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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 9:14amSanction this postReply
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An old and dear friend of mine finally -- at my request -- read Rand's fiction a few years ago. She greatly enjoyed it, and eloquently thanked me for having introduced her to these works.

Because of reading Rand's fiction, she learned about Rand's nonfiction -- and about two years ago she started reading that too.. (I had not mentioned Rand's nonfiction to this friend, as I'd had every evidence that this friend disliked reading philosophy, political commentary, or other forms of nonfiction).
It therefore surprised me -- and it surprised her even more -- that she ended up loving Rand's non-fiction. Even more, it has surprised me -- and, she says, it has vastly surprised her -- that (over the past two years) she has very gradually, very reluctantly, reached the conclusion that she can no longer be my friend (in fact, she has concluded that she should never have been my friend and that our past friendship has morally damaged her)>
Her reason: she eventually came to comprehend (with difficulty, she says, and much against her own wish to evade that knowledge) that I am not "Man _qua_ Man" and therefore (in her current view) I am not, and never was, fit material for the construction or continuance of a friendship.

She made clear to me that her classification of me as "not fully Man, because not in some sense completely Man _qua_ Man" had nothing to do with any of the usual reasons for ending a friendship (such as lack of shared values). After all, she noted, I had introduced her to the very writer on whose premises she has reached this decision: "For that [she says], rest assured that I shall continue to regard you benevolently, just as I would regard benevolently a animal such as a horse or a pet dog or cat which performs some useful service to Man." Her decision, she explained, rested in large part on the fact that I "deface the image of Man."

This turned out to mean the fact that I need eyeglasses for distance vision -- she regards the wearing of eyeglasses in public as "unacceptably intruding a handicap into public view ... by presenting an eyeglassed face where Man cannot avoid encountering it, you and others like you are implicitly degrading the image of Man, asking to be tolerated at Man's expense. You have no so-called 'right' to impose yourself upon the unhandicapped, unmyopic public at large. Thrusting evidence of a visual handicap into the public view of healthy unhandicapped children and adults, which you do every time you leave your home wearing eyeglassesn, has doubtless been ruinous to uncounted children's sense of life. ... If I had known then what I know now, I would never have considered allowing you to enter the sanctity of my home to tutor my daughter when she needed some help with schoolwork. You are known to be highly competent as a tutor -- but at what subtle cost, I now wonder, to your pupils' sense of life?"

Now you know one reason that I was asking, a few months ago, about a statement by Rand on handicapped people.

My ex-friend graciously (?) offers to renew the friendship if either /a/ I successfully undergo eye surgery (an expense of money, time, and some risk that I prefer not to venture into) or /b/ f I switch to contact lenses (which I avoid, on medical advice, because of reasons including a certain lack of manual dexterity), or /c/ I persuade her -- on Randian theoretical grounds -- that she must withdraw her objection to my "eyeglassed existence" (her phrase).

Since I have failed to find, or to construct, any argument she finds satisfactory (e.g., I argued that what she calls "handicap aids" -- glasses, hearing aids, crutches, etc. -- should not offend her because their creation and use are rational means to achieve a rational goal), what do you suggest?

Should I try harder for (or ask you to suggest) an argument that may convince her? (After all, we differ on few if any values other than this one -- it was her idea, not mine, to end the friendship: and even then, she ended it only reluctantly.)
Or should I decide in turn that I should no longer even wish to be her friend, and cease trying, or even hoping, to renew a friendship that I valued greatly until the day she ended it?
Or should I simply wait until she, or someone else she values -- such as that daughter whose sense of life, presumably, my glasses endanger -- herself needs glasses or a hearing aid or anything else whose public use she deems a slander on the very nature of Man?

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 9:58amSanction this postReply
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I'm at a loss as to how anyone could form this kind of secondhand conclusion and remedy from reading Rand.  

Be glad she's gone.


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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 11:49amSanction this postReply
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I suggest you pay someone to shorten just one of her legs. Then send her flowers in condolence.

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Post 3

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 12:13pmSanction this postReply
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Yikes, Kate. Friends occasionally get on nutty tangents. And people take away bizarre stuff from reading Rand. I had one friend think Rand was just all about aggressive sex. That fictional guy in Dirty Dancing figured Rand condoned irresponsibility and dishonest toward "lesser" people. Sometimes these bizarre interpretations fade. Sometimes they are terminal.

If you'd find it worthwhile to throw some more rhetoric her way, here're some options if you haven't used them already.
 
First, friendship is fundamentally a matter of exchange, of trade, of getting and giving value for value. Excellence in living "man qua man" is largely of personal value, but not so much of value in exchange. We rarely require such value for any other exchanges. After all, do we require demonstration of excellence in living "man qua man" from the cashier before we buy our groceries, or from the ticket-taker before we enter the concert hall, or even from an employer before we take a job? No, moral excellence is usually incidental to the value derive from exchange. Were we to require such excellence from all our relations, we would inevitably end up hermits, which is inevitably self-immolating -- antithetical to Rand's vision.

