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09-14-2009, 2:53 PM Delayed_flight Joined on 09-08-2009 Posts 5 What do you think about the following extract? I have ust run into this article http://www.objectivistcenter.org/showcontent.aspx?ct=518&h=54 and the following statement made me disagree: "But worse is spending one's money to promote evil: irrationalism, collectivism, sacrifice. As a case in point, consider corporations and wealthy individuals (often heirs) that finance anti-industrial, anti-civilization environmental groups such as Greenpeace..." Isn't it irrationality at its best?    Report

09-15-2009, 5:46 PM Dominique Joined on 09-06-2009 Posts 10 Re: What do you think about the following extract? Hello, Delayed_flight, The article you are making reference to is particularly interesting because it introduces us to business ethics and morality, a subject Ayn Rand did not really develop except in dialogues and characters’ descriptions, perhaps because it seems to go without saying to her.   But I will not wander from the matter you are bringing upon. Yes it is “irrationality at its best”, to cite you. However, I see more than one explanation to this behavior. Let’s say that the first explanation has been wonderfully depicted by Ayn Rand in the chapter IV of the Part. III of Atlas Shrugged, when the author digs deeper in the behavior and inner thoughts of James Taggart—when we understand the whole truth about why he married Cherryl Brooks. Most of this chapter is a well done course of psychoanalysis. Also as seen this time from the angle of psychiatry, we learn that what makes James Taggart behaving thus way with people is Narcissistic Personality Disorder (see a concise description of this pathology in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IVth edition)—the author of this article you quote seems to know what he is talking about, since he added: “often heirs.”  Ayn Rand also managed “to put James Taggart on the couch of the psychoanalyst”—literally speaking, indeed !—in the chapter II of the Part. II, on his wedding day.   Well, the fact is that the personality of many wealthy persons and barons who notoriously threw themselves into promoting “evil: irrationalism, collectivism, sacrifice” and the like, seem to match James Taggart’s—With respect to the cases of those persons in particular we find over-pampered kids who refused to grow up any longer when they discovered certain realities of adulthood that prove to be very hard to cope with to them. But statistics tell us that people with Narcistic Personnality Disorder cannot be numerous enough on earth to explain it all—yes, my assumption does not take into account the fact that there is an abnormally high number of people with narcissistic personality disorder holding executive positions ! As I have been looking for long to a solution to this problem, I have found two other explanations that fill this gap. The first is well known and is to be found in the mere need to hold one’s power by weakening all others people around one’s personal sphere of relationship—a sphere that may significantly expend when one gets into political power, or succeed into becoming an influential businessman. In both cases, one becomes a tyrant. One of the means the tyrant uses in most instances is a “narrative”; and this “narrative” can be a tale, an ancient story, a religious belief or the like, or a political dogma, which, in all cases, leads others to a state of weakness created and maintained by notions such as sharing, suffering, self-sacrifice, absurd beliefs, etc. From a technical viewpoint, all this is relevant to Machiavellianism, and with regard to this I would recommend some other readings such as The Mind and Society, by Vilfredo Pareto, and The Machiavellians, by James Burnham. In the Machiavellian case, both the irrational mind and the rational one promote nonsensical notions such as “evil: irrationalism, collectivism, sacrifice” for the sake of something that is no-nonsensical, actually: power. I would acknowledge that, in such case, the weaker a leader, the more tyrannical his power must be, though, on a case by case basis, we find exceptions that owe to mental disorders pertaining to the broad category of “antisocial disorders”. Anyways, Machiavellianism says nothing about mental disorders because this field is part of political science and of sociology; broadly speaking it introduces us to others notions such as “lions” vs. “foxes”. Thus a Machiavellian would just say that James Taggart is a “fox” and that Dagny Taggart is a “lion”.     