Obamacare and the Silencing of Dissent

I am livid today after I became aware of an obvious ploy to silence XCowboy2(Richard Gleaves)'s "This is John Galt Speaking" video series on Youtube. A company just issued copyright complaints against all 28 videos of the new and old series. They have also effectively wiped out 2 full years of view counts and discussion attached to the videos. That is 2 years of people questioning Objectivist issues and being debated or tutored by practiced Objectivists in the youtube community. Also, the videos were targeted on the very same day that Richard came out with this little parable about the nature of the current health care debate:

The Parable of the Octopus Man

Coincidence??? I'm sure it will all have been a mistake...to be cleared up after the vote goes through. But the tragedy is really the loss of that corpus of open, free Objectivist discussion. I find it ironic that the liberals claim to be champions of liberty while they seek to silence any opposition by whatever means.

"If the "liberals" are afraid to identify their program by its proper name, if they advocate every specific step, measure, policy, and principle of statism, but squirm and twist themselves into semantic pretzels with such euphemisms as the "Welfare State," the "New Deal," the "New Frontier," they still preserve a semblance of logic, if not of morality: it is the logic of a con man who cannot afford to let his victims discover his purpose. Besides, the majority of those who are loosely identified by the term "liberals" are afraid to let themselves discover that what they advocate is statism. They do not want to accept the full meaning of their goal; they want to keep all the advantages and effects of capitalism, while destroying the cause, and they want to establish statism without its necessary effects. They do not want to know or admit that they are champions of dictatorship and slavery. So they evade the issue, for fear of discovering that their goal is evil." --Ayn Rand

[Update 3/25/2010: It would appear that WKH didn't really have anything to do with it at all. As such I took out the link to their YouTube page and removed direct references to their company name. It appears that some computer hack was filing claims under their name, probably some automated attack. The videos were attacked by a different publisher soon after the other complaint was taken down. Some automated hack that relies on targeting chained videos? Anyways it DOES seem that some liberal with an axe to grind is probably behind the attacks. So I'm leaving the informative part of the article up and cutting out my invective.]

Why Do People Still Not Get It?

I received the following question that someone sent to my YouTube channel: bakukenshin, and I thought it fit in nicely with the topics on this blog.

"What do you think of people who have read Ayn Rands books but refuse to believe in or accept the philosophy of Objectivism? Are they simply refusing the ability of the mind or are they afraid of the idea of being responsible for their own decisions? Or does it just go against too much of what they have been "taught"?"

My response was as follows:

I think there are several reasons why people could read her books and not accept the entire philosophy of Objectivism.

1. Most people read a book and they pick and choose what they like about it and what they don't like. Most of the time this coincides with values that they have already decided upon. So a lot of people take Objectivism piecemeal, which results in a lot of what you can see in the Republican party. That is a lot of people who try to push for capitalism and free markets (at least when they're campaigning) but at the same time pushing to restrict civil liberties (such as with the anti-abortion movement, domestic surveillance, etc.).

2. To accept Objectivism, people need to accept three basic premises. Reality is. Existence exists. Consciousness is conscious. Unfortunately most of the gatekeepers to modern philosophy (professors, novelists, poets, scientists, etc.) have been indoctrinated in and come to believe the opposite of at least one of these. Since these are axioms, unless they realize that there is no way to disprove these premises without using them, then they cannot be expected to accept them. In order for someone to change their mind on axiomatic propositions they need to start from the standpoint that reason is the final arbiter of their viewpoints, that they cannot resist what their senses and the rules of logic tell them simply based on their feelings or a priori assertions. But, if they accept that already, then they are already half way to Objectivism anyway.

3. The philosophy of Objectivism isn't self-evident. The reaction of many new objectivists when they've decided to accept it, is to assume that because they read Ayn Rand's works and it makes sense to them, that it must therefore automatically make sense to everybody. Unfortunately, this would be a mistaken assumption. Everybody starts from a different starting point. Some people have devoted a lot of time thinking seriously about fundamental philosophical questions. Some people have not. Even among seriously committed thinkers, it took a long historical tradition starting with Aristotle leading up through the founding of America and it took Ayn Rand's genius building on all that to bring the various threads of history into sharp enough focus to formulate Objectivism. Some people just make some honest mistakes along the chain of abstraction.

