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Reminds me of the old joke -- He ran out of the saloon, jumped on his horse, and rode off in all directions.
Do you think that someone who uses the phrase "the public interest," believes that the public is an entity? Of course, a philosopher might be able to enter a trance in which he believes that, but when our fellow man speaks of "the public interest" isn't he asking us to accept a context? For example, the context of our town, where someone says, "It isn't in the public interest to permit homeowners to stack their garbage bags in an ever-growing pile in their front yard. The speaker would mean that individuals in the town generally perceive that stacking your garbage in your front yard just isn't going to work. It is not a rule that can be generalized. It won't fly. I think that is what most people mean by "the public interest." But, of course, the concept--and phrase--present a risk. Who SPEAKS for the "public interest"? Is this a poll or what? A vote? And if I happen to live in an orthodox Muslim community, then it is not in public interest for women to walk the streets unveiled--or alone at all. But, actually, in the Muslim community it IS in the public interest, exactly as not creating towers of garbage is in the public interest in Queens. It is in the public interest because most people in the community feel unable to tolerate a woman in public without a veil. WAIT! WAIT! WAIT! You mean that because a majority of people in a community have irrational, subjective, not to say vicious views on woman and sexuality that THEY dictate the public interest? Well, they do. Because it is very evident that that is the public interest because you will find only the rare individual who says otherwise. Oh, fine, then: you mean that majority whim has to rule? No, I mean that it does rule. In every society. Of course, in a society like America in the 21st Century there is a vastly broader landscape within the borders of "public interest" than in, say, an Iranian rural village. And yet, we all will appeal to the "public interest," whether or not we use that phrase, when any of a thousand contextual, parochial, often almost local norm of behavior are violated. What the HELL is the bottom line? I am thinking that the quotation from Ayn Rand, perhaps crucial in a certain context (politicians loudly proclaiming "the public interest" to advance their policies or whims, as Kennedy did when crushing United States Steel, the occasion of Ayn Rand's outburst), is nevertheless a dangerous unreality in other contexts. Will the young reader of Ayn Rand, like the devotees of Marat during the French Revolution, conclude that by sheer logic, from fundamental premises, he will decide all matters of human morality, all behavior, and that, that alone, will guide his life--and, he hopes, all lives? That there is NO "public interest," in any context, and his pure deductions will and must create a world from nothing but logic? If so, I would suggest to you, he is a terrifying presence, proclaiming there is no guide to life but my philosophy, deduced from timeless principles, immediate and immediately valid... There is no public, no history, no custom, no context... all must fall before me...
I think he is saying- there is unfortunately a concept ' public interest'.
Even when you can identify it, it is best to ignore it.
However, I can't help thinking the writer has misinterpreted the example of women being veiled. Does the majority of the Muslim community actually benefit ("interest") from the veiling? or is it just that very few of them would dare to speak out against it?
If so, is that underlying fear really in the "public interest"?
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/20...
(you need to click on the photo to begin)
I looked at the link, at first sight there is nothing special, but then you realize how different it is today. Things were bad under the Shah, he had ideals, he thought he could improve the nation by force, instead the force led to dictatorship. When he was thrown out, things got worse. It is worth noting that the cause is not Islam, not that this is anything I like in the least, the problem is Islamism.
Curious, a month ago I came across photos from Afghanistan also from the sixties and seventies. Things under the monarchy and the Soviets were bad, but there were improvements. Much as in your link, photos showed women in classes, waiting for buses, in labs, cafes and shops. Then the Taliban took over.
She was not discussing the epistemology of those who reify the concept of the public or misuse it as if it meant an entity. She relied on the normal common sense reader to understand why there is no such entity as "the public", which refers to "a number of individual", to show how "any claimed or implied conflict of 'the public interest' with private interests means that the interests of some men are to be sacrificed to the interests and wishes of others".
Discussion here of neo-Platonists who do think that "the public" literally means an entity -- such as in raising the question "Do you think that someone who uses the phrase 'the public interest,' believes that the public is an entity?" -- pertains to those who can't get as far as the first few words in her opening phrase of the quote.
There is nothing wrong with discussion of the "public interest" provided it does not degenerate into rambling linguistic analysis, but there is much more to the significance of the quote, and paying attention to what she wrote shows that understanding the public interest as no more than the interest of a number of individuals does not say there is no such thing as the public interest.
In addition, my first two posts were the first in response to the earliest two comments in the thread, which stumbled at the first words in the first phrase of the quote: They fallaciously complained that "the public" is an entity and that Ayn Rand's rejection of "holism" is a ''primary philosophical weakness". They didn't even get as far as a "public interest".
Please pay attention to what is written, and avoid instructing others with insinuations of having a "lack of interest" and a "lack of insights".
I have read every comment posted on this site. I must say that it was a fascinating discussion ranging back and forth as to the meaning of Ayn Rand's comments regarding “public interests” and the meaning of “society.”
In my understanding of Ayn Rand's writings, they mean that above all else, human beings must have respect for one another. The term “society” means only the understanding of that basic rule. All other forms of progress as a “society” can only follow if that rule is honored by everyone.
Unfortunately, the desire for power of one man or woman over another takes precedence for many people, especially politicians.
I believe that human beings are all born with a basic understanding of good and evil. I also believe that there are a few that are purely evil and will do anything to gain power over others and their property including intellectual property.
I also believe that Ms. Rand's philosophy was in fact much more basic than many of the arguments I read on this site make it appear. She fully understood that man's value is in his intellectual prowess which allows him to accomplish anything his mind can conceive.
Ladies and gentlemen, as Sigmund Freud supposedly once exclaimed, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Don't fall into the trap and over-think her philosophy in Atlas Shrugged. It is a simple love story based on respect and the monumental fight of good versus evil. The good are the individuals and the evil is the power of government gone awry.
Fred Seckmann
commonsenseforamericans@yahoo.com
The most efficient solution to your questions is of course the individual over their own wealth, their own knowledge, their own future generations. They individually choose to be a member of an institution or or a State. Too many for too long have relied on Society as you say and come up lacking. See Society has done nothing for you-there are only men who want power who claim that you must do something for it.
Rand was rightly saying that emergent property cannot have its own interests, separate from its individuals.
You say, "We start by observing individuals and then form concepts of groups based on relationships between them, not the other way around," but in fact it actually can absolutely go the other way around. There's nothing wrong with starting from the individual and working up to the group, but there's also nothing wrong with coming at the issue from the other direction and working down to the individual with the group as the starting point. Both approaches are valid. Insisting that everyone conform to a single mode of thinking is the characteristic of a dictator.
Here in the real world, holding _concepts_ of groups is not "collectivism". It is not "collectivism" to conceptualize a group, which is cognitively required to even talk about collectivism let alone reject it. Conceptualizing, talking about, and rejecting collectivism does not turn "the public" or any group concept into a physical entity. Regarding every concept as referring to an entity is Platonism.
There is a lot "wrong" with inverting the logical hierarchy, claiming to start with a concept of some kind of group and "working down" to the individual. The order is not arbitrary. The concept of a group requires that there be a group of some number of _something_ and is meaningless without that. The attempt to invert the hierarchy of logical dependency in forming concepts results in subjectivist thinking in floating abstractions disconnected from reality.
You can "conform" to any bizarre "mode of thinking" you wish. If you expect to be thinking and talking about the real world and communicating with those of us who live here rather than a Platonist substitute, then your thinking had better conform to reality and how we form concepts in a hierarchy based on perception of reality.
Do whatever you want, but rejection of the fallacies of Platonism, subjectivism and collectivism is not "dictatorship". You don't understand that concept either. You are very confused.