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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #7560318 - 10/25/07 06:55 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Actually, no...! You didn't get me, because Objectivism views sympathy, compassion, altruism, etc as a sign of psychologal weakness. Sympathy itself is seen as irrational and immoral. Your argument would be solid if we were talking about ethical egoism in general, but we are talking specifically about Ayn Rand's ethics.


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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #7560781 - 10/25/07 09:06 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Objectivism views altruism as wrong because altruism views self-sacrifice as a moral action.

When did Rand object to sympathy and compassion, so long as they did not obligate one to sacrifice one's own happiness?

Quote:

Ethics: Egoism
Egoism means "self"-ism, just as altruism means "other"-ism. Egoism means that a rational man acts in his self interest. That this is the moral choice. Altruism means that one acts, first and foremost, to further the interest of others. Objectivism views altruism as inherently evil. This is because man, as a matter of fact, like all living creatures, acts to further his own life. Altruism teaches man that his most basic imperative is evil, and thereby engenders in man an irredeemable guilt.

Objectivism views benevolence as a major virtue. It does not value self-interest, per se, but rational self-interest. Do you give a person money out of guilt? Objectivism sees this as a vice, and finds it reprehensible. Do you give a person money because that person represents a value of yours, and by giving him money, you are furthering that value? Objectivism sees this as benevolent and virtuous.
http://www.starways.net/lisa/essays/objectivism.html




Quote:

Rand's repudiation of altruism seems to be due to the unusual way that she defines the term. Her idea of altruism is that man must selflessly place the welfare of others above his own. A more common idea, however, is that altruism is a man's concern for or dedication to others' interests in addition to his own. Charity, compassion, and the desire to give pleasure to others can have their place in human relationships as long as they do not play a principal, determining role or are accomplished through the involuntary redistribution of individuals' wealth.
http://www.quebecoislibre.org/011124-15.htm




I would be interested in reading any links you might have to statements by Rand in which she condemns compassion and sympathy, as opposed to altruism and self-sacrifice.


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Veritas]
    #7561493 - 10/26/07 12:38 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

From Atlas Shrugged:

Quote:

Do you ask if it's ever proper to help another man? No - if he claims it as his right or as a moral duty that you owe him. Yes - if such is your own desire based on you own selfish pleasure in the value of his person and his struggle. Suffering as such is not a value; only man's fight against suffering, is. If you choose to help a man who suffers, do it only on the grounds of his virtue, of his fight to recover, of his rational record, or of the fact that he suffers unjustly; then your action is still a trade, and his virtue is the payment for your help. But to help a man who has no virtues, to help him on the ground of his suffering as such, to accept his faults, his need, as a claim - is to accept the mortgage of a zero on your values.




Atlas Shrugged is a tome of attacks against sympathy and compassion. No emotion is seen as an acceptable reason to behave in a certain way, especially not sympathy or compassion. The only moral action is an action taken purely to advance ones self-interest. As Nathaniel Branden said:

Quote:

If, in page after page of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, you show someone being heroic by ruthlessly setting feelings aside, and if you show someone being rotten and depraved by, in effect, diving headlong into his feelings and emotions, and if that is one of your dominant methods of characterization, repeated again and again, then it doesn't matter what you profess, in abstract philosophy, about the relationship of reason and emotion. You have taught people: repress, repress, repress.




And this is a particularly revealing quote:

Quote:

Would you believe that sometimes in therapy clients speak to me with guilt of their desire to be helpful and kind to others? I am not talking about manipulative do-gooders. I am talking about persons genuinely motivated by benevolence and good will, but who wonder whether they are "good objectivists."




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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #7562250 - 10/26/07 09:20 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

No - if he claims it as his right or as a moral duty that you owe him. Yes - if such is your own desire based on you own selfish pleasure




This is exactly my point, and I disagree with your conclusions based upon this quote. If one experiences true compassion, then the efforts to resolve this feeling would be, by definition, motivated by rational self-interest. If one is motivated by guilt and obligation, by a sense that one will not be a "good person" if one rejects anothers' claim on your assistance based upon his needs, then you are NOT compassionate and NOT sympathetic.

As I already posted: "Objectivism views benevolence as a major virtue."


Edited by Veritas (10/26/07 09:56 AM)


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Veritas]
    #7563114 - 10/26/07 12:21 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Have you ever read anything by Ayn Rand? Objectivists are supposed to live exclusively by reason. If one experiences compassion, one is being irrational. (Because, according to Objectivism, emotions proceed from value judgements. If you feel compassion then you must be an evil altruist.) Acting on this irrational impulse would make you immoral.


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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #7563702 - 10/26/07 03:17 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

I think that you have misunderstood Rand's ideas entirely. How would benevolence be a virtue if compassion was immoral and irrational? This simply does not follow. What she argued against was self-sacrifice, not the act of helping others. Look again.


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Veritas]
    #7563853 - 10/26/07 04:23 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Have you ever read anything by Ayn Rand?


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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #7564198 - 10/26/07 06:06 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Yes, I have. Are you going to back up your claims regarding compassion and sympathy being regarded as "immoral" by Rand? I think that I have already provided adequate quotations regarding her POV on the matter.


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Veritas]
    #7564205 - 10/26/07 06:07 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

I hereby protest against thread hijacking.


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Offlinefireworks_godS
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Silversoul]
    #7564221 - 10/26/07 06:11 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Look what the cat drug in. :smirk:

And there is no thread hijacking going on. Discussions naturally take on a broader scope, nothing is preventing the original topic from being discussed as well. :smile:


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Like being here
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Loving every breath of you

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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Silversoul]
    #7564234 - 10/26/07 06:14 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

:lol:  I'm just going with the flow, baby!


