Answering Objectivist Q and A...outside of this forum

I was googling and came across this on the Yahoo!Answers site. (I admit I wasn't even aware of Yahoo!Answers until now.)

A student reading The Fountainhead could not understand the difference between Ellsworth Toohey's quest for power, and Gail Wynand's, and is asking for help from those in the know.

http://au.answers.yahoo.com/answers2/frontend.php/question?qid=20080102222645AAxOCAy

Just wondering...does anyone here ever come across situations like this and help, or do you just direct them to RoR (or another O'ist site), where their questions can be answered by other Objectivists, as well?

Incidentally, someone did give her an answer, which, apparently, other members of the site can vote on as the "best" answer. The respondent merely asked,

What methods do they use to gain power over others? Why do they want power over others? Are their motives the same? How do they treat the people over whom they gain power? How do they feel while trying to gain power over someone? How do they feel afterwards?

Perhaps this is the best answer, if you're trying to guide a student to discover the answers on her own. What would any of you have said? Would you have given her the answers outright, or made her think it over, as this poster did? Would it make a difference if the questioner was a student in a class, or a businessman reading the book for the first time?

Just curious...I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Side note:
(I forget sometimes just how much Rand's influence exists outside of sites like this one. It was actually refreshing to read this girl's question for many reasons...but mainly because, according to her post, it was her teacher who insisted to her that there was indeed a difference, and that she should discover it...how often does that happen?)

Post 1

Monday, February 11, 2008 - 10:14am

What a cool site, Erica!

I wonder who is in charge of the header for the question. This student's question is introduced as "Resolved." Is it the questioners themselves who get to state whether they feel that their question has been resolved or not? Is there a pool of unresolved questions (on YahooAnswers) waiting somewhere for satisfactory responses?

As a professional educator, I think that the "Socratic questioning" that was given is the best answer for this kind of medium -- though more extensive instruction would involve facilitated exploration of the possible answers. Eventually, the student would look up and tell me this:

"So, Wynand's power was the power to create something (that didn't yet exist), and Toohey's power was the power to destroy (always requiring the sacrifice of victim). That makes sense. Toohey's action on planet Earth was always aimed at taking down a person or a creation -- it was wholly destructive in nature. Thanks, Professor Ed!"

;-)

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 2/11, 10:16am)

Post 2

Monday, February 11, 2008 - 11:24am

Erica -- I agree with the notion of throwing out the questions and letting the student have a go at answering them, and then giving your thoughts on the responses you disagree with, rather than just spoonfeeding the answers. Back before I became an ex-Mormon, my calling was to teach lessons in the Elder's Quorum, and I found that we had much more lively and passionate discussions, and people paid more attention, when I asked a lot of provocative questions rather than reciting the prepared lesson. That, and I had serious issues with many "facts" being presented, and wanted to see if anyone else out there was questioning those doctrines.

Post 3

Monday, February 11, 2008 - 4:37pm

I love the Socratic answer.

Jim,

Did you chuck the Gold Plates for good? :) What made you change your mind?

Post 4

Monday, February 11, 2008 - 6:23pm

Teresa -- Not good at predicting the future, so I won't speculate whether something will change and get me to go back to church. The members of my ward certainly haven't just shrugged and written me off. They are going to keep coming back unless I tell them to eff off, and I like them as individuals and don't wish to offend these very nice people I consider my friends.

I kind of joined the Church by accident -- I was running for a seat in the Hawaii State Senate against a reputed wife-beating sociopath, among others, and so naturally everyone assumed I had zero chance of winning because of my party affiliation. Seriously. Anyway, I realized while doing my homework that I had a Mormon Temple in my district, and one precinct that was about 90% LDS. So I figured I better find out the thumbnail version of their religious beliefs so I didn't go around inadvertently pissing people off. And it happened that some LDS missionaries came to my door, and I chatted with them for a while. Thought that was the end of it. Newbie mistake. A different pair of missionaries kept coming by, and they were really nice and pleasant, and my father had died recently and I was wondering if there really was an afterlife after all (I was an agnostic at the time).

Got baptized. Got confirmed. A year or so later, got a Temple Recommend. Went to the Temple, and was appalled at the hidden symbolism and whatnot, and got a splitting headache. Then, over the course of a couple of years, reality started wearing down my faith, and I became more libertarian, and libertarian and LDS as it is practiced nowadays is a really bad mix. I was kinda running on fumes for the last year, but I was infatuated with one of the women there, and was thinking somehow that the Church would allow some sort of polygamous arrangement. It took a while for it to sink in that the mainstream LDS Church is one of the most anti-polygamous organizations imaginable.

I quit going to church shortly after joining this site -- I was right at the tipping point, and some things my Elder's Quorum President said finally nudged me over.

If you were looking for like a one sentence answer, my profuse apologies for this long rambling answer. I kinda don't have anyone in the meatworld I feel comfortable talking to about this stuff.

Post 5

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - 8:08am

I wonder who is in charge of the header for the question. This student's question is introduced as "Resolved." Is it the questioners themselves who get to state whether they feel that their question has been resolved or not? (Ed)

I wondered the same thing, too. As I mentioned in my earlier post, apparently others get to vote on the best answer, but then does the questioner then decide it's resolved for them? (I guess I'll just have to join that site and see how it works. :-)

Is there a pool of unresolved questions (on YahooAnswers) waiting somewhere for satisfactory responses? (Ed)

I'm sure there has to be. You should join the site, Ed, and see if there are some health-related and philosophical questions you could help people out with.

