RoR: Forum

Try this for an Objectivist principle: Money talks and bullshit walks. How much of that $5 million investment is yours?

Buy your ticket. Watch the movie. Then offer your valuable opinion.

... and Frank Lloyd Wright was not an Objectivist, either...

The guy who did this was not an Objectivist, either.

Neither was this guy:

or <gasp!> this guy

I confess:
If I actually never did business with my destroyers, I would never have eaten a pizza in any place with these on the wall:

Objectivism is a personal philosphy. It is possible to hold an observation diametrically different from Objectivism and not be evil. Get over it.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 7/23, 5:17pm)

Post 21

Friday, July 23, 2010 - 5:59pm

Mike,

I tried to imply that this director has value (via his creative "right brain"). It's his job -- as an art-type -- to make good movies. I will buy the ticket when the time comes. However, it's my job -- as a logic type -- to point out thinking flaws, contradictions, and utter misunderstandings.

Get over that.

Ed

Post 22

Friday, July 23, 2010 - 10:41pm

He's on the right track, but still at the pre-integrated stage. I hope they have Objectivist advisers on board.

Post 23

Saturday, July 24, 2010 - 8:27am

Observation:

1) Some intermediates, 2) most newbies, 3) virtually all Objectivo-agnostics, and 4) all flat-out non-Objectivists seem to find it difficult or impossible to distinguish the writings of Rand from the writings of Nietzsche. Advanced Objectivists -- such as myself and many, many others here -- have absolutely no trouble in making that distinction.

It's like the non-s and the newbies are conceptually blind to the philosophical peculiarity of Objectivism -- to how unique it is. They rush to integrate it with Nietzschean philosophy perhaps because that is the only time that they've ever been exposed to any kind of an unabashed or an unapologetic "individualism." A more careful reading of Aristotle might have exposed them to a form of guiltless individualism -- but perhaps Aristotle seems too antiquated for them to have worked hard to study.

Whatever the reason, they seem conceptually blind in this arena -- and perhaps this is a useful 'litmus test'. If you want to know if someone understands Objectivism, then ask them how -- specifically -- it differs from Nietzsche.

Ed
[for more thoughts like this, see my revised Objectivist quiz]

**************************
Rand on her diametric, ideological opposition to Nietzsche:

He proclaimed ... that reason, logic, principles are futile and debilitating, that morality is useless, that the �superman� is �beyond good and evil,� that he is a �beast of prey� whose ultimate standard is nothing but his own whim. Thus Nietzsche�s rejection of the Witch Doctor consisted of elevating Attila into a moral ideal�which meant: a double surrender of morality to the Witch Doctor.

From:
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/nietzsche--friedrich.html

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 7/24, 8:42am)

Post 24

Saturday, July 24, 2010 - 9:46am

Advanced Objectivists -- such as myself and many, many others here -- have absolutely no trouble in making that distinction.

Ed, I so completely agree with you. I sometimes marvel at the difficulty people have with Objectivist thought, or how they work so hard to categorize it in a way that's so wrong, I can't believe they've read the same words I have.

John Mackey is one of those people. He argues against Objectivist principles that just don't exist. It's amazing.

Post 25

Saturday, July 24, 2010 - 11:14am

Teresa,

Forgive my ignorance, but who's John Mackey?

Ed

Post 26

Saturday, July 24, 2010 - 12:12pm

Allow me to apologize again -- twice in the same topic -- for stating my case without due respect for the audience here. We all want this to come out well.

We all have studied the basic works until we have them memorized and that says more about us than it does about the objective truths (or lack of them) in all of those works. Objectivism is not Ayn Randism. Moreover, as much as she claimed otherwise, not everything she said or wrote was internally consistent as a philosophy, though, indeed it was absolutely consistent within her person. We all have settled into our own understandings and we often disagree on them, albeit within the same context.

Realize, also, the extent to which you were made by Ayn Rand's works. Raise your hand if you came to them after college. We think that these books have the power to convert people. They do not. They have the power to influence adolescents. Paul Johansson was who he is already. So, you have to accept that, as with Richard Dawkins, or Pat Condrell, for that matter.

As for the problems, the name is Reardan not Reardon and that is the fault of transcribing from tape (or iPad); and the distance to Wyatt's Torch is 320 pages, not 127. But I quibble.

I understand the problems. Allow me to point to an essestial positive.

