August 31, 2021
The first lecture I attended was a comparison and contrast of Stoicism and Objectivism. The lecturer prefaced the lecture by describing an uptick in interest in the Stoic philosophy and worldview. I was not aware of this. I did a little research online. I searched for “stoic” on meetup.com and noticed a few Stoic meetup groups. I also saw some lectures concerning Stoicism that would tend to indicate it is “trendy” at the moment. (A TED talk is always a good indication of that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhn1Fe8cT0Q )
The lecturer then went over the history of Stoic philosophy, starting around 323 B.C., around the time that Alexander the Great and Aristotle died, and moving forward to the end of the Roman Republic, which he said was also the end of Stoicism. Major Roman Stoics were said to be Seneca (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/seneca/) and Marcus Aurelius (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marcus-Aurelius-Roman-emperor).
The lecturer then discussed the Stoic belief that there are somethings that are under our control, and other things that are not. If there are things that we think we can change, but we actually cannot, this will lead to unnecessary resignation. If there are things we cannot change, but we think we can change them, then that will lead to unnecessary guilt.
The lecturer then referenced “the metaphysical versus the man-made”, which is, in my opinion, a very important essay by Ayn Rand. (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/metaphysical_vs_man-made.html ) The lecturer also noted the “serenity prayer” that is said by people at alcoholics anonymous, and referenced specifically in Ayn Rand’s Essay, “The Metaphysical versus the Man-made”:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Aside from the request that god give you this, and the prayer format, Ayn Rand thought this was an important piece of advice to live by, and not just for people with a drinking problem. The serenity prayer, when placed in a rational context, is a statement of recognizing the distinction between “the metaphysical and the man-made”. The “metaphysical” concerns the nature of the universe, which is generally outside one’s control. The Earth revolves around the sun because of the laws of physics. Gravity is what it is. The “man-made”, on the other hand, concerns things that are within the realm of human choice. Governments are chosen. Cultures are chosen. Laws are chosen. (Although, many of these are chosen by the default of people to question them or think about whether they are right.) You accept the metaphysical. The man-made is that which can be disagreed with. I add the caveat that you, as an individual, can only do so much to change man-made institutions in your lifetime because human beings have free will and need to be persuaded to change, which takes time. The human mind does not “turn on a dime” as it were. It tends to operate on the basis of habit or custom. The mind has a certain metaphysical nature, such that even if you are dealing with other rational people, they may not have a sufficient knowledge base, or intelligence level, to understand everything that you do at this moment in time. If you don’t recognize this aspect of the nature of the human mind, you will become extremely frustrated as an Ayn Rand fan or Objectivist trying to convince others.
The lecturer then asked what would Stoics think about this distinction Ayn Rand makes between “the metaphysical and the man-made”? He referenced the ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus. (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epictetus/ ). He said Epictetus said that some things are up to us and others are not. (I assume this means under our control or not under our control.) The things that Epictetus thought were up to us included the following: opinions, impulses, desires, and aversions. The things that were not up to us included: our bodies, our reputations, and our public offices. I think this last one means whether we were of the upper classes or a slave. Basically, one’s social standing, which I assume was much more set and stratified in Ancient Greece.
The lecturer said that for Epictetus, what was up to us was essentially cognitive in nature. He also said this was similar to Objectivism. I think it is similar, but not the same, however. First, the list of things that Epictetus thought were in our control seems not necessarily “cognitive” in nature, to me, but “psychological” or “concerning the consciousness”.
I also think that some of the things that Epictetus thought were under our control are not directly under our control. For instance, a person can have an “impulse” that is not under his control. An alcoholic has an “impulse” to drink, that they must resist. They do this by not putting themselves in situations where it would be easy to drink. They do not go to bars where alcohol is served. They don’t hang out with people who drink, and they don’t keep alcohol in their house.
One can also have a “desire” that is not necessarily good for them. A man can have a “desire” to sleep with a woman who is cruel and verbally abusive towards him, perhaps because he has some psychological problem that causes him to be attracted to such women. That sexual desire, as such, is not something he can control. What he can control is whether he acts on it. He can choose not to sleep with women who are bad for him.
The same goes for “aversions”. One can have a phobia that makes them terrified of spiders, to the point that they become dysfunctional when they see one. The feeling is not under their immediate control, just what they do in the face of that feeling. (In that case, they probably need to seek therapy to develop skills for coping with the phobia, so that they can remain functional in life.)
