Rational Self-Interest vs. Self-Serving
I am having a little debate with an Objectivist, about this sentence in our book.
"He was being protected by the immoral, self-serving culture of Washington DC. Hank’s face flushed with anger.”
Do you see a problem with using "self-serving" next to "immoral" ? If so, what other word(s) might you use in place of "self-serving."
We were attempting to get across the 'we'll save our own tribe' culture of government. it's not crony-because we want to just focus on from within the government. We saw it last week, with many republicans like Sen. Rubio, backing McConnell's actions. Or I wonder how many park rangers relished the high handed tactics of keeping citizens from using their own property, etc.
I would appreciate your thoughts on this.
"He was being protected by the immoral, self-serving culture of Washington DC. Hank’s face flushed with anger.”
Do you see a problem with using "self-serving" next to "immoral" ? If so, what other word(s) might you use in place of "self-serving."
We were attempting to get across the 'we'll save our own tribe' culture of government. it's not crony-because we want to just focus on from within the government. We saw it last week, with many republicans like Sen. Rubio, backing McConnell's actions. Or I wonder how many park rangers relished the high handed tactics of keeping citizens from using their own property, etc.
I would appreciate your thoughts on this.
It takes capital create, invest in others' creations, expand, influence, etc. One can make value judgements on others' decisions, but one should not be able to force their morality on those decisions. for example, you are already a bizillionaire, you should pay more in taxes than ,say,
me.
You're sarcastic terms stink and don't talk down to me either.
I'm not disagreeing with you, I just want elaboration.
One of the problems I had with the movies was that Rearden, in the 1st movie, refused to get "dirty" because he didn't understand the political world (so why condemn people who don't understand the business world, but I digress) , so he got hammered by those who do, then in the 2nd movie, he didn't care if his lawyers had to buy a judge to get him out of his contract with his wife.
Rearden didn't want to play dirty like politicians...he has integrity... Once they blackmailed him into giving up his patents he realized what he really wanted...to divorce his blood sucking wife who only wanted his money (and to condemn him for it at the same time). He was done playing nice, out of obligation, with leaches. By your comment you would say shrugging was playing dirty too... they broke the laws by leaving their businesses behind. (Playing 'dirty' to save yourself, while not taking from others, is different than politicians playing dirty to steal your wealth.) I don't think it was a "misunderstanding" on the politicians or Rearden's part about how either worked... One is corrupt while the other was trying to survive on it's own merit free of gov intervention and theft..he wasn't going to cave to coercion.
Now you elaborate...cuz I'm confused by your argument.
One might argue that his wife broke the contract (how?), but the resolution for someone with integrity is divorce *before* screwing Dagny.
And now I am asking; why should integrity be important if it doesn't get you what you want? If it actually costs you in terms of money, achievement and/or happiness?
I sensed in the conversation some "givens" that I felt should be explored rather than assumed.
I didn't have the right or wrong answer; I just believed there was one.
There's also the moral contract; what words were in their marriage vows? "in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, cleave only unto..."?
Do two wrongs, in fact, make a right?
In terms of integrity, if you break faith with me, am I still principled, solid, unwavering by breaking faith with you?
I'm not saying he shouldn't have gotten involved with Dagny; I'm saying, being the man he was supposed to be, he would have gotten the divorce far, far sooner, in my opinion.
So now a wife has to be a fawning sycophant to avoid violating the marriage contract?
Again, the anniversary party, she was being who she was "one can't have a party and NOT invite D'Anconia". And she sent an invitation to Dagney as well as her brother; why would she assume he didn't want to be around Dagney?
My guess would be that she invited a bunch of "business types" assuming they would be the kind of people Hank would want to be around, because, BEING WHO SHE WAS, she couldn't tell the difference between a James Taggart and a Dagney Taggart.
If we have a contract where you pay me for so many tons of steel and I don't get the steel there on time, or it's of lower grade than promised, or its delivered unreliably... you end the contract, you don't start paying me with counterfeit bills, or get the bank to refund prior payments for steel I *did* deliver. IF you're a man of integrity.
Sorry, I refuse to buy Rand's straw-man created to justify her own infidelitous nature; Hank wasn't a victim. If he didn't know what Lillian was when he married her... tough shit. In the story, people are condemned for not "getting" how business works, but forgiven for not "getting" how politics or social interactions work. It's like a manifesto for Asperger's patients.
