Chapter 1: Seeds (Part One)

"America is an experiment," begins the first chapter of the book. It is correct in then following up that it is an experiment in democracy. Democracies had been tried before, in both Greece and Rome. Both, obviously, did not last. According to political scientist, what differentiates the American system from the Classical democratic system was our constitutionally limited republic. We choose other individuals to represent us in the government, however these individuals then become the government, and their actions are limited by our Constitution. In other words, if our laws limit what we can do, then our Constitution limits what our government can do. The next point, that we are an experiment in "evolution" is a bit more curious. Let's find out where the authors go with this.

The authors give examples of the Articles of Confederation, slavery, robber barons, and totalitarian enemy regimes, as its examples of where our government has responded by successfully evolving. The Articles of Confederation fiasco was a total rewrite, not an evolution. Slavery was a tragic oversight by the founders, later corrected by following generations. The other two examples are certainly much closer to an evolution of our government, but evolution usually presupposes progress, not degeneration. A fish born without gills may be a mutation or change, but it is not evolution; as the fish won't even make it to land to pass on this new gene. Not all change is evolution.

Next is the point made about the seriousness of the imperative to address many grave issues of our time, and pointing out the obvious that we haven't fixed them yet. The blame is placed on our system of politics.

The authors are correct in stating that much of the left is based on outmoded, and proven incorrect ideals of state centric, bureaucratic, prescriptive notions that a centralized authority can make decisions best for the "whole." They then begin to slam the right, especially the tea party without calling it by name, by mentioning ideas of laissez-faire economics and the "don't tread on me" slogans often used, calling them "even more historically irrelevant." Simply because we've grown in size, and that time has passed, does not necessarily make these ideas "irrelevant," more is needed to make this point than simply saying "we live differently now." Does a rural individual need a different government than an urban individual? Does increasing the quantity of people in a group change the rights that they have? Are rights actually in alienable, or are they based upon numbers? We shall see what the authors actually believe.

Here is a very telling quote about the basis of the entire book, it betrays the philosophy of the authors much earlier than they had intended on actually revealing it.

"Both ideologies - indeed the surrender of American politics to ideology itself, and the abandonment of pragmatism as a guiding political philosophy - make it harder by the day for America to adapt."

This quote is very true, and it is an extremely beneficial thing to America, not a negative thing as the authors would want you to believe.

Ideology has become somewhat of a dirty word in politics these days. Those who are "ideologues" are difficult to deal with and politics, often unwilling to compromise, and "not doing what has to be done to get things done." outside of politics, meaning in real life, we would say these individuals had integrity. What is integrity, if not holding ideals and not abandoning them in any circumstance? What is a man without ideals? What are ideals?

I will wrap up today's post with a quote or two from Ayn Rand to explain my view of the answers to those questions.

Ideology


A political ideology is a set of principles aimed at establishing or maintaining a certain social system; it is a program of long-range action, with the principles serving to unify and integrate particular steps into a consistent course. It is only by means of principles that men can project the future and choose their actions accordingly.

Anti-ideology consists of the attempts to shrink men’s minds down to the range of the immediate moment, without regard to past or future, without context or memory—above all, without memory, so that contradictions cannot be detected, and errors or disasters can be blamed on the victims.

In anti-ideological practice, principles are used implicitly and are relied upon to disarm the opposition, but are never acknowledged, and are switched at will, when it suits the purpose of the moment. Whose purpose? The gang’s. Thus men’s moral criterion becomes, not “my view of the good—or of the right—or of the truth,” but “my gang, right or wrong.”

Principles

A principle is “a fundamental, primary, or general truth, on which other truths depend.” Thus a principle is an abstraction which subsumes a great number of concretes. It is only by means of principles that one can set one’s long-range goals and evaluate the concrete alternatives of any given moment. It is only principles that enable a man to plan his future and to achieve it.

The present state of our culture may be gauged by the extent to which principles have vanished from public discussion, reducing our cultural atmosphere to the sordid, petty senselessness of a bickering family that haggles over trivial concretes, while betraying all its major values, selling out its future for some spurious advantage of the moment.

To make it more grotesque, that haggling is accompanied by an aura of hysterical self-righteousness, in the form of belligerent assertions that one must compromise with anybody on anything (except on the tenet that one must compromise) and by panicky appeals to “practicality.”

But there is nothing as impractical as a so-called “practical” man. His view of practicality can best be illustrated as follows: if you want to drive from New York to Los Angeles, it is “impractical” and “idealistic” to consult a map and to select the best way to get there; you will get there much faster if you just start out driving at random, turning (or cutting) any corner, taking any road in any direction, following nothing but the mood and the weather of the moment.

The fact is, of course, that by this method you will never get there at all. But while most people do recognize this fact in regard to the course of a journey, they are not so perceptive in regard to the course of their life and of their country.

