The way I’ve phrased that last sentence could make some readers a little uncomfortable. Am I – with Erasmus – arguing that you need to be smart in order to be spiritual? No, absolutely not. Are we suggesting that pursuing knowledge is the same thing as growing in Christ? No, not necessarily. Are we implying that in the next life we’ll all be first-class theologians and philosophers? Heaven forbid!

What we are saying, however, is that our minds are inextricably connected to our souls. And I think it’s fair to say that we all instinctively know this to be true. Think, for a moment, of your friendships. Is it possible for you to minister to your friends – or even develop a relationship – without pursuing knowledge of these other people? No, of course not. In the same way, then, we cannot grow in our walk with Christ unless we are actively seeking to know and understand Him.

Assuming that we all agree on this point, the next logical question is, “Where should we look for this knowledge?”

There is more than one right answer to this question, but Erasmus focuses on one key location – the Bible. In fact he offers one simple, unflinching command: “Be convinced that there is not a single item contained in the Holy Writ that does not pertain to your salvation.”

Most evangelical Christians won’t be surprised by the above statement. Thanks to ongoing debates about methods of interpretation and whether or not the Bible is inerrant – not to mention the Reformed world’s love for the doctrine of sola Scriptura – we’re used to hearing such declarations.

What we’re not used to, however, is being told that we need to read the Bible less literally, which is precisely what Erasmus goes on to say:

I would suggest that you read those commentators who do not stick so closely to the literal sense. The ones I would recommend most highly after St. Paul himself are Origen, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. Too many of our modern theologians are prone to a literal interpretation, which they subtly misconstrue. They do not delve into the mysteries, and they act as if St. Paul were not speaking the truth when he says that our law is spiritual.

In other words, just as the Christian life is a paradox – where spiritual action is best advanced by disciplined human reason – the Bible is most useful when a disciplined reader strives to understand the spiritual “mysteries” in its earthly stories.

This conviction is tied to Erasmus’s defence of the authority of Scripture. He begins, “If you believe God exists, then you must believe that He Speaks the truth. Convince yourself that nothing you perceive with your senses is as true as what you read in the Scriptures.” So far, so good: such things have been said by countless conservative Christians. Here, Erasmus sounds like someone with whom we’d happily argue about theology.

However, that’s not the end of his defence: “The will of heaven, Truth Itself, has inspired it; the prophets of old have made it known; the blood of martyrs has proven it; and the constant belief of countless generations has testified to it.” This second part is no mere add-on, nor is it a secondary point. Erasmus’s faith that the Bible is the Word of God (as described above) is inseparable from his appeal to the testimony of history.

What I’m getting at here is that Erasmus would think very little of our modern concerns about the “objective truth” of the Bible – that is, whether or not the Bible can be scientifically or logically proven to be a document of “certainty.” Indeed, such defences demonstrate the same error found in the reasoning of those who wish to cut and paste the Bible at will. They ignore the faithful testimony of the past, which is the work of the Holy Spirit both in the authorship of the Bible and also in the life of the church throughout history.

Erasmus’s point here is essentially the same here as it was at the beginning of this post. If we wish to grow in Christ, we must learn to think and interpret like He does. To do so is to follow the path of truth and to mature as followers of Christ. And, to push this point to its edge, if the Bible itself is any indication, God does not think in terms of “objective truth” or “certainty.” It’s not that He calls such things false; they merely miss the main thrust of the Bible.

As Erasmus understood, the Bible is eternally true, persistently proven by generation after generation of those who turn to it and see its testimony borne out in their world. It is above human tests of verifiability. Such a marvel could only be possible if the Bible is bigger than human certainty, and the arguments we use to defend its authority ought to reflect that truth.

1. I’m not the first to say it, but postmodernism is nearly a useless word without qualification. It takes a good bit of time looking at the history of Western thought since Descartes to understand what postmodernism could mean. I’m about a dozen posts deep into a related endeavor over at Itchy Souls, but the more dogged investigator is better off looking at Jamie Smith or John Deely‘s explanation. The postmodernism which I believe to be useful extends even to such villains as Nietzsche, who showed that the would-be objectivists (rationalists and empiricists) are only pretending to certainty. In fact, their method only carefully hides metaphor. Metaphor is all there is; even the language of the coldest propositions is built with metaphor through the word’s etymologies. C. S. Lewis encourages us not to forget that in “Bluspells and Flalansferes.”

Clive agrees.

2. Unfortunately, I did not qualify “certainty” in my earlier post either. When I say that we do really participate in truth, that is meant to preclude the kind of hilarious attack that relativists are vulnerable to, in which any assertion of relativism can be quickly undermined on the grounds of relativism. Of course, such an attack is not necessarily a refutation on the grounds of hard relativism, but I completely agree with Doug that it is persuasive since recourse to the grounds of hard relativism results in some kind of nonsense that no one but an upper-middle class sophomore lit. major can tolerate. Truth participation rather than certainty is self-evidentially the kind of truth which indisputably exists from a common-sense perspective. From a critical common-sense perspective, we should also realize that we believe a great number of dubious things that are just unexamined deeply rooted cultural presuppositions, which have nothing to do with experiential truth.

3. I completely agree that metaphor is true and experience is true. Phenomenological experiences like clinging desperately to the grass in your yard and resisting the centrifugal force of the earth’s rotation are true (Nate). The perception of the truth of a syllogism is true. And a good poem is true. That’s the haystack Doug is speaking of – it’s made almost entirely of hay. However, I think the modernists miss this in more basic ways than the postmodernists. Descartes’ Discourse on Method is the archetype of how moderns and their unwitting progeny avoid truth. First, Descartes says he has learned a lot, but he has no way of knowing. How, he asks, can he be certain of what he has merely been taught? So he decides to be methodologically skeptical and to believe nothing that does not follow from the most certain of first principles. Aha! Says he, it is I who doubts therefore I must be here and I can start with me. This denial of a creator is far more basic than the denial of a humanistic evolutionist. But the autonomy is not the whole problem; equally pernicious is the concurrent notion of certainty.

4. The rejection of an autonomous epistemology is the part that is easy for Christians to agree on. The part of my assertion that I believe triggered a response (which I found pretty flattering – Doug can criticize me any day) was the assertion that we must give up on certainty altogether. I stick to this point with greater conviction than most things. Why? Because truth is not possible when it is given up directly as the relativists do, but it is no less impossible standing on the scaffold of analytic philosophy and its presuppositions. Standing on the ground, truth is not just possible, it is unavoidable, but to reach the ground requires dismantling the scaffold to nowhere. That dismantling is the critical part often missing in common sense realism. I know that Doug Wilson is no devotee of the physicalists or the idealists, but to deny either of them requires knowing their presuppositions and doing everything we can to purge our language of their influence. “Certainty” and “objective” are two such influences that require a good deal more care than we have taken. Think about it. “Objective truth” has become a rallying cry, but what do you mean by “objective”? If we just mean true truth, why are we tying ourselves to the isolating perspectives of the modernists by using their terms? Again, from a critical common-sense perspective, even ignoring the work of the “after-modernists,” it is clear that there must be some kind of interpretation in order for there to be objects. The alternatives are that things are shadowy instantiations of invisible forms which are the real things (gnosticism, Platonism) or that the objectness of a thing is some mechanically imparted intention of God. I have no problem saying that my idea of a chair is intended by God, but it is a silly cutting-off of the path of inquiry to pretend that there is not an enormous semiotic chain through culture and embodied experience which leads me to that simple idea.

