What did I just read? Ayn Rand's Philosophy.

[tonberry]

You really think that the sentence "Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent." doesn't, in any way, imply the use of violence in a non self-defense way?

 

[Ayn Rand]

The obvious criticism would be that it's a laughably position from somebody who made such a god-awful song and dance about being a rigid materialist.

What do you mean by materialist in this context? I ask because I'm pretty sure Rand detested scientific materialism, and secondly because I don't know enough about materialism to understand why being a materialist would be inconsistent with a claim to cultural superiority.

You really think that the sentence "Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent." doesn't, in any way, imply the use of violence in a non self-defense way?

She certainly knew how to sound gratuitous when giving verbal presentations - maybe to shock, maybe because she really meant it. But I think [hope] that the subtext implied by that statement is not what she actually meant, as that is incompatible with individual rights.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Yes, it's a clear claim to the superiority of one civilisational culture over another. I don't see anything wrong in making such a comparison and then upholding the superiority of one civilisation over another if there are good grounds to do so.

Never mind the rest, I like to say a few words on the bolded part. Because do such grounds actually exist in this case? Did you ever hear of research that strongly suggests that hunter&gatherers had on average a better living quality than agricultures? Perhaps even better living quality than people in the industrializing 18th century?

edit:

But I think [hope] that the subtext implied by that statement is not what she actually meant, as that is incompatible with individual rights.

Well, it is not unheard of for Rand to be inconsistent.

 

[Ayn Rand]

Never mind the rest, I like to say a few words on the bolded part. Because do such grounds actually exist in this case? Did you ever hear of research that strongly suggests that hunter&gatherers had on average a better living quality than agricultures? Perhaps even better living quality than people in the industrializing 18th century?

Here you show what an unreflecting product you are of your Zeitgeist, by running to the concept of "average" as the harbour of your highest value.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Er... What?

 

[Traitorfish]

What do you mean by materialist in this context? I ask because I'm pretty sure Rand detested scientific materialism, and secondly because I don't know enough about materialism to understand why being a materialist would be inconsistent with a claim to cultural superiority.

When I say materialism, I mean a metaphysical materialism, which unless I'm misunderstanding Rand very seriously is what she claimed to uphold. But if that's the case, then how can she talk about things like "civilisation" or "culture" as existing in themselves, as things of which individuals are simply the vehicles, which can be in any meaningful sense "brought" from one place to another? Those are idealist notions, and yet she (and you) reproduces them in a seemingly uncritical manner.

 

[Ayn Rand]

When I say materialism, I mean a metaphysical materialism, which unless I'm misunderstanding Rand very seriously is what she claimed to uphold. But if that's the case, then how can she talk about things like "civilisation" or "culture" as existing in themselves, as things of which individuals are simply the vehicles, which can be in any meaningful sense "brought" from one place to another? Those are idealist notions, and yet she (and you) reproduces them in a seemingly uncritical manner.

Yes, I see what you mean. Perception and the material World are two distinct things though - but they become unified and interdependent as an individual becomes an adult, for certain. But there is an element of choice in whether one wishes to make that unity, so I suppose there is an implicit idealism - one can choose, by free will, to go down the wrong intellectual road as it were.

The whole idealist/materialist dichotomy isn't something that features too heavily in our holy scripture. Any philosophical device that creates a division between the mind and reality is pretty much rejected outright by the Great One. So what I'm saying is that those aren't terms we think in.

 

[Traitorfish]

That's what I'm saying, though- Rand makes the claim that the mind exists only within the terms of material reality, but in practice is willing to affirm the existence of independently-existing abstractions like "Western civilisation". It's self-contradictory.

 

[Angst]

There have been many complex societies in history and most of them did not develop science or industry. The fact that the West developed science while Africa and India languished is owing to individuals of great ability who used their minds.

What. Do you have any idea how behind the West have been compared to India and Africa? Also, you're counterarguing the wrong thing. I was talking about innovation in businesses at her time. She assumed innovators drove the businesses on their own, which they didn't. They weren't even necessary per se for the business to function. They were replacable as part of the machine.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I would have just assumed that Rand uses ideas as "Western civilizations" to simply roughly outline a sum of materialistic elements in an effort to save time, rather than suggesting that that this idea exists in its own right. So just a matter of being practical...

