You're going to make me work! I am in Obamas beloved home of Chicago today and don't have access to AS. Maybe later this week. I want to hear your thoughts, and everyone else's, too.

that's an interesting point. would make an excellent post. I'd argue from a different direction. I'd love to see this as a post mama. Bring your quotes! :)

Jim Taggart's need for Cherryl was to destroy her.

Dagny: “Hank, do you know what that motor would have meant, if built?”
He chuckled briefly. “I’d say: about ten years added to the life of every person in this country – if you consider how many things it would have made easier and cheaper to produce, how many hours of human labor it would have released for other work, and how much more anyone’s work would have brought him.”

I like this. "Maybe it's something you've got (i.e., Big Government) that they haven't got." And then the description of small government: law courts and police. What would that be like....sigh... And even there, at least some police and military could be privatized.

Mr. Mowen to Owen Kellogg: “Why are they all running to Colorado?” he asked. “What have they got down there that we haven’t got?”
The young man grinned. “Maybe it’s something you’ve got that they haven’t got.”
“What?” The young man did not answer. “I don’t see it. It’s a backward, primitive, unenlightened place. They don’t even have a modern government. It’s the worst government in any state. The laziest. It does nothing – outside of keeping law courts and a police department. It doesn’t do anything for the people. It doesn’t help anybody. I don’t see why all our best companies want to run there.”

Bah. One problem with this thread is that it is difficult to edit typos. There should be a close quotation mark after the first paragraph.

I guess the most important statements I can add to this discussion is that (1) I think that genetics determines a lot (but not all) of our behavior and our capabilities. (2) I have no trouble being judgmental and hence politically incorrect.

Let me drift into chemical metaphor: Some people are like Helium - they are locked into being just and only themselves. Other people are like Carbon, they are 'locked in' to being whatever their environment dictates.

In dealing with chemicals or people, it is important to know what element you are encountering, so that you do not beat your head futilely trying to change He or expect unfaltering allegiance from C.

Jan

Haha, right. Maybe the distinction should be, "You are evil," versus, "You are being evil." Evil as an essential property, versus evil as an accidental property.

This thread reminds me of a child-rearing class I got involved in at some point (a looong time ago). We were taught not to say "you are a bad girl", but rather "you did a bad thing". Important distinction.

Interesting. See, I wasn't thinking that labeling someone "evil" describes an essential, or innate quality of the person. That seems to be a different between us. Would you agree?

I'm not sure that Ayn Rand calls anyone "intrinsically" or permanently or innately or essentially evil. I'm willing to be wrong about this, though. I think Rand would say they are called evil because of their evil choices; not that they make evil choices because they are evil. Does that make sense?

You say "they followed evil." Would you say that is still evil? Or are they excused for their ignorance or lack of evil intention or whatever?

Thanks NSN. Good suggestions. I'm still learning and trying to get a grasp on some of it. But at least I'm trying!

Nope. Don't disagree. I can identify an endpoint as evil without a problem. But I think that 'most' (ie 70%) of the human race is probably geared to follow-the-leader. Labeling these people as innately evil is incorrect - they may all be at the endpoint that I would label evil, but it is more accurate to label them as 'followers'. They followed evil; they are not inherently evil.

This also means that were there a world where our philosophy predominated, we would need to be aware that 70% of the people were just doing as they were told...by Us, rather than by Them.

Jan

I suggest doing what Ayn Rand and her heroes did: seek to persuade people of Objectivist values. Become an evangelist of sorts. This is not your responsibility. But do it for selfish motives. The more Objectivists there are, the better off you will be (since Objectovists promote freedom, productivity, and exchange of value). So give away copies of the AS book or movie. Or engage people in good discussion, or invite them to this forum. Maybe not all people need to become Ayn Rand fans. Some people just have a negative association with her name that they can't get past. That's stupid, but there it is. But recognizing that, I still have successful conversations along Objectivist lines. Many of my friends have come to better understandings of what I believe, even if they don't haven't embraced it themselves (yet).

