ETOTE Wrote:While there are obvious exceptions and there are some people who join for the benefits...the risks far outweigh the benefits and since we've been in a perpetual state of war time or at least conflict for the better part of almost 15-20 years now, I think most have more genuine reasons to join other than money.
This really curls the hair of the die hard right wingers but the actual truth why I joined the military...I thought it was my patriotic duty as a socialist leaning member of society to contribute to the well being of the whole. Seriously. It is the foundation and motoivation for a lot of my behavior and choices.....
The roll call of lefties who have served is a long and honorable one...not many people are aware of this.
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Originally Posted by Borg69
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"]Do you think that perhaps these people are still self interest, but on a higher stakes level than most people are willing to wager on? It's like gambling... you stand to win, and win big, BUT... you risk a LOT trying for that big win and could potentially stand to lose (most) everything. I think most people who sign up for the military are wagering on us NOT going to war and possibly dying, and just hoping for the $$$, education, experience, and retirement.
I dunno... just a thought.[/COLOR]
ETOTE Wrote:ETOTE said,,,,,While there are obvious exceptions and there are some people who join for the benefits...the risks far outweigh the benefits and since we've been in a perpetual state of war time or at least conflict for the better part of almost 15-20 years now, I think most have more genuine reasons to join other than money.
I joined because i thought I could make a difference and because I felt an obligation to my country. I was too dumb and full of myself to even consider that ME OF ALL PEOPLE could get killed. I'll stop there before this turns into a book.
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memechose Wrote:[COLOR="Blue"]The word volunteer says it all. You and Bill did right with the old man. I see with my own eyes how one person can make a good (or bad) difference in one, fifty, or a thousand lives. It's not something anyone does expecting anything in return. We just do it because it's RIGHT and we know it deep inside ourselves. Right?
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lol, you have a way of recognising a person that's thoroughly thorough. Thanks.
I heard an analogy once and I love it very much, and go by it. If doing the right thing in a given situation is considered 1, and each of us are a number as well, 0, then if we obstruct that 1 and stand before it, it becomes 0.1, or 0.01 or 0.000001 depending on how many don't care. But if we, each as a 0, stand behind that 1 and back it up it becomes 10, then 100, 1,000, , 10,000 and 1,000,000 and upwards. Oh the power of us lowly zeros, lol.
warmly,
-Doug
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Aike Wrote:Yet many of our individual freedoms depend precisely on collective arrangements. Take the most elementary things like your ability to exercise your freedom of choice to go anywhere in your city. Just simply moving around safely is sustained by the social institutions of the police and the law (which are there to guarantee that nobody is going to attack you, and if somebody attempts to do that, a complex system of laws is designed to punish the attacker and provide you compensation for the damages), not to even mention the public transport system or the complex normative rules of traffic everybody has to collectively follow in order to sustain a smoothly running transport system to get people from point A to point B.
In the same way the social institutions of the welfare state are not just there to promote collective well-being (whatever this means) but also to free people from exploitation and various kinds of risk, therefore enabling them to exercise their freedom to live like they choose. Unemployment benefits are a good example here. One can easily imagine how the removal of the benefits would not result in increased individual freedom but it would rather deprive the unemployed of even the minimal means to provide for themselves in times of economic turmoil. A world without social welfare systems does not free people but solidifies the class hierarchy and condemns the majority of people into permanent poverty.
All of this is to say that the opposition between individual freedom and collective well-being is a false one. Social institutions do not have to deprive you of your freedom but they can enable you to exercise it. We do not have to choose whether we prefer individual freedom over the collective. The question is rather: How do we arrange the society so that everyone has an equal chance to live their lives as they choose?
EDIT: Fixed some typos. I should go to sleep already ._.
I just wanted to point out that in Rand's philosophy the government's only job is to maintain security and make sure people don't use force against one another.
I also see your point about collectivism vs. individualism and, as I've said many times in this thread, I do advocate a welfare state. You make a fair point in saying that social institutions can enable your right to exercise your freedom, but generally I still stand firm in my opinion that collective well-being usually comes at the expense of the individual. Like we've already discussed, taxation is a prime example.
