It’s not about competition or cooperation. You’re completely being drawn into that particular narrative. You’re not even questioning it. Where is your critical thinking? 
You’re also arguing that sometimes 2+2=5. If Ingsoc or some other organization or some individual says so. To avoid the evil of competition, you give up on truth.
Note:
In the scenario you presented above, there are many aspects one can deal with but note “Henry remarks” where the context of ‘competition’ is highlighted. Thus without you specifying, to topic I had discussed along the line of ‘competition’.
If you want to emphasize on other contexts [which are many], you should have said so.
Example we could discuss the effectiveness of teaching methods which do not allow Peggy to answer to embarrass [or whatever] Boris. Perhaps Boris should have been diagnosed with learning disability and put in a separate special class. As I had stated there are so areas which we can discuss in the scenario you presented.
From my frame of mind, we all have our own individual narratives regarding what it means to either cooperate with others or to compete against them. These are derived in part from the particular historical and cultural contexts into which we are thrown at birth. Then, given a particular set of experiences, relationships and access to information/knowledge, this narrative evolves over time from the cradle to the grave. Thus for any number of reasons we may find ourselves questioning what we think is true in the is/ought world.
So, as a “critical thinker”, are you able to discern the optimal narrative? Might a bunch of critical thinkers get together to ponder the fate of either Boris or the kids in the video and come up with a frame of mind that reasonable men and women are obligated to share?
Sure, maybe. All I can do though is to react to that which they do come up with. As, for example, I reacted to your own speculations above. Now, please react to mine.
Basically, I react to that like this:
Given the context with Boris and the autistic kids above, our reactions will either be the right one [4] or the wrong one [5]. And those who give the wrong answers are those who don’t share the one true reaction.
You, being a “critical thinker”, are in sync with the right reaction and thus have access to the right answers.
That’s my point. Thus, after perusing these pros and cons in the links above, to what extent can philosophers derive the optimal frame of mind? Or, instead, as I surmise, is that more likely to be rooted existentially in particular historical and cultural contexts that evolve over time into any number of conflicting social, political and economic narratives/agendas?
What does the “real world” – the actual historical interactions of flesh and blood human beings – seem to suggest here?
What questions? Pertaining to what particular contexts? Predicated on what particular assumptions precipitating what particular political prejudices pertaining to cooperation and competition embodied in human interactions?
Typical. You will take this path but you have absolutely nothing substantive to say about how those who do take this path are able to actually describe a set of “progressive Middle-Way” behaviors here.
We need but recognize “the Middle Way as conditioned by the existing constraints.”
Axiomatically as it were.
Okay, let’s imagine that you were at the back of the classroom witnessing Boris’s travail.
Afterward, you walk up to the teacher and you duly note this.
Now, let’s all try to imagine her reaction…
I suspect her reaction to that will be more or less in sync with my own reaction to this:
We simply do not think about these “human all too human” interactions in the same way.
If I am in that classroom, if there is no serious critical threat, I will not do anything but take my observation as an empirical evidence of what has happened.
Where it is a mental problem, issue or sickness there is no way one can introduce an immediate solution to any observed scenario because the underlying cause is too complicated with neurons mis-connecting all over the brain.
It may be a lost cause for Boris, Peggy and the teacher, however I will take the above events [and the same elsewhere] as a research topic to prevent such situations [whatever is negative] happening to anyone in the future.
I suspect yours is also a lost cause. It would be more effective to direct one attention to prevent people with the same mental thinking like your sort with very ‘dogmatic’ views in the future.
E.g. if a person is a hardcore smoking addict, it is very difficult for such a person to kick off their habit. If it is not a critical thing, we just like the very hard core addict be. That is why & how I and others have accepted some close kins who are hardcore addict cigarette smokers who cannot give up smoking despite having terminal illness and warning/advice by doctors.
Another argument that might be made by anyone embracing a particular set of political prejudices regarding competition. From those who are fiercely into the “I, me, mine” competitive frame of mind to those who embrace collectivism almost as a religion.
But, in the end, things are never too complicated for the objectivists. After all, they have figured out the optimal reaction here so why can’t everyone else?
