Defending Ayn Rand and Objectivism

Posted by xthinker88 9 years, 8 months ago to Philosophy
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I'm always interested in feedback on "debates" that I get into. I've posted the main post and thread and then there was another sub-thread that I'll post below in comments. Thoughts? Criticisms? Thanks.

Main Post R: Ayn Rand’s “philosophy” is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society….To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.— Gore Vidal, 1961
My Response
Me: Well if Gore Vidal is that much against it that is high praise indeed.
R: Rand is EVIL.
Me: Lol. Yes. Because anyone who thinks it's wrong to own others is the very definition of evil to progressives who believe otherwise.
Me: “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." Yep. Hard to imagine a more evil concept. Except for any contrary concept that argues that your life is only valued as something you should sacrifice to others and that others should be forced to live for you.
R: She believes that helping others is a weakness. that being selfish is a strength. I completely disagree.
R: her philosophy of selfishness, vanity, and egotism is all that is wrong with humanity. it breeds hate.
R: If I prescribed to her philosophy... i wouldnt share my knowledge or my mead with you unless you paid dearly for it.
Me: Actually you don't really seem to understand her philosophy. Just the cliff notes version with the familiar leftist spin.
Me: So you get no enjoyment, pleasure or satisfaction from sharing your plant knowledge? If that is the case then as your friend I would truly advise you to stop.
R: I see too many that use the plant knowledge to make a buck or abuse it. Rand would be proud of them. I don't make a living from it. Just recoup expenses.
Me: So you're not answering my question. Instead, you once again show that you don't even understand the philosophy you're maligning.
R: Pleasure or satisfaction isn't a factor. I started teaching because others asked me to.
R: Rand philosophy is all that is wrong with this country.
Me: So you don't enjoy it or get any satisfaction out of it? Once again avoiding my question. If you are that miserable doing it you should stop.
Me: Rand philosophy? Really? Because I know very few people that actually follow Rand's philosophy
R: You can convince me Rand philosophy is good for mankind. Ever.

All Comments

Previous comments...   You are currently on page 2.
  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 8 months ago
    "xthinker88: So you get no enjoyment, pleasure or satisfaction from sharing your plant knowledge? If that is the case then as your friend I would truly advise you to stop.”
    Indeed! Imagine the friend thinks, “That guy is always calling me with plant questions, never to do something for me.” I would want the friend to tell me that he would like me to fix is household electronics or maybe pay him money if I don't have anything to offer that he needs while he looks at my plants instead of it being a one-way street. That last thing I'd want is him thinking “I can't stand his requests for plant help, but I'll grudgingly do it because good people are selfless.”

    Maybe you could ask him how he would feel if someone did him a favor and he later found out the person was doing it grudgingly out of a sense of obligation not because he wanted to.
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  • Posted by philosophercat 9 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Its strange that you cannot tell a declarative sentence containing a fact from an appeal to authority. The sentence, It is 5 o'clock, is not an appeal to authority. If I tell you to believe it is 5 o'clock because god said so that is an appeal to authority. There are lots of elementary logic books on the nature of fallacies that's a fact. That you should read them, well that's up to you.
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  • Posted by lnpuco 9 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That is pretty interesting, according to the uh hum power that be we slowly moving to a non ending life.....
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  • Posted by mia767ca 9 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    retired from flying for the air force and american airlines...teaching others how to trade the stock market (options only) and traveling...i will chime in when i can...john
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  • Posted by mia767ca 9 years, 8 months ago
    rule #1..do not argue with a crazy person (gore vidal)...live your life as i have with objectivist morals and goals...it is the only life you are going to get with current medical knowledge...life as free as you can in our unfree society...
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 8 months ago
    Mine is not a popular view here I know- I think objectivism is correct as shown by the fact it works in practice. It's an agreement among people about how we treat each other that actually works without unintended consequences that internally destroy it. Socialism sounds good on paper but in the end no one works and everyone mooches. The various fascist, communist, and dictatorial systems count on the masses providing goodies for the ones in power under threat of force. Eventually the masses revolt. (Interesting that the terms revolution applied to politics and the term describing motion of a when that brings you backbtibthe same place are the SAME)
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 8 months ago
    I have been debating lefties for 50 years. In many cases, I was sucked in because to remain silent would infer agreement. If I learned nothing else, it was "they are also deaf who will not hear." Many years ago, I debated someone on an issue that today seems unimportant. The debate strayed into a philosophical discussion, right up my alley. I modestly proclaim, I was brilliant. I knocked down and trampled to bits the other guy's every argument. Afterwards I got the sense that the audience was exactly the same as before. Those who understood gave me kudos, the rest kind of slithered off thinking of how to poison the cake and coffee that was served afterwards.
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  • Posted by philosophercat 9 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I presented you with a definition, not an authority. Utilitarianism is a consequentialist morality. The point I made is inherent in the its nature; it is only after the event that a consequentialist can tell if the action was moral or not. Bentham and Mill defined what your are defending. Joshua Green is the modern utilitarian who denies humans have free will therefore he is a utilitarian and has no morality. Rand held man has free will and therefore needs a moral code. So give some thought to your stance on free will.
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 9 years, 8 months ago
    The person you are arguing with has formed an opinion without understanding the topic, probably by listening to a leftist opportunistic devil realizing he is ripe for manipulation. "Rand is evil", really? Please do explain.

