Tag: Objectivism

Randian courtesy

Db05 Comments

I start to realize what kind of behaviour Objectivists start to display when their positions are refuted. They ignore your arguments and then they stick labels (i.e. strawmen) at you which they can easily attack on generalizations (take note on how I’ve been branded a “moral subjectivist” which later serves as a suitable attack target). Hell, you might even get banned (on grounds of “low intellectual quality” or whatnot) which gives them and their troupe, ample space to proceed to the necessary slandering of your intelligence and arguments without the subject being able to respond at all. I’m willing to bet that my trackback from this post will be quite quickly removed from the comments so as to remove all antilogue from their intellectual inferior…

It is of course disheartening to see that Evanescent decided to join in the fun of badmouthing others where they cannot respond. Apparently my arguments have been soundly refuted and I’m in denial, even though others out there seem to not dissagree with me that much. Pity. I used to think that he was quite an intelligent and polite fella but his recent posts forces me to rethink my idea of him. :-/

I mean, Hell! Ergo is even prepared to take on the whole Atheosphere because our moral theories are in “utter dissaray”. Why? Well, because we don’t agree with him and can back it up with arguments of course. I’ll just leave this gem of intellectual elitism to speak for itself…

“Reading through some of their posts is like inflicting upon myself the cognitive equivalent of loud static noise.”

Ouch!

Well, at least now you know how an Objectivist of some stature among his peers, reacts to voices that don’t use their every breath praising him…

Meh. As for me, I do not mind how I’m branded by them. People who visit my site are free to read what I say and form their own opinion or me.
You’re free to argue with me all you want about any of my thoughts (just click on “Pondering Infinity” and pick one 😉 ) and I will attempt to defend my position if I can or change my mind if I don’t. But for FSM’s sake, if you’re going to argue with me, don’t just ignore the arguments that you cannot respond to.

PS: This is also an invitation to those Objectivists who can’t stand me “bringing down the standard of decorum and intellectual quality” in their property . You’re welcome to debate here instead and avoid the aforementioned unpleasant effect of my presence in your comments. You may even bring up my level, and I don’t mind the intellectual pretensiousness at all…
But please don’t ask me to read the arguments in your pages when you’re trying to make a point, and then prevent me from debating them…that’s just unfair.

Objectivist kick

Db02 Comments

Well, that’s it then. It seems that the objectivist apologist cannot stand my inferior intellectual mediocricy anymore and decided to bar me from posting any longer.  This is the last comment I made to his thread, which has since been deleted.

Yes Lord. We are unworthy…

I agree there is no point in continuing this as your arguments consist of either ignoring what I say, or first labeling me as something (in this case a moral subjectivist) and then bring the encyclopedic definition to personally attack me.

In this case, I am not a moral subjectivist as the encyclopedia defines it. I do not believe all moral theories are good. I do know that different kind of societies find different kind of moral theories correct. Thus morality is subjective.

I appreciate that you are trying to save me from embarrassing myself but seeing as your a shameless intellectual elitist who cannot accept being wrong (witness you ignoring everything you cannot refute), I have no fear of being embarrassed.

Oh, well. It seems that that’s that for the argumentative powers of the objectivist. Ergo seems to be acting no better than a theist to me. If you cannot argue against it, ignore it…

Objectivism

Db013 Comments

Well, it seems that after heavily commenting on the subject of Morality in the Jungle and trying to explain how morality is an irrelevant issue when living alone, the discussion eventually reached the point where the owner of the blog, Ergo – apparently an Objectivism supporter and capable apologist – just had to blog about the comments in a new post.

Therein I am immediately described as:

“an atheist, moral subjectivist, collectivist, and is obviously influenced by evolutionary empiricism a la Dawkins, Hitchen, et al. to a great extent”

Which I do not find really unflattering (Although I would argue the “collectivist” part). However, it is immediatey followed by:

“The fact that a person is an atheist does not say anything about his commitment to rationality. “

Perhaps Ergo meant to say that it does not say anything about his commitment to Objectivism and he would be correct. I consider myself a quite rational person and the fact that what I consider reason differs from what Ergo or an objectivist believes only means that there is a difference of opinion which could then be resolved through discussion.

Nevertheless Ergo appears to believe that the evolution of morals and (thus) moral subjectivism is immediately incorrect. Nevermind the fact that evidence (i.e. history) backs up my position while the only basis he has is Ayn Rand’s “axioms”. Failing to argue against my position, a strawman is set up to be attacked:

“Db0 commits the naturalistic fallacy of arguing from the view that what is given by nature is the way it should be. Notice the dismissal of the volitional faculty of man’s mind to make choices autonomously”

Needless to say that this is not my position. This of course will not deter an objectivist, who like an expert christian apologist will begin arguing on the basis that his philosophy is correct and any fact that disagrees with this must thus be incorrect. What follows of course is a rant about how Richard Dawkins’ positions on memes and “evolutionaty empiricism” is flawed (as well as secular humanism apparently)

I especially liked the part where I am lumped in a random camp of “people” (apparently a bad bunch):

“They are creating a vacuum in morality, which permits people like Db0 to conclude that morality is ultimately a fabrication of society, the fad of the day, the need of a pack, subjectivist, relativistic, etc. In essence, while throwing out the dogmatic morality of religion, they throw out the notion of objective morality itself. “

Of course “we” (I honestly don’t know who the rest of my “posse” is, but I digress) throw the notion of objective morality out. It is a fake idea which is currently supported by theists and Objectivists. The theists because they must accept that goddidit and Objectivists because without this pillar, their philosophy starts to show serious stress. Since they cannot explain how and by whom this “Objective morality” is defined, they engage in mental masturbations and circular logic. As lichanos amusingly said it:

“Ooops. Yeah, if rationality is the definition of morality, then acting rationally is always moral, right? Of course, if an act is not rational, it’s not moral, and we know immorality when we see it because it’s not rational. And we know it’s not rational because we have Objectivism’s first principles as a guide…And since morals MUST be rational because values MUST be rational, then it follows…but why you believe this is beyond me. “

This whole discussion which amusingly enough started by an innocent comment I made in Evanescent’s journal where I simply said “Communism is not irrational” has apparently grown into a clusterblog. Objectivism was thrown in as a response, links were given, Objectivist apologist allies were drawn into the battle, comments upon comments, where unfortunately most of my arguments are ignored altogether, and finally as a culmination, my own blogpost.

To tell the truth, I am getting tired of this debate as we seem to be having fundamental differences in the way we argue and perceive various issues. Most telling was Evanescent’s reply to the comments where I was told that unless I agree that Morality is objective we cannot discuss what it is or where it comes from. At least we can agree on one thing, Libertarians are not a benign bunch of people.
Nevertheless, with each of Ergo’s replies I am once again drawn into the mayem as my stubborness just does not allow me to accept positions (especially about me) which are blatantly incorrect.

And there I go again…