Opinions, the last item on the list of things under our control, according to Epictetus, do seem more volitional. That concerns our thinking on a particular subject, and our judgments about people and situations. I agree that thoughts and judgments are more under our immediate control. Although, I’d note that there is the psychological phenomena of “intrusive thoughts”, which are ideas that pop into someone’s head that are negative. ( https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/managing-intrusive-thoughts ) So, you’d have to speak more of our explicit reasoning, or use of logic to achieve objectivity, and then acting on that explicit reasoning rather than some irrational fears or thoughts, as that which is under our control. (This is a fairly narrow subset of what goes on in your mind. Much of your mental state is probably not directly under your control.)
This is more my own thinking on this subject, but I don’t think Ayn Rand would disagree with it, based on what she said about emotions:
“Emotions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man’s values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him—lightning calculators giving him the sum of his profit or loss…. But since the work of man’s mind is not automatic, his values, like all his premises, are the product either of his thinking or of his evasions… Emotions are produced by man’s premises, held consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly.” (“The Objectivist Ethics”, The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/emotions.html )
The lecturer then discussed the Stoic distinction between “impulse” and “impression”. An impulse was defined as the psychological moment the soul stimulates an action. An impression was defined as what strikes you as being good/bad, or as being the case. Impressions do not force us to accept them, they are a kind of “gatekeeper”. (This is all from the Stoic perspective.) Your fundamental control is whether you accept impressions. If you accept them as true, then you give them your assent, but you can withhold your assent. What you think is good or bad is fundamentally under your control for the Stoics. The beliefs that you hold and the values you hold shape your own character.
The lecturer then turned to the things not under our control, according to the Stoics. (Our body, our wealth, our possessions, other people’s opinions, and things “external to your will”.) Essentially, that is anything “outside your sovereign power of assent” -anything you purely use thought for. The state of your character is all you have control over.
This attitude probably made more sense in Ancient Greece than it does today. The Stoics would believe that one’s wealth is outside their control because their society was so caste-oriented. If you were born in the upper classes, you’d stay there. If you were born a slave, you’d die a slave. In a modern, semi-free market economy, the ability to move up the economic ladder is greater.
The Stoics thought that people place too much emphasis on material things, and life and death, rather than on improving one’s moral character. The Stoics said you should look inward and not at external things, which are largely out of your control according to them.
The lecturer then turned to the issue of “free will” in Stoicism. He said that the Stoics were determinists. The universe was composed of a blending of two things: (1) An “active principle”, and (2) “passive matter”. “Logos”, the active principle, structures everything down to the last detail. (https://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/theogloss/logos-body.html)
In light of this belief in determinism, what did the Stoics think about your autonomous mind? They said that this was a “fragment” of “logos” (or god). Your “assent”, that is your accepting an impression as true, is “fated”.
When I heard this, I thought of the Calvinists who would come later. They believed in predestination. Those who were saved were known to god, and those who where damned were also already known. There was nothing you could do in this life to become saved, if god had determined that you were already damned. (https://www.britannica.com/topic/predestination )
The lecturer noted that it is difficult to conceptualize the phenomena of free will. (I agree.) The Stoics tried to reconcile this with things like the example of a cylinder. Why does it roll? In part, it rolls because someone pushed it, but it also rolls because of its round shape.
The lecturer said that both the Stoics and Objectivists are looking for “the locus of control”. They both look to something internal. He said the difference is that Objectivists accept so-called “free will” as an exercise of your faculty. (I assume he meant “rational faculty” here, but I just have “faculty” in my notes.) He discussed something called the “dichotomy of control”, which he said Objectivism also has, but for Objectivism it is “the metaphysical versus the man-made”. I assume when he said “dichotomy of control”, he was talking about the two categories of things he discussed earlier, regarding what Stoics thought was under your control, and what was not.
The lecturer ended by noting that he thinks that Objectivism holds to the idea of mental “assent”, found in Stoicism.
