Ayn Rand and the is-ought problem

She didn’t solve it. I don’t think she even understood it.

Try these on for size and see if I’m up in the night:

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2009/02/one-fallacy-of-objectivism-.html

http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2009/04/objectivism-politics-part-7.html

The past isn’t what you remember

Growing up we had goats in our suburban lot due to cow’s milk allergies some 25 – 30 years ago. Since you have to breed the goats every year to keep them milking, we’d get new baby goats to feed and love for a couple of months until they got too big.

My parents told us they’d go to a good farm and so we had visions they’d gambol and play and be happy goats until they died of old age.

A couple of months ago I found out the “good farm” was the local Greek community who wanted the young goats for their delicious meat! After I got over the initial surprise, I laughed.

The Maverick Philosopher asks a sharp question about fox hunting

“Should fox hunting be banned?”

Another toilet repair

This time, the other toilet upstairs broke. Same dang part, the design is flawed. I got a replacement flap valve at ye olde Home Depot, and after an hour and a fixing a leak (I didn’t get the whole thing tight enough) we were back to flushing the toilet. My son was particularly impressed, since the toilet had been slowly degrading in flushing functionality and required effort to move the handle, he was expecting to need to push hard on the handle, but was surprised by the silky smooth operation.

Hopefully, that’s the last of the plumbing problems for some time

Today’s Quote

“You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”

–Presbyterian clergyman William Boetcker (1873-1962)

From “To a Writer of the Day”

http://www.bartleby.com
1476. From “To a Writer of the Day”
By Langdon Elwyn Mitchell (“John Philip Varley”)

TECHNIQUE COULD but this be brought
Into your ken,—that the technique is thought!
Escape from “Style,” the notion men can use
Words without thoughts,—so wrench and so abuse
The innocent language to their ends that they	5
Will seem to be respectful, honest, gay,
Grave, or what else—and all the glorious while
The authors’ selves sit with the wise and smile:
“’T is but a trick, ’t is words, it is a style!”
Your technique, then, is thought, just as I say.	10
And if you ’ll write a poem, there ’s no way
But first to think it clearly; pin your mind
Upon your thought; fasten it there, and bind
The thought into your heart: when your veins burn and flow
With love or hate, the thoughts to music go,	15
Melt into music, and pour fully out
In a rich flood;—but to take thought about
The “music” of your words, ’t is matter quite
Beyond your conscious power! For rhymes, they ’re right
Or wrong according as they hear, not look	20
When printed by a printer in a book!
And their “correctness” may be measured best,
And indeed only, by a certain test:
That, namely, for rebellions,—which are so
Until they have succeeded, when they go	25
By quite another name. Forget not, too,
That every English poet known to you,
That is to say all of them, rhymed just as
The spirit took them and their pleasure was,
And, masters that they were, rhymed “falsely,” so	30
As now no poetaster dares to do!
PURPOSE So then, at last, let me awake this sleep
And languor of yourself: it is too deep,
And ’t is too long!
Oh, I would have you look	35
With judgment on your life, and not to brook
The less in art, as not in truth;—forgive
Much in you now I can, never that you less live!
I may put by whatever choice of themes,
But not this air of being by rich dreams	40
Roofed over, and floored under, and walled in.
As Eastern princes in a palanquin
Luxuriously ride, by eunuchs round
Held and supported, lifted from the ground,
And softly borne,—so you, on the mild shoulders,	45
Effeminate, of dreams!—Your spirit moulders;
The freshness of your soul withers away
As roses do that cannot find the day.
Oh, free yourself!—take up your life and share
The splendor of this day, the world’s great air,	50
And this new land’s delight,—this land that we
Adore, this people, this great liberty
Of nations in new birth,—a happy shower
Of golden States,—a many-blossomed flower!—
Now grown a Commonwealth, whose strength and state	55
And health are dangerous to all that hate
Freedom, and fatal to all those who’d be
Sunk in the dark of Time’s abysmal sea,
Safe anchored in the past—safe dead!—that none
Might longer make them fear a change beneath the sun,	60
To fright them with new good.—But oh, to those
Whose blood within them leaps and laughs and flows;
To all who proudly hope; to all who fain
With their right hands and with their heart and brain
Would throne the right, and make the good to reign;	65
To all who’d lift man up, and who, heart-free,
Haste toward the light,—this Land and State should be
Dear as their life!—And to her sons should she
Be born again in love, since with her noblest blood
And her right hand of youth she smote the brood	70
Of her own loins, nested in servitude,
Shadowing the world’s detraction with fair peace.
Dear mother of her sons, whose wealth is these;
Her more than gold, their valor, mercy, truth;
Her mighty age, immortal in their youth:—	75
Dear light of hope, oh, needs she not to be
Forever saved into new liberty?
The fallen blood of martyrs is in vain
If ours be not as free to fall again!
But her salvation is a rigorous task,	80
Eternally accomplishing.—I ask
You, therefore, as one owing more than most
To her, who is your happiness and boast,
That you cast from you all that will not wake
Men’s hearts from sensual sleep:—for her great sake	85
Put by the velvet touch, the easy grace,
The fingers dreaming on the lyre, the face
Forgetful, listening to light melodies;
Cease thou thy toying with the hours, and cease
This riot of thy youth, this wantoning	90
With all the sap and spirit of thy Spring.
Not twice that vendure’s given thee; the Tree
Of Life not twice shall blossom; and to be
Young, ’t is to be in heaven, ’t is to be
Full of ambition, filled with hot desire,	95
Pregnant with life, and steeped in such a fire
AS sets a world in hope!—Oh, could I say
That which I would, you could not say me nay.
But let your country plead with you; give heed
To her dumb call; sow the eternal seed	100
Of Truth, and Righteousness, and Love;—though you
Shall be, as poets should, known to but few,
Yet your reward is great: it is to be
Sown in the hearts of men, to make men free;
And in your thoughts to be your land’s firm stay,	105
And her salvation in a falling day,
More than dread cannon, than bright thousands more:
For thoughts, like angels, wage eternal war.

