FYI for Objectivists
Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 6 months ago to The Gulch: General
There are various arguments taking place here involving self-interest vs national-interest (the latter of which I do *not* conflate with "general public" or "public good"**).
As most Objectivists appear to be atheist, I feel it a safe assumption that they also agree with the theory of evolution, therefore I would like to share this possible revelation with them:
Man is descended from monkeys, not cats.
By which I mean, Man is a tribal animal, not a solitary one. Concessions must be made for the tribal nature of Man by those Objectivists of a more anti-social bent, or else their arguments will be based upon bigotry and not rationality.
I have to include in this one non-Objectivists; Humpty Dumpty, aka Maphesdus, who abhors "nationalism", which is nothing but an extension of tribalism.
** "nationalism" as "tribalism" deals with the divide between those within and those outside a given tribe; "general public" and "public good" deal with those within a given tribe; hence my differentiation of the two.
As most Objectivists appear to be atheist, I feel it a safe assumption that they also agree with the theory of evolution, therefore I would like to share this possible revelation with them:
Man is descended from monkeys, not cats.
By which I mean, Man is a tribal animal, not a solitary one. Concessions must be made for the tribal nature of Man by those Objectivists of a more anti-social bent, or else their arguments will be based upon bigotry and not rationality.
I have to include in this one non-Objectivists; Humpty Dumpty, aka Maphesdus, who abhors "nationalism", which is nothing but an extension of tribalism.
** "nationalism" as "tribalism" deals with the divide between those within and those outside a given tribe; "general public" and "public good" deal with those within a given tribe; hence my differentiation of the two.
"A symptom of the tribal mentality’s self-arrested, perceptual level of development may be observed in the tribalists’ position on language.
Language is a conceptual tool—a code of visual-auditory symbols that denote concepts. To a person who understands the function of language, it makes no difference what sounds are chosen to name things, provided these sounds refer to clearly defined aspects of reality. But to a tribalist, language is a mystic heritage, a string of sounds handed down from his ancestors and memorized, not understood. To him, the importance lies in the perceptual concrete, the sound of a word, not its meaning. He would kill and die for the privilege of printing on every postage stamp the word “postage” for the English-speaking and the word “postes” for the French-speaking citizens of his bilingual Canada. Since most of the ethnic languages are not full languages, but merely dialects or local corruptions of a country’s language, the distinctions which the tribalists fight for are not even as big as that.
But, of course, it is not for their language that the tribalists are fighting: they are fighting to protect their level of awareness, their mental passivity, their obedience to the tribe, and their desire to ignore the existence of outsiders."-Voices of Reason
"“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.” "
If I get the energy, I'll dig out my copy of There Will Be War and type in John W. Campbell's two editorials, "Tribesman, Barbarian, Citizen" and "The Barbarians Among Us". You might find it interesting.
Our respective use of "tribal' appears to be on different axes; I'm talking about our tribal instinct, like the pack instinct of wolves and dogs; this is something we all have, and so we can't be differentiated in it as 'tribailists' and 'non-tribalists'.