Q-n about American society

[Muzh]

I'm not sure I follow you here Muzh. Are you suggesting that Objectivists advocates abandoning children? I would see it as quite the opposite, raising their own children to be self reliant. Taking responsibility for oneself would include raising their children rather than abandoning are allowing someone else to do it. IMO

Nope, that's not what I meant. What I'm asking is what do we do with these when and if they survive? What are the odds of any of these ending up being self-reliant?

[Shostakovich]

I am not an expert or a scholar on Rand or Objectivism but, she did have some well thought idea's even if she was considered out in left field for her time. IMO, she was well ahead of her time and a brilliant mind. There are so few of those today

I've enjoyed Rand's works of fiction also and she deserves great credit as she has managed the seduction to an independent mind, even if that notion is somewhat illusory.  I don't know much about her ideas about government.  Her philosophy, however, is also interesting as it has spawned well established philosophical academies that stand outside the university system.  I've not taken the consideration of Rand very far as the two primary elements of her philosophy that I am aware of seem quite flawed:

The Virtue of Selfishness: This is lifted almost entirely from Nietzsche and she even parrots his inflammatory mode of expression.  But with good old Fred, nothing is simple.  In his works you'll read about higher and lower selflessness.  The idea is that most selflessness is just an expression of weakness.  People fall in with it because they do not have the independence of mind to stand up to the church.  They find comfort in numbers.  But this kind of selflessness is not genuine as it is not based upon an expansion of character.  That expansion is what Nietzsche, and religion, have in mind with the notion of 'higher' selflessness, though it is rarely encountered.  The problem with lower selflessness is in the reaction formation that it entails.  A good share of the average person's mind is devoted to living for one's own pleasure.  But under selflessness, that drive becomes thwarted and expresses itself in subterranean ways: it leads to small mindedness, passive aggressiveness, to inflict punishment.

Objective-ism:  It is interesting as science now seems to become the world-religion.  It is the gold-standard for getting to the 'truth'.  It is fashionable to be objective.  Rand did not start this but gave its expression a big push.  She probably deserves the credit, for better or worse, that the word 'object' has such a big place in our vocabulary these days.  Like other philosophies, it has its place and functions quite well within certain bounds, if you ignore certain aspects of life that undermine the whole thing.  What are those things?  1. The fact of the word 'spirit'.  Science has not made it go away - people have the audacity to insist upon it; a mid-evil legacy?  But the spirit is 'non-material'.  How can you have a relationship with the non-material when everything that enters your conscious awareness is an object? Well, it is one of those debates that can not be settled with words as to do so sets the rules according to the object.  Fact is, life does not make sense.  There is no accounting for the fact of life. Thus, rationally one must conclude or agree to an irrational component to life.  Moreover (2) all ones 'objective' notions are based on the single subjective datum, 'I exist'.  Without that sense, all goes to naught.  Moreover again, because of this, there is no fundamental ground upon which any objective notion rests.  It works and we trust it but science measures things against one another.  It has never claimed discovery of a first motion.  We all might be like those characters from the movie, "The Matrix", some gellyfish in a test-tube with a computer connected to our minds.  There is no way to know we are not.

[Faux Pas]

Nope, that's not what I meant. What I'm asking is what do we do with these when and if they survive? What are the odds of any of these ending up being self-reliant?

The odds are very slim to none. They are one pen stroke away from being on the street and another statistic of societies "throwaways". It's a problem and a tragedy. I advocate we all take care of those who cannot, young and old. But, there again under what pretense? I don't have the answers here guy but, I do enjoy searching for them.

Shosty, well stated.

[Muzh]

Well, for starters, I've dedicated most of my life to science and the path to knowledge. Still, I find people, sometimes younger than me, that will blow past by me in terms of knowledge aquired.

With that said, I always found her basic premise to be antagonistic by itself: How can a hedonist exhibit any sense of moral values, even among other hedonists? When Rand defines reason as "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses" she fails to integrate the abstract in our own reality. And I'm not talking about spirits and angels. I'll give you a simple example: chemistry. Who has actually seen a chemical bond? Yet, it is an accepted fact and an integral part of our existence. If I would follow Rand's definition I would dismiss a chemical bond as some sort of superstition, therefore totally negating the real existence of life. And that by itself is antagonistic with my own existence.

[Shostakovich]

Well, for starters, I've dedicated most of my life to science and the path to knowledge. Still, I find people, sometimes younger than me, that will blow past by me in terms of knowledge aquired.

With that said, I always found her basic premise to be antagonistic by itself: How can a hedonist exhibit any sense of moral values, even among other hedonists? When Rand defines reason as "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses" she fails to integrate the abstract in our own reality. And I'm not talking about spirits and angels. I'll give you a simple example: chemistry. Who has actually seen a chemical bond? Yet, it is an accepted fact and an integral part of our existence. If I would follow Rand's definition I would dismiss a chemical bond as some sort of superstition, therefore totally negating the real existence of life. And that by itself is antagonistic with my own existence.

Philosophies are like other branches of knowledge - they work within certain proscribed bounds. It is important to note, however, that all knowledge models observed behavior.  Science models the objective world.  Your example of a bond is a good one.  The one the I always use is the example of a field; electrical, magnetic or gravitational.  They might as well have said the gravitational God, etc.  Interesting how, when science runs out of gas, it is to the same old systems of belief that it turns to.  The thing that blows Rand however, and is a general problem with knowledge as it is currently regarded, is that it makes no accounting for the subjective.  Yoga and much of what has come out of the east, models the subjective world, which seems to me, since the world is experienced subjectively, that to model the subjective world is far more important than to model the objective world.  Personally, I think that we stand at a place that is much like the Renaissance times when science first started going.  Today, though science is hugely important for economics, it has come up empty handed in its ability to answer fundamental questions.  That is a problem for people as they do not know what to do about that, since they do not want to go back to religion.  Hence the rise of the Eastern arts of exploring the states of mind are at hand.  That is another reason to dismiss Rand as she herself dismissed yoga.