    I think he is malleable. He has assigned many negative attributes of totalitarian government to individual rights. Provide an example of a how satisfaction in one's self and work is productive, and a counter example of how taking freedom away is a disincentive.

    This guy can probably be fooled into asserting an indefensible position such as Rand supports murder. Perhaps explaining how liberal lies and government action killed millions by banning DDT would get his attention.
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  • Posted by helidrvr 9 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    There is no need for defining a "universal" good. That being established, the word I used was "benefit". Benefit is entirely in the eye of the beholder. By definition the same benefit cannot be achieved by separate participants in any social (inter personal) transaction. If you agree to exchange your dollar for my chocolate bar, then we come together and BOTH benefit precisely because you value my chocolate more and I value your dollar more. In that sense one might describe the transaction as being "good" because we are both perceiving a net gain (greater benefit) from the transaction.

    BTW, your entire reply is a classic example of multiple appeals to authority. Just what I'm addressing.
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  • Posted by philosophercat 9 years, 8 months ago
    Hint: at no point in your transcripts do you ask your interlocutor to state what he is for or define his terms. All of his statements are contradictory so get him to first discuss what he thinks about contradictions. If one makes contradictory statements knowingly does that mean a person lied? What does he think is the moral status of liars. Then get him to define and declare his position and point out the contradictions. Then challenge him directly are you lying or stupid? Trick is to get him to talk about lying and contradictions then expose the contradictions in his position. Usually they get angry and you get justified but they never say ...hey you were right all along.
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  • Posted by philosophercat 9 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Greatest good for greatest number is utilitarianism and presents the problem of choosing an action before hand. That why advocates invented the calculus of benefits. Problem is no one knows what is good. Keynes is the perfect utilitarian. How much stimulus should Greeks get before you find out all the happy people with pensions are starving? Rand was right morality must be a moral code appropriate to the nature of man as a rational being. Anything else logically is for some other species or non-rational humans. Take your pick.
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  • Posted by RonJohnson 9 years, 8 months ago
    Sounds typical. I've had many such exchanges, and always with people who got their information from a Huff Post article. None of them ever read Rand thoroughly. I'm reading Atlas for the third time in my life and I am astounded by how clearly she debunked her future critics by laying out a very strong case for helping your fellow human being...but not as altruism. She argued that it is natural and pleasurable to help your fellow man, but when it is promoted as a duty from which you are to take no pleasure, then it is evil.
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  • Posted by helidrvr 9 years, 8 months ago
    It seems to me that there is a more fundamental issue underlying these types of debates. By taking the bait of defending Ayn Rand, any other author, school of economics or philosophy I unavoidably entrap myself in the logical fallacy known as "Appeal to Authority". After a lifetime (five decades and counting) of studying the work of hundreds of authors and participating in countless debates, I have come to realize that this is a fruitless and self-limiting pursuit.

    So instead of being a defender of Rand, Hoppe, von Mises or any of the numerous sources of "Authorty", I have become a proselytizer of the one logically unassailable truth from which all human action must flow - Only by the universal application of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" will the greatest benefit accrue to the greatest number of people.

    Truth is universal and needs no "Authority" to defend or prove it.
    -
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  • Posted by Eudaimonia 9 years, 8 months ago
    And Gore Vidal is nearly perfect in his real life, unwitting embodiment of what an annoying, arrogant, pompous, ruling class elite is.
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  • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 8 months ago
    I'm not sure what you're searching for or trying to show with this post. Gore Vidal wasn't a high intellect, Arguing with fools only makes one look like a fool as well, and whoever you're arguing with in your post has no idea what he's talking about. As an example only, "Her philosophy of selfishness, vanity, and egotism is all that is wrong with humanity". Her philosophy is of A=A and existence exists, from that everything else follows in a logical and rational sequence. Without establishing that, one is biting back at soundbites, only.
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  • Posted by salta 9 years, 8 months ago
    He did not want to admit getting any satisfaction out of sharing knowledge. He probably thought he was being "tricked" into appearing "selfish". Quite sad really.
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    Posted by Animal 9 years, 8 months ago
    I don't engage these people. My Grandpa used to say, "the more you mess with a turd, the more shit you get on you." He was right.
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  • Posted by ewv 9 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Not to him. You could chase him around in circles all night and you wouldn't get through to him. You can't explain a philosophy like that, especially to someone like him. There are too many abstractions he would never understand going in circles while remaining set in his stubborn traditionalism. At most just tell him to read what she wrote to educate himself. Then do something more worthwhile and interesting.
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