Posted on 02/23/2004 12:17:02 PM PST by Hank Kerchief
Yesterday, on her blog, NoodleFood, Diana Mertz Hsieh posted, "A Public Statement," announcing the end of her ten year association with The Objectivist Center (TOC).
In her formal letter to David Kelley, Founder and Executive Director of TOC, she briefly outlines the main reasons for her decision. Some of the points are personal ones to which we cannot speak, but she goes on to criticize TOC's commentaries, articles, and op-eds as "uninteresting" and "superficial," making specific criticisms of four specific TOC staff offerings, concluding with this:
"In order to ferret out any underlying philosophical causes of these systemic problems at TOC, I also re-read the founding document of TOC, David Kelley's Truth and Toleration, for the first time in 10 years. I was surprised to find myself in strong disagreement with critical elements of the arguments on almost every issue: moral judgment, tolerance, sanction, and Objectivism as an open system. ... I regard the last, that Objectivism is an "open system," as the most widely misunderstood, deeply flawed, and practically dangerous of the lot...."
We find this particularly interesting, because it is the essential point we made in your own recent article, "Objectivism Characterized", which was, ironically, a response to a criticism by Diana Mertz Hsieh of my, in her words, "characterization of Objectivism," in my book, The Hijacking of a Philosophy.
We regard this announcement by Diana both courageous and important, and we believe the results will be good. We only wish it had not taken her ten years to discover what the TOC is. My characterization of Objectivism may not the best one, but I saw through the mush of the TOC in three weeks, more than 10 years ago.
(Diana has promised a "a much longer, more thorough examination of the issues," she will be "circulating" in a few weeks.)
What if you think for yourself and decide that God is wiser and can make better moral decisions than you and can teach you a lot?
I guess the objectivist collective would object to that level of individuality.
I think thats both a limitation and a foundation of Objectivism. Objectivism is defined as the philosophy of Ayn Rand. She believed that it was the inevitable conclusion of clear thinking. If one concludes something else, its open for debate, but its not Objectivism. To some degree, it has to be that way, or its Subjectivism.
It may have has less to do with horsepower than it does with economics. There is also the snoot factor in that philosophers are far too full of themselves considering the fact that their work produces little if anything of immediate value to society as a whole.
One of the best definitions of philosophy is the one that I coined in response to an essay question on the final exam in a philosophy class I took back in college many years ago. The question was "what is philosophy?" and my response was "simple concepts made overly complicated by tenured egomaniacs with far too much time on their hands." The second question was "what is courage?" and my response was "see answer to question number one." I got an A+ on the exam.
What if she was wrong? What if she wasn't thinking clearly?
Then objectivism would be proven subjective and at least one form of what you labeled "Subjectivism" would in fact be Objective.
I think what you are describing is so infinitesimally small, excluding that which can be predicted and accounted for, that its meaningless relative to our lives. Kind of like the issue with quantum mechanics, observing an electrons position at a specific time effects its position. So hows that effect me?
Also, the same could be said for any non-subjective philosophy or revealed religion. How can we believe the words on paper if we effect their meaning by reading them. If thats what youre referring to, its too small to worry about.
Absolutely not. Just pullin' you chain.
Hank
I guess the objectivist collective would object to that level of individuality.
"Objectivist" and "collective" are contradictory terms; but letting that go, Objectivists defend the right of every individual to believe and practice their beliefs and teach their beliefs, no matter what those beliefs are. No Objectivist would ever attempt to prevent any individual from believing or worshipping as they choose.
An Objectivist might not agree with what you believe, and might exercise their own right to teach what they beleive, but would never prevent you, or, if it were in their power, allow anyone else to prevent you from believing and choosing the way you are convinced is correct.
The question is, are religious people willing to extend that kind of freedom to all others? Everyone would enjoy freedom of religion under an Objectivist system. This is not true under most religious system.
Hank
No I'm not. The following definitions from dictionary.com work pretty well. What I'm saying is that Ayn Ryan may have missed the evidence or failed to reason clearly. And if she missed the evidence or failed to reason clearly, then her view or reality was subjective (not based on evidence) while the evidence in fact points to another scenario which you summarily lumped with all other scenarios under the label "subjective". Which would then be a misnomer, because if the her entire concept of reality was flawed, then there is another concept of reality out there that is not flawed and the evidence points to it, making it "objective".
Objective
1. Of or having to do with a material object.
2. Having actual existence or reality.
Subjective
Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world:
Christianity in my view is Objective, the evidence points to it.
Islam however is both subjective and wrong. It is subjective because the evidence points to Christianity not to Islam. Islam is therefore a matter of faith that Mohammed was really a prophet and that all the other prophets that came before him were wrong or their works were corrupted. Making Islam a matter of faith despite the evidence and therefore totally subjective.
Which God? Just about everybody has their own version. Do you really just get to pick and choose? I am convinced the Moslem GOD is about as evil as it gets but one billion people seem to follow that one. How do you decide when the criteria of choice is faith? When you have automaticly thrown out reason from your decision? Just go with the one your parents taught you? If among all the Gods presented to us do we have any that are consistant with scientific discoverys or that actually predicted them? If there is a God why should he care about us at all? We'd be to Him like Bacteria are to us. Small, numerous and easily ignored.
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