Why They Fear Us

The Rational Argumentator ^ | December 26, 2003 | Henry Emrich

[G. Stolyarov II]

One of the most vexing problems that I have encountered in my experiences with Objectivism, is the fact that many people seem deathly afraid of our viewpoint – EVEN people with whom we should have most in common. They just don't seem to be able to understand it, even if we explain it patiently and calmly. Everything we say gets systematically distorted into something horrible. This used to bother me quite a lot, and still does to some degree. But I have come to a conclusion after a VERY long time thinking about it:

When people misunderstand what Objectivism is, and the things for which we stand, many of them are simply ignorant, NOT willfully antagonistic.

Take, for example, a situation that will doubtless be VERY common to most Objectivists: the issue of religion, and atheism. Whenever I would make statements to the effect that I didn't (and still don't), believe the Judeo-Christian mythology, everybody would go into emotional meltdown: their powers of reason would mysteriously disappear.

You can't really blame them, however. Most "Believers" (in whatever religion), simply don't understand, or think about, their religion very deeply. They are "religious" enough that atheism makes them nervous, but actually have very little understanding of the Bible, Koran, or whatever "holy book" they believe.

Most people don't really understand what Christianity means by "God". They have no idea that the concept makes no sense, as their religion teaches it. To them, "God" is somewhere between Santa Claus and Uncle Sam – a benevolent, strong, heroic Father figure "in the sky". Most of them have only a vague notion of heaven, and no interest in hell whatsoever.

When confronted with the works of Thomas Paine, Robert G. Ingersoll, or Ayn Rand, they honestly do not understand how those critiques of religion could apply to them. And can you REALLY blame them? After all, as we all know, most of the Christian Clergy THEMSELVES don't know half of how bloody and evil parts of the Bible are.

Most "Christians" in this country (and others) couldn't care less about the bible. The only parts of it they know halfway clearly are the "Christmas story", and the Easter thing. They understand the "ten commandments" in a very rudimentary, common sense way. They don't CARE that the "thou shalt not steal" thing is an injunction against stealing your neighbor's SLAVE. Most people honestly have no idea what the bible actually says, or what Christianity actually teaches.

They get terrified by "secular humanism" or "Godless atheists" because pretty much the only exposure to such things has been from socialists, communists, and suchlike. Hell, how do you think the destroyers of the United States were able to hoodwink people into putting "Under god" in the pledge of allegiance, in the first place? The sales-pitch was to make us different from the "Godless Commies". In the popular mind (controlled and shaped as it is by the "activists" and their social agendas), the concepts of Communism and Atheism were skillfully and secretly blended, so that the Common man can no longer tell one from the other.

This is part of what makes Conservatives useless, as I said. Most of them have no idea what their Bible teaches; nor will they listen. More often than not, when they DO find out, they get every bit as disgusted as we do, and worse: you ever wonder where all those preachy "born-again atheist" sites come from?

Same thing with capitalism: what most people in this culture mistakenly think of as capitalism is the lukewarm, state-entangled version: government-backed monopolies, licensing, franchises, tariffs, etc. Most of these people have never tried (as I have), to start a business, or create their own wealth. They've all bought into the mediocrity-mentality that says the only way to make it is as somebody else's "employee". The Entrepreneurial spirit is mostly dead in them, and they see "their jobs" as nothing more than a means to continue subsisting at the same mediocre level.

Reason? Too hard. Easier to watch TV, and give a half-hearted appearance of a religion you don't understand, every Sunday.

Purpose? Work, sleep, watch TV, breed the next generation of slaves, and die in a pool of your own urine.

They haven't learned any better. The government-controlled schools specialize in killing off every trace of the heroic impulse. Generations of potential Howard Roarks are systematically processed into docile, conformist Keatings, by schools, families, and 'peer pressure'.

But ask yourself: having never had self-made goals, how can they be expected to be creatures of "self-made soul?"

It's actually rather heartbreaking, to consider the masses of living zombies lock-stepping through life, their only goal to keep up with the Joneses, afraid to stand taller than the crowd because "what will the neighbors think." It's horrifying.

These poor fools equate "Altruism" with goodheartedness, human warmth, and private charity. They've probably never read Comte, Bismarck, Hegel, or Marx, and barely even heard their names.

So what's the answer?

PATIENCE. Those of us who know a better way MUST stand for it, and MUST reach out to them. Otherwise, this entire world is as good as dead.

So "professional philosophers" don't take Objectivism or Rand very seriously? Screw 'em. It's not ABOUT winning over Academia, in the long run. It's about reclaiming the Human Spirit from its destroyers, and getting people do understand that they DO have a right to exist, and they DO have a right to resist their Masters. We are a slave rebellion, friends: an "Underground railroad" of the Human Spirit.

