How hard is it to understand someone arguing that his or her own moral and political values – re God, ideology, deontology or nature – reflect that which all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to embrace?
You call yourself an objectivist. How then is that either applicable or not applicable to you given a particular context in which human behaviors come into conflict over value judgments?
Given that in my experience many political objectivists are [psychologically] also authoritarians, it will always be their way or the highway. Only instead of predicating their power/policies on might makes right, it revolves instead around their own rendition of right makes might.
So it’s this - You say that he is an authoritarian.
I’m suggesting that if psychologically he roots his own “I” in the belief/feeling that others are obligated to share his own values, then “I” would construe him to be an authoritarian.
Well from my experience, the subjectivists and relativists are just as authoritarian. They are not forthright about it. See how quickly they accuse you of racism, antisemitism, misogyny, homophobia, bigotry, etc. Prepare to be punished.
I couldn’t agree more. The authoritarian personality runs the gamut from fascism to Communism, from the capitalist to the socialist, from the conservative to the liberal.
The reason others are punished is because they refuse to become “one of us”. Or because their gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation etc., disqualifies them.
Even the nihilists and the sociopaths are able to convince themselves that their own frame of mind reflects the most rational assessment of the human condition.
And the significance of that is always seen by me in a particular context. Suppose Carleas walks away from ILP and Turd becomes the new administrator. How long would I last here?
Suppose that I become administrator. I would kick out the nutters but I would not kick you out. (I have openly said so.)
What does that say?
It says that objectivism is not the issue. The particular values of the person in power are the issue. You were banned by Postmodernbeatnik in the other forum.
There are always going to be gradations in our reactions to these things. Human motivation and intention, being embedded in a complex intertwining of genes and means, are derived from enormously convoluted existential trajectories encompassing any number of vast and varied personal experiences, relationships and access to ideas.
So there will always be things that we can in fact note to be true – postmodern beatnik banned me for life from the Philosophy Forum – and things that are subsumed instead in subjective fabrications – he was justified in doing so.
What’s crucial then is the extent to which those who are moral and political objectivists are able to acquire actual power in any given human community.
Even that is not crucial.
Tell that to the victims of Hitler’s or Stalin’s policies. Or to those who practice capitalism like a religion and bring about policies that sustain all manner of human pain and suffering for those not in power.