Posted on 12/30/2003 10:29:35 AM PST by 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.
I actually do disagree. But, for the sake of discussion, let's proceed using the definitions you've provided. I expect that I'll be satisfied if you can provide sound reasoning from observable evidence to the conclusion that theft (as you have defined it) is wrong (according to your meaning: that theft works against an end or purpose of the thief).
Have at it!
This is simply false. You may reject the grounds I and other theists cite for believing in God as inadequate. But they are grounds nonetheless.
1. Like a person examining a watch and concluding that there must be a watchmaker, we see finely detailed structure in the universe, especially in living things, and conclude that a plausible explanation is that there is a creator.
2. We observe that the universe operates based on regular principles and conclude that a plausible explanation is that there is a creator.
3. We observe that most people have a remarkably similar sense of right and wrong and conclude that a plausible explanation is that a creator gave this to us.
4. Apart from considering what God asks of us, we find no basis in reason or the world for believing that there is such as right and wrong.
5. We have a record of the testimony of multiple eyewitness to many miracles, including the resurrection of Jesus. In fact, we have a record of the testimony of many eyewitnesses who did not recant even though they were tortured and killed for their testimony.
6. We have an historical record in the Bible that has proved through archaeology to be very reliable.
7. We have a record of fulfilled Biblical prophesy that lends credence to the balance of the text.
Please refrain from saying we have no grounds for our belief. You will also do well to consider the following:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:16-19 AV)
Wrong on all counts. Light is demonstrated through numerous experiments to be a) indivisibly particulate, and b) a continuous wave which can produce interference effects (yes, of a single particle with itself--particles up to the size of 60-atom buckyballs have been subjected to this test) on a background screen when passed through two slits side-by-side in front of the screen.
Let me attempt to clarify this for you as I suspect you need clarification. There is one particle of light, and either it, or some inseparable manifestation of it, exists in both slits at once. All by itself, this is a violation of the identity principle, all fal-de-ral about the immisibility of wave and particulate behavior aside.
This is fundamental to 20th century physics, and if you won't even try to understand it, you have no business venturing an opinion on the subject.
I do not oppose modifications to classical fysics that are consistent with the Identity Principle, but modern relativists seem to wish to "correct" the slight deficiencies of classical thought by destructing that very principle which renders all coherent thought possible.
Bully for you--modern physicists, having things to do, however, must go with the universe as it seems to be, not as self-righteous philosophers from marginalized, cocksure, cranky schools of philosophy insist it be.
but modern relativists seem to wish to "correct" the slight deficiencies of classical thought by destructing that very principle which renders all coherent thought possible.
The principle of identity does not "render all coherent thought possible." That's just another bazaar, typically Randian, Objectivist over-statement. Neolithic-level people who believe in all manner of strange, self-contradictory stuff still manage to feed and shelter their kids--and that requires thought of humans. The principle of identity is a mathematical tool which applies properly only to rigorously specified cartesian sets that are not self-contained. It doesn't imply anything significant about the behavior of the physical universe except where the universe's behavior can be adequately modeled by set theory--which isn't the whole of it by a long shot.
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