Nothing made her his slave for life, either.
I don't care what his reason was for wanting to get rid of her. His penis belonged to her until the contract was ended, morally and legally. He had no business sharing it with another heartless money grubbing jerk.
"*whine* just because I'm bad at business doesn't mean I should be poor for life! I should be allowed to cheat, just *because* I have no clue how business works."
I mean seriously, I'm sick and tired of this two-dimensional vision of humanity y'all seem to have. You'd all royally condemn anyone who characterized black people as having certain characteristics, or women or homosexuals, but you don't hesitate a second in your *bigotry* against people who don't share your values or philosophy.
You want everyone to think alike and act alike, like money-making automatons. Because I like to eat, I'm supposed to "love" business or I'm a wretched bitch.
If Rearden was a self-made man, he wasn't always a bazillionaire. Why did she marry him? Is it possible that the wretched bitch loved him when she married him? Why do you suppose then she'd stop loving him? Maybe because she felt neglected, because she felt he loved his work more than he loved her? Maybe she learned resentment because he was such a characterless objectivist that she was supposed to be some kind of beggar being content with what little attention and affection he was willing to spare for her?
I think Lillian sums it up nicely during her hotel room argument with Hank: "I am your *wife*".
I doubt he knows what the word means.
And if I seem vicious, it's because I have no patience whatsoever for the leftist tactic of painting their protagonists as victims, even when used by non-leftists.
As I once heard in another movie... "It takes two to fuck up a marriage".
(and he wasn't a heartless, money grubbing jerk either.. He gave to charity even thought they didn't want to be associated with his name, only his money, making a great living with your ideas and wanting to keep what you earn is not money grubbing...he worked with other to keep them supplied under dire circumstances too... when was he a jerk? When he stopped being manipulated by his wife and told her he was done? (No part of your sentence was true.)
I takes two to make a marriage work....but only ONE to fuck it up.
The rest of your rant I'm lost on. (I doubt she knows what "wife" means. Did you read the book? She was frigid...and she wanted his money, but resented his success... A is A.)
You haven't seen me rant.
Fine, his penis and his mind disagreed; then he was exactly what Lillian said he was, "Another lying husband who can't keep his pants zipped".
The argument is over his integrity, not his ability to shove his staff into any pinhole he encounters.
And so what if his wife was frigid? Maybe her uncle mo got a little grabby when she was a kid, or maybe she's gay, it doesn't matter. Was he on mind-altering drugs when he took his wedding vows "for better, for worse"?
my point in saying he was a heartless money-grubbing jerk was that it was as true as the statement that she was (inherently) a wretched bitch.
I get it, I really do. He can do whatever the hell interests him, and she's just a peripheral in his life, and if she's not interested in molding ores into metal objects, then she's a wretched bitch and he's a victim.
"If the public good means that I get nothing for my efforts, that I have to be a *victim*."
Well, apparently Lillian is the public good, since poor picked on Asperger Hank was her victim.
You are removing Hank from all responsibility for his behavior in the marriage.
:Since there is no such entity as “the public,” since the public is merely a number of individuals, any claimed or implied conflict of “the public interest” with private interests means that the interests of some men are to be sacrificed to the interests and wishes of others. Since the concept is so conveniently undefinable, its use rests only on any given gang’s ability to proclaim that “The public, c’est moi”—and to maintain the claim at the point of a gun." Virtue of Selfishness
I'm not interpreting it. That's called "sarcasm".
And I think Rand's quotation is paraphrasing Chauvin. I think.
The point is that y'all are trying to paint this big, smart, powerful bazillionaire (significant because he was smart enough to acquire the bazillions) is a poor, picked on victim because he married a woman who holds values which he not only disagrees with, but won't understand.
My last attempt at an analogy:
Francisco sold shares in the San Sebastian mines to people who had no knowledge or understanding of the copper business. They got hosed, and none of the protagonists have any sympathy.
Hank entered a relationship he didn't understand, wouldn't put in the work and research to make it a success, and got hosed.
Orrin Boyle didn't have the foresight to buy his own iron mines, so no sympathy for him when he can't compete with Rearden.
