From: gmt@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Gary McTaggart)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Theory?
Date: 6 Nov 92 03:19:47 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Florida CIS Dept.


>   changes.   And to the extent that government did play a role in 
>   their breakdown it was by fostering modernity, e.g., the creation
>   of the Interstate Highway Sytem, establishing a uniform technical
>   standard for Television, etc..

So all things count as progress, no matter how destructive. Great.

>   The notion of a society based purely on individual choice is purely
>   theoretical.  The deconstruction of social institutions such as
>   family or government by such as libertarians, gay and lesbian groups, 
>   or intellectuals, is an interesting academic exercise but is lacking
>   somewhat in the necessary field-work to show that it has any practical
>   applications.   Current attempts at creating a society based as much
>   as we do in the west on individual freedom and "rights" represent a
>   vast new kind of social engineering and it is unclear whether there
>   are any sound theoretrical principles underlying these practices.
>   It should also be recognized that there are many who regard this 
>   emphasis of individual rights and freedom as peculiar western
>   affectation.

This country was founded on individual rights. 

Deconstruction of family by libertarians..? What the hell are you talking
about?

There ARE sound theoretical principles underlying these practices...but
it is to be noted that when men are most free, they are the most productive.

The fact that there are "many" who feel they don't want freedom and 
responsibility for their own lives means these are affectations?

>   Having read Rand's political and ethical writings, I have found 
>   nothing of sufficient intellectual rigor to form the basis of 
>   anything relevant to the discussion.  Her work is incredibly flawed
>   and empty for someone who has attracted so much attention.  (Although
>   it should be noted that the attention she attracts is among "middle-
>   brows", sophomore philosophy students and the like; she has little
>   following among serious philsophers or political thinkers.)
>

Flawed? How? Empty? I think not. I don't agree with all of her works, but
there is a wealth of good viewpoints in Objectivism. Who gives a damn
what "serious" philosophers think..? Who gives any respect to today's
collectivst political thinkers? Have you ever thought about just thinking
for yourself?
                                                              

>
>   But Rand's attempts at employing the "absolutes of reality" merely
>   yield nonsequitors, e.g. "Man needs X to survive" (let's say X is 
>   something along the lines of freedom, or freedom to be rational,
>   or whatever) ". . . therefore he has a right to X".   There is 
>   simply no connection between the premise and the conclusion and
>   her work is rife with this sort of "thinking".
>

Once again, this also could be defended on the fact that respecting the
rights of individuals just works the best. This is von Mises' pragmatism
(not today's). Read his "Human Action."

> 
>  Another major problem with Rand's writings is her emphasis on
>  the term "rational" without once providing either an objective
>  or operational definition of the term.   (i.e., how do we test
>  for or measure "rationality"?)  Physics, e.g., succeeds partly
>  because its terms have objective definitions.
>

This is one of my problems with Objectivism, but I nevertheless feel it
has many good points.


>>    Political principles are an objective requirement for human survival. 
>
>  This is demonstrably wrong, since the longest-lived, *by far*, human
>  social organization was the hunter-gatherer group, which was the 
>  basis of all human societies for hundreds of thousands of years,
>  making today's political structures look like hobbies by comparison.
>  Yet there is no evidence whatsoever that they had any clearly
>  stated "political principals".   
>

Boy am I getting sick of hearing about how wonderful life was in the hunter-
gatherer societies. Do you really want to go back to shitting in the woods,
no indoor plumbing, wearing animal skins, killing animals for food, no
vaccines for disease, shorter life span, no technology, no mass production
of food, oh, and of course, no huge computer network to spout off this 
nonsense?


>  Again, for hundreds of thousands of years human societies functioned 
>  just fine in the absence of this, which proves that these theories are 
>  utterly baseless.
>
>
>---peter

Just fine my ass. See above. These theories are far from baseless. Sure,
humans can plod along at the mercy of nature, but I think Rand means
for man to be as much as man can be, he needs these rights. Makes sense
to me. This is probably hard for people to handle because it means they
would have to relinquish the indirect power they wield over others
through the Welfare State. It also means they would have to take 
responsibility for their own lives. To which they say, "I'd rather have
bread and circuses than to do this."

Jim Hranicky (jfh@reef.cis.ufl.edu)

Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.logic