From the first interview:
PJ: When you look at what�s being pumped out at you and forced down your throat and then they slap in a morality tale at the end of it to make you feel that it�s a �feel good� movie ... This ["Atlas Shrugged"] isn�t a real world � this is a science fiction world because there is no world that is completely black and white. People aren�t just all bad Wesley Mouches or all good Henry Reardons. There�s no such thing as that. We have different shades of grey. And [as for Rand's] world, she had to create a very polarized vision of the way people lived. So I think of this book as an in-your-face way of saying, �Who are you � and how do you live?�

From the second:
PJ: But what is the spirit of innovation? What is it in a child�s eyes when a child first learns how to do math and he comes home and goes �look at this� and you�re going, �wow, something clicked in that kid�s head� � and from that moment that kid will always have that. That�s it. That�s the magic. And we�re saying, �well he did mathematics, big deal� � well, it�s not a big deal [on its own], it�s what happened inside his brain that is the big deal. That�s [what motivates] our great people.

I think that he gets it. He has grasped the essential motivation for himself from his understanding of the world he lives in. He specifically separates his personal views from Ayn Rand's because he recognizes her "intellectual right" to the philosophy behind the book and movie. And yet he also hints at the ambiguity in so-called legal "intellectual property rights" which impact and preclude creativity but, again, refuses to conflate his ideas with other ideas. That shows integrity. I think that Paul Johansson understands Atlas Shrugged at a metaphysical and aesthetic level deeper and more abstract than even I am capable of. I am impressed.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 7/24, 12:39pm)

Post 27

Saturday, July 24, 2010 - 12:22pm

A third apology ... to TSI for stepping on her lines.

John Mackey (born August 15, 1953) is an American businessman. He is the CEO of Whole Foods Market which he had co-founded in 1980. Named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2003, Mackey is a strong supporter of free market economics. He is one of the most influential advocates in the movement for organic food.
[...]

In a debate in Reason magazine among Mackey, Milton Friedman, and T. J. Rodgers, Mackey said that he is a free market libertarian.[11] He said that he used to be a "democratic socialist" in college. As a beginning businessman, he was challenged by workers of not paying them enough and customers of charging too high prices, at a time when he was hardly making enough to continue. He began to take a more capitalistic worldview, and discovered the works of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Friedman.[12]

Mackey is an admirer of author Ayn Rand but doesn't really understand Objectivist philosophy (he thinks capitalism is "service", not "trade.".[13]

Mackey co-founded the organization, Freedom Lights Our World (FLOW, to combine his commitments to "economic and political freedom as well as personal growth, social responsibility, and environmental stewardship." [14] He supports such changes as green tax shifts, environmental trusts, world legal systems to allow the poor to create legal businesses, and a citizen's dividend to help the poor in the developed world.[15]
^ Salon, Interview: John Mackey. Consulted on July 17, 2007.
^ "Give BB&T Liberty, but Not a Bailout"[1], "The New York Times", August 1, 2009.
^ John Mackey, Foreword, to Michael Strong, Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World's Problems (Wiley & Sons, March 2009), p. xiv
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mackey_(businessman)

Post 28

Saturday, July 24, 2010 - 2:28pm

As Mike pointed out, Mackey is the founder of Whole Foods, Inc. For reasons I simply can't understand, Mackey is unable (or unwilling) to get his head around Rand's very clear theory of Capitalism and rational self interest. An excellent example of his ignorant grasp can be seen in a Book TV - Freedom Fest link someone posted here recently. Barbara Brandan easily exploded his notions, though, and got wild applause for her successful effort.

Post 29

Sunday, July 25, 2010 - 8:37am

Mike,

**********
Realize, also, the extent to which you were made by Ayn Rand's works. Raise your hand if you came to them after college.
**********

I was first exposed to the works of Rand in my 4th decade on this planet (less than 12 years ago). I am therefore, most definitely, a self-made soul; validated and vindicated -- rather than "made" -- by any of Ayn Rand's works.

Your "theory" does not "apply."

Ed
[is raising his hand now]

Post 30

Sunday, July 25, 2010 - 9:18am

> I hope they have Objectivist advisers on board.

Teresa, I read that Aglialoro co-wrote the script. Whether that is good or bad I don't know, as that is not his forte. And David Kelley is supposedly an adviser.

Post 31

Monday, July 26, 2010 - 4:11am

Teresa:

An excellent example of his ignorant grasp can be seen in a Book TV - Freedom Fest link someone posted here recently.

I don't think Mackey has an "ignorant grasp". He disagrees with Ayn Rand's "polarizing." Let's be fair. If Mackey has an "ignorant grasp", then BB had an "ignorant grasp" of what Mackey was saying.

Barbara Brandan easily exploded his notions, though, and got wild applause for her successful effort.

At what time?

I don't think so. Nor did I hear any applause for BB between 36:40 and 38:40. All the applause I heard was for Mackey. Link.

Post 32

Monday, July 26, 2010 - 6:57am

Merlin,

Mackey's ignorance is in his use of traditional, colloquial definitions of both selfishness and altruism. Rand showed how these def'ns are false. But definitions are supposed to be objective and factual, not false.

So Mackey has an ignorant grasp.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 7/26, 6:57am)

Post 33

Monday, July 26, 2010 - 5:00pm