OCON Update - July 7 through 9, 2009

Lisa Van Damme concluded her course “Ibsen the Iconoclast” with an analysis of The Wild Duck.  While preparing the material for the course, Miss Van Damme had a dramatic transformation in her own thinking of the work - and indeed, of Ibsen’s work more generally - but I’m not going to reveal the nature of that transformation.  To find out, you’ll just have to purchase the recording, which will be available at some point at Ayn Rand Bookstore!

Yaron Brook finished with his course on “The Financial Crisis: What Happened And Why,”  He did an exceptionally good job of encapsulating and reducing to essentials an enormous amount of material in just over four hours of lecture time.  Similarly, Elan Journo has the challenge of condensing a complex succession of events in his course “Understanding the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” which began on Wednesday.  And last but not least, LB and I are together taking John Lewis’ course, “The History of Ancient Greece: The Archaic Period,” in which Dr. Lewis will establish the historical context for the Classical Period in Greece.  The depth of his knowledge is impressive and his enthusiasm infectious; he is clearly thrilled to be teaching a positive topic for a change, considering how he has lately been concentrating on the Islamist war on America.

LB and I have also attended all the general lectures.  Tara Smith gave her second lecture at the conference, entitled, “Humanity’s Darkest Evil: The Lethal Destructiveness of Non-Objective Law.”  In this, she demonstrates that for the very reason that the purpose of government sets the standard for objective law, a government that adopts or gradually accepts non-objective law becomes an unparalleled menace to human life.

Harry Binswanger’s lecture, “The Objective vs. the Intrinsic and the Subjective,” contained many profound ideas about objectivity in general.  One point in particular was something of a new perspective for me: that objectivity consists of the self-conscious, deliberate use of logic.  Note that both the self-conscious and deliberate components are required, something that I had not quite fully identified before.  It is not enough to use logic, but one must also know one is using logic in order to be truly objective.  Dr. Binswanger made another point that I regard as profound: he speculated that one of the troubles with the culture today is that people hold moral premises (ones that they have invariably absorbed uncritically from various sources) as if they were metaphysically-given percepts.  I think this is a brilliant insight, and it explains much of the overwhelming passivity - the non-thinking - exhibited by America and the West.

Greg Salmieri presented a lecture called “Atlas Shrugged on the Role of the Mind in Man’s Existence.”  In this he explored the theme of Atlas Shrugged from a philosophical perspective, including Ayn Rand’s unique position on reason, consciousness, and the false dichotomy of the soul and body.

Finally, John Allison, the heroic former CEO of BB&T, made a very inspiring speech called “Principled Leadership.”

On Thursday night, LB And I had a great time going out to dinner with many OBloggers whom we had never met before.  Of course, we already knew C. August from Titanic Deck Chairs, but we also got to meet Diana and Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood, Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn, Kendall J from The Crucible, Jason from The Rational Egoist, Shea Levy from Cogito’s Thoughts, Craig Biddle from The Objective Standard, Mark from Randex, and special guest Trey from Flibbertigibbet!   

Objectivist Round Up #104

Welcome to the July 9, 2009 edition of the Objectivist Round Up!  This blog carnival features posts by blog authors who are advocates of Objectivism.

Objectivism is the philosophy of the 20th-century novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand.  It is a comprehensive system of thought that identifies the basic axioms of the universe, and formulates and defends a reality-based theory of concepts, free will, morality, political liberty, history, and aesthetics.  In short, it is a philosophy for living life.

If you are new to Ayn Rand and wish to discover more about her philosophy, I recommend you start by reading her two greatest novels, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, followed by some non-fiction works such as Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.  The Ayn Rand Institute and the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights provide very relevant information and commentary, and a great introduction to Ayn Rand’s works can be found here.

In addition to items of general interest, this week’s posts feature reports from some of the “tea parties” that have been held across the country - in particular, the one in Boston, for which many of the bloggers happened to be present because of the 2009 Objectivist Conferences.  

So, with no further ado, I present this week’s Objectivist Round Up posts:

Andy presents “The Purpose Driven Life (Part 1)” at The Charlotte Capitalist, saying, “On Independence Data, Mega-pastor Rick Warren served up a nasty Dark Ages-Nazi Cocktail. I foresee a very bad hangover.”

Paul McKeever presents “Paul McKeever’s Minimal Maxims and Bon Arrows, volume 1, issue 6” at Paul McKeever, saying, “ignorance, need as a value, the nature of a free man, and the daily clamour for something to make the worthless feel valuable...who could ask for more?”

John Drake presents “History of Information Systems” posted at Try Reason!, saying, “Inspired by The Objectivist Standard's many great articles and their emphasis on history to demonstrate principles, I have been redesigning a core business class to focus on the historical lessons about information systems and how those principles can enhance business success. This post details my reasons and challenges with this redesign.”