Other examples include restrictive drug policies, governmental monopolies, legislation to make sure the parental leave of parents is shared evenly etc. These are all policies that exist for the purpose of protecting the collective. Restrictive drug policies as a precaution to stop drug abuse, governmental monopolies either to limit the availability of potentially harmful products or due to a mistrust of private operators and parental leave legislation to promote gender equality. All of these legislations basically say the same thing: because individuals can't be trusted to handle their own lifes responsibly, the government will make sure the "wrong" decisions are unavailable. This works well for the collective but is terribly restrictive to responsible individuals who dream of freedom and independence. They generally have two options. Either accept that collectivism is good for the irresponsible masses that can't make responsible decisions for themselves or oppose the system as being unjust. To me, none of these sides lack legitimacy.
The government is essentially very involved in the way you live, work, handle your family, run your business etc. for better or for worse. I believe in a welfare state, and I believe in reasonable levels of governmental supervision but how can you say that collectivism doesn't go against the individual? Or, maybe, my point is rather that collectivism goes against the individualist.
EDIT: I thought of a more outrageous example. There are political parties in Sweden that want to remove both children's and parents' right to choose which school to attend. Studies show that the freedom to choose school is causing segregation, so parties to the far-left inevitably see the opportunity for less freedom of choice and more governmental control for the good of the collective! They advocate a society where the government places every child in the closest school to his/her home. They'll have no say in the matter unless there are "special needs", presumably that children who need resources not available at all schools get the opportunity of choice. In my case I would have ended up at a quite rowdy school with low overall results, unmotivated students and several outbursts of homophobia.
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In a strange way, I've a connection to the lady herself through a dear and deceased friend of mine, Patsy-Patricia-Neal who played the character that most identified Ms. Rand in "The Fountainhead". She didn't want to do, but her then boyfriend asked her and so she played Dominique. The problem was Ms. Rand was constantly on the set, complained bitterly about how her words were being lost, disliked Patsy (Who bore a striking resemblance to her) and made life hell. The end of the film includes a nine minute monologue that Rand insisted be included. Added nothing to the story but Ms. Rand saw stories as an exposition of her philosophies. Everyone on the shoot offered to A. quit or B. Kill her at least twice. In the end, what you see is a confused, more so today when newspapers have changes their critical mass away from such puny subjects as architecture, story with attractive people doing unattractive things. There's a long scene in which whoever designed the costumes had Patsy in a black sheath dress, very becoming. Ms. Rand felt that something needed to be added to explain the duality of Dominique's nature and commanded that a white mink surround be put on the top. It was and as Patsy said, working on a hot set is bad enough but having fur under your arms just makes it worse. Decades later she could take off Ms. Rand perfectly-something she'd amused the crew with while doing the shoot. Some years after the film was finished she was in England and decided, uninvited, to visit Patsy and her then husband Roald Dahl (she'd just finished Breakfast at Tiffany's and was getting ready for Hud. Ms. Rand stayed two weeks, was a terror, took any opportunity to tell Patsy how her performance could have been better but then made the classic mistake of turning her critical tongue on Roald and his "silly" books that do not prepare a child for the strife in the real world.....The Dahls suddenly remembered unbreakable commitments in France and left her in their home. As time passed and Patsy grew increasingly famous, Rand decided that she was one of her best buddies-a sentiment that was not returned. Asked to say something at her funeral, Patsy had to refuse as, by then, she'd had the strokes that somewhat clouded her speech and, as she said, she wouldn't have done it anyway...
One can gather that Rand was not a happy person in that she believed more people should rally to her way of thinking. (See an essay by Florence King in "Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady to find it. on Rand's influence on her...and how she survived it.)
I'll let the rest of you go back to the philosophical stuff, I don't, just now, feel equal to entering that fray.
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Here's a summary of Ayn Rand's explanation of sex.
People who despised themselves or have low self esteem try to reverse the laws of cause and effect and regain their lost self esteem through serial sex adventures. It can't be done because sex is not the cause but an expression of a person's sense of his own value. Men who think that
wealth comes from material resources and has no intellectual root or meaning also think that sex is a capacity that functions independently of ones mind and values. They say love is blind and that sex is not to be understood by reason.
The truth is that a man's sexual choices are the result of his deepest convictions and his own value of himself. "Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I can tell you his entire philosophy on life. Introduce me to his bed partner and I can tell you how he values himself."
No matter how much people try to believe that selflessness is the highest value they will always be in conflict when it comes to sex. Sex is the most selfish of all acts that cannot be performed (by a man who esteems himself) for any other reason than his desires and pleasure.
Just try to think of having to perform sex as an act of charity.
