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Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 1:48pmSanction this postReply
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The following is a quote from Diana Hsieh’s commentary on a piece by Edward Hudgins, new Executive Director of TOC, entitled "Flushing the Koran or Reason Down the Toilet?":

 

“…He appeals to the value of tolerance, not reason, as the foundation for the rights like freedom of expression. He never tells us why tolerance is a value; he only suggests that its acceptance put an end to the bloody religious wars in Europe. He never even clearly states what tolerance is…. He even says that "truth is obtained ... through open discussion and debate" -- meaning that truth is a social product, not the result of a man's independent exercise of reason. (I'm not surprised by that, since it's also Kelley's view of objectivity found in Truth and Toleration.) He offers no solution to Muslim irrationality and death-worship except tolerance.” (from Noodlefood, July 22, 2005)

 

The parenthetical remark is Ms. Hsieh's.  Regarding that, here is a quote from Truth and Toleration:

 

“…Thinking is not a collective activity.  The primary tools of cognition are observation, abstraction, and inference—processes that take place in the privacy of an individual mind.  Discussion and debate are secondary tools that provide us with material to integrate and a way of checking the objectivity of our results…” (p. 54)

 

Clearly Ms. Hsieh completely misrepresents “Kelley’s view of objectivity.”  At the same time, I am inclined to sympathize with the overall viewpoint expressed in her critique.  What is gained by focusing all the attention on "tolerance"?  It is not until the very end that Hudgins says: 

 

“…And that is why peaceful and free regimes -- whether in Middle East countries or America -- must be based on a culture and philosophy of reason, not mysticism.” 


 

The entire article is devoted to a discussion of the value of tolerance, suggesting that this is the key philosophical difference between East and West.  The much more fundamental issue of reason vs. mysticism gets pasted on as an afterthought, with no clear connection between the two.  There is no clear statement regarding reason vs. coercion as fundamental alternatives in human relationships. This issue is lost in the overall vagueness of the discussion, which could be interpreted as conciliatory toward 'rational' approaches to religion. In fact, one could easily read that article and have no idea that its author endorses atheism. 

 

Since TOC was midwifed on the issue of tolerance, has there been a loss of perspective here?

 

Perhaps we need a new website: TOCwatch.com.

 

 

 

 

(Edited by Dennis Hardin on 7/24, 2:07pm)

(Edited by Dennis Hardin on 7/24, 8:38pm)


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Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 3:00pmSanction this postReply
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I think you mean Ed Hudgins...

RC


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Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 3:13pmSanction this postReply
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Dennis,

A passage that particularly struck me in Diana Hsieh's post on the Hudgins piece is the following:

The only premise of the debate that [Hudgins] even begins to question is the idea that the Gitmo prisoners ought to have access to the Koran. So in a fairly snappy line, he observes that "the reason there were opportunities for abuse is that the administration bent over backwards to make sure that the terrorist fanatics held at Gitmo whose goal it is to kill Americans all had copies of the texts they use to justify their murderous ways." Yet he never follows up on that by explicitly stating the Koran ought to be forbidden to Gitmo inmates.
 
Bold print supplied by me.

Robert Campbell


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Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 5:57pmSanction this postReply
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I agree with Linz that one can appreciate ARI editorials more than TOC editorials because ARI makes "unambiguous" position statements.  Any attempt to soften the message of Objectivism will only obscure that message and make it indistinguishable from the plethora of other press releases that bombard news rooms daily.  If my statement hurts some feelings, well, we face a tough world and need to toughen our hides to change it for the better.

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Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 9:18pmSanction this postReply
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Robert,

Thanks for the correction.  Edit made.

And a good point about the Koran at Gitmo.  Did we distribute free copies of Mein Kampf to German prisoners during WWII?

Luke,

Has SOLO ever considered getting into the Op-Ed distribution business?  I  certainly agree that the stuff coming out of ARI is drastically better, but I wince every time I see their name attached to a by-line.  It only serves to underscore their standing as the 'official' (gag reflex suppressed) voice of Objectivism.  If this is the best TOC can do, we desperately need a third alternative.

.


