Had some down time today so listened to the JR podcast with Eric Weinstein and also Jordan Peterson.
I enjoyed them both, perhaps Eric more. I find the pragmatic anti-tribalism reflected in guys like him really refreshing when it comes to political correctness and the cult like extremism that is constantly being thrown at me from all directions. Its exhausting and I constantly feel complacent for not taking a “side” between the extreme liberals I know and the other people I know that blindly hate them. So to have reasonable role models is a great thing! Perhaps through them I can find a way out of my complacency.
I enjoyed Jordan somewhat less but maybe it is just because the main topic was his motivational tour he was just on which I found him a little too high on himself for what I thought was fairly unoriginal ideas.
I’ve created a third side, “non-tribalist mockery” or perhaps “aggressive moderatism”? I just rip into the cultists on all sides, it’s great, target-rich environment!
The Fountainhead!!! Wow! No contest… best book I ever read. Reading it easily makes it into the top 5 experiences of my year so far. Some rare themes in there which are not celebrated often and that are personally important to me.
I think Rand’s ethics of individualism are often misinterpreted. Easy to do. That said, I am glad I chose The Fountainhead over Atlas Shrugged. After digging further into Rand’s full spectrum of ideas, I would not be a blind subscriber to everything she believes… which is an obvious conclusion to make. Seems like Atlas Shrugged houses some of her more obnoxious ideology.
Good on ya KMD. Turd has dropped a ton of knowledge in the past explaining how misunderstood Rand’s philosophy is and it’s nice to see you pick up on it. The typical response to Rand is to attribute concepts that simply do not exist in her philosophy because it exposes the nature of collectivism – which is essentially vampirism. So their only defense is to attack a straw man.
I think if you analyze Atlas Shrugged with a discerning eye you would conclude the attacks on those ideas are the same straw man attacks. In any case, I’ve concluded that Rand’s philosophy underpinning her works - Objectivism - is internally consistent and 100% valid. It’s problem is that it is incomplete. In order to be complete it must integrate the broader reality that God and reality beyond the five senses objectively exist. Her philosophy actually explicitly states that in order to be valid, it must integrate all known information without contradiction, so again it is consistent with a more encompassing reality, it just doesn’t go far enough.
These realizations took me 10+ years to fully integrate, but having done so I can easily understand how things will unfold in the world. EVERYTHING has a basic philosophy underpinning it. When you can boil everything down to its basic philosophy, you can easily see whether the outcome will be positive or negative for individuals and humanity as a whole. There is only one duality in physical existence – positive or negative, life affirming or destructive, love (life) or fear (death).
I really don’t see how you can poke any holes in her ideology in theory. In terms of real life implementation, yeah, it’s a hard sell. But, it opens avenues to interesting discussions.
I have found it a common sentiment to call Rand “juvenile”. I think this stems from the fact that many people read her before they had the maturity and life experience to understand what she was talking about AND that they don’t want to do the work to actually understand her completely so therefore boil her down to some sort of over glorified “greed is good”.
It really is a shame because Objectivism really is a elegant way to define a man’s relationship with himself vs. his relationship with others and society. The way it all plays out, the philosophy seamlessly supports personal responsibility for one’s wellbeing as much as it condones the dark side of externally based ethics, power over others.
On the surface individualism is a kind of banal topic, yes? What I found so satisfying in Objectivism is that it celebrates some more subtle details to “individualism” that seem to be lost on most people. I will explain. I think most people when asked to define a person who inhabits “individualism” will describe someone who picks their own parameters for life (religion, lifestyle), and in general puts their own interests before the collective. However, this is too simplistic. Rand’s philosophy specifies the difference between someone who bases their individuality on picking a few selection to “subscribe to” off of a buffet of identity labels…and somebody who is internally motivated and seeks no external identity labels.
Another theme in Objectivism that I personally found soothing was her precept that relationships between individuals should leave neither one sacrificing or taking sacrifice…should be “fair trade”. I have made some unconventional call in my personal life based on that sentiment. I have been questioned and even shamed for those choices. Feels really really good to see how elegantly the idea can fit into the big picture.
Where my support for Rand diverges is in using Objectivism as some sort of proof for lazzie faire capitalism. Although I connect with Objectivism as a foundation for personal ethics, I don’t think it is reasonable to assume others will naturally embrace it as well They should not be forced to. A society based on Objectivism is to extreme and makes many unrealistic assumptions. A society that allows for an individual to embrace it on a personal level if they choose is ideal.
underlying everything is the ideal you’re pursuing. Collectivist pursue an ideal of control and vampirism. The opposite pursues the ideal of the sovereign being, which is in alignment with universal law. Everything eventually conforms to universal law and the amount of pain and suffering humanity is subjected to is directly proportional to the extent to which this universal truth is denied. Rand understood this, Gringo doesn’t.
With Rand checked off, that leaves me with the two other books I was reading:
Better Angels of our Nature (Pinker)
Skin in the Game (Taleb)
The pair of these books were meant to be a dichotomous endeavor. However, Taleb’s arguments against Pinker’s data interpretation ended up beating me in the end. I shelved Pinker …and Taleb as well, mostly because I just needed a break from him lol!
Now…to stay with my theme of challenging that which I admire, I am reading the antithesis of The Fountainhead. I am reading “Walden Two” by Skinner. Going to TRY to consider it fairly!
I am interested in getting into essay writing so I can have some vehicle to actively participate in all my reading and unique life reflections. This has lead me back to Pinker. I am going to read “The Sense of Style” which is his modern take on the classic writers manual, the elements of style. I really like Pinker… just not as a historian. Pretty excited to read this!