Second, what's she got against glasses? They are testament to applied human creativity, of our technological prowess. Is not this view benevolent, and the disparaging alternative malevolent? Who's the one being myopic here? :-) Yes, there are other ways (at least for some) to address near-sightedness -- e.g., eye surgery or contacts, as you mentioned -- just as there are other ways to get to the shop down the street -- e.g., drive, bicycle, or walk. Choosing walking or bicycling over driving in no way need debase humanity or oneself, neither need opting for glasses over surgery or contacts.

Under Objectivism, the choice, if it's a rational one, will be of one that best suits the chooser.** Isn't that the core of living as "man qua man"? I mean, maybe the walker rationally prefers the exercise, the leisure, the time in the sun. Similarly, maybe the near-sighted person rationally prefers the convenience of glasses, the aesthetics, the durability, not to mention the low cost and low risk. A choice to wear glasses might well be the best application of living "man qua man" as applied to that chooser's circumstances!

Mind you, people are always welcome to try and persuade a friend that one option is better than another, but to demand and insist that one option is superior, especially when accompanied by threat of 'friendshipicide' for non-compliance, is to attempt to subordinate one's will to their own, which is sacrificial -- again, antithetical to Rand's vision.

G'luck,
Jordan


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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 3:00pmSanction this postReply
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This sounds incredibly bizarre, almost hard to believe. Why are you trying to be friends with someone who is clearly a nutcase?

If you really care about getting her back as a friend (I'd suggest not bothering but clearly you want to make an effort), just tell her glasses is a symbol of man's triumph over nature. Any tool a man uses or creates alleviates a handicap. Our eyes cannot see microscopic particles, but a microscope alleviates this handicap. Without technology we are all extremely limited in our physical capacity and would be just as physically capable as a chimp. Physical ability in itself is the most nominal input to wealth creation anyways, a mental capacity is far more beneficial to man. Your friend without her car, climate controlled home, computer, flu medication, would be far more handicapped than you would be with your glasses. You can just tell her the fact that she gets into a car probably everyday of her life projects her own handicap of not being able to run more than 10mph.



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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 4:39pmSanction this postReply
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The sound arguments that Jordan suggests, I had already (and unsuccessfully) raised.

Certainly I did ask her what, specifically, she has (since reading Rand) against publicly visible deployment of eyeglasses (and also of hearing aids, sign language, leg braces, wheelchairs, oxygen inhalers, canes, Seeing Eye dogs, prosthetic limbs when visible as such, and anything else that provides publicly visible evidence of a physical or other handicap). She made clear that she considers such things "unacceptable public spectacles" because "they intrude a handicapped state of being into the presence of normal, healthy individuals who should not have to be exposed to this unless they are physicians or are otherwise professionally interested in dealing with the handicapped."

"Unacceptable public spectacles," in her view, includes not only any visible effort to remedy a handicap or its consequences, but any visible evidence of a handicap itself. (She has -- since reading Rand -- expressed the view that "cripples, midgets, and other deformed people should learn the good sense and common decency to keep away from restaurants, streets, stores, and other places where normal people would have to encounter them" because -- in her view -- "with or without a wheelchair, such an individual is a repugnant sight. Simply by being in public view, he is imposing himself upon others, and this is inevitably at the expense of others because his mere presence inevitably subtracts from others' proper enjoyment of life. In a more sensible era, there were places for such people so that the sight of them did not intrude upon the rest of us."

I don't know anyone whom I could pay to shorten one of her legs a few inches (or otherwisev make her into what she despises) -- though that joking (I assume?) suggestion against the holder of such a premise does make me wonder: could one indeed defend, morally and rationally, such an action against the holder of such a premise?

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 4:48pmSanction this postReply
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If you really care about this person, breaking one of her legs is your best option. The rest is a waste of breath.

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 4:55pmSanction this postReply
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Wow, Kate. What a malevolent sense of life she apparently has -- seeing only people's physical flaws and shortcomings, not their strengths and triumphs. To judge so completely and on such a superficial level is astounding. Attempts to continue your relationship with her, as she clings to this view, might be deleterious to your wellbeing.

Jordan 


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Post 8

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 4:58pmSanction this postReply
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Again Kate, your friend is a nutcase. If she wants to measure man's worth by his physical capacity, then that's her morally bankrupt view. I bet she has your average job and hasn't made any profound discoveries or inventions nor will she ever achieve any level of greatness on par with someone like this guy.


I'd rather have him as a friend then your mentally decrepit friend.


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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 5:08pmSanction this postReply
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That's the best answer anyone could offer.

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 5:18pmSanction this postReply
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Yep - sanction, John...

