So What To Do?
Most objectivists I have known say we have a long slog of educating people ahead of us and that we can't expect much to improve until this is accomplished. But Ayn Rand herself experienced that most people are very strongly resistant to this kind of education. They belittle and deny it from the beginning tossing out ad hominem and other logical fallacies with abandon.
We also experience a Government that is far far away from what objectivist minarchist legitimate government would be. On the order of 99% of all the regulatory and enforcement agencies writing and enforcing the rules on all of us are not elected or even very directly subject to control by anyone who is. So it is very unlikely that even an objectivist educated reasonably large chunk of the population could change much by voting or even running for political office.
So what is left? Violent revolution? We have said for so long that it isn't "time to shoot the bastards" that it looks to me like we lost the means and most importantly the will for such measures long ago. And we likely missed the window where that would have made much difference as well. However, in the face of a lawless and evil government resistance and even violent resistance seems quite rational.
So what else? Shrugging and just surviving in what happiness can be found with a few like minded people but with much our productive capacity not on offer and not making the world over as wondrously as it could? Being sort of hunkered down and staying smaller than we really are in protest?
Or perhaps swallowing our ideals and anger and just soldiering own thinking that if only that next invention gets done and out there and integrated that perhaps all these persons, ideologies and forces in the way will not ultimately matter?
Or perhaps it is time to build a real Gulch. A country of our own based on sound ethics and politics growing out of those ethics. I am reading with interest about artificial island creation, some as big as Manhattan. An objectivist city-state or eventual chain of them in international waters may be the only way to a fully alive and rational world that we have left.
Thoughts?
We also experience a Government that is far far away from what objectivist minarchist legitimate government would be. On the order of 99% of all the regulatory and enforcement agencies writing and enforcing the rules on all of us are not elected or even very directly subject to control by anyone who is. So it is very unlikely that even an objectivist educated reasonably large chunk of the population could change much by voting or even running for political office.
So what is left? Violent revolution? We have said for so long that it isn't "time to shoot the bastards" that it looks to me like we lost the means and most importantly the will for such measures long ago. And we likely missed the window where that would have made much difference as well. However, in the face of a lawless and evil government resistance and even violent resistance seems quite rational.
So what else? Shrugging and just surviving in what happiness can be found with a few like minded people but with much our productive capacity not on offer and not making the world over as wondrously as it could? Being sort of hunkered down and staying smaller than we really are in protest?
Or perhaps swallowing our ideals and anger and just soldiering own thinking that if only that next invention gets done and out there and integrated that perhaps all these persons, ideologies and forces in the way will not ultimately matter?
Or perhaps it is time to build a real Gulch. A country of our own based on sound ethics and politics growing out of those ethics. I am reading with interest about artificial island creation, some as big as Manhattan. An objectivist city-state or eventual chain of them in international waters may be the only way to a fully alive and rational world that we have left.
Thoughts?
Remember that even the Enlightenment took centuries to develop to a point that a country could be founded on such ideas. It's true that we face a multi-lifetime struggle, but our place in that struggle is possibly the most important - to continue our efforts to demonstrate the gains of such a philosophy and to spread the word, in real world terms and real world application.
Many imagine that at the founding, we were actually closer to an Objectivist country - but they forget that the vast majority of the population weren't thinkers, they were doers and achievers willing to let others run their government and make the policy decisions that incrementally led us to where we're at today. Until more of the population is educated to the gains possible in individualism and the works of the rational mind, we're only puffing into the wind.
But there are small efforts that are in work - see the Free State Project.
sounds! I still wish that a really rich person would
buy an island and let me stand guard from midnight
to 6am every other day. stargeezer and I could
swap out. pretty good lookin' place;; they have a pool
hall and a high school of some note!!! -- j
Foster & Kimberly probably don't realize it, but they are really Gulchers in their hearts.
John Mahler
Jan
In today's visual information age, that kind of secrecy is near impossible for a large group of people with extended families. Organization and planning would have to shift to a secure form of communication. There are also numerous other major hurdles in logistics that would be very hard to keep secure with today's monitoring technology.
Tying together the scattered enclaves of rational thought via The Gulch and other media may be our best hope for this land. We may wind up concentrating geographically, as we are able, and reinforce our local culture. In doing so, we also strengthen the resolve of our philosophy. Meanwhile, we are here.
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