Greenspan was rightly here disciple - one in her choir of tight-knit followers. Later he departed from the flock, and Objectivists shun Greenspan nowadays - see www.capmag.com and Salsman. Greenspan got involved in the building of castles-in-the-sky by straying from the hard-core capitalism and into corruption of minds through smokes-and-mirror capitalism. Absolutely - there are absolutely no absolutes in the universe - that is absolutely true ... And morals are for religious people - other people adhere to ethics, and don't mind what people think - but respect their individuality. Nature by evolution and adaptation, and ecosystems that are sustainable - all work... I hope everyone understands that. I read LewRockwell and CapMag as well - although I'm not libertarian or Objectivist. Important to stay oriented and intellectually alert.
my point is that her objectivism never worked anywhere but inside her circle-jerk and for selling books one of her disciples was placed in the ultimate position to 'road test' the philosophy, and when the rubber hit the road it fell apart I dont buy that 'it's a personal greenspan anomoly' - I think that for whatever reason, it doesnt hold up in the real world With such a perfect real world opportunity to showcase the philosphy, and such catastrophic consequences, there's no 'do overs' lot's of people would like 'do overs' the completely fucked taxpayer, for instance
I totally agree. Objectivism is more about cult-followers. Impressionable young people becoming infatuated. They use strong logics - but we who know logic a little better know about Gödel's incompleteness theorem and model theory.
Gödel's incompleteness theorem concerns homogenic sets such as the natural numbers. It shows that certain statements about the natural numbers can be proven to be neither true or false. If you feel that this theory justifies you in throwing logic overboard then you can do so at your own peril.
<p>I know very little about Charles Dickens or if he had a philosophy. I know his works in literature were works of art and detailed and described truths that were universal. In that light, I could care less about who Ayn Rand was, and what philosophy she developed and promoted. I have read many great great works of literature, and Atlas Shrugged CANNOT be denied its place in 20th century American literature. I have great fondness for Sinclair Lewis and Main Street and Babbitt in particular but Atlas Shrugged is every bit as significant. She NAILED so many truthes in that book, that is not fair to judge her apart from what she really was, and that was an American novelist of the HIGHEST order. Those who get lost in her eccentric personna and contrived philosophy are just that, LOST. I say put the ad hominen aside, and admit Atlas Shrugged is an extraordinary work of art, whose time was then and NOW, and like all works of art span time. Atlas Shrugged nailed some universal truthes of human nature, and boys like Jorge, Hank, and Bennie only serve to prove its timelessness.
See model theory - the implications of Incompleteness is that no logical system can contain/model "everything". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicate_logic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundness And for logics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propositional_logic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_logic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent_logic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialethism As you can see - there is much to "logic"... much more than "people in the street" understand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_bivalence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_of_truth
Objectivism makes an incredibly strong case concerning the objectivity of moral judgments. The argument that certain values (or lack thereof) will contribute to a certain breakdown of any social system is the strongest case made against ethical relativism that I've come across thus far.
Morality - what others think you should do, social control, collective opinionating, forced consensus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame_society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality Morality comes from religion and other authoritarian control. Period! Objectivism is an aggressive form for philosophy - but admittedly strong on logics. In politics they are extreme far right-wing. Ethics - how to best do some action http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-level_utilitarianism (my favourite approximation)
Ayn Rand was a good writer. Atlas Shrugged is a compelling, well-written masterpiece of literature, fiction but still takes the moral point across. I was not saying the book was crap. There... happy?