5. The questions raised in this unexpected interaction are larger than my wisdom and larger than the space of a blog conversation, but if we cannot use words to approach truth, what can we use? I believe part of the reason many Christians cling to non-Christian philosophies of all types is that they fear engaging the world without a comforting extra-revelatory framework of certainty. But that is not the way the greatest philosopher approached the world. Jesus spoke in poetry, in riddles, lest seeing we might prematurely understand. That’s wild meaning. Yes, it includes propositions, it includes logic, but it is built up by a huge number of less comfortable and more beautiful signs.

6. All this is fabulously complex. But it’s also simple enough that we must become children. That is, some of us have a responsibility to read through the current canon in order to radically change the relevance of the past, but we are doing it in order to remove barriers to understanding. I understand Christian philosophy at this point in history to be about half delight in meaning and half kicking over the structures we have taken too seriously. When the especially deluded, those who are smart enough to get it especially wrong, are able to reject the structures of certainty, then philosophy will return to true love of wisdom, and that is something like stories, something more complex than we can imagine, something like Jesus’ riddles, something children can enjoy.

7. Now if this has been too arcane for readers not disposed to the clever concealments of philosophy, allow me to really obviously “step in it.” I mean, this is where I hope to be challenged with less polite indirectness than usual.

In my estimation, interpretation of the Bible does not proceed with anything like certainty. The medieval quadriga (roughly the kind of interpretation used through most of church history) does allow for a literal (or clearest literary) interpretation, but the apostles more often explicitly reason in the currently less reputable modes. To take an example from Garry’s sermon on Acts 1:12-26 (an example I couldn’t believe was overlooked in Leithart’s fabulous book on the subject), under what interpretive model could Peter say of Psalm 69 and Psalm 109 that these descriptions of David’s enemies were the first marching orders of the post-ascension pre-Pentecost church? Certainly not under the conditions of mechanical meaning making proceeding from authorial intention diadically to reader concept. Authorial intention is no thing; it is an ugly attempt to appropriate the desperate assertions of the objectivists that meaning is an unbroken chain (of various purported lengths) from word to object. There is such a phenomenon as authorial intention, but it is nothing to argue from directly since the very important matter of an author is only discoverable through the complex action of signs and types. If it was otherwise, why would the Christ speak in riddles?

For reasons worth exploring, self-described Objectivists have been very slow to produce and publish high quality work. As I see it, most of the best work by self-identified Objectivists in the last decade has been done under the auspices of the Anthem Foundation, and/or the Ayn Rand Society. As good as some of this work has been, however, it raises troubling moral questions. The Anthem Foundation is explicitly governed by the strictures of Leonard Peikoff’s “Fact and Value” and Peter Schwartz’s “On Sanctioning the Sanctioners” and “On Moral Sanctions”[1]; meanwhile, both co-chairs of the Ayn Rand Society agree with those strictures, and in an apparent sign of the Society’s tilt toward the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), the Society has invited ARI Executive Director Yaron Brook to speak at its meeting in December 2014 at the American Philosophical Association’s conference in Philadelphia. Those who find ARI’s strictures morally unacceptable face the unpalatable options of sanctioning those strictures by working with the equivalent of scholarly front groups for that organization, or else retreating into relative isolation.

I don’t mean to deny, of course, that there’s been good work done on Objectivist-related themes or topics outside of those institutional settings. My point is that relatively little of that scholarship has been done by people who explicitly identify themselves as Objectivists. Nor do I mean to suggest that isolation is necessarily fatal to a scholar’s capacity for productiveness. I just mean that in most cases, scholarship thrives on discursive interaction involving a community of scholars. Unfortunately, Objectivist intellectual culture has not on the whole been conducive to the creation of such a community. Part of the problem derives (as I’ve been arguing on this blog) from attitudes we’ve inherited from Ayn Rand herself. Another part of the problem is institutional: given TAS’s turn to popular advocacy, non-ARI Objectivist scholars have lacked a supportive institutional setting within which to interact.* One implication of this lack of supportive setting has been that non-ARI Objectivists haven’t quite gotten the word out about the work they have done, and are doing. One goal of the “News and Reviews” part of this blog is to bring such work to light in a more sustained and systematic way.

Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem

I’m happy to be able to say that I’ve been sitting on some good work in progress for a while:

1. Carrie-Ann and I have been invited by Sari Nusseibeh, the President of Al Quds University (Jerusalem), to present papers to students and faculty there this June. Carrie-Ann will be presenting a critique of Will Kymlicka’s multiculturalism (“Protecting Individuals: Multicultural Citizenship versus Freedom of Association”), and I’ll be presenting a paper that defends what I call a graduated one-state solution to the Israel/Palestine problem (“Annexation, Immigration, and Political Rights: A Defense of Sari Nusseibeh’s Heretical Proposal for Israel/Palestine”). Prior to our lectures in Jerusalem, Carrie-Ann will be presenting her paper to The Atlas Society’s Online Research Seminar on May 30^th, and I’ll be presenting mine in early June at a meeting of the Canadian Jacques Maritain Society at the University of Victoria (Victoria, Canada). Both of our papers develop themes from the conception of government defended in Rand’s “The Nature of Government” and “Government Financing in a Free Society” (The Virtue of Selfishness).

2. David Kelley (Atlas Society) has recently released two lectures (two hours’ worth of material) on the perception of causality, extending epistemic insights discussed in his book, The Evidence of the Senses: A Realist Theory of Perception (LSU, 1986), to new topics. Kelley’s lectures dovetail nicely with similar material in Rick Minto’s doctoral dissertation on causality, Foundations for a Realist Theory of Causality (Western Ontario, 1997), as well as in the just-published Ayn Rand Society Philosophical Studies volume, Concepts and their Role in Knowledge: Reflections on Objectivist Epistemology (Pittsburgh, 2013).

3. Shawn Klein (Rockford College) and Tim Sandefur (Pacific Legal Foundation) have just (separately) published book chapters in Stephen Dilley’s edited collection, Darwinian Evolution and Classical Liberalism: Theories in Tension (Lexington, 2013). Shawn’s chapter is on free will (“Volitional Consciousness and Evolution: At the Foundations of Classical Liberalism,”) and Tim’s is on the relationship between classical liberalism and evolution as such (“Classical Liberalism and Evolution”). The book also features chapters by Logan Paul Gage, Bruce L. Gordon, Peter Lawler, Roger Masters, Angus Menuge, Michael J. White, Jay W. Richards, Richard Weikart, John West, and Benjamin Wiker.

Shawn, incidentally, blogs on sports ethics at The Sports Ethicist; Tim blogs on a variety of topics at Freespace—both worth bookmarking.

4. Rick Minto (Institute for Effective Thinking) is doing a commentary at the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA) on a paper by Dmitri Bokmelder on “Cognitive Biases and Logical Fallacies.” The OSSA conference takes place May 22-25 at the University of Windsor (Ontario, Canada). Rick runs The Institute for Effective Thinking, where he maintains a blog and offers courses in critical thinking. Like our Institute, Rick’s Institute is just getting off the ground, but its website is definitely worth bookmarking and paying attention to.

5. Finally, The Atlas Society’s Atlas Summit offers a bunch of talks and seminars worth looking into (more than I can single out here).

I’m sure I’ve missed some stuff here, but I’ll be updating these “Work in Progress” reports periodically, so feel free to send suggestions to instituteforobjectiviststudies@gmail.com. I’ll also have some more to say about Objectivist-relevant discussion around the blogosphere (e.g., at BHL and elsewhere on non-initiation of force, etc.) as soon as I can manage.

Irfan

*In an earlier version of this post, I had written “non-ARI Objectivists.” I’ve now corrected the sentence.