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Monday, July 25, 2005 - 1:39amSanction this postReply
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Flushing the Koran or Reason Down the Toilet?
The very title of this article sets up the choice to be made between Reason and the Koran.

"By definition all religions have some or many tenets that must be accepted on faith, not on rational or objective, philosophical grounds."
The choice to believe in any religion is one not to be rational.

"In the case of Islam there are those adherents today who maintain that their religion teaches peace and tolerance and bans murder as contrary to the will of Allah.  They tend to be in the tradition that flourished in the Islamic world a millennium ago that respected open inquiry, scholarship and reason."
Son of a gun!  There is that choice about whether to choose reason again.  The only Golden Age of Islam was one that had some respect for REASON.

"....radical Islamists who commit the most heinous crimes -- ...-- in order to terrorize others into mindless obedience to a primitive, repressive theocracy."
In the context of this article, it is clear that these radical Islamists are those who have most emphatically rejected REASON.

"In Islam the Koran is considered the revealed word of God.  Those who question it, criticize it, reject it, even satirize it risk death."
Anyone in the West recognizes this as a completely irrational behavior.

"In the more secular West differences are tolerated.  Indeed, this tradition grew out of a rejection of the religious fanaticism practiced for centuries in the West; Catholics and Protestants in Europe butchered each other by the millions over, among other things, ...."
Even in the West, which is now more secular, religion led to extremely irrational behavior.  The West finally rejected this nonsense and became more secular (less irrational, see quote above on religion having base in rejection of reason) and more tolerant.

"But fortunately not only American law but also American culture tends to back free speech, even and especially for those we consider to be creeps because tolerance doesn't mean acceptance of their beliefs; it means that we understand their right to believe what they want, even if it is idiotic, and that it's through open discussion and debate that truth is obtained."
Reason is an activity we must each perform ourselves, but that is no reason to reject learning from others and it is no reason not to subject what we think is true to the arguments of others.  In science, we do not just sit down with paper and pencil and theorize.  We check our results out with experiments and we subject them to the review of other scientists, who may try to repeat our experiments.  Similarly, all of our ideas are advantageously tested against the discussions we have with others.  Perhaps our idea is consistent with our experiences, but maybe others can show us how they are wrong because they are inconsistent with experiences they have had.  This is where our tolerance of their disagreement or their individual effort to understand the world may play a critical role in helping us to have RATIONAL ideas.  A rational man is tolerant not of bad ideas or of bad people, but he does have respect for the value of ideas which other independent minds may have developed.  The man who does not, might spend a lifetime inventing the wheel, though it was invented thousands of years ago.  He might have to reinvent the idea of vaccines, the generator, and the reaping machine.  Tolerance is primarily about understanding that many of our ideas have seeds in the thinking done by others.  It is really an appreciation of the fact that civilization is based upon rational men thinking independently to develop new ideas, but also upon trading ideas constantly.  Tolerance is the means to becoming a Trader of Ideas and of gaining from the accomplishments of other minds.  This nonsense that Edward Hudgins or David Kelley depend too much on Tolerance and not enough on Reason stems from a gross failure to understand that tolerance is fundamental to living a rational life within the sphere of a civilization.  Living in a rational civilization is hugely better than living in a cave and doing a great job of inventing the wheel all by oneself.  David, Ed, and I all want to convince the often rational civilization in which we live to choose to become consistently rational.

"After all, the Old Testament offers many okays to slavery, approval for murdering innocent children ..."

Again a clear link of religion with irrationality.

"Muslim fanatics who self-righteously riot and kill at insults to the Koran manifest the irrationality of their beliefs and culture.  Rational individuals are outraged at those beliefs and that culture, but should also understand that tolerance will expose the errors of these fanatics.  The fanatics, of course fear tolerance because open discussion and inquiry exposes the nature of their cause."
This is all about reason vs. irrationality and the role that tolerance plays in bringing them head to head to be tested.  Ed knows which will win in this contest and so do the Muslim fanatics.

Finally, we come to the paragraph that Dennis says is the only one that says that the real issue is reason versus irrationality.  Frankly, I am puzzled at how he and Diana Hsieh missed the fact that the conflict between reason and irrationality as at the core, and constantly at the core, of this article.  Ed Hudgins and David Kelley have been given a bad rap by people who do not understand the epistemological purpose of tolerance.  Some people are so determined to put them down, that even an article which is constantly making the real choice to be rational or not the central issue is seen as failing to do so.

