Just joined
I've read Atlas Shrugged a couple years ago. Due the many protests going on and how Trump is trying to improve America I have been studying a lot more on politics and wanted to join here to read up on your opinions and discussions. If you have any top 10 books or articles or websites or blogs or anything else you would like to share with a newbie then I would gladly accept them with gratitude. Cheers.
1) Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (Some of the chapters are a little dated, but it is still good)
2) The Virtue of Selfishness. This is about Rand’s ethics, which is one of her crowing achievements and key to understanding her political philosophy. She bases on ethics on objective reality, specifically the nature of man.
3) Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology: Objectivism is ultimately about reason.
The problem with only reading Rand’s works is that you will not understand what she is arguing about and will be confused how it applies in a new situation. So you should understand the difference between Plato and Aristotle’s epistemology and metaphysics. There are a number of great youtube talks on point. Almost all philosophers of any note are essentially in the Plato or Aristotle camp. You should also understand David Hume’s attack or reason and science. Hume is a pure skeptic so he is not really part of Plato or Aristotle. You should understand why Hume’s arguments are wrong. There is a great article in SavvyStreet by me on point. You should check out the youtubes by the Atlas Society and the Ayn Rand Institute. Two great blog/ magazines on point are SavvyStreet and The Objectivist Standard.
For the nature of the "street protests" in particular, see Ayn Rand's philosophical analysis of riots such as Berkeley "protests" in the name of "free speech" (in the 1960s) in her anthology *Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution", particularly in this context the article "The Cashing-In: The Student Rebellion". The root causes and the mentality behind them are same now.
For a discussion on this forum of sources on Ayn Rand see https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
Without understanding the philosophy the politics cannot be understood or changed. Ayn Rand was politically neither a conservative nor a modern liberal. They are a false alternative.
Depending on your interests, I'd recommend:
Anything by Ayn Rand (of course) and others might be able to suggest which books to start with. Rand published several periodicals that are good reading: The Objectivist, The Objectivist Newsletter, The Ayn Rand Letter.
The Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin for the facts about the corrupt banking cartel and how it loots us all every single day..
The Real Lincoln by Thomas DiLorenzo for the history lesson you missed on the eternal cover-up of dis-honest Abe.
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein
The God of the Machine by Isabel Paterson
The Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane
The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman
The Road to Serfdom by F A Hayek
Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater
Is there a way for me to save your comment?
Dob
Thanks. If I tap my name on the top of this page a drop down offers a saved option. That is where I would like to save.
DOB
Recommended recently by the ObjectiveAnalyst.
Titled "introducing objectivism"
Have you read "For The New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" yet?
A good starter for her Objectivist philosophy.
If you haven't yet read "The Fountainhead," it too has so much of real life, it is almost non-fiction -- and it was begun in the 1930s.
That he might be doing it wrong does not negate that he is trying.
But, and no other comparison is intended, Adolf Hitler was trying to improve Germany in 1933. And in some ways he did: the economy improved, a national self-esteem was raised, the Volkswagen was produced, and a great highway system was established.
Did ANY of that make up for the result?
More cognizant of the importance of individual freedom would be a virtue.
Knowing the limits of federal power would be a real plus.
In the meantime, we MUST take every "news" report with a YUGE grain of salt and, while working to inform people and trying to induce rationality among them, and helping explain that reason is our best tool and weapon, we can also hope Mr. Trump does try to improve things.
Thank you for your response.
"The Market for Liberty" by Morris and Linda Tannehill
"How I fFound Freedom in an Unfree World" by
Harry Browne
The moral basis of limited government protecting the rights of the individual is the moral necessity of using reason to pursue one's values, which in turn requires use of rational persuasion in dealing with others and the protection of the rights of the individual against those who use force to impose what they want. It is not based on hedonistic whim worship obliterating the distinction between force and reason. Anarchy is not a moral ideal and is impossible to implement in civilized society.
It seems to me that anarchy may be impossible to implement in an uncivilized society.
Anarchy is impossible to implement in civilized society. The notion of "markets" for force somehow leading to utopian protection of our rights is a floating abstraction impossible to implement anywhere. So is rationalistic manipulation of "definitions" without regard for the meaning of concepts. It is easy to implement anarchy for uncivilized society where coercion is a constant threat and reality.
If we take the term anarchy literally, it is completely incompatible with the concepts of civilization or society. Never in the entirety of human history it ever existed as an intended condition. Set aside temporary situations consequent to major disasters.
