Of Attila, witch doctors, and objectivists.

[Warren Whitmore]

All of the recent posts on religion has influenced me to re read For the new intellectual by Ayn Rand.

She lumps all violent types individual or collective as Attila the Hun, all religious types individual or collective as witch doctors.

The Witch doctor's psycho-epistemology and his relationship to Attila: the Witch doctor expects Attila to be his protector against reality, against the necessity of a rational cognition, and, at the same time, he expects to rule his own protector, who needs an unintelligible mystic sanction as a narcotic to relieve his chronic guilt. They derive thier mutual security, not from any form of strength, but from the fact that each has a hold o the other's secret weakness. It is not the security of two traders, who count on the values they offer each other, but the security of two black mailers who count on each other's fear. The field where they found each other was Socialism.

Experiment 1

So I am in a van with a bunch of members of my wife's family. And I decide to test this hypothesis out. My mother in law is a mystic if ever there was one. She is going on about the after life and such and so I say in my usual sensitive diplomatic fashion. What if when you croak you just break down and get eaten by worms and such. A bit to my surprise she immediatly swung into Atilla mode saying she was going to haunt me and such things. More surprisingly I thought just about everyone else dident even consider that when your life ended it ended as even being a possiblity open for discussion.

Experiment 2

The only paper I get on a regular basis is the Wall street journal that paper has columns on the front page with the events of the world on them. I catagorized each article as Attila, witch doctor, or objectivist. 65% Attila, 30% Witch doctor, and 5% Objectivist. These results may have been off by a bit because it was the week the pope died and there was a disproportional amount of that stuff.

Experiment 3

The pope died and record numbers of people from all over the world came to view the body.

When a military type dies there is a 21 gun salute and lots of additions to history books.

When Ayn Rand died very few noticed.

The data from these 3 experiments seems to suggest that only around 5% of the population use an objectivist thought process to convert data to concepts. Could this be correct?

[Bodhi]

[ QUOTE ]
The data from these 3 experiments seems to suggest that only around 5% of the population use an objectivist thought process to convert data to concepts. Could this be correct?

[/ QUOTE ]

I never took a course in statistics, but your analysis hardly qualifies for the field. Also, What do you mean by "convert data to concepts?" The phrase sounds epistemologically dubious. Consequently I voted for 'false,' even though I am sympathetic to your views. Yes, the sublimation of fear and ignorance is the virtue of most of mankind.

[purnell]

Bodhi's point is valid.

I just voted yes, 'cause I didn't take the question to be asking whether he'd shown convincing evidence. The question was, could this be correct? (that less than 5% yadda...) Since I am convinced that 95% or more of people that I meet (in "real" space) operate on an entirely intuitive level, I voted yes.

Did i misunderstand the question?

Thanks for the book recommendation, Warren.

[Siegmund]

There have always been precious few people who could look objectively at the world around them and make any sense out of it.

Ayn Rand's writing is a fine example of the large sector who are both biased and blind enough to think they have a trace of objectivism in themselves.

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
There have always been precious few people who could look objectively at the world around them and make any sense out of it.

Ayn Rand's writing is a fine example of the large sector who are both biased and blind enough to think they have a trace of objectivism in themselves.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, so are people born Objectivist, or can they become Objectivist or does it not matter?

I never realised it was so easy to rubbish people without making a coherent argument, well at least not until I read your post. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Regards Mack

[HDPM]

I think your point is generally true, but oversimplified. I need to reread some of Rand's witch doctor stuff myself. It also may help to read Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, which I confess to starting and not finishing. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

I think though that most people corrupt their thinking with mystical stuff. The figures citing the fact that most people believe in a god, etc... are proof of that. The question then becomes how much they corrupt their thinking and then how that corruption manifests itself. Rand talks constantly of the analogy of mixing food and poison in terms of mixing objective thought and myticism, which she cannot stand, but most people do. However, most hard core mystics live certain parts of their lives by objective principles. For instance, they go to the store and buy food and eat it instead of praying for their god to nourish them. They may then say that their god provided the earth and the food sold in the store, etc..., but nevertheless they deal with objective reality to a degree sufficient to maintain life functions. Some mystics will decide not to do this, i.e. refusing medical care based on a religious belief. So your approach may shed some light on the problem of how people mix their thinking and cognitive approach. Because most people have some mystic in them, but they also must deal with objective reality to live. Maybe the %'s highlight that mix.

[Bodhi]

I swear this is a true story:

While on a backpacking trip in college with my house-mate and a number of others, my house-mate's girlfriend admitted in conversation that a truly enlightened person would not need to eat food or drink water in order to be nourished. "WTF?" I said.
"You wouldn't need to eat or drink because you could get your energy by being in communion with nature, the trees and rocks and..."
"What about calories? I don't think you can get any calories from that."
"Oh, what I'm talking about is on a higher level than chemistry."