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Veritas]
    #7564490 - 10/26/07 07:44 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

I'm sorry, but Objectivism cannot be explained with a few quotes from the internet... Which books did you read by Ayn Rand?


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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #7564588 - 10/26/07 08:13 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead & her address to the graduating class of West Point "Philosophy: Who needs it?"

I'll ask again, do you have some support for your assertions that compassion and sympathy were regarded as immoral by Rand, or will you concede that you have invented this based upon her opinion on self-sacrificial, moralistic "altruism"?

It is not up to me to disprove your assertions, as you well know.  :smirk:  But just FYI:

Quote:

Roark's kindness to Mallory, marked by "understanding and respect" rather than any "secret pleasure" at the latter's agony, is portrayed as a genuine virtue. It is a moving scene of benevolence between human beings, one of many that occur in Rand's novels.

"Benevolence" means good will toward others. It is a positive attitude toward people in general, a desire for their well-being and for peaceful, cooperative relationships with them. It is contrasted with hostility, malice, envy, or other forms of malevolence. It includes such traits as kindness, generosity, sympathy, charity, and tolerance as elements. (In moral philosophy, these latter are sometimes called the "virtues of benevolence.")

The author of The Fountainhead and of Atlas Shrugged clearly regarded benevolence as a positive trait, an element in the proper relationships among men.
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/showcontent.aspx?ct=38&h=51




Edited by Veritas (10/26/07 08:33 PM)


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InvisibleMiddlemanM

Registered: 07/11/99
Posts: 8,399
Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7565612 - 10/27/07 02:58 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

"He who knows not that the Prince of Darkness is the other face of the King of Light knows not me."

I'm starting the Luciferian Church of Christ. Who wants to join?



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OfflineRedstorm
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #7566107 - 10/27/07 09:01 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

MushmanTheManic said:
Quote:

Icelander said:
Quote:

MushmanTheManic said:
Quote:

Wisdom is measured by one's capacity to Be Compassionate.




The older I become the truthier this seems. I view rational self-interest, to use objectivist terminology, as the symptom of a psychologically under-developed person. It seems that many people are selfish merely because they're not strong enough to be compassionate.




I tell you this dude. Rational self interest is compassionate towards others. Irrational self interest is fear driven. It is certainly in my self interest to live in a compassionate world. To gain a bigger piece of the pie to protect myself at all costs is really not in my rational self interest as happiness is for sure a condition of my self interest.




Rational self-interest cannot be compassionate towards others. To a person following Ayn Rand's ethics, compassionate behavior is merely a tool to use for your own selfish end. Doing something for the sake of another at the expense of yourself is considered ethically wrong.






The bolded is not necessarily true. Rand uses the example of a drowning woman. If this is just a stranger, you probably should not risk your life if you are not a strong swimmer to save her b/c you gain nothing and more than likely will never see her again.

If it is your wife or someone you hold dearly, she believes it is acceptable to risk one's life if you would find it impossible to live without that person.

There are times when you can commit actions at the expense of one's self and still be in the realm of Objectivism. What she believes is that one should never sacrifice something held dearly for a triviality.


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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: Redstorm]
    #7566841 - 10/27/07 01:44 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

What she believes is that one should never sacrifice something held dearly for a triviality.





Or a sense of obligation which was not matched by your values. The person one saved need not be held dearly in terms of their future relationship with you, but only valued for their own merits. IOW, one might save a stranger whom one had assessed as being full of merit, even if the effort of saving them involved personal risk.

One might also act in rational self-interest by performing benevolent acts which one sees as important or valuable, and worth personal risk, as this would increase your enjoyment of life. These intrinsically-rewarding behaviors are often falsely described as "altruistic," because the rewards are not seen by others, while extrinsically-rewarding behaviors tend to be described as "selfish."

In Objectivist terms, "altruism" is motivated by obligation & guilt, and involves the moral judgment that sacrificing yourself is the greatest good. Clearly, intrinsically-rewarding behaviors do not fit this description.


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Protest Against Religious Bigotry! [Re: backfromthedead]
    #7567651 - 10/27/07 06:56 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

You may be goofing, but there was a letter found by theologian Morton Smith a few decades ago, secreted away in a monastery. The letter was written by the ancient theologian Clement of Alexandria and it referred to another version of The Gospel of Mark. In the secret Gospel, there was reference to a toung initiate being led at light to a place where Iesus was, wearing only a sheet. There was allusion in the letter to some kind of rite, and a sexual suggestion comes of it. I reject the possibility of homosexual sexual ritual on the grounds that it doesn't fit with Jewish practices or even Greek Mystery Religion. There were sex-magick type Gnostics, but they came way after Iesus walked the Earth.

If Iesus was sexual, I believe it was with Miriam called Magdalene. Men were not permitted to speak openly in the Temple unless they were married and the New Testament says that Iesus spoke in the Temple. His marriage to Miriam would've been repressed by the Christian patriarchal myth-makers. Iesus was also a Bar Mitzvah, but the New Testament doesn't specifically mention this rite of passage, only His visit to the Temple when He was 12, which is not the age of 13 at which Bar Mitzvahs take place. Iesus would also have received a B'ris - ritual circumcision on the 8th day after His birth to celebrate His inclusion as a Jew under the Abrahamic Covenant. There is no mention of Iesus' B'ris in the New Testament. We only have writings which say that He was buried before sundown on what is now called Friday, the eve of the Jewish Sabbath (Shabbat). So one must extrapolate Jesus' B'ris, His Bar Mitzvah and His marriage as well.


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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