A man who esteems himself will always approach sex as an act of self exaltation with confidence of both being desired and being worthy of desire. He seeks the partner who is the embodiment of all the things he values and by making love with that partner, immerses himself in all he values most. For a partner he doesn't desire a brainless slut he can get with no effort. He desires the strongest and hardest to conquer to meet his need for having achieved and attained the object of his desires by means of his own efforts. ---- This is the same force that drives him to achieve and attain in the world of business.
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read ayn rand years ago and was an admirer. but she became a bit of hypocritical yes in her later years. she was in receipt of social security at the end and had an affair with her freinds husband. i like the self reliance aspect there yes you do but we are all not strong and some have weaknesses. a strong nation is a compassionate one
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Okay, my train today was late so I actually got a lot of time to read. I finished one of Rand's short stories; Anthem.
To be honest, it was kind of a disappointment. Apparently it was rejected by an American book publisher with the explanation "the author doesn't understand socialism". While I don't think this statement is true, Anthem deals with an almost ridiculously extreme form of socialism. Collectivist thinking and socialist values are pretty much exaggerated as far as is conceivably possible to create a very dystopian future. I don't really feel like arguing against an ideology should be done by creating a hypothetical scenario where all its characteristics are hyperbolized and then show how awful that would be.
I can't really comment on her style of writing because the library where I got the book only had a translated Swedish version. If the translator did a good job capturing her writing style (which is rarely the case in my experience, to be fair) I can't really say it's all that good.
It wasn't that bad when seen from a purely fictional perspective. There are some clever ideas and the ending monologue is really interesting and inspiring. Overall though, I really hope her more famous works like Atlas Shrugged are more thought out, because otherwise I'll be severely disappointed.
I'm essentially a very big fan of Rand's ideal human, but not so much of her ideal society, which may or may not be a contradiction. Her explanations of friendship and romance are highly agreeable to me. Some parts come across as kind of advocating male superiority, but then again it was written in the 30's.
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ETOTE Wrote:While there are obvious exceptions and there are some people who join for the benefits...the risks far outweigh the benefits and since we've been in a perpetual state of war time or at least conflict for the better part of almost 15-20 years now, I think most have more genuine reasons to join other than money.
ryanswart Wrote:read ayn rand years ago and was an admirer. but she became a bit of hypocritical yes in her later years. she was in receipt of social security at the end and had an affair with her freinds husband. i like the self reliance aspect there yes you do but we are all not strong and some have weaknesses. a strong nation is a compassionate one
You need to read back where we discussed the the fact or claim that she received social security and understand how flimsy a string you dangle from calling her hypocritical for taking it.
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HumbleTangerine Wrote:Okay, my train today was late so I actually got a lot of time to read. I finished one of Rand's short stories; Anthem.
To be honest, it was kind of a disappointment. Apparently it was rejected by an American book publisher with the explanation "the author doesn't understand socialism". While I don't think this statement is true, Anthem deals with an almost ridiculously extreme form of socialism. Collectivist thinking and socialist values are pretty much exaggerated as far as is conceivably possible to create a very dystopian future. I don't really feel like arguing against an ideology should be done by creating a hypothetical scenario where all its characteristics are hyperbolized and then show how awful that would be.
I can't really comment on her style of writing because the library where I got the book only had a translated Swedish version. If the translator did a good job capturing her writing style (which is rarely the case in my experience, to be fair) I can't really say it's all that good.
It wasn't that bad when seen from a purely fictional perspective. There are some clever ideas and the ending monologue is really interesting and inspiring. Overall though, I really hope her more famous works like Atlas Shrugged are more thought out, because otherwise I'll be severely disappointed.
I'm essentially a very big fan of Rand's ideal human, but not so much of her ideal society, which may or may not be a contradiction. Her explanations of friendship and romance are highly agreeable to me. Some parts come across as kind of advocating male superiority, but then again it was written in the 30's.
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After telling my BF about this thread he insisted I start reading Atlas Shrugged. ugh. Over a 1000 pages. He told me to read the chapter "Twentieth Century Motor Company" which I did this morning. All I'll say is WOW! ------- Tangerine from what I read in that little part I believe she understands socialism very well.
I've got Atlas Shrugged he bought for me and also the short book, "the Virtue of Selfishness" that's essays I may be more inclined to read first. ... and I have to thank you and East for me getting off my butt to finally read anything by her.
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