Academia is a joke. Most so-called "philosophers" have deteriorated into gibbering wordplay, or convinced themselves they don't even exist. To think we're actually going to make headway there is wishful thinking at least, and suicidal at most.

The philosophical gangrene set in several centuries ago. We must ask ourselves: do we have 200 years to wait? Can we afford to let the wheels of history turn, and hope against all evidence that that the inhabitants of that time will still even be recognizably human in spirit and mind?

No. We don't have the time for that.

Even a cursory examination of history will reveal a pivotal fact; namely, that "paradigm shifts" – massive changes of gestalt thinking NEVER originate from WITHIN the old paradigm. In other words, history supports Miss Rand's premise that the "Mavericks" – the Roarks and Galts of the world – are the Atlas's who make the world turn.

So do not despair, friends. We must take up the torch, fight for all that is good and genuine and beautiful and true, and NEVER submit. "Second Renaissance" is eminently appropriate for an Objectivist bookstore's name, but it is ALSO – MUST be – our credo.

WE, and those of like mind, must be the heralds of a "new birth of freedom".

There's no other choice.

[G. Stolyarov II]

My personal response to the "monotheistic concept" can be seen in "An Essay Questioning the Validity of Religions." The commentary was written before I had thoroughly introduced myself to Objectivism's refutation of religion, but I have found myself to come to nearly the same conclusions. You can find the whole essay at
http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/religion.html

I will quote, in particular, 5 theories concerning a Supreme Being that are more plausible than the standard Christian "monotheistic concept." You may need to read the remainder of the article to interpret them in context.

"Number one: A Creative Entity does not exist. Perhaps the flight of the Israelites was horribly exaggerated, since no written records of the Exodus existed before the reign of Solomon some three centuries later. Having been passed down by word of mouth, the story was twisted and hyperbolized by every generation until it became a myth of divine power instead of a simple tale describing a journey of a small tribe of exiles. Since we cannot yet fully comprehend the nature of our world's creation, we cannot state with certainly that our universe did not form because a singularity exploded on its own, without any external help, or that the universe as a whole had existed indefinitely back through the ages, and that the sole acts of creation were the explicable reconfigurations of structures formed by its matter. Some may then question the means by which the advent of life came about due to a more than minuscule chance of a one-celled organism developing at random. Yet one must understand that the first life forms on Earth appeared some two billion years after it was created, and in such a lengthy period of time it is not unlikely that this small chance of an organism forming was realized at least once. Thus, since a Creative Entity does not exist, it could not have saved a people who had the misconception of being its "chosen tribe." (Which in itself is a contradiction. Why would the Lord of All attach Himself to a small tribe when he could have worked to aid all of his "children?")

Number two: The Creative Entity is cruel and enjoys not only seeing human suffering but giving them hope that they will be saved while in reality augmenting their miseries instead. Or it may be something similar to the Aztec Huitzlopochtli, who was said to have required human blood to rise every morning. Perhaps saving the Holocaust victims was not part of "God's grand scheme of things," but think about it. What is the purpose of a scheme that does not value so sacred a concept as human life?

Number three: The Creative Entity is dead. Herr Nietzsche would explain this with much greater clarity than the author of this piece. That, however, explains why the number of God's miracles gradually decreased as time progressed and disappeared altogether sometime around the 970s AD, when the caliphs of Arabia, supposedly spiritual descendants of Mohammad, had become secular rulers of fragmented states increasingly practicing the tenets of their faith in name only. Even assuming that all events from Late Genesis to the last of the Letters to the Last Testament of the Koran had actually taken place (which is doubtful), there is nothing that would invalidate the theory of God's death. Quite the contrary, had He remained alive, there would have been a Super-New Testament relating His most recent miracles to the masses.

Number four: The Creative Entity is alive and functional, but he is neither omnipotent nor omniscient. Just like we humans sometimes do not understand the mechanisms behind our wristwatches, neither does God comprehend the events of our universe in their entirety and complete detail. After all, it may very well be that a vast world of superbeings exists out there and that a certain watchmaker sells His wares, the universes that He creates for a living, to customers who may not be enlightened in the technicalities of universal creation and upkeep. It may very well be that the Creative Entity has limitations when it comes to fiddling with matters so small as those that concern our species. There is even a scientific possibility that the Creative Entity dwells within black holes and other singularities (that is a possible means of explaining their power of attraction and lack of adherence to the Laws of Physics, but their very existence, as well as this theory, remains on shaky footing at best), but since we do not witness the effect of such natural phenomena upon our planet, we can conclude that God's sphere of influence does not encompass the domain of Homo sapiens sapiens.

