| | My comment on your length was just to let you know that if you're goal is to communicate to people, the length is hurting not helping. You're welcome to continue as is...but I for one don't read half of what you write.
Grand Wazir Rowlands-
Well, I am very happy to have misinterpreted you here. As for the expediency of my length, I feeling is that I am reaching those for whom I am interested in taking the time to speak. If I am wrong, 'tis my loss.
It takes a pretty shallow understanding of Objectivism to think that wealth is the only standard of success. I'm more inclined to believe the socialists, who you think are so benevolent when it comes to disagreement (and yet somehow Communists countries aren't...hmmm...), are the ones who worship wealth as an end in itself. Objectivists understand that wealth is potential value. You can trade it for all kinds of things, but it's not a substitute for those things.
Francisco d'Anconia: "let me give you a secret to men's moral character. The man who respect wealth has earned it; the man who does not has obtained his dishonestly."
I understand the Objectivist theory of wealth. I am, actually, not even attacking it as such, as I've actually said a number of times now. What I am attacking is the notion that poverty should generally be considered the result of vice- a principle I do not find clearly in Rand, but I do find in much of the current Objectivist subculture. and the prevalent Objectivist view of today's culture war.
Actually, I'd be pretty happy to go with the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, at least in broad essentials. What I will not sign on to is this repulsive Republican Party notion that the wealthy are generally the salt of the earth, and the poor generally vicious. Especially in the context of a semi-statist society. Especially in the context of a Protestant Ethic by which the centers of wealth are generally also the centers of a repressiveness hostile to that creativity which is the spiritual component of innovation.
With regard to socialism, you are putting words into my mouth. I am saying that the cultural left has more respect for artistic creativity, which lends credence to socialism. I oppose socialism, in favor of libertarianism (I dislike the term "capitalism" which suggests that economic freedom is more basic that social or personal freedom, and which suggests that the institutions of 'capital'- i.e., big business, are more at the moral center of liberty than science, art, culture, etc.)
But that doesn't mean that wealth is not an indicator of success at all. It certainly is. Wealth is of huge importance to our lives. Even by your own hedonistic standard money should be important. And it certainly is to those who claim life as the standard. And yet here we have you and Andre saying that the creation of wealth is immoral. No, I have never said and do not believe this, and have specifically denied this. What I claim is that the conformist culture of much of today's established society slams doors to economic mobility on those who challenge society's values. And I deny that there is something moral about those aspects of our business culture that are intolerant towards creativity and demand cultural conformity to bourgeois norms.
Under such conditions, the best and most passionate human spirits may be to a small or great degree penalized for their virtue by having economic doors slammed in their face. If this is the case, the claim that actual wealth should make us think of success is suspect. The claim that poverty should make us generally suspect moral failure is an obscenity.
And yes, as a hedonist, I do believe that wealth is of value to my life.
Personally, what I find repulsive is those people who live in poverty and try to morally justify it by cursing wealth. And equally those who set up a wealth/virtue dichotomy, and try to claim productive ability is a vice, instead of a virtue.
Well, I do neither. If you mean to imply I do, please validate your claim. I do think that under conditions of statism and/or a Protestant Ethic, virtue can be economically penalized, but this is a protest against evil institutions that dualize social conditions, not an implication of an essential duality. I am after all a supporter of Chris Sciabarra's concept of dialectical methodology.
And I find it strange to believe that our mixed economy- which after all, according to Objectivists, operates on a socialist principle penalizing virtue as often as a capitalist principle rewarding virtue, should particularly reward virtue with wealth.
The bold is mine. And it constitutes a significant disagreement. A mixed economy sometimes penalizes virtue, it's true. But to suggest that the US equally (or even close) punishes and rewards virtue is ridiculous.
Why? Ayn Rand talked about a choking establishment that destroyed young innovators in both business and the arts ("the establishing on an establishment") in the 1960s. Statism has only increased apace since then.