Then again, happiness is, in Rand’s view, incidental to breathing as breathing itself is the essence of happiness. So, really, it’s sort of irrelevant as to whether or not someone is psychologically happy and content; rather, if a man follows Rand’s junk philosophy to its core, then he will be rewarded with happiness. True believers are saved, in Rand’s mind; and, if you are unhappy or poor or sick or HIV+ or unemployed then it is the inevitable result of your own idiocy, bad behavior, and rejection of her benevolent gospel. Curiously, Rand seems unable to identify that she herself has set the stage to be deified herself as she spits upon god; then again, this is no matter for her to worry about now that she has been long dead. Instead, we, the living, must suffer her 2013 black-shirted heirs who, rather than thoughtfully consider the metaphysics of human ethics and behavior, would rather find objectivism “empowering” and then, oddly, participate in a society entirely dependent on human relationships.

Actual conservative William F. Buckley, Jr., who even defended McCarthyism, found Rand’s philosophy stupid and without merit. In fact, he argued it hurt the conservative movement because it had no morality whatsoever in it.

Frankly, it is no surprise that large numbers of gay men have started to cling to Rand’s pseudo-philosophy. And, much like the depression-era evangelist promising redemption and salvation if people would simply wise up and believe harder, these neo-objectivist hypocrites blame everyone but themselves for their own inadequacies and personal shortcomings by, paradoxically, pointing to the deficiencies of society. Standing athwart history yelling “You’re wrong,” these folks would prefer to ignore five thousand years of human philosophy in exchange for reinforcement of their own warped self-image and desperate need for validation of their brutish selfishness. These are the same individuals who would sneer at ACT-UP and wonder, rhetorically, why Barbara Gittings had to be so outspoken when she, rightfully, worked to petition the American Psychiatric Association to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness.

This is the inevitable result of divorcing morality and governmental interests; shockingly, the strong overrun the weak in pursuit of wealth and further subjugate minorities and other “undesirables” like homosexuals in favor of “perfection.” Glaringly, objectivists don’t seem to understand this connection.

Specifically, as gay men, we have for years been told that we are weak, that we are less-than, that we are second-class citizens; indeed, as I’ve identified above, we were for quite some time considered crazy for loving other men. In fact, we still live in a morally bankrupt society that, out of one side of its mouth, claims that we enjoy liberty and equality before the law but, out of the other side of its mouth, denies us the very rights inherent in human existence, including the right to marry and pursue happiness without infringing on the rights of others. So, I cannot entirely lay blame on the homosexual objectivists’ misguided misanthropy purely on their own poor self-image; after all, that’s something they would do.

Indeed, we have been systematically lied to by American society since the creation of this nation; and, it is by no coincidence that the repercussions of this discrimination are legion. This hypocrisy forced upon the gay community by straights leads to a myriad of social ills and psychological problems, not the least of which include body dismorphic disorder, recurrent depression, generalized anxiety, substance misuse, promiscuity, and passive aggression. The marginalization of the LGBT community has, surprisingly, so far not resulted in our laying to waste the entire planet earth which, frankly, is a miracle. Though, we did respond to this marginalization for a few decades with J. Edgar Hoover; even so, it has been awhile since homosexual authoritarians have started to goosestep into our bars and communities. Of course, the marginalization and discrimination felt by LGBT folks in the United States and, by extension, throughout the world creates a fertile ground for the seeds of objectivist hypocrisy to flourish and grow their insipid philosophical roots in our community. And, homosexual conservatives far and wide have begun to cling to Rand’s selfish caricature of humanity in exchange for ignoring their own ethical shortcomings. Naturally, it is much easier to watch Bravo and vote for Rand Paul rather than hold up a mirror to one’s own disdain for the human condition.

Former Republican Senator Larry Craig is a believer in laissez-faire economic policies (along with under-the-stall sex.)

Those LGBT individuals who espouse Rand’s morally bankrupt and paradoxically society-dependent-independent philosophy typically have no background whatsoever in the study of Hegel, Kant, Plato, or Aristotle; instead, they are the ones who are most obsessed with Diva-worship or those pop culture figures who overcome adversity without realizing that the greatest stories of man depend upon charity and good-nature. Indeed, the idea of a powerful woman like Hillary Clinton plays to these neo-authoritarians’ basest level of tribalism yet they refuse to identify that if society operated as Rand had hoped then Hillary Clinton would probably have perished in a mine accident as a child-worker in 1960.

Interestingly enough, these men say nothing of the Randian neglect the Reagan administration portrayed in their absolute refusal to do anything about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in its early days; and, truly, what a fantastically successful experiment that was in self-interest! Indeed, if only the government refused to do anything and if only organizations refused to do anything and if only activists stayed home and focused on their own interests would HIV/AIDS have been eradicated. Then again, I suppose that if that did not work, then someone wasn’t praying hard enough to the tin god of Ayn Rand’s objectivism.

Immanuel Kant, an actual philosopher, argued that intent and the greatest good were integral to the morality of any given action. Also, he was, again, an actual philosopher.

In contrast to Rand’s simplistic and weird philosophy where she completely ignores the fact that human existence is wholly dependent on human relationships, Immanuel Kant writes two hundred years ago that the most ethical form of government is dependent upon laws that, through a representative republic, work toward perfection albeit imperfectly. In Kant’s mind, ethics are dependent upon a belief in something greater than man, in his words God, and that the arbiter of morality is determining the greatest good of society in mind. Intent, not outcome, is the edifice upon which Kant builds his moral philosophy. And, hundreds of years earlier, Thomas Hobbes laid the foundation for Kant’s philosophy in a more cynical, but just as practical, understanding of human nature pointing out that government is wholly necessary to curtail both the economic and the political excesses of man’s animus. Going further, economics and political freedoms cannot be divorced anymore than morality can be divorced from human behavior; they are, by their very nature, intertwined by their dependence on human relationships and human existence to exist. Logically, then, the idea of a completely laissez-faire economic system makes no sense whatsoever unless you live in Sarah Palin’s infantile dreams.

In “Leviathan,” Thomas Hobbes, another actual political philosopher, argued that the state exists to curtail the inherent excesses of man. He was, like Kant, an actual philosopher who understood that humanity does not operate in a vacuum.

In both Hobbes and Kant, however, we see that relationships are integral to life; that humanity does not operate in a vacuum, and, logically, we must confront the fact that relationships are inherent to our imperfection as homo sapiens. Of course, there is a disturbing correlation between homosexual Randians and being “happily single.” Even though human beings naturally couple like a great deal of other species on earth, bucking this natural trend seems perfectly compatible in the minds of those who would rather espouse a cartoonish misunderstanding of Rand rather than her actual, and candidly unacademic, philosophy. Surely, their single nature has nothing to do with their ethical deficiencies and, instead, everything to do with the fact that the world itself is completely upside down and must be corrected with libertarian economic policies.

Rejecting all of Western philosophy outright, Rand instead opts for a dystopian world where totalitarianism is implicit in its application; after all, her world does not work unless everyone is on board with her philosophy. Rand’s vision has no room whatsoever for imperfections much like the minds of some gay men have no room whatsoever for unpleasant truths like obesity, HIV, substance misuse, or mental illness. These “unpleasantries” of human nature must be swept under the rug in exchange for perfect apartments and cable-neck sweaters, oftentimes knitted by Bangladeshi workers who, after a day’s work, are crushed to death because of the lovely Randian vision of a completely separate political and economic systems. Regulation, after all, is evil and unfettered capitalism with no connection whatsoever to morality is fabulous as we’ve seen this week.

