Is there a 12-step program for recovering Randaholics? Unfortunately, I let myself be totally consumed by Ayn Rand's philosophy Objectivism at an early age (15). I guess I was looking for answers in all the wrong places. As other have alluded to, this had a high cost. In my case, it led to personal feelings of inadequacy and alienation. For 4 years, I dutifully argued Objectivism's conclusions, built on all those airtight premises--and felt more and more the intellectually-isolated teenager. But all the while, I loved music passionately, from an even earlier age, and so I finally fell off the Objectivist Fence, and fell into indulging myself in a non-stop emotional orgy of "love," marijuana, guitar-playing and song-writing--and tried to forget philosophy entirely. I actually got decent at guitar, but my vocal range was limited. I found that it was more prudent to play songs like "Blackbird" and "Here Comes the Sun" publicly. My career peaked with a solo rendition of "Matty Groves" down at a local coffee shop in Burlingame CA (1972). When I discovered Joni Mitchell, i was dumb-struck! I realized that I did not have what it takes to be a successful song-writer in the "self-introspective lyric and voice category." This was a bitter pill to swallow, but I had seen plenty of burned out musicians who should've known when to quit-- and I did not want to go there. So, rather than torture myself with original song-writing, I fell more into playing JM songs--but I needed a vocalist, as her vocal range was too much for me. It was very hard to find anyone who could do JM! Meanwhile, economic necessity drove me into a job as a technician in Silicon Valley. I swore I would save up a few thousand bucks and quit after six months and just go traveling. That was almost 30 years ago and I am still a name on a door. But I eventually made the fortune that surely would've eluded me in music. And I found deep purpose in my wife and family. The pollution of early Silicon Valley made me an ecologist. Eventually, I felt that I had to reconcile my personal philosophy, which was like an overgrown skeletal closet. I discovered Prodigy (1986) and went wild with online discussions. This led to the internet where I became a regular on alt.philosophy.objectivism (1990) and met wonderful people who had fully recovered from Objectivism. A year later I was able to see Objectivism fairly objectively. I wrote my own refutation of Objectivism: I have no problem with the idea that reality exists, independent of any consciousness. I begin to diverge with Objectivists when they claim that all knowledge is objective, and that not only is everything know-able, but that they in particular know all the facts of a certain matter. (!) As if believing in one's mental prowess makes it so! Of course, human knowledge is often a very close approximation to reality, close enough to allow prediction, close enough to allow survival and prospering. But it is never exactly the same as reality. As another poster has stated, it is a *model* of reality. As it goes with models, it is never 100% complete: the quest for knowledge by humans is endless and ongoing. And there has never yet been a model of some aspect of physical reality which has not been challenged at some later date, and replaced by a new and improved one. So, facts may be facts, but whether we know them at any given point in time, is problematical. It would seem that humans can and do *approach* an objective understanding of reality, but can never quite get to it. None the less, I am willing to concede that this is "good enough;" that facts are close enough to being objectively known that we can ignore the dividing line between that and absolute certainty, at least for purposes of this discussion. VALUES AND VOLITION So, even if humans could objectively know facts, would this put facts on the same level as values? Not hardly. Values are inextricably linked to human volition, each shaping the other. As growing beings, our volition is shaped by three major forces over the course of our lives: nature, nurture, and self-direction, assuming that each previous force was "successful." If we are born severely retarded, no amount of nurturing will make us capable of complete self-direction. If our nurturing is incomplete or dysfunctional, it is unlikely that we will be able to achieve a state of rational self interest (ie victim's mentality). So, rationality is a PRODUCT of a successful birth and a successful upbringing, including the learning of language, with the inculcation of certain values, including "conscience." It is NOT an innate feature of man. (Some of the most interesting data regarding this is that of "feral children" who are raised by animals.) Rationality is a capability which we exercise in self-directness, assuming that everything else went "right" in our lives up until then. Rationality is akin to the blossoming of the flower of volition. *The ability to exercise volition is what defines us as fully human, and what gives meaning to our lives. * MAN'S PREMISES So what does this have to do with values? Values are the "stuff" that gives shape to volition in its early stages, and what volition produces in its later stages. Long before we are able to self-direct with any confidence, we are learning values from our parents/peers. Before that, we are picking up "innate" values like sexual preference. Rand calls these values "man's premises." She was mistaken to think that these premises are solely rationally chosen. The values which are rationally chosen are those which are done by the mature healthy adult (although many children are also capable of this to some degree). The basic values, like wanting to be loved, and not wanting to hurt (or to be hurt) by others, are already "in there," shaping volition in lieu of rationality. Society successfully transmits many basic values through the parents to the child, long before the child is able to make up her mind on such matters (assuming a functional family environment). So, facts are facts, but values are a complex combination of ideas which reside in the minds of each individual, and are unique to each individual, just as each person's volition is unique to that individual. Values may be so deeply held that they are not even known by intense self-introspection. Values represent a combination of physiological programming, cultural programming, and finally, on top of all the rest, the rationally self-chosen ideas, such as the idea that he who dies with the most toys wins. (8^) Therefore, 99.9% of values are entirely, ineluctably subjective, belonging to each individual. ONE OBJECTIVE VALUE The only truly objective value (according to my ethics) is that *people should not destroy or abrogate the volition of others.* This is transparently similar to many other commonly held and ancient credos, which may not mean much, but it is comforting that my conclusion would be easily accepted by most people, even if they didnt follow the underlying reasoning. However, unlike the simple libertarian dictum against the initiation of force, my ethics strongly implies that there is a parental obligation to children. --Al Date ----------------------------------------------- FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com
