RoR: Forum

Steve,

My argument is that different denizens of the left can have significant differences. It can be very important to understand these differences.

Okay, but this also a technique used by NeoCons: In order to hide their own statism, they multiply and proliferate the "different kinds" of statism promoted by liberals. They shift the focus onto personalities, and off of the policies and the results of those policies on millions and millions of American lives. This is the tactic David Frum used when writing the book:

The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush

It is also the tactic Dinesh D'Souza used in writing his recent book about Obama.

It is also the tactic George Orwell used in writing his book: 1984.

To remind you, Orwell depicted a society constantly barraged with new and "different" kinds of evils. In reality, however, there was always and only one basic evil. An evil which purposefully generated layers of particularities out of thin air -- in order to keep the public confused. One day, the public heard on the radio that they were fighting country X. Another day, the heard that country X was their friend and that they were fighting country Y. The process continued as long as it kept working -- and the citizens suffered and suffered.

A clearer, simpler view of things -- such as understanding everything as it relates to the one, simple standard of individualism vs. statism -- might have saved those people. This was one of Rand's greatest insights.

Ed

p.s. Do you think I question whether or not communism could ever work for man on earth?

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 10/13, 5:44am)

Post 41

Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - 9:45am

On this point, I just heard on Limbaugh that Obama said he regrets accidentally portraying himself as typical ("tax & spend") Democrat. Apparently, he too, is trying to get mileage out of the "I'm-your-guy-(the needed "personality")-but-don't-judge-me-on-the-results-of-my-public-policies" mantra.

Thomas Jefferson had had enough talk about the character of a new or potential president, and warned us to focus all of our attention away from the man in office and toward the U.S. Constitution.

Ed

Post 42

Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - 10:56am

Ed,

Your approach is a purposeful call for ignorance in a specific area. You say to stop looking at what kind of statist Obama is. Just identify him as a statist and then stop looking, stop thinking, careful or you will get confused.

I believe that you have completely misunderstood Rand on this and I would like to see a quote and a source that you think backs up your statement. This is not shifting attention away from policies it is digging deeper into understanding why the policies are being promoted.

Just because the NeoCons use deflection to take attention away from their statists tendencies gives absolutely no information about whether or not we should attempt to examine them. It doesn't follow.

Obama attempts to defect people from examining him by bringing up Bush. Notice that that has nothing to do with the value of examining what kind of statist Obama is.

Anti-colonial, progressive, Marxist, Fascist... these are all forms of statist. To focus on this one or that one does NOT take the eye off of Obama, nor does it take the eye off statism since that's what they all are.

Your approach would be like a medical researcher telling his fellow scientists to stop looking at what kind of pathogen they are examining, that they only need to know that it is a pathogen. They would look at him with complete bewilderment since they know that fighting the pathogen is greatly aided by knowing everything they can and because the statement that they will get confused and forget it is a pathogen is so insultingly wrong.

Post 43

Thursday, October 14, 2010 - 3:16pm

Steve,

I believe that you have completely misunderstood Rand on this and I would like to see a quote and a source that you think backs up your statement.

Okay, here are a few quotes from: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/statism.html

A statist system�whether of a communist, fascist, Nazi, socialist or �welfare� type�is based on the . . . government�s unlimited power, which means: on the rule of brute force. The differences among statist systems are only a matter of time and degree; the principle is the same.

Government control of a country�s economy�any kind or degree of such control, by any group, for any purpose whatsoever�rests on the basic principle of statism, the principle that man�s life belongs to the state.

A statist is a man who believes that some men have the right to force, coerce, enslave, rob, and murder others. To be put into practice, this belief has to be implemented by the political doctrine that the government�the state�has the right to initiate the use of physical force against its citizens. How often force is to be used, against whom, to what extent, for what purpose and for whose benefit, are irrelevant questions. The basic principle and the ultimate results of all statist doctrines are the same: dictatorship and destruction. The rest is only a matter of time.

The ideological root of statism (or collectivism) is the tribal premise of primordial savages who, unable to conceive of individual rights, believed that the tribe is a supreme, omnipotent ruler, that it owns the lives of its members and may sacrifice them whenever it pleases to whatever it deems to be its own �good.�

The first choice�and the only one that matters�is: freedom or dictatorship, capitalism or statism.

