Is Objectivism capable of being societal glue?
I'm not asking this to disparage Objectivism.
I view Objectivism more as an individual philosophy rather than a binding societal philosophy.
How can a collection of independent individuals bind into a decentralized society without the need to manufacture laws based on their shared morality? And, when that Gulch grows too large, more than a few hundred residents, and people do not know each other personally how do these "laws" or "guidelines" handle such issues as murder, rape, and theft. Does one Objectivist have the right to imprison or perhaps even kill the transgressor? If not, and expulsion is the punishment, how does the Gulch protect its sovereignty if that person returns with less principled friends who do not use force but start building their homes in and around the Gulch?
I view Objectivism more as an individual philosophy rather than a binding societal philosophy.
How can a collection of independent individuals bind into a decentralized society without the need to manufacture laws based on their shared morality? And, when that Gulch grows too large, more than a few hundred residents, and people do not know each other personally how do these "laws" or "guidelines" handle such issues as murder, rape, and theft. Does one Objectivist have the right to imprison or perhaps even kill the transgressor? If not, and expulsion is the punishment, how does the Gulch protect its sovereignty if that person returns with less principled friends who do not use force but start building their homes in and around the Gulch?
Galt's Gulch is only a special case since it is so tiny in population. There were clearly plans at the end to develop a constitution for future government.
Your point was also brought up in the book.
I feel strongly (as you have probably guessed) that any attempt at an Objectivist society that does not take human fallibility , changeability and genuine human deviants into account is not facing reality.
Jan
If you look back on my comment and note that I stated "IF everyone in a society had Objectivist values", not that they DO have those values nor is that possible. That is the reason that some sort of limited, constitutional government in necessary, which I did not state. My comment was only intended to address the IF part of the question. And I stand on my comment that if and only IF everyone in a society had Objectivist values there would be no need for laws of any kind... :)
Respectfully,
Ed
It is not because there is no "need" for law, there just becomes no abrogation of such and therefore enforcement by penalization becomes moot.
I know lots of people who consciously 'have' (state support for, genuinely espouse) a 'good work ethic'. But their actual work habits can be summed up in a single word: Facebook.
Even IF everyone consciously supported Objectivist values you will not exclude fallibility and self-deception. And I fear that persuasive and reasoned arguments in that direction create the image of a world that cannot exist, and exclude the conceptualization of a rational society that has to deal with such problems.
Jan
Jan
I agree with your assessment. However, the nature of man, I think, prevents such a society.
Would the value/use of the oil to someone else or many others overrule his value to grow produce for consumption or sale?
A serial killer kills a Gulcher. Gulchers form a circle around the killer and pick up stones.
A preacher who has come into the Gulch to spread the Word says, "He who is without sin, cast the first stone."
One Gulcher says, "Well, at least I never killed anyone up until now" and casts the first stone.
All the Gulchers kill the serial killer who would definitely kill again.
The preacher rips his garments.
One killer Gulcher advises the distraught preacher of a good tailor in the Gulch.
My, my, my!
Say, would you believe allosaur is a Christian?
Actually, we would just point our friendly neighborhood allosaur at the perp...RARW! (gulp)
Jan
I had a lengthly conversation with Bulgarian transplant who worked for me when I took him to Las Vegas for a trade show. He thought Socialism was superior in every sense until I explained/pointed out what you stated.
The answer to all three situations boils down to, you can't expect a large population all to agree with your ideals, no matter what they are, even after you've had your society running a while. So if you want government in a form that relies on everyone believing, then you need to form a proprietary community, which can kick out those who disrupt it, preferably in some way that's "fair" but there must be absolutely no way for an outside state to overrule that decision.
Which implies either some sort of *small* new-country project, or a "Gulch" that is strong enough militarily to defeat an attempt by the country it's in to take it over or shut it down. There are places where the latter is possible (for example Somalia), but they tend to be havens for the kind of serious bad guys that will provoke a major country to shut them down.
