RoR: Forum

Post 20

Monday, September 3, 2007 - 4:30am

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Hi Ed,

English is not my native language. How well I express myself is therefore mainly dependant upon how much time I can (and am willing) to spend re-reading and improving the text. Words matter, but we have to choose how to spend our time.

Thank you for noticing.

Jan
(Edited by Jan van Kollenburg on 9/03, 2:21pm)

Post 21

Monday, September 3, 2007 - 4:35am

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Hi Ed,

As to your other question: This is my real name. I do not care for pseudonyms. I suppose I will stay active here, since I like people who are able to reflect (by thinking) and change.

Jan
(Edited by Jan van Kollenburg on 9/03, 2:21pm)

Post 22

Monday, September 3, 2007 - 2:12pm

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1962? Thanks, Tenya. Well, he sure looked like a child - perhaps the effects of his physical condition. If the son is 45, then strike all my comments specifically regarding this case and pardon me while I go take a long shower.

Post 23

Monday, September 3, 2007 - 2:16pm

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I am quite capable of speaking perfect Spanish in one sentence, and horribly mangling the tongue in the next. Inconsistent fluency is no proof of disingenuity.

Post 24

Monday, September 3, 2007 - 2:57pm

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OK Ted, Here my N&I (new and improved) version . You originally said: Not only Randian superheroes with chiseled features and perfect posture deserve happiness. The only needed change is to make that deserve the right to pursue their happiness. That way some mystic cannot abuse your own words to mean that you have implicitly sanctioned the principle 'need=right' is valid.

Post 25

Monday, September 3, 2007 - 6:16pm

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Between Jan's ambiguous mastery of English, and Rick's ambiguous level of joy (in his race-rides), I yearn for something that I can count on -- something to know thoroughly. Something which, once known, somehow lights my way and effectively eradicates some of the darkness and confusion in my world. I guess that's just how I roll.

;-)

I think I'll write an article about what can be known, for certain, about someone or something (it's been a while, hasn't it?) -- just to get this out of my system for a while. Don't get me wrong. I can tolerate ambiguity. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm in humankind's top 1% in this aspect. I just like to mix up a little certainty with my ambiguity every once in a while, you know? Now certainly (certain) Objectivists can get my drift about that!

;-)

Ed
[still happy when he's not, but happiest when he's earned the right to be certain about a thing]

Post 26

Monday, September 3, 2007 - 8:46pm

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Ed,

I'll tell you something you can be sure of. When I watched the video you posted I teared up, I liked Dick Hoyt and his son very much, and I liked you for posting it. I liked that you had a reaction like mine, I felt resonance, a love of humanity.

I really like the best that people have to offer when it comes straight from inside of them. I happen to know that when bad things happen a great many people will do extraordinary things. Not because they have to, not because some calculation tells them that's the sensible thing to do but because our lives are our personal work of art. We sometimes do things because that's the beautiful thing to do. Because in the contemplation of our lives there should be beautiful things.

Post 27

Monday, September 3, 2007 - 9:41pm

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Remember that Rand designed The Night of January 16th as a sense of life Rorschach, saying that the facts alone could allow a sentence of either guilty or not guilty. I myself watched only about a third of the video, teared up, thought "how nice" and decided I had no interest in seeing more.

One concern I have with this is the "always pass judgment" commandment of Rand's. What sort of "judgement" is necessary in this area? I was not going to donate money, hire either of the parties, or consider whether any of the parties would make a good friend or spouse. I had no need to delve deep. I therefore gave the participants the benefit of the doubt, and reacted positively.

Tenya, for her own irreproachable (and be me sanctioned) reasons, delved further, and found, apparently, that the "boy" is a stunted man. Was I evil for not investigating further? Frankly, I wanted to watch my TiVo'ed episodes of House and Heroes - which also make me tear up on occasion.

I don't hold to "pass judgment" as a metaphysical but as a contextual principle. Were I going to donate or vote or hire or marry based on that video, I was an evasive fool. As it is, I may have been taken in, but not taken over.