Truth and Toleration is very clearly about the role that toleration plays among a group of people in making it possible for them to gain the benefit of each others productive and independent effort to think.  It is not about not caring whether an idea is good or bad.  It is not about not caring whether a given individual has mostly bad ideas or good ideas.  It is very much about having a respect for the value of many ideas that are developed by others and about the power that may be brought to bear on a problem by multiple minds.  It also gives evidence of some expectation that there are many people in an advanced civilization such as ours who have some good ideas and whose work helps us to enjoy a much richer life than we would have alone or even just in a microscopic community of Objectivists.  David Kelley's fundamental approach is one that he and I have shared since our days at Brown University in the late 1960s.  It really puzzles me that so many Objectivists cannot understand such basic concepts.


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Monday, July 25, 2005 - 5:41amSanction this postReply
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Dennis, yes, we discussed the Op-Ed idea at SOLOC 4 and I expect eventually that will happen.  Linz and Joe would need to comment on its priority in the context of all other SOLO goals, however.

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Monday, July 25, 2005 - 6:11amSanction this postReply
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Dennis,

In putting that sentence from Diana Hsieh's blog entry in bold, I was not endorsing it.

Wouldn't any convicted murderer, sitting on death row in American prison, be given a copy of the Qur'an on request--just as he would be given a copy of the Bible on request?

The analogy that Ms. Hsieh makes to Mein Kampf reminds me of certain Christian fundamentalist preachers who inveigh against Islam as a "wicked religion."

If you want to get some idea what the Qur'an is about, read it.  It's about the same length as the New Testament.  IMHO, there's plenty of nasty stuff in it.  But then the Bible has plenty of nasty stuff in it, and somehow I don't see Ms. Hsieh insisting that prisoners not be given Bibles if they ask for them.

I'm an atheist, and I'll assume you are.  I believe that both Westerners and the people living in majority-Islamic countries would be much better off if the Islamic world were to become secularized. The fact is that in Europe, and, more recently in America, it took centuries for that to happen, and the development of more liberal varieties of Christianity was part and parcel of that long process--which, as we know, is still far from complete.

So how are you going to encourage or promote the development of more liberal varieties of Islam, if you declare the Qur'an to be another Mein Kampf?

Robert Campbell


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Monday, July 25, 2005 - 12:02pmSanction this postReply
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I need to make an important correction:

Diana Hsieh did not draw an analogy between distributing Qur'ans to prisoners at Guantanamo, and distributing copies of Mein Kampf to German prisoners of war during World War II.

The analogy was drawn by a person offering a (favorable) comment to that particular entry on her site. When Dennis picked it up (or generated the same analogy himself...I don't know which) I mistook it for a point that Ms. Hsieh had made.

What Ms. Hsieh did say is that prisoners at Guantanamo should be forbidden to read the Qur'an.

Robert Campbell



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Monday, July 25, 2005 - 1:09pmSanction this postReply
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Robert Campbell wrote:
What Ms. Hsieh did say is that prisoners at Guantanamo should be forbidden to read the Qur'an.
I cannot think of any good reason to oppose this policy.  If Christian terrorists used the Bible to justify their actions, I would favor keeping that book out of their hands also.


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Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 1:04amSanction this postReply
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Charles,

 

You say,

 

Ed Hudgins and David Kelley have been given a bad rap by people who do not understand the epistemological purpose of tolerance.  Some people are so determined to put them down, that even an article which is constantly making the real choice to be rational or not the central issue is seen as failing to do so.

 

Why would you suggest that criticizing an article somebody writes is ‘putting them down’?  Can we keep a little perspective here?  Did you happen to notice that my post defended Kelley?

 

I agree with the overall point of the article.  I think the article puts the emphasis in the wrong place.  I have no difficulty understanding it, but I think a non-Objectivist could easily read it and not understand that reason vs. mysticism is the fundamental issue.  And I think that too many Op-Eds coming out of TOC fail to emphasize and clarify the application of essential principles.