Editor’s Note:  the original publication of this piece alluded to the Bangladesh disaster wherein a building collapsed killing 400 last week as a fire.  I had conflated that failure of governmental regulation in Bangladesh with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City in 1911 where 146 women and girls burned alive thanks to Randian working regulatory procedures (that is, there were none.)  I regret the error.  To share this article, permalink it via http://joshkruger.wordpress.com/2013/05/05/rand/

Nihilism more generally then is the position that there are no truths at all. This is a more extreme position, and is difficult to hold with any certainty, since it is self refuting (the statement “there are no truths” is purporting to be a truth – if true it would cancel itself out). I don’t think many people would seriously claim to be nihilists in this all encompassing sense, but quite a lot of people do seem to believe moral nihilism is true (though they would seldom describe themselves as moral nihilists).

There are some related concepts here. Firstly, nihilism can be compared to its opposite, moral realism or objectivism – the position that there are moral facts.  If moral realism is true, moral nihilism is false, because the two positions make incompatible claims. Moral absolutism is often used as a pejorative term sometimes meaning the same as moral realism, but sometimes meaning a more hard line stance, e.g. that specific moral claims are true and must not be disputed (e.g. lying is always wrong).

Then there is moral relativism and subjectivism. While these positions are often presented as different from moral nihilism, I think that they basically amount to the same thing. For example moral relativists will claim that something can be moral for one culture but immoral for another culture, but this tends to deny the existence of any universal or objective moral facts. It also leads to all sorts of problems, for example what if one culture believes that the other culture is wrong? In what sense can this be “true”, while allowing the other culture to also be true? This is abandoning the concept of universal truth, which I think is the only version worth talking about.

(Moral relativism can easily be confused with the fact that what is moral depends on the circumstances, for example killing may be morally acceptable in self defence. This is not moral relativism – though I’m not sure what the correct word for this is, if there is one.)

The problem for moral nihilism and relativism is that, taken seriously, they mean that anything at all is morally equivalent to anything else. So for example you have to believe that the most extreme breaches of ethics are no better or worse than the most extreme examples of goodness. Killing someone is no worse than helping them; torturing children is no worse than providing them with love, care and education. At best the moral nihilist may claim that they don’t like these sorts of acts and wouldn’t do them, but to take moral nihilism seriously they also have to admit that that is just their personal, subjective preference. Someone who prefers to abuse people has a different preference – that’s all that they can say about them. It is analogous to someone liking a chocolate milkshake, and another person liking vanilla. They are in no position to criticise them, just as I would be in no position to argue (or even care!) if someone likes a different flavour from me.

This seems like a pretty appalling position to hold, so one might wonder why anyone would be a moral nihilist. I think there are a range of reasons, but perhaps a major one is something along the lines of not wanting to be intellectually arrogant or controlling. Not wanting to tell other people they are wrong. If moral objectivism is true, it follows that some behaviours, people, cultures etc are morally better than others. This may make certain people (especially liberals and skeptics) feel uncomfortable, perhaps thinking it will lead to bad things like imperialism.

In other words, for moral reasons they are denying the very existence of morality (beyond a mere evolutionary and social function). But by doing so they are also denying that even the most serious and extreme injustices, like genocides, are in any way wrong. I don’t think they have thought this through.

It takes Rand one page to mess up and sever a) our ability to be impressed by the “hero” and b) our ability to sympathise with him.

The story opens with our “hero”, Howard Roark, standing naked on a cliff. I do have to admit that this is competently handled, although there is one passage involving comparing the stillness to a momentary pause in a battle that should probably have been edited.

After this, we receive a description of Roark as a man made entirely out of angles. There’s a reference to him feeling the weight of the blood in his hands, which I’m choosing to interpret as something to do with total self-control because, hey, it’s not likely there’s actual blood on his hands, right?

Right?

Any hope of taking Roark seriously fails when we get a description.

“His face was like a law of nature – a thing one could not question, alter or implore. It had high cheekbones over gaunt, hollow cheeks; grey eyes, cold and steady; a contemptuous mouth, shut tight, the mouth of an executioner or a saint.”

However, Rand has also established that Roark has bright orange hair.

That’s fantastic. Our “hero” looks like Grand Moff Tarkin during his time at clown college.

(I’m also choosing to ignore that “saint” and “contemptuous” don’t really work together.)

“He looked at the granite. To be cut, he thought, and made into walls. He looked at a tree. To be split and made into rafters. He looked at a streak of rust on the stone and thought of iron ore under the ground. To be melted and emerge as girders against the sky.”

Right, of course. It’s 1943. This kind of thing was standard back then. What am I talking about, it’s standard right now among the more irresponsible companies.

I had a huge rant here about objectivism and interconnectedness but what the hell, life’s too short.

Wait, it gets worse.

“These rocks, he thought, are here for me: waiting for the drill, the dynamite and my voice; waiting to be split, ripped, pounded, reborn; waiting for the shape my hands will give them.”

Rand has a…unique idea of how the profession of architecture works.

See, an architect is fundamentally a designer and supervisor. Their job is to design a place that fits the client’s needs, then check on the progress of building it regularly.

Rand apparently did not realise this. In Rand’s world, an architect is a cross between Superman and the Protoverse Dr Wily. There are builders, but these are little more than SCVs, extensions of Roark’s almighty will rather than full human beings. Roark is the only meaningful person involved in the construction of a building.

Foolishly bringing real-world logic into contact with this stuff will probably end badly, I have to note that Roark’s hands will not give this material shape. Roark’s hands will deal with, at most, a mechanical pencil, calculator and slide rule. This is not quite a bulldozer or crane. The actual shape will be given by a man. I suspect we will never meet that man, because that man’s existence is a constant reproach to Rand’s bizarre pop-Nietzschean idea that only some people actually matter.

okay, no, that didn’t end well

bringing real-world logic into this book is like mixing matter and antimatter.

Next up, we meet people who are more annoying than Roark, yet somehow more sympathetic, despite – or possibly because – the author held them in contempt.

- OSM out

Conal Mac Lir

David Ellis Comments:

The Human Race must soon prepare to wake up to the fact that there is an Alien presence here, now, on our planet and visiting our planet.That we are being kept in the dark through the suppression and manipulation of the evidence gathered, evidence which proves,  beyond any shadow of doubt, that  their existence is a reality.

Every Conspiracy derives from Secrecy, along with Deception; which, in turn, leads many of us to make false assumptions based upon the negative ideology indoctrination has conditioned us with, yet, I firmly believe that we are getting closer to disclosure – if not from our own world powers then very possibly from another.

Be Prepared…

To the skeptics I offer these words:

“You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” Ayn Rand…

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There are many ethical theories that one could choose to follow in their daily lives. Sam Deeb believes the most compelling theory of Objectivist Ethics. Why do we need ethics and a code of conduct?  Do we need values at all, and why? The typical man believes in that “if it’s good for me, it’s moral.” This is where our standards vary from one another, and an ethical person differs from an unethical person.

To challenge the basic idea of this discipline, one must begin by defining value. Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. On the other hand virtue is the act by which one gains and/or keeps values. For example a value would be my personal health and fitness, and the virtue would be the actual work out. This is long-term thinking from an objectivist point of view. The three cardinal values are reason, purpose, and self-esteem. I have reason to work towards achieving a goal, in having a long-term healthy life style, which gives me purpose. To sustain these values I must believe in myself and have self-esteem. You need a reason to keep your health up to par, and with their three corresponding virtues: Rationality, Productiveness, and Pride.

Productive work is the central purpose of a rational man’s life. Reason is the source, the precondition of his productive work, and pride is the result. To go back to our fitness example, fitness is long-term thinking, strengthening your body and sustaining your purpose, your life, and increasing your self-esteem. This rational thought leaves you productive when working out, and gives pride by fulfilling your needs and goals.

