Human Nature and Judgment -- Assessing Yourself and Others

[Philip Coates]

General Subject of Four or Five Posts: Dealing with Difficulty and Complexity, Unfocusing Inappropriately vs. Honest Error

This topic is much wider than vis-a-vis Objectivism or about whether one accepts or chooses to practice it (a central aspect of the degenerate objectivists' or D.O. thread). It applies to all spheres of important knowledge and endeavor. Many of the issues apply in arduous cases to self-help, to giving up, to hopelessness, to advancing in one's career. And perhaps above all to personal goals. (I'll mention at the end how it applies to child-rearing for example, to how our parents brought all of us up.)

I start with the Objectivist context discussed in the D.O. thread and then broaden the applicability. Bear with the multiple posts, they are necessary. I hope they will be integrateable.

<> Three points [in two posts] - starting with the Objectivist context but expanding into commitment to and acting on one's values more broadly. <>

Point 1:

> Suppose [Aquinas] believed instead that the evidence for Catholicism is not absolutely conclusive and that some of its doctrines are doubtful and problematic. In this case, Aquinas would have no basis for condemning heretics, because they may be justified in questioning those very doctrines that are doubtful [GHS, Post 306, D.O. thread]

The difference is that if someone actually disagrees with Rand on a philosophical point, I wouldn't call them degenerate or 'backsliding' on that point. But I would if they use that as an excuse to evade or block allowing themselves to acknowledge and to work toward and to act on the wider philosophy, on the overwhelming percentage of key principles of Objectivism that are true. Not the advanced or technical stuff, but the basics.

As I've said on another thread (the D.O.), it's when they know better. And especially about a vitally true, central to life and happiness - and central to the survival of civilization - philosophy. Not something you are properly entitled to 'backslide' about.

(Side note: I didn't claim 100% of every philosophical statement Rand makes is valid. Nor does a person have to presuppose that 100% to be logical in criticizing those who are just tired out or don't want the "hassle" of trying to live by a (basically) true philosophy.)

[Philip Coates]

Point 2:

Here are three -extreme- examples of "backsliding" or (staying with the example of Objectivism) being a "degenerate" Objectivist:

1. "Well it's awfully hard to be honest all the time, I could lose my job and piss off my friends and family if I don't tell some white lies. And besides which, I think Rand may be wrong on anarchocapitalism, so I'm going to abandon any attempt to achieve those really hard virtues her heroes always adhere to. I'm no Howard Roark. And why should I try to be 'religious' or 'orthodox'about a system that has such a big flaw."

2. "My company is facing a better competitor. I'm going to hire a lobbyist to get them regulated to death. When I was young and idealistic, I swallowed Rand's ideas whole and her philosophy would be against this. But she didn't live entirely by her own ideas, was sort of a nasty woman, and besides there seem to be some holes in her ideas: Naturalistic fiction is just as good as romantic fiction, for example. Who knows, maybe there's a loophole somewhere for my action in using force to hamstring my competitor. Well, I don't want to think about it.

Don't bother me, don't bother me, don't bother me with philosophy. I'm a practical man and Ill just do whatever it takes, whatever I need to. After all, didn't she advocate some kind of selfishness?"

3. "There are some people in the Objectivist community who are unpopular. They have been unjustly criticized or smeared. If I thought about it, I would know that the issues in dispute are matters I care about and integrity and justice, as I learned long ago from Objectivism, requires that I speak out. But I might not be understood [excuse 1], I might be ostracized myself [excuse 2], I might not win in an argument [excuse 3], I'm really busy this time of year working part time and watching television [excuse 3]. "

Point 3:

For less extreme and more common examples than the above three, I think one should cut people some slack in practical terms, in terms of struggling: It's a hard philosophy and all of us have moments when we don't live up to it in every way. But what I was criticizing in the original D.O. thread topic was something different: Willfully turning your back, making excuses for wide denial, or advocating that kind of 'degenerate' Objectivism.

And note that this applies to *any area or piece of knowledge that you know to be true and important*.

It's not about Objectivism primarily, but about commitment to one's values and acting on them more widely.

[Philip Coates]

<> Points about issues much broader than Objectivism or the Objectivist movement. <>

Point 4. Another, much wider group of people than those who willfully disengage and should know better:

>>Phil: Is there a single adjective to encapsulate..."being disengaged"? [Post 364, D.O. thread]

>>GHS: How about "Most People" ? Not an adjective, but an accurate label. As Bertrand Russell once said: "Most people would rather die than think; in fact, many do". [Post 369, D.O. thread]

George may just have been displaying humor in the quote from Crazy Lord Bertie Whimsy here. But if taken seriously, I disagree. I think the largest group of people in the human race in regard to deep philosophical matters and in regard to how best to live their lives and in regard to thinking skills are in the category often called Honest Error.