In the Q&A, someone asked if the lecturer thought that Stoicism has a “malevolent universe premise”. This phrase is one adopted by Ayn Rand, and is contrasted with a “benevolent universe premise”. ( http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/malevolent_universe_premise.html ) The lecturer said yes, and gave the example of Marcus Aurelius. He said there is a sense of futility in Stoicism because everything is basically out of your control, except your own inner consciousness. Since the Stoics think you cannot influence your external world at all, the lecturer noted that they have no good reason to be virtuous, other than as a sort of “end in itself”. I’d say that this is what we mean when we speak of having a “stoic demeanor”. If something bad happens to someone, they are perceived as just keeping calm, and not showing any emotion about it. Objectivism, on the other hand, views virtue as a means to an end. (Maintaining one’s life and pursuing happiness being the end.) ( http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/happiness.html )
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The next lecture concerned governmental regulations, and how all such regulations are improper, no matter how few.
The lecturer premised his presentation by saying that what he was saying was not “official Objectivism”. I’m always a little confused by what is and isn’t considered “Objectivism”. I thought I had heard that “Objectivism” is just what Ayn Rand wrote and published during her lifetime. Even her notes and unpublished writings would not be considered “Objectivism”, because she might have written something down privately that she later decided wasn’t correct or was poorly worded. This makes sense, because I often write something down just to put it on paper, and see if it makes sense when I read it, without necessarily endorsing it or agreeing with it. It’s sort of a way of “thinking by writing”.
The best comparison I have heard when it comes to what is considered “Objectivism” is that it is like “Newtonianism”, which is the ideas of Isaac Newton on Physics, as contained in his writings published in his lifetime. This doesn’t mean someone cannot come up with a new idea in the science of Physics that is true and a logical extension of the ideas of Newton. However, it’s not “Newtonianism”. It’s merely a new, true idea in the field of Physics. Similarly, someone can come up with new, true extensions to the ideas of Ayn Rand. It’s not “Objectivism”, just a new, true idea in the field of Philosophy. (I’d say the issue is a pretty obscure point, best left to academics with more time than I have.)
The lecturer said he started out by trying to “induce” what he meant by the concept “regulation”. He pointed out that the concept of “regulation” is not handed down by god. (Since there is no god.) To start on discovering a definition of “regulation”, he gave some examples: Environmental regulations, as promulgated by the EPA, building codes as promulgated by state and local governments, FDA regulations, immigration controls, and gun control. He said the context for all of these types of governmental action is political philosophy, which concerns the use of force and the definition of rights. From there, he provided his definition of “regulation”: A government regulation is state control over a given field of action whereby government officials dictate who may do what in that field of action.
The meaning of regulation, politically, is that there is no right to liberty. Legally, it means “preventative law”:
“If a businessman—or any other citizen—willfully and knowingly cheats or injures others (“consumers” or otherwise), it is a matter to be proved and punished in a criminal court. But the precedent which [the “consumer protection” movement] is here attempting to establish is the legal hallmark of a dictatorship: preventive law—the concept that a man is guilty until he is proved innocent by the permissive rubber stamp of a commissar or a Gauleiter.” ( http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/consumerism.html )
I think the concept of “preventative law” is essential to understanding the concept of a “regulation” on the one hand, versus a legitimate law, on the other. Almost all of the examples given by the lecturer involve the use of “preventative law”. For instance, gun control is premised on the idea that the only way to stop some people from committing murder with a gun is to prohibit everyone from owning a gun. It is “preventative” in the sense that it criminalizes the mere act of owning a gun on the off chance that someone might commit a crime with it. Similarly, most of the regulations of the Food and Drug Administration are based in the idea that people are too stupid to be trusted to make their own decisions about what types of drugs or substances they consume. Those in favor of the FDA believe everyone needs to be prohibited from making a decision on their own, just to protect a relatively small handful of imbeciles. (Imbeciles probably need to have a court-appointed guardian to take care of them, and keep them out of trouble.) Preventative law is different from an ordinary law in that it prohibits some actions that are not the bad act itself, and apply to everyone without any pre-existing judicial finding that is tailored to particular individuals. For instance, gun control is a prohibition on the act of owning a gun, aimed at preventing the bad act of murder, when there is no evidence that the gun owner intends to commit a crime with the gun.
The lecturer said that, morally, the basis of government regulation is sacrifice. It is the sacrifice of the innovator to the stagnant. For instance, Frank Lloyd Wright wanted to build a particular building, but city inspectors wouldn’t let him because they said that his building wouldn’t be to code. The lecturer also said that governmental regulation is the sacrifice of the productive to parasites. He gave the example of teacher’s unions not wanting to go back to work after COVID-19.