Rand treated government as an institution. History--that of the American Revolution--gives us other possible answers. Like Committees of Safety, composed of--and funded by--the major stakeholders.
Hitler stole priceless art. should one pay HIM to own it ?
What are "manufactured laws"?
What is a "societal guide"?
The main branches of philosophy are metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and politics.
Ethics deals with the science of values and a code of morality for making choices. It depends on knowing the nature of man and his relations to reality, so it requires metaphysics and epistemology.
Political philosophy deals with the nature of rights and government, and depends on ethics.
The basics of Ayn Rand's ethics and politics are included in her anthologies The Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism the Unknown Ideal. They are also explained in Leonard Peikoff's comprehensive book on her entire philosophy, the facts that give rise to it, and how it is logically integrated -- Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand was not an anarchist and gave her reasons why a government of objective laws is necessary.
Consider the following scenario; The collectivist government discovers the existence of the Gulch and prepares a military invasion to conquer and enslave its citizens. How would the members of the Gulch react and what sort of response would they prepare that was consistent with objectivism?
There will never be a society in which all or even most members agree on philosophy and values; at most, you can have one in which the dominate *main* ideas and values are reason, individualism, and freedom.
Even reasonable men disagree (look at all the arguing Objectivists do!). Moreover, when it comes to property and life actions, there is a lot at stake and people have difficulty being objective. Consequently, there will always be a need for a open, regularized means of resolving disagreements, i.e. law, courts, and enforcement.
But, to answer AJA's initial question: independence does not mean asocial; it means using one's own judgment about how to live and supporting oneself existentially. In fact, a large, large number of values which fulfill human needs and allow us to flourish come from social interaction.
So it is in the individual's interest to discover and live by principles and laws which encourage peaceful and productive human interaction.
History shows us that the discovery of philosophy, laws, and the way to organize and implement law so as to protect individual rights were crucial to developing the best, freest societies, such as the early U.S. (well, freest if you were not a slave...but that was a deep, unfortunate contradiction accepted for survival reasons which ended up costing a gigantic amount in human lives).
I think the society of the Gulch would build on the discoveries of those before them, correct the flaws of the Constitution, etc. to allow for the society to grow and flourish. In AS, a knowledgeable, respected judge is an important part of the Gulch.
As you can see, my inclination is to make the USA into the Gulch.
Jan
*We have to NOT forget the educational institutions this time. Big lacuna there.
p.s. where is your quote from?
I am pleased to make your acquaintance.
Jan
There have been a ton of Gulch conversations about the observation that the most crucial failure point in capitalist/republic-ist (as opposed to Republican) philosophy was that liberals became the majority, and default, philosophy in education. Socialists took a very effective long view - and it worked. We now have several generations of people who simply 'accept' socialist doctrine as being natively true - they do not even think about it...it seems to be like breathing to them.
Unlike you, I am not involved in education, but if a functional philosophy (socialism has shown itself to be dysfunctional wherever it has been tried) is going to take back over the USA, then we need to keep it in the schools - We must not make this mistake again.
I would be interested in your view on this as an educator.
Jan
The pilgrims were extremely insular. Today they are misrepresented as the poster-children of America when they wanted nothing to do with anyone else. I think if a Gulch were to get to large or if external society encroached on it, even peacefully, it would fracture and fall apart.
That's why I see many small "Gulches". Pockets of freedom here-and-there and not one large Gulch.
themselves.
Sp
It is the responsibility of government as employees of the citizens to provide an honest and level playing field and protect the rights of citizens against all enemies foreign or domestic or in government.
Absent that they serve no purpose.
Once again. As long as your vote in an election or the outcome of your selection be bought by outside influences Government has failed. If Government has failed what's the point of voting of them?
One simple change. Those who MAY not vote MAY not volunteer funds, material, nor time nor do so outside the geopolitical confines of their ballot and their precinct, their county, their city, their state or their nation,
This in no way denies freedom of speech, of assembly nor due process.
