Posted on 05/01/2003 8:44:18 AM PDT by RJCogburn
HATING WHAT THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND Liberal intellectuals (almost a redundancy, that) hate author Ayn Rand.
They don't just dislike her, they hate her with a passion. The reason? Because she has single-handedly come up with a logical and reasonable philosophy that strips them bare and reveals all their scams and schemes so that people who know her philosophy (Objectivism) automatically spot one of their scams from a long ways away.
THEY CAN'T TELL YOU WHY
They don't subject her to the usual mild criticism or "shunning" to which they subject liberals who say something "slightly different" from "the norm." Their treatment of Rand and her works is visceral and vicious. There are many who merely dismiss her philosophy with the wave of a hand. But they cannot explain why they feel the way they do. If asked for a reason for their opposition to Objectivism, they can't answer and launch into a personal attack on her that amounts to a "fact-free opinion."
DENYING REASON AND LOGIC
If you point out the fact that Objectivism is a "philosophy of reason," they deny the existence of reason. If you point to the logic of Objectivism, they say there is no logic. Then they go on to tell you that "there are no absolutes." Of course, they don't even notice the fact that their very statement is a "statement of an absolute," and negates not only their entire philosophy, but the very statement they have made as well. I love being a proponent of a philosophy that allows me to "shut down" those who disagree with it so easily and completely, and with their own words.
I hasten to say that I do not accept all of Rand's opinions and that I am not an Objectivist. I am a "student of Objectivist philosophy" and am still learning all its facets. That could change later, although I don't think I'll ever agree that abortion is a good thing and that there is no "higher power" although I may not see that "higher power" the same way other people do.
OPPOSING BAD IDEAS WITH GOOD IDEAS
One professor said Rand was a "phony libertarian" who wanted to strip communists of their citizenship. She did not. In fact, she was one of the few people not on the Left who opposed the violation of the rights of communists and said so, in print. She said that stripping them of their rights "is an invalid means of opposing communism and that the proper way to oppose bad ideas was with good ideas."
To show you just how visceral and violent their hate is, there is a story told by Ronald Merril, in his book, The Ideas of Ayn Rand, where a woman's boyfriend was horrified when he saw her reading Atlas Shrugged and grabbed it, throwing it out the window. She watched as the gardener, upon seeing the title, threw it down and ran over it repeatedly. This is an excellent example of the violent reaction that her ideas often get from people who have never really investigated them, but have listened to what their liberal friends have said about her and her works. But again, if you ask them precisely what they don't like about her and her work, they can't answer and usually sneer some personal attack upon her.
IS OBJECTIVISM A "CULT?"
That's one of the criticisms that is most often hurled at Objectivism and its creator, that it is a "cult" that does not allow any dissention. That people have been, in effect, "excommunicated" for disagreeing with it in the slightest way. There is a certain amount of truth to that charge, but it only applies to the personal "circle of friends" she laughingly called her "collective." Rand wasn't perfect, although her mistakes are tiny when put alongside her ideas, which are destined to change the world, and already are. She did insist on complete agreement among those people and shunned those who disagreed with her. But that does not apply to those who believe in, and use her ideas to guide their lives, as I do. That's not a "cult, nor is it a "religion."
Objectivism today has two major factions, about even in strength. One faction is run by her "philosophical and financial heir, Dr.Leonard Peikoff. Peikoff was a member of her "collective" and, in my opinion, is an "opportunist," who took advantage of Rand's fall out with her original protégé, Nathaniel Branden and took over her fortune as well as the "mantle" as "The Voice of Objectivism." This faction, running the Ayn Rand Institute, and claims to be the only source for Objectivist information and ideas. But it is this group that operates somewhat as a cult in that Peikoff's contention that Objectivism, as Ayn Rand proposed it, was, and is, complete and not subject to any changes. To be an Objectivist to him, is to accept everything Rand said, as "gospel" and not deviate from it in any way. It is this which gives rise to the "cult" accusation.
But there is a second faction, run by Objectivist philosopher David Kelley, who started and runs the Objectivist Institute, a competing organization whose view of Objectivism is that it is not complete, and can be improved. It is this group who are not, and never will be, "cult-like." If you wish to associate with this group, you will never get any static whichever way you believe.
It is this division in "the ranks" that caused a severe setback in the acceptance of Objectivism for years. This division was worse than that created when Nathaniel Branden left. But the Objectivist Center has had a strong influence and the acceptance of Objectivism as an excellent guide for your life is rising again, as it must, because it is the only logical philosophy there is.
