Is Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy anything more than cynical and intellectually shallow misanthropy?

I think I know the outlines of Ayn Rand's philosophy -- and I've even read Atlas Shrugged long ago, before I could make much sense of it -- but this morning's segment on NPR provides both a concise description of her philosophy and the very real ways in which the philosophy resonates in current politics.

Particularly after listening to the NPR segment, Objectivism seems to be a deeply cynical approach to governance that justifies the perpetuation of political and economic inequality and ignores the necessary and fundamental contributions that broader society and functioning governmental services provide to the general welfare (i.e., transportation & communications infrastructure, sanitation, public health, security, etc.). Objectivism ignores the fact that individual achievement is tied-up in complex ways with the strengths and weaknesses of broad society, and focuses instead on the fiction that fulling distinct individuals could possibly exist in a fully laissez faire system.

For these reasons, it's no surprise that the a significant slice of people with money and power (and their toadies) who are detached from daily knowledge of the complex iceberg upon which their money and power stands have the audacity and myopia necessary to advocate strongly for the dissolution of the very system that enables their success. From my vantage, Objectivism seems both intellectually and morally bankrupt, and it's rather frightening to me that so much of our current political debate is driven by advocates of this philosophy.

Or, am I missing something important about Objectivism, and my interpretation isn't correct?

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A rather rapid escalation to ad hominem attacks & similar irrationality

I'm in the midst of an exchange with others on a Linkedin group that I belong to (reproduced here). This experience has motivated me to make the following reflections . . .

If truth statements fall in the wilderness, will a Southern apologist hear it?

Another comment on a Linkedin group I belong to spurred me to post a reply.

Chris Rivait posted a link to his blog that quoted in full the Roanoake Times article Rebel flags barred from Lexington poles outlining the Lexington, Virginia, city council's recent decision not to raise the Confederate battle flag at city-sponsored events:

The arguments have been made thousands of times before. The Confederate flag is a symbol of history and Southern heritage. No, the flag is a symbol of hatred and racism.

In essence, the same arguments dominated a public hearing held Thursday night by the Lexington City Council . . .

The first commenter in this post was a gentleman named Stephen Quick, who linked to his website on which he attempted to defend the representation of the Confederate battle flag. I will leave it up to the reader to navigate to Quick's website to read his interpretation in full.

In reply to Quick, I wrote:

Reader Poll: Is Coal the Answer?

There's a movement afoot among some residents, civic leaders, and businesspeople in Whatcom County, Washington, to mine coal in the county and ship it to China. (For an overview of this proposal and links to other information, see Preston Schiller, "How to Stop Worrying and Love Coal Trains," Whatcom Watch Online, April 2011.)

This proposal would involve the burning of fossil fuels to extract fossil fuel from the ground; burning fossil fuel to transport the fossil fuel to the shipping terminal and load the fossil fuel onto freighters; burning fossil fuel to ship the fossil fuel across the Pacific Ocean to China; transporting the fossil fuel -- using fossil-fuel-burning trains and trucks -- to power generation plants, where the fossil fuel will be burned to produce electricity. The extraction will leave polluted land and air in Whatcom County; clog the regional rail system; and, when the coal is burned in China, produce emissions containing the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane, as well as sulfur dioxide, aluminium, arsenic, chromium, cobalt, copper, iron, mercury, selenium, and uranium (See here and here, among others).

So, readers, is the above proposal:

A) Crazy

B) Ridiculous

C) Farcical

D) Nonsensical

E) Ill-informed

F) Desperate

G) Inconsiderate

H) Asinine

I) Silly

K) All of the Above

Answer below the fold . . .

"The white men fired back. That is the story."

I was doing some research in the Oregonian the other day and came across a 1931 interpretation of Euro-American settlement of Oregon that will likely strike some modern readers as quite dated:

"But They Fought Back," Morning Oregonian, June 20, 1931, p6.

In case you're not able to read the text, the pertinent and eyebrow-raising sections are as follows:

Global mega corporations = fascism?

In a recent opinion piece on Aljazeera online, William I. Robinson (Prof. of Sociology, U.C. Santa Barbara) claims that "The global economic crisis and the attack on immigrant rights are bound together" in a potentially catastrophic dynamic.

Robert Reich had a thought-provoking take on something similar the other day. Reich observed on American Public Media's "Marketplace" program that "Corporate profits don't translate." He asked, "How can big American corporations be doing so well and the economy so badly?" His conclusion was, "Because their sales are booming -- abroad. And they're adding new jobs where their sales are."