Paul Hsieh presents “Photos from the Boston Tea Party” posted at NoodleFood, saying, “Lots of Objectivists turned out for the Boston Tea Party!”

Jason Crawford presents “The Cult of Need” posted at The Rational Egoist, saying, “First post on my new blog!”

Ari Armstrong presents “July 4 Tea Party Arvada Colorado” posted at FreeColorado.com, saying, “Listen to the concerns of those who attended the Arvada Tea Party July 4.”

Francis Luong presents “Celebrate Your Independence By Choosing To Read Atlas Shrugged” posted at Just Add Rationality.

Grant Jones presents “Manhattan, Kansas July 4th Tea Party” posted at The Dougout.

Jared Rhoads presents “Tea Party” posted at The Lucidicus Project, saying, “The July 4th Tea Party protests in Boston were a success. Here is a brief report, with photos.”

Edward Cline presents “Parsing Obama” posted at The Rule of Reason, saying, “To grasp the magnitude of the national debt Obama (and his Republican predecessor) has been ringing up, a comparison should help illustrate the task. Bernard Madoff’s robbery and defrauding investors of some $50 billion can be represented by the diameter of the solar system. The federal government, using the same scamming tactics, is amassing a debt about the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy. Madoff’s scheme can be measured in millions of miles. The federal government's, in almost limitless parsecs. That measurement ought to suffice to dramatize the scale of the hole he is deliberately digging for the country in his role as Community-Organizer-in-Chief.”

Stephen Bourque presents “The Reluctant Dictator” at One Reality, saying, “Barack Obama is not trying to lead a government takeover of one American industry after another.  We know this because he told us so himself.”

Michael Labeit presents “Midget, Midget, Midget, Midget, Midget....” posted at Coroner's Bureau, saying, “Midget, Midget, Midget, Midget, Midget....”

C. August presents "Alan Reynolds, the Answer to CAFE is NOT Taxes" posted at Titanic Deck Chairs. 

That’s it for this week.  Titanic Deck Chairs will host the carnival next week.  Please submit your blog articles for the next edition of the Objectivist Round Up using the carnival submission form.

UPDATES

I added a post from Titanic Deck Chairs.

OCON Update - July 4 through 6, 2009

Tara Smith, one of my favorite Objectivist speakers, presented a very interesting lecture called “No Tributes to Caesar: Good and Evil in Atlas Shrugged.”  Upon a re-reading of Atlas Shrugged, Dr. Smith was struck anew by the “either/or”-ness of the novel - that is, that there is no refuge from the absolutism of the basic alternative of life or death.  Objectivists are naturally familiar with the axiom of non-contradiction - that something cannot be both A and non-A in the same respect.  But here, Dr. Smith is emphasizing a less common, but crucial perspective: the law of excluded middle.  Something must be either A or non-A; it cannot fall somewhere in between.  Dr. Smith illustrated the point with several examples from Ayn Rand’s novels.

Allan Gotthelf presented his lecture “Hallmarks of Objectivism: The Benevolent Universe Premise and the Heroic View of Man.”  I found this material to be quite fascinating.  It included many interesting facets of Ayn Rand’s thinking, including a description of how she developed her heroic view of man.  One idea in particular was new to me and struck me as quite profound.  At one point, Ayn Rand realized that it is not necessary to defend mankind as a species; indeed, this might be difficult or impossible to do without inventing some sort of deterministic “original virtue” to contrast with the “original sin” posited by Christians, which of course would be an unjustifiable departure from reality.  All that is needed to see man as heroic is to see what an individual is capable of.  This alone   (I hope I’ve gotten this right.  While Dr. Gotthelf was making the point, my mind started racing on the implications, but I believe I’ve captured his point faithfully.)

Onkar Ghate had an excellent lecture on the topic of “The Separation of Church and State.”  He pointed out how the three main arguments addressing the “wall of separation” today - namely, those of the religionists, the secularists, and the compromisers - are all mistaken, and none have a proper view of the role of the state with respect to individuals.  Dr. Ghate then presented the proper, principled defense of the separation of state and church (and for that matter, of the separation of state and economics). 

Beyond these general lectures, I am enjoying some of the optional courses.  In “Ibsen the Iconoclast,” Lisa VanDamme is analyzing three masterpieces of the Norwegian playwright.  We’ve already competed the remarkable Brand and have moved onto A Doll’s House.  In “The Financial Crisis: What Happened And Why,” Yaron Brook is debunking the preposterous popular account that pins the financial crisis on the free market by presenting the real underpinnings of the current recession.  