You may not agree totally with the basic tenets of Objectivism, but here you will not be met with a cold silence if you dare to suggest change. In the Objectivist Institute, you will be welcomed and your ideas debated respectfully. The concepts discovered by Objectivists are not subjective, but the final word on the details of Objectivism may not have yet been discovered. You might be the force by which we can improve the philosophy, no matter what Leonard Peikoff might say.
If you're still "drifting in a sea of opposing philosophies," and you don't know why what's happening in this world is happening, this philosophy will help you to understand. Things will become clear to you as never before, and you will be able to, as my older brother Bob said many years ago, "read between the lines" and be able to figure out why people do as they do. What brought me to Objectivism is my inability to understand why people like Nelson Rockefeller, who had more money than he could spend in three lifetimes, supported collectivism even though it was intent on taking his money away (If you want to know the answer to that, e-mail me).
But this philosophy answered most of my questions and therefore, I can follow it for the most part because it's a logical philosophy and its opponents can only stupidly deny the existence of logic to oppose it. They cannot give coherent answers as to why it is bad, so they make things up. If you want to know the truth, go to the source: The Objectivist Center.
A pasta? Si, that too. Angel hair, maybe.
Believe it or not, J. S. Mill ranks in my "top-four" philosophers. I was a little surprised to learn (via a self-evaluative survey published here at FR a year or so back) that he's "right up there" with Aquinas, Plato, and Aristotle when it comes to what passes for fundamental authoritative sources with me. But subsequently I checked out the finding, and it stands to reason.
Mill set great store by observation and experience -- so much so that he even managed a way credibly to inject an experiential component into the classical syllogism. He was firmly rooted in the common reality that can be described as dependent on observation and experience; yet was also keenly aware that human beings cannot be reduced to such terms.
And certainly God cannot be reduced to such terms.
Mill played by the rules he set for himself: People should only speak publicly in the language of empirical technique. The rest is private and thus probably untranslatable into language that would be meaningful to other people. It might be the sort of thing that would be fun in a bull session in a coffee house, but it wouldn't be "science."
Let's pick up the threads of a conversation, you go first. [You are in green, my relies are in magenta.] May we invoke the spirit of J. S. Mill to referee and umpire what follows!?
I am aware that J.S. Mill feels that the divine attributes of goodness and omnipotence are apparently irreconcilable. For how can a good God, if he is omnipotent, permit evil in the world? If a good God doesn't "stop it," then he must not be omnipotent. More or less -- either he prevents it because he is perfectly good and omnipotent, or he fails to prevent it because he is less than perfectly good or less than omnipotent. Evil exists, ergo we must choose between perfect goodness and omnipotence. And that's what Mill objects to - the notion of compatibility between perfect goodness and omnipotence, for the reasons he lays out above. I'm not at all sure that he would object to omnipotence combined with some variety of goodness that was less than perfect, but I doubt that's acceptable to you either ;)
God can be good and omnipotent -- yet freely choose to "limit" Himself -- by virtue of the logic of His having vested man with free will. If He were to intervene directly to elmininate the evil of this world, then that would be to violate His own grant of free will to men. To put it crudely, one might say that God made a "deal with man," and He keeps His promises.
"Evil exists, ergo we must choose between perfect goodness and omnipotence." Well, from the purely empirical human point of view, that would seem to constitute the fundamental, final choice. And from the side of observation and experience, this statement of the problem would seem to make perfect sense.
But -- here's the problem when you take the criteria of observation and experience as your "touchstones" of the truth of reality: You relegate yourself to the position of a hypothetical observer. But we humans are NOT "hypothetical observers." We are parts and participants of the total reality, and thus cannot see the ALL of it, given our contingent position in it in space and time.
So, the question then becomes: Are we human beings to try to edit "reality" down to the way we "normally" experience it (i.e., through the criteria of observation and direct experience), and congratulate ourselves on this construction of "truth" as the final discovery of truth? Or can we say, if we are part and participant rather than mere observer, can we say that certain aspects of the truth of our own existence pass beyond what can be directly observed by us?
J. S. Mill didn't say. It was beyond the scope of the problem he set for himself.
* * * * * * *
I meant to say more here, but hubbie just came home, and I have to go make dinner. Hope to pick up this thread again soon. Meanwhile, general_re, if you've got helpful suggestions about how to improve this dialog, please don't hesitate to write.
p.s.: One thing J. S. Mill didn't do, to my knowledge: He did not require God to justify Himself to man. He had the good sense to stop short of doing that. He may have been "progressive"; but he wasn't "suicidal."