But I don't that's greatness, and a morality and civilization which prizes the chance of ordinary people to attain decent wealth, but tortures its artists and philosophers, is not one I personally care to expend any effort to defend. I'll just say that I think it's the artists and philosophers that are torturing the ordinary people, and not the other way around. As for the real artist and philosophers out there, they're more likely to be hurt by the professional artists and philosophers than the public.
I speak in defense of those on the cultural left I have known- many of them libertarians- who had their creative spirits burnt out by slammed doors. I don't deny that much of the cultural left also takes it out on Middle America, sometimes justly, sometimes not. This is a pointless cycle of violence.
As a matter of specialization, I share in the artistic passions more than the commercial. If there is no peace in this cultural war, why on Earth would I do anything but defend those whose passions I share- among whom I have had friends and lovers, whose world is a haven to me and whose style of living gives my life passion? I do think Middle America has its virtues- such as economic rationality, and as I've said, I wish both subcultures would learn from each other. Ultimately, I think the culture war is destructive to both sides, and only encourages the worst in repression among the cultural right, and nihilism among the cultural left... instead of promoting mutual benefit from the creativity and tolerance promoted by one, and the clarity and economy promoted by the other.
But if the cultural right insists on a Protestant Ethic that demands repression and respectability and the marginalization of the cultural left, then I know which side I will fight to the death on. I will live in this world or none,.
As for "real artists and philosophers", this is a transparent attempt to claim artists and philosophers you approve of are "real" artists, and those artists and philosophers you do not approve of are not, without argument.
But this really sounds like the old Public Broadcasting excuse. You want to live off of being a philosopher, but nobody will pay for you. So it's their fault. The fact that you offer nothing they want is a problem with their wants, not what you have to offer.
Excuse me, I don't expect other people to support me, and you have no moral right to make these extremely insulting insinuations here- I don't care if you do administer this site. I may actually lay out my personal history for you to judge, but not for the present time, and I refuse to discuss this issue in these terms and sanction this attitude.
Otherwise, I note that I find it ridiculous that while in aesthetic matters, many Objectivists sneer down their nose at mass culture. But when it comes to business and economics, what's common and typical has to be good. I personally think both should be judged with understanding and criticism.
And you throw around the term "genius" too easily.
Maybe. I leave it to others to judge.
And finally, yes the poor are generally to blame for their poverty. And yes, under some contexts (Soviet Russia for one), it's not true. But not in this country. Not in a place where wealth mobility is so common. Not in a land where anyone can get a college education, and there is such a lack of engineers, scientists, and doctors that they have to important most of them from other countries, and they pay very well.
1) Relative freedom and justice does not say anything about absolute freedom and justice.
2) Social mobility to the technical professions says nothing about the tolerance for creativity and nonconformity. BTW, why is it there is a lack of Americans interested in becoming engineers, scientists, and doctors under the current terms?
3) As others have mentioned, the most money is in the most state-controlled (and most socially conformist) sectors of the economy- banking and real estate- I add law and medicine. Leonard Peikoff wrote a very good article in the 80s arguing that virtue was all but choked out of the medical profession; things have not gotten better. As for law, if you wish to argue that financial success in law positively correlates with virtue, please go right ahead.
4) Incidentally, I suppose you are committed then to maintaining that 6-figure multicultist college professors, 'caterwauling' rock stars, and mass-paperback writers are (generally) virtuous? What about escorts?- I could be very wealthy if that was my motive, yet I do not assume you respect my profession. If not, why is criticizing the social institutions or moral climate of these businesses any more reasonable than my criticism of the moral climate of more conventional businesses?
But it still takes trading value for value. And those with nothing to offer will always curse those who don't want it.
Those with everything will always find ways to rationalize its reflection of their moral virtue.
No, I don't believe this. But the injustice of this statement is no worse than reverse-Marxist well-poisoning of yours.
|
|