LB is taking a couple of interesting courses as well: Craig Biddle’s “Moral Rights and Metaphysical Law” and Thomas Bowden’s “Property Rights - and Wrongs.”  Hopefully, she is taking good notes because I want to get the essence of both of those topics!  From what she has told me so far, both classes have been of great value to her.

Overall, we are having a great time.  It has been very inspiring.  We have met some old friends (in particular some former Massachusetts friends that I had not seen for many years), some new friends, and have met many people whose writings we like and in many cases greatly admire.

The Reluctant Dictator

Barack Obama is not trying to lead a government takeover of one American industry after another.  We know this because he told us so himself:

And so it’s puzzling to me sometimes to hear the standard conservative critique of what we’re doing, when essentially every step we’re taking really involves the mess that we found when we arrived here at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Let’s take autos as an example.  Other than basic issues like consumer safety - seatbelts, airbags, which save a lot of lives - and consumer protections - lemon laws and making sure that people know what they’re buying - the only real regulatory approach that I’ve been interested in is raising fuel efficiency standards so that we can wean ourselves off dependence on foreign oil.  Beyond that, the last thing that I want is to be running a car company, or to be having to make decisions about what the auto market of the future is going to look like.[Note 1, emphasis mine.]

Really?

These are the words of the politician who fired the head of America’s largest car maker (a private company!), strong-armed two of the Big Three car companies into “restructuring” as his administration saw fit, trampled bankruptcy law to force rightful creditors to take pennies on the dollar, and seized future control of GM by ensuring that the federal government holds a majority share of the company when it emerges from bankruptcy.

Such actions would not be surprising from a Hugo Chavez or a Robert Mugabe.  They would be outrageous, of course, and deserving of the harshest censure from the civilized world, but we have come to expect this from tin pot dictators.  For this to happen in America is a shameful nightmare.

There exist only two possible conclusions regarding the president’s statement.  If running a car company and manipulating the auto market is truly “the last thing he wants,” then Mr. Obama is either stunningly incompetent (because he has achieved exactly what he claims he doesn’t want) or he is utterly disingenuous.

Of course, considering what we know about the career bureaucrat, the latter is obviously true.  The Obama administration, propelled by the momentum of the Bush administration, has with remarkable rapidity and consistency intruded into virtually every aspect of private life.  For this president to say that he “actually would like to see a relatively light touch when it comes to the government” is plainly false.  It is a jaw-droppingly brazen lie, contradicting everything the man has ever done or believed in.  

But the true marvel of his performance is that he can get away with it - and he knows it.  This is the tragic indictment of American culture today.  Apparently, all one has to do to be a dictator is to feign reluctance.

This erosion of the American republic cannot be blamed on Barack Obama.  It cannot be blamed on Capitol Hill.  These men and women were ushered into office by Americans; they are applauded by Americans.  It is true that almost half of the people who showed up at the polls in 2008 voted for John McCain, but even if John McCain had won the election, he would be decimating liberty more or less at the same rate as Barack Obama.  Mr. Obama complains about the “standard conservative critique” of his administration, but conservatives do not present any principled opposition to him, and in fact, play directly into his hands.  After all, it was the Bush administration that handed Mr. Obama the lever - the initial bailout money - with which he compels auto makers and financial institutions to do his bidding.  Though few from either side may like to admit it, the Obama administration’s sacrificial agenda of “lending a helping hand” to the unfortunate perfectly satisfies the aims of “compassionate conservatism.”

Neither Republicans nor Democrats, neither “liberals” nor conservatives, properly defend American values.  The parties bicker about the details of which sacrifices Americans should make, but a principled defense of individual rights is almost non-existent.  Politicians of every stripe fail to recognize that the purpose of the Constitution is protect every citizen from them, the politicians.  Republicans and Democrats treat the law as an instrument to push people around, and they do so without a second thought or apology.

The challenge for us, as defenders of liberty, is to bring Americans back to the principled path.  This is not easy, for as Edward Cline pointed out in an excellent post, “Generations of dumbing-down and educational indoctrination can’t be undone during a single repressive administration.”[Note 2.]  This is not to say that Americans are “dumb” - far from it, for young Americans are still the bright hope of the future.  However, being intelligent and being able to think are two different things, and each successive generation of American minds emerges from an educational system that increasingly hobbles its students.  It is the rare person that can learn to think properly given a modern education that discourages independence and eschews principles in favor of disparate, agenda-driven facts and factoids.  Nevertheless, it is precisely a principled argument that we must make if the republic is to be saved, for America is above all a nation based on a principle: the principle of individual rights. 

NOTES

1.  Transcript of Obama Interview with the Journal, Wall Street Journal, http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/06/16/transcript-of-obamas-interview-with-the-journal/.

2.  Edward Cline, “The New Sons of Liberty,” http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2009/06/new-sons-of-liberty.htm.