Reply #4: Premise? [View All]

Thanks for your reply -- I'll start out with a direct shot.

First: I don't think it is "OK" to use force or fraud to compel behavior, but I also don't limit my idea of unacceptable influence, either. There is no "premise" to what I wrote -- except that when someone starts hammering me with their propaganda, I hammer back.

Second: How you parse "it is okay to compel someone via force or fraud" from my argument methodology is a mystery. I think you wrote it from a sense of pique. The "force/fraud" thing is a trope that they use as a linchpin of their ideology. It's a rhetorical tool. I have never heard it used in argument as anything except a rhetorical tool; and a blunt one, at that.

The method of argument I wrote about is a rhetorical tool, too, for self-defense. It's a good idea to be able to defend oneself when an untethered ideologue tries to humiliate you in public, no matter what school of though s/he's fighting for. Philosophy, on the other hand, is something else. When I'm arguing philosophically, I assume a certain level of civility will be maintained. And, yes, that is possible with many Libertarians, but "many" ain't "most", and it ain't very many Objectivists™ at all.

As to the value of the force-fraud idea per se, yes, it is a valuable logical device for understnading power as well as literature. But once again, I was not arguing philosophically.

If you haven't read Rand's essays, you probably should. They are often much different than her fiction. I find her fiction to be much more uplifting and optimistic than her essays, which have a uniformly pessimistic view of human being.

She pays quite a lot of lip service to deploring conservatives in her novels, but, like her use of the word "freedom", she defines that as she sees fit. For example, her essay on racism starts with a ringing denunciation of "racism", but continues for several pages supporting the political tricks that allow racism to flourish. This is a common approach Rand takes to her subject matter, and many Conservatives have adopted it.

Rand also wrote extensively about art (in essays), and the gist of her arguments come down to, "modern art sucks". Her taste in literature ran toward romanticism, but it was her definition of romanticism, which was a free-enterprise reflection of Soviet Social Realism.

I was quite surprised when I realized that her critical theory arguments were so simple and ignorant. I don't judge an idea on its complexity, but Rands' were just plain dumb-ass cantankerousness dressed up in the language of deep thought. Your last paragraph cuts to one of the major faults of Objectivism™, the idea that if the philosophy is "correct", it's exposition is of minor concern. (And, from what little I know about Persig's view on quality, it is primarily metaphysical, and would tend to be rejected by an Objectivist™ on that basis alone.)

The "secular Buddhism" you speak of is absent everywhere in Rand's work except her characters, and that's only some of her characters. She made John Galt "mysterious" and "inscrutable", since Galt is the incarnation of her idea; so he would appear to have the traits we think of as "Buddhist". But Buddha's stated "ambition", if you could call it that, was to forsake breaking the cycle of rebirth until every sentient being in the universe came to Enlightenment. This stands in stark contrast to Rand's hyperegotism and anti-altruism.

And speaking of ideosyncratic definitions, Rand does not mince words -- if you are not an Objectivist™, you are a "collectivist", a "sheep", a "thug", an "altruist", and "anti-life". All of these terms, by the way, have special, neo-hermetic, Randian meanings.

I have a few friends from the libertarian movement who I can still talk to; I also have kept many of my old libertarian ideas. It's the libertarian fraud I take issue with; intellectual fraud used to justify political force.

All of the above should be read with "IMHO" foremost in mind; but the method of argument works well with libertarians and Objectivists™ who try conversion-through-bullying, and shouldn't be confused with intellectually constructive argument -- or debating with Quality!

--bkl