wlinden@dasys1.UUCP (William Linden) (03/25/88)
In article <13350002@hpcuhb.HP.COM> rb@hpcuhb.HP.COM (Robert Brooks) writes: >Please provide a reference for this. I don't recall reading anything >about a guard being shot in _Atlas_Shrugged_, and what you are saying >isn't at all consistent with my understanding of Objectivism. This is from the last chapter. For context, Dagny and the others are there to rescue Galt from the minions of Ferris who are torturing him (and if that ain't initiation of force, I'm a Trot...) "But I _can't_ decide! Why me?" "Because it's _your_ body that's barring my way." "But I can't decide! I'm not _supposed_ to decide!" "I'll count to three," she said. "Then I'll shoot." "Wait! Wait! I haven't said yes or no!" he cried, cringing tighter against the door, as if immobility of mind and body were his best protection. "One__" she counted; she could see his eyes staring at her in terror--"Two--" she could see that the gun held less terror for him than the alternative she offered___ "Three." Calmly and impersonally, she, who would have hesitted to fire at an animal, pulled the trigger and fired straight at the heart of a man who had wanted to exist without the responsibility of consciousness." -- Will Linden {sun,philabs,cmcl2}!phri\ Compuserve 72737,2150 {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!wlinden MCI Mail WLINDEN {portal,well,ihnp4,amdahl}!hoptoad/
prof@chinet.UUCP (The Professor) (03/30/88)
In article <3551@dasys1.UUCP>, wlinden@dasys1.UUCP (William Linden) writes: >>Please provide a reference for this. I don't recall reading anything >>about a guard being shot in _Atlas_Shrugged_, and what you are saying >>isn't at all consistent with my understanding of Objectivism. > "But I _can't_ decide! Why me?" > "Because it's _your_ body that's barring my way." > "But I can't decide! I'm not _supposed_ to decide!" > "I'll count to three," she said. "Then I'll shoot." > "Wait! Wait! I haven't said yes or no!" he cried, cringing tighter > against the door, as if immobility of mind and body were his best > protection. > "One__" she counted; she could see his eyes staring at her in > terror--"Two--" she could see that the gun held less terror for him > than the alternative she offered___ "Three." > Calmly and impersonally, she, who would have hesitted to fire at an > animal, pulled the trigger and fired straight at the heart of a man > who had wanted to exist without the responsibility of consciousness." The amazing thing about this episode is that Dagny thinks she is willfully making a decision here, that for this reason she is better qualified to make judgments than the guard she brutally murders. Yet in reality we know she is no less programmed to make the "decision" she makes, "choosing" to take the action she takes, than the guard is programmed to behave in the way he behaves. There are no decisions being made here by rational agents. There is just one human being who is caught between a rock and a hard place, and another who thinks she's better than he is, but who in reality is just as much acting on a program as the guard she looks down upon. The further irony is in the veiled contempt she holds for her victim. Rand says that "she could see that the gun held less terror for him than the alternative she offered." The implication is that this weak empty void of a man, a man who "wanted to exist without the responsibility of consciousness," would prefer that Dagny kill him rather than force him to make a decision. For finding the act of making a decision difficult, this man is given a death sentence. As if THEY had no faults, as if there were no facets of daily life that THEY find difficult or impossible. Something "individualists" often forget is that without these other people they look down upon their lives and the world around them would cease to function---but to admit this would go against their individualist "ethics." Some people are simply not movers or shakers or decision makers, some people are simply not as into "being themselves" (sic) as the so-called individualists are, and contrary to the tenets of the various individualist philosophies, THIS IS NOT A CRIME. But don't tell this to the "individualists," they'll be sure to let you know how self-sufficient, independent, and individualistic they really are, and how no one has an "excuse" for not being that way. (As if we needed one.) The way these people talk, you'd think they never made use of a socially engendered interdependency, they did it all themselves! Why "compromise" by acceding to social norms, why act reciprocally towards others when you can simply take without reproach, why pay taxes when you don't get anything from the government? (Well, aside from the roads, the sewers, the education system, etc. what have the Romans ever done for us? :-> ) The next time such people look down their noses at the rest of society, they should examine some people close to them who share the characteristics of the folks they look down upon. Namely the characters in their precious books like Dagny (and, dare I say it, the precious John Galt), and themselves. Though I doubt that "discovering" that they are not unlike those they scorn would diminish their contempt, consistency is not the hobgoblin of the individualist's little mind.
paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) (03/31/88)
I am probably wrong to bother with this, since "The Professor" does not sound like a person open to discussion or reasoned argument. However (sigh), In article <4327@chinet.UUCP> prof@chinet.UUCP (The Professor) writes: >Some people are simply not movers or shakers or decision makers, some people >are simply not as into "being themselves" (sic) as the so-called individual- >ists are, and contrary to the tenets of the various individualist philoso- >phies, THIS IS NOT A CRIME. A straw man, hey, wow. Um, Objectivism agrees with you here -- it is not a crime (against others, anyway) to "not move or shake or decide." However, when you take an innocent man prisoner and torture him, you are making a choice, you are moving, you are shaking. There are consequences to this. -- Paul A Vixie Esq paul%vixie@uunet.uu.net {uunet,ptsfa,hoptoad}!vixie!paul San Francisco, (415) 647-7023