Objectivism in a nutshell is based on four concepts. The first being metaphysics as reality. Humans have direct contact with reality. For example, the table I’m writing on is real.  Next is epistemology as reason, which is our only source of knowledge. The third is ethics as rationality, i.e. never lying, and man qua man or being the best version of oneself. The final concept is politics as capitalism, where pro-business and pro-freedom are supported.

Sam Deeb views happiness as a by-product of virtue, and if you aim at happiness you won’t be happy. You must lead a virtuous life to achieve happiness. Sam Deeb views justice as trade. Justice also includes relationships, i.e. boyfriend and girlfriend relationship where you shouldn’t take more than you need, and don’t give more than you want.

Although Sam Deeb is not a Rights Theorist, he defines rights as a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. For example, Randy is annoying Sam, and Sam instead of bursting back at Randy, will walk away allowing him to be the best person he can be but take appropriate action. A Rights Theorist would also likely not burst at Randy but would justify this by saying Randy has the right to not be attacked.

Critics believe that Sam Deeb is benevolent and charity is viewed as less important. Although Sam Deeb doesn’t necessarily view charity as less important, he believes that charity should go to those who deserve it. Critics also believe that Sam Deeb is producing an “is-ought” problem in his theory. For example, the statement “mercury is poisonous” from a critics point of view cannot derive an “ought”. Sam Deeb believes that to bridge between “is” and “ought” you have to link reality and morality to sustain your ultimate value; life. Sam Deeb would argue that “the mercury is poisonous; therefore you ought to not drink it to sustain your life.”

In conclusion, Sam Deeb’s Objectivist Theory uses rationality to better oneself and demonstrates that each individual should practice being the best they are capable of. This would promote the best in each individual.

Man has reason, therefore they should use it. Reason is our only source of knowledge therefore we should be rational people.

Always start by controlling yourself, not others, and make sure you behave with honesty and integrity.

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The Interviewer

The Book of Objectivism

Ayn Rand First Interview 1959 (Full) – YouTube.

Mike Wallace the famous CBS News journalist whose the best interviewer of all time and least in my opinion. Because he could interview anyone very well because of his research and knowledge and preparation. He knew who he was interviewing and had a pretty good idea of what the people he were interviewing, what they knew, what they were about. And then would take the devils advocate approach not to put people down but to get the people he was interviewing to backup what they. Believed and why they believed in what they believe so he knew exactly what he was doing and what he was getting into. When he interviewed Ayn Rand to use as an example or the Jewish-American mobster Mickey Cohen or Presidents of the United States or whoever he was interviewing. Since Ayn Rand was an Objectivist, Mike Wallace took the side of the Progressive and to a certain extent we. Saw an interview between a Progressive or the role that Wallace was playing vs the Objectivist in Ayn Rand.

Because Mike Wallace took the approach of the Progressive and Collectivist. And Ayn was an Objectivist, we saw a debate or an interview of Collectivism vs Individualism vs Objectivism. Not saying that Wallace was a Progressive or a Collectivist, I do not know what his politics were. But Ayn being the Individualist or Objectivist, Wallace took the approach of the Progressive or. Collectivist someone who believed that government needs to be involved in the economy to insure that no one has too much or too little. With Ayn being the Objectivist someone who believed that no one should be forced to do anything even by government. And then be held accountable for whatever decisions that they are making on their own with no one else being held responsible for whatever. Bad decisions that no one else is making.

No better interviewer for Ayn Rand then Mike Wallace because no one did their research better. And no one better prepared to interview Ayn then someone like Mike Wallace because he had all of the. Information and research that he needed because he knew how to get the best of his interviewes. And get them to defend their positions as best as they can rather then assuming the person that he. Interviewed automatically had all of the answers.

First Reading – ACTS 14:21-27

Paul and Barnabas get around, don’t they? Today’s first reading is basically a travelogue of all the places they visited. I’m sure some context would tell me how important the cities of Lystra and Iconium and Antioch were.

Paul tells his followers, “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” You might think he’s talking about how they were thrown in prison, but once again (this is becoming a theme),  we missed the cool part between Sundays:

They stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples gathered around him, he got up and entered the city.

This was after the gentiles mistook Paul for freakin’ Zeus!

Basically, it’s been an up and down trip the whole way. But now they’re done, and they home, safe and sound. The end, everyone lives happily ever after.

Second Reading – REV 21:1-5A

Or not. John is still having his apocalyptic vision. It’s a long book.

Actually, this reading has a happy tone, too–

Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race.
He will dwell with them and they will be his people
and God himself will always be with them as their God.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes,
and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain,
for the old order has passed away.

It all seems to be wrapping up. Which in strange, since we’ve still got a few more weeks until Pentacost and the end of the Easter season.

Gospel Reading – JN 13:31-33A, 34-35

On the theme of endings, in today’s Gospel, Jesus says goodbye.

Which is sad. I mean, He dies, then comes back, then leaves again. He tells them he’ll only be around a little longer, so He leaves them with one last thing–

I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.

This seems kind of important. Shouldn’t this have been the first thing He said? Rather than, I dunno, “Fill the jars with water“?

Also, this isn’t exactly a new commandment. It’s from Leviticus:

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

He even quotes this same law in both Mark and Matthew.^[1] So, it’s weird that Jesus calls this a “new” law. The footnotes in my bible suggest that making a law puts Jesus on par with Yahweh, but that doesn’t really apply, since he’s not creating a new law.

I had a debate with a friend not long ago about this very commandment. I was reading Atlas Shrugged for the first time, and asserted that I didn’t think Rand’s objectivist philosophy was entirely antithetical to Christianity. I think Rand was simply misinterpreting this rather famous passage. She wrote:

Jesus (or perhaps His interpreters) gave men a code of altruism, that is, a code which told them that in order to save one’s soul, one must love or help or live for others. This means, the subordination of one’s soul (or ego) to the wishes, desires or needs of others, which means the subordination of one’s soul to the souls of others.

I don’t think Jesus demanded subordination, at least in the sense Rand means. Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself. If you don’t love yourself (take care of yourself, your needs, your desires, etc), then by that logic, Jesus doesn’t want you to love others, either.

That makes none no sense nohow. No, I think Jesus is not saying to lower your concern for yourself, but rather raise your concern for others. You don’t want to be treated unjustly, imprisoned, stoned, whatever else Paul and Barnabas have been putting up with. So don’t do that to others.

At least, that’s how I can reconcile demanding lower taxes while I donate money to the poor. :)

Footnotes

1Which, I grant, are different books, and were written after John’s Gospel.)

//

If I am asked who I dislike the most in the intellectual realm, surprisingly the first in my list will not be an apologist for a religion, but in fact a relativist. Pseudo intellectuals who can only add to the force of ignorance and stupidity in the world by sugar coated nonsense and not giving a damn to what is true, or other people’s pain and suffering.

I argued extensively in an essay in my new book on the subject of ethics, but in here I wish to talk about some of the usual claims that may be given as a defence. Let’s see:

“We construct our own truths, and this makes truth a subjective matter.” Really? Is this statement true or not? If it is as such that one constructs truth in one’s own mind, then the truth value of the claim “We construct our own truths” is also subjective. Therefore when I say “We do NOT construct our own truths”, I am as correct as the one that said above statement. Surely one may not take positions that refute themselves this pathetically. The only acceptable case here is the things that ONLY happen in one’s mind.

Besides, why relativists don’t construct anything that they wish in their heads? Relativist homework: Construct a pink elephant in your fridge. You should be able to do it only by thinking about it.