That is the choice which today�s political leaders are determined to evade. The �liberals� are trying to put statism over by stealth�statism of a semi-socialist, semi-fascist kind�without letting the country realize what road they are taking to what ultimate goal. And while such a policy is reprehensible, there is something more reprehensible still: the policy of the �conservatives,� who are trying to defend freedom by stealth.

The statists� epistemological method consists of endless debates about single, concrete, out-of-context, range-of-the-moment issues, never allowing them to be integrated into a sum, never referring to basic principles or ultimate consequences�and thus inducing a state of intellectual disintegration in their followers.

Ed

p.s. I'll respond more fully later ...

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 10/14, 3:19pm)

Post 44

Thursday, October 14, 2010 - 4:21pm

Ed,

In post #23 you wrote, "...I'm working off of the Randian principle: 'Don't take great pains to work to understand an evil..."

That is what I'm asking for a source to. I don't remember her writing or saying that. I don't think she would ever tell people to stop working to understand an evil.

You have pointed out that she said there were basic principles that united the different forms of statism - that's true and important. But it is NOT the same as claiming she said to not study them or to not bother to understand them.

If she hadn't studied them individually, she wouldn't have been able to point out their similarities. And she would never have asked anyone to take what she said on faith.

Post 45

Thursday, October 14, 2010 - 4:38pm

Ed, Steve, is the relevant quote "Don't bother to examine a folly, ask yourself what it accomplishes," via Ellesworthe Toohey?

Post 46

Thursday, October 14, 2010 - 5:05pm

Ed: "...I'm working off of the Randian principle: 'Don't take great pains to work to understand an evil..."

Steve: "I don't remember her writing or saying that. I don't think she would ever tell people to stop working to understand an evil."

For what it's worth, from Ayn Rand Answers:

Q: "...you voiced a strongly pessimistic view of the future. How can you say you're glad to be old, when one of the most important concepts of Objectivism is that irrationality must never be taken seriously?"

A: "What the hell gave you that impression? I've never even hinted at the idea that one of the most important philosophical concepts is such a childish piece of inaccuracy. The most important parts of my philosophy are my theory of concepts, my ethics, and my discover in politics that evil�the violation of rights�consists of the initiation of force.

"The only passage that I can imagine gave you this impression�and if so, it makes me angrier and hurt�is Dagny's line to Galt: "We never had to take any of it seriously.'...it's light-years away from 'Irrationality is never to be taken seriously.'

"I've written that one problem with Americans is that they don't believe in the reality of evil. You better take evil and irrationality seriously; not in the sense of regarding it as important-not in the sense of letting it determine your the course of your life or your choice of career or other key values-but in the sense of not evading its existence. You should do everything in your power (though not at the price of self-sacrifice) to counteract evil and irrationality, which requires taking it seriously. But that is not the meaning of this line from Atlas Shrugged."

Post 47

Friday, October 15, 2010 - 6:54am

Steve, Joe, I found the quote in "Ayn Rand Answers":

Be patient enough to see the first admission of mysticism or the first non sequitur. When you get it in his own language (which is the fairest procedure) you can forget all about him. You need not study all of his evils. If you a philosophy teacher, you might have to help your pupils untangle the particular evils; but for your own information--for the clarity of your own convictions--once you arrive at the conclusion that someone is a mystic (that some part of his philosophy, by his own statement, is not subject to reason or is beyond reason), then he has saved you the trouble of considering anything else that he says.

That's the 'Randian principle of investigative parsimony' (or RPIP, for short) which I was using. Now, if Obama wasn't president, would we still be talking about his motives based on his espoused ideas? Interestingly, at the same 1969 non-fiction writing course, Rand was asked this question:

Is it proper to judge the psychological motives of a person based on his ideas?

She answered:

Some magazine did this to Barry Goldwater during the 1964 campaign. The evil there was that psychologists tried to arrive at a verdict on the psychology of a man they had never met ...

If you wanted to expose a psychological aberration, you'd need to analyze what's wrong with an idea and then demonstrate that only improper motives A, B, and C could lead to anyone holding such an idea.

To discuss the psychological roots of certain evil or irrational ideas in this way is proper because you are not passing judgment on a person. To deduce the motives of a man from his writings is improper and nonobjective, because there could be ten million motives for the same kind of action. ...

You cannot deduce a man's motives from what he says, except in the generalized way I described. But even then, you shouldn't make a claim about the only possible motive, because a special aberration or combination of psychological errors is always possible, which you shouldn't judge simply from what someone said.

