Just FYI, the robots and cave comment were two separate references from philosophy, which nobody here seemed to grok. I guess some of the people here aren’t as well read re: philosophy as they pretend to be.

Thanks for the reply. We’ve cut pretty far off the course for this thread, so I won’t get into details, except to say that you’ve given me plenty to consider and I really appreciate your taking the time to do so.

In fairness, I should specify (since my current wife, to whom I am happily married, reads these blogs) — the subject of my story was a woman I was engaged to marry about six years ago. Once the date was set, she abruptly became very serious about her religion — it caught me completely off guard. We broke off the engagement (and everything else) when I refused to convert, essentially.

In hindsight I’m glad it happened because I love the relationship I am in now, but at the time it was pretty rough, and I admit it still colors my attitudes.

I think you’re making a false distinction. It isn’t the Mormon Church OR you wife; it’s both. Of course you’re right that your wife is ultimately responsible for the personal consequences of her chosen beliefs – and I’m not faulting you for failing to recognize that before your misplaced dislike of the Church took hold – but had it not been there the weakness of your wife wouldn’t have been exploited.

Substitute any other irrational belief of Mormonism, and any other individual for your wife, and it’s the same situation: a person who doesn’t know any better but could gets taken in by an ideology that not only fails to make her know (reality) better, but makes her no longer able to know any better.

However, that still doesn’t answer the question: why was she weak?

I say this with absolutely no intention to hurt you, but perhaps the real fact you need to learn to accept is that you were willing to love someone who wasn’t yet worthy of love. What I’m saying is, it’s not her choice to become a LDS which made you two incompatable, it was her incompatability with (inability to love) a lovable person like yourself which drove her to the Church.

It’s interesting, just as she settled for the love of someone (God) who, because of who he is, can’t love her back (he doesn’t exist), so you settled for someone who, because of who she was, couldn’t love you. The degree is much smaller, but it seems like the same type of evasion.

Kirarand: Yeah, I know “sharing” on the internet is generally a bad idea, but I guess your story just struck a familiar chord with me. Feel free to ignore it if you don’t think it sheds any light on your situation.

Objectivists consider every individual to be ultimately responsible for their own feelings. A person who forcibly injects them into any discussion and expects others to deal with them is abdicating this responsibility, and is not one to be taken seriously.

If your big issue is people being mean to each other, I suggest you browse Daily Kos or Free Republic and learn about how the mainstream treats each other (if you’re lucky enough to catch their comments and/or diaries before they get zapped).

Beyond that, I would say that the give-and-take between Objectivists is simply because we are adults and we can handle it. Unlike Leftists and conservatives, we know the difference between ideas and ourselves.

You won’t likely get much of an opportunity to see that distinction in action, however, because nearly all criticism of Objectivists is personal — case in point, that Rachel Maddow quip you seem to think merits more than dismissive attention. Nobody else would put up with that sort of horsehockey, so why do you expect that we should?

Of course, if that’s the sort of commentary you think should be taken seriously, I have my doubts about your ability to judge such matters.

I’m very sorry but I can’t help myself.

I’m sorry, but you can.

Based on what I’ve read of your livejournal, I’m not expecting a detached perspective on Objectivism from you. Under the circumstances, I can understand why. I’m not going to try to convince you of its merits, nor am I going to argue against your characterizations of its deficiencies. I regret that you have suffered needlessly because of how people in your life behaved.

You see, I have suffered for reasons similar to yours. The person I loved, and who is lost to me now, fell under the brainwashing of the Mormon church. I now am… not very objective when it comes to anything LDS. This has caused strains in my relationships with lifelong friends who happen to be Mormons. They carefully avoid the subject of their faiths. They steer away from conversations that would involve religion in any way. I could very easily see myself writing a blog just like your livejournal, substituting Mormonism for Objectivism.

Deep down, in honest self-reflection, I know it’s not the LDS church’s fault. Oh, don’t get me wrong: their doctrine is made out of whole cloth like that of every other religion. (I am atheist.) But as much as I hate the LDS church’s teachings that so affected my lost love, I know that I am being irrational, that it was HER choice to live by those teachings, that it was HER choice to believe those things, and that ultimately, she could have decided otherwise, but instead chose the path she chose. Here’s the tough part: even though I know that, I still blame the Mormon church, and not her. It’s just… easier, I guess. It’s serious evasion. But I’m going to keep doing it even though I know better. I guess I just can’t bring myself to condemn a person I cared for so deeply.

You and I are not alone in this; it’s not hard to find stories of those whose families have been torn apart by other belief systems, religious or otherwise. Heck, if memory serves, I believe Metallica frontman James Hetfield wrote some very angry songs because of his parents’ involvement in Scientology and how it affected his upbringing. Yours is the first anecdata I have ever heard of Objectivism doing this, but I’m sure your situation is entirely real to you. I hope maybe one day you’ll be able to do what I cannot: acknowledge that the real problem is your parents, not a set of philosophies that they may have studied. They had free will, and they chose to act as they did. That is their fault, and not Ayn Rand’s or any other philosopher or writer.

