Word: objectivists
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...want to be clear: it wasn't so much the political debate between liberalism and conservatism that bothered me. It was more the seeming mindlessness of the objectivist audience that alarmed me. I went to the debate hoping that Professor Kennedy would expose objectivism for what it really is--an angry and disingenuous pseudo-philosophy that indoctrinates the philosophically challenged, that has tried to appropriate reason and egoism as its own (gosh, that sounds absurd) by plagiarizing philosophical ideas that have been around for centuries, that parades as the savior of angry middle-class voters in search of a justification...
...very telling of the objectivist cult-following that it should regard the poor and the unsuccessful (who are the brunt of their joke) as failures. In objectivists' eyes, the poor fail willingly because all people have and have enjoyed equal opportunity, have entered this world with equal freedoms to flex equal minds. They believe that every wealthy and successful individual is so because of his or her "productivity," that the uncreative and less intelligent and less talented should suffer for their fruitlessness, and ultimately, that our civil society should feel no obligation to them...
...went hoping that Professor Kennedy would expose their lack of originality, but the debate turned out to be a political slap-fest centered on poverty, the welfare-state and government regulation. Not surprisingly, the objectivist was extremely well prepared and composed. He was ready to answer the "questions" of the audience, which formulated one straw-man after another for Binswanger to knock down. By evening's end, the debate had reached an unspectacular draw...
Essentially, Kennedy conceded that he is a liberal. Binswanger's position revealed the egotism of the objectivist (a.k.a. God), in his declarations that the poor are stupid, uncreative, and should be left...
Kennedy failed to change many minds that night because a large majority of those in the room (many still in high school, I'm sure) had already been indoctrinated by the objectivist ethic, and it's certainly true that whatever Kennedy offered, however reasonable, was rejected by the pre-dominantly objectivist audience...