Thinking clearly, accurately, and fully on such vital matters is not the 'simplest thing in the world', as Leonard Peikoff says so glibly at the end of OPAR. In fact, the exact opposite is true: It is the hardest for many reasons. And being "engaged" in the way I described (elsewhere) is often hard, because people err in how to do it, what tools to use.

Even in -what- to engage with.

Point 5.

Finally, as an example of whether one views the human race too exclusively in terms of being lazy backsliders and degenerates and always choosing the wrong path or in terms of being innocent and pure and easily knowledgeable and right in their actions, first all you have to do is think of Hobbes and Rousseau as two polar opposites (and who are both mistaken.) An application of this is to child-rearing and to education.

Previous generations of parents in America (and I would imagine in many countries) often tended either to the religious, spare the rod and spoil the child, keep them silent and intimidated, they are always incorrigible trouble-makers who were born sinners axis of viewing children. Men are beasts who need a yoke around their neck is the wider Hobbesian view. The scowling nuns. Or to the Dr. Spock, Rousseauian uncorrupted natural man, let them do what they want wild-child permissiveness and let them run wild in the classroom school of eduction.

Which way did your parents tend? To the very strict and disapproving? Or to the flower-child, hippy, permissive?

(Of course, there is a clear Objectivist movement instance of all this. The orthodox or conservative wing which has many who don't believe in tolerating or sanctioning those who disagree -- those damn libertarians! -- and tend toward viewing the bulk of men as leading lives of quiet evasion. The reform or liberal wing who sometimes tend toward the more permissive views or toward subjectivism in judging people or movements or foreign affairs.)

My bottom line point in all this - and in this thread - is that both monolithic extremes in assessing "human nature" are wrong. There are all kinds of people who do all kinds of things for all kinds of - wildly divergent - reasons. It's easy and comforting to swing to one (simplistic) extreme view of human nature of the other. You don't have to work as hard to pass a snap judgment. Instead, here is what is needed: You (quite often) have to assess them on a case by case, attentive to detail, waiting for full knowledge basis.

Neither Hobbes and Jonathan Edwards (and Schwartz/Peikoff) on the one hand.

Nor Rousseau and Dewey and "Candide" on the other.

[Philip Coates]

Subject: A Vain Hope?

There is a lot to digest in the above three posts. They go in a lot of different directions, took some time to think through.

This may be a vain wish, but I would certainly hope those who are seriously interested and think these are important issues will take the time to do so, rather than having an itchy trigger finger, issuing one-liners or looking for an out-of-context nit to pick.

For example, I think the whole what kind of parents were yours and what kind of education did you have, do you believe in issue is fascinating.

[john42t]

This may be a vain wish, but I would certainly hope those who are seriously interested and think these are important issues will take the time to do so, rather than having an itchy trigger finger, issuing one-liners or looking for an out-of-context nit to pick.

I'll respond only to the extent I already thought about these questions before.

In real life I play the nice guy, I almost never criticise anyone. I don't think anything comes of it. I've never seen it work, I don't believe people to be rational enough to reward honesty to a great extent.

I'm honest in so far as it serves me, but not more. If somebody seems to want me to agree with him over a topic he gets emotional about, and I don't agree with him, I evade and change the subject. I won't go as far as actually faking agreement, as that would be against my self-interest, but there's no point in exposing myself and becoming the image and target of his hatred. I've made this mistake a couple of times, I've learned my lesson.

There's internet forums in which one can be much more honest, real life is an irrational minefield.

Rand's own story is the best example. She made such a compelling case, so utterly easy to digest, wrapped up in such spicy stories, but she didn't turn the majority around, so that means that the assumption of most men being rational is wrong.

I hold one more premise not found in Objectivism: Everyone, I include myself, is rational only in very sepecific circumstances: When it suits us. I believe there's something in the human mind that keeps it from thinking camly about new information when ones self image is threatened by it. In such cases you feel anger and a strong wish about this information to be wrong. You will want it to be a lie, a conspiracy, whatever. You will not consider it.

You see this in little children, in OWS protesters, in people whose occupation is meaningless, and in people who define themselves as "the good guy" rather than "the guy who is useful for something".

Usually they accumulate in groups and that's where mobs come from. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

This makes me come to very different conclusions than most Randians.

In particular, it means that violence, keeping back with judgements, siding with evil, etc. is much more often moral than if human nature was of the kind that you can actually reason with people. Usually, you can't reason with people unless they can gain something substantial from it. Since most of the time the truth hurts, most of the time, you can't reason with them at all.

You can put reason out there, like Rand did, but only a minority will pick it up and they won't pick up all of it.

In particular, it's totally useless to try to reason with net-tax-receivers. They have nothing to win from the truth.