The lecturer then went over when governmental force can be used. He said that it must be “retaliatory”, which means it generally comes “after the fact” of an initiation of physical force. ( http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/retaliatory_force.html )
However, the lecturer noted that “after the fact” can mean different things in different contexts. The threat of force is still an initiation of physical force. So, for instance, the mere drawing of a gun in many circumstances could be considered an initiation of physical force. You do not have to wait for someone to aim and pull the trigger. (I would note that this is very context-dependent. Drawing a gun, for instance because you see a dangerous animal, is not an initiation of physical force. It is preparing the weapon in the face of a credible threat.) The lecturer noted that probably 90% of all initiations of physical force are in the form of a threat of force.
The lecturer then asked: But, what constitutes a threat?
First, he said that the threat must be an “objective threat”. I assume by this, he means there is some factual basis for it, and not, for instance, a mere “feeling” of being threatened. A person might have an irrational fear, perhaps because they are on drugs, of harm from someone, but that does not constitute an objective threat. (A threat in reality.) The lecturer said that there must be: (1) objective evidence; (2) of a specific harm; (3) to specific individuals; (4) posed by specific acts.
I am a little concerned with the lecturer’s use of the criterion of “specific harm”. I am particularly concerned with the term “harm”. That seems too broad to me. Many would claim that mean words constitute a harm. (Such as telling someone they are too fat, or calling a minority certain words.) I’m not sure why the lecturer didn’t want to say “specific physical force” here, or maybe a “specific physical harm”, since all threats of force would involve that. For instance, a robber tells someone “your money or your life”. That is a threat of physical harm. More specifically, it a threat of physical injury or death. I’d say all threats of force involve the threat of bodily injury or death. If a robber says: “Give me your money or I’ll call you a jerk,” it’s not even a robbery. It’s more like verbally abusive panhandling. So, I would change his criterion for what threats constitute an initiation of physical force to: (1) objective evidence; (2) of bodily injury or death; (3) to specific individuals; (4) posed by specific acts.
Also, implicit in the “bodily injury or death” criterion is the use of force to effectuate the bodily injury or death. For instance, a person could have invented the formula for curing a disease, and then threaten to withhold it unless everyone pays him a million dollars. I do not think this is an initiation of physical force, even though it could result in bodily injury or death to those unwilling or unable to pay the million dollars for the cure to the disease. Based on this, perhaps an even better formulation is: (1) objective evidence; (2a) of bodily injury or death; (2b) that would be caused by the use of force; (3) to specific individuals; (4) posed by specific acts.
My notes show that the lecturer then discussed various specific examples of what would and would not constitute a threat such that it is an initiation of physical force. He discussed the example of requiring everyone to wear masks in public to fight COVID-19. He said that this would violate the criterion that a threat of physical force be to “specific individuals”. A statistical group that would get a disease is not sufficient to make everyone wear masks. I am not sure if this is the primary problem with a mask mandate. I think the problem might be one of what is called “foreseeability” in tort law. (https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/foreseeability) After all, you can fire a gun into a crowd of people, without it being aimed at a specific individual. Regardless of who the bullet kills, that is an initiation of physical force, I believe. However, I might be dropping context, since we are talking about threats of force which constitute an initiation of physical force, rather than an actual use of force that constitutes an initiation of physical force. (In other words, actually using the force, rather than threatening it, might have a different set of criteria for what constitutes an initiation of physical force.)
The next example I have from my notes is that of a “Typhoid Mary” -that is someone who is infected with a disease and doesn’t take any efforts to isolate themselves from others to avoid disease transmission. The lecturer believed that you could stop a particular individual with a disease from going out in public, if you have good enough evidence that they are in fact infected with a disease, and refuse to take steps to avoid infecting others. (I assume all of this would need to be shown in a court with due process. This normally would occur in the context of a suit for injunctive relief.) I think that under true laissez faire capitalism, this would probably not be a major issue, anyway. If all streets, sidewalks, and roads are privately owned, then the owners will set standards of use for them. This could include rules like not going out on the public streets if you are known to be infectious. During a pandemic, the owners of roads, sidewalks, parks, buildings, and other city infrastructure could set conditions for use, including mask or vaccine rules, if they so choose.
The speaker seemed to qualify the Typhoid Mary example by bringing in a concept of “negligence”. So, if you undertake an act that has a high probability of resulting in injury or death to another, then that could be considered a threat of force such that it would constitute an initiation of physical force.