 

I am relatively new here.  I was not aware that Linz and others had expressed similar opinions.  Do you suppose a little constructive criticism could be a healthy thing?  That ARI mentality must be contagious.

 

Robert,

 

I’m glad you finally got around to explaining your position.  Despite what you may have read on other threads, I’m really not psychic.

 

You can blame me for drawing the similarity between distributing the Koran and Mein Kampf., but it was a parallel, not a comparison.  Frankly I’m not sure which book is worse, but it is obscene for us to be giving prisoners of war intellectual ammunition against us. 

 

Luke,

 

Thanks.  I couldn’t agree more with your comments.  Where do I find out more about SOLO’s plans and goals for the future?  And when and where is SOLOC 5?


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Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 6:02amSanction this postReply
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Dennis, look through the archives in the "Staff Announcements" section since April 2005 for some of that information.  We do not know yet where SOLOC 5 will occur, but I hear that California and Florida remain top contenders, and it will likely happen in the spring of 2006.

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Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 10:44amSanction this postReply
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Luke,

You've stated that prisoners at Guantanamo should not be allowed access to the Qur'an.  You've generalized your point as follows:

If Christian terrorists used the Bible to justify their actions, I would favor keeping that book out of their hands also.
So would you recommend that Eric Robert Rudolph (the notorious bomber of abortion clinics) be forbidden to read the Bible during the remainder of his confinement?

And how much further would you take this line of reasoning?  

Neither the Bible nor the Qur'an is a single-minded production along the lines of Mein Kampf.  Both present contradictory messages about war and peace and getting along with nonbelievers. 

Robert Campbell


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Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 11:53amSanction this postReply
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Robert Campbell wrote:
Neither the Bible nor the Qur'an is a single-minded production along the lines of Mein Kampf.  Both present contradictory messages about war and peace and getting along with nonbelievers.
I agree with your assessments of these documents.  That said, clearly some people want to use them in ways that they feel justify their heinous actions.  These documents in the hands of such criminal minds give them spiritual fuel.  Part of the penalty one should pay for criminal actions includes demoralization, that is, the removal of any possible moral justification the violator may feel for his actions.  Depriving them of freedom of mind serves the same purpose as depriving them of freedom of body: the protection of the rest of us from their harms.

I make no claim as an expert in criminal justice, so take these opinions as just those: opinions.  Perhaps Robert Bidinotto has a different take on this.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 7/26, 11:55am)


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Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 4:08pmSanction this postReply
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Correct me if I'm wrong...but aren't the "inmates" at Guantanamo actually mere detainees, who have not been formally charged, let alone tried, convicted, and sentenced? Unless we are applying a different standard to suspects of terrorism than to suspects of other criminal acts, isn't it an error to regard and treat them as if they were actual (i.e., convicted) criminals?

I have no problem with denying convicted terrorists the Koran or whatever floats their jihadist boat -- but suspected terrorists? Let's have a little more argument to support this claim, OK?

REB


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Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 5:47pmSanction this postReply
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Given the circumstances under which the detainees were captured, I’m for mistreating them, at least a little bit. How much more than a little bit is appropriate, is debatable.

Withholding Korans is less than a little bit, so I couldn't care less.

Jon
(Edited by Jon Letendre
on 7/26, 5:48pm)
(Edited by Jon Letendre
on 7/26, 5:51pm)


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Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 11:12pmSanction this postReply
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Dennis - Post 10

I did notice a defense of David Kelley on one issue.  There have been many criticisms of TOC and David at SOLO which claim that TOC is not strident enough for their tastes and that it makes too much of an effort to carry on a discourse with people tainted by irrationality.  They usually choose to say this by other words, of course.  TOC would like to help those irrational people, who are really both rational and irrational commonly, choose a path to become more rational.  TOC does not often over-simplify issues for the sake of making an apparently strong point, as ARI often does.  They are not inclined to beat a general reader up verbally and then expect that they will be listened to.  The approach is to try to assume some good intent and some rationality in the reader and make a reasoned and balanced pitch to that reader.  This is assuming too much of some readers, but those one can hope to influence with an op-ed are going to be the more rational readers.