 

[Traitorfish]

You certainly could use it in that way, but that's not how it seems to read in her comments on the colonisation of America, on the Arab-Israeli conflicts, and so on. There's a very definitive sense that "civilisation", specifically "Western civilisation", is something existing independently of any given bearer of that "civilisation", and that different "civilisations" may enter into conflict with one another as "civilisations". It's an old narrative, and not necessarily one that accompanies any explicitly idealist metaphysics, but that doesn't make its essential idealism any less the case.

At any rate, even if she is using it as a simple generalisation and I'm just interpreting her poorly, it's a pretty vacuous generalisation, so she's on a hiding to nothing one way or the other.

 

[Ayn Rand]

You certainly could use it in that way, but that's not how it seems to read in her comments on the colonisation of America, on the Arab-Israeli conflicts, and so on. There's a very definitive sense that "civilisation", specifically "Western civilisation", is something existing independently of any given bearer of that "civilisation", and that different "civilisations" may enter into conflict with one another as "civilisations". It's an old narrative, and not necessarily one that accompanies any explicitly idealist metaphysics, but that doesn't make its essential idealism any less the case.

At any rate, even if she is using it as a simple generalisation and I'm just interpreting her poorly, it's a pretty vacuous generalisation, so she's on a hiding to nothing one way or the other.

I think she is referring to it as it exists as a system of knowledge [At least, that's how I took it]. And specifically, the Aristotelian tradition and the philosophy of reason which follows from it.

How this is contradictory to her philosophy is something I still don't quite see. All her argument really amounts to is that reason is superior to unreason, and that a civilisation based on reason is bestest. Not too shocking or unexpected an opinion for her to have.

 

[Old Hippy]

I think she is referring to it as it exists as a system of knowledge [At least, that's how I took it]. And specifically, the Aristotelian tradition and the philosophy of reason which follows from it.

How this is contradictory to her philosophy is something I still don't quite see. All her argument really amounts to is that reason is superior to unreason, and that a civilisation based on reason is bestest. Not too shocking or unexpected an opinion for her to have.

not really a new idea tho ...is it ..."that reason is superior to unreason, and that a civilisation based on reason is bestest", not really a new philosphy either,
I was under the impresion that Rand had a philosphy ... now you tell us "All her argument really amounts to "
yet you discount 2000 years of people saying this ...

 

[ParkCungHee]

So, if Rand got the the basic physical characteristics of Native American culture wrong, why should we imagine she understood Native American philosophy well enough to consign them to death?

 

[Ayn Rand]

So, if Rand got the the basic physical characteristics of Native American culture wrong, why should we imagine she understood Native American philosophy well enough to consign them to death?

She didn't consign them to death. Firstly, she was talking about culture, not murdering people. Secondly, she was talking about a post facto event - something that happened hundreds of years earlier.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Yes, and she considered it a good thing. She's advocating a point at which genocide is acceptable, and according to you that standard is when another society advocates an inferior philosophy.

Now what I'm asking is, why should we believe Ayn Rand was even remotely familiar with Native American philosophy in order to make this judgement?

Keep in mind, this is one page over from being told we shouldn't make verbal criticisms of an author's beliefs without reading a 1,000 page text, and she was willing to say it's totally acceptable to steal someone's property based on them holding a philosophy she probably wasn't even remotely familiar with.

 

[Ayn Rand]

Yes, and she considered it a good thing. She's advocating a point at which genocide is acceptable, and according to you that standard is when another society advocates an inferior philosophy.

Now what I'm asking is, why should we believe Ayn Rand was even remotely familiar with Native American philosophy in order to make this judgement?

Keep in mind, this is one page over from being told we shouldn't make verbal criticisms of an author's beliefs without reading a 1,000 page text, and she was willing to say it's totally acceptable to steal someone's property based on them holding a philosophy she probably wasn't even remotely familiar with.

She was talking about their rights, not their philosophy [which was non-existent]. Your exaggerated and extreme posting in this and other threads on Ayn Rand shows that you are determined to mis-portray her work by seizing on isolated comments while ignoring her overall philosophy. I suppose you have a rusty axe to grind?

 

[Arakhor]

Native American philosophy is non-existent? Upon what exactly are you basing that supposition?

 

[Leoreth]

Philosophy must be written into books by old bearded men, that's the only true European way.

 

[Murky]

Philosophy must be written into books by old bearded men, that's the only true European way.

Will this suffice?

How It Is
The Native American Philosophy of V. F. Cordova
By V. F. Cordova; Kathleen Dean Moore; Kurt Peters; Ted Jojola; Amber Lacy
http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/Books/bid1863.htm