He gave the example of building codes. In that case, someone could sue for injunctive relief if there was a sufficient threat another person’s actions would result in injury, damage to property, or death. He didn’t specify, but what I think he was thinking of is the example of someone who builds a tall skyscraper with shoddy materials and workmanship. (Like the condo in Florida that collapsed in 2021. https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-miami-area-condo-collapse/2021/06/29/1010976101/timeline-what-we-know-so-far-about-what-led-up-to-the-surfside-condo-collapse) In that case, if the building collapses, it might fall onto a neighbor’s property killing, or injuring them. As such, one can go to court, and get an injunction. (This is likely covered under the common law of nuisance.)
The lecturer then discussed immigration controls. He said that there could be no “collective guilt”. So, the mere fact that some immigrants come to the United States and commit crimes could not be used as a justification for restricting immigration generally. (This would also apply to gun control. Just because one person who owns a gun commits a crime, doesn’t say anything about other people who own guns.)
In the question and answer period, the lecturer said that prohibiting immigration is not rightly based in the concept of “sovereignty”. You’ll often hear this term as the justification for immigration controls. People will say something along the lines of: “Letting Mexicans into the US is a violation of US sovereignty”:
“Borders are a fundamental aspect of national sovereignty. They are, in part, what defines a country…” (https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/07/how-think-about-immigration-kevin-d-williamson/ )
“First, the right of self-defense is a vital, ineliminable aspect of sovereignty. If it is eliminated, a state is no longer a sovereign; it becomes a subject, at the mercy of its federal master’s fancy.” ( https://www.nationalreview.com/2012/07/sovereignty-preempted-andrew-c-mccarthy/ )
The lecturer said all “sovereignty” means is that the US police force doesn’t have to allow, for instance, the Mexican police force, to operate within the United States. Sovereignty is just jurisdiction, according to the speaker. He also noted that the “flip side” of this understanding of sovereignty is that a country can rightly extend its jurisdiction into the territory of another country to protect individual rights. For instance, when the United States took over California and Texas from Mexico, this is a legitimate exercise of sovereignty to protect individual rights. The people occupying Texas, for instance, had their individual rights better protected in the Union than they did under the dictatorship of General Santa Anna. ( https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/santa-anna-antonio-lopez-de )
The speaker discussed environmental regulations at some length in the question and answer period. The question was: “When does pollution become a violation of rights?” The speaker said that you would need to prove it in court. I think current nuisance and trespass law can cover the issue of one person’s pollution going onto another person’s property and causing damage to their property or getting them sick, pretty well. (Furthermore, you can seek injunctive relief in the face of the objective threat that such activity might pose, before you actually get sick.)
The speaker also addressed the issue of everyone putting small quantities of something in the air, and then it builds up over time to unsafe levels. For instance, you’ve got 100 energy generation plants. Each one is not producing enough toxic smoke to cause any injury, but all 100 of them together are producing enough to cause actual injury. I have thought some about this issue myself, and I do not have a definitive answer yet.
The speaker believed that the government can set a limit of total quantity of toxic material released into the atmosphere. This would need to be determined based on the best scientific information available. Beyond that limit, it would represent a threat of force such that it was an initiation of physical force. So, it might be that there can be 50 energy plants, each emitting a small quantity of toxin in the air, such that it is not going to cause physical injury or death to anyone. After that point is reached, there is a law that says no new emissions can occur. At that point, someone wanting to build a new energy production plant would need to use a different technology or somehow control their emissions.
This might work, but I think a major question at that point is: what governmental body makes this determination? I certainly don’t think the legislature can hand over the power to make this determination through regulations, like Congress did with the EPA. This is a delegation of legislative power to an unelected body of bureaucrats. Congress would need to pass specific laws, for specific emissions. I also am not sure that Congress is the best organization in government to make this decision. I think it would make more sense to leave the issue of the level of emissions that are considered safe to be determined by the courts. Private citizens can get together and file class action lawsuits against specific emitters of pollution, and then prove in court that the level of emissions beyond a certain point caused bodily injury or death, or would cause such bodily injury or death. The courts can then impose injunctive relief on specific industries that is narrowly tailored to serve that purpose. Possibly, there is a role for Congress there, also, in terms of crafting the legislation that would create the cause of action that would form the basis of suit. Congress might also want to create special trial courts with specific jurisdiction to handle such lawsuits. There would be a lot of details to work out here, but this might be a reasonable solution to this particular problem.