You claimed that Ed Hudgin's op-ed did not make the point that the choice was reason vs. mysticism until the final paragraph.  In my Post 5 above I pointed out how it was making this choice very clear over and over.  There is a pattern among many Objectivists of not understanding that toleration is a tool of reason.  It appeared that you mistook every mention of toleration as a minor issue which did not bear on the choice of reason vs. irrationality or mysticism, but it does.  Indeed, if a given paragraph mentioned both reason and toleration, it seemed that maybe the mention of toleration canceled the mention of reason in your mind.  This is speculation on my part, but how am I to understand how you could have overlooked the central and strong theme of the op-ed that reason versus mysticism was the fundamental choice.  Sure, it was stated without saying that every Christian and every Muslim should be rounded up and shot for their mysticism.  It is difficult to convince people you have just shot that there is a better choice than the very bad choice of mysticism.  This is an op-ed with an audience, most of whom vaguely consider themselves Judeo-Christians, people of a very mixed tradition of reason and mysticism.  Ed wants them to choose to put more emphasis on the reason, or the Enlightenment, side of their tradition as a first step.  We should be applauding his efforts to do this, rather than telling him to be so strident that his audience will not hear him out.

Criticism is always allowed.  When it is rational, it serves very good purposes.  Sometimes, criticism is only partially right, but still serves a useful purpose of creating a dialog and perhaps allowing both parties to benefit.  It is also good for good ideas to be tested by criticism.  These are among the reasons that toleration in the trading of ideas is of such great importance to a civilized society.  It is also very important here at SOLO.  I greatly enjoy the vigor and the richness of the exchange of ideas here.  I do think it would be very beneficial to realize that while this discussion among Objectivists and near-Objectivists is very useful to expanding Objectivism as a philosophy for living on Earth, so too is it very useful to be reaching out to the non-Objectivists of Western Civilization and to any modestly Enlightened peoples throughout the world.  This is a part of TOCs complementary role.  Then there is ARI trying to be orthodox purists, and maybe even that role is of some use.  Certainly there are people at ARI with some good and useful ideas.

It remains unclear to me how you think Ed Hudgin's op-ed "puts the emphasis in the wrong place."  Perhaps you would also like to explain how other op-eds from TOC have failed to emphasize and clarify the application of essential principles?  Is this really just a criticism that Ed has tuned his articles for publication and for an audience upon which one simply cannot dump a philosophy upon which is clearly at variance with their "philosophy" to the point that their philosophy is deemed evil?  How often have you told someone that the philosophy that they hold to be true is evil and then had them really listen to what you have to say?  I can tell you that this has not worked in my experience.  Instead, you look for some things that you can agree on and then you build an argument from there which shows a person how to behave and think consistently with that good idea.  This is what Ed Hudgins is trying valiantly to do.  You need a wedge to use to get people to start thinking more consistently.  You want to demonstrate that they can think this way and that it good to do so.  You want them to want to think more logically and to want their ideas to be more consistent with reality.  Ed is trying to accomplish this with one wedge issue after another.  You and I are certainly not his audience.  He has to write op-eds which will be selected by newspaper editors and which will have an effect upon significant numbers of American readers.


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Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 11:42pmSanction this postReply
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Charles,

Thank you.  That was excellent.  I would like to take some time to think it over, but I want to tell you that you did a terrific job of clarifying the fundamental differences in the approach of. TOC vs. ARI.

Dennis


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Wednesday, July 27, 2005 - 8:52pmSanction this postReply
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Dennis,

Thanks very much for your response.  I would be delighted to talk to you further about these issues.  They are very important if we want to reach as many people as possible with the Objectivist viewpoint.  There will always be some people, such as me and David Kelley, who read Ayn Rand's novels and we are hooked but good.  But, we are people who generally already saw many things differently and generally more clearly than most Americans do.  This was probably true for you also.  I read her ideas and many of them were already ideas that I held to be true.  The wonderful revelation for me was that someone had fully integrated these ideas into a coherent philosophy.  I had already loved reason, heroes, productivity, and the joys of living on Earth.  I had some important things that I had not worked out, but I was working on many of them.  There were issues also that I had not thought about at 18.  But, all in all, my whole approach to life and knowledge made me an easy target, albeit one who thought very long and hard about Ayn Rand's philosophy before concluding that it was right.