4. Some people know better and are consciously malevolent enough to deny it anyway. But be very careful before jumping to conclusions about who you place in this category. Sometimes I think Objectivists need to understand their own philosophy better before they start leaping to judgments about others.

I think it's a little like teaching someone a skill at which you are highly proficient, but the person you're teaching isn't. Like your native language for instance. You don't even think about it. But try teaching it to someone who only knows Chinese. You quickly find out that you have to know things about the structure of your language at a much more detailed level than you'd ever have dreamed of having to worry about before. More importantly, the process of clarifying your thoughts, so as to better present them to others, teaches you things about your own mode of thought and helps you understand your beliefs better than before.

If you seriously teach any subject for a significant period of time, you will understand that subject in a fundamentally different way than if you had just accepted that you knew it and left it at that. I think this is true of math, English, art, and especially philosophy. If you want to truly understand why people don't get it, and understand better just what it is that makes sense to you, then try to think about how you would explain it to someone, calmly and clearly. Try to talk to people about it. Try to teach it. Through this process of discussion, through refining your arguments, through thinking about the points people raise in opposition, you will come to understand the philosophy that much better. And you will have a much clearer image of what it represents, and which people are the ones who should truly be morally condemned. But remember, in these discussions, if you find yourself losing your temper, resorting to insults or irrational tactics or agencies, then you've already lost. You need to accept that when it happens (as it inevitably will), go back and rethink it through.

Objectivism is ultimately understanding yourself. You have to start there. And it can be the hardest place to start. Especially when you're wanting to rush out and change the world. But it is central. After all, that's where everything in Ayn Rand's philosophy begins.

I hope this helps somewhat. I know it didn't exactly address the question as you stated it, but I, too, am struggling with the line between people who are mistaken and people who are consciously evading truth. So, until I reach a conclusion on that, I like to recommend caution before leaping into judgments on people. It can be tempting, and it can be difficult to see the distinction. (This by the way is the very issue that led to the split between Kelley and Peikoff and why the "The Atlas Society" and "The Ayn Rand Institute" aren't on speaking terms.) The above is my best attempt to deal with it myself. Read as much as you can on the philosophy, both the good and the bad. Don't get sidetracked on following any one person's interpretation. Remember the most important perspective is your own. Try to form it in as balanced and rational a way as possible.

--I think the only thing I can add to this right now is in this prior blog post here. I am still very interested in the opinions of other practicing objectivists. If anybody has an opinion on this matter please feel free to post your comments.

Best premises,
American Anti-theist

A Proposal for a Rational Code of Morality

I was just sorting through some old papers and ran across this thought experiment I wrote up almost 10 years ago. At the time I didn't understand objectivism anywhere near as I do now and was still rather tolerant of religious beliefs. At the same time, I was already very libertarian in my political beliefs. I'm posting this, not because I see it as the final word on morality or anything. On the contrary, I'm sure there are more than enough flaws...especially in my all too brief assessment of epistemology. However, I think it still raises some interesting points, and a novel way of thinking about moral decisions. Anyways, if you're interested, you can check it out here:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddt4f3w9_4hmscz7hk

As always, please let me know what you think of it. Good or bad. And then we can discuss it.

Best premises,
American Anti-theist

Error, Evasion, and Deceit

I've been reading through Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (IOE) and in the interest of trying to work through some of the ideas in there, I've decided to put my thoughts into writing on this blog. Let me just say that this is not definitive Objectivist orthodoxy. This is just me working through some of the ideas presented by Objectivism. I welcome criticism from anyone, Objectivist or not, who may think there is an error in this reasoning. However, so that we don't get bogged down too much in re-explaining definitions and so that we're not arguing about misinterpretations, I would like to ask anyone who would like to contest the points I'm making to have at least read the book first. Then, we'll know where we stand and can move on with discussion from there.

