| | SW: I really think that they don't have a reasoning process that works with the phrase 'free enterprise' - they figure that everyone does the same, throw out the proper buzzwords, avoid making any statement that would cause trouble, and all the while work to serve their special interests and their reelection. And they figure that is what everyone else is doing and doing in just the same way.
Brother, you said a mouthful!
Atlas Shrugged is all about epistemology. The politics is perhaps best expressed in the scene where Dagny wonders to herself how we lost the world to men who are afraid to hold an unqualified opinion about the weather. Another candidate would be Hank Rearden's encounter with The Boys when he asks them why they believe that the nature of steel is arguable but their whims are not.
"... they figure that is what everyone else is doing ..."
That is a hallmark of the authoritarian personality. The idea that other people are individuals is easier to accept if you see yourself that way. There are few things in life as unforgiving as flying an airplane. And I have yet to find The One Right Way to Teach (or Learn) How. We know what the failure modes look like: denials of reality, mostly, with a smattering of misperception or non-perception. How to do it right? Hard to say... I've had about 20 flight instructors and interviewed probably 100 pilots for magazine articles I've written. I even wrote about the virtues of aviation culture. I have little understanding of what goes on inside someone else's head, even as we do the same things at the same time. We're all different.
But among those differences is the authoritarian personality. Some people just figure that everyone else is like them inside... if they think about it at all... Without putting too fine a point on it, it is a kind of "intelligence." I like to think that I know my limits and I appreciate being with people smarter than I am. I pick up on that, when I am still talking and I get it that they got it the first time. So, I learn to say it once when I am with them. And I can talk about different ideas in the same paragraph and know they will put them together. But, on the other hand, I notice that at some lower bounds, there are people who just do not understand how limited they are. They think they are normal.
In some way, Ayn Rand just never "got" the Wesley Mouches of the world. Social intelligence is as valid as artistic talent or mathematical ability. The thing is, though, that if you see that, if you are the person working alone in your studio or office or laboratory you have to appreciate the fact that as clearly as you perceive them, to that same depth, they fail to perceive you.
(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 11/18, 10:25pm)
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