I would have to agree, that their attitude is more of a narcissistic selfishness, aka, the non-productive selfishness. Their attitude is more of "I want my stuff! And because I do not understand other people, they can't have their own stuff!" In this arena, there is selfishness for good purposes and there is selfishness for bad purposes.

This I think is the opening quote from her article. I first read it in 1979, and the opening sentence sums it up nicely.

What? There most definitely ARE races that separate man kind. Differences in evolution, lifestyle, diet, and in life dangers clearly separated the races after that first monkey fell out of that first tree. All of these things are verifiable by tracking things like body structure, genetic diseases, illness proclivities, and even intelligence. Only a fool who wants to stay ignorant of reality says otherwise.

Now, even though the races ARE DIFFERENT, doesn't mean that they should be treated different. And that doesn't mean that races aren't disappearing, and will continue to disappear with the modern world involving easy travel, inter-marrying, and the sharing of knowledge. But 30,000 years of separate evolution will not be wiped out by 30 years of pretending it didn't happen. It may take several hundred years for all the different races to get molded into one. And even then, some sort of external factor may, yet again, separate the races into something different. Earth dwellers vs. Mars dwellers, for example. Under the Ocean inhabitants vs. Mountain Inhabitants.

I agree with you.

I'm trying something new with this thread. My idea is to reserve all "first-tier comments" to quotes from the book in question. Any discussion should be a reply to one of these quotes, or someone else's replies. Otherwise Rand's quotes will get crowded out and pushed down into oblivion. Does that make sense?

If you want to play along, please copy your comment and re-paste it as a reply to one of the quotes. May I suggest her opening quote here:

http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/387a6793/racism-from-the-virtue-of-selfishness-by-ayn-rand~7a27e5d7kbci3h7pp7ubjukfxy

Excellent. The quest for unearned judgement. Pseudo self-esteem.

First, if everyone were of the same "race," other issues would be found to create division. Just look at Cambodia, Ireland, the Balkans and Rwanda, for example. Second, men have been mistreating each other for thousands of years, whether they looked alike or not, and every time that behavior has been driven by a perceived advantage. Third, until we choose Galt's pledge (I swear, by my life...), this problem isn't going to go away. Finally, we must accept that what goes around, comes around. No one was upset (other than blacks) when Wilson imposed segregation and preferential treatment in favor of whites on the country, and established an environment where race was going to be used as a club going forward (which it has, as we've seen). What's needed is to eliminate ALL racially based privileges and punishments, and return to a system of INDIVIDUALITY, which hasn't been here since the founding. When we compromised on our principles at the Constitutional convention, by allowing slavery, in the face of, "we hold these truths to be self evident...," we set the stage for racism to be one of the defining issues going forward, even though slavery itself was eliminated some 90 years later. Since then, we've gone back and forth over this one issue, and rather than eliminating it once and for all, we've merely chosen to use it to beat up on one group or another. No one seems to remember "we hold these TRUTHS to be self evident...," but just wants to get even for past behavior, the famous eye for an eye, which leads to blindness for all. I believe that it all starts with, at least on the black side, the belief that blacks were innocent pain in the ass bystanders in the slave business, when in fact, from Africa to the new world, they were some of the main players. This doesn't mean that whites were innocent pain in the ass bystanders either. However, we need to understand that, until England and the US outlawed slavery, it had been a global institution for thousands of years. The people engaged in that business were coming from a place where slavery was "normal," unlike some today who know better, even the Nazis, Communists and Muslims. Bewailing the injustice that's befalling some at a particular time does nothing but build up resentment for future rounds of this game. What's needed is a complete cleaning house of the evil of attempting to attribute any character based attributes to skin color or ethnicity, rather than the content of one's character. If we don't address this issue, we're wasting our time attempting to "save" the country.

Too many people in today's society make such assumptions about the background and intentions of people around them that guilt is assumed far quicker than innocence.

This quote is my favorite! "But the smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”

And it is shameful that no conservatives spoke out against those laws -- and that Rand's essay on the subject stands as the sole monument to individualist analysis of the social problem of discrimination.

There are no races in our species. "Race" is a social construct based on self identification per the Federal government guidelines since the 90s when our knowledge of genetics advanced to the point where it was clear there are no races in our species.

I do not dispute this in principle, but I will comment that a friend of my described in detail how unfair scoring and quotas had let women break through into soccer teams.

I mention this for a discussion as to whether a pragmatic ruling can be used to implement change (we are all resistant to change).

Jan

See my comments on this aspect of the problem elsewhere in this topic thread. We too often excuse and therefore validate racism and racists when they retreat behind their property lines. Objectivism is not a philosophy of toleration.