My interpretation of Reich's point was that the current growth of corporate profits in spite of little to no job creation here in the U.S. shows how detached so-called American corporations are becoming from democratic oversight and input. In fact, this shows how detached they're becoming from any real interest in the well-being of their host countries. If it is true that General Motors President Erwin Wilson stated in 1953 that "what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa," the dynamic that Reich discusses seems to represent a different era. Erwin was equating corporate and national interests, a claim that many of us can argue with. However, Reich is describing an era in which the big global corporations don't even pretend to care whether or not corporate practices are "good" for the U.S., and vice-versa.[1]

Robinson incorporates Reich's observation as a central strand in a "web of 21st century fascism."

I'm struck by Robinson's use of the word "fascism."

Another of capitalism's many benefits

My sister sent me a hard-copy version of Ed Dante's article about ghost writing for college and university students, "The Shadow Scholar" (Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 12, 2010).

This article points to yet another of capitalism's many benefits: enabling humans to gain financially from cheating while concurrently convincing themselves that they are not complicit in undermining social structures more important than capitalism.

A lamentation on social values as represented by $$$

I've had two exchanges recently that have got me down.

This is a lamentation on our social values.

Grant me, for a moment, the proposition that a society's values can be represented in general--but highly important and informative--terms by the amount of money it expends on activities, infrastructure, and professional salaries. I'll call this the "show me the money" proposition.

If the above proposition holds any water, then, regardless of what a society might say it values, when push comes to brass tacks, a society will consciously or unconsciously allocate resources to the categories it considers most worthy.

Then, looking at where the money goes, one can determine what a society values.

Therefore, the American society most values the following . . .

Noteworthy website: Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project

We at the Northwest History Network recently featured historians Trevor Griffey and Felicia Williams and union leader Keith Edwards at our quarterly public event. The event provided some comparisons-&-contrasts between Portland's and Seattle's labor and civil rights history in the second half of the twentieth century.

Trevor is a Seattle-based historian, finishing his PhD at the University of Washington. He co-edited a recently-published book, Black Power at Work, and he serves as the Project Coordinator of a highly informative website, the Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project (SCRLHP).

The SCRLHP contributes to our knowledge in the following ways:

This is quite surreal to me

Wow: The private prison industry was behind efforts in Arizona to pass the state's Draconian anti-immigration bill.

NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry. The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before. And it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to private prison companies responsible for housing them. (quote; another link)

One would be hard-pressed to find a clearer example of corporate America corrupting our political system. I wish there were a way to somehow moderate the corrupting influence of corporations in our political system. Oh wait -- there used to be a way. Maybe there are politicians whom we might rely on to help bring light to the way corporations finance our campaigns? Oh wait -- there used to be.

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Perhaps it's time to allow Texas to secede?

We awoke late last week to Texas governor Rick Perry's words coming through the radio. It was one of those mornings where I was waking slowly, so the first bit of his segment was incorporated into my dream. Here is what I thought I heard him say:

If you want to live in a state that has high taxes, high regulations — that is favorable to smoking marijuana and gay marriage — then move to California . . . [In Texas,] we still believe in freedom,freedom from over-taxation, over-regulation, over-litigation.

This is what he actually said:

The Texas School Board continues its quest to change history

Some on the Texas School Board oppose proportional representation of the history of Islam in world history textbooks. A resolution before the board in September asserted an anti-Christian, pro-Islam bias in K-12 world history textbooks.

The Texas School Board, as a body, has already proven itself to favor misrepresentation in K-12 social science standards.

Some specifics of the shallow-minded ideological machinations of the majority of the Texas School Board here.

What the Texas School Board and its supporters fail to understand is that ignoring, misrepresenting, skewing, or otherwise manipulating historical narratives does not magically transform the resulting fallacy into truth. However, what they do understand is that if they can influence historical narratives to reflect their personal biases and ideology, they can get these inaccurate notions into the minds of K-12 students and create future citizens and voters who are uninformed. As Depeche Mode sings in their song "New Dress":

You can't change the world / But you can change the facts / And when you change the facts / You change points of view / If you change points of view / You may change a vote / And when you change a vote / You may change the world

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Hunter Orange

Anne Saker, "In a first, Oregon's Fish and Wildlife Commission considering 'blaze orange' mandate for hunters in 2010," Oregonian Sep. 29, 2010, p. A1, A8.

