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Postmortem !!Qe8ScDbX+ started this discussion 13 years ago#25,990
Sorry I used to support it guys. I've learned the error of my ways. Objectivism comes down to a justification of selfish behavior. Human beings are naturally selfish a doctrine that makes that a virtue is at its best superflous, and at its worst dangerous.
Anonymous B joined in and replied with this 13 years ago, 26 minutes later[^][v]#393,797
lol great criticism not
Anonymous C joined in and replied with this 13 years ago, 4 minutes later, 30 minutes after the original post[^][v]#393,798
Is Cloud Atlas a good movie?
Anonymous D joined in and replied with this 13 years ago, 18 minutes later, 48 minutes after the original post[^][v]#393,813
@previous (C)
Yes, the plot is great, because there it takes place in the past, present, and future, and while the stories seem to have nothing to do with each other, it turns out that across time and space these people are living the same story, where a failing cart/train/spaceship lines is failing, and only a strong female lead can turn things around and eventually go to atlantis.
Anonymous C replied with this 13 years ago, 33 seconds later, 49 minutes after the original post[^][v]#393,815
Oh wait I meant Atlas Shrugged. It was the Objectivism one.
Anonymous E joined in and replied with this 13 years ago, 10 seconds later, 49 minutes after the original post[^][v]#393,816
It's not just about selfishness. It's based on self-ownership. The core principle of objectivism is that other people have no right to you, or the fruits of your labors, and that you do not automatically owe them, or society, anything. To deny this core principle implies that other people have more of right to you and your efforts than you do. This is slavery. While it would be very nice of you to give these things to other people and/or to society out of benevolence or an act of charity, they are not inherently owed. There is no moral obligation to charity. If there is a moral obligation, then it is no longer charity, it is moral obligation.
There are people who may use this principle to act like selfish dickheads, and while that still makes dickheads, the point is that they have a right to be selfish dickheads. You have no right to tell them they are not allowed to be selfish dickheads. You can call them out on being dickheads and make them feel bad about it, but the fact is they owe you nothing. They owe society nothing.
In Ayn Rand's writing, a lot of her characters are selfish dicks who care only about themselves. I don't think the point she was trying to get across was that everyone should act like those people because the world would be a better place if they did. I think the point she was making was that even if you take her philosophy to the logical extreme of everyone simply being a selfish prick, you cannot make a logical argument for why they are wrong to do so. You can make a lot of emotional claims about how it's wrong, but you can't disprove the core principle of self-ownership. No matter how much it sucks for you, people have a fundamental right to be selfish if they want to.
A good way to test if a philosophy holds up to scrutiny is to stretch it to the extremes and see if the logic still holds. She wrote the way she did to prove that the logic still holds no matter what extreme you hold it to.
(Edited 1 minute later.)
Anonymous C replied with this 13 years ago, 1 minute later, 50 minutes after the original post[^][v]#393,820