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.
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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 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.)
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...
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.
now they can handle it, they're conditioned to accept it. which is why dagny is so refreshing
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).
tell me about your mother
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.
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".
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.
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.
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