In reply to your other question, I imagine the abrasiveness of persons posting here is for the simple reason that Objectivists do not consider feelings or emotions to have epistemological value. In other words, the people who care about hurt feelings aren’t the people Objectivists hope to persuade.

There is no evidence anywhere here of familiarity with Objectivism; rather, your familiarity is merely with strawman representations thereof, and that does not count.

As for your degree in philosophy, I suggest you get your money back. With the exception of a somewhat better level of decorum (and I do appreciate that), your points are no more substantial than the ones made by this guy.

Evidence: in comment #3, your question: So, do you like spending more money on healthcare, or do you want to bring costs down? Aren’t you a conservative? Nobody familiar with Objectivism, whether they agree with it or not, would seriously ask if we were “conservatives”.

Now, ten bucks says one of you egoists posts again. You can’t resist. Your desire to put in the last word is simply too strong.

Projection. See comment #12: I’ve said my piece, I’m done here. I’ll leave you existentialists to it

followed by comment #17 Okay, I do have time for one last quick post.

…followed by four more comments.

Thre is one straw man Paulhus invokes which I’ll take care of now, because it pops up quite often from conservatives and liberals alike: the idea that the alternative of individualism vs. collectivism is the issue of whether people should work together, versus whether they should work alone.

This is shallow definition-by-nonessentials. Individualism vs. collectivism is not about teamwork vs. going it alone; it is about the moral terms upon which any collaboration of any kind is predicated..

If individuals are free to opt in or out (i.e. to accept, reject, and set terms upon which he will collaborate) it’s a team, not a collective, and operates on the individualist moral premise regardless of the organizational structure.

If the individual is NOT FREE to accept the terms of the organization, but is instead forced to participate, then moral sovereignty is vested in the group. That is collectivism.

An army of volunteers operates on the individualist moral premise; an army of draftees operates on the collectivist one.

The test of whether any given collaboration of two or more individuals is individualist or collectivist, is simply this: are individuals free to opt out of the system?

In the case of Canada, the answer is plainly no. A Canadian is NOT FREE in regards to medicine. His liberty is abrogated on two fronts: the system is funded by taxes, and it is illegal for him to freely contract with another for medical services (except in Quebec). THAT is what makes the system “socialized” (as in socialism).

This is the fact which blows Paulhus’ unsupported assertions of the superiority of single-payer out of the water right there: if it were so “objectively superior”, self-interested people would construct it for themselves, once rationally persuaded of the system’s superiority.

And yet, no socialized system has ever been set up without the subjugation of the individual. coercion. This is true for socialism great and small, whether it envelopes an entire society or a single industry: the socialist must explain why their alleged goals are morally antecedent to individual rights.

When we all pool resources to ensure things like clean air, clean water, good roads, less crime, rescue services, I could go on, then that allows each individual to spend less time and resources on survival and more time on invention, innovation, etc.

That’s beautiful, man. Really. Pooling resources to ensure things. Allowing individuals more time for important stuff.

It’s wondrous governance indeed that inspires such open-handed sharing and delivers — ensures — such good return.

What planet is it on?

Now it simply becomes a matter of degrees whether we include healthcare in that list of ‘things that benefit all’.

I say yes! Yes! How could we not include so self-evident a boon? Likewise million — no, billion — dollar gifts on our birthdays and flying ponies, please.

Actually, I implied the opposite.

I said your points were incorrect because they assume fallacious premises, inaccurate terminology, invalid (yet creative) definitions, and widespread context dropping. Pointing out a syllogistic fallacy is not an attack on character. There was nothing ad-hominem in my replies.

Take care.

And, Brad is clearly saying my points are not valid because I’m ignorant. That is indeed a type of ad hominem attack. It’s probably more accurate to use the term ‘ad hominem abusive’.

But we can agree on one thing, there is nothing more to be accomplished here. Now, ten bucks says one of you egoists posts again. You can’t resist. Your desire to put in the last word is simply too strong.

The definition of Pragmatism is: “the doctrine that practical consequences are the criteria of knowledge and meaning and value.” Of course, as my deleted posts from before mention, you have consistently failed to know the definitions of terms you use. You clearly don’t know the definition of “ad-hominem” based on your reply to Brad.

I don’t think there is anything more to be accomplished here.

Brad, again with the ad hominem attacks? That’s disappointing. C’est la vie. I realize I’ve put forth a number of uncomfortable questions that you don’t have answers for. At least think about them, there’s no harm in that.

I must mention that you’ve conveyed substantial ignorance with regards to the fundamental tenets of Objectivism. If you want to present any semblance of street-cred amongst Objectivist readers, you’d at least need to have a firm grasp of the basics – as opposed to what comes off as a cliff-notes level memorization of key words – before you could effectively argue against them. Not sure where you picked up the notions you have, but I’d suggest you check your sources and consider starting over.

Best of luck.

You just argued your way out of pragmatism. Congrats! It’s a step into a much larger world.