I don't think we necessarily disagree on the fundamentals. Just on what it means to label people as evil. I say it is rightly used for people who habitually choose evil actions over good ones (even despite ignorance and good intentions). But of course this is malleable! That was one of the big appeals in John Galt's speech. He did not shy away from calling evil evil, but his appeal to everyone was to wake up, take responsibility for themselves, and learn to love Life as humans beings. Even to the end he tried to appeal to JT, even adding his "I told you so" that drove JT over the brink. But just because someone can choose to stop being evil does not mean that we should stop identifying them as evil (ie, a person who costumarily chooses evil actions over good ones) in the mean time. Do we really disagree over this?

I have read to the end of this chain of comments, and disagree with most of them; I tend to agree with VetteGuy.

When experiments are performed that test the willingness of people to torture other people (generally via electric shock) about 70% of the subjects agree to do so when told by ‘authorities’ that it is OK to do this. The other 30% refuse – though this subset is rarely the topic of articles that are written about these experiments. (NB I think there is a definite bias in these experiments because they are drawn from a population that routinely excludes obvious sadists and sociopaths. This will mess up the data for the curve.) We have a spread here that hints of a Gaussian distribution of people around a norm, and the ‘norm’ represents ‘obedience to authority'.

So we have evidence that 70% of the population can be conditioned to obey authority to believe whatever philosophy is currently in vogue. Labeling this +- 2SD of the Norm as “Evil” lays an unnecessarily big burden of 'cosmic original sin' on humankind. I think that it is more accurate to label these people as ‘malleable’.

Jim Taggart is an excellent representative of this segment of the population, and he is chilling for that exact reason. It is not necessary for JT to be innately evil in order for him to enjoy watching Galt’s torture. Remember: Until relatively recently, public torture and execution was something you ‘took the kids to’ for entertainment. Watching Homo superior be tortured is the fulfillment of the philosophy that Jim Taggart has internalized for his entire life. It proves that he is Right.

Do you want shivers down your spine? Jim Taggart is Normal. But he could have been as readily conditioned for belief in the individual; he is a follower. Definitionally, 70% of humankind is Jim Taggart. (And yes, there is some evidence that this tendency is genetic...though it would take me a while to dig this up...came from a book that Pinker wrote.)

Jan

OK, now that I am convinced that these people (which seems like 95-99% of the population outside the Gulch ... or do I just hang out with a bad crowd?) are evil, what do I do with this knowledge?

I could become a hermit, avoiding the evil ones. Tempting ...

I could go around confronting the evil ones, but I strongly suspect that they will just interpret that as me being an ***hole and they'll WISH I had become a hermit.

Just ignore the Evil Ones to the extent possible, knowing that I am the reasonable one and even though they vastly outnumber me, they are all wrong.

Are there other options I'm missing? How do you deal with all the evil ones out there?

"I actually see Cheryl as having the RIGHT ideas, but being too timid in the face of Jim's overpowering, domineering personality. "
I think she would have been strong enough if she had seen through it earlier. She fell in love with the image of himself he was promoting. It broke her heart to discover the truth behind the image.

“I don't see Jim Taggart as evil. The concepts, yes. Jim, I see as ... misguided? Probably a better word for it”
I was thinking of his relationship with Cheryl. He liked the notion of having a diamond in the rough wife, of being open-minded enough to treat her as an equal without actually respecting her as an equal. When he sees she believes she is his equal, he becomes nasty.

He has a sick need for Cheryl to feel inferior to him and then for her and his friends to pat him on the back for it.

In the original quote he does the same thing. He holds himself above the “crude, material world”, but he is precisely about controlling the “crude, material world”. He wants stuff that's not his and then to be congratulated for taking it.

Even though he's only partially aware of this, he's misguided and it's due to his education, I'm still calling “evil”, even though there's the remote possibility he could repent in the future.

Right. And I think the point applies to you. I think Readen, like you, was willing to write off the public in general, including James Taggart, as "not vicious, merely helpless." That is the very sin that Frisco condemns. Do not forgive people merely because you pity them. If they profess an anti-Life Code, a Code of Death, that is enough to condemn them as evil.

THAT'S the quote I was looking for. Thanks, nsn!

Altruism (and everything being for the good of society) is the problem. That's the whole point of the book. Altruism is evil.

http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...

Elizabeth Warren has frequently parroted Taggart with these comments.

well you read it and got it :)