Being totally honest every time and generally sticking to Objectivist virtues even if it becomes sacrifical is Kantian deontology.

All that being said, I *am* optimisitic for exactly those reasons: Most people begin to feel the leash on their neck, the very leash they've supported morally for a very long time. It's no longer only rich bankers, Jews, a few entrepreneurs who have to face evil, it's beginning to be a substantial portion of the West's population. Now it's about their own sorry asses.

[Jonathan]

Point 2:

Here are three -extreme- examples of "backsliding" or (staying with the example of Objectivism) being a "degenerate" Objectivist:

1. "Well it's awfully hard to be honest all the time, I could lose my job and piss off my friends and family if I don't tell some white lies. And besides which, I think Rand may be wrong on anarchocapitalism, so I'm going to abandon any attempt to achieve those really hard virtues her heroes always adhere to. I'm no Howard Roark. And why should I try to be 'religious' or 'orthodox'about a system that has such a big flaw."

2. "My company is facing a better competitor. I'm going to hire a lobbyist to get them regulated to death. When I was young and idealistic, I swallowed Rand's ideas whole and her philosophy would be against this. But she didn't live entirely by her own ideas, was sort of a nasty woman, and besides there seem to be some holes in her ideas: Naturalistic fiction is just as good as romantic fiction, for example. Who knows, maybe there's a loophole somewhere for my action in using force to hamstring my competitor. Well, I don't want to think about it.

Don't bother me, don't bother me, don't bother me with philosophy. I'm a practical man and Ill just do whatever it takes, whatever I need to. After all, didn't she advocate some kind of selfishness?"

3. "There are some people in the Objectivist community who are unpopular. They have been unjustly criticized or smeared. If I thought about it, I would know that the issues in dispute are matters I care about and integrity and justice, as I learned long ago from Objectivism, requires that I speak out. But I might not be understood [excuse 1], I might be ostracized myself [excuse 2], I might not win in an argument [excuse 3], I'm really busy this time of year working part time and watching television [excuse 3]. "

Okay, so which of the above three examples do you think is the cause of your deviating from Objectivism and from your professed values with your schoolmarm behavior, your hypocrisy of not practicing the virtues that you preach, and your laziness in wasting your time online scolding your betters rather than writing the books that you claim that you want to write?

Point 3:

For less extreme and more common examples than the above three, I think one should cut people some slack in practical terms, in terms of struggling: It's a hard philosophy and all of us have moments when we don't live up to it in every way. But what I was criticizing in the original D.O. thread topic was something different: Willfully turning your back, making excuses for wide denial, or advocating that kind of 'degenerate' Objectivism.

And note that this applies to *any area or piece of knowledge that you know to be true and important*.

It's not about Objectivism primarily, but about commitment to one's values and acting on them more widely.

To me it sounds as if the only way that you "live up to" Objectivism is that you claim to agree with it. But you don't appear to practice it. So, are you willfully turning your back on Objectivism, making excuses for wide denial, or advocating a brand of "degenerate" Objectivism. Why are you not committed to what you claim to valued enough to act on your alleged values? I'd guess "making excuses for wide denial."

Which way did your parents tend? To the very strict and disapproving? Or to the flower-child, hippy, permissive?

Which way did yours tend? Since you're such an uptight, strict and disapproving schoolmarm who has apparently stymied himself into a lifetime of intellectual dabbling and inaction, I would guess that your parents were either extremely (if not abusively) strict or excessively (if not negligently) hippy/permissive. I figure that you either caved in to your parents schoolmarming and eventually became what they were, or you tried to rebel against their lack of discipline by becoming an uptight schoolmarm. Which was it?

You don't have to work as hard to pass a snap judgment. Instead, here is what is needed: You (quite often) have to assess them on a case by case, attentive to detail, waiting for full knowledge basis.

And yet you constantly pass snap judgments despite claiming in the sentence above to know better. That makes you a "degenerate" by your standards (and a schoolmarm shitstain by mine).

J

[caroljane]

Uck, JONATHAN! I'm not going to tell you again!

[Jonathan]

Well, then thanks in advance for your future silence.

J

[9thdoctor]

That makes you a "degenerate" by your standards (and a schoolmarm shitstain by mine).

I just realized that Voltaire’s famous battlecry “Écrasez l'Infâme” could easily be adapted to express solidarity among those of us who are sick of Phil.

Écrasez Schoolmarm!

[caroljane]

That makes you a "degenerate" by your standards (and a schoolmarm shitstain by mine).

I just realized that Voltaire’s famous battlecry “Écrasez l'Infâme” could easily be adapted to express solidarity among those of us who are sick of Phil.

Écrasez Schoolmarm!

You speak of sick, 9th "Doctor"?? you medecin malgre lui, I am suing you and like you care my condition is worse, you charlatan!