RoR: Forum

Post 0

Thursday, November 8, 2007 - 2:19pm

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Je me demande si le Monsieur Sarkozy a lu les oeuvres de la Mademoiselle Rand?

Post 1

Thursday, November 8, 2007 - 3:27pm

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This reminds me of a quote I heard from a Holocaust survivor. Something like:

There is no 'lesson' to be learned from this [Holocaust]. Calling it a lesson is like saying it has a silver lining.

Post 2

Thursday, November 8, 2007 - 5:26pm

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Ted,

Given his stance on environmentalism, it's unlikely. Or, at least, his understanding of her views is very selective, at best.

Still, measured against the standard of European leaders (particularly French ones) of the past 40 years, he's quite good.

Post 3

Thursday, November 8, 2007 - 9:01pm

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Sarkozy's willingness to speak as if morality is not a cynical subjective matter is quite refreshing, I recall no French politician in my lifetime who would speak this way. I don't recall De Gaulle, but I understand that De Gaulle believed in naught but De Gaulle.

My Father once wistfully commented uppon watching Tony Blair speak, "Why can't we have someone like that for President."

As for Sarkozy's environmentalism, he may hold mistaken beliefs for forgivable reasons. I didn't mean to imply that had he read Rand he would be an Objectivist. Most who read her aren't. Perhaps its the Eastern European Jewish immigrant element in him that gives him moral courage?

The mere fact that he has used Iran and guerre in the same sentence without negating the verb as did the villain Villepin in regard to Iraq makes me hope que je l'aimerai. He deserved the standing ovation he got in Congress.

Ted

Post 4

Friday, November 9, 2007 - 4:04pm

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The thing is that we are left either sanctioning something without context, or else attempting to validate the life of a human being by the standards of a work of fiction.

Myself, I go with words out of context: like a work of art, make of it what you will. Sarkozy? Hell's bells, man, what if Leonard Peikoff had said that? We would be having the same discussion. Oh, well, I cannot give my sanction to someone who blah blah blah... yeah, right, like the world gives a fuck about your sanction...

You know what? I cut that and pasted it for myself, and I put it on the blackboard in my criminal justice classes. We find all kinds of "explanations" for crime. You know what causes crime? Criminals. You know why? Because they break the law. It starts there. It ends there. Whatever is inside someone else's head is beyond your control.

We don't get that. We ideologues are so cut off from our own inner experiences that we think, "Oh, yeah, it was the ideas that convinced me..." As if...

You were who and what you were already when you bumped into Ayn Rand by accident. If you never read Anthem or never saw The Fountainhead, you'd be exactly what you are today... except you wouldn't have at your disposal all the words that Ayn Rand wrote, so, instead of sounding intelligent about epistemology, you'd sound like an idiot claiming that you have a right to live your own life regardless of the needs of society.

Never mind the fancy stuff. When someone is evil, you know it. Just kill them.
Oh, no, you should apply "justice" ...
... right...
like that ever works...

Here it is, in five easy concepts.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 11/09, 4:09pm)
(Imagine how emotional this would have sounded, if I hadn't edited out the stupid parts... not once... but twice!)

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 11/09, 4:10pm)

Post 5

Saturday, November 10, 2007 - 1:05am

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Sanction Michael : )

Post 6

Monday, November 12, 2007 - 9:55pm

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On many occasions I have been asked to explain petty evils in the news. Someone asks, "How could somebody do such a thing?" My response has always been that at its root, the best we can say is that it is evil and therefore cannot be understood. If a man's actions can truly be understood (with no aftertaste of "cognitive dissonance") then his actions must be in some way rational. If they were rational, they would be good, or at worst mistaken. In a certain sense evil as the death wish, as the will to the unreal, is a consequence of the will as an irreducible primary.

My reaction to Sarkozy's statement was surprised recognition.

Ted Keer

Post 7

Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 12:48pm

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Ted,

As a quote, it's not bad. But as for his stance on environmentalism, I find it hard to believe that he can be fully innocent. He's an educated adult with high paid advisors at his beck and call. The flaws in AGW and other viro myths are not hard to ferret out. The solutions, even if the problem were real or severe enough to require any action at all, could obviously not be found by coordinated actions among governments to suppress industrial output. The political head of the French government, one of the earliest to recognize the value of large scale deployment of nuclear power, could hardly fail to know that if he were honestly looking for free market solutions.

I'm in wait and see mode with respect to judging him as a whole, but his stance on environmental issues is immoral. It couldn't be otherwise. One needn't be an Objectivist, or even a reader of Ayn Rand (or of her followers) to know the correct position to take here. Some things only require a moderate amount of honesty and a little bit of easy-to-carry-out research.

Post 8

Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 1:51pm

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That would seem to make for a LOT of dishonest folk in the world, huh........

Post 9

Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 9:27pm

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Green Cheese and the Craigslist Murder

Jeff, I truly haven't followed the environmentalist line on Sarkozy, (of which I had heard rumour) since my main concern with foreign leaders of Western republics is their foreign and economic policy and attitude towards the US. In that vein, he seems a refreshing breeze. Since you do seem to have paid attention, can you give some short quotes or links that would make me find his stand disturbing rather than just mistaken. In other words, is he a Teddy Rooseveldt or an Al, let's drain the reservoir so I can canoe for a photo-op Gore? Are you demythologizing him, or actually condemning him?

Of course I don't really think he's an Objectivist by any measure. But when you get Blairs and Sarkozys after such friends as John Major and Jacques Chirac, I myself tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. We've got seven years in which to be disillusioned. Is his environmentalism any immediate threat? The Sun has reported he's in favor of reintegration of France into NATO, and his tough talk on Iran is simply wonderful. Some of the best French cheese is green around the edges, n'est-ce pas?

Ted Keer

PS As for the ineffability of evil and the will as a primary, here's another excellent article on the Craigslist murder from the Sun.