![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Randroid Report
Objectivism is the epistemological equivalent of "My eyes are closed you can't see me because I can't see you".
But I digress.
I went to the Randroid fan club on Wedensday night with the expectation that I'd be amused.
I wasn't.
I felt sorry for the guy (to be known from now on as [Ranroid!Boy]) who decided to open this "philosophical discussion club" and was didactidly lecturing (much like Rand did in her books) on the basics of Objectivist thought.
I found myself both bored and irritated when my attmpts at explaining the Linguistic Turn didn't go so well... or at all. [Randroid!Boy] was ignoring my terrible "relativist" ways.
The guy was insidiously benign. He told us he discovered Rand in his twenties! He must live a really sheltered life.
Nothing he was saying could actually be pin pointedly seen as bad.
He spoke about the "tennents of Objectivism", the whole man as a heroic figure and the not living for anyone else or asking anyone to live for me.
But rand didn't invent that, nor did she perfect anything, she merely made fascist aesthetics into uber-individualism and too the idea of Nietzsche's Übermensch and positioned it into her economic ideal of Capitalism.
Never mind that Randroids ignore the fact that there are life circumstances that create different life experiences and that you cannot remove them from your own identity.
[Randroid!Boy] didn't get into the supremacy idea, something that many Objectivists seem to forget. The belief that if I just do whatever is good for Me and that that is the best thing completley negates the liberty of other people.
It doesn't matter that you say "everyone else is free to do the same".
Because we are social animals, no matter how terribly we treat each other, there is a need for relationships and inter-relation.
The most ridiculous thing that was mentioned in this little fan club meeting: someone (not me) tried to make a point that not everyone is in a position to think about free will (which is imperative in Randian thought and probably the biggest hole in what is already a swiss cheese system of philosophy) and are able to only think about survival, like a starving child in Africa (actual example used, by the way... not say... a starving child in Gaza... we like to keep things academic). [Randroid!Boy] used that as an example to "prove" the argument as selfishness as an ideal, one does everything to save themselves first.
What?!
I was shocked.
I shouldn't have been.
But c'mon!
There are forces that create circumstances that lead to that child's starvation people!
What the hell is wrong with these people?!
Two actually funny things that kind of disproved [Randroid!Boy]'s entire standing of living an Objectivist life were these:
1) He asked peope not to be late.
Zing! You lose... how dare you impose your own time table on others! What, you expect them to do something for you!
2) He took into account people's abilities.
Zing! You lose again... what abilities are these? You are either a hero or you aren't. If you aren't you're not a human and are of no consequence, etc. etc. etc.
Logical Fallacy!
Error!
Error!
Arrrgh!
Anyway, I'll not be going back, of course. There were only 15 or so people and I know of one other person who will not be going back... hopefully this little club will wallow and die.
Oh artists and graphically astute people: would one of you be kind and generous enough to take the philosophical thought written below and icon-ise it with a an actual "Calvin and Hobbes" cartoon?
Calvinian-Hobbesianism: A relationship that is based on the knowledge that reality is a direct product of interaction with imagination.
Thank you in advance!
But I digress.
I went to the Randroid fan club on Wedensday night with the expectation that I'd be amused.
I wasn't.
I felt sorry for the guy (to be known from now on as [Ranroid!Boy]) who decided to open this "philosophical discussion club" and was didactidly lecturing (much like Rand did in her books) on the basics of Objectivist thought.
I found myself both bored and irritated when my attmpts at explaining the Linguistic Turn didn't go so well... or at all. [Randroid!Boy] was ignoring my terrible "relativist" ways.
The guy was insidiously benign. He told us he discovered Rand in his twenties! He must live a really sheltered life.
Nothing he was saying could actually be pin pointedly seen as bad.
He spoke about the "tennents of Objectivism", the whole man as a heroic figure and the not living for anyone else or asking anyone to live for me.
But rand didn't invent that, nor did she perfect anything, she merely made fascist aesthetics into uber-individualism and too the idea of Nietzsche's Übermensch and positioned it into her economic ideal of Capitalism.