That said, I’m not entirely convinced that the lecturer’s proposed solution is the proper, capitalist, solution. No one owns the atmosphere. Why should some people be able to stop other people from using it as they see fit? In the face of toxic material in the atmosphere, it might make more sense for people to get together and deal with that problem through contract. Government’s role is then reduced to enforcing contracts in courts. For instance, if a group of people don’t like the level of a particular material in the Earth’s atmosphere, then they can all sign a contract agreeing to build some sort of machine or device that would remove that material from the atmosphere. (Basically, like building a giant air purifier for the atmosphere.) Or, they can get together beforehand, and sign a contract agreeing to limit emissions.
“Free rider” problems with such a contract can be resolved by making the contract contingent on a certain percentage of the population signing the contract before it becomes effective. So, the contract basically says something like:
“I agree not to pollute the atmosphere with substance X. This contract shall become effective upon 90% of the rest of the population also signing this contract.”
This way, a signatory to the contract is not bound to do anything until enough other people have also agreed to it. He does not limit his ability to profit under the current system of pollution until others have also agreed to limit their emissions.
Even if a small minority of people continue to want to pollute, if 90% of people agree not to do so by contract, then they can effectively solve the problem. They can all agree not to use any energy company that does not abide by the contract, thereby making it unprofitable to continue business in that manner. The small number of “holdouts” can be boycotted, if it is of sufficient concern, by means of another contingency contract. In that case, the 10% of the population not signing the contract essentially become economic pariahs and don’t get to participate in the wider economy, which would be so disadvantageous, that no rational person would do it. At that point, you’re left with just a few crazy people holding out, and none of them are likely to be the owners of factories or powerplants in the first place.
This was the solution to the “free rider problem” Objectivist economist George Reisman proposed in his book “Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics”:
“The substance of the free – rider argument is the gratuitous assumption that people lack sufficient rationality to act in their own interest in cases in which they cannot receive corresponding direct payment, and hence must be forced to act in their own interest in such cases.” (George Reisman, “Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics”, Kindle Ed., Location 5375)
“The truth is that private citizens are capable on their own of providing for necessary activities for which it may not be possible to arrange the normal system of payment for goods or services received . This is true even in cases requiring the cooperation of millions of individuals . There is no reason why in such cases individuals could not agree to contribute to the financing of a project on a contingency basis, namely , on the basis of a sufficient number of other individuals making the same pledge. Whether it is a matter of a hundred ship owners concerned with constructing a lighthouse or a million property owners concerned with building a dam to prevent flood damage (or perhaps installing catalytic converters on their automobiles to reduce smog ) , there is no reason why an arrangement could not be made whereby the individual pledges his contribution on the condition of an equal or otherwise comparable contribution being pledged by a certain percentage of other such individuals.”(George Reisman, “Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics”, Kindle Ed., Location 5381)
Implementing such a contract regime is, in some ways, no different from what happens in the legislature. There has to be sufficient public support for any law regulating emissions in order to get it through Congress. Ideally, although usually not in practice, this requires advocates of the law to go out and convince the voters to be in favor of the law and write their Congressman. A contract regime like I am proposing eliminates the possibility of special interests or other lobbies pushing through a law without broad support, which happens all the time in Congress. Special interest groups use political pull and graft to push through legislation intended to enrich themselves at everyone else’s expense. (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/lobbying.html) Under a contract regime like George Reisman proposes, the advocates of limiting a particular emission actually have to go out and convince people with good arguments and science. They cannot just hire a lobby to push a law through the legislature, where the law is covertly intended to benefit the lobbyists at the expense of everyone else.
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The next session was a panel discussion between several of the lecturers regarding regulation. Since this was more of a general discussion rather than an organized lecture, it had less of a “structure” for me to give the gist of here. It also involved a large Q&A session for the panelists.
