Not to speak for elucidator, but that’s not at all what I see him saying. He’s saying that as an individual, independent and objective and rational and all, it’s very likely the case that his individual contribution to a given war is negligible. The successful outcome of a war is driven by a collective effort, n’est pas?
The rationally driven, self-interested position is to allow a bunch of other stupid suckers to give themselves over to the collective in defense of my own individual liberties.
Mother Theresa was a rather spectacular example of this kind of person. Proclaiming one’s noble motives is actually a very common way of hiding one’s real motives not only from others but from one’s self as well.
But that is explicitly not an Objectivist position. In Objectivism, you do not deceive or manipulate others to gain a value. If you proclaim yourself to be a good citizen but are not willing to bear arms in defense of the nation (assuming you are physically able to do so), you are gaining a value under false pretenses.
Seriously, talking to you guys about Ayn Rand is like trying to explain to a Christian fundamentalist that Wicca is not Satanism.
You’re leaving out the fact that an Obhectivist would strive to be the best at what he does-- which means he’d be looking to rise through the ranks and be a leader. In that case, your contributions are magnified. In fact, you don’t even have to be an Objectivist to think like that-- it’s pretty common for people to think that way. Not to mention the increase in pay…
An Objectivist doesn not expect others to live for (or die for) him. That would be a moocher.
Who said anything about proclaiming oneself to be a good citizen?
You think a parasite would be stupid enough not to at least try to hide his parasitism?
See, this is at odds with the education I’ve gotten from other SDMB threads on Rand. I thought the idea was to strive to be the best X you could be. That was the explanation for why Randian philosophy is not elitism. All the guys working in the factories are not peons, they are being the best wrench turner they could be. (There was some debate about a passage in which Rand seemed to suggest that they were toiling due to the beneficence of the Galt’s Gulf bunch, blurring the argument that they were respectable achievers versus mooching blue collar types, but we’ll set that aside for now). So I didn’t get the idea that everyone was to strive not only to be the best widget cutter, but also to be a leader.
What if he does not strive to be a leader? Doesn’t striving to be a leader suggest that some people are expected to be followers? Or are there simply degrees of leaderness? But then someone will be the least leaderish, since not everyone can equally be a leader. I suppose as long as they are being the best leader they can be even when they are last in line is the answer.
So they do expect a collective effort may be required to defend ongoing indepedence? If they are all supposed to strive to be leaders, how do they carry out military efforts? Someone has to be the leaderest private, right? And if I think I’m the best leader, it’s important that I not also be the first one off the Higgins boat, because rationally my superior value is not best spent using up enemy rounds. My rational self-interest and efforts to be a leader conflict with my obeying someone else’s orders.
You can be both. The best widget cutter NOW, then the striving to work up from there.
People are not static in their jobs for all time.
This is a false dichotomy because it doesn’t all happen at once. I start at the bottom and work my up over time. While I’m working my way up, I know I am expected to follow orders from above. That’s my job.
It doesn’t sound like Rand would really approve of anyone joining the military unless the pay/benfits package represented a good “trade” to the soldier.
Can we examine this idea a little?
I didn’t see anything remotely altruistic about James Taggart. I saw him as a straight, down-the-line businessman who wanted to succeed at any cost. Sure, he was incompetent and made poor choices. He sometimes dressed up his poor choices in altruism but I never got the idea that his altruism was sincere - it was a cover for his desire for power and influence.
There were genuinely atruistic characters - like Catherine Halsey - who brightly illustrate Rand’s idea that altruism is harmful and immoral but I didn’t see Taggart in that way at all. Hence my earlier claim that Rearden and Galt would not have supported the tea parties while Taggart would have been on Fox News every night alongside Hannity and Beck.
Are you kidding? The poor will always be with us. It may not pay well but helping the poor has job security.
I don’t doubt that some people get a real sense of satisfaction out of helping the poor and makes them feel really good about themselves (I bet Mother Theresa (as immoral as she would have been in Rand’s eyes) got a great deal of satisfaction and joy out of helping others even when it was to her own detriment).
Grover Norquist comes to mind.
