msimpson@bbncca.ARPA (Mike Simpson) (11/01/83)
The following is a response from decvax!utcsstat!laura to a letter
I wrote to her. (My statements are indented.)
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1) Sorry about mis-typing your address -- it is pretty
embarrassing, considering that I had written out your address on
a separate sheet of paper. My brain obviously went to sleep.
Don't worry about the address. It got here, and this message got here,
so the bugs seem out of the system! (But just wait!! :-) )
2) Yes, you are correct in stating that you should not
have to look outside oneself for appreciation, according to
Rand's philosophy. But I don't want to get into degrees of
Rand-ism; that would get us nowhere. (I can't say for sure that
I am a Randite; only that I have read two of her works, and agree
with about 90% of what she has to say.)
The question is, have you looked into the implications of what she has to
say, and have you looked at the basic premises that she starts out with?
She doesn't mention all of them in print, as far as I know. Some of them
are common to most of Western thought -- however, if they are WRONG it
doesn't matter how many geniuses believed in them.
I think that selfishness is a rather good thing, as I interpret how Rand
defines selfishness, and a lot more rationality would sure be nice in some
of the people that I have to deal with, but I cannot really put all my
faith in reason. I am an unreasonable being, not least because it is often
fun to be unreasonable. This is one of the great problems I have with
Rand. It is marvellous if your cheif joys in life are intellectual ones,
as mine are -- but I have enough unintellectual joys to know that one
could write a perscription for Hell out of Rand. Many people get emotional
support and sheer enjoyment out of their irrationality, and I do not think
that one should view them as "lesser beings" because of this.
But if I do something that I adjudge to be good and
worthy of merit, and my friends also consider it to be good and
worthy of merit, then I can be glad that my friends enjoy it
also. The fact that I am glad that my friends enjoy my work is
not primary to my happiness, however; the fact that I enjoy my
work is. (I realize that I may be rehashing old stuff, but I
feel that I did not make myself clear the first time, and am
perhaps making the error of being too verbose to avoid being too
concise.)
This is all very well and good, but what if you decide that your chief joy
in life is making other people happy? A lot of social workers and nurses
seem to claim this. If you are actually doing this, are you being rational?
If you aren't being rational, should you give up something that gives you
enjoyment for the sake of becoming more rational? Why? Will it make me happier
or is that not important? or are you going to retreat into saying that I
cannot experience true enjoyment unless it stems from myself?
I don't know about this. It seems true of me personally, but I sure wouldn't
want to generalise it to be true of all people.
laura creighton
utcsstat!laura
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If one WILLINGLY decides to serve others, that's one
thing. I disagree with COERCING someone into serving others. At
a talk in New York, Rand was asked how she felt about helping the
poor. Her response was "If you want to do it, I won't stop you."
I do believe, however, that one can be rational in helping others.
As for "giving up something that gives you enjoyment for
the sake of being rational": I am treading on thin ice with this
statement, but I believe that one should give serious thought to
pursuing deliberately irrational behavior. There should be a
good reason why one pursues irrational behavior, but each person
must decide for him/herself what constitutes a good reason.
I admit to not having thought through this situation
enough to try to generalize it to others. I'm having fun
applying it to myself, though.
-- cheers,
Mike Simpson
Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc.
Ten Moulton Street,
Cambridge, MA 02238 (USnail)
msimpson@bbn-unix (ARPA)
decvax!bbncca!msimpson (Usenet)
msimpson.bbn-unix@udel-relay (CSNET)
617-497-2819 (Ma Bell)