don@allegra.UUCP (10/03/83)
I have been told many times to read "Atlas Shrugged". It is over 1100 pages long though and doesn't appear to be very thrilling. I guess there is a part where the Hero makes a speech that sums up the philosophy in a nutshell, and that is only a hundred pages or so. Actually, I once ask someone who did read it to tell me the story. It sounded like pure fascism to me. She apparently thinks that a handful of supermen make the world go around, and the rest of us are just parasites. I think that trend towards extreme individualism is rather unhealthy. Man evolved as a social animal, and I believe most of the complexity one observes in people is due to the culture and experience they absorb from books and other people. People who think they are supermen, and don't owe anyone else anything should try the following thought experiment: Imagine that you were raised in isolation on an island with lots of food and warm weather. I'd say it's a good bet that you wouldn't even learn to use simple tools (sticks, rocks...) in the course of your life. Konrad Lorentz has written much about the biological role of "altruism" in social animals. Based on the behavior of other social animals, Lorentz warns that individuals who are not altruistic are very dangerous. They can live comfortably, enjoying the benefits of social organization, but not contributing to the species' survival. Eventually, their genes can poison a species and cause its demise. B.F.Skinner also has warned that people who have no interest in the survival of the species are a danger to it. He has been a frequent target of Individualist philosophers over the years for saying that.