Some of the things I found interesting were the following:
(1) “Regulate” in the Constitution, as in “….regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes…”, was argued to mean “regularize” at the time of the founding. One of the panelists referenced Randy Barnett of Georgetown Law School as claiming this. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/randy-e-barnett/ The panelist said that the purpose was to ensure equal protection in society, which I took as meaning everyone could participate in the economy on an equal footing, because Congress would “regularize” interstate commerce such that the rules are the same for everyone. Another panelist seemed to push back at this assertion as to the original meaning of “regulate” in the Constitution by saying that “regulate” also meant “regulating people’s lives”, at the State level, at the time of the founding. I assume this is a reference to the State’s “police power”, in which the State was seen as having the right to regulate the people in order to protect the public health, safety, and morals. (https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/police_powers)
(2) One of the questions was this: “Is there a philosopher who thinks that the common man is too stupid to take care of himself, giving rise to the need for the regulatory state?” One of the panelists said there are two: Plato and Immanuel Kant. His analysis of Kant on this point was particularly illuminating for me. Kant said that society, at large, creates the reality we live in. (This is because Kant believed that one cannot know “things as they really are”, but only “things as processed through the human mind”.) Although there is a separate realty for Kant, it is essentially unknowable to us. We can only know “reality as filtered through our minds”. In practical effect, this means society at large creates the reality we live in. This means that a collective group of people is always more in touch with “the truth” than any individual ever can be, since that group of people, effectively creates the reality we live in. For Kant, the “collective subjective” takes the place of the “objective”. There is a “collective mind” that expresses its will through majority vote. The majority can never be wrong because it’s interpretation of reality, which individuals can never truly know, is authoritative. Society has the wisdom that a “mere individual” lacks. (This is all according to Kant.) As such, the so-called “common man” is too stupid to regulate his own life. He needs the wisdom of the “collective mind”, as exemplified by politicians, to decide everything for him -from the cradle to the grave. This is why you see politicians like Michael Bloomberg wanting to regulate anything and everything “for your own good”, from sugary soft drinks to guns. Politicians like Michael Bloomberg believe that they speak for this “collective mind” that knows better than the individual “common man”.
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After that, I attended a panel concerning the Montessori method, which was fairly interesting to me, since I know very little about it. It was broken down into a series of lectures, covering different age groups of children.
The overall philosophy of the Montessori method for adults was described not as “teaching” children, but as helping them to develop on their own. (I liked the notion of this.) What this means in practice depends on the age of the child.
The first age group covered were children from age one to two years old. This lecture was given by a nice older lady who had a very calm and soothing voice. She seemed extremely nurturing and kind. Certainly the kind of person I’d want teaching small children. She believed you should let the child do what they can on their own. For instance, you should let them explore their environment. This includes things like letting children turn lights on and off in a room to see that flipping the switch has an effect on the light level in the room. This made sense, although I think it’d drive you a little nuts, if you let the child do this nonstop when you’re trying to get things done. I assume in that situation, you should try to give the child something else to play with as a substitute, and perhaps try to explain to them that you need the light on (or off).
She also said that you should make anything you do with a baby into a sort of “collaborative effort” with the child. For instance, when you put on a baby’s jacket, you talk to them and discuss what you are doing, and try to get them to help: “Okay, now we’re going to put that arm in here, and then put that arm in here, and then we’re going to zip this up….”
She said that if you respect a small child in this manner, they will be less inclined to throw tantrums. I think she thought that you should try to “negotiate” with children rather than just forcing them to do things. I generally agree with this approach. I’ve seen parents who would yell at their children, and talk to them in a way I wouldn’t talk to my dog, and it always horrified me. (Then, of course, there are the parents who physically discipline their children with corporal punishment, which I think is plain child abuse.) I assume parents get very tired and stressed, which creates a lot of the yelling and spanking of children, but I think we all need to do our best to resist the urge to raise our voices to children, or hit them. If children were properly raised and educated, I believe we could eliminate a lot of the world’s problems in a single generation.
The next speaker discussed the education of children from age three to age six. The speaker said that there should be shelves of things, broken down into different subject areas. The children can then use the different learning stations as they want. A Montessori teacher doesn’t interfere with the child’s actions while the child is doing a project. The teacher only steps in if the child seems stuck. This was related to the Objectivist view on independence. (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/independence.html) For instance, children should be given real tools, and allowed to use them. So, for instance, you should give a child a real hammer, and let them learn to use it. I liked this notion. I assume there are limits here, in terms of safety. You don’t hand a three-year-old a pistol and let them have at it. In Texas, you should wait until they’re at least seven for that. (Joking!) The speaker said that the first five to six years of a child’s development are critical to who they will be as adults.