Read more at the Ayn Rand lexicon website

- Objectively,
JC

Preface: of gardens and gardeners

My first post shall be on the preface to the book entitled "of gardens and gardeners". This book was cowritten by two authors, but each chapter is not cited as to which author wrote it. Each page could have been a continuous collaboration between the two, or it could have been broken up into sections. As I cannot know which is the truth, I will do my best to refer to the authors as "the authors."
In the preface, the authors make a series of single sentence statements, all of which are equally vague, obvious analogies to the purpose of the book, and all linked to gardening and generally good advice for such an activity. Each could fit nicely on Hallmark card, with pictures of sunflowers, tomatoes, or butterflies gracing the background. It makes me wonder whether the authors will actually give reasons for thinking of society as a "garden" or if they will simply assume that this is how we must think, and thus every rationale that follows must be true.
The statements start out universally appealing, and intentionally vague. "Effective gardening requires the right setting: fertile soil, good light, water." This, it seems, is absolutely true. Overall the preface does what it is supposed to do very effectively. It creates more questions than it gives answers, and it entices the reader to continue reading until those questions have answers. As one progresses down the page, it becomes more and more apparent as to where the authors' message is heading.
"It requires a strong view as to what should and should not be grown." Questions that arise from this statement: 1. How do the authors define strong? 2. How do the authors determine what should and should not be grown? 3. Who are the gardeners, and what are the plants? 4. Who decides what the gardeners should and should not grow? 5. Are these "deciders" also gardeners, are they plants, or are they something else entirely? I suspect most, if not all, of these questions will be answered either explicitly or implicitly in the contents of this 165-page book.
Further down, "It requires a hard-headed willingness to weed what does not belong." Again, what are the weeds? Are they actions, places, industries, products, or people? Who gets to decide what is a weed and what is a plant? And what kind of actions are allowed after those "deciders" have differentiated between the plants and weeds? In other words, what do the authors mean by the verb "weed?" Throughout history, those who were considered weeds were eliminated by many methods including coercion, isolation, slavery, intimidation, brute force, and extermination. If the "weeds" are harmful industries or products, are they banned, taxed, slandered, propagandized, or simply run out of town?
In a not-so-subtle dig against the idea of allowing individuals to live with the consequences of their actions, the authors make the statement "Great gardeners would never simply "let nature take its course." They take responsibility for their gardens." Some questions from me: Define "nature". Is it human nature, the climate, mother nature, economic activity, the rules of reason and rationality, or something else? Can you define "taking responsibility"? I feel that phrase, in today's society, is highly overused and highly misunderstood.
In a later statement, I see phraseology and political talking points used constantly by our current administration, and by my more liberal friends. "Sustainable" and "investment"are buzzwords just like "organic," "green," and "offensive." The statement reads "great gardens are sustainable only with continuous investment and renewal. Great gardeners turn the soil and rotate the plantings." This, to me, lays the groundwork for equating the President's investments in sustainable, renewable energy and "shovel ready jobs" with the proven scientific farming method of crop rotation and tilling.
Finally, in an obvious and shameless appeal to those with religious sensibilities, the authors state "Human beings, it is said, originated in a garden. Perhaps this is why all of us understand so intuitively what it takes to be great gardeners." The term intuitive makes me tread cautiously. It smacks of "self-evident" or requiring no actual proof because everyone accepts it to be true, and if you do not believe it to be true, you must be too dumb, uneducated, uncultured, or the like to understand; and your points, therefore, are irrelevant. I would bet a penny to the dollar that neither of these authors believes in the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Not that believing in this story is required to write a book about gardening, or to write a book on philosophy, but making a reference to said story as a reason for using gardening as an analogy for your philosophy, while not believing the story to be true, feels a bit disingenuous.
If the preface is any indication, this should be an equally fun and frustrating journey.
Thank you for reading, I look forward to your comments.
Objectively,
JC
Virtue of Selfishness By Rand, Ayn

Welcome to objectivist thought

Welcome friends, foes, family, freedom lovers, freaks, fiends, and fantastical creatures.

This blog was inspired by an interesting little book written by Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer called "the Gardens of Democracy." I was given this book by a friend with whom I disagree politically. He had hoped this bit of literature would express his viewpoint, and possibly sway mine. Or possibly he just wanted to have more discussions on a more streamlined basis, namely the contents of this book. Before I even read the first paragraph, I knew from the title the book would be a composition of emotions, strawman arguments, logical fallacies, leaps, and omissions, and would be written in such a way as to discourage general disagreements with the book when taken as a whole. Who can possibly disagree with someone who asserts that we must move beyond "outdated philosophies"? the problem with this book, or at least I anticipate the problem to be, is that it will never describe why such philosophies are "outdated" nor will it state why something that is "outdated" is inherently a negative. I believe if something is the right, or if a fact is the truth, no amount of time which passes can possibly negate this as reality. Hence truth can never be outdated. This book, as many have before it, will argue that freedom, capitalism, voluntary association, and free-trade, are outmoded concepts that have been proven to not work. It will proscribe such "values" as collectivism over individualism, societal rights over individual rights, moral pragmatism over moral absolutism, groupthink over free speech, slavery over freedom, conformity over identity, majority over minority, sacrifice over payment, the ends justifying the means, equality of results over equal opportunity, altruism over selfishness, death of her life, and many more such "Values" as the solution to the "problems" with our country. I know this and I have not even turned the first page. This blog will be my progression/journey through this book as an objectivist. I will do my best to break the book down point by point, and make the rational/objectivist counterpoint to each. Where the book is correct, I'll point that out. Where the book is wrong I will point that out. I shall pull no tricks, no gimmicks, make no emotional pleas, nor irrelevant analogies. If this proves to be as much fun and as satisfying as I think it will be, I shall continue into other works both famous and infamous, known and unknown, large and small, and who knows--even possibly write my own. Enjoy.