tma@osc.COM (Tim Atkins) (01/17/90)
In article <88@zds-ux.UUCP. gerry@zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason) writes: .In article <1811@osc.COM. tma@osc.UUCP (Tim Atkins) writes: ..In article <4786901a.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM. nelson_p@apollo.HP.COM (Peter Nelson) writes: ... ... ... Brian Yoder posts... ... The thing that never fails to amaze me is the way Libertarians ... and Objectivists expect everone else to automatically buy into ... their value system. . ..We expect it because we are right. How about showing where we are wrong ..if you believe we are instead of engaging in more of your unenligthening ..rhetoric? . .And then they wonder why people say they are a religion. I stand by what I wrote. It was valueless as philosophic discourse to rhetorically wonder about a suppossed (unsupported) characteristic of Objectivists. I let Libertarians speak for themselves. . .It is not ours to show you where you are wrong, but yours to show .where you are right. Oops, maybe I shouldn't have said that, all .those net.objectivists don't need an invitation to attempt this. .Now they'll really flood the net with their postings ;-) I and others have stated fairly clearly what the philosophy of Objectivism is about and why we are convinced of its truth. If some point is unclear or apparently contraditory it is up you to point it out if the discussion is to continue. . ... To some people it is "fair" that a poor child who is sick should ... not die just because his parents have no money to pay for a doctor. ... I don't know what we call these barbaric, amoral subhumans but they ... have managed to gain influence in many countries around the world ... including many prosperous ones like West Germany, Canada, and Sweden. ... I understand that this cancer is spreading even to the US. Fortun- ... ately there are still some free countries in the world such as in ... South America and Africa where these nonproductive untermenchen ... are not able to victimize rational, productive people so brutally ... through a tyrannical government in their thrall. ... My point is that they have a different concept of "rights" and "fair" ... than you do. And to them it seems like perfect common sense. . ..You're rhetoric is not as impressive as you apparently think. Attempting to ..show us as cold an inhuman by playing on the emotions with the image of a ..sick and dying child says nothing about the real issues purportedly being ..discussed. . . . . .Nor is your argument help by missing or ignoring his point entirely. In .the real world, issues of "rights" and "fairness" seldem enter into the .picture. Nature does not make moral or ethical decisions, those that can .manage do survive, those that don't don't, and the only reason this doesn't .always degenerate into might-makes-right is that there is survival value .in cooperation. Society and civilization are an elaboration and extension .of this cooperation, and therefore its laws and customs (i.e. what is .considered "right" or "fair") should necessarily be connected with the .communities survival (because practitioners of mal-adaptive cultures will .die off). Survival in this sense and the fact that all humans have a .similar physical structure are the only sources that enforce cominality .in customs, but O'ists continue to assert that there is one "right" set .of prescriptions for a society based on some philosophers sitting and .thinking about the subject. What is your point? That natural selection among value-systems will ultimately decide what is right?? Ultimately, they will. Reality is the final arbiter. This does not mean we shouldn't grease the wheels by using our rational capacity to abstract out man's nature and the type of society it would require for its flowering. . .Actually the above only elaborates on part of his point. The other is .that in the real world, the distinction you are trying to make does .not corelate very well with any reasonable measure of freedom, i.e. there .are examples of contries with "evil" socialist policies with strong .economies and much personal freedom as well as "good" capitalist economies .where many people starve or are deprived of other freedoms. None of us .is claiming that individual freedom is not a good thing; rather I claim .that it is essential for a healthy society, but it is by far not the .only thing, and furthermore Liberterianism might not even be a viable .way to achieve this, much less the only one. How can a strong socialist country grant much personal freedom? If I do not have the rights to acquire or create value and dispose of it as I see fit, then what rights are left to me? ..That there are many value systems says nada about their validity nor does ..it in any way follow that the Objectivist value system has less validity ..due to being one of many. Rand most certainly recognized that irrationality ..is predominant in the world. Unlike you and others of your ilk she did not ..simply accept that fact but attempted to increase rationality. As long as ..irrationality is rampant OF COURSE you will see massive injustices. Certainly ..science and technology have done an amazing job, all the more amazing for the ..illiterate semi-savage state of knowledge in the humanities and social sciences. . .1) Nor does it follow that it has any more validity. Nor am I convinced by .the arguments made by O'ists on the net. .2) Then you proceed to the claim that irrationality is predominant with no .justification. (Everyone knows that it's chaos, not irrationality that .predominates. All hail Eris ;-) I was merely stating what must be obvious to any thinking individual. I will not attempt to prove that the sun shines! . .I claim that the so-called rationality of the objectivists is nothing but .a form of irrationality in disguise. So we aren't talking apples and oranges, .let me attempt a definition of rationality: The application of sound mental .processes to plan for the future and to gain knowledge of the world. . .Gerry Gleason Precisely what Objectivism advocates. Where's the beef?? - Tim