28amSanction this postReply
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Joe,

You wrote in Post 135:
But the original speech is about moral outrage.
Once again I would suggest a closer reading of Barbara's article. It is not about "moral outrage." It is about "unjust moral outrage."

The article mentions that just moral outrage is just fine. All this was dealt with in the definition part of the article at the beginning.

Barbara's words are very clear on this and I have even quoted them in an earlier post for convenience. I think persisting in this error keeps you from seeing the virtues of the article. In know it would be nice to find a person who argues that moral outrage is bad so you could debunk him.

But the fact is more than evident: Barbara did not write what you keep insisting that she did. No amount of repetition will ever change that.

Michael


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Post 139

Friday, August 11, 2006 - 8:28amSanction this postReply
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Michael Moeller wrote:

"So how in God's name does she grant herself a license to an absolutely unbelieveable psychological workup of the supposed "ragers""

Because she is exempt from her instructions that we as her audience are ordered to obey :)

"I think once you starting making vicious psychological comparisons like that (in any sense) against one's Objectivist intellectual adversaries, especially if one thinks one is being objective about it--one has admitted defeat, both intellectually and morally."

This sums up the speech very nicely, Michael. Those who are silent on the actual speech, and who choose to focus instead on splitting hairs on smaller aspects, disappoint me because they seem to be hesitant to speak to an evaluation of the speech for fear of offending the speaker. God forbid!

The standing ovation she received, sadly, said a lot. The speech was not deserving, however much the speaker may be admired for previous achievements.

John


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