Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site uwvax.ARPA
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!uwvax!myers
From: myers@uwvax.ARPA (Jeff Myers)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: superman and other comic books
Message-ID: <1109@uwvax.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 12-Oct-83 20:45:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwvax.1109
Posted: Wed Oct 12 20:45:17 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Oct-83 08:06:40 EDT
References: <402@houca.UUCP>
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 51

Response to trc on my brief Rand review: (my tidbits indented)

Fascinating book reviews, Jeff - you seem to have skimmed the introduction
to the Fountainhead, and listened to a second-hand account of Atlas Shrugged.
>From this in-depth study, you conclude that Ayn Rand is an elistist with
nothing but contempt for the "vulgar masses", and a fascist that believes that
most everyone is a parasite upon a few supermen.  Maybe next you should
re-skim BF Skinner and see exactly what it is that he advocates - which is
essentially a super-big-brother, all-encompassing "scientific"-/psychological
state - in which, presumably, the psychologists decide who is to behave in
what fashion.

   Thank you... I couldn't have summed up Rand better myself.  How do you know
   that I heard a second-hand account of *Atlas Shrugged*?  Never mentioned it
   in my article.  What does Skinner have to do with anything (though I
   thoroughly disagree with positivist, behaiviorist social science, too)?

In fact, Rand's "supermen" are people that have, through
a combination of nature, nurture and thought, become able to break free of 
the common-place and to go beyond it.  How do you suppose that new ideas 
and discoveries are made?  By the "vulgar masses"?  How do you suppose that 
new industries get started?  By committee?  Rand's point is that those people 
who deserve to be most admired, are the most despised, and that this is a 
symptom of anti-individualism arising from altruism.  That is why she wrote
the Fountainhead for them - to tell them the reasons that they are correct
for being the way that they are, and that those that despise them are wrong.
Her intention, I think, was to explicitly show them the ethical foundation 
upon which their morality rests, while exposing that lack in their opponents.

   It is not only nature, nurture, and thought which enable our comic-book
   heroes to go beyond the commonplace... the toil of the everyday Shmo
   generates the surplus which gives them the leisure to think their
   super thoughts (and we two, also).  Sure, going beyond the commonplace
   is extremely important for the betterment of all our lives.  But Rand is
   mistaken in believing that the "supermen" are despised for excelling;
   they are despised for becoming jaded and enriched because of their
   good fortune.

Extreme individualism means standing on your own two feet and supporting
yourself by being productive - not by laying back and surviving off of the 
efforts of others.

   Sounds like extreme altruism.

I might apologize for the "flaming" and sarcastic nature of this note, but 
I think that your statements entirely justify what I have said.  So I wont.

   I won't either.

Cheers,
jeff myers@uwisc