Posted on 05/27/2005 3:55:57 PM PDT by Hank Kerchief
Agreed.
However, when looking at a potential bell curve of 'Gulch' residents, my guess is that you would have more Eddies than Quentins.
Love = altruism. Selfishness, not love, is the definition of virtue. Thus, no love for Dagny.
Her main thrust in the book was about the evils of communism.
"So commies don't want to ruin civilization?"
You are having a logical disconnect here, it does not matter to this subject, if the commies want to ruin civilization or not. This book was about value for value, not something for nothing(communism)...worked by your ability, paid by your need.
Maybe you should reread this book? I still don't think you've read it, but that's just based on your comments here, and what do I know...
Lurker
Good post, you have read this book.
Lurker
From the little to nothing that you've said about the book, I doubt you've read it.
Actually, Joe, She shows more insight into the capitalistic system than most who people live it.
"She holds up the accumulation of material wealth as the height of virtue."
Wrong, she states that you should take care of yourself first, then you have the power, if you choose, to take care of others. With out the self, how would you take care of others?
"Conservatives believe in more than just amassing wealth and gratifying the self. We do not believe that voluntary self-sacrifice is an evil. We believe in charity."
With out wealth how will you provide for your charities?
Voluntary self-sacrifice is not one of the things she addresses in this book, and that would cover the "where are the children" comments that keep coming up in this thread.
"We do not believe that voluntary self-sacrifice is an evil."
Voluntary...VOLUNTARY, remember this word! What about forced self-sacrifice Joe, at the point of our Governments guns...is that okay too?
Lurker
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bookmarked
I'm pretty sure objectivists do see self-sacrifice as bad. They have a problem with the very idea of altruism. This is why they are antagonistic to Christianity.
Rand's works explain in great detail why there is no equivalence between the two concepts:
"Altruism holds that no man has the right to exist for his won sake, that service to others is the only justification for his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue, and value...The American political system was based on a different moral principle: on the principle of a man's inalienable right to his own life - which means: on the principle that man has the right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself, and that men must deal with one another as traders, by voluntary choice to mutual benefit." -- Conservatism, An Obituary, Ayn Rand, 1960
Altruism is a philosophy that gave us Nazi death camps and Soviet gulags - it has nothing to do with romantic love, which is the very definition of a voluntary exchange.
So did Heinlein, but with fewer words and the style wasn't painful.
Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (2 Mark 12)
Love = self-sacrifice for the sake of others = altruism. That's Jesus' definition of love. So which definition is correct? Whom should I believe-- Rand or Christ? Ayn Rand taught that selfishness -- love of self -- is the greatest virtue. Jesus taught that "to love one's neighbour as one's self, is a greater thing than all holocausts and sacrifices (3 Mark 12). Rand taught that rational self-interest is the benchmark of morality. Jesus taught that "whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven" (12 Matthew 20). Rand taught that altruism was evil. Jesus taught that "thou shalt love God with all thy [being]... and thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these" (4 Matthew 9). And in the end, Ayn Rand died and was buried under the sign of the dollar, the sign of wealth, the sign of gold. She's still in that tomb today. Jesus of Nazareth died and was buried beneath the sign of the cross, the sign of shame, the sign of death and decay. His tomb is empty!
"Ye foolish and blind; for whether is greater, the gold [i.e. self-interst], or the temple that sanctifieth the gold [i.e. God]"? (16 Matthew 23). I know what my answer is. I'll trust the Man who said He was God and proved it by coming back from the dead. When Ayn Rand comes striding forth from her dollar-sign-encrusted casket, I'll reconsider her ideas. Until then, you'll pardon me if I stick with Jesus Christ's definition of love.
I grew up on a farm snuggled deep in the Maine woods - living with my grandparents in the 30-40's (Grampa was a Maine Guide, blacksmith, woodworker, etc.) We grew and canned, sewed and made, fished and hunted, producing most of our needs ourselves. (There's a big difference between "need" and "want"...the "garbage" produced was minimal. There was no need for garbage trucks.)
Milk, soda, and such came in glass bottles, which were returned and washed and reused. If you bought a comb, you got only that, a comb - without plastic and cardboard packaging. We traded eggs and berries and butter for flour, molasses, sugar and such.
People can live much simpler and be more content doing so - else why do people save and yearn all year to get a fews days vacation in a little cabin somewhere - "away from it all?" Our houses, our kitchens, our closets, our lives, are stuffed with things-things and more things...many times more than we need. We fowl our own nests, or keep them uncluttered.
Galts Gulch always sounded good to me. I love to horse trade and barter my art work or eggs for, say, seamstress work or firewood. Swapping honest goods for honest goods and labor for labor is a heck of a lot more fun than working like a drone ant for some low-level high mucky-mucks's.
Somewhere in between how we lived back on the farm and the way we live now, there's a gentler way to live - to be more producers of our needs instead of mega-consumers. (I have to chuckle when I see the "kitchen makeovers" with a dozen or more lights, and enough cabinets and islands and paraphernalia to open a four-star eatery. Grammie put banquets - real meals = on the table three times a days in a "cook room" about 12' x 14" - including the big oak table. Her water came from the little red pump on the side of the soapstone sink. Hot water was heated by the stove, etc.)
Oh - and as to your "human waste" worry - That was also handled far more efficiently back then" - and left no permanent scar on the land.
Altho; I wouldn't want to give up my indoor facilities , (I don't miss the two-holer out at the end of the granary.) There are more efficient methods than what we use today.
Our biggest problem is that we live to close to one another. No elbow room. At the same time, we spin from task to task - flit-flit-flit - In the long run, accomplishing less than folk used to.
I don't live "too close" - I'm back snuggled into the woods - it's rural, we have septics tanks. Doesn't take sewer workers. I 'produce' an average of one garbage can out to the curb per month. I could cut that down if I got serious.
Bottom line - there are ways and there are ways. The ways of a Galt's Gulch is to simplify. Whittle life down to the basics. Get unfettered with overabundance. learn to make and grow and trade.
We make our own prisons...
Wrong again Joe, you must first have the "SELF" before one can sacrifice.
"ALTRUISM"...The un"SELF"ish devotion to the interests and welfare of others.
Where is the church or state involved in this equation?
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