5 ms·
Absolutism: Simple. Satisfying. Wrong.
by GavinB 18y ago
Absolutism: Simple. Satisfying. Wrong.
- ellyagg 18y agoWell, you have to realize that up until Ayn Rand, the only popular absolutism was Marxism. People were pretty excited to have an absolutism that promoted striving for excellence rather than striving for grey sameness.
- davidw 18y agoGood point. If you read Rand in that spirit, it makes for an interesting point of view. The important thing is to avoid getting caught up in it and think that "Objectivism" is a sensible or even possible way of running the world. People are neither 100% collectivist oriented, nor 100% individual oriented, and going in either direction too far is to go against how we function (but please note that I'm not arguing for splitting the difference right down the middle - obviously modern capitalist societies are far better than various attemps at communism).
- mmmurf 18y agoYour comment suggests that you believe the world needs to be "run" by a wise planner of some sort.
- aswanson 18y agoI didn't get that out of the comment. I read that as neither collectivism or objectivism is a completely flawless method, and we should take from each as the situation, rather than the ideology, dictates. I also read that as capitalism seems to have been obviously more successfull than communism, so solutions most often will be derived from objective philosophy.
- davidw 18y agoClose: solutions will most often be derived from the real world (trial and error), and real economics, which says that capitalism is the best system, albeit an imperfect one, and therefore needs some tweaking now and then. How much and what tweaking is of course a matter of ongoing debate between reasonable people, and probably depends a lot on what various communities and peoples prefer. I.e. most people in Sweden are happy with a more collectivist version of capitalism, most people in the US are happier with another sort of system, and so on.
- nazgulnarsil 18y agohomogeneous societies have an easier time of running collectivist programs without incurring wrath of the populace. no one minds if tax dollars go to other people just like them.
- davidw 18y agoSure, and there are also lots of other things that work well on lower, local levels, too, but that might not be appropriate for national-covers-everything-and-everyone style laws. But that's are not cut and dried, either. Some stuff works better at a national level.
- mmmurf 18y agoYour point references the correlation between capitalism and democracy. One downside of a democracy is that special interests can gain power and distort the system to the benefit of the few rather than the many. In Atlas Shrugged, Rand shows how corporate interests run amok can lead to very bad outcomes, and she creates a moral argument for capitalism -- as compared with crony capitalism.
- mmmurf 18y agoI think the comment does carry that implication, though it's not obvious to most people because they are looking for a messiah, benevolent dictator, wise group of elders, etc. Your own views would be summarized as pragmatism, which I think is inevitably the way any policy gets implemented. However the purpose of philosophy (which is what Atlas Shrugged is) is to enable the mind to think about a broad system of beliefs and their consequences logically, and to outline the purposes, goals, desired ends, etc. The same could be said for the communist manifesto. I respect both works as solid philosophical texts, as they provide ample fuel for critical thinking about the issues. What's interesting about the comment about "running the world" is that it does suggest a world view very biased toward central planning, and so it's hard to take any conclusion that follows from it as unbiased. Many similar biases exist all over the place... the idea that wanting federal dollars to be spent on x implies support of x and not wanting federal dollars to be spent on it implies opposition to it is one example.
- mmmurf 18y agoI disagree with your premise that it's absolutism. Rand called herself a capitalist and Atlas Shrugged is simply Rand's argument about the morality of capitalism. Notably, Atlas Shrugged is more of a treatise against crony capitalism than it is against socialism.
- seehafer 18y agoI don't know.... I'm certain that I absolutely need food and water to survive. That's simple, satisfying, and quite helpful. One of the many misunderstandings of Rand is that she's supposedly some dogged "absolutist" saying "thou shalt do this, that, and the other", when the truth was that Rand stressed the importance of context in making decisions. One holds principles as absolutes, yes, but principles are only useful if they are applied to reality -- to the particular situation at hand.
- ph0rque 18y agoThat sounds like an absolute statement... is absolutism always wrong?