In IOE Ayn Rand presents the basics of her epistemology, or how we know that we know things and what it is we know. Rand says that consciousness starts at the perceptual level. Initially, we are born with sensory apparatus that just wheels blindly sending a stream of undifferentiated information into our brains. That is, of course, within the parameters set by our biological hardware. Sensations are instantaneous responses to external stimuli but have relatively little longevity. It isn't until we have acquired enough exposure to a certain sensation that it becomes integrated into a percept. For example, we may be exposed to a whole variety of things but we are unable to focus on any one quality or any one object until a percept has been formed. Then we can be said to perceive something. This is where consciousness begins--where we begin to integrate our multitudinous simultaneous sensations into perceivable somethings, differentiations in the chaos. It is only later, after we have developed the capacity to conceptualize and abstract, that we can analyze our perceptions and reduce them to their component sensations.

Similarly, after we acquire a sufficient level of perceptions we can integrate them into concepts, integrate concepts into abstractions and integrate abstractions into higher-level abstractions. I don't intend to go into the whole process here in detail, I just mention this as a starting point for the discussion. Basically what this model of knowledge says is that anything we know is ultimately founded on concrete existents in an objective reality. Even our highest level abstractions, to be valid, must be based on a chain of conceptualization that is ultimately reducible to the concretes from which it has been derived. This of course holds true for inductive as well as deductive reasoning. If there is a break in the conceptual chain, then the following concepts and abstractions and any actions based on them must be in error. A break in the conceptual chain must essentially be a contradiction, some point at which the linking ideas are not truly linkable, where definitions have been mismatched, where reality and proposition do not coincide.

Consciousness is simply a fact. That there is something that is thinking is implied by the act of thought. As such, the concept of self is implicit in consciousness. Our concept of consciousness is the integration of numerous perceived mental actions, or "actions of consciousness". An action of consciousness consists of the concepts under consideration and the conclusion drawn in regards to those concepts. Our internal, or introspective knowledge is based on the integration of our first level extrospective, or external, concepts (not unlike prototypical lexis) and awareness of the difference between consciousness and tangible existence. That is to say, it is the integration between our conceptualization of objects and our evaluation of them. The combination of our prototypical conceptualizations and our first concepts of values form the base of our introspective knowledge.

So, for either objective or conceptual existents, the same rules apply. Higher abstractions must be connected in a chain of conceptualization down to the first root concepts that are perceivable in reality. Breaks in the chain must invariably be contradictions, links which represent the combination of two ideas which cannot possibly both be true at the same time. As such, morality is ultimately reducible to concrete existents, or more properly, it is derivable from them. For a more thorough derivation of such, I would recommend Ayn Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness in which she details the Objectivist ethics. However, the main gist is this: Every is implies an ought. Every fact of existence indicates some choice that humans must make in order to either enhance their survival or undermine it. Everything moral is ultimately reducible to life and death, because without life, moral judgments have no meaning. The ultimate basis of morality is an individual life. There is no such thing as a mass life, or social entity. These concepts are merely approximate aggregations of the cumulative effect of millions of individual decisions. They represent a sociological calculus of abstracting mass trends, but have no relevance to a moral argument. The moral argument must always start from the concrete and move towards abstraction, not the other way around. SOCIETY is a rather vague concept, what is denoted by it varies depending on what you're trying to prove. A "society" goes on, it changes, but the notion of life or death doesn't have much relevance to it. However, life and death are of paramount importance to it's constituent members. Any social system which ignores the life and death ramifications of it's moral prescriptions is bound to succeed only through misery, privation, and bloodshed visited on the individuals which constitute it.

Now, things like morality, justice, virtue, etc. are complex concepts understood only through a long chain of conceptualization and abstraction. At any point in the process, there is the potential for something to go wrong. I can see only three potential ways in which someone may integrate a contradiction into their conceptual system leading them to sanction or participate actively in evil: error, evasion, and deceit.

ERROR is simply when someone has made an honest mistake. Understanding the minutiae of these conceptual chains requires a painstaking combination of introspection, validation, verification, argumentation, etc. This is primarily what professional philosophers should be doing--walking along the chains of our abstraction and verifying their veracity. Now when a mistake is encountered, an honest person would try to fix this mistake.

A mind cannot hold two opposing propositions to be true at the same time, provided that the mind recognizes the opposition. So, how can the mind not recognize the opposition?

