Objectivism?

[The Sociologist]

Who identifies as an Objectivist? I am on the lower end of this kind of thing, because it is somewhat flawed.

 

For those who don't know what it is, allow me to tell you:

Objectivism is a kind of socio-political belief sprinkled in with a little philosophy that was coined by Russian Writer Ayn Rand, in two books, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. It basically suggests that anything man does is because of man and that this work or fortune does not belong to anyone but the man himself. Note that I say man, but women are included. It also strictly says that censorship, ethics, and government, and gods should not interfere with work because productivity is the most noble thing man can do. So it's one of the first forms of atheism. 

 

So, for example, a scientist who finds a cure for cancer can immediately begin testing on humans. If you want another example just play the Bioshock games, the first one in particular is inspired a lot by Ayn Rand. The main character's name is Andrew Ryan, an anagram for Ayn Rand. 

 

What do you guys think? 

[AresKrieger]

I'd say I have some ideals that correlate with objectivism, but I also don't see a reason for censorship in general, as it just stunts the spread of information.

 

Generally I would be called a liberatarian

[VioDuskar]

are you my roommate? 

 

he just began talking about Ayn Rand.

Bioshock1/20 is heavily inspired by AynRand, and has a bunch of symbolism in it. 

 

objective isn't a form of atheism, it's agnosticism. and it surely isn't the first.

[Godlygamer23]

are you my roommate? 

 

he just began talking about Ayn Rand.

Bioshock1/20 is heavily inspired by AynRand, and has a bunch of symbolism in it. 

 

objective isn't a form of atheism, it's agnosticism. and it surely isn't the first.

I would argue that agnostics are atheists.

[VioDuskar]

I would argue that agnostics are atheists.

no. 

 

agnostics either don't know or don't recognize. 

 

atheists are adamantly against the idea or belief of a god. 

[Aytex]

what is life

[Godlygamer23]

no. 

 

agnostics either don't know or don't recognize. 

 

atheists are adamantly against the idea or belief of a god. 

I am an atheist. I define myself as having no belief in any god. Same goes with an agnostic. However, I call myself an agnostic atheist - I don't believe in any deities, but don't claim to know they don't exist.

[Marinatall_Ironside]

It really depends on what subject you're talking about at hand. For me, I'm an objectivist when it comes to PC's (Gaming and workstations) because there are one of two arenas in the world of PC hardware; Best performance overall and best performing PC per dollar (with both subjectivity (one's preferences on hardware brands and etc.)) and objectivity (how fast the system is (overall w/ no value metrics and overall w/ value metrics) workstations really depends on your workflow needs. Mine calls for one that is very, very powerful). In other worlds, I'm really not an objectivist at all whatsoever (music, video games, musical gear, audio equipment (except Bose, all other companies are better with similar price tags), etc.)

 

I also see no reason to have censorship where it doesn't need any. I also hate being called an elitist because elitists express gross snobbery and are dismissive towards some of the simplest things in life.

 

I also feel like I have a double-edged sword in philosophies regarding society and economics. I feel like I'm both a progressive and a socialist at the same time (not the Marxist-Leninist form of socialism. That's communism)

[Volbet]

Ayn Rand suffers from the same problem that most, if not all, political theorists suffer from. Their ideas sound very good on paper, but they aren't that good when applied in practice.

To quote the great philisopher Homer Simpson "In theory communism works". The same thing goes for objectivism. 

 

Objectivism in turn suffers from faulty usage of aristotelian logic and a borderline dogmatic adherence to the Austrian school of economic thought.

Ayn Rand's mastery of aristotelian logic is certainly noteworthy, however, she fails in one of the most basic ways. 

She fails to recognize that logically coherent ≠ emperically coherent.

Said in another way: Just because the ideas she had made sense in her head they don't necessarily make sense in the real world.

Logic is only capable of showing a correlation between concepts and ideas. Logic can't be used to prove anything empirically.

 

Her adherence (and most modern libertarians' adherence) to the Austrian school is quite laughable. 

Ludwig van Mises, one of the most prominent thinkers whitin the Austrian school, admitted in his book Human Action that the Austrian school's ideas could not be verified nor falsified by emperical data. So basically, it all just in their heads and they don't have any real world data to back up their claims.

