Ayn Rand on the Dangers of Moral Grayness
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- Опубліковано 7 чер 2024
- Read Ayn Rand’s essay, “The Cult of Moral Grayness”
on the necessity of thinking in terms of black and white.
courses.aynrand.org/works/the...
This was Ayn Rand's answer to a radio show host’s question about her essay, “The Cult of Moral Grayness.”
Question: Why do you object to moral grayness?
TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) - Intro
(00:11) - Why do you object to moral grayness?
Radio interview with Michael Jackson, January 4, 1966
Courtesy of KNX News 97.1 FM.
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Awesome! This is one of my favorite ideas from Ayn Rand. And nowadays, there's still the cult of moral grayness. Keep up the good work!
It's also one of my favorite ideas. Moral clarity helped us win WW2.
To expand of this, folks should listen to Leonard Peikoff's talk Why Act on Principle.
Good explanation!
Moral is rational.
Not relative.
Thank you very much. I’m not sure that most of the inhabitants of my small town at the base of the Blue, Southeastern Massachusetts can ponder that notion.
Ohh the world is a little bit more relative than that... :)
I would assume that the king of pop would know the difference between black and white 😆
what I find a,axing is this marketing company bases its whole strategy on a person that if she was alive today, would not have gotten away with what she did in that time. This is in fact a cult.
This entire social media platform is systemically toxic by design. So among other things I can't tell if it allows me to respond to you. Here's my 2nd try....
1. Summarize Rand's philosophy _accurately_ in something like a couple sentences. Rand herself has done it in less than that. I suggest you refer to the Lexicon at Courses point AynRand point Org-anization line Lexicon.
2. Describe how her philosophy is in any way compatible with cultism.
3. Don't run away. You bluffed. I'm calling.
@@VaraLaFey read the book The Ayn Rand Cult, and also The goals of the cult leadership are money and power. Power is achieved over the minds of the disciples through inducing them to accept without question the guru and his creed. This devotion is enforced through psychological sanctions. sorry, you can ask the questions, but they don’t prove anything so I object assuming facts not in evidence and irrelevant. Time to stop the insanity of elevating a troubled person with known actions that contradicts with her original point, and in the end even Alan Greenspan eventually dropped her philosophy.
@@stevengoldstein114 Here's some hard truth for you. You won't accept it, but others will witness it. To start, just in the last few posts above:
you bluffed;
I called;
you folded.
That was your own willfully demonstrated argumentative method, and you have only yourself to blame. Now let's address your actual arguments.
Cult leaders do indeed exert power over their victims, but Rand _and_ her philosophy _and_ her novels urged people to _not_ let others exert power over them.
Cult leaders do indeed extract money from their victims, but Rand _and_ her philosophy _and_ her novels urged people to keep their money for themselves.
Cult leaders hate and fear objective reality and reason, but Rand _and_ her philosophy _and_ her novels urged people to accept only reality and reason as fundamental standards.
Cult leaders indeed despise inquisitive minds, but Rand _and_ her philosophy _and_ her novels urged questions and urged using the fundamental standards of reality and reason as the sole guides to finding answers.
Cult leaders do indeed use psychological tricks, but Rand _and_ her philosophy _and_ her novels urged and praised intransigence.
IS ANY PART OF THE ABOVE STATEMENTS FALSE?
You are consciously aware of the above cult tactics, and if you are not consciously aware of Rand's above positions then you are far too ignorant to discuss this subject. But you almost certainly _are_ consciously aware of Rand's positions because they are what you _dislike_ about her philosophy.
For you to call anti-cult positions "a cult" is the epitome of double-think. And for you to engage in double-think _based on someone else's assertions_ is literally symptomatic of _YOU_ being a victim of cult tactics.
Yes it is. Someone said contradictory things and instead of seeing the contradictions and doing any research of original sources, you simply _believe_ what you were told and then you _REPEAT_ what you were told. You didn't reason your way into that, you were _manipulated_ into that.
Furthermore: if her "known actions" reveal her as "troubled" because they "contradicts with her original point [sic]", then your argument is against her alleged hypocrisy rather than against "her original point".
Finally, Greenspan had fiercely opposed political power over the economy, then he later accepted and kept a job where he had political power over the economy; his abandonment of Objectivism was inevitable and predictable. Again, your argument is against hypocrisy - and it's also against statism - rather than against Rand's "original point."
You will likely try to deny these facts, but you will fail. You won't accept that you failed because you have been manipulated to deny that as well.
If anything I said here is false, you are encouraged to point it out.
Otherwise you have nothing to say to us here, and there is nothing left for me to say to you. So take your shitpost trolling someplace where the standards are low enough for you to feel good about yourself.
@@stevengoldstein114 Here's some hard truth for you. You won't accept it, but others will witness it. To start, just in the last few posts above:
you bluffed;
I called;
you folded.
That was your own willfully demonstrated argumentative method, and you have only yourself to blame. Now let's address your actual arguments.
Cult leaders do indeed exert power over their victims, but Rand _and_ her philosophy _and_ her novels urged people to _not_ let others exert power over them.
Cult leaders do indeed extract money from their victims, but Rand _and_ her philosophy _and_ her novels urged people to keep their money for themselves.
Cult leaders hate and fear objective reality and reason, but Rand _and_ her philosophy _and_ her novels urged people to accept only reality and reason as fundamental standards.