So, can I ask you, in few sentences, for this audience, to describe a society living in anarchy the way you visualize it?
Thanks in advance.
Anarchy simply means "no government". And as I stated earlier in this thread I do not believe that humanity is ready for "no government". But the idea is interesting. Most here, I believe, think that a very limited, small, non-intrusive government of some form to be the ideal (along the lines laid out in the U. S. Constitution). I found Rand's description of Galt's Gulch in Atlas Shrugged to be an ideal to strive for. Was there a government there? Certainly not formally. Does it qualify as a small society without a government? You tell me. Would you fear Hank Rearden or any of the others in the Gulch? What if the world were populated with such people? Would there then need to be a government? Completely rational objective beings may not require a government. In that world if a dispute arises between myself and another we will figure out who is right -- if it is me he will learn, if it is him I will learn. If the issue is difficult we may contract with a third party to help find resolution. From Galt's speech we learn that no one has the right to initiate the use of force. If I adhere to that principle then I will seek to remedy any inadvertent breech I may make and so will others that follow the same principle.
For some very interesting stories involving this topic you might like to read some of the works of L. Neal Smith. I also think you might find the "Market for Liberty" of interest. In both you will find more detailed descriptions of these ideas.
This is not a matter of people not yet being "ready" for anarchism while wistfully dreaming of the day when an imagined utopian floating abstraction is somehow possible; the arbitrary use of force is not "ready" for rational human beings and never will be.
In addition to protection from criminals and crackpot anarchists imposing their variety of imagined utopias by force, rational people do require a government, properly conceived to protect the rights of the individual against arbitrary force in general and to establish objective law so that everyone knows in advance what is not permitted.
Those new to Ayn Rand can read her explanation of government in essays such as "Man's Rights" and "The Nature of Government".
The topic of this thread was initiated by someone new to Ayn Rand's ideas and seeking to find out more. It is not a place to spread confusion by those who do not understand Ayn Rand's philosophy themselves, pushing anarchism as an ideal somehow compatible with her philosophy and with civilization -- while recruiting for anti-Ayn Rand floating abstractions with repeated promotion for the resurrection of 40-50 year old anarchist utopian tracts about "markets" for force long ago discredited and rejected for good reason.
Thank you for your response to amhunt. You did much better job than I would have been able to do it.
As we are gradually beginning to glimpse, all living organisms are basically defined by their genetics. That applies to humans too. It seems to me pretty visible that trial and error (mutations) is at the base of the life process. And, by the way, of all the industrial innovation and development. That implies that there is a variation of characteristics among the individuals due to this, in addition of the continuous "remixing of the pot" due to pairing of parents' genetics in procreation.
Human society is not a self-selected club of "chosen". It has to handle "all comers", including "bad apples". The various utopias end up being just incompatible with human nature.
I have been asked by liberal interlocutors many times: "Why can't we all live in harmony and piece?" Which really translates to meaning that I should not disrupt or oppose their joyful building of their utopia, subtly suggesting that I should be forced to cooperate. They ignore that each human being is a unique, unprecedented and never to be repeated individual instance of the species. No wonder that all the monsters, Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Tito and Mao all found it necessary to talk about "new man". If you did not conform to their mold, of course, you ended up in a version of gulag or in a more or less indecorous grave. My answer to them: "Because we are humans."
I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that we are not talking about some esoteric, intellectually dreamed up ideas. This is a very serious subject and these ideas and their understanding (or lack thereof) have enormously serious consequence.
Welcome Jackson.
I would suggest anything Rand, but "Anthem" the 90-page novel will help you ease into sharing the ideas with youth or those not rady to read in dept, to get them interested.
Also:
The Law by Frederic Bastiat
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
UN Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy by Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh who will show you what real slavery un the UN will be like
Websites
www.americanpolicy.org The Amrican Policy Center which connects the dots between local government, school indoctrination and the UN goal for one world government, end to property rights and end of capitalism, whenich they have spoken of openly.
Canada Feree Press website will also put things in perspective.
I larked anything Jean Paul Sartre as well, his idea of choices and responsibility, but stay away from his later Marxist phase.
Religious influences are not the only villain behind the censorship legislation; there is another one: the social school of morality, exemplified by John Stuart Mill. Mill rejected the concept of individual rights and replaced it with the notion that the “public good” is the sole justification of individual freedom. (Society, he argued, has the power to enslave or destroy its exceptional men, but it should permit them to be free, because it benefits from their efforts.) Among the many defaults of the conservatives in the past hundred years, the most shameful one, perhaps, is the fact that they accepted John Stuart Mill as a defender of capitalism.