Of course, logically this does not make any sense. But the good relativist will immediately question logic: “Logic is also culturally relative! It is political, because it was used by the white westerns countries to colonize others!”.

Utter load of horsecrap. Logic is the foundation of our understanding, our science, our progress towards any relevant evaluation of the truth value of different claims. If racists in Nazi Germany did horrible experiments on other people, would that make science any less true? I beg to differ. Only a mind divorced of reality can make such a claim. The truth value of ethical issues here is irrelevant to the truth value of logical or scientific claim. We may condemn colonizers as much as we condemn the so called burning of witches that to this day happens in Africa, also true about AIDS denialism, genital mutilation of girls, murder of gay men and women etc. 

In fact, I shall now turn the tables on the relativists: Do they at all care about the murder of innocents? Pain and suffering caused by superstition and stupidity? 

The true meaning of delusional hypocrite happens in relativist’s, after all, is it not so that they construct their own truth in their heads? 

in the corporate form
has arisen a god
more powerful than any sandy-assed Semite
take note!
the protocols of the elders of Zion
is but a light snuffed in a mining disaster
the dead canary of the failure
of the mind to breathe reason
when up against
what is so obvious and plain
nations embattled
for petty causes
of multi-national tyrants
who would exhaust the treasure of the land
to gain a barren desiccated waste
and if they can
command men in uniformed battalions to line up to their deaths
corrupt men in intelligence agencies to falsify evidence
convince elected leaders to betray ideals they swore to uphold
connive with courts to strip individuals of rights
rob from the public
and hand it all over to private hands…
if they can do all this
and believe me they can
then what they desire is the law
is the rule
the new dogma
beyond church and state
all now – the whole of what is right and wrong
is relative
to the duty owed the shareholders
the voracious class
cutting rough hewn paths of greed to servitude
shareholder, slave owner
the yellow bricks are lain down
a golden road to the future
cowardice and avarice
manufactured by our masters
made possible by our democracies
corporations are people my friend
if that be so
then consider this hate speech
strike the subhuman beasts down
their money or their lives
stand and deliver

The interview begins with Stata’s asking Kelley about IOS-1990, and in particular about the Institute’s successes up to 1993. Kelley mentions some successes, but what’s interesting is his description of the problem that IOS-1990 was founded to solve:

One of the problems historically with Objectivism is that it is a broad, systematic philosophy but often does not address the kinds of very specific technical questions that are being discussed in philosophy or psychology or economics. Now, some of these questions are just invalid from a philosophic standpoint. But as a student you want to know: All right, what do you do then if you’re asked to write a paper about a topic? We try to counsel students on proper methodology in these cases. But also, some of these questions are perfectly valid and we try to show how to build a bridge from Objectivism’s basic principles to those specific issues. And there again I think we’ve been very successful.

To what extent has any of the “historical” problem described in Kelley’s first sentence changed in the intervening twenty years? Very little. Plus ca change…

Just a bit later in the interview, Stata asks Kelley about IOS-1990′s other successes. At this point, Kelley brings up IOS-1990′s attempted (and to some degree successful) rapproachement with libertarians, particularly those associated with the Cato Institute, Reason Foundation, Institute for Humane Studies, and Heartland Institute.

Now there’s been a gradual recognition in the classical liberal movement that you can’t win the debate on economic grounds alone. The Reagan years were a real lesson for people in that regard. For all the free-market rhetoric, almost nothing happened. There were some policy changes, but we certainly didn’t get back to laissez-faire. And so I think people like Ed Crane at the Cato Institute and Robert Poole at the Reason Foundation are very clear that there has to be a strong moral case for the free-market to complement the economic case.

So what I have done, and what the Institute [1990] has done, is to build some bridges back to those people and to say, “We stand for Objectivism and we are not going to compromise those ideas, but let’s talk. We can work with you to provide some of the ethical foundations for the work you’re doing.” And so over the last few years I’ve spent a lot of time talking with people like Ed Crane, Bob Poole, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Heartland Institute, a number of other places. And without exception, I have found that if you approach them in the spirit of working together, a willingness to debate and a willingness to sometimes agree to disagree—if you approach them in that spirit, I have found absolutely no trace of hostility towards Objectivism. And I think we have helped restore the good name of Objectivism to a broader segment of the liberal community.

I think Kelley’s comment here is somewhat naive. I don’t know how “clear” Kelley’s libertarian allies were about moral issues, and I think that he oversimplifies the task of providing “ethical foundations” for libertarian policy initiatives. As for “no trace of hostility toward Objectivism” from libertarians, I don’t think Kelley was looking hard enough: libertarian hostility for Objectivism was there in 1993 and remains there in 2013. But Kelley’s fundamental point in this passage is unquestionably correct: Objectivists and libertarians are natural allies, and the Ayn Rand Institute‘s erstwhile policy of denouncing libertarianism as nihilism was perverse and absurd. (Actually, in a remarkable absurdity, the policy is simultaneously “erstwhile” and “contemporary,” since ARI claims not to have changed its policies vis-a-vis libertarianism.)

In this case, then, we have a real change in the environment, not stasis. No one in 1993 could possibly have predicted the lay of the land in 2013. No one could have predicted that the Ayn Rand Institute, which had expelled Kelley for this very rapprochement with libertarians, would wait two decades, and then do its best to marginalize Kelley while forging an alliance of its own with libertarians. No one could have predicted that a former member of ARI’s Board would, without significant pushback by libertarians or Objectivists, take the helm of the libertarian Cato Institute, simply brushing aside as irrelevant the fact that he had for years belonged to an organization that condemned such behavior in others as a mortal sin. No one could have predicted that ARI-affiliated Objectivists would, after describing libertarians as “nihilists” for two decades, become a common sight at Cato and IHS events, and take for granted the value of Objectivist engagement with libertarians. Nor could anyone, even in his most cynical moments, have conceived of the tortured, preposterous rationalization that ARI has recently produced to justify this about-face. (Incidentally, I have an email from Leonard Peikoff in my inbox expressing explicit agreement with it, which I intend to make public on this blog.) Nor for that matter could one have expected libertarians to have gone as silent on the matter as they’ve ended up being. All of it is a cautionary tale about the intellectual immaturity of both movements, Objectivist and

David Kelley

libertarian. Movements committed to intellectual integrity would never have allowed a series of such events to have happened. Pathetic but true: it took a leftist journalist–Gary Weiss–to bring the issues to light. And even the left has failed to grasp the significance of the events that transpired, despite the propaganda victory it would thereby have achieved against two of its natural adversaries if the facts were more widely known and appreciated. Can an Objectivist organization that behaves as ARI has really disavow the age-old charge that Objectivism is a form of Machiavellianism? Can a libertarian organization incapable of handling its own problems of organizational succession really claim to offer credible advice about how to run a government? Isn’t it odd that I’m asking these questions, but leftists aren’t?

Later in the interview, Kelley is asked about IOS-1990′s relationship to ARI, and about the “split” quite generally.

To my knowledge, no one has published any kind of response to Truth and Toleration or given a talk that was taped and made available. The last thing I know of on the subject were some remarks that Leonard Peikoff made at a Jefferson School conference, but that was before Truth and Toleration. So I guess the news is that there really isn’t any news: the two sides have gone their separate ways. There are a number of people who attend our events and their events and get what they can out of each side. I understand there has been some pressure on the student groups not to have any dealings with me or the Institute. But very little news, really. It’s been just a parting of the ways.

When we got started, it was very important for us to define our position in relationship to the movement that had been before. That’s why the first talk was my talk on Objectivism as a philosophy and a movement. At the time, we were contemplating having further lectures on this topic, but after my talk we all felt, “No, we’ve had our say, now let’s do our positive thing, let’s go about our business.” And so we haven’t thought much about what anyone else is doing these last three years, we’ve been so busy developing our own programs.