The second is a discovery of my own which postulates that someone who is spending one's money to promote “evil: irrationalism, collectivism and sacrifice” may breed a contradiction whose root is to be found in “something” akin to oedipal complex. In this case—be it relevant to a reality—the father would become the wealth producer, the man of ability and intelligence, and the mother would symbolically stand for all goods produced by the former. Thus such a person would truly love—for his own sake, exclusively—the wealth (the mother), while he would like to get rid of the wealth’s producer (the father) for reasons of mere envy. In this sense, at first glance, we are very close to narcissistic personality disorder, but a mere feeling of envy evolving to resentment is not necessarily relevant to pathology, though irrational—it is too common to be a minority of abnormal folks. Well, let’s name this oedipal thing the “complex of the underdog.” I will say that survival, as one of the fundamental drives of the reptilian brain as described by Professor Paul McLean, is the ultimate root in all cases—only the level of intelligence serving the reptilian survival drive will make the difference in one’s way to access power/safety. Even a man such as John Galt does not escape fundamental drives common to all human beings. John Galt has a reptilian brain too; he wants to survive in the sense that he does not want to put his life at stake in other’s hand, whence his need for freedom/safety. But unlike James Taggart, John Galt can easily survive in a free society in relying solely on his universally acknowledged ability that implicitly grants him with respect. A man of lesser ability such as James Taggart is left with no other way than recourse to treachery and crime. Said otherwise, John Galt does not need to enforce his power while James Taggart does—chiefly in stealing the intelligence of his sister. Interestingly enough, and as an apart, Doctor Floyd Ferris seems to have antisocial disorder (aka psychopathic) according to the description of Ayn Rand. Thus his motives are slightly different of James Taggart’s, though still relevant to the need to survive. Doctor Floyd Ferris is the smartest of all villains in Atlas Shrugged and he has the intelligence that would allow him to succeed in life in using honest means, but his mental disorder leads him toward other ways to do so, because his total lack of empathy and his extreme coldness, typical with psychopaths, impeaches him to join the Galt’s clan—he is a “solitary achiever” that joined the looters’ clan for purely opportunistic reasons and because it is the only side he could choose. I add a third and special case which is this of the phony wealthy individual or corporation that has been made and is acting, from its inception, for the sake of anti-industrial, anti-civilization environmental groups, etc. Here we are no longer talking about psychology and the like, but about aggressive/disruptive undercover operations remotely controlled by far leftist or else countries, whose visible parts usually are a company manufacturing goods or offering services appearing at first as innocuous and which are led by phony billionaires tasked to manage assets that truly do not belong to them.    As a conclusion to the aforesaid, I would say that, in all instances, the wealthy who is “spending one's money to promote evil: irrationalism, collectivism, sacrifice” never consciously believes that he is undermining his own safety, but that, on the contrary, he is securing the future of his power/safety through the choice of a field on which he knows that he enjoys an advantage over a majority—he can do what others would not dare to. His sole mistake is, conscientiously or not, to act without any regard for the others whose well being yet is indispensable to the success of his endeavors. Thus, the question we should ask is not “why corporations and wealthy individuals (often heirs) finance anti-industrial, anti-civilization environmental groups such as Greenpeace..." but rather “how corporations and wealthy individuals (often heirs) could access a power large enough to finance anti-industrial, anti-civilization environmental groups such as Greenpeace...?" Again, the answer to this other question is to be found in Atlas Shrugged when Dagny says: “She was armed against Jim (Taggart) by the conviction that he was not smart enough to harm the railroad too much and that she would always be able to correct whatever damage he caused.” (Part. I, chapter III)       Report

