What do Objectivists think about manipulating irrational beliefs to defend themselves from irrational adversaries?
Posted by Poplicola 9 years, 3 months ago to Ask the Gulch
I was recently re-reading part of Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" and wondered what Objectivists thought about how Asimov had his fictional society of scientists essentially rely on psychological warfare in the form of an artificial religion to defend itself against an irrational but numerically superior enemy.
At a less extreme level, would it be tolerable to Objectivists to acquiess in the preservation of a "Civic Religion" with respect to those who can not be convince to embrace Objectivism, if that belief system would, despite its lack of an Objective basis, result in society fostering an environment in which Objectivism could safely be practiced and expanded?
At a less extreme level, would it be tolerable to Objectivists to acquiess in the preservation of a "Civic Religion" with respect to those who can not be convince to embrace Objectivism, if that belief system would, despite its lack of an Objective basis, result in society fostering an environment in which Objectivism could safely be practiced and expanded?
Previous comments...
Since we do have free will, psychohistory makes less sense in fact.
Propaganda, for want of a better term, when looked at closely by an individual tends to fall apart. Groups on the other hand, never look closely enough to see the flaws, they are listening to their peer group opinions. So the propaganda holds together to achieve the intended effect to some degree.
But the portrait of psychohistory in Foundation goes way beyond that. And in fact, prediction over decades, centuries, and millenia is unlikely to be proven true.
We have free will, but for many people the range of choices they can or will exercise is very limited. Limited enough to allow some useful predictability, even now.
It was a good series of books, but it was definitely far away sic-fi. The plausibility of the story was there due to Asimov's skills as both a hard scientist and story teller. Not a lot of writers the skill set to hang it all together like that.
Have you read the "prequels" to Foundation? In Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation, psychohistory is portrayed much more in terms of probabilities and percentages, and compares somewhat to quantum physics. In Quantum physics, you can't tell what a specific atom is going to do, but given the mass as a whole, the results are predictable.
When I first read the two prequel books (a long time ago) I remember thinking that a better name than "psychohistory" might be "quantum humanics".
That's what I remember, anyway.
1. That someone could invent a scientific/mathematical approach to anticipating human behavior on a massive scale. One would have thought that if such a thing were possible, Seldon would simply have taken over the stock market and used the acquired economic power to push forth change.
2. That they actually used the religion of science at one point to rule the galaxy. (Does global warming sound familiar here?)
3. Ultimately, it was the development of the mind that went on to rule. The caveat to this was that it was only a minor cabal - not the majority of society that ever developed these attributes. And instead of being able to enjoy these developments, they had to continue to surreptitiously control the galaxy.
And some of the beliefs in that "Way" are certainly not required by rationality, and may arguably be irrational to hold.
Farther than that I will avoid going, lest it hurt someone's feelings. (Though I snicker at the thought that anyone adult enough to belong to something called the Gulch would want to have anything to do with the current fad-ideas of "triggering" and "safe spaces"!)
Like any system of thought, it can be parroted dogmatically.
But I'm curious at the implication that there are essential ideas of Objectivism that it is irrational to hold. Please enlighten me.
Another way of looking at Objectivism: it's the basic ideas of the Enlightenment (reason, pursuit of happiness, liberty), but taken seriously and defended against Hume, Kant, Rousseau, and the post-Enlightenment critics.
David Kelley and I have drafted a textbook called "The Logical Structure of Objectivism." http://atlassociety.org/objectivism/a... .
I have written a set of short, linked essays surveying the key ideas of the philosophy: start here: http://atlassociety.org/objectivism/a... .
Other notable surveys include Leonard Peikoff's "Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand" and Tara Smith's "Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics."
I hope this information is helpful.
But perhaps you meant a book that begins with summarizing the ideas and intellectual context of the Enlightenment, then discusses and dispatches with its critics. I don't have one of those handy as such.