Against Gulching
It does not matter that the Chilean farmer whose grapes are on your table has a religious icon in his home. If you cut yourself off from him - and the global commercial network - you only have the grapes you grow yourself... if you grow grapes, rather than apricots, kiwi fruit, watermelon, coconuts, ...
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
it is representative of millions who have dropped out of the economy and gone off the grid...raising children and home-schooling them...working part-time to avoid the trap of home ownership and being trapped in the craziness of today's society...
Can an objectivist make a free-market exchange with a group organized via socialism? It seems to me that the important thing is that it be a free choice and not what the motivating force of the trading partner is.
The isolation of the Gulch may have been to keep the government from coming in to make sure they pay their "fair share", and follow rules for the "safety of the children".
Aside from the gas station and convenience store, I think of the Amana Cooperative and the Oneida Community. Ever since we were married, we have been members of a local food co-operative wherever we lived. We do not endorse all of the politics, but we do enjoy the fruits and vegetables.
which he receives from men he can respect. The mystic parasites who have, throughout the ages, reviled the traders and held them in contempt, while honoring the beggars and the looters, have known the secret motive of their sneers: a trader is the entity they dread—a man of justice."
Only that Rand used Attila the Hun as a metaphor for the "looter", the "raider", and the Witchdoctor (the mystic) as the provider of "spiritual morals" that justified his actions. Trading between free beings as an advance over looting and raiding and its need for some kind of mystical motivation. Seems as if Thoritsu and I covered some of this. I came across an ancient Egyptian document several months ago; I believe it was a sort of diplomatic missive (exaggerative of course, as the ancient Egyptians were wont to do). At any rate, the letter referred to a legation to an eastern part of that "Cradle of Civilization", somewhere in what would be now Syria, I believe. At any rate, the letter detailed how trade with the nether parts of their world was in so many respects far superior to conquest. Basically the increase in wealth for both parties, maybe all parties, was far superior to any wealth that could, or would, accumulate from conquest.
Early peoples evolving from raiders to traders.
Back to the real world, I deal with non objectivists all the time, although I severely limit my dealings with socialists. Most people, as Nathanial Branden discussed, have unresolved conflicts which limit their "rationality" in some areas. As long as they are rational and respect my human rights and offer some benefit to my life, I deal with them. However, I dont completely trust them, as their irrational tendencies could suddenly spring up and cause me harm.
An example, I used to watch Shark Tank, and observed Mark Cuban extolling the virtues of entrepreneurship. But then he supported Hillary Cliinton (he could have just abstained if he hated Trump), who is about as far as you can get from a supporter of entrepreneurship. I wrote to Shark Tank producers and told them I would never watch their program until they got rid of Mark Cuban. They ignored me of course, as they are just looking for ratings and money, not intellectual consistency.
But, I drew the line there. He supported someone who was absolutely going to take away some of my freedoms and wealth. I say when that happens, its time for them to 'be dead to me", as mr Wonderful used to say on that program.
I don’t think Rand thought the Gulch was a physical place, only the refuge for the mind in defiance of enslavement. I don’t think any of the events where mines, oil fields, steel mills and railroads were destroyed were physical acts as opposed to rot and damage caused, over time, my capable minds not bothering to control and maintain them. I don’t see Project X as being a physical device but a representation of the destructive process of enslaving others.
I think that any religious sect, political party or philosophy that does not comply with nature is moral. I think nature will prevail and will destroy all that stands in its’ way. We are only the most superior being, thus far. We have diverted the evolutionary process but in terms of time in the universe we are only a speck. Rand proposes that we release ourselves from all the shackles of slavery and direct ourselves according to reason, which is natural law.
I'm not sure what your point is, Mike. You rattle on about the heroes withdrawing their moral sanction from their destroyers, then go into some supposedly substantiated statements about how objectivism is incompatible with religion, a completely absurd tenet.
Rand's argument with religion was not based on the elements of reason that are entwined within it (she has said Aquinas, along with Aristotle and herself, were the only three philosophers worthy of note). She didn't care for how some aspects of religion regarded humans as low forms of life, and she didn't like the mysticism inherent in it. Remember she was Russian; there are definite forms of mysticism in the Russian psyche.
Her "objective" was to exalt man, not to deride him, as I've said some aspects of religion tend to do. And she used man's ability to reason as a "reason" for his exaltation.
(One cannot read Ayn Rand and hope to understand her philosophy without considering that she was Russian, was exposed to Russian thought and character, and Russian learning.) Have you ever read "The Russian Radical" by Chris Matthew Sciabarra? Although I have many disagreements with some of what he posits, he was very right about her "Russianism."
He said he believed she actually was not against dialectics, but he is completely wrong about that.
Have you ever Philip Roth's "The Conversion of the Jews"? I liked it, but thought the coercion at the end of the story was similar to conversions anywhere.