Never mind that Randroids ignore the fact that there are life circumstances that create different life experiences and that you cannot remove them from your own identity.
[Randroid!Boy] didn't get into the supremacy idea, something that many Objectivists seem to forget. The belief that if I just do whatever is good for Me and that that is the best thing completley negates the liberty of other people.
It doesn't matter that you say "everyone else is free to do the same".
Because we are social animals, no matter how terribly we treat each other, there is a need for relationships and inter-relation.
The most ridiculous thing that was mentioned in this little fan club meeting: someone (not me) tried to make a point that not everyone is in a position to think about free will (which is imperative in Randian thought and probably the biggest hole in what is already a swiss cheese system of philosophy) and are able to only think about survival, like a starving child in Africa (actual example used, by the way... not say... a starving child in Gaza... we like to keep things academic). [Randroid!Boy] used that as an example to "prove" the argument as selfishness as an ideal, one does everything to save themselves first.
What?!
I was shocked.
I shouldn't have been.
But c'mon!
There are forces that create circumstances that lead to that child's starvation people!
What the hell is wrong with these people?!
Two actually funny things that kind of disproved [Randroid!Boy]'s entire standing of living an Objectivist life were these:
1) He asked peope not to be late.
Zing! You lose... how dare you impose your own time table on others! What, you expect them to do something for you!
2) He took into account people's abilities.
Zing! You lose again... what abilities are these? You are either a hero or you aren't. If you aren't you're not a human and are of no consequence, etc. etc. etc.
Logical Fallacy!
Error!
Error!
Arrrgh!
Anyway, I'll not be going back, of course. There were only 15 or so people and I know of one other person who will not be going back... hopefully this little club will wallow and die.
Oh artists and graphically astute people: would one of you be kind and generous enough to take the philosophical thought written below and icon-ise it with a an actual "Calvin and Hobbes" cartoon?
Calvinian-Hobbesianism: A relationship that is based on the knowledge that reality is a direct product of interaction with imagination.
Thank you in advance!
no subject
no subject
I like you too :)
no subject
Can't. Copyrights.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Copyright?
Every single photo and screencap is copyrighted to someone.
I don't want to sell it as my own.
I think nearly every icon on LJ would be in copyright violation if that were the case.
no subject
Okay, that is sad. He probably just needs to get laid.
Zing! You lose... how dare you impose your own time table on others! What, you expect them to do something for you!
Hahaha, you win. P.S. That's why anarchists never get anything done.
no subject
Thanks! And don't I know it ;D
no subject
no subject
And really, thanks you, I don't think I'm such a great thinker. I just manage to arrange certain thoughts well :)
no subject
I did not get converted when someone (an American!) gave me one of Rand's books for my 20th birthday.
BTW do you have a episode of Calvin in Hobbes in mind? I can iconize given material.
no subject
And thanks, I'll try and find a strip or a caption that I feel suits the philosophy ;)
no subject
Anyway, I was 15 and someone wrote a letter telling about the summercamp. Inviting readers who wanted to go on vacation but didn't feel like going to Spain to get plastered and laid, if you care about politics and want to talk about it with other young people from all over Europe do join us in Belgium. So I did :-)
My father, who is more of a free market liberal wished me a good time and said "I believe you are way to smart to get indoctrinated". And so I didn't. Must say there were some folks who wanted to do some fun indoctrination games, like a bunch of escaped Stalinists. There was also an IRA man (I am for the Irish cause and I can't tell you my name). I didn't join either of them.
Apart from the politics (which was good) it was also good for me to hang out in a crowed were I felt I more or less fitted in, even though I was way the youngest. School and me never really worked out, people there had quite a limited idea how you ought to be. Here there was a wide variety of options, from the already mentioned Stalinists to anarchists and whatever goes in between. In some countries the different groups kept very apart, in the UK the Trotskyte movement had split up and branched into so many fractions and many of those were quite bitter. The Dutch movement has it's fractions, but is also more of an amalgam. (At least from my point of view, I walked on the edge of it.)
no subject
no subject