Contrast that with my own brother and four sisters, not one of whom is an Objectivist.  Each of them is more of an individualist than most Americans and each is more intelligent and thinking than most Americans.  They each have a very good work ethic and tend not to be the least envious of others.  Each of them takes great pride in doing their jobs to the best of their ability.  Still, they have little interest in philosophy and in grand re-designs of society.  They are each a bit interested in small, evolutionary changes in government, but not in anything very radical in changes.  How do we reach normal, decent Americans to the extent at least that they understand not to actually do or call for changes that are constantly inimical to individualism?  These are people who commonly believe that the sign of heroism is self-sacrifice, but they are also people who are happy to earn their own living doing productive work and think very rationally about how to do it.  Half of them have some vague belief that God exists, though they can only tell you that they feel this.  Those who believe in God basically feel this as a combination of a fear of death and because they just cannot imagine that there is a source of morality other than the authoritarian dictate of God.  This is the position they are in largely because they do not give serious thought to morality.  So, we can write them all off as immoral and mystical, but maybe we should remember that they are also building new industries, producing good health care services, fixing our cars and trucks, selling us homes, delivering oil and gas to our neighborhoods, and keeping our books while minimizing our taxes for us.  These swarms of people have real value to us in our daily lives.  People like this work in my laboratories and solve difficult technical materials problems for our industrial and commercial customers every day.

It is really important to me and I think to all of us, that we try to find ways to encourage them to think just a little bit harder about their philosophy of life.  There really are many ways in which they do the right things in living their lives, but they have some very unformed and misinformed philosophical ideas sometimes leading them astray.  The further they depart from their daily lives and their own workplace, the more likely they are to be mistaken about their philosophical evaluations.  Unfortunately, politics is a sphere of action sufficiently removed from their understanding that they often do get things wrong.  Objectivism needs to work its way, tenet by tenet, into their way of approaching knowledge and ethics.  We need to find the wedge issues in their very personal sphere of understanding, such as one-on-one personal interactions and their work ethics, that we can try to re-enforce and use to expand their understanding of bigger issues at a further remove from them.  Ed Hudgins has given serious thought to this problem and he is trying his best to find useful ways to communicate good ideas to the kind of generally decent Americans I have talked about here.


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Post 19

Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 12:51amSanction this postReply
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Charles,

 

Again, thank you for some very worthwhile insights.  I truly appreciate that you took the time to explain what you feel to be the superior approach of TOC in trying to bring about cultural change.  I wish I had more time to devote to a response, but this will have to do for now.

 

Ayn Rand said—and I agree with her-- that capitalism was doomed without a moral base.  If we are going to change this culture and save capitalism, we are going to need to start by promoting a morality of rational self-interest.  That is  where our arguments need to begin.  Most of the articles I have seen by Hudgins have taken a relatively superficial (eg, practical or economic) approach to issues and have dealt with ethics minimally or not at all.  Examples would be his articles on Government medicine vs. Innovation and the FDA. Even his article praising individualism did so without mentioning an ethical code of self-interest.  This is what I regard as analysis from nonessentials—and essentially wasted energy.  (One noteworthy exception is his article dealing with Social Security, which I thought was well done.)

 

Compare Hudgins’ article on “Reason vs. The Koran” with Edwin Locke’s piece on “The Sin of Pride.”  Locke puts the emphasis where it needs to be—on reason and self-interest as opposed to mysticism and self-sacrifice.  For the most part, the ARI Op-Eds argue from fundamentals—that is, from the perspective of reason and a radically different view of morality.  That is where we must focus our efforts, if we are to encourage people to think philosophically and thereby engender change.

 

The fact is, we cannot soft-pedal the radical nature of the change that must happen in the way people look at issues ethically.  Breaking it to them gently, so to speak, will not work, because the change that must happen is a radical one.  We must spell it out, clearly and succinctly, and let them make the choice.

 

Once again, I apologize that I cannot write a longer response.  I will be happy to discuss these issues further with you, as time permits.

(Edited by Dennis Hardin on 7/28, 1:16am)


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