People are two dimensional, not one dimensional; one axis is reason, the other is emotion. Hank is almost squished against the reason axis; Lillian is almost squished against the emotion axis. Why is she more responsible, why is she more culpable, why is she a worse person, than he? He spent 10 years neglecting her. You spend 10 years neglecting your car and see how long before it breaks down.
It doesn't *matter* that she doesn't share his values; he was not drugged, he was not brain damaged, he was not mentally ill when he entered into marriage with her. Either she became what she is in the course of their marriage, or she was always what she is and he shouldn't have married her. If she became in the course of marriage, he *must* accept some responsibility for that. If she was already that way, he *must* accept all responsibility for it. Because he freely entered into the marriage.
If I buy a turd knowing it's a turd, I can't complain later that it's supposed to be a candy bar.
You've lost me with your anti Hank rants. Their marriage is their business. I don't care either way who did what. Their marriage isn't the point. The point is how some people try to live up to expectations even when those they are making the efforts for DON'T. That usually doesn't end harmoniously. But no one should be permanently cast into miserableness for the rest of their life because they're beholden to another. And no one should ask or demand that of another either. That's not a marriage...that's hell!
You're absolving him of all responsibility for his decisions and actions. I'm not talking about screwing Dagny; I'm talking about 10 years of being distant and distracted and obsessed.
Lillian *was* trying to make the marriage work. She had learned (apparently six months in) to live without the emotional engagement and attention which were hers by right.
"Dear Hank, Why did you give 4,000 tons of Rearden Metal rails that I contracted and paid for to the Phoenix Durango railroad? Love, Dagny".
Is Dagny wrong to be outraged that Hank gave metal that was rightfully hers to a competing railroad, just because he felt a bond with Dan Conway that he just doesn't feel anymore for Dagny?
yes, that's sarcasm, and an attempt to put it in terms you can understand.
No. but if you actively are undermining your spouse, I believe vows aren't being met, the contract is broken. why the sex part is so big in your mind baffles me.
Because putting or taking a part of one person's body into another's is INTIMACY. It's a sharing of a part of yourself FOR REASONS OTHER THAN PERSONAL GAIN OR A VALUE FOR VALUE TRANSACTION. To suggest that that is all it is is to engage in the kind of contradictory sophistry that Rand attempted in her books.
Why do I hold this aspect of Rand in such utter contempt? Because I look at her female protagonist(s), and who do they go for? Not merely the most-alpha male... each time the man has to "take" her, to superimpose his will on hers, in the most stereotypical fashion imaginable; and I'm amused whenever a modern feminist admits that that is what turns her on.
The wedding vows include, although I don't know what vows they used in their marriage, but most of them include, "in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, *for better or worse*, TIL DEATH DO US PART".
Exactly what part of the vows weren't being met by Lillian? Where in the vows does it say, "I won't try undermining his business practices?" Where does it say, "I will give up my values for his? I will not judge a hunk of industrial metal by the same standard I would judge costume jewelry?" Even in the book, it's his boys in his mill who make the bracelet, he doesn't get a professional jeweler to make something pretty out of it. But, that's okay. He can be a thoughtless butthead, she just can't be a social snob.
(and the choice wasn't between diamonds and Rearden metal; it was really a choice between a poorly made bracelet made from a nondescript metal (at least in her world) and finely crafted piece of jewelry)
You'll note that A) until he started screwing Dagny, he never knew how to enjoy his money by buying jewelry he couldn't afford, and B) he didn't buy her mood rings or candy necklaces.
If he wanted a divorce six months after marrying (as Lillian claimed she knew... and consider how that must have made her feel), it's his failing that he didn't get one *then*; not hers.
tell me about your mother
You asked why the sex part was so big in my mind. I admit that thinking like a woman (imo, a contradiction in terms, but I digress) doesn't come naturally, but every female I've known considers intimacy to be important... that would include feminine women like Lillian (though possibly not un-feminine women like Rand or Dagny in the book).
now they can handle it, they're conditioned to accept it. which is why dagny is so refreshing
I have an old newspaper clipping of a Virginia Slims ad. It has a picture on the left of a late-middle-aged, heavyset woman with a load of laundry under each arm. On the right is a picture of a supermodel in an expensive coat, makeup, hair just right (blonde, of course) and the caption reads, "In 1906, it wasn't a woman's *opinion* that carried weight", or words to that effect.