Interesting how she turned Marx's concept of the "producer" and the "exploited" around, isn't it.
I could never read Marx or any other type of socialist/communist doctrine (although I read part of Das Kapital when I studied money and banking) until recently. I get absolute sick of the non-reason, and the lack of insight into human nature. I think Marx and the others thought human nature could be anything you wanted it to be---the old "blank state" hypothesis. But that is not only wrong, it is evil.
Civilization - urban culture - brings people together without binding them together. It is not for fear of the government that Jews and Muslims do not shoot each other in New York City. One Saturday morning in 2011, my wife and I were in Cleveland Heights. Jews and Muslims were out on the street - on opposite sides of the street, admittedly - but no one was hurling rocks or insults. That is a consequence of tolerance, which is a consequence of capitalism, which too many in the Middle East have not learned or have forgotten.
(For a time and place when Muslims, Jews, and Christians got along well enough to do business, see Making Big Money in 1600: the Life and Times of Isma'il Taqiyya here
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20... )
Secondarily, on the subject of religion, it is true that Ayn Rand had a few cogent and non-aggressive things to say about religion. Some of them were parodied into Christmas cards in 2015, but I found them insightful, and posted a couple of links. (See http://rebirthofreason.com/Spirit/Sig... ) Rand acknowledged that Christianity stands out as being first about the individual. See her letter to one "Reverend Dudley" sold on eBay here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI....
That being as it may, the fact remains that religion is identified by revelation and faith, whereas philosophy was born of reason and evidence. Moreover, while you can find many good elements in times and places when this or that religion was dominant, those were exceptions born of contradictions that allowed some freedoms. On the other hand, philosophy was invented at the same time as geometry, coined money, democratic government, the hoplite style of fighting (as opposed to the mass of bodies) which was part of mercenary warfare (versus conscription), and the ascendency of commerce over agriculture as the primary source of wealth.
Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism explains why that was necessarily true, not just accidentally so. It is no accident that America succeeded because of our broad cultural commitment to the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment which made capitalism (and therefore social tolerance) possible.
Ayn Rand said that she was a committed atheist, but not a militant atheist. For her, other people's religions (or lack of them) were personal choices.
That said, any correlations between any religion and the tenets of objective truth are secondary or accidental.
For many Objectivists, as distinct from mere “fans of Ayn Rand,” the unworkable solution is to withdraw from those who disagree with you. So, it is ironic that the philosophers of the Ayn Rand Institute who do not speak to the philosophers of the Atlas Society probably buy their gasoline from Muslims and get their cars fixed by Christians and find great bargains at big box stores owned by Democrats all the while running Windows software on their computers.
As a person who spends a lot of time in South America and loves both Chile and its wine (not to mention Pisco), if Objectivists did business only with Objectivists they would starve to death and deserve it. So long as a person is not forcing you to buy from his/her/its/both/neither (you see, I can be politically correct) business, and you are not required to interact with the seller of stuff you want to buy, why the hell do you give a damn what the seller believes? Let him/her/it/both/neither believe the moon is made of green cheese and worship the man in the moon. Such does not affect you. Buy the stuff you want and move on.
Respectfully suggest a re-thinking of that. BT
I'm fascinated by intentional communities, including "gulches". As a practical matter, for them to work they must be open to trade. I think they will appear in some form, they will be open to trade, and they will be a good thing.
They also cannot depend on the flood-myth collapse-of-civilization fantasy. When I read the part about the lights going out as the plane flew away, I took it as a cautionary worst-case scenario. It especially makes no sense at a time in history when the concept of respecting people's rights is doing better than historical norms.
As you say, it is unfortunate that some fans of Ayn Rand and full-on Objectivists condemn the entire list of billionaires.
You point out that Mark Cuban is Objectivist, but he supported Hillary Clinton for president. Clinton was far-and-away the best choice in my Ayn-Rand-fan view, assuming Gov Gary Johnson had no chance. In my view, rational choice was so overwhelmingly Clinton that I didn't give Trump any consideration. In general Republicans seems more detached from reality, more attached to politics. President-elect Trump isn't like other Republicans; I think he's even worse. It's hard to convey how highly I esteem Clinton over Trump.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/...
BTW: I registered as a Democrat and voted for Bernie Sanders. In the general election, I voted Green. I was just using my votes to keep the local Democrats honest.
Rand wrote her novels so that her philosophy would be reachable by everyone, the "common man" as well as so-called philosophers; although she has said writing was her first passion, and that her philosophy provided only the framework for her fiction. The "ideal" man or woman of which she wrote is a classical Greek philosophical character. She may not have realized that writing HAD to be her passion. How else could she promulgate her philosophy? You know how interested she was in film making as well. Another means of promoting rationality to all.