Much of this remains the same after twenty years: no one has published any kind of response to Truth and Toleration and no one has given a publicly available response to it in audio or video form. Partisans on both two sides continue to go ”their separate ways.” Some people still try to attend both groups’ events and “get what they can out of each side.” There is still pressure on students affiliated with ARI not to have dealings with Kelley or his organization. One wonders, though, about the prudence of Kelley’s policy of “going about his business.” Can a business go about its business while ignoring the parties who want to put it out of business? I don’t think so. Perhaps history teaches us in this case that a more concerted campaign ought to have been mounted in defense of IOS-1990 when it was under attack.

Here is an amusing passage on a similar topic:

Q: Do you think that the Objectivist movement has been a victim of the same kind of desire to not think?

Kelley: Sure, there are people who basically have a cult-like mentality vis a vis Objectivism. Objectivism—or the pronouncements of Objectivism—become the content of their cult.

There was an example of a person—I can’t even remember the guy’s name so I don’t have to worry about not giving it—who said it was clear that I was not an Objectivist on the grounds that I said Objectivism is an open philosophy, subject to modification if someone provides evidence for it. He said that you can’t be an Objectivist and believe that. Why? He gave an analogy to a coach with ten rules; this is the coach’s philosophy, these ten rules. If someone comes along and says “I subscribe to coach’s philosophy but I don’t like rule six”, well then it’s not coach’s philosophy anymore. That’s the cult mentality—that Objectivism can even coherently be compared to a list of ten rules, you know, like the ten commandments.

The “guy” whose name Kelley has forgotten is John McCaskey, self-expelled founder of the Anthem Foundation, and currently a faculty member at Brown University. One wonders whether McCaskey has modified or re-thought his “Coach’s Ten Rules” conception of Objectivism. One likewise wonders what his Brown University colleagues would say if his role in Kelley’s excommunication were more widely known. McCaskey has written on many topics in the years since, but not

John McCaskey

on that one. Nor has anyone asked him, publicly, to come clean on his views of twenty years ago–unless you count what I’m doing now. This lack of accountability and lack of transparency is a sign of intellectual corruption in a ”movement.” But Objectivists have come to take such corruption pretty much for granted. Moral indifference and agnosticism are the “price” that some are willing to “pay” for “success.”

I admire an interviewer who asks tough questions, and Stata is by that standard an admirable interviewer. He asks Kelley the awkward question of why Objectivist scholars seem to have produced so little in the way of scholarship. I won’t reproduce Kelley’s response verbatim; I don’t at all find it plausible. First Kelley suggests that it’s “extremely difficult” to produce high quality work. That’s true, but non-Objectivist academics seem to have found a way of surmounting this problem. Then he suggests that “innovation has to some extent been discouraged in the Objectivist movement.” I agree that it has, and yet I don’t find that fact explanatory. Innovation has been discouraged, especially within the more dogmatic precincts of ARI, and yet it hasn’t been sufficiently discouraged to have prevented ARI-affiliated Objectivists from producing a fair bit of good scholarship. Kelley goes on to say that he intends to put a few volumes of Objectivist work together (which he did do), and ends by saying: “Actually, it’s kind of pathetic, but even three or four volumes will significantly expand the body of literature that’s out there.” I agree with that, and it remains true twenty years after he said it.

I don’t want to end on a sour note. There is something wonderful and refreshing about this interview, and it comes out best in some of the passages I haven’t quoted here. The interview is an archaeological document from a time before the Internet and interwebs, before social media and blogs–from a time, in other words, when there were far fewer independent opportunities for thought and expression than there now are. IOS-1990 did a remarkable job in that environment to put Objectivism on the intellectual radar screen. For years, it was the only voice of a sane form of Objectivism, and virtually the only voice of a scholarly one with interests in engaging a wider intellectual audience. The interview captures the phenomenology of IOS Objectivism ca. 1993–the excitement, the sense of novelty, the sense of liberation, the prospects for the future.

We now face a radically different milieu involving a 180 degree shift–one in which ARI has become the rising, mainstreamed public and scholarly face of Objectivism, and Kelley’s organization has become relatively marginalized, even with its erstwhile libertarian allies. It would take an intellectual historian with a strong stomach and powerful capacities of integration to explain how and why that happened. Having read some recent histories (or historical discussions) of Objectivism–Doherty, Burns, Heller, Weiss–I’m not holding my breath. If it took twenty years to get where we are, it could take twenty more years before historians come up with an explanation that does justice to the facts. I can’t hold my breath that long. I’ve held it long enough already.

Irfan

Imagine being imprisoned for six and half years of your life, for violating an obscure law that you didn’t even know existed. Now, imagine that this law wasn’t even a law of the United States, but of a foreign country.

That wouldn’t happen, you say? Think again.

Meet Abner Schoenwetter. Schoenwetter ran a business importing lobster for 12 years, until one day he was charged with a criminal offense and put in jail for the next six and a half years of his life. What happened?

Schoenwetter and his team had made a deal with an exporter from Honduras, and were about to receive a shipment of 70,000 lbs of lobster, when the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) and U.S. Customs stopped them from unloading the lobster on Schoenwetter’s pier. The NMFS told Schoenwetter that they didn’t know why they were stopping him, but that they were ordered to do so. Schoenwetter was confused because he and his team had already cleared customs and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on that particular shipment.

Turns out, the NMFS had launched an investigation of the Honduran lobster shipment based on an anonymous fax which warned that the shipment was violating Honduran laws; including laws about proper packaging and the mixing of undersized tails with the rest of the shipment.

At first, the case was declared a civil matter, but Schoenwetter soon found out that the federal government was developing a criminal case against him. Members of the FBI, the IRS, the NMFS, and U.S. Customs raided Schoenwetter’s home, bearing guns.

Schoenwetter was charged with violating the Lacey Act, which basically says that if you violate the wildlife laws in another country, then the U.S. can charge you in this country. The law in question was that the lobster was not packaged correctly; the exporter had them packaged in plastic bags, but Honduran law says they must be packaged in cardboard boxes.

So, Schoenwetter fought the case in court. Even the Honduran Attorney General came forward with a written statement defending Schoenwetter. The statement said that the laws of Honduras were not applicable to Schoenwetter’s case, and that they were invalid laws.

Nevertheless, Schoenwetter was found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison. The Supreme Court would not hear his case and his appeals were exhausted. South Carolina judges decided to let Schoenwetter out of prison early, so he only served six and a half of those eight years in jail. After he got out of prison, he was then put on probation for three years.

Abner Schoenwetter’s family was destroyed; his business failed, his family had to struggle economically, and for the rest of his life he now has a criminal record.

His life and his family were destroyed for what? Inadvertently and unknowingly violating the laws of Honduras by packaging lobster tails the wrong way; which, by the way, was the procedure that Schoenwetter had used to package lobster for the 12 years he had been in business.

This case doesn’t scream, freest nation on Earth, to me, I don’t know about anyone else. Schoenwetter’s case is a perfect example of over-criminalization, over regulation, over prosecution, etc. We should all be greatly concerned when a citizen of the United States is thrown in jail for some obscure, non-violent offense that isn’t even a United States law!

While watching Abner Schoenwetter’s testimony, something that he said struck me. He said, “In my mind now, the worst thing that anybody can do to you, is take away your freedom.” The loss of freedom in all forms is a terrible thing, which is why it’s such a powerful punishment, and also a powerful tool of oppression and control.

