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Is Objectivism a Religion?

Started by Bobby_Ouroborus, February 14, 2013, 05:38:30 PM

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BarkAtTheMoon

Quote from: "Bobby_Ouroborus"
Quote from: "the_antithesis"Who's Anne Rand and why should we care?

Because this cult like other cults and religions has made inroads in our political landscape.

Yup. The recent douchebag Republican VP nominee, Paul Ryan, is a self-professed big fan of Ayn Rand.
"When you landed on the moon, that was the point when God should have come up and said hello. Because if you invent some creatures and you put them on the blue one and they make it to the grey one, then you fucking turn up and say, 'Well done.' It's just a polite thing to do." - Eddie Izzard

Jason Harvestdancer

Quote from: "stromboli"Objectivism is the shit that Paul Ryan and others secretly practice while calling themselves Christians. Either way, Randian Bullshit.

Paul Ryan practices Objectivism the way Anton LaVey practices Christianity.
White privilege is being a lifelong racist, then being sent to the White House twice because your running mate is a minority.<br /><br />No Biden, no KKK, no Fascist USA!

GurrenLagann

Which means that to me the offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can\'t give way, is the offer of something not worth having.
[...]
Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty & wisdom, will come to you that way.
-Christopher Hitchens

Mister Agenda

Ayn Rand is dead. She can't disfellowship anyone anymore. No one is in charge of Objectivism.
Atheists are not anti-Christian. They are anti-stupid.--WitchSabrina

Bobby_Ouroborus

Quote from: "Mister Agenda"Ayn Rand is dead. She can't disfellowship anyone anymore. No one is in charge of Objectivism.

There are several organizations dedicated to spreading the Gospel of Ayn Rand. Each one of those organizations claims to be the only true followers of Ayn Rand's philosophy and claim the other churches...I mean organizations dedicated to spreading the message of Ayn Rand are really posers or worst. There is backbiting and throwing out of members in each one of those organizations.

So quit the bullshit. Just because she is dead, doesn't mean she doesn't have any organized group of followers..there are several.

Thumpalumpacus

#20
Quote from: "drunkenshoe"I am personally confused, because as far as I remember from general education, they are both after a 'certain goal' with human mind. So... I don't know. If anyone has made some special readings on the subject, they are welcome.


I read through a few of her non-fiction books as a youth who came to her through her denunciation of religion.

She identified altruism with socialism, and as a result of that false equivocation (which probably arose as a result of her personal experience, having seen her family's wealth expropriated by the Russian revolutionaries), she came to associate altruism as a synthetic human construct of intent, rather than a survival strategy which predates humanity in evolution (as can be seen not only in other primates, but in insects, fish, and many, many other animals.)

At any rate, she imputes an obligation, a duty, to altruism that is not always there -- which is why she calls people who've fallen on hard times and collect aid from the state "moochers" -- and as a result she sought its source, and (wrongly, in my opinion) fastened the blame upon Kant, probably because of his "moral imperative".

It might interest you to know that she also had an inordinately strong antipathy to Nieztsche, and regarded him as Dionysian to a fault.

In a final irony, she was destitute as she suffered from lung cancer, and forced to rely upon state assistance at the end of her days.  Bitter medicine for a bitter woman.

There's a religiosity to her followers that is shitty, and those dumbasses deserve mockery.  She had some good ideas, and certainly reading her helped me get my sealegs for topics of economics and morality, but at the end of the day, her philosophy strikes my as somewhat shallow, and at points it is a temper tantrum.

I have never been able to finish any of her "novels", due to turgid prose, one-dimensional characters, and her unfortunate penchant for hectoring the reader at every turn, rather than letting her stories breathe.  Plus, her dialogue is perhaps the worst dialogue this side of Lovecraft, and must be read to be believed.
<insert witty aphorism here>

ThePilgrim101

QuoteObjectivism's central tenets are that reality exists independent of consciousness, that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception



Quotethat one can attain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation and inductive logic



Quotethat the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness (or rational self-interest)



Quotethat the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights embodied in laissez-faire capitalism and that the role of art in human life is to transform humans' metaphysical ideas by selective reproduction of reality into a physical form—a work of art—that one can comprehend and to which one can respond emotionally.

Quote from: \"azmhyr\"
Quote from: \"quoting\"New Testament doesn\'t Justify the banning of gays from anywhere.
Well, the old testament permabans them from life tho.

Shiranu

"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

Bobby_Ouroborus

Quote from: "ThePilgrim101"Objectivism's central tenets are that reality exists independent of consciousness, that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception

Well thank you Capt. Obvious.

Quotethat one can attain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation and inductive logic

I see.

Quotethat the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness (or rational self-interest)

Wait. Now here is where you go wrong. How does this premise fit with the first two? That is one humungous leap you too there. Notice people, that this premise in no way fits with the first two, how embarrassing for him.

And by the way this premise is wrong. We do not live in a one-size-fits-all moral universe. Moral purpose is subjective. My moral purpose might be radically different from yours or more rational like my moral purpose is based on survival and learning and not the pursuit of happiness. You cannot say that ultimately life's moral purpose is happiness because you have your nature and I have mine and they differ.



Quotethat the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights embodied in laissez-faire capitalism and that the role of art in human life is to transform humans' metaphysical ideas by selective reproduction of reality into a physical form—a work of art—that one can comprehend and to which one can respond emotionally.
[/quote]

How sad of you that you are so fricking stupid that you cannot tell the fucking difference between a social system and an economic system. Economic systems leave a moral void being that they are merely an exchange of goods and services, that is why we set up social systems to govern said exchanges, to make sure they are done on a moral basis.

