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"Playboy" at the Atlas Society Booth at Freedom Fest

Posted by WDonway 8 years, 8 months ago to Philosophy
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This "Playboy" story on FreedomFest, libertarianism, and Objectivism is great fun. In the end, I think, it will be very helpful to us. The one thing it accomplishes is to move "libertarianism" in the popular mind from a set of scare terms and smears to a group of individuals with real ideas, different ideas... and something new to say.

I am very proud that when the "Playboy" writer reached the Atlas Society booth, he encountered the radiant, eloquent, uniquely poised Chick of The Free Mind, Laurie Rice, and she had the presence of mind to say something perfect about what scares so many people about Objectivism: Yes, you really are responsible for your own life. We aren't urging Congress to mandate that; reality and human nature require it. Laurie said it so much better. Great fun; read it. I think she will get hundreds of marriage proposals... The "Playboy" Bunny is SO yesterday...
SOURCE URL: http://atlassociety.org/about-us/about-us-archive/5765-playboy-cites-the-atlas-society


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  • Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 8 months ago
    Whoa! She IS good. Not only intelligent, and good-looking, but able to think on her feet and verbalize the thought. Too bad I'm too old for her -- and crazy about my wife. (60 years together next month -- and counting).
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  • Posted by Zenphamy 8 years, 8 months ago
    Aahh, they still should've had a Bunny somewhere.

    But I think the Playboy ideology had a good deal of Objective, or at least individual freedom, within it from it's beginning.
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  • Posted by NealS 8 years, 8 months ago
    My father-in-law passed away just over a year ago. In his closets he had a few Playboy magazines, obviously a long time subscription. We've got at least 6 file folder boxes firmly packed full. My wife said her mother (his ex) had thrown out 10's of prior years. Any suggestions on what to do with these? Perhaps Craig's list?
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  • Posted by LibertyBelle 8 years, 8 months ago
    I obtained a pamphlet of the 'Playboy" interview in
    1971. I understand that "Playboy" treated Ayn Rand with more decent respect and less misrep-
    rentation than some other periodicals. But I still
    consider "Playboy"an obscene, pornographic magazine which publishes photographs of naked
    people, displaying private sexual parts and mak-
    ing public and common that which should be
    held private and sacred, and have long been
    puzzled as to why she would deign to give them
    an interview in the first place.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 8 months ago
    Why do we have to go to Playboy to get any good stories about Objectivism and what it's all about? I recall Alvin Toffler's interview with Rand.
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  • Posted by tdechaine 8 years, 8 months ago
    Too bad that they link libertarianism with Objectivism; they are different in significant ways. When those differences become more widely known, Obj.ism should be able to spread more quickly.
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    • Posted by XenokRoy 8 years, 8 months ago
      I am fine with and even like the link. Are they different yes, but most of what the objectivity philosophy would back is also shared with the Libertarian political platform.

      Links like this between groups that are small government and focused on the individual need to be made, we need to work with one and other and become more organized in that process where we agree with one and other to get the word out. Without it we wont get the traction we need.
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      • Posted by tdechaine 8 years, 8 months ago
        Libertarians do not apply Obj.ist principles well at all; in the end, not a good association.
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        • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 8 months ago
          Can you give me an example. I generally consider myself a libertarian, although that doesn't mean I agree with the platform of the Libertarian party.

          It does seem to me that there is a lot of overlap. I don't require exact conformance to my ideas because, as Treebeard said in Lord of the Rings, I'm not entirely on anyone's side because no one is entirely on my side.
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          • Posted by dbhalling 8 years, 8 months ago
            Libertarian philosophy is really based on David Hume and the Scottish Enlightenment. David Hume’s ideas were influential on Adam Smith (in fact Hume and Smith were close friends), John Stuart Mill, Fredrick Hayek, Von Mises, Murray Rothbard, etc. Hume is probably best known for his denial of causality (problem of induction) and his formulation of the “is-ought” problem in ethics. As a result, he rejects the whole idea of Natural Rights or inalienable rights. In fact, they base their ethics in tradition.

            Objectivism is based on the idea that causality exists and therefore the world is knowable. The logical result in political ethics is Natural Rights. Objectivism proper is based on Rand, but it is part of the Enlightenment movement of which, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Voltaire, Francis Bacon, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin are representatives. Now these people were not always consistent, but they all were committed to reason and objective reality.

            Note that many people who call themselves libertarians (I did) believe that their ideas are based in Locke and Natural Rights. However, they do not realize that many of their intellectual heroes, such as Hayek, explicitly reject Natural Rights and Locke.