Looking at the two pictures, it's the washer woman who's opinion I would value. And the statement is false on its face; while women didn't interfere in the workplace or government, they created the home. And if you regard that as unimportant... take a look at the world around you.
Remember I said that the problem with utopian philosophies is that they require everyone to act in certain ways. "Objectivists" don't spring out of the ground fully formed. The objectivism-compatible values that once characterized our society were nurtured in our children, in the home, by mothers. The current entitlement mentality that makes 47% of us moochers was also nurtured... by preschool, by daycare, by television...
That's why my first post here was if they'd let people like me into the Gulch. I don't take things as given. I'm industrious and creative, but I have absolutely zero zilch none nada interest in business. It bores me.
As a teen my brother was fanatical about cars; for me they've always been nothing more than a way to get from here to there. Likewise, there are people who want to gear all of society around acquiring money for its own sake ("all I want to do is make money") . Sure, Rearden wants to make his metal to *earn* money. But he makes the metal to earn it. He already has bazillions; why would the dollar value of his metal matter to him if the craving inside him was to create, rather than to make money?
For me, money is a way to keep my belly full, a roof over my head, and a means of acquiring computer toys. It has no value to me on its own, not even as a benchmark of 'victory'.
Yes, I want to produce; but only because I am compelled to create. The story I'm working on, and hopefully the ones that follow, won't be created to make myself the next Rowling. They'll be created because I *must* create, somehow; I also *must* tell stories. I'll try to sell them because I *must* eat. But the need to create is what drives me, what preserves my last remaining virtue.
Suppose nobody in the gulch wants to buy what I try to create? I'll have to spend my time on doing work somebody *does* want done in order to acquire the money to eat and keep a roof over my head, while continuing to ache with the need to create.
I'd be better off in the gulch under those circumstances... how?
And how long before I became a disruptive influence to the peace and harmony of Vaal, or Landru, or Omicron Ceti III (Star Trek TOS references, Google them), or Galt?
I now wonder if Howard Roark (The Fountainhead protagonist, not Eddie's father in Roarke's Drift) would be welcome in the Gulch.
How about, for a change, make note of the complaints *made* about Hank? "All he cares about is his business". Why would they say that? It's more than one person saying it. Hank himself admitted that it took 10 years of dedicated effort to create Rearden metal; 10 years of 12+ hour days, 10 years of not being able to hold his attention for more than a few minutes or discuss anything of importance to you because he was so focused on creating his metal.
Try picturing him as Henry Higgins and Lillian as Eliza Doolittle. Did he do her any wrong with his indifference? Not in any real sense; she was no worse off; indeed, a great deal better off, at the end than at the beginning. But she was furious with him. Why? Because *in her mind* (what actually pisses me off is that I'm limited to asterisks and caps for emphasis, I want some freaking HTML tags!) he did not, in fact, trade her value for value; she did her part, won his bet for him, knuckled down and studied and obeyed. What did she get in return? Knowledge of social graces, an improved facility of speech... things which she had no use for, as she pointed out, back in the gutter.
What did she want in return? His regard, his affection, his *attention*.
Just as Hank has a perfect right to pursue his own happiness, Lillian had a perfect right to pursue hers. If her happiness lay in what you and Hank regard as frivolous, that's not for either of you to judge. What I keep trying to establish for you is that her regarding his work as "frivolous" is no less valid than his regarding her social life as "frivolous". Indeed, in the end her social life could have saved him from losing control of his metal. But, it's okay for him to dismiss the realities of social interaction and politics; just not okay for her to dismiss the realities of business and production.
But, in fact, I've already established that I'm not that strict; no schtuping the Taggart broad til AFTER the divorce.
Okay, he can break his vows, stay married and bang Dagny... and surrender his integrity. Or, he can get a divorce and *then* bang Dagny... and keep his integrity intact.
Khalling brought my parents into this (and for obvious reason they're on my mind today), so let me share too much again (blame khaling):
My parents met, dated 3 weeks, and were married for 50 years. The stereotype is that they were blissfully happy and of one mind for all those years. In the words of a famous wordsmith... bullllllllllllllllllllllllshit... there were plenty of fights, even separations.