Ted Keer

Post 28

Tuesday, September 4, 2007 - 12:42am

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Thanks, Mike.

How wonderfully written.

Ed

Post 29

Tuesday, September 4, 2007 - 1:05am

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Ted,

You're not an evasive fool, and I can say this with conviction because, well -- if you are -- then that makes me an evasive fool also.

;-)

Sincerely though, Rand's principle of passing judgment on everyone and everything (because that's the best way for humans to live on earth) doesn't contradict one's enjoyment of the video. How mechanical would a person be if they were to withhold emotion until they had in their minds a string of propositions, each supporting the other, tied to reality by an epistemological anchor of what it is that can be known self-evidently to perception, or the proposotions (corollaries) that self-evidently flow from such perceptions?

Imagine a guy who watched the video. You ask him what he thought/felt about the extraordinary efforts of Dick, and the guy says he's got to suspend judgment because blood, sweat, and tears can be spent in wrong ways. Okay, fine. Then tell the guy that Rick's been able to communicate (via a special computer) and has been expressing the desire to be in more and more races. Then ask the guy what he thought/felt. The guy then wants to know what it is that the father could have been doing with his life besides all of this exertion on his son's behalf (or argues that the kid's reasoning can't be trusted because he was born brain-hypoxic).

Such stalwarts work hard in order to dismiss the potential beauty in the world. It's anybody's guess as to what motivates that kind of work. For some, it may be the painful comparison of something with one's own life -- which may itself be something less than grand. For others, it might just be the control of emotions in general -- and how that provides that false sense of self-confidence and control which anorexics feast upon. Who knows why some people avoid so much potential beauty.

The point, anyway, is not that you're an evasive fool, taken-in by poisonous altruism wrapped in a sugar-coated shell -- if you shed tears on sight of this captured human achievement. The point is that you're conscious of the assumptions you've made in getting to those tear-drops. The point is not to not ever make assumptions, you'd have the personality of a stone. The point is simply to remain aware of your assumptions as you seek and enjoy the beauty that is life.

Ed

Post 30

Tuesday, September 4, 2007 - 4:53am

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IMO enjoyment of the video IS a judgment. Normally people will judge this little movie as: Hey, I see happy people who do something just because they enjoy it. That's great!

It does not matter what the facts behind this story are, since it is posted to spread a certain message. When you judge, you judge whether or not the APPARENT message is OK or not. You do not judge hidden or hard to see background facts.

The video WILL be abused by mystics who will conclude that everybody deserves happiness and that everybody is obliged to look for someone else happiness.

If all you saw in it is 2 people pursuing their own happiness, then of course you like the video and agree with it. Would a mystic come along with his claim about the video you would reject it. No problem here.

Post 31

Tuesday, September 4, 2007 - 6:05am

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"Rand's principle of passing judgment on everyone and everything (because that's the best way for humans to live on earth)"

Okay, Ed, so what is your judgment of Martin van Buren? Lord Kirchner? The Amritsar massacre? Diogenes' reply to Alexander? The movie Zoolander? Benazir Bhutto? Child Labor in Thailand? Puggles?

My difficulty is that one could spend an infinite amount of time judging, judging things that have no relevance for one's own life, and never accomplishing anything of one's own. And it is quite obvious that certain "Objectivists" do substitute passing judgment on others for personal achievement as their main source of happiness - a good example being Fred Weiss who posts nasty comments on SOLOP but which had never, in the months I spent there, ever started his own thread, made his own blog entry, or ever posted a review or a recommendation. He was an orthodox fountain of bile, a "proper" Objectivist according to some, but a happy person? I somehow doubt it.

Post 32

Wednesday, September 5, 2007 - 7:09pm

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Ted,

I do get your point; and I meant that very thing, myself -- regardless of how my message happened to look with the particular words I chose to communicate it. So, instead of that harsh quote for its shock-value, I should have added the qualifier:

"Judge everyone and everything that is to become integral in your life, judge them all ruthlessly and fairly; accept only what you have become comfortable accepting; after the requisite, introspective soul-searching."

Howzatt?

;-)

Ed