One possibility is that the opposition stems from a place deep in the conceptual chain and having been subsumed and automated are not consciously apparent as being in conflict: ERROR. The solution for ERROR would seem to be to examine the conceptual chain until the contradiction is revealed, resolve the conflict and then reconstruct the conceptual chain in accordance with the corrected premises. Correcting these errors would seem to be the proper mandate of psychology. Preventing these errors would seem to be the proper mandate of education.

The next two possibilities, EVASION and DECEIT are difficult to distinguish from each other, but are distinguishable by a very subtle difference. Whereas ERROR can be distinguished by the situation where a person has simply just not thought of something in a certain way, or has not sufficiently examined their ideas, evasion and deceit both imply an avoidance of recognizing error. However, determining what is evasion and what is deceit is ultimately a very subtle difficulty.

If a contradiction is ignored by one's mind, how is this accomplished? The mind cannot consciously hold a contradiction as true. So the only alternative is not to consciously hold it. This is what Ayn Rand calls the "blank-out". In other words, a "blank-out" is the avoidance and/or repression of a point of conflict between one's premises. To willfully ignore a contradiction is a form of deceit. So for evasion, as such, to be distinguishable from deceit, then evasion must be an automated process, where the person is no longer aware of the fact that they are evading. Their psyche has been programmed, so to speak, to actively evade the contradiction--to avoid focusing on the point of conflict at all costs. It actively works to keep them unaware of the fact. I think it is safe to say that evil men don't think of themselves as evil. They think they are doing the right thing. They think they are misunderstood. But the truth is that they are active participants in their own failure to realize the contradictions which lead to their evil.

Now, I reject unilaterally the idea of things like memes, which would imply that ideas just happen to infect our consciousness and spread like a virus. No, once one has reached an age where one's conceptual apparatus is fully matured, we concsciously process what we choose to believe and integrate into our lives, and reject that which we don't. The only time when a belief, a contradiction could be integrated without being subject to our conscious filtering is if that idea is integrated before that conceptual apparatus is fully formed. In short, if, when a person is still vulnerable and formative, a person's mind is conditioned to ignore contradictions, then they will develop the ability to evade points where contradictions are in conflict. This conditioning can come from either inside or outside, I think. From outside, it would be realized by what I call cognitive abuse.

Cognitive abuse would be the systematic disorientation of concepts in young people before they have achieved the ability to integrate and revise their own conceptual system. In effect, it would be a systematic training in a conceptual model of the universe which embraces contradiction and does not support the growth of coherent chains of logical correspondence. I happen to think that an awareness of cognitive abuse and its ramifications would inspire drastic reforms in modern educational methodology.

The internal source would be an active choice made to actively maintain opposites in pursuit of a hypothetically and arbitrarily ascertained "greater value". A commitment to religion, altruism, collectivism, nationalism, etc. are all predicated on the existence of a "greater good" and that this overrides any considerations of individual perspective or welfare. The conditioned or conscious adoption of this principle would have the effect of programming one's mind to reject objections in favor of this over-riding principle. In short, believing in a greater good, overrides ones ability to be aware of their own evasions, it shorts out one's decision routines.

But, a conscious decision to override one's mind and to actively embrace contradictions effectively entails responsibility. An adult with a fully-formed conceptual apparatus who decides to evade contradictions in their mental processes, is effectively consciously choosing falsehood over truth, good over evil. An active choice to avoid contradictions in one's thought processes is a conscious deception, a conscious evil. This would place voluntary evasion in the category of DECEIT. The distinction being that one is aware on some level of the fact that they are lying, even to themselves, that they are aware of the contradiction but have made a choice not to acknowledge it. Involuntary evasion, or EVASION proper, is the result of cognitive abuse where a person has been conditioned in their pre-cognitive stages of development to undermine their own cognitive operations, to turn their conceptual system against itself by means of an implicit decision rule smuggled into their social orientation as they grow into adults. Evasion is only possible to children who have been systematically indoctrinated to evade through cognitive abuse. Deceit is an active choice to evade, or an active conscious choice to pretend there is no contradiction in spite of the knowledge that there is.