Cult leaders indeed despise inquisitive minds, but Rand _and_ her philosophy _and_ her novels urged questions and urged using the fundamental standards of reality and reason as the sole guides to finding answers.
Cult leaders do indeed use psychological tricks, but Rand _and_ her philosophy _and_ her novels urged and praised intransigence.
IS ANY PART OF THE ABOVE STATEMENTS FALSE?
You are consciously aware of the above cult tactics, and if you are not consciously aware of Rand's above positions then you are far too ignorant to discuss this subject. But you almost certainly _are_ consciously aware of Rand's positions because they are what you _dislike_ about her philosophy.
For you to call anti-cult positions "a cult" is the epitome of double-think. And for you to engage in double-think _based on someone else's assertions_ is literally symptomatic of _YOU_ being a victim of cult tactics.
Yes it is. Someone said contradictory things and instead of seeing the contradictions and doing any research of original sources, you simply _believe_ what you were told and then you _REPEAT_ what you were told. You didn't reason your way into that, you were _manipulated_ into that.
Furthermore: if her "known actions" reveal her as "troubled" because they "contradicts with her original point [sic]", then your argument is against her alleged hypocrisy rather than against "her original point".
Finally, Greenspan had fiercely opposed political power over the economy, then he later accepted and kept a job where he had political power over the economy; his abandonment of Objectivism was inevitable and predictable. Again, your argument is against hypocrisy - and it's also against statism - rather than against Rand's "original point."
You will likely try to deny these facts, but you will fail. You won't accept that you failed because you have been manipulated to deny that as well.
If anything I said here is false, you are encouraged to point it out.
Otherwise you have nothing to say to us here, and there is nothing left for me to say to you. So take your shitpost trolling someplace where the standards are low enough for you to feel good about yourself.
lol It was a cult back then too ;)
Good - God
Evil - devil
Gray - relativism
this is NOT what she said, NEVER has she said this EVER
@@CybeTheFloof
Correct, Ayn was an atheist. But she wasn't a free speech hating leftist.
@@CybeTheFloof
No, it's not, regarding the first two. The third is an assertion she would (probably) agree w/ though.
@@The-F.R.E.E.-J. Since you apparently take your 'moral code' on faith as being the word of God, then I have a question. Is your moral standard
1. relativism (good/evil are determined by relative perspectives of God/Satan),
2. is it subjectivism (good/evil determined by the feelings of God/Satan), or
3. is it a faith-based Argument From Authority (the Bible says that God said , and the Bible is the unquestionable authority, therefore God said it _and_ what God said is true)?
@@VaraLaFey
From many years of appreciating Ayn Rand & her work, it's quite clear to me she was not one to place people in boxes (contrary to common stereotypes of her) so, could you simply ask a question, independent of the view that one can only fit into 1 of the 3 boxes selected?
FWIW, Ayn actually could, and DID, empathize w/ those whose views she despised, including Marx & the religious, in that she believed they should be understood according to their own idea(s) & not what others say they "must" believe, I think, because she was so horribly misunderstood & (intentionally at times) mischaracterized.
No! The Real morality is based on the laws of The Almighty!!! The Everlasting God, Jehovah. Things defined as ethical by humans , may or may not be moral by the divine standard set by the Almighty! The "standards" determined by humans SHOULD be subordinate to The Divine Standard. The way to determine the Divine Standards is to carefully read and study the Only revelation of the Divine- The Bible, Genesis through Revelation!
Which God? Which version? How do you know they are that God's words at all? Who told you?
@@ExistenceUniversity It certainly wasn't you !
@@snail847 That's where you are wrong! For I am God and you have displeased me!!
@@ExistenceUniversity You mean , you are a god ! I Corinthians 8: 4-6 !
@@snail847 Nope, I am Jehovah and I am mad at you. It's past your bedtime young man
She was the one that abused drugs, and abused people sexuallu as well. Who was she to define morality? THIS IS INSANE
She didn't do any of those things.
@micchaelsanders6286 oh yes she did, look up her story. A great movie about her too with Hellen Mirren playing her.
Google "ad hominem fallacy."
It doesn't matter if she had moral failings in her personal life. She's not a holy prophet on whose unblemished image the validity of the philosophy depends.
@@howlingdin9332 but she says morality is black and white, and being immoral in any way means you are totally immoral. That’s it, it is black and white right? Or are you trying to make an exception? That isn’t allowed. Consider the article written titled Hypocrisy and Moral Authority. It demonstrates that Ayn Rand cannot advise morals.
Insane is repeating what you've heard without checking it out; you've forfeited your own mind-and missed out on a lot.
morality is based on ethics, and Ayn Rand’s ethics are you take what you can at any cost. There are no ethics.
That is not even close to her ethics
This comment is not just a misrepresentation or misunderstanding, this is a flagrant, unconscionable lie.
@@AndSendMe read the recent biographies discussed bin the article Ayn Rand: Can two new biographies unravel the mystery of the mad, sad heroine of the American right? Published by The Independent. To use the words in the article, she was a monster.
@@stevengoldstein114 That you second-handedly passed on the lies of a smear job in the press doesn't absolve you.
@@AndSendMe you can’t turn this into a personal fight, Ayn Rand was clearly not moral in any way. And that is it. Deal with it.