Passive Citizenship
Posted by coaldigger 4 years, 3 months ago to Culture
I have always argued for maximum freedom for everyone and one of the basic differences between libertarians and objectivists that I had to do the most thinking on was the role of government. I am constantly reminded of how brilliant Ayn Rand was and as I have discovered her approach is the most rational. In order to have a modern society with maximum individual freedom, a government to protect their individual rights is absolutely critical. It remains to be seen if a government will ever be satisfied to stay within those guidelines but we, in America, came the closest to doing so.
I thought that Objectivism would take hold and preserve what we had begun but it has not. I understood that ultimately altruism would have to be eliminated in public policy and that it was born of and fed by religion but I thought that that could be eroded gradually and people would see that not only was the welfare state not necessary it was evil. I argued with some objectivist scholars that we needed to stop being so demanding of a purity of approach and gradually win them over and they said it would never work. After much struggle I came to the same conclusion and unfortunately there is zero chance of our winning the battle as long as they have producers that refuse to stop producing against all odds. In other words Atlas Shrugged is real. No individual or number of individuals with similar beliefs will form into a force large enough without a John Galt and he does not exist. We are INDIVIDUALS and as such will not form a tribe, a collective, a party or any kind of group. We are strong, rational, intellectual, ambitious, productive, energetic but we are loners, individuals and we meet every obstacle as a power of one. We will not join together and go on strike.
I have now concluded that there is a silver lining and that is that mankind is a collection of traits that we are born with in different proportions. Men of the mind will not die out. Their offspring will carry on the traits to be born over and over. When the inevitable dark ages return they will slowly return to lead a renaissance. The ancient Greeks had steam engines but the knowledge was lost until the 1800's. Sadly, in 3,000 years some Marconi might be broadcasting lyre music on vacuum tube transmitters.
I am too old to worry about it any longer. Collectivism is like the tide and you can't keep it from covering the beach by bailing with a bucket.
I thought that Objectivism would take hold and preserve what we had begun but it has not. I understood that ultimately altruism would have to be eliminated in public policy and that it was born of and fed by religion but I thought that that could be eroded gradually and people would see that not only was the welfare state not necessary it was evil. I argued with some objectivist scholars that we needed to stop being so demanding of a purity of approach and gradually win them over and they said it would never work. After much struggle I came to the same conclusion and unfortunately there is zero chance of our winning the battle as long as they have producers that refuse to stop producing against all odds. In other words Atlas Shrugged is real. No individual or number of individuals with similar beliefs will form into a force large enough without a John Galt and he does not exist. We are INDIVIDUALS and as such will not form a tribe, a collective, a party or any kind of group. We are strong, rational, intellectual, ambitious, productive, energetic but we are loners, individuals and we meet every obstacle as a power of one. We will not join together and go on strike.
I have now concluded that there is a silver lining and that is that mankind is a collection of traits that we are born with in different proportions. Men of the mind will not die out. Their offspring will carry on the traits to be born over and over. When the inevitable dark ages return they will slowly return to lead a renaissance. The ancient Greeks had steam engines but the knowledge was lost until the 1800's. Sadly, in 3,000 years some Marconi might be broadcasting lyre music on vacuum tube transmitters.
I am too old to worry about it any longer. Collectivism is like the tide and you can't keep it from covering the beach by bailing with a bucket.
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Altruism on the other hand was always an individual choice and rationally could only be expressed once the individuals needs were satisfied.
Ayn Rand used the phrase: Selfishness. I think this was a mistake to use a phrase that already projected an impression of something along the lines of hubris and greed.
She should have used the concept of: Cellfishness while explaining the nature of cells and how that undeniably referrers to the behavior of the individual if able and allowed to.
Each and every cell in the body of yourself is entirely responsible for the survival of self and once those conditions are met, excess value, (different for each individual) is passed on in the culture medium. In the body, that culture medium is the blood. In physical life that medium is the , family unit, the neighborhood, the community and so on.
This my friend is what the teachings are all about as observed by, nature, Rand, our constitution and the teachings of Christ and some eastern philosophy's.
The organizations of these teachings, religions and progressive governments use the concept of individual altruism to Control the individual instead of supporting that individual right given by our own nature.
No, I don't remember seeing that. I am a professor at Florida Tech, a private university where I am in charge of the nanotechnology minor, teach chemical, biomedical, and materials engineering, teach students how to make things, and have even started my own company. If you remember Quentin Daniels from Atlas Shrugged, that pretty much describes me. It is not a conflict of interest for me to talk about this in the Gulch, as that is precisely why I have the shopping cart next to the jbrenner. For more info, e-mail me at jbrenner@fit.edu.
Florida Tech does accept Bright Futures scholarships like the public/government universities. The student gets the same money, but we aren't subsidized by the state.
By the way, I used to be in many different aspects of the energy industry, including coal, but I shrugged from those when my clients who wanted to absolve their environmentalist guilt but provide me value-for-value exchange left to take the Solyndra freebies from then candidate Obama. Thus, my faculty position is my "shrug job", and my "cover" is sufficiently deep that no one at my university realizes that it is a "shrug job" except for those who belong here in the Gulch (and there are a few).
I might add: and as such we struggle to survive against a sea of lazy, mindless sheep.