And art is subjective, it has no expressed goal or purpose except that which the beholder gives it not  for the propagation of certain metaphysical ideas that would be propaganda and propaganda is usually shit art like that book Atlas Shrugged for example, shit art...a big piece of didactic shit like Dianetics. Being a former art student I tend to stick that the purpose of art is aesthetics or the mere enjoyment of art. Art is foremost to please the senses not instruct them.

Like some old witch once said - "Check your premises"

ThePilgrim101

QuoteWell thank you Capt. Obvious.

I see.

Wait. Now here is where you go wrong. How does this premise fit with the first two? That is one humungous leap you too there. Notice people, that this premise in no way fits with the first two, how embarrassing for him.

And by the way this premise is wrong. We do not live in a one-size-fits-all moral universe. Moral purpose is subjective. My moral purpose might be radically different from yours or more rational like my moral purpose is based on survival and learning and not the pursuit of happiness. You cannot say that ultimately life's moral purpose is happiness because you have your nature and I have mine and they differ.


How sad of you that you are so fricking stupid that you cannot tell the fucking difference between a social system and an economic system. Economic systems leave a moral void being that they are merely an exchange of goods and services, that is why we set up social systems to govern said exchanges, to make sure they are done on a moral basis.

And art is subjective, it has no expressed goal or purpose except that which the beholder gives it not  for the propagation of certain metaphysical ideas that would be propaganda and propaganda is usually shit art like that book Atlas Shrugged for example, shit art...a big piece of didactic shit like Dianetics. Being a former art student I tend to stick that the purpose of art is aesthetics or the mere enjoyment of art. Art is foremost to please the senses not instruct them.

Like some old witch once said - "Check your premises"

Quote from: \"azmhyr\"
Quote from: \"quoting\"New Testament doesn\'t Justify the banning of gays from anywhere.
Well, the old testament permabans them from life tho.

Bobby_Ouroborus

Quote from: "ThePilgrim101"
QuoteWell thank you Capt. Obvious.

I see.

Wait. Now here is where you go wrong. How does this premise fit with the first two? That is one humungous leap you too there. Notice people, that this premise in no way fits with the first two, how embarrassing for him.

And by the way this premise is wrong. We do not live in a one-size-fits-all moral universe. Moral purpose is subjective. My moral purpose might be radically different from yours or more rational like my moral purpose is based on survival and learning and not the pursuit of happiness. You cannot say that ultimately life's moral purpose is happiness because you have your nature and I have mine and they differ.


How sad of you that you are so fricking stupid that you cannot tell the fucking difference between a social system and an economic system. Economic systems leave a moral void being that they are merely an exchange of goods and services, that is why we set up social systems to govern said exchanges, to make sure they are done on a moral basis.

And art is subjective, it has no expressed goal or purpose except that which the beholder gives it not  for the propagation of certain metaphysical ideas that would be propaganda and propaganda is usually shit art like that book Atlas Shrugged for example, shit art...a big piece of didactic shit like Dianetics. Being a former art student I tend to stick that the purpose of art is aesthetics or the mere enjoyment of art. Art is foremost to please the senses not instruct them.

Like some old witch once said - "Check your premises"

[ Image ]

You're the one who gave us that nice explanation of Objectivism with the appropriate cartoons...sunshine.

ThePilgrim101

Stromboli posted the definition found from wikipedia.

I just attached my meme reactions to each part.

So, no, I didn't give the explanation. But, uh, good try?
Quote from: \"azmhyr\"
Quote from: \"quoting\"New Testament doesn\'t Justify the banning of gays from anywhere.
Well, the old testament permabans them from life tho.

Thumpalumpacus

Quote from: "drunkenshoe"Thanks, Thumps.

Antipathy towards Nietzsche? Proceed. Aim. Ready...

It's been a good 25 years since I've cracked one of her works, so working off memory, she regarded Nietzsche as irredeemably subjective and in thrall to human whim, one who glorified the relativist valuation of the hedonist rather than accepted the absolutist morality implied by Objectivism's assertion that morality could be arrived at solely by reason.
<insert witty aphorism here>

bennyboy

I think the confusion here is between what Rand or her supporters SAY she believed (i.e. she disagreed with Nietzsche's subjectivism blah blah blah), and the way those ideas actually manifested in her novels.  In the novels, it's clear that her characters are selfish pricks, and that they're using a weak and transparent restatement of "might makes right" to justify it.  Here's the thing-- pricks who look down on others think they're being objective-- and in a sense, they are.  But they're still contemptible pricks, and so's Ayn Rand.
Insanity is the only sensible response to the universe.  The sane are just making stuff up.

Thumpalumpacus

Quote from: "bennyboy"I think the confusion here is between what Rand or her supporters SAY she believed (i.e. she disagreed with Nietzsche's subjectivism blah blah blah), and the way those ideas actually manifested in her novels.  In the novels, it's clear that her characters are selfish pricks, and that they're using a weak and transparent restatement of "might makes right" to justify it.  Here's the thing-- pricks who look down on others think they're being objective-- and in a sense, they are.  But they're still contemptible pricks, and so's Ayn Rand.

Well, firstly, I couldn't finish her novels, because they are to literature what herpes is to romance.  As a writer myself, that shit is not reading -- it's torture.

But like most other ideals, hers suffer when it comes into contact with reality.  She doesn't really address the utility of the social contract, and that omission undercuts any practical application of her philosophy.  You can be as rich as you want -- but when your house is burning down, you'll wish you hadn't viewed taxation as theft.
<insert witty aphorism here>