Number five: The Creative Entity is both alive and omnipotent, yet He is neither merciful nor forgiving, since He imposes inexplicably harsh punishments on anyone who violates even the least significant of His precepts even once even by accident (i.e. every single human being who had ever lived, lives, or will live)."

Since I have written this, I have become even more atheistic and can now with confidence uphold #1 of the above. I have also moved away from trusting the modern "cosmological" orthodoxy with such matters as the Big Bang theory of creation, which is in fact similarly theological.

[thoughtomator]

Just as a FYI, you really really need to pick up a copy of Leviathan (Thomas Hobbes). It will show you why American values are not only compatible with religion, but could never have been conceived in the first place without it! It's not accidental, or through lack of argumentative ability on the part of the objectivist, that theories along those cannot stand up to even simple logical analysis.

[Hank Kerchief]

This seems to interest a lot of people, which surprises me a little. Nevertheless, I am going to ping my philosopy list, as others may be interested. PHILOSOPHY PING

(If you want on or off this list please freepmail me.)

Hank

[G. Stolyarov II]

"As far as religion goes, I think of religious freedom as the natural corollary of freedom of speech, religious freedom denoting freedom of conscience. And without conscience (in this context), there is no speech. Everyone has a right to their own faith, so long as they do not use it as a tool of coercion. (Ie: Islamic fundamentalism)"

Very well put. I think that ideological cooperation with religious individuals would be quite to Objectivists' benefit once most conservative Christians come to understand that only the separation of Church and State can render it possible for atheists and religious persons to share the same society and engage in non-coercive, mutually beneficial economic exchanges without fear of purges, stigma, and ideological suffocation.

[G. Stolyarov II]

Leviathan, an American foundation??? Hobbes was the antithesis of Locke, and it was in Lockean ideas of individual rights and individual political and moral agency that American liberties and our system of government were born.

[Leatherneck_MT]

Just what I want to listen to. Lessons on Christianity from a Godless Atheist.

I'll pass.

[Kevin Curry]

*Yawn*

Emrich is a snotty little putz given to tedious pontification, who croops and crows oblivious to the fact that his zipper is down.

Yeah, you really scare us, putz.

[thoughtomator]

You cannot with any confidence support #1, unless your confidence is based solely in your ability to avoid information that contradicts your theory (which seems to be a core requirement for objectivism). It is logically impossible to prove that a Creating Entity does not exist.

An honest rationalist atheist with the reasoning skills to make a self-consistent argument knows that atheism cannot be proven.

It should give you a clue that the writers you are reading don't have all the marbles they started with, when they have little cloud graphics behind their supposedly serious and rigorous essays.

[G. Stolyarov II]

"Just what I want to listen to. Lessons on Christianity from a Godless Atheist."

I quote Mr. Emrich's article: "They get terrified by "secular humanism" or "Godless atheists..."

This is PRECISELY the bigoted mentality that Emrich exposes. Thank you very much.

[thoughtomator]

Where in the world did you get the idea that Hobbes was the antithesis of Locke? If Hobbes is the antithesis of anything, it's Rousseau or Marx.

[Kevin Curry]

Herr Nietzsche would explain this with much greater clarity than the author of this piece

Herr Nietzsche is dead. He died burbling and dribbling bits of psychotic mental saliva down his chin, his mind having achieved its wretched self-referential state of chaos and irrelevance which he confused as a personal apotheosis.

You would be better off praising your dog's mind for its clarity.

[thoughtomator]

"Nietzsche is dead" - God

[G. Stolyarov II]

"Where in the world did you get the idea that Hobbes was the antithesis of Locke? If Hobbes is the antithesis of anything, it's Rousseau or Marx."

Let us see: pro-big government, collectivist, authoritarian Hobbes is the antithesis of pro-big government, collectivist, authoritarian Rousseau and pro-big government, collectivist, authoritarian Marx?

I think not.

[William Terrell]

If God is true and exists, with His law, can Objectivism exist also?

[thoughtomator]

Why don't you try substituting "the people" for the monarch in Hobbes' political equations and see what you end up with. You might find that the result looks almost precisely like the original United States of America.

Hobbes wasn't perfect, but his ideas are shown by history to be a far more accurate description of the human condition than Locke's baseless idealism. If Locke was correct with regards to the natural state of man, then why haven't libertarian governments spontaneously evolved everywhere throughout human history? The answer to that is because if they did then they were conquered and destroyed by a Hobbesian nation, thus demonstrating the superiority of Hobbes' view of the state of nature.