The distinction is subtle, but important. Someone who is guilty of involuntary evasion can be viewed as being afflicted with a psychological disorder. Someone who is guilty of deceit is guilty of a intentional moral transgression.

Error is discoverable. If two people disagree, they present their opposing arguments, working back through the chain of their reasoning until they arrive at an error. If both people are honestly seeking the truth then the resolution of this error should mandate that one or both of the parties must change their standpoint when all contradictions have been resolved.

Evasion is discoverable. Since the evader can not allow themselves to be aware of their own evasion, they cannot monitor themselves to keep from exposing it. Therefore, they will straight-forwardly state what they believe. Their errors will then be apparent. It may be possible to force a catharsis by bringing the object of evasion into concrete terms and forcing a resolution, but it is more likely than not that the subject would just blank-out/repress the potential cathartic influence/demonstration. It would also not be surprising if persistent exposure to the conflict point would elicit rage and or violence. The underlying principle is that to be successful at evasion, the evader cannot bring the conflicting points into their mind simultaneously, otherwise they would have to acknowledge the impossibility of their stance, if only in the confines of their own mind. From that point on, they would either have to realign their stance to resolve the contradiction, or actively choose to pretend that they never realized the impossibility of their view, leading them into deceit.

Deceit is trickier. I'm not really sure how to determine the difference in symptoms between deceit and either evasion or error. Once again, they will act as though there is a contradiction in their conceptual systems, by advocating conflicting propositions. Even upon having that contradiction brought into focus, they may refuse to acknowledge it, thus emulating evasion. The place where they can be caught out is if they were to actually acknowledge the contradiction and continue to advocate it anyway. This is clearly deceitful and a sure sign of intellectual malignance. But I also think this is rare. A liar will generally try to slip away from the responsibility of their lie, by covering it as error or evasion. The question of how to determine intentional deceit is still one with which I have some trouble. But I think it can be dealt with in the same manner as either of the other two.

I think the method for overcoming error, evasion, and deceit is fairly similar. Present your views in as concise, rational, and clear a manner as possible. Ask opponents to do the same with their views. If they don't even attempt to describe their reasoning, if they flee from the issue, or just resort to bullying or taunting strategies, then it will be clear to anyone else involved that they have the lesser justification for their views. In this way, it can serve to educate others in the logical wormholes which can suck people in if they're not careful. Educational reform in general, with an emphasis on developing critical thinking skills, of refining young people's "art of non-contradictory identification", and helping to foster the development of fully integrated epistemology are also long-term approaches to correcting or preventing cognitive error.

Evasion can only be treated by exstensive therapy and then probably only when someone is aware that there is something wrong with themselves and they want to change it. Of course the depth and severity of the breach would warrant a proportionately greater necessity for counseling. The form of such counseling should be targeted so as to help a patient to uncover the break-downs in their conceptual system which are causing disturbances. More scientifically defining cognitive abuse, defining it's systems, causes, and of course scientifically validating whether or not there is in fact such a thing possible are tasks for cognitive scientists as the field matures. Once a more concrete model has been developed, methods for treatment and prevention can be better ascertained.

As far as I know, the line between evasion and deceit can only be made as a personal judgmnet call based on a long span of interactions, or a healthy volume of evidence. Consciously maintaining any lie takes a certain amount of conscious effort. Eventually, deception makes itself known. All it takes is for someone to let down their guard and admit it. But until that happens, if it happens, may be a very long time. As such, those who we suspect of evasion/deceit should be dealt with cautiously until we're in a better position to judge their motivations. If they cannot be helped or dissuaded, then the only civilized response is that they should be ignored as much as possible. In any event, whether it be error, evasion, or deceit, those who for whatever reason are supportive of evil should not be sanctioned. Their activities should not be supported except where they don't create a conflict with one's own values. If possible one should try to help them, to explain to them the root of their error, if they are so amenable. If not, then one can only walk away. At least that's the best I've been able to come up with.

There are not very many Objectivists that I know personally, but from what I've seen on the web and read of the Objectivist canon, this seems to be the best way of dealing with problems between people in today's society that I can come up with. I'd be very interested in what others may have to say about this. So please feel free to comment on this posting as you like.