Interestingly, this shows that Rand was not a "judgmental" person -- in the true sense of being "judgmental"! Most folks think that she was "judmental", but this quote proves them all wrong.

Ed

Post 48

Friday, October 15, 2010 - 7:04am

Another instance of psychologizing politicians occurred recently.

Wolf Blitzer recently interacted with Christine O'Donnell and Chris Koons. Wolf wanted to know about O'Donnell's personal belief regarding evolution. O'Donnell wanted to talk about how her public policy (regarding the teaching of evolution) would affect her constituents. Wolf Blitzer did not care about the results that O'Donnell's policies would have on her constituents (e.g., whether they violate rights or not).

Wolf only wanted to know about her personal psychology.

Politics, as Alasdair MacIntyre pointed out, has become not about policy and individual rights -- but about a publicized personality shoot-out on the level of the decrepid "reality" show: Big Brother. All of this cut-throat psychologizing was fueled by post-modern existentialism -- where no one knows what is right anymore, so we all frantically work to ascertain the motives of others rather than what it is that they do that affects our lives.

Our final exasperation will come like this:

"But he had good motives! Why have we become unwitting subjects of a totalitarian state??"

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 10/15, 7:06am)

Post 49

Friday, October 15, 2010 - 10:58am

Ed,

Your quote misses the mark. Rand was addressing mysticism and it is advice regarding learning from someone as one would from a teacher - as one would from a philosopher. Note those two differences in the quote: ...once you arrive at the conclusion someone is a mystic (that some part of his philosophy, by his own statement, is not subject to reason or is beyond reason), then he has saved you the trouble of considering anything else that he says."

That is not the same as turning a blind eye towards the particular form of statism that the president of our nation believes in. What she is saying is that as soon as you determine that someone is speaking gibberish, you no longer need to listen to them as if they were a source of wisdom. The purpose informing the context of her advice was in who to listen to. The purpose with making as accurate as possible the identification of the president's ideology is in identifying what he is likely to do next. We can no longer walk away from the president - he was elected and we need to take our understanding of him beyond just "he is a statist."
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You gave another Rand quote and then wrote, "Interestingly, this shows that Rand was not a "judgmental" person -- in the true sense of being "judgmental"! Most folks think that she was "judmental", but this quote proves them all wrong."

Contrary to that quote from Rand, she was "judgemental" - in ways that were good, that we should all emmulate, but also in ways that drove people aways from her unnecessarily, and that we should not emmulate. In the same book you were quoting from, "Ayn Rand Answers," in a section on Hemingway, on page 202, she is talking about characterization and she says, "To present a man's political outlook, you must indicate why he holds those ideas (rightly or wrongly)." The same is true in real life where one wants to justify a prediction of what a political figure would be most likely to do under a given circumstance. She made judgements of people she had never met all the time.

You can also see that in her answer on Hemingway that she discusses the psychology of Hemingway based upon his writing . Yet in the quote you provided above she say, "To deduce the motives of a man from his writings is imporoper and nonobjective, because there could be ten million motives for the same kind of action." The issue of psychologizing is more complext than that. It is "...the corruption of a cognitive process to serve an ulterior motive." And the cognitive process being corrupted is the application of proper psychological principles - just "rationalizing" is a corruption of reasoning, "philosophizing" is a corruption of philosophical analysis, and "moralizing" is a corruption of making a moral judgement. (all of that from Ayn Rand Lexicon). Notice that "psychologizing" presumes that there is a proper application of psychological principles.
-----------

She said on that same page where she was discussing Goldwater, that for a psychologist to arrive at a verdict on the psychology of a man they had never met would be worse than a doctor diagnosing a disease of a man he had never met. But Ayn Rand regularly made judgements based upon writing - and in most cases, rightly so. And a psychologist and a medical doctor both perform their diagnostic work based upon what they have in front of them, which is enough for a diagnosis or it is not, and that goes for whether or not they have met or seen the patient. A radiologist sees the xrays of patients he has never met and makes a diagnosis every day. Both the science of medicine and of psychology (such as it is) are about objectively determining what are necessary and sufficient indicators of health and of disease for the purpose making sound judgements from what evidence is in front of you.

