Libertarian social profile

[David McDivitt]

>From: Daniel Davis <buybuydandavis at yahoo.com>
>Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2010 08:14:52 -0800 (PST)
>
>----- Original Message ----
>> From: David McDivittt <david at subjectivist.org>
>> 
>> It is OK to be an egoist, not that an egoist needs permission, but maybe
>> as egoists we can quit seeing a need to justify egoism. 
>
>I think I'm quoting myself from years ago in saying that a justified egoism is 
>no egoism at all. I think we agree that much.
>
>I'm not really onboard with your antirealism, but that's nothing new either. But 
>there was one thread I thought I saw in there that I did agree with; there are 
>authoritarian overtones to both attempts at justification, insistence on certain 
>concepts, and definitions of words. 

Dan, the thread began on the subject of libertarianism, with a question what
there might be in common between libertarians and objectivists, and also
what people on the list might think of libertarianism.

If we're going to have liberty, where are we going to have it? Shouldn't we
have intellectual freedom as well as economic freedom and social freedom?
The problem when discussing realism is, people refer to what they see and
come to know through their own faculties as "real". It is not real however
in the classical sense, but empirical. The State of Missouri, the "show me
state" must be a state full of empiricists!

When encountering new things some people try to look up a definition in a
book. It's not just that they're wanting to take advantage of previous
thought work on a subject. They want an authority. They don't want to think
the wrong thoughts. Classical realism going all the way back to Plato is the
idea there's a right way to consider everything, that the right way already
exists, and what we do is discover or verbalize what that right way is.
Strange as it may seem, when people read Carl Jung and find themselves
reaching up into the consciousness plane for knowledge, thinking all
knowledge is there freely for the taking, that is preexistent knowledge,
follows the same vain as classical realism ironically, and offers no
liberation to self at all. A liberated self does not discover. A liberated
self makes things up. A creative person is better off "creating" rather than
use the ridiculous idea of a consciousness plane.

I think intellectual freedom is very important and it comes through
challenging realism everywhere found. We must have a philosophy founded on
liberty not authority. Ideas work when they're practical, not because they
align with reality in some mystical fashion no one is able to verbalize.
Ideas continue to work as we value the results of those ideas, which is
individual and personal.

As for libertarianism and objectivism, if a person went to live at Galt's
Gulch who enjoyed giving things away, just because, for whatever reason,
would that person be denied entrance? Why? What's wrong with having the
freedom to do what one wants? The doctrine of Rand becomes more and more
tyrannical over time. Whether it's right or wrong to give things away should
have nothing to do with it, but what people want to do. Rand's view is
ultimately one of morality and not self, toward her view of what society
should be. That is not libertarianism. Objectivists steadfastly resist any
form of a developing or dynamic state, but feel everything should be as it's
supposed to be, from a position of what's right to begin with. Of course we
have Rand, Peikoff, and others declaring for us what that right is, no
differently than Plato did a long time ago, or any number of popes and
bishops in between. To declare what's right, Rand even began going through
the English language giving us the correct meaning of words, in effect
writing her own vocabulary. If that isn't circular reasoning I don't know
what is.

Admittedly, when things aren't done properly, we end up with poor results
and trash. This is true in science, technology, and many other things. But
proper in this sense relates not to classical realism fulfilled, but rules
and procedures we've worked out and we continue to value to give us what we
want. Valuation not realism.

--
yes, I dare to be subjective!