"Private racism is not a legal, but a moral issue – and can be fought only by private means, such as economic boycott or social ostracism."

Private racism remains immoral because it is irrational. How do you react to that?

A historian of capitalism, Ernst Samhaber, said "A good merchant does not argue religion with his customer." Other people's idiocies are not your concern as long as you get the goods or services you want at the price you are willing to pay. On the other hand, the fundamental message of Atlas Shrugged is that you do not work for your destroyers.

So, if I needed a wedding cake and if I knew that a shop refused to decorate cakes for gays, I would go somewhere else, the same as I would if they refused to serve Jews or disabled veterans.

I have thought this for years, and was glad to see it published here: "A man's rights are not violated by a private individual's refusal to deal with him. Or as OA put it somewhere else, in a free society we associate voluntarily, which implies we may disassociate (or refuse to associate) voluntarily. Anti-discrimination laws violate this principle. We ought to be legally allowed to discriminate as we like.

And I appreciate the distinction. Just because we legally allow discrimination does not mean that we have to like it. But there are other remedies than always appealing to the coercive Government.

We see this all the time in our politically correct world. A little bad press, and businesses cave voluntarily. Think of the fallout around Donald Trump's remarks. Univision, NBC, Macy's...he just calls them cowards.

Or consider the "Confederate flag." Dukes Of Hazzard is being dropped. Apple stopped selling games. Target (et al) stopped selling the flags. This was all voluntary, due to "social ostracism" and the threat of "boycott."

I think this is the way things should work. I think people are overreacting, and being irrational about these things. But let the free market work, rather than appeal to the Government to fix these things. The same should apply to our right to discriminate.

This is where we still open the door to racist conservatives today. The argument that you have right to discriminate on the basis of race (or religion, etc.), is irrelevant to the fundamental issue of racism. Objectivism is a philosophy of reality and reason. Toleration for stupidity is not one of the principal tenets.

By comparison, we generally agree that the so-called "war on drugs" has been a 40- or even 80-year failure. But no one asserts their right to heroin or meth or crack, even as some states are finally legalizing marijuana. And on that point, many Objectivists will assert that smoking pot is at least as harmful as drunkenness. There may be chemicals that enhance creativity, focus, etc., but we are far from finding them - and they are not the subject of the drug law debates. No one is trying to get tons of vasopressin into the country. Massive police sweeps do not imprison college kids for taking Adderall during finals. So, that is not the discussion. The fact remains that no one positively asserts their right to smack, crack, and meth. … but some conservatives still do assert their right to discriminate on the basis of race (gender, etc.). (And, yes, other self-identified persons of whatever advocate "keeping to our own kind.")

Alternately, when we have the interminable debates on religion, the theists do not hunker down behind their political right to believe. Whatever their metaphysical arguments, the claims made (at least here in the Gulch) at least tend to be intellectually defensible. Racism is not. So, the racists must turn to hollow claims about their property rights in order to win tacit approval of their ignorance.

When Objectivists grant that point, we fail to assert the more fundamental truths about the reality and logic of ethical individualism.

I agree with you.

I'm trying something new with this thread. My idea is to reserve all "first-tier comments" to quotes from the book in question. Any discussion should be a reply to one of these quotes, or someone else's replies. Otherwise Rand's quotes will get crowded out and pushed down into oblivion. Does that make sense?

If you want to play along, please copy your comment and re-paste it as a reply to one of the quotes. May I suggest her opening quote here:

http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/387a6793/racism-from-the-virtue-of-selfishness-by-ayn-rand~7a27e5d7kbci3h7pp7ubjukfxy

Several fallacies are imbedded in that. We can grant that when Whitney Young said "men" he meant "people" as Rand herself and others of a previous generation did. English grammar forced that; we still have no good solutions. I force "they… their" when I can.

That wider discussion though remains unaddressed: If two people are equally qualified, hire the one whose nominal ancestors suffered the most in the past. That forces people to think only terms of groups at least by ethnicity, religion, and gender … if not by occupation, and shoe size… (Have you ever seen Walt Disney's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" where the chorus sings about Ichabod Crane, "are those shovels or are those feet?")

The question left unasked is how we know that two people are equally qualified for a job -- including the job of cutting your hair, fixing your car, or operating on your heart… (I know that time is running out, but somewhere in this country, there must be a gay Black female cardiologist in a wheelchair.)

The real discriminations that we still suffer regardless of our nominally "equal" qualifications often have to do with whose class ring you wear.

Racism is prejudice with power. In our society today, it is all too easy to find all kinds of people with all kinds of power.