Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!ucdavis!csusac!sactoh0!pacbell!osc!tma
From: tma@osc.COM (Tim Atkins)
Newsgroups: alt.individualism
Subject: Re: re anti-rationalism
Message-ID: <1870@osc.COM>
Date: 17 Jan 90 08:10:57 GMT
References: <47ef200e.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM.
Reply-To: tma@osc.UUCP (Tim Atkins)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Object Sciences Corp., Menlo Park, CA
Lines: 72

In article <47ef200e.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM. nelson_p@apollo.HP.COM (Peter Nelson) writes:
.
.  Tim Atkins posts
.
..Why is it that technically literate people that would not think of practicing
..blatant subjectivism with regard to the scientific or engineering domain totally
..change their attitude when dealing with societal or any "humanist" issue.  In
..their own domain they would never think of claiming that the nature of the 
..materials they work with is totally indeterminate or a mere convention.  Yet
..human nature is treated as if it were infinitely malleable and any old way some
..group decides to act like it is, is perfectly ok. 
.
. I never claimed it was infinitely malleable.  It's obviously malleable
. to a certain extent as evidenced by the wide range of value systems 
. and conventions of behaviour among our species.  

It should be mentioned that many of the systems making up the "wide range" 
have and do sow incalculable misery on those afflicted.  Few even bother
with a comparison of misery/benefit much less try to trace to cause back
to the nature of Man.

.
.. Man, like any other existent,
..has a specific nature.
.
. He doesn't have a specific nature, he has a very complex nature.  This 
. preoccupation with rationality is simply not realistic.  Rationality 
. is NOT OUR ONLY SIGNIFICANT FEATURE.  What is the significance of the 
. fact that it distinguishes us from other creatures? 

That the Man's nature is complex hardly implies there isn't one! Or that it
is unknowable.  No one has claimed rationality as the only significant 
feature, merely as the most important one for man's continued survival
and well being.   The significance is that we implement social and private
policies that ignore and/or make difficult the use of rationality to freely
improve our lives at peril to ourselves PRECISELY BECAUSE we thereby fly in
the face of our own nature.
. 
.. This nature imposes requirements for optimal functioning. 
.
. What is "optimal"?   Optimal for whom?   What is optimal for me may
. not be optimal for you.
.

Optimal for a human being is not a matter of convention or vote given that
human beings have a specific nature.  If you think that perhaps you do not
know whether it would be "optimal" to live in a dictatorship then I suggest
you go try it!  Without reference to any sort of definition of what man's
nature is, I don't really see any other way for you to decide the issue.
Do You?

.
. ...and...
.
..Objectivism is concerned with what kind of beings we are!  The kind of beings we
..are determine how we should deal with life in order to be successful.  Trying to
..set up Objectivists as wooly-headed idealists simply will not fly.  Try again as
..you apparently feel you must!
.
.
. But they ARE idealists!   Show me an actual community of objectivists
. who actually live by Objectivist values and I may change my mind.
.                                                                 
.
.                                                         ---Peter

I can show you several that live by the principles of Objectivism in their
own lifes.  A community will be some time coming.  It is much earlier and
much later than you think.  That there is not such a community hardly marks
the philosophy as pure idealism.

- Tim