The folks who adopted Rand’s philosophy after they became rich are (as a group) pretty loathesome.
Folks who use Rand’s philosophy to justify their avarice.
I suggest you read Christopher Hitchens’ criticisms of Mother Theresa. She was a monster.
Yeah, I don’t see the contradiction ebtween what I said and what you said. I don’t know that pharmacists are lower middle class but if she had been really poor and the communist revolution had lifted her out of that poverty, she might have had a different philosophy on life.
To enlighten you my benighted brother. You have all these things floating around in your head that you “think” you know and whenever someone shows you how wrong you are, you simply ignore them and chalk it up to THEIR ignorance. Its a convenient mechanism that allows you to keep believing what you want to believe.
No, I think I understand it quite well. My take on Rand is not some fringe lunatic position, there are plenty of scholars who have a very similar take.
Huh? I thought I “trotted” out the Rand equivalent of “love the Lord your God” and “love your neighbor as yourself.” Are my questions about public education and the military so off point? Are they not instructive about the “philosophy” that Rand put forward? Nitpicking and calling me ignorant seems to be the entire arsenal of your argument.
Yeah and to highlight once again… Rand doesn’t believe in public education or military service the way it is generally understood in our society. See sees public education as theft and sees military service (entered into for something other than the pay/benefits) as folly that results from some sort of societal brainwashing (perhaps the same kind of brainwashing that occurs when people start believing in God or socialism).
Is this typical of your arguments?
That makes sense, because it’s in your rational self-interest to work towards the likely outcome.
To get back to the issue of military service in defense of Randistan, it sounds like you are saying that the product of my rational self-interest should be to join the collective effort and fulfill whatever role I’m given. If my rational self-interest tells me that’s not in my best interests, then I am a moocher.
Is that about it?
No, because you have to take into account if you WANT to be in the military. Remember, it’s a job, like being a sculptor or a scientist or a teacher. Some people like military careers, and remember that an Objectivist society, like any society with an all volunteer military, will structure the military to make it a desireable thing to do. Maybe you’re not very well off, and military offers you a chance to study electronics or even become a doctor. Sound familiar?
It’s not like every Objectivist should come to the same conclusion about what career to pursue. We all have different abilities and interests, and an Objectivist would evaluate his/her abilities and interest “objectively” and act accordingly. If a guy really wanted to be an artist, but his father wanted him to go in to the military, then he’s a “second hander” if he goes into the military. If he wants to go into the military, but doesn’t because his sister is afraid he’ll get hurt, then he’s a “second hander”.
I know he’s the anti-tax guy, but that’s all I really know about him. How is he an Objectivist, beyond being anti-tax? Is he a Limbaugh type liar who uses smear tactics to defeat his opponents? If so, he’s not an Objectivist.
But if you’re just saying he’s “loathesome” because he advocated for lower taxes and does so in an honest way, then you’re just labeling your political opponents “loathesome” because they disagree with you on policy issues.
Anyway, can you flesh that out for those of us who don’t know the details?
Let me add some more about the military issue. I have said previously that joining the military is “just a job”, but that’s an oversimplification and misses an important point. Normally, it’s just a job, but there will be times when it takes on a different dimension-- when your country is facing an real, honest-to-Galt, existential threat. Then, it would make sense for pretty much everyone to focus on dealing with that threat. For many, that would mean joining the military. For others that might mean contributing from the civilian sector.
But I don’t think an Objectivist would think it was “noble” to die for one’s country. I think they’d recognize it as a necessary tragedy, unavoidable during times of war. Or at least it wouldn’t be any more “noble” than pursuing one’s rational self-interest in any way, shape or form during any time-- war or peace.
Clearly, no true Objectivist puts sugar on their porridge…
Well, if I’m reading her right, Rand would have said you weren’t really acting out of rational self-interest. In her view, you couldn’t be both a moocher and someone who is acting rationally in his own self-interest.
She would also expect you to ask yourself if the threat was real or a phantom conjured up by some demagogue, and if the community in which you live is worth defending. So, in some circumstances, rational self-interest would dictate that you just keep a low profile and try to stay out of harm’s way.