            BTW: FEE (Foundation for Economic Education), an Austrian/libertarian think tank, has an excellent set of videos on the Scottish Enlightenment, which they consider to be their intellectual heirs.
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            • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 8 months ago
              While certainly an interesting look at the philosophical underpinnings, I guess I was more interested in pragmatic politics. If two people reasoning from different premises come to the same political conclusion they can be political allies. At least at the points of concurrence.

              From a pragmatic position, what policy differences do you see between libertarians and objectivists?
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              • Posted by dbhalling 8 years, 8 months ago
                Yes they can be political allies, but they cannot be philosophical allies. In the long run libertarians are really collectivist, just different collectivists than marxists and there position on IP proves the point and shows the disaster of a long term relationship.
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            • Posted by XenokRoy 8 years, 8 months ago
              Thanks, I learned a bit.

              While I do not consider myself any political party, preferring to look at people as individuals and evaluating there philosophy and ethics as individuals. I have long considered myself closest to the libertarians. Part of the reason for this is that they talk reality and natural rights today.

              Thanks for sharing.
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    • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 8 months ago
      When that happens I'm betting on the libertarians to win.

      But if AR had anything new to say about love and/or sex, I haven't heard it.
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      • Posted by khalling 8 years, 8 months ago
        “To say ‘I love you’ one must first know how to say the ‘I.’ The meaning of the ‘I’ is an independent, self-sufficient entity that does not exist for the sake of any other person. A person who exists only for the sake of his loved one is not an independent entity, but a spiritual parasite. The love of a parasite is worth nothing.” AR
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        • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 8 months ago
          I fail to see how this is relevant, since libertarianism is all about the sovereignty of the individual.
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          • Posted by dbhalling 8 years, 8 months ago
            Actually that is not true. Libertarianism is based on anti-reason, anti-enlightenment, and anti-Natural Rights. (That does mean you agree with these). As a result, it really is another form of collectivism, but one that is cultural not political - see Hayek's fatal conceit of reason
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            • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 8 months ago
              You don't know what you're talking about. More than half of libertarians accept natural rights theory. As for "anti-reason" and "anti-enlightenment", those sound like just prejudice (and if you mean something specific by them, please explain it).
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              • Posted by dbhalling 8 years, 8 months ago
                You have not investigated libertarians very much. Most call Hayek, John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith, Von Mises, and Murray Rothbard their heroes. All of these people base their ideas on Hume who said we could not know causality (the problem of induction) and gave us the "is-ought" problem in ethics. As a result, none of them think Natural Rights exist or have any meaning.
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                • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 8 months ago
                  Both those problems do exist, and as a result, rights are ultimately just tastes. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have moral codes, only that we need to be more explicit in explaining why. There are good reasons for supporting individual rights that have to do with what kind of society we'll wind up in if we don't. I think Kipling's "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" sums these up quite well.

                  The problem I see with Objectivism in this regard is not its conclusions, but its use of circular arguments such as "The Ominous Parallels".
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                  • Posted by dbhalling 8 years, 8 months ago
                    See they and you do not think a rational ethics exists or can exist. So you are definitely not an objectivist. Ultimately, you do not think that reason is effective and discussing stuff with you is meaningless, since that would involve trying to persuade someone with reason.

                    Since you do not think causation exists. I am curious how you can define circular reasoning?
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                    • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 8 months ago
                      Sure causation exists, I never said it didn't. That's a strawman argument on your part.

                      Libertarian ethics and objectivist ethics are pretty much the same. The noticeable difference between them is that when confronted with the fact that all codes of ethics are arbitrary, the objectivist (those I've argued with at least) just repeatedly asserts that his code is objective fact and therefore anyone who doesn't swallow it whole is "irrational". (Or he doesn't reveal his thinking at all, but merely recites the meaningless mantra "A is A" until his opponent goes away.) That's a circular argument (or as George Carlin characterized it, "My God has a bigger dick than your God!")

                      The libertarian, instead, admits his code is arbitrary but goes on to explain why it's fair and makes sense; he points out that entities like "society" are nothing but sock-puppets with somebody behind them, and points to consequences of not accepting other people as sovereign, and thus makes a pragmatic case for accepting the ethics of liberty.
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                      • Posted by dbhalling 8 years, 8 months ago
                        Nonsense - that is exactly what you and Hume said - "Both those problems do exist"

                        There is probably no such thing as libertarian ethics, but if there were is would admit that it is not based on reason and is based on the non-aggression principle NAP The NAP is not the foundation of ethics, it is a derived principle and libertarians confuse cause with effect in the NAP.

                        There is no such thing as fair and arbitrary - that is just emotional BS. And your argument requires that reason applies in ethics, which is inconsistent with Hume and company and therefore most libertarians. .
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                        • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 8 months ago
                          The NAP (or self-ownership, which is effectively the same thing) is indeed the root of libertarian ethics. Every philosophy has to have at least one postulate/premise, and that is theirs.
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