I have to agree, when I think about it, that the Socratic answer is the best. But I admit that my own first instinct, would have been to just blurt out all the answers to the questioner. (Guess I wouldn't make a very good teacher, LOL!)

Jim, that was a fascinating story. And Teresa, (or Jim)...what the heck are the "Gold Plates" anyway?

Thanks to everyone who replied.

Erica

Post 6

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - 9:06am

The 'Golden Plates' are the 'ten commandments' of the Mormon church, the tablets of the Book of Mormon, the angel gave to Smith.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_plates

(Edited by robert malcom on 2/12, 9:07am)

Post 7

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - 9:32am

And Teresa, (or Jim)...what the heck are the "Gold Plates" anyway?

Erica -- The gold plates were allegedly found by Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS Church, in a hole in a hillside near Cumorah, New York, and allegedly were a written record of what was allegedly later translated by Joseph Smith into the Book of Mormon. This book alleges that jewish settlers arrived in the Americas, most likely in Central America near the Panamanian area based on some passages in the book, and founded this vast civilization that flourished, split into two parts, and then one part died in a cataclysmic battle, leaving the survivors as the American Indians, and the last survivor of the wiped-out race burying the record of these tales on golden plates, inexplicably located in New York which is nowhere near Central America.

Feel free to google something on the order of "Joseph Smith gold plates" if you want more. If you really want to take a chance on weirding up your life big time, you can invite a pair of missionaries over to explain it, but if you do so, from personal experience I can assure you that they will relentlessly keep coming back until you have the heart to tell sweet, pleasant young men to eff off and never, ever come back or you will sic your dorg on them. Or maybe you have the tact and charm to dissuade them without the profanity or roughness, but they don't give up easily. ;)

You're probably wondering how a seemingly rational person could fall for such a concoction, but that's a longer story than I have time for right now. Short answer -- LDS folks are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet, if you can keep them off the subject of religion, about which many are batshit insane and yet somehow manage to function.

Aloha, Jim

Post 8

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - 12:50pm

You're probably wondering how a seemingly rational person could fall for such a concoction, but that's a longer story than I have time for right now. Short answer -- LDS folks are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet, if you can keep them off the subject of religion, about which many are batshit insane and yet somehow manage to function.

Somewhat the same with some of the Jehovah Witnesses a friend of mine used to have me as the 'dog' to sic when they'd show up at her place..... ;-)

Post 9

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - 5:16pm

I have to agree, when I think about it, that the Socratic answer is the best. But I admit that my own first instinct, would have been to just blurt out all the answers to the questioner. (Guess I wouldn't make a very good teacher, LOL!)

I know for a fact I wouldn't have answered in a Socratic fashion, either.
Maybe I'm just over eager for other's to "get it" as quickly as possible.

Post 10

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - 5:20pm

LOL, Jim!

"Batshit"

LOL!

Post 11

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - 5:49pm

I have to agree, when I think about it, that the Socratic answer is the best. But I admit that my own first instinct, would have been to just blurt out all the answers to the questioner. (Guess I wouldn't make a very good teacher, LOL!)

Actually, thinking it over a bit, I would say that if you're talking to a single student or group of students, who all seem engaged and willing to ask questions if something seems not to make sense, then blurting out the answers would work fine, as would asking questions, because either way they're going to think it through and see if it makes sense and ask relevant questions. You know they have their attention.

But, if you have a classroom full of people, and some of them don't seem to be paying attention or seem bored, or are actually nodding off, then asking provocative questions is a way of grabbing the laggards' attention and getting them to engage in the discussion.

That's why, when I was teaching Elder's Quorum, I made a point of committing something verging dangerously close to heresy or blasphemy every session -- posing at least one question that implied that the "Prophet, Seer, and Revelator" in question was flat out wrong about something. Nothing like committing an arguably excommunicatable offense to perk up a sleepy group of Elders low on blood sugar.

Post 12

Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 2:25pm

I just noticed that there were no other answers to this question. In other words, the person writing the answer could have been the only one voting for it -- and it would still be the winner.

:-(

Ed

Post 13

Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 3:33pm

Erica, I took your advice.

:-)

Ed

Post 14

Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - 8:29pm

I would have just given an up front answer. I think the Socratic bit is more appropriate for back-and-forth discussions. That said, I wouldn't have called Toohey's bit "a quest for power." Really, it was more a quest for mediocrity, which is any many ways a power-less quality.

Jordan

Post 15

Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 11:47am

Jordan,

You're missing a subtle point here. It seems that you're confusing "power" with "productive power" or "creation" -- but there's also the power to destroy; and it is something that can even grow (in a man who's both lustful of it, and cunning).

Ed

Post 16

Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 1:11pm

Ed,

Hmm. I generally agreed with the answer to the question that you gave in post #1. I definitely think Toohey wielded that power to destroy. I just don't think he was on a "quest" for it. I think he was on a quest for something else (i.e., mass mediocrity) and rode the power to destroy to get there.

If you are saying that the mediocre can in some way be powerful -- in a destructive rather than productive wau -- I think that point has merit.

Jordan

Post 17

Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 4:01pm