Okay, but my point is that there are any number of objectivists who argue that we should want things like this to happen in the future. Sure, Boris is humilated here and now, but he either will or will not learn from his mistake. Once he does take responsibility for his own success or failure he will have learned a far more valuable lesson.
My frame of mind generally disturbs people. Most folks will acknowledge there are conflicting political agendas here, but what counts far more to them is that either one side or the other is right.
Their own side as likely as not.
What I am proposing however is that in a No God world both sides are able to make convincing arguments merely by commensing the discussion/debate with a different set of assumptions about human interactions. Interactions embedded in hundreds and hundreds of existential variables that revolve around a profoundly problematic intertwining of nature and nurture, of genes and memes.
Out in a “particular world” historically, culturally and experientially.
A person either smokes or does not smoke. And smoking either can or cannot be linked to particular consequences for ones health.
But what about this question: Should smoking be construed as an immoral behavior? Should smoking be illegal? Should people be punished for smoking? Should the children of parents who smoke be taken away from them?
When does the context here become “critical”? What would rational men and women be inclined to embrace as “acceptable” behavior? As “progressive Middle-Way” behavior?
As with the protestors at an abortion clinic, the Boris case above, smoking addiction and health, and any similar cases, there is nothing much [except the very minimal] we can do at the present, so we apply this generic model;
viewtopic.php?p=2693734#p2693734
The wiser thing to do are the following;
As with smoking, there are already lesser people smoking around the world due to greater education of the dangers of smoking and other preventive methods. [see chart below]
But there is still a percentage of people still caught up with smoking and for these people we apply the above generic model to aim at Zero smoking.
In order to achieve Zero smoking, humanity will strive to understand the mechanisms of what make people addicted to smoking.
Once we understand the mechanisms then humanity will be able to strive to eliminate smoking down to Zero in the future.
In addition to the already advancing trend of reduction the % of smokers [see below],
I am optimistic the Zero Smoking vision is possible and feasible given current trend of the exponential expansion of knowledge and technology.
Note you are always stuck and brooding over the current situation and various dilemmas but do not have the foresight to project into the future.
Your problem I note is your knowledge database is too shallow and narrow, otherwise you will think along similar lines as mine.
And this works particularly well for you because you acknowledge right from the start that even if we do embrace your own way of thinking – your own intellectual contraptions – don’t expect much in the way of significant results any time soon. On the other hand, “in the future” you will clearly be shown to have been right.
And yet is this not basically the same frame of mind that we get from all the other objectivists? The only difference being the extent to which they are convinced that their own narrative will produce more results, faster.
This way here and now we can generally skip the part that revolves around this:
[b]Should smoking be construed as an immoral behavior? Should smoking be illegal? Should people be punished for smoking? Should the children of parents who smoke be taken away from them?
When does the context here become “critical”? What would rational men and women be inclined to embrace as “acceptable” behavior? As “progressive Middle-Way” behavior?[/b]
It is very unfortunate you are thinking from your very shallow and narrow base of knowledge to deduce what I proposed are “intellectual contraptions”
Note what I proposed is not wishful thinking.
First I ensure my knowledge database is as wide and deep as possible to deal with the issue on hand.
When I deal with an issue I put in as much rational and critical thoughts to ensure my justified solutions are sound.
What I come up with is not wishful thinking but they are based on an empirically based evident positive TREND. What I have proposed is to expedite this trend to achieve the targeted results as soon as possible.
Note the trend in Chattel Slavery, smoking, etc. that I have shown earlier.
Note the trend of the exponential expansion of knowledge in the advance fields. One has to put in lots of effort to keep track of the relevant advancing knowledge.
What I proposed is generic to all human beings who are progressive.
In this case it has nothing to do whether a person is a typical philosophical objectivist or subjectivist.
There are tons of questions we can raise regarding smoking and we can discuss them till the cow come home.
But despite all these talk, the reality is there is trend in the reduction of smokers worldwide [e.g. see graph above]. In a very subtle way, humanity must have realized smoking is not the way [threat to one’s health] to go in the future.
What is critical for us is to understand the why. why, why, why … of this trend?
The questions you raised above are not critical to the issue.
What is most critical is to ask,’
Why do humans smoke cigarettes?
When we understand the critical root causes, we can then take corrective actions to strive smoking of cigarettes to ZERO!