December of 2000, after he passed away, my mother was *devastated*. I was totally shocked by her reaction. I could name the times in my life I'd seen her cry on the fingers of a hand; before she shut down, she had huge, long crying jags. I won't go into some of the things they said about and to each other during the hard times (and they sure weren't bazillionaires where their only conflicts were over what dessert to serve at their anniversary parties), but a lot of hostility was traded. I remember having Thanksgiving dinner with my father (1973?) at the Holiday Inn, because they'd had a fight and he'd left, and I tagged along to try to get them back together.
One time he was working in sub-freezing weather with the flu; when he got home, she peeled his frozen (filled) underwear off and put him to bed, worried sick herself.
He came home from a convention or some such drunk one night (this was before they had kids, and he was *not* a drinker). In the middle of the night he's hugging the toilet, calling to my mother for help, declaring that he was dying. She marches into the bathroom and tells him, "Any grown man who goes out perfectly healthy and comes home like this deserves to die." and went back to bed. HE was the one who told me this... more than once... with amused admiration in his voice.
(aside; Meg Ryan's definition of "love", from the movie "Addicted to Love": sitting up all night picking maggots out of your dog's butt so he won't die. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33rn0-2sB...
That's the only definition of love that ever made sense to me.)
The only time I ever saw my father truly frightened in my life was when my mother's gall bladder had exploded and she had to undergo emergency surgery.
So maybe I have this high freaking standard for marriage because I had a high freaking example to judge by.
I repeat, blame khaling. She's the enabler.
My point is, just because Lillian and Hank had different views of and goals in life didn't mean he was a victim and she an oppressor. Marriage has conflict in it. You don't ignore it and/or throw it away just because of the conflict.
It sounds to me more and more like Hank married frivolously, and you want to protect him from his foolish decision...
Your question relates to why is not using force against another human important if it doesn't help your happiness.
One of the things that makes me wary of objectivism (and I've expressed this before) is that like all utopian philosophies such as socialism, to work it relies on everybody behaving in certain ways and having certain values in common.
Back to my point... everybody lies. Everybody.
How do I know everybody lies? Because the suicide rate is so low. I've never met a person yet who is willing to see him/herself as s/he truly is.
Take a person who tries to view himself objectively, who does not rationalize his past transgressions to himself to one degree or another... and I'll show you a near-psychotic or potential suicide. Or both. I'll also show you a perpetual failure.
Even Hank Rearden lied to himself to justify his adultery to himself.
Funny that I'm posting this message now.
On tv there's a movie called The Dilemma, where Vince Vaughn sees his best friend's wife kissing another man, but for his best friend's sake decides he has to keep it secret from him.
Self serving is for oneself above others, but when you are elected into a position to serve others and protect their freedom by taking an oath to protect the law of the land, the Constitution, but serve yourself over fulfilling that promise, is criminal.
Self-serving is immoral when it is at the expense of trading value for value, in my opinion.
Try self-catering in the sentence next to immoral and see if that sounds better to you.
Remove the comma...
"He was being protected by the immorally self-serving culture of Washington DC. Hank’s face flushed with anger.”
?
adjective 1. continuing oneself in office, rank, etc., beyond the normal limit. 2. capable of indefinite continuation.
That being said self serving is immoral if you are using others involuntarily to serve yourself. Also self serving can be irrational and thus immoral.
You could have put slave culture maybe?
As an example, if you find abortion immoral, but your constituents consistently by a measurable majority favor abortion-on-demand... then either vote as they would want you to vote, or leave office.
New School Algebra-Ginn & Co. 1898
Composition Rhetoric-Newson & Co. 1913
Choice Literature for Grammar Grades-Sheldon & Co. 1898
Ivanhoe-Sir Walter Scott 1919
Elementary Composition-Houghton, Mifflin1903
Hagar's Common School Arithmetic-Cowperthwait & Co. 1871
Robinson's Progressive Practical Arithmetic-Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co. 1875
McGuffy Third reader-American Book Co. 1901
A Grammar Book for the Higher Grammar Grades-Ginn & Co. 1898
Written and Spoken English-Silver, Burdett & Co.1924
Grammar School Algebra-Silver, Burdett & Co. 1900
Have I whetted your appetite?
Written and Spoken English... I wish I could flip through these... and then steal the ones I want. lol