To make things worse, lobster importers aren’t the only ones whose freedoms are being violated. There are plenty of sickening examples of big government rules and regulations stealing the livelihood of innocent Americans. Whether it is through excessive fines or imprisonment, there is serious reason for concern here.

America claims to be the freest nation on earth. She better start acting like it.

Larsen Sotelo is a self-taught, La based editorial and portrait photographer who displays a battle of female objectivism, provocation and beguiling imagery in a personal reflection of Californian life.

However, beneath each representation burns desire and tantalizing perfection as we unearth one creative individual’s sense of eroticism and liberation.

Image Source: Larsen Sotelo | larsensotelo.tumblr.com

Gorgmenghast.

The name quietly stirs in your mind as you read the tale of its 77th Earl, Titus Groan. Complicated words, but colorful imagery. Small events and tragedies, we take for granted in our epic fantasy tales but under the careful magnifying glass of Mervyn Peake’s imagination, you feel its weight on your tired eyes.

The Gormenghast trilogy is quite different from your standard fantasy epic, even if you put in A Song of Ice and Fire in the mix. When you read it, you can see why publishers at the same had a hard time categorizing it. This was one of the reasons that prevented these novels from being published and recognized in writing circles.

If I described the Gormenghast trilogy, on face value it wouldn’t stir much interest let alone be considered a treasure in the literary world. Yet, while I read Gormenghast, I was wondering why the story stirred something inside of me. The writing and description was extraordinary but something about the story made me realize its true value.

I couldn’t put my finger on what is was though.

The story is about the life Titus Groan from birth to….well until the author died and never really completed the series. However, it shows how his life is ruled by rituals and traditions that have lost their meaning. Somehow, everyone in the castle goes along with this, as if its some sort of law.

Gormenghast was and is the law. Defying it, challenging it and any form of rebellion was unheard of that it even drove Titus’s father mad.

There is no escape, only submission.

After reading a bit about the author’s life,  I learnt that in his early years he lived in China. The way Gormenghast, the castle, and all its inhabitants live separately from the rest of society sort of reminded me of the Forbidden City.

Then it hit me.

No questions, go along with everyone, obey traditions that have lost any meaning and relevance in today and forget any individual happiness?

Maybe I’m over thinking this, but it felt like the story was representing a sort of Gothic form of collective societies. I’m not saying all collective societies are bad or every single characteristic they possess makes them bad. But anything in excess is usually bad, even individualism (I’m looking at you Ayn Rand).

Back to my point, the Gormenghast novels seemed to resonate with some of my childhood (and even adulthood) experiences regarding collectivism. I grew up in a culture that emphasized on following traditions to the point that they had, figuratively, broken life down into an ordered grocery list. If you fall out of line or do something not accepted or done before, you risk being ostracized.

From a psychological point of view and personal experience, this conflict between choosing for yourself and following what the group does come at a price regardless of the choice you make. Now, if you reject certain traditions not only are you ostracized but you also, within your community, loose that sense of assurance you’re accepted. Maybe to some people that doesn’t sound so bad, but it can have devastating effects on a person’s emotional health.

And forget about ‘middle ground’ in these situations. It’s a dead concept.

Gormenghast offers readers a story about a family, specifically a boy, whose whole life has been planned before he takes his first breath. The senseless rituals he has to commit to have lost all meaning but no one dares question carrying them out or their relevance.

This reminded me of several arguments when I questioned certain traditions and mentalities about the collectivist society I was born into. Any direct question was pretty much met with the same answer (maybe an adverb or adjective if I was lucky):

Because it’s what’s best because- *insert rest of answer*

This was especially true if I brought up about the role of women in today’s society. Out of my own stupidity and the sweet taste of rebellion (plus the added bonus of pissing off relatives), I wanted to insist certain values were….quite Victorian in nature.

Though doing this would’ve been more productive use of my time:

Nevertheless, books like the Gormenghast novels capture difficult concepts to weave into a story, let alone be the central theme.  Also, certain values that are morally grey are harder to come across effectively. But its these stories that bring a wealth of culture and the ability to look at ourselves and the world around us more closely.

It is these stories that we keep in our hearts and minds much longer than your standard white knight saves the world from dark wizard.

Reblogged from Objectivism for Intellectuals:

Interdependence is a state of a group in which removal or destruction of one portion (subset) of the group necessarily results in the destruction of all members of the group. (1)

One example of interdependence is the set of critical organs in a human body. Taken as units in themselves, the brain, heart and lungs are interdependent: removal or destruction of one of them necessitates the destruction of the others.

Read more… 633 more words

One example of interdependence is the set of critical organs in a human body. Taken as units in themselves, the brain, heart and lungs are interdependent: removal or destruction of one of them necessitates the destruction of the others. Another example of interdependence is the caste system in eusocial insects like bees, ants and termites. The reproductive caste and worker caste are each needed to keep the hive (and thus the other) productive and alive.

A division-of-labor society of human beings takes on a superficial appearance of interdependence. Different people do different jobs and rely on those in other specialties for raw materials and general trade. But unlike real interdependent systems, individuals in a society can exercise independent judgment and change occupations. An individual’s job is not set for life in his genetics, but chosen by the individual. People can and do get promoted, change jobs, change career types, etc. Companies in a free market can and do expand into new fields of business.

If, in a hypothetical, laissez-faire capitalist society, all those who performed one sort of productive job were suddenly removed, then it is still possible for those in other professions to take over the job and maintain a similar division of labor. There might be great hardship for a while from such a sudden displacement, but since most other individuals would be able to adapt and survive, the society fails the test for interdependence. (This is to say nothing of the more realistic, gradual removal of people from an occupation, which a capitalist society can undergo with most people hardly noticing. In contrast, if lung tissue were gradually removed from your body, it would become harder and harder for your other organs to function, and your heart would not transform to replace the missing lung tissue.)

Moreover, not all activities undertaken by all other individuals in a society are valuable to a given individual. In fact, some are positively harmful, such as dishonest schemes, irresponsible investment plans, and theft. Since each individual has free will–the choice to think or not, to judge or not, and the capacity to behave destructively toward self and others–it is up to the independent judgment of each individual to determine friend from foe. Other people can’t be dissolved into an undifferentiated mass of beneficence, let alone all be considered critical to one’s own survival. (Easily observable facts refute this collectivist notion.)

If one individual is physically injured to the point of mental damage or paralysis, then that person can become genuinely dependent on other individuals who provide his care and sustenance. But this metaphysical dependence goes only one way: the injured is dependent on the uninjured, not vice versa. There is no “interdependence” here.

Ordinary, healthy, adult human beings are fundamentally independent creatures, and intonations to the contrary are spurious. I have only ever heard vague assertions of “interdependence” from people. I have never heard “interdependence” defined, even though such a definition is a prerequisite to any rational argument about whether or not a society of human beings is “interdependent.” (2)

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(1) This is metaphysical interdependence. The common definitions of “interdependence” and “dependence” are philosophically vacuous.

(2) Dictionary definitions are unhelpful: “interdependent – mutually dependent; depending on each other.”

“dependent – relying on someone or something else for aid, support, etc.” [Webster's College Dictionary, 1996]

Relying, in what way? Aid from whom? What happens if the support doesn’t come from whomever? This definition is useless philosophically, since it can encompass everything from an appointment with one doctor out of many to have a wart removed, to being fed through a tube because you’re paralyzed for life. The required definition is one of metaphysical (inter-)dependence, which is philosophically significant, and is the definition I gave at the start of this article.

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The Nature of the Morality of Rational Egoism: Short Notes

Atlas Shrugged, Altruism and Egoism

On Fairness and Justice: Their Meanings, Scopes, and How They Are Not the Same

Values Are Relational But Not Subjective