My complain of your view is you are not able to reframe the question for a critical issue and thus got entangled with the wrong questions, brood and suffer over them.
This then is clearly where we are stuck. As with other objectivists [as I construe them], you provide me with a didactic methodology – an intellectual “to do” list – that, down the road, will expose the crucial distinction between “one of us” and “one of them”. Our “data base” will be wide and deep, their data base will be narrow and shallow. We will put “as much rational and critical thoughts to ensure our justified solutions are sound” and they will not. Our knowledge will always be “relevant and advancing”, theirs will not.
Bottom line: We will pursue “progressive” behaviors, they will pursue “regressive” behaviors.
Consequently, you not only have to do battle with folks like me entangled in one or another moral quagmire, but with all the other secular/religious dogmatists who insist that given the right political ideology or the right God or the right deontological assessment or the right understanding of nature, the future will shine with all the brilliance of the enlightened mind.
It’s just that insofar as this can be illustrated out in the world of actual conflicted human behaviors, the objectivists still embody sets of political prejudices that range from the extreme left to the extreme right.
All they really seem to share in common is the conviction that if others do embrace their own intellectual scaffolding they can’t help but be one of us. And once they are one of us they too can sustain the comfort and the consolation of knowing that.
All folks like me can then do is to point out all of the “conflicting goods” that have plagued the species [philosophically] going all the way back to the pre-Socrates.
And even those issues like chattel slavery and smoking can’t escape the arguments of those who insist that, from their frame of mind in a No God world, they’ll do whatever sustains their own, selfish narcissistic/sociopathic bent.
Then back to this:
And here is how you respond:
In other words, you avoid responding. You simply insist that once all men and women embrace the historical “trend”, there will be no smokers in the future; and with no smokers in the future all that moral quandary shit “here and now” will dwindle down to nothing too.
At least to the extent that folks like you will deem others to be “progressive”.
It is very unfortunate you are caught in such paralyzed stated of mind.
What I can reduce the whole mess you are in is this;
1. If you are caught and entangled with the issue.
Say, if you are unfortunately caught with some terrible fatal allergy.
If you want to ask me [say, an expert on allergy] for my opinion or solution, I can only offer the best solution based on the whatever knowledge base I have.
If you disagree with me, then you still have to resolve your allergy as soon as possible, by seeking solution else where.
The point here is you MUST take action to save yourself or suffer the consequences.
If you are a normal rational person you will take action.
But with our current discussion on the various issues, whatever solution that is offered by me or anyone else, you complain the solutions are merely “intellectual contraption” and that is not based on any reasonable views nor arguments but merely based on your psychological blindness.
To be normal, if you cannot accept the solution of others, then you will have at least come up with your own views and solution.
But your response is you cannot offer yourself any solutions because you are stuck in a hole [dilemma] and you are also psychologically paralyzed to accept an external ideas and proposed solution.
From the above, there is something terrible wrong with your mind with that sort of paralysis.
If you ever have suicidal tendencies, then no one will be able to talk you out of it and the consequences will be very mortally fatal.
2. If you are not caught personally and directly with the issue.
In this case, you are not personally suffering from that fatal allergy but you have introduced the subject as a serious problem to humanity and thus seek to discuss the issue.
In such a discussion, what will arise is a study of the past to find the root causes and proposals to prevent the problem from recurring in the future. In such a situation, those discussing should not too emotional on one’s views or the counter views of others.
Since this is discussion of a subject, you have not offerred your alternative views.
Your response to my views is the same of ‘intellectual contraption’ similarly to those of the objectivists.
Since I have uncovered your intellectual paralysis, I believe I have participated enough in this discussion and leave you to your destined fate [hopefully it turn out good].
What else: another intellectual contraption coming to the rescue of the intellectual contraption before it.
Still, is the point reasonable?
Well, if you think the points that he made in this particular world of words is in sync with the manner in which you would define the meaning of these words in this particular order, sure.
Now all we need do is to agree on a context in which we might imagine Heidegger and Barrett reacting to a particular set of Barrett’s “rival goods” as that might be understood from the perspective of Heidegger’s take on Dasein.
Then you and I can intertwine the components of our own narratives into that.
You choose the context. You choose the conflicting goods. You choose the behaviors out of sync.