[543] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Racism and what-not
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sourav K. Mandal)
Sat May 5 00:40:08 2001
Message-Id: <200105050439.AAA05990@dichotomy.dyn.dhs.org>
From: "Sourav K. Mandal" <Sourav.Mandal@ikaran.com>
Reply-To: "Sourav K. Mandal" <Sourav.Mandal@ikaran.com>
To: mit-talk@mit.edu
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Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 00:39:35 -0400
"Wally <wally@sub-zero.mit.edu>" wrote:
> To say that you arrived at Objectivism empirically, rationally, and
> without 'coercion' from elders, isn't strictly true; like as not, you read
> the work of a single writer, liked what you read, saw correspondences to
> your own beliefs, read 'supporting' texts, immersed yourself in the
> culture, and the rhetorical and logical pieces fell into place for you.
> [...]
There is a substantial distinction here: Ayn Rand never claimed to
have access to information that no one else did, like Muhammed with
Allah, and Christ (and various saints) with God. Objectivism has one
axiom (Aristotelian metaphysics), and everything is built up from
there, open to examination. For an informative and brief, albeit
heavy, introduction, visit:
http://www.fullcontext.org/Objectivism/table.htm
I'll be happy to go into more detail off-list.
> [...]
> It's like that for many Christians, except laissez-faire capitalism in its
> pure form is a myth, the 'ideal man' is a myth, whereas many Christians
> believe that the nature of the world is *living proof* that God exists and
> can kick our collective ass.
The "ideal person" may not exist, but the concept does, and people
should strive for it. After all, we don't throw up our hands and give
up on science when we have error bars greater than zero, do we? Same
deal with laissez-faire, which can more easily be implemented "purely"
by being codified in law -- all that is required is support of this
philosophy by those would be governed by it, which I concede is easier
said than done.
Sourav
------------------------------------------------------------
Sourav K. Mandal
Sourav.Mandal@ikaran.com
http://www.ikaran.com/Sourav.Mandal/