Locke's view of the state of nature simply doesn't work in the real world. It is foolishly naive and any society that adopted a strict Lockean view would perish.

[G. Stolyarov II]

"You cannot with any confidence support #1, unless your confidence is based solely in your ability to avoid information that contradicts your theory (which seems to be a core requirement for objectivism). It is logically impossible to prove that a Creating Entity does not exist.
An honest rationalist atheist with the reasoning skills to make a self-consistent argument knows that atheism cannot be proven."

One cannot disprove God? Don Watkins III has. See "Atheism: The Rational Alternative:"

http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Atheism.html

Den Beste writes: "Burden of proof is on the atheist, not on the challenger."

This is not so. I can respond by quoting Don Watkins III: "The onus of proof is always on him who asserts the positive," the positive, in this case, being the existence of God.

Morever, though Deism is certainly a far firmer interpretation than mainstream Christianity, it can still be sliced off by Occam's razor, which demands the simplest working interpretation for every phenomenon that can be accounted for. (Otherwise I can say that my writing on this keyboard is in fact the result of microscopic purple polka-dotted slime bugs levitating above it and telekinetically directing my hands to strike the keys I do).

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

I was talking, obviously about our knowledge and how it is derived, not about "rules" in society, which are very different things.

Not at all. The so-called "knowledge" of society and the individuals within it is used primarily for decision-making purposes, including rules, laws, and social institutions. You cannot separate ways of knowing from the decisions made in their name.

Since you seem to think there is some other way to knowledge, would you mind telling us what faculty would be used and by what process it is accomplished?

Tradition. Unlike "reason," which calls upon the limited knowledge-base and experience of individuals or small groups, tradition builds upon the life experiences of the living and the dead. It accumulates regardless of whether the individual chooses to participate in society, chooses to be rational or irrational, or even understands the consequences of his/her actions. Those traditions which are useful survive. Many of them would not stand up to "rational" scrutiny by an individual, especially not scrutiny based in personal gain or advantage.

In fact, many of the traditions which have sustained Western civilization are under attack by the left even now. What is the primary liberal critique of traditional marriage? It excludes homosexuals; it is entertwined with government, etc., etc. In other words, the institution of marriage cannot have every function or benefit of its practice explained according to individual rationality. Many of our most important traditions are exactly like that (actually, Hayek would argue that the entire role of tradition is to encourage individuals to not act in the ways that seem the most instinctively natural, rational, or most advantageous to them, as those acts might harm both the individual and society in ways that the individual cannot forsee). They are not rationally constructed dictums based on universal principles, many are even self-contradictory. Yet they work, because they have the knowledge and experiences of thousands of lifetimes built into them... something no "rational" individual can hope to duplicate. That is one reason I can never be a libertarian, as their insistence on rational principle rejects the utility of traditions as fast as the most leftist liberal.

Obviously, all conservatives (or classic liberals, if you will) value the role of reason and evidence in individual decision-making. And traditions should often be tested, especially when they are observed to be causing more harm than good (an admittedly subjective and individual evaluation). But at the same time, you (or Ayn Rand) must be able to explain to me how the rational observation of the individual should always trump the accumulated wisdom of the ages as is incorporated in tradition. I suggest you pick up The Fatal Conceit, as I would be interested in your response to it...

[tpaine]

We all interpret the world according to our prejudices. What I often find about "objectivists" (I won't say it's true of all) is they don't admit there prejudices.
I freely admit mine. I know G-d knows more than I do and I trust to His opinions.
Shalom.
27

---

Indeed, we all interpret the world according to our prejudices.
True "objectivists"admit their prejudices.

I freely admit mine.

I don't know if a 'god' exists. But I see that the world around me does exist, and I try to look at it objectively.. -- If I don't, I've found that I may get hurt..

Some non-objectivists here seem to be 'hurt' by the tone of this essay.
-- Tough nuggies..



Shalom.

[tpaine]

See my reply.

[G. Stolyarov II]

Locke in fact had written thoroughly on the subject of self-defense and how men under a government of his construction would exercise it. And, as Rand and other philosophers have subsequently demonstrated, a libertarian society's government has the orchestrated defense of its constituents as its prime and sole aim, therefore becoming specialized and extremely efficient at it.

See "A Lockean Discourse on Self-Defense, Punishment, and Justice" for Locke's words and some analysis of them.

http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/lockeandiscourse.html

Hobbes' Leviathan represents the modern, not the original, United States, a gargantuan welfare state where the will of "the people" is permitted to dispose of the life and fate of the individual against his consent, thereby infringing on individuals' rights to exist for their own sake.

I shall be signing off for the night, but I do not resign from this discussion. Tomorrow, I shall respond further.