“The Difference Between Me and You”

I have to quote the whole post from The Maverick Philosopher

I’m sensitive, you’re touchy. I’m firm, you are pigheaded. Frugality in me is cheapness in you. I am open-minded, you are empty-headed. I am careful, you are obsessive. I am courageous while you are as reckless as a Kennedy. I am polite while you are obsequious. My speech is soothing, yours is unctuous. I am earthy and brimming with vitality while you are crude and bestial. I’m alive to necessary distinctions; you are a bloody hairsplitter. I’m conservative, you’re reactionary. I know the human heart, but you are a misanthrope. I love and honor my wife while you are uxorious. I am focused; you are monomaniacal.

In me there is commitment, in you fanaticism. I’m a peacemaker, you’re an appeaser. I’m spontaneous, you’re just undisciplined. I’m neat and clean; you are fastidious. In me there is wit and style, in you mere preciosity. I know the value of a dollar while you are just a miser. I cross the Rubicons of life with resoluteness while you are a fool who burns his bridges behind him. I do not hide my masculinity, but you flaunt yours. I save, you hoard. I am reserved, you are shy.

I have a hearty appetite; you are a glutton. A civilized man, I enjoy an occasional drink; you, however, must teetotal to avoid becoming a drunkard. I’m witty and urbane, you are precious. I am bucolic, you are rustic. I’m original, you are idiosyncratic.

And those are just some of the differences between me and you.

Sunday

It snowed. A lot. It looks more like January then April.

I can’t recall a spring this snowy in a long time.

Here are some pictures, because I know you don’t believe me:

Robin on the fence, confused

This was dumped on my table, quite rude.

April? Pffft! Even the dog seems a bit bewildered.

Full Civic Literacy Exam

“Are you more knowledgeable than the average citizen? The average score for all 2,508 Americans taking the following test was 49%; college educators scored 55%. Can you do better? Questions were drawn from past ISI surveys, as well as other nationally recognized exams.”

Take it here: http://www.isi.org/quiz.aspx.

My score: You answered 33 out of 33 correctly — 100.00 %

It’s a decent test, I’m shocked to see scores so low. Of course, it gets better. And by “better”, I mean “worse”.

“OF THE 2,508 PEOPLE surveyed, 164 say they have held an elected government office at least once in their life. Their average score on the civic literacy test is 44%, compared to 49% for those who have not held an elected office. Officeholders are less likely than other respondents to correctly answer 29 of the 33 test questions.” — From http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/2008/additional_finding.html

Got that? Our leaders on average are more ignorant of American Civics than the rest of us.