Any non voting entity such as a business or a union or other organization is perfectly free within the confines of their organization to conduct open meetings allowing differing opinions - they may not provide funding, time of members or material items - especially the purchase of campaign advertising by any form of the media.
that one change solves many problems. the sole question left is to what limit, if any, a citizen who may vote, registered or not, contribute within the confines of their voting precincts ballot choices?
As to the less principled. Send them to Coventry or expose the fallacies as Rand would say when the conclusion is false one or more of the premises is wrong.
Consider a marriage. Can two people love each other, possess and embrace an individualist philosophy such as Objectivism, and still share enough to be "bound together societally through a philosophy"? I think the evidence is certainly there to answer in the affirmative. While it is anecdotal my wife and I are *very* individual and have a philosophy that embraces and encourages it. However, we are still very much a loving couple. We don't have need to establish rules directly based on our philosophy - any rules we do have are a natural *result* of our philosophy.
If it were true that two individuals can not retain and practice an highly-independent philosophy which strongly stresses us as individuals and remain bound into an agreement such as marriage it would cast doubt on the larger sized collections such as cities, states, and the vague "society". While two people doing it does guarantee a million can, it does mean it could.
Can it work when the parties don't personally know each other? Absolutely - we have that every day in our current society. Laws are simply laws - they can be heavily enforced or ignored. People can choose to, or intentionally, not go along with the laws/rules. But the underlying web of trust is still there. For two people it is simple, but how to go to larger numbers? Consider a driving analogy.
Without laws, how can we resolve the problem of four cars arriving at an intersection? By observation and the basic understanding that none of us want to crash into each other. We don't know everyone at the intersection - I'd say we often don't know any of the other drivers. But when the power goes out and the stoplights are dead we handle it. Based on the unspoken philosophy that none of us wants to get in a wreck and we all want to go along our business.
Sometimes someone steps up and directs traffic. And we follow those directions not because we know and trust the *person*, but the basic underlying principles of what the person is trying to achieve. We are "bound" by that collection of individual desires. We trust the others to share those values - and by and large that trust is rewarded. I could argue the human nature to trust similar people has been a significant factor in our climb to the position we have achieved. Sure, modern changes make some of those innate factors more difficult to process at times and can be overplayed, but fundamentally it does indeed work.
Consider the 98% of people are not socio-/psychopaths assertion. We do not, despite the media, go about our daily lives assuming the inverse. Can you image what would happen if we did? If not, feel free to watch any "cataclysm happens and ALL of society goes in the crapper instantly" movie - which is almost every disaster movie.
Thus, I would argue that in the extreme case of even "just" 98% of the planet were Objectivists there is no reason to believe Objectivism would fail because we can only know a minuscule portion of the population. The underlying mechanisms of trust, I expect, would be even stronger. We would indeed be collectively bound our our shared philosophy of independent individualism.
When you really get stuck into it, the politics of fear are driven by the small portion of our society which has fundamental trust issues. Socialism, Fascism, Communism are all driven by the fundamental lack trust - *we* can't trust *you* to do "The Right Thing", so we're going to impose sanctions on you prior to you actually exercising the choice. This is, IMO, the ultimate reasons such philosophies and political machinations do not work at scale - they are driven by a lack of trust but in the end still rely on trust existing to actually function. To put the final nail in their coffin, those systems do nothing to foster trust, and do plenty to foster distrust.
Objectivism, as I understand it, is the opposite. That it relies on trust is clear (to me) from the onset, and the tenets demand that trust be earned and maintained. The tenets and mechanisms of Objectivism to me seem almost designed to engender trust and provide people the opportunity to demonstrate trustworthiness. While it may not be the only system/philosophy with this characteristic, that it has it means it is more likely than those without it to answer the question of whether a large society of Objectivists can "work" in the affirmative.