It also reminds me a lot the claims made by most religous and spiritual ideas, which Ayn Rand opposed.

 

Ayn Rand's rejection of the subjective side of the human experience is also really strange.

Humans are subjective entities and we use our subjective experiences to make decisions all the time.

If we only used logic to make choices, it would take us a lot of time to make said choices.

Yes, I'm sad to inform you that Big Bang Theory is not correct in this matter.

 

Objectivism also builds its ideas on a rejection of humans as natural beings.

Basically, objectivism rejects the way humans have naturally formed societies throughout their history.

Humans have evolved as flock animals and therefore we tend to be very social animals with a strong social bond. 

She also bases her thesis in The Virtue of Selfishness on a very flawed understanding of biology.

Her thesis roughly says that humans are biological machines, who's only function is self preservation. This is then the excuse she gives for acting selfishly.

That is not entirely correct. Human beings desire selfpreservation becuase we want to protect our genes and have as much chance as possible to our genes to survive throughout the generations. Selfishness is a very poor way of doing this.

Humans, as said, are flock animals. There is a reason for this. Humans were never the strongest nor the fastest animals, so we had to stick together to survive.

By cooperating we ensured the passing of our genes.

She also draws a very wrong parrallel. Natural ≠ moral. She is commiting a logical fallacy called an argument from nature.

Ayn Rand also rejected human evolution due to its incompatability with her philosophy.

It doesn't seem all that objective to reject reality becuase it's incompatible with your ideals.

 

Lastly, and this is just a personal gripe, I really don't like either Atlas Shrugged or Foutainhead. I thought both of those books were terribly written.

Both of them, especially Atlas Shrugged, could easily have been written much shorter. Both books contain subplots that leads absolutly nowhere.

I would say that both books suffers from Nietzsche syndrom. The writter might be able of great thoughts, but they are obviously not capable of great writting.

I have always been fond of this quote by John Rogers

Quote

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

 

Edit: I guess I forgot to answer the question.

No, I'm not an objectivist. I think the objectivist train of thought is way too flawed and way too reductionistic to have any workable, real world application.

 

And @OP. How can you be in the lowere end of objectivism? Ayn Rand coined it as an either/or philosophy. 

You are either an objectivist with all that entails or you are not an objectivist.

 

On 10/23/2015 at 1:55 AM, The Sociologist said:

So it's one of the first forms of atheism. 

Not even close. 

Atheism was known throughout the ancient world with thinkers such as Epicurus and potentially Socrates (if he ever existed).

Atheism was also prevalent in the Arabic Empire during the middle age with philosphers and scholars like Ibn al-Rawandi, Al-Maʿarri and Abu Isa al-Warraq.

Hell, you even had the European Enlightenment who had a lot of prominent atheists like Baron d'Holbach, Étienne Dolet, David Hume and Christopher Marlowe.

Even Lenin created a secular political system before Ayn Rand began writting political manifests.

So, objectivism is not a beginning but rather just one philosophy in a long line of philosophical systems to incorporate atheism as part of its doctrine.  

And eventhough Ayn Rand denied it thoroughly, the philosophers that influenced her were also atheistic thinkers.

 

 

On 10/23/2015 at 2:04 AM, VioDuskar said:

no. 

 

agnostics either don't know or don't recognize. 

 

atheists are adamantly against the idea or belief of a god. 

I can't believe that I have to explain this again.

Agnosticism is an epistemological position, while atheism is a theological one. 

Someone saying "I'm an agnostic" tells you very little about the person. When it comes to theological questions one could easily be an agnostic theist.

Agnosticism and atheism doesn't answer the same question.

 

Basically, you can seperate the epistemological answers into a person being either agnostic or gnostic on a given subject.

For example,  I'm an agnostic atheist for the most part (it depends on the word game we are playing) becuase I don't have the data to claim something as non-existent.

I'm agnostic about my beliefs in a deity the same way I'm agnostic about my belief in the existence of unicorns, leprechauns and fairies. 

I'm not vehemently against the belief in a deity just because I'm an atheist. I just don't accept the god hypothesis' that have been presented to me. 

[VioDuskar]

ignore.