200+15 SNG players-how good is this guy?

[Abagadro]

I don't know if I am qualified at this point. I used to be very into Objectivism 10 years ago, but came to realize that it's basically anti-social and selfish. I think it has some great ideas and its best form is actually found in the Fountainhead with the character of Howard Roarke and his belief in himself and refusal to compromise his own vision, but gets taken way too extreme with all of Galt's socio-economic nonesense. It's been far too long since I have been into it for me to discuss specifics, I just have the residual rejection of its prinicples as a former convert. At the bottom line, I think it is like all pure philosphies, ultimately unable to be practiced without dire consequences to the social fabric.

[Frozen]

Of course we are selfish and anti-social! But we are far more inclined to just live and let live than most others.

"The 'common good' of a collective, a race, a class, a state was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. ....Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with declarations of love for mankind ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it is unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing for themselves. But observe the results."
'Howard Roark' in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.

[Abagadro]

You have to read Rand with the background of the society she came out of when the "collective good" was used as an excuse for an authoritarian and murderous regime, so I take most of that with a big grain of salt. What bugs be about Objectivism now is that it ignores the nature of society. I'm sorry that neither you nor I could go live in the mountains on our piles of gold. I would if I could, but it's just not realistic.

I like aspects of Roarke's individualism, but if you try to create public policy based upon it, you essentially have social darwinism which didn't work out to well in my opinion when it was tried here any more than Communism worked out in the Soviet Union.

[SmileyEH]

The best arguement against objectivism I can develop is the real world applications of its principles. Ayn Rand herself felt that all taxation of individuals and corporations was inherently immortal. This violates pretty basic economic principles for goods/services which have a cost that is unable to be set by supply & demand interaction. I am thinking of the cost of defense for example -- Ayn Rand supported a strong central gov't responsible for law enforcement, foreign policy, and national defence -- it is impossible for a price to be set per person or corporation on any of these services the gov't supplies. Her idea that capitalism is a perfect system for all situations is "objectively" wrong.

Applying Objectivism to everyday life -- which Rand and her early followers attempted to do around the time of Atlas Shrugged publication (Alan Greenspan, Barbara Branden, Nathaniel Branden, Leonard...drawing a blank here etc.) -- turned out to be a complete failure. I can only point you to the life of Ayn Rand as described in her two unathourized biographies (by the now estranged Barbara and Nathaniel Branden). It is obvious that the credibility of these two sources could be in question as they were both former disciples of Rand's philosophies, and in the case of Nathaniel a former lover. However, as the two seperate and uncollaborated books have little dissagreement I find their tale ultimately believable and disturbing. Rand was eventually driven insane by her need to have rational explanations for all behaviour, decisions, and ideas. A grand idea, but only a pipe dream. What resulted was a woman who nearly destroyed the lives of several young people by convincing them they were immoral human beings (in her philosophy no longer true humans) because of their irrational behavior.

Reading The Fountainhead changed my life. It opened up new ideas and principles (selfishness, inate good of humanity, rational thought etc.) that I still hold true to this day. But they are just that: ideas...their application to the real world in their true form is just as destructive as the ideals of collective good applied in Atlas Shrugged.

-SmileyEH