I understand those questions, but not the fact that 'reading Ayn Rand' was on the list of suspicious material. I had a friend who did security checks on people applying for jobs - He was really not interested in anything that people were doing openly, only in what they were keeping secret.

Jan

it was scary to hear about the questions asked of my friends
and family -- how loyal is he to the u.s.? . does he drink?
what social functions? . what political functions? . what books?
what tv shows? . what private comments might make him
a security concern for you or the nation? . could you trust
him with your most personal secrets? . what street drugs
does he use? . when did he stop beating his wife? -- j
.

I have all of AR's non-fiction works, and Peikoff's Ominous Parallels too. But I believe it is she who took personal tastes and labeled them as objective facts.

Value is a verb.

Congrads for supporting her excellence.

Jan

I just looked up various definitions and must agree that in the philosophical definition of altruism supports what you say. But certainly, the everyday use of the word "altruism" implies a voluntary action. I suppose that it would have been more technically correct (in retrospect) for me to say that if altruism is compelled, it shifts it from the trivial use of the word to the philosophical definition.

Jan

Such a comment when one lives in an era when an appreciation of a book on independence and freedom is considered a source of official concern!

Jan

The IRS does not even attempt to call taxes "voluntary" though.

Jan

I recall those signs. I remember that I gladly gave the first few times I was asked, but eventually I realized that it was an extortion business and I stopped giving. (It was harder for them to get hold of me because I worked graveyard shift.)

My time in the military has done nothing to disabuse me of belief in the "Bell Curve". The people I met there ran the gamut from straight-up sorts to utter sleazes.

I was a Sgt, but my father was an officer and he was an honorable man who kept his word and took care of his men. He was a war-time officer, though, and while he was capable of great diplomacy he did not prosper in a peacetime military: When it came down to the wire, taking care of his men was his highest priority. (Yes, he was a Maverick - or I guess they call them Mustangs now).

Jan

"[B]uying x dollars and y cents worth of non-harassment" applies to many other scenarios as well -- the IRS comes to mind.

The problem as regards officers, as I see it, is that liars have no difficulty repeating an oath not to lie. The University of Virginia, which also still has an honor code, is finding that, too.

I went through rotc while in engineering school, and attained
the exalted position of adjutant. . don't remember our oath
back then, but the biggie is still with me. . it took me about 22 years
to go from gold bar to LC, but it took my dad only 3 years .......
in ww2. . field promotion to LC in the phillippines. -- j
.

You seem to miss the deeper point, jdg. It is important to study Objectivism and not just stop at an enjoyment of Atlas Shrugged because Objectivism is a philosophical system that addresses many issues that people just take - wrongfully - as "common sense." In this case, Rand developed a term man qua man. She meant that you can live at the highest level of achievement, if you choose, or you can blank-out on choice and still survive (seemingly well) at a lower level of existence, below man qua man.

The vast population of "most people" is "down there" somewhere. They live their lives seemingly well enough, never making full and conscious choices about deep and consequential matters in their lives: they accept what they are given and never question what they are born into.

That does not contradict the fact that it is human nature to choose values by first choosing to think. Animals do not do this. Plants do not. Only humans do this. It is (apparently) our unique nature to be volitional creatures. The first choice is the choice to think. Based on that, it is our nature to choose our values.

People survive at all only by choosing to think and choosing their values. How well they thrive is a consequence of how consistently their choose for their own best interests.

I recommend that if you enjoyed Atlas Shrugged you read Ayn Rand's non-fiction.

Right +1 for that. "Everyone" (more or less) having stopped with Atlas Shrugged the usual answer is "A is A ... Either-Or... Non-Contradiction."

Very insightful. Thanks for that!

College campuses merely reflect the larger society, as any institution must. Anything else would be a rare case needing special explanation. That said, you will find long-time active clubs of students of Objectivism in all of the usual unusual places from Berkeley and Harvard to Ohio State and UNC and on and on.

On the ARI site, you can find the results of their essay contests. Many of the winners come from Catholic high schools. No one is teaching Objectivism there. Yet, people there are (budding) Objectivists

It is altruism if someone compels you to give up a value. That is why this discussion is about pathways to Objectivism. You need to understand what altruism is. Altruism is not just "being nice to other people." That is benevolence, which begins with egoism. Altruism is the destruction of self, the submission of self to others. According to altruism you have no right to refuse compulsion. Understanding what altruism really is is integral to Objectivism. Read about Auguste Comte. He invented the word "altruism."

let's see ... the commissioning oath and which other one? -- j
.

yes, compulsion is mental force -- worthy of retaliation!
and my job as a manager gave me the requirement to solicit
UW contributions. . when people said no, I certainly did not push,
the least little bit. -- j
.

many whom I have met personally have been closet Rand lovers,
hesitant to show it for fear of being ostracized and the like. . when I was
carrying the Q clearance for so long, I even recycled the notes which
I had made for a concordance for AS. . I didn't want a girlfriend to find them
and turn me in. . but that was the eighties. -- j
.