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 5:23pmSanction this postReply
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No, saying that you would prefer a brilliant man who is wheelchair bound to this woman as a friend might simply mean that you would put up with his disability because of the other benefits. She herself might agree. The proper response is to say that honest friendship in any guise is better than her. This fellow would make a better friend.



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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 5:24pmSanction this postReply
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Re:

"Why are you trying to be friends with someone who is clearly a nutcase?"

We were friends -- good friends -- until she became a nutcase on this issue. Had she not made it an issue, we would (from all available evidence) have remained good friends.

Don't think I didn't raise the (obvious and important) argument that eyeglasses (and other things she objects to) indicate our triumph over nature.
She doesn't object to seeing a microscope in use, because the normal human mode of perception is not microscopic, therefore she recognizes that it is normal and healthy to make and use microscopes for certain purposes,

She objects to "being confronted with eyeglasses" -- as she puts it these days -- because vision requiring their use is not normal vision and, in her view, "it is discourteous to confront normal people with the sight of a defect, as this is an implicit demand to equate the defect with normality" In other words: she objects to my seeing clearly with eyeglasses because she would object equally to my squinting without them. Either state (wearing eyeglasses, or squinting) would -- in her view -- aesthetically offend by forcing her to regard the defect as normal.

similarly for other things that -- as she puts it -- "normal healthy humans properly create for normal healthy needs and goals": e.g., her climate-controlled home, computer, car, calculator, cell-phone, etc., as well as flu shots, daily vitamins, and such other medication/medical treatment she does not consider a "spectacle of publicly paraded deformity ... evading the difference between normal and substandard, teaching us to tolerate substandard bodies and minds as if they were normal."

Rather than pay a hit-man to cripple her (as someone suggested), I would very happily pay any amount -- if given the opportunity -- to keep her and her beloved daughter alive and fully conscious for however many years or decades it may take for both of them to end up living with each and every one of the difficulties that she regards as improper to bring among decent people.

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 5:30pmSanction this postReply
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Kate, the "break her leg" argument is of the

A > B
~B
:. ~A

form.

Do I need to make it explicit?

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 5:34pmSanction this postReply
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Stephen Hawking matters far more to me, too, than does my ex-friend (please note the "ex-" here!)
Oddly, she admires (and teaches her rather saner daughter to admire) Hawking among other great scientists -- she is well aware that the giants of the mind include Stephen Hawking as well as other visibly imperfect folks present and past (e.g., Charles Proteus Steinmetz whom I had her Google) -- she just wishes that Hawking _et_al._ "would have the decency to stay out of sight of the rest of us who just aren't interested in their crippled physiques. Why he [Hawking] can't just stay at home with his computer and a hired nurse is beyond me."

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 5:35pmSanction this postReply
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So what exactly is her standard for "normal people"? Is it what this guy considers "normal people"?




There is no such thing as a platonic ideal of "normal". Most of us suffer from some physical ailment from time to time. I would guess we all have some genetic defect to some degree. She has no right to demand others with physical ailments to hide themselves. It's improper to make such a demand as it is an improper value that she holds.



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Post 16

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 5:38pmSanction this postReply
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No, you don't need to make it explicit. My own response belonged to the category "ha-ha-only-serious" (rather like the jest, frequently made in the final months of 2001, that Osama bin Laden should -- if captured -- face no worse sentence than internal exile to a Taliban-controlled village: after undergoing a sex-change operation followed by issuance of new identification documents with a feminine name.)

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 5:49pmSanction this postReply
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Her standard for "normal humanness," as she puts it, is: "If I wouldn't notice it on a bus or in a restaurant, it's okay by me" -- NOT that I find her position, or how she would apply it (given a chance), any significant improvement over A. Hitler's. (Fortunately, she has never run for office & she does not intend to do so. She hasn't -- as far as I know -- done anything more publicly noticeable than write a letter to her daughter's school to protest the fact that the artwork on exhibit in one classroom included a poster of Helen Keller.)

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 5:51pmSanction this postReply
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I consider wearing glasses as an extremely minor affront on the perfect aesthetic image of a man. But... I don't think its good (I don't think it helps me accomplish my goals) to unfriend a person due to this minor imperfection.

My eyes are getting worse now that I'm nearing 30 years, and I'm going to have to get glasses to help me see longer distances soon : (.

Ask your friend to tell you how unfriending you will make her life better?
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores on 12/16, 5:52pm)


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Post 19

Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 5:56pmSanction this postReply
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Well what she notices doesn't matter. As I said someone with a physical ailment owes her nothing. The handicap have no moral obligation to hide to ease her improper reaction of discomfort.

I'll just say one last thing about her. I usually reserve this word for rare occasions when I feel it deserves to be used.

Your ex-friend is a hateful bitch.
(Edited by John Armaos on 12/16, 6:02pm)


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