The Ayn Rand Letter “Thought Control,”
The Ayn Rand Letter,
Mill’s] On Liberty is the most pernicious piece of collectivism ever adopted by suicidal defenders of liberty.
Philosophy: Who Needs It “An Untitled Letter,”
Philosophy: Who Needs It, 114
Of all the things to be read you mention like 4 and put Mill on that list. Sorry, the explanation does not seem to fit.
Neither is it my place to give people "talking points". I do suggest wide reading choices, which will lead one back to and show them why Objectivism is the place of reason. In Mil.ls case, he did talk about altruism, and how too much of it was harmful to people. He said helping was fine, but if it weakened them, made them dependent instead of free, it was wrong.
Just as Sartre became tired and sick and fell into Marxism (hell on earth in my mind), his promotion of knowing we had choices and that wer ultimately were responsible for our decisions, does have value. It is only after you study other views, see where they led, and where they agree, can you see for sure that Rand knew what it was all about. I would hope no one goes directly into Rand, without knowing why those around them have not evolved to that point, and why it is best. This is the broad knowledge approach that no longer exists on our schools, but did exist when Tom DeWeese and I were in high school in Ohio. We might study Mill in one class, US history in another, and Plato or Socrates in Latin. When that ability to read widely is discouraged, we end up with a stupid society hungry for talking points provided from others who have never read widely. Rand came from a communist childhood, she inherently learned from that and was ready to form her philosophy and to embrace capitalism. If you did not have her background, you might not appreciate capitalism as she did.
I have read some really goofy philosophies, but, some make me angry, some I want to shake, but to call them evil is a stretch. Still, I am always glad I read them as I find something worthwhile, maybe one good intention, and a hoard of garbage to take from it. I have rad Mao's Little Red Book clear through at least twice, what he did was awful, but learning about the person is interesting. I was prepared to hate him, and he did awful things, but I learned many in today's business and education have copied him, which gave me something to watch out for. Hitler was awful, he used children, he used the environment, any excuse for power, yet George Soros has said on talk TV it was the best time of his life informing for him. I don't understand it, but maybe I am missing something. Some of the things done in the name of religion over the centuries have been close to evil. But then we have to expand that to rulers over the same periods. Before long, the term is so overused, it ceases to mean much. I mean, pretty son we have a list that includes the Pope,CRF, CIA, drug dealers, crooked politicians, rapists, and on and on endlessly. All I can do is try to live my life in such a way I can respect myself, for my own sake.
Each individual must choose his own particular values and make his own choices for his own life in accordance with rational philosophical principles of ethics, which he must understand himself and which are the "guide". She advocated what those principles should be in "The Objectivist Ethics" and they have been discussed ever since. It does not mean to become an eclectic intellectual hippie pawing through everything from Mill's collectivist utilitarianism to Sartre's irrationalist Existentialism in search of unintegrated, contradictory nuggets of an "ethical code".
And it does not mean to never read anything but her work; that is a strawman that no one does, but which is invoked by eclectics as a distraction to avoid consistency and objectivity. And it does not mean your equally strawman insulting accusations of "hatred of other people" and "some snobby pseudo-intellectual self love fest" that has you so "frightened". You seem to be "frightened" of a lot, and project all kinds of imagined threats.
Condemning extreme immorality, such as a Hitler and Mao or a stridently collectivist ethics, as "evil" does not mean a "religious connection" and does not mean we are not living in the "real world". What world are you living in? Ideas have meaning in the real world. Hitler had no redeeming qualities. Defending the good against the evil is a requirement for justice on behalf of the good.
Every one else who has read Ayn Rand knows that she did in fact "criticize other people", particularly their ideas, when they deserved it and in accordance with rational criteria established in principle. She is famous for her philosophical, principled approach. She wrote, "Judge and be prepared to be judged", not be a dreamy eclectic who will accept anything in the name of the good claimed to be found in something evil. In particular she drew sharp distinctions between her philosophic principles of reason and individualism contrasted with irrationalism and collectivism.