Post 50

Friday, October 15, 2010 - 7:15pm

Steve,

When Rand was asked by Phil Donahue to tell him what she thought of then-president Jimmy Carter, she didn't make a claim about the only possible motive he could have for his heart-on-the-sleeve, brain-out-the-window statism. Instead, she whittled it down to 2 possibilities:

1) Jimmy Carter has no ideas (or has no good ideas)
2) Jimmy Carter has no feelings (or has no good feelings)

This agrees with her stated policy that "you shouldn't make a claim about the only possible motive". Motives are tricky and we shouldn't ever think that we objectively know them (i.e., that we can "read minds" with some kind of crystal ball).

Ed

Post 51

Friday, October 15, 2010 - 8:47pm

Ed,

We should also not pretend that we are blind, dumb and deaf and unable to use our minds. Everything a person does is done in ways that leaves tracks, that act as evidence, that are clues. Any clinical therapist who made themselves as blind as you are suggesting wouldn't deserve to paid for their time.

We objectively come to judgments on many tricky and difficult to pin down things. Science moves forward one step at a time and not by throwing its hands up saying, "Hey, I don't have x-ray vision or a crystal ball - who am I to know?"

We make theories and we create a hypothesis and we look to prove or disprove it. If we can't get an absolute answer we attempt to determine probabilities.

You are ignoring the difference between reasonable attempts to apply principles of psychology and the corruption of that process, which is psychologizing. I'm one of the strongest defenders of Rand, but she isn't my go-to person for psychology.
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But you are throwing up a strawman. My argument was that we should look at the particular type of Marxist that he is because it will help us to predict his moves in the future.

Post 52

Saturday, October 16, 2010 - 9:52am

Steve,

Contrary to that quote from Rand, she was "judgemental" - in ways that were good, that we should all emmulate, but also in ways that drove people aways from her unnecessarily, and that we should not emmulate. In the same book you were quoting from, "Ayn Rand Answers," in a section on Hemingway, on page 202, she is talking about characterization and she says, "To present a man's political outlook, you must indicate why he holds those ideas (rightly or wrongly)." The same is true in real life where one wants to justify a prediction of what a political figure would be most likely to do under a given circumstance. She made judgements of people she had never met all the time.

But making judgments is not the same as being judgmental, for the same reason that reasoning is not the same as rationalizing, and that moral judgment is not the same as moralizing. In this sense of the term, Rand was not a judgmental person.

And when Rand talked about presenting a man's political outlook, she was talking about fictional characterization inside of a novel. You make the generalization that the same holds true in real life (as it does when a novelist creates a personality out of thin air and then gives this personality the motives the novelist wants this personality to have). Rand indirectly warns (on the next page) that real life is different from fiction in a way which would prevent just such a generalization:

What in life may be an accident in a novel becomes metaphysical.

In the next post, you continue:

We objectively come to judgments on many tricky and difficult to pin down things. Science moves forward one step at a time and not by throwing its hands up saying, "Hey, I don't have x-ray vision or a crystal ball - who am I to know?"

We make theories and we create a hypothesis and we look to prove or disprove it. If we can't get an absolute answer we attempt to determine probabilities.

You are ignoring the difference between reasonable attempts to apply principles of psychology and ...

No, I'm not ignoring -- but I'm disagreeing with you that it is reasonable to attempt to read someone's mind (i.e., to make a claim about the only possible motive). You bring up science and say that it'd be absurd to speak about learning via crystal balls. That is true. But the next step in your reasoning is to transfer what it is that would be absurd in science to the subject of reading minds (i.e., to make a claim about the only possible motive). But in order to do that you have to have established some kind of claim of equivalence between science and mind-reading.

Daniel Dennett attempted to establish some kind of equivalence between science and mind-reading. It was called "heterophenomenology." I rebutted Dennett's arguments on this site years ago. As it turns out, one's motives aren't even a proper subject matter for the special sciences. An illustration of the issue is available at the Wiki-link just provided:

In other words, heterophenomenology requires us to listen to the subject and take what they say seriously, but to also look at everything else available to us, including the subject's bodily responses and environment, and be ready to conclude that the subject is wrong even about their own mind.

So, the subject is taken to be in a position wherein they could be wrong about their own mind, but -- contrastingly -- the experiment who is the same kind of a natural being as the subject is, is thought to not only know their own personal mind well enough to be in the epistemological position to perform objective science, but to even be in a position to know the minds of others. This is perhaps the pinnacle of post-modern, left-liberal, primacy-of-consciousness elitism gibberish that I have ever seen.