The prospect of state officials mandating that hunters in Oregon wear "hunter orange" clothing has brought out an example of the kind of libertarian thinking that I find ridiculous:

"What is lost on you folks on the commission and government bureaucrats is that it is none of your damn business what I am wearing when hunting, and what my children are wearing is my decision not yours!" (italics mine, for emphasis)

I find this perspective extremely myopic, for the following reasons:

"What If We Ran America By The Poll Numbers?"

Fascinating show recently on KUOW's Weekday program: "What If We Ran America By The Poll Numbers?."

President Obama pointed out that religious freedom is a constitutional right which is guaranteed to all Americans when he addressed the possible construction of an Islamic cultural center and mosque near ground zero. Yet any show of support for the cultural center goes against the will of the people — at least according to recent poll numbers. The majority of American's are against the project, if not insulted by it. What if our country was ruled by the majority? What if polls were always the deciding factor in what could, or could not, happen? Which is right: The religious freedom argument, or that the sentiments of the majority should be respected?

The guests on this program discuss the disconnect between what some people believe and what the facts of the matter actually are. This is a conundrum that I've been thinking about a lot recently. Why is it that some people -- most notably a lot of people who associate with the tea baggers, many libertarians, and the extremist fringe of conservative fundamentalist monotheists -- hold the beliefs that they do, even though the facts do not support the belief? Here I'm thinking of issues that are amenable to proof or disproof using factual evidence, such as whether or not President Obama is an American citizen, or claims about the participation of immigrants in violent acts.

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The author of this poem gets an F-minus

I recently received one of those forwarded-forwarded-forwarded emails that causes me such great sadness. This was yet another email in which the author/sender's anger, frustration, and confusion in the face of economic and social change gets expressed in a way that does not attempt to unravel and understand complexity. Instead, the email text ignores important facts and makes statements that are uninformed at best, bigoted and racist at worst.

Feeling anger, frustration, confusion, etc., is natural. It often takes us a while to work through those feelings, which is also to be expected. Staying in that place of anger, frustration, and confusion, however, can be harmful to one's health, erode one's social ties, and undermine the basic levels of trust and respect that a functional democracy requires. Rather than try to foster understanding and generate solutions, these kinds of emails help perpetuate the kinds of ignorance that plague this country.

When I receive such emails, I am compelled to reply to all recipients. I do this as one small way to attempt to bring a deeper understanding to the issue; I also see my response as a moral obligation to speak up in the face of intolerance.

If you're interested, my response to the email is directly below the jump, and the email text itself is at the bottom of this post.

Ignorance by any other name would still smell as foul . . .

I've recently been alerted to the escalating bigotry associated with the possibility of having a mosque constructed at/near the former site of the Twin Towers in NYC (here and here). The most shrill voices in opposition to this project include people we have already come to know as ideologically-motivated blowhards who select and manipulate data in any way that will further their political agenda: Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich.

Formerly a Hog, currently cluless (historically speaking)

It was one of those days weeks ago when I was putzing around on the Internet, re-living a bit of the glory days of the Washington Redskins,* when I happened upon what was news to me: One of the original Hogs, former Tight End Clint Didier (#86), was one of 15 candidates gunning for Patty Murray's senate seat in Washington State.

In response to the interview showcased at the link above, when asked why he was running for a position on the Senate, Didier replied:

When I see our kids and grand-kids' freedom being jeopardized by an over-intrusive government. They want to keep taking away our rights and individual liberties. We've gotten away from the basics...the Constitution.

"Hmmm," I thought . . .

Inaccurate and offensive Oregon history

I discovered something quite disappointing the other day when I typed in the search terms "oregon history" into Google. Link # 5 led me to:

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/texas/oregon.htm

On this website I came upon such gems of inaccuracy and offensiveness as . . .

On the Gulf oil spew

Unbelievable, actually.

Whites vs. peoples of color in the Pac NW

Before Euro Americans in the Pac NW interred Japanese Americans during World War II, but after they shunted Indians off to the Siletz and Grand Ronde reservations and at about the same time that they were parading down Oregon's city streets wearing white pointy hoods, some white folks in Toledo, Oregon, ran Japanese people out of town. This is the "Toledo Incident of 1925."

"Tokyo Slough" in Toledo is named for the residential area where Japanese, Korean, and Filippino workers and families lived (red "A" in map below):

The event in 1925 occurred forty-three years after Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, thirty-eight years after a massacre of Chinese miners at Deep Creek, near the confluence of the Snake and Imhaha rivers in eastern Oregon, and about twenty years after a series of "anti-Hindu" riots in Bellingham, Washington and other cities in the region.

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