09-16-2009, 4:11 PM Delayed_flight Joined on 09-08-2009 Posts 5 Re: What do you think about the following extract? Thanks, your post is really a food to think. But i'm just unable to understand why Greenpeace is considered an anti-environmental organization? Did i miss the point? Also, Rand, as far as I know, opposes charity. Partially I agree because soem organizations that ask for charity do not engage in anything useful. But what about charity for the disabled? I do not think that one can compare them wiith moochers or any other sort of people who are nothing but the blame themselves.    Report

09-17-2009, 6:30 PM Dominique Joined on 09-06-2009 Posts 10 Re: What do you think about the following extract? Hello, Delayed_flight, I didn’t read “anti-environmental groups” but “anti-industrial, anti-civilization environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club” Then, whether people who lead Greenpeace truly believe in what they say or are rather looking for something less unselfish than what they claim, could be, alone, the object of a long comment. What Ayn Rand could think about charity for the disabled ? She didn’t say much about that, but let’s say a couple of things. Overall, Ayn Rand’s writings do not suggest that she would be that a ruthless person. Some phrases she wrote suggest that she makes a difference between looters/moochers and people who would like to be charitable. As example I find In Atlas Shrugged, again, Eddie Willers is certainly this person. He wants to do well for the sake of doing the right thing and no more. During his early teen, that’s what Eddie Willers once said to Dagny ; and Ayn Rand did not make him a bad guy for it, eventually—even though this side of his personality led him to a painful end.   Quite clearly, Ayn Rand was very upset about the use of charity and good feelings for the sake of fraud. But I don’t think so that it would be reasonable to attempt to follow stricto sensu everything Ayn Rand said ; as well as it might be disappointing to expect from her works all answers to anything we might ask about life, or even about political science. As a matter of fact, I think that it would be a mistake to take what Ayn Rand said as a doctrine to be scrupulously observed. She pinpointed the inescapable failure and evil of collectivism and she described it in a remarkably clear way—this is where her legacy is to be found and where the interest of her works lies. Like you, I once wondered how to conciliate unbridled capitalism and certain questions such as the disabled. I found such answers elsewhere, in examples and suggestions given by some great capitalists. Thus the famous oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller (1839 – 1937), and not Ayn Rand, might answer your question in particular. This man made a rule for himself to dedicate 10% of his income to philanthropy ; to healthcare, mainly. As an apart, while I m talking on John D. Rockefeller, let’s talk this humorous—but said to be authentic—anecdote I once read in Fortune, some years ago. A young boy was reticent to accept a paper-made coat John D. Rockefeller made by the thousands for the needy during the great depression era. John D. Rockefeller was there, saw the boy and is quoted as saying to him: “Young boy, you shouldn’t be afraid of a surplus.” This short sentence makes the link between capitalism and charity in a wonderful way. Another good example is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ; and, overall, it is good to remind that philanthropy and charity is tantamount to a culture which itself is an indefectible part of the spirit of capitalism, and more especially to American capitalism. You will notice that dying from starvation in America is something absolutely impossible—no matter how poor one may be; one will get food in a place reputedly the most selfish and the most capitalistic in the world ! I acknowledge that, on the one hand, the spirit of American capitalism comes from religious protestant ethics, as Max Weber explains it, and that, on the other hand, Ayn Rand stands in opposition to religious beliefs which she held as a fraud and barely more, if ever ; but I consider that this clash limits to a matter of pure form. For, if philanthropy and charity exemplify unselfishness to Protestants and are parts of the spirit of Protestantism—and of Judaïsm as well—the very same things are perfectly integrated in Objectivism—but as elaborate forms of selfishness, on the contrary. Why ? Because the power to give pleasure, relief or comfort to someone else is a perfectly egotistic form of pleasure as well, in the sense that it is inescapably self-rewarding. In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand exemplifies this form of selfishness in the relationship between Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden who openly explains why he offered to her some very expensive pieces of jewelry and furs. But, perhaps, the simplest and most obvious statement I should have said first and foremost is that the proponent of Objectivism will not be in contraction with his own moral code if he chooses to help the disabled, since such a person can hardly be a bum or a looter, in most instances.        Report

10-26-2009, 6:40 PM galtsgulcher Joined on 03-15-2009 Posts 47 Re: What do you think about the following extract? (Dominique wrote...) "But, perhaps, the simplest and most obvious statement I should have said first and foremost is that the proponent of Objectivism will not be in contraction with his own moral code if he chooses to help the disabled, since such a person can hardly be a bum or a looter, in most instances." I agree... The beauty of individual giving is that it is done by each person's own free will, where they decide where, when, how, and, most importantly, to whom they ~choose~ to offer help. This has nothing to do with the ugliness of corrupt coersive wasteful indiscriminate public government entitlement policies.    Report

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