...I think it is also to be said that the very gift of being a being, '...created in the image of God' and 'self-directional' is not only something that God wouldn't take back, but that it is something of perfectly good 'AND' surpassing? undiminished value (especially when one is being sensible enough to accept God's being God, but even if one is not).
In so stating, I'm tending to push my chips to the middle of the table to say that even pain and suffering and evil as we may choose to call all the consequences of our disobedient motivations are of God's goodness and how do you like them "apples?" (Scriptures inform us that God makes the blacksmith that forges idols, that Satan can bargain with Job in a place in Heaven, God is known to have sent a lying spirit into the nasty mouths of false prophets, to cause calamities, etc.) One might even say that all suffering is an initial part of rectification. BUT, God doesn't cause the disobedient motivations that sinners have. Those are totally of our own creation and of will which yet, is an inherently a good thing to have and never ceases to be.
And eventually, the corrupt strand in space/time will be "rolled up" and evil wills shall be removed from any causality I think, or what is the fire for? Picking up on what you just said about God's true perspective vs. ours, I think we who know him will then have enough of it to see, face to face, as much of the truth of it as we care to, including as much logic as we wish to play with.
I don't see how from our "human perspective" we would be caused by empiricism to see God as having the contradiction, though it could seem extremely apparent by our logic and uninformed bases. Of course I have based these views upon axioms, but so even are our "principles" of empiricism. Please inform if I'm stepping on epistemological daisies that I don't see here.
Another way of saying it all is that instead of diminishing God's goodness and power (to do what he chooses as he maintains integrity) we should make sure we don't diminish what perfect things he has given us, in both the conveyed power to make decisions and the ability to be seen by God as good and good how? -- by one's most apt decision.
And now I too, will humbly hope to have my meat and drink.
If anyone cares to, let's look up "evil" in biblegateway.com and see how it tends to refer to "intention" at "heart," even in the OT.
Enough from the gallery.
...except for the big middle Mosaic part of the book (and no, not the browser technology). Now, enough, if you're lucky.
Do you know that you are offering a tautology as evidence? You seem so convinced that your logic is better than mine. Are you a polylogist?
I reasoned that the existence of God is not possible when I was a teenager. Nothing has changed my understanding of this in fifty years. You are hard worker in your attempts to prove His existence, but I remain totally unconvinced.
I don't see anything in your this post, HK that isn't relativism; "law of the jungle" as Alamo-Girl has said. Nothing about not harming others, for instance. It looks more hole than doughnut to me.
It's a fair question. I don't have an easy answer, but I do have what I think are a couple of good starting places.
First: God gave us free will. The implications of free will are not particularly pleasant. For example, free will means that the actions of evil people can and must have consequences. But as we know from Jesus' own example, it's not what happens to us that matters, but how we respond when things happen to us.
As Christians, we believe that God intercedes when it suits His purposes, too. But again, the implications of free will are far ranging, and continual intercession would tend to preclude free will.
Second: God promises us eternal life. The more you think about eternity, the more you realize what a very different thing it must be. If we believe in eternal life, then the things that happen to us here may not matter in the way we think they matter.
Like I said, these are not answers. But they do help me to put questions like this into some sort of perspective.
Everyone tends to see things as they are. The thief believes everyone is a thief, the liar thinks everyone is a liar. Seeing "law of the jungle" in rational values is a comment only on the one doing the seeing.
Those who embrace a rational moral view not only do not initiate the use of force against any other individual, but neither desire or pursue anything they have not earned by their own effort. This is entirely from selfish motives.
Why do those whose moral values are based on arbitrary dictates, totally disconnected from reality, the nature of the beings to whom they are supposed to apply, or the world they live in, exhibit an almost hysterical hatred for those who pose no threat to anyone, and could not be induced to be a threat to them by any means.
Why do you hate reason, truth, decency, honesty, and virtue so much? You must hate them, or you would not always be excoriating those who espouse them.
Hank
Among the many unsupportable things you've asserted, this may be the most ridiculous.
A hundred years ago, nobody could name a black hole. Did they exist a hundred years ago? Certainly. Not being able to name something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Sheesh.
Neither, of course. They were acts of immorality.
You can't tell me the source of morals other than, "there could be another source..." - a pie in the sky zero evidence hope against hope leap of faith - and you call my assertion ridiculous!? Yeah right.
A hundred years ago, nobody could name a black hole. Did they exist a hundred years ago? Certainly. Not being able to name something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Sheesh.
You have not one iota of evidence for a source of morality other than God - in fact, you are not even able to name a possibile source from your imagination! You can't even imagine it! Come on now, I can at least imagine a pink unicorn or the tooth fairy, but you can't even do that! Your argument cannot be more silly than it is.
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