My argument was that we should look at the particular type of Marxist that he is because it will help us to predict his moves in the future.

And what about when we get a different kind of a statist? My argument is that we are better off focusing energy on elucidating the evils and perils of statism in general, and that then we will be in an epistemological position to predict the moves of all of them in the future.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 10/16, 9:56am)

Post 53

Saturday, October 16, 2010 - 10:14am

Steve,

To be fair, I agree with you that we estimate each other's motives all of the time and that that is better than willingfully ignoring all evidence of someone's motives. You'd be dead, broke, and raped if you purposefully ignored evidence of motives. But I consider the realm of "motive elucidation" (a more generous term to use than my previous "mind reading") to be a realm of opinion. Opinions are important, but not in their own right. Opinions are only important if they lead to facts.

The fly-in-the-soup comes when you say that you are -- on the subject of motives -- moving from an epistemological position of opinion to one of fact. But how will this get objectively verified? Answer: It won't. Only subjective verification is possible for such a subject matter.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 10/16, 10:16am)

Post 54

Saturday, October 16, 2010 - 11:24am

Ed,

Here is the material at a WikiLink that you quoted:

In other words, heterophenomenology requires us to listen to the subject and take what they say seriously, but to also look at everything else available to us, including the subject's bodily responses and environment, and be ready to conclude that the subject is wrong even about their own mind.

I know nothing of heterophenomenology and I'm not a fan of Dennetts, but I would expect that everyone that isn't mentally deficient or still a young child notices when bodily responses and any other available information would make you suspect that something is fishy and that there is somekind of disconnect between the content of the persons words and what you suspect that they might be thinking.

But you give this as a response:

So, the subject is taken to be in a position wherein they could be wrong about their own mind, but -- contrastingly -- the experiment[er] who is the same kind of a natural being as the subject is, is thought to not only know their own personal mind well enough to be in the epistemological position to perform objective science, but to even be in a position to know the minds of others. This is perhaps the pinnacle of post-modern, left-liberal, primacy-of-consciousness elitism gibberish that I have ever seen.

I see nothing in that first quote that says this is only resricted to some special elite. As I observe a person while I'm talking with them, aren't they equally able to observe me? And from what is in that quote, I don't see how it is left-liberal. As for "post-modern or primacy of consciousness, or elitist... Those don't follow from what is in the quote. Maybe I need to go read the material at the link or your article, but clearly the quote doesn't imply what you say it does.
-----

It is true that only the person who is having thoughts and emotions is in a place to know that they are FOR CERTAIN. I emphasised "for certain" for two reasons. 1) People around them can make estimates that may be sufficiently accurate to work from for a given context. Perfect certainty and perfect knowledge aren't necessary for many purposes. When a child is beaming with joy and laughing while playing with some game it is reasonable to assume he is having fun, experiencing happiness, and you don't need any crystal ball. 2) People don't always know FOR CERTAIN what they are thinking or feeling. Most people have some degree of disconnection in different areas of their mind, a certain degree of fuzziness or opacity in grasping, if not what they are feeling, why they feel it.

I suspect that most of us, at some time, have been with someone where we could see, from the outside, more clearly what the other person was feeling than they were, because they were caught up in some emotional confusion, some are that was highly charged for them, and was keeping them from seeing the forest for the trees.

I appreciate your reply in post #53. It felt unfair when you would make my attempt to estimate motives into the equivalent of mind-reading or some form of mysticism.

You ask how such an estimate can be objectively verified. Some things can not be objectively verified in the sense of some final verdict that is totally correct. Some things remain at least partially unknown. But that is normal. To behave rationally we use objective measures - we attempt to estimate the probability or degree of accuracy and we attempt to determine the margin for error that our context or purpose requires. For example, with long distance sailing I need to know where I am despite the winds and currents effect on my course. I make estimates of the distance and direction that I have been set off course. I make a further estimate of what the maximum error is likely to be. This is derived from the instruments and techniques used to determine location, like somwhere in an oval of 1 mile at length for a Sun sight). The margin of error allowed depends upon the dangers along the course. Then I adust my course to put the dangers a reasonable distance from the closest passage should I be in the part of the oval that is closest to the danger.

We all do the same kind of thing with reading the currents of emotions in those we deal with.

Don't equate "objective knowledge" with "perfect knowledge" - the first is about method while the second is a measurement.

Post 55

Saturday, October 16, 2010 - 9:23pm