You have branded yourself as a political conservative through your own politics embraced here, including being a follower of the known religious conservative DeWeese and his obsessive UN conspiracy theory claiming "Agenda 21" is the "root of all our problems" (though there are many more sensible conservatives who know better than to follow such bunk). You falsely stated that "DeWeese is completely an Objectivist longer than some of our readers have been reading". That is patently untrue. You can believe whatever you want to but please do not misrepresent Ayn Rand's philosophy as hippie eclecticism absorbing all kinds of contradictions wherever found in a life of dip and sample reading and refusal to judge the ideas of others. And no that does not mean not to read anything but Ayn Rand.
As to UN Agenda 21, it is the root of a LOT ov evil, and if you had been following it for the last 25 years, you would see how it is creeping in to our society, undermining capitalism (as a stated goal of UN officials) and undermining property ownership rights. I have seen the grants the city here has taken, which include sustainability clauses, population density clauses, and the mayor has nto a clue when he take them that he is endangering the private property rights of citizens. Do you even have any idea how the kids are being taught this same stuff in school, how they have no regard fro property ownership and hate capitalism? If the UN says it is about "control" of people, not about global arming, what more do you need. Rand did not want us to stand back and watch someone tell us capitalism was not sustainable, or that governmnet should be owned by government only, as the UN has said. Tom has been an Objectivist for years.
Pointing that fact out to you is not "rabid attacking" with "labels and insults". We discuss things here in terms of facts and concepts. The facts about DeWeese are his own emphasis in his own speeches.
Watching Ayn Rand on TV does not mean you understand her philosophy, which you demonstrate that after 50 years or so that you don't. Ayn Rand's philosophy is not whatever conservative beliefs you brought with you when you were attracted to some aspect of what she wrote or said. You are enthusiastic about that aspect, but she emphatically rejected the overt collectivism of Mill's utilitarian ethics, which so many conservatives embrace, and the overt irrationalism of the Existentialists.
Above all she emphasized the importance of ideas and rejected the anti-intellectual 'evil men' theory of history, conservativism with its tradition-faith-family substitute for philosophy, and in particular conspiracy theories such as the John Birch Society and anything like the current conservative fad blaming our problems on the "UN" and "Agenda 21".
"Sharing" Ayn Rand's philosophy does not mean emoting with dollar signs and stubbornly promoting conspiracy theories. Neither he nor apparently you understand what philosophy is, its role in the culture, or what Ayn Rand's philosophy is. None of it is conspiracy theories.
If you want to understand how the history of western philosophy evolved and how it relates to Ayn Rand's ideas -- including the role of the irrationalism and collectivist ethics of Mill and Existentialism, start by listening to Leonard Peikoff's History of Philosophy lecture series from the 1970s. It is not a "vacuum".
Understanding the nature and role of ideas does not mean embracing religious conservative politics and slogans, regurgitating snatches of whatever you still remember from high school, and rationalizing from testimonials on UN conspiracies as the source of all our problems, while accusing everyone else of being in a "vacuum". That is not an answer to the person who started this thread asking for help in serious understanding.
My study of philosophy may have started when we translated the works of the ancients from Latin in high school, but I majored in philosophy as part of a double major in college as well. I studied many philosophers, I tried to take something positive from each, tried to see if there were similarities between some, and was horrified by the humanism of others. Sartre made sense on personal responsibility, which actually is a quality exhibited by Rearden. He took responsibility for what he did, and he was sure in himself why. Actually, I have read Peikoff, have his books, seen some tapes, but I prefer Rand directly from her won writing.
Why do you deep referring to the UN as "conspiracy? Have you read UN Agenda 21 or some of their document which I have on my computer? As I said, I don't like second hand, I want the document, the video of the speech or a transcript. In the case of the law enforcement, that was first hand interaction, the guy told me what he was asked, interpret it if you will, he is a good person.
I try to stay out of religion, and don't advise others in that area, that is their business, but I am not going to condemn them either way, Their journey, I have my own Objectivist journey.
Why are you so judgemental, are you part of the UN, do you hate religion beyond Objectivist issues? Rand never talked like this.
The reasons for rejecting Mill, Existentialism and UN conspiracy theories and why they are not an answer to the original question of this thread have been given to you. The crackpot UN "Agenda 21" conspiracy theory you emphasize in particular as the alleged "root of all our problems" has also been debunked on this forum several times before and has been explained to you in detail. There are no documents showing the UN rules the country either intellectually or politically.
Despite your repeated diversions trying to personalize this, there are no hidden "real" motives lurking in secrecy behind what is written here. You apparently find conspiracy even in that. As Ayn Rand put it, "judge and be prepared to be judged".