The next speaker covered the education of children from age six to twelve. This was a woman from a Montessori school in some other area of the country. (She was appearing by Zoom.) According to my notes, the name of the school was “Chesapeake Montessori School”. She discussed some sort of division game for teaching children division. When I did an internet search of “Montessori Division Game”, I found the following. ( https://www.montessorialbum.com/montessori/index.php/Division_With_the_Stamp_Game )
She said that children will learn self-discipline by their own volition, if given enough “domain of choice”. She said that the teacher should help children begin their own investigations into what interested them.
The next speaker was the only male. He discussed the education of children from age thirteen to eighteen. It made sense to me that a man would teach children in this age group. By then, children probably need less “nurturing”, and more of a male influence. (Especially boys.) So, I was pleased to see a man teaching in this age group. I believe he ran a Montessori school in the Austin, Texas area. He said Maria Montessori wrote the least about teaching children in this age group.
He described the adolescent as a “social newborn”. He noted the insecurity of many teenagers. At about age thirteen, they start asking questions like: “What will my life be like?” He said that all Maria Montessori said about the education of teenagers was that they should go live and work on a farm. What he took from this is that the education of teenagers should be aimed at productivity, although not necessarily in agriculture. I don’t have much else in my notes, probably because I was starting to “fade out” mentally. (It was close to 5pm.)
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Later that evening, after diner, I went to a screening of a recorded interview with Leonard Peikoff. ( https://peikoff.com/ )
I’m not sure when the interview was recorded, but I assume that it was in the last few years. Dr. Peikoff is in his mid-eighties, I believe, and has been retired from lecturing, writing, or speaking for probably the past ten years or more.
In the interview, he said that he had been living in a retirement home, but had moved to a house. He said he couldn’t handle retirement, and started looking for projects to keep himself busy. He started out learning to play jazz music, then moved on to writing fiction. He had a teacher, and wrote six to seven short stories. He then did a lecture on operetta.
He mentioned that his favorite movie is called “Whiplash”. I assume he meant this 2014 movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2582802/ I’ve never seen it, but it is described as: “A promising young drummer enrolls at a cut-throat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student’s potential.”
Peikoff described it as a movie where the student had a teacher that was mean to him, and that he felt like it was his life. From what I’ve gathered, Ayn Rand could be quite hard on Leonard Peikoff. She’d grow frustrated with him, and yell at him for not seeing what was so obvious to her. For instance, Peikoff discussed when he was writing “The Ominous Parallels” in the late 1970’s. He said he took a particular chapter to Ayn Rand to review, and she said it was so bad, she didn’t think she could work with him anymore. Peikoff said this was an example of his own “rationalism” in his method of thinking. He described this method of thinking as the mental habit of connecting words to each-other, and “building castles in the air”, mentally. After he managed to convince Ayn Rand not to give up on him, they discussed the concept of “rationalism”, and created a list of rationalist characteristics. I believe a lot of this material made its way into a lecture Peikoff gave in the 1980s, called “Understanding Objectivism”.
Peikoff also discussed his dog, which he seemed quite fond of. I found it somewhat amusing that Peikoff was a “dog person”, while Ayn Rand was such a “cat person”.
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Later that night, I attended a Texas hold ‘em Poker tournament being put on by the organizers of the conference. I assume it was held because we were in Texas. The out-of-state attendees seemed far more impressed with being in Texas than I, as a long-time resident of the state, am. I believe they tended to think of the “cowboy individualist” culture of Texas, while forgetting that it is full of religious fundamentalists. I, on the other hand, have to put up with that type of person on an almost daily basis. It tends to eliminate some of the state’s charm for me. A group of people at lunch one day expressed surprise that I am from Texas and was wearing a California state flag ball cap. I personally prefer California, in many ways, to Texas. I mostly continue to live here because, as an attorney, I am licensed only in Texas, and moving to a new state would be too costly for my career. The practice of law is still pretty state-specific, and I have twenty years of experience practicing law in Texas I’d be throwing away. This is not to say that Texas doesn’t have advantages over California in terms of cost of living, lower taxes, and less socialism, but an atheist Objectivist paradise, Texas is not.
I hadn’t played poker in years, and I got knocked out of the tournament pretty quickly. (Plus, I was never that good to begin with.) I only went because it was an opportunity for social interaction with other like-minded people, and that part of it was fun.