Part 43 (2/2)
”Something in a frame hung on a wall” is not a definition of painting.
”Something with a number of pages in a binding” is not a definition of literature.
”Something piled together” is not a definition of sculpture.
”Something made of sounds produced by anything” is not a definition of music.
”Something glued on a flat surface” is not a definition of any art. There is no art that uses glue as a medium. Blades of gra.s.s glued on a sheet of paper to represent gra.s.s might he good occupational therapy for r.e.t.a.r.ded children-though I doubt it-but it is not art.
”Because I felt like it” is not a definition or validation of anything.
There is no place for whim in any human activity-if it is to be regarded as human. There is no place for the unknowable, the unintelligible, the undefinable, the non-objective in any human product.
[”Art and Cognition,” RM. pb 78.]
See also AMORALISM; ANARCHISM; ARBITRARY; ART; AXIOMS; CAUSALITY; CONSCIOUSNESS; EXISTENCE; G.o.d; IDENt.i.tY; EMOTIONS; INTRINSIC THEORY of VALUES; KANT, IMMANUEL; ”LIBERTARIANS”; MODERN ART; MORALITY; OBJECTIVE THEORY of VALUES; OBJECTIVISM; OBJECTIVITY; PRAGMATISM; PRIMACY of EXISTENCE vs. PRIMACY of CONSCIOUSNESS; PRIOR CERTAINTY of CONSCIOUSNESS; REASON; SKEPTICISM; WHIMS/WHIM-WORs.h.i.+P.
Subjectivism (Psychological). Do not confuse [amoralism] with psychological subjectivism. A psychological subjectivist is unable fully to identify his values or to prove their objective validity, but he may be profoundly consistent and loyal to them in practice (though with terrible psycho-epistemological difficulty). The amoralist does not hold subjective values; he does not hold any values.
[”Selfishness Without a Self,” PWNI, 57; pb 47.]
See also AMORALISM; PSYCHO-EPISTEMOLOGY; PSYCHOLOGY.
Suffering. Suffering as such is not a value; only man's fight against suffering, is. If you choose to help a man who suffers, do it only on the ground of his virtues, of his fight to recover, of his rational record, or of the fact that he suffers unjustly; then your action is still a trade, and his virtue is the payment for your help. But to help a man who has no virtues, to help him on the ground of his suffering as such, to accept his faults, his need, as a claim-is to accept the mortgage of a zero on your values.
[GS, FNI, 226; pb 180.]
See also ALTRUISM; BENEVOLENT UNIVERSE PREMISE; COMPa.s.sION; EMOTIONS; HAPPINESS; MALEVOLENT UNIVERSE PREMISE; MERCY; PLEASURE and PAIN; VIRTUE.
Supernaturalism. What is meant by ”the supernatural”? Supposedly, a realm that transcends nature. What is nature? Nature is existence -the sum of that which is. It is usually called ”nature” when we think of it as a system of interconnected, interacting ent.i.ties governed by law. So ”nature” really means the universe of ent.i.ties acting and interacting in accordance with their ident.i.ties. What, then, is ”super-nature”? Something beyond the universe, beyond ent.i.ties, beyond ident.i.ty. It would have to be: a form of existence beyond existence-a kind of ent.i.ty beyond anything man knows about ent.i.ties-a something which contradicts everything man knows about the ident.i.ty of that which is. In short, a contradiction of every metaphysical essential.
[Leonard Peikoff, ”The Philosophy of Objectivism” lecture series (1976), Lecture 2.]
They claim that they perceive a mode of being superior to your existence on this earth. The mystics of spirit call it ”another dimension,” which consists of denying dimensions. The mystics of muscle call it ”the future,” which consists of denying the present. To exist is to possess ident.i.ty. What ident.i.ty are they able to give to their superior realm? They keep telling you what it is not, but never tell you what it is. All their identifications consist of negating: G.o.d is that which no human mind can know, they say-and proceed to demand that you consider it knowledge-G.o.d is non-man, heaven is non-earth, soul is non-body, virtue is non-profit, A is non-A, perception is non-sensory, knowledge is non-reason. Their definitions are not acts of defining, but of wiping out.
[GS, FNI, 184; pb 148.]
There is no way to prove a ”super-existence” by inference from existence ; supernaturalism can be accepted only on faith.
[Leonard Peikoff, ”The Philosophy of Objectivism” lecture series (1976), Lecture 2.]
See also ATHEISM; CAUSALITY; DEFINITIONS; EXISTENCE; FAITH; G.o.d; IDENt.i.tY; METAPHYSICS; MIRACLES; MYSTICISM; NATURE; REASON.
T.
Tabula Rasa. Since man has no automatic knowledge, he can have no automatic values; since he has no innate ideas, he can have no innate value judgments.
Man is born with an emotional mechanism, just as he is born with a cognitive mechanism; but, at birth, both are ”tabula rasa.” It is man's cognitive faculty, his mind, that determines the content of both.
[”The Objectivist Ethics,” VOS, 23; pb 28.]
At birth, a child's mind is tabula rasa; he has the potential of awareness-the mechanism of a human consciousness-but no content. Speaking metaphorically, he has a camera with an extremely sensitive, unexposed film (his conscious mind), and an extremely complex computer waiting to be programmed (his subconscious). Both are blank. He knows nothing of the external world. He faces an immense chaos which he must learn to perceive by means of the complex mechanism which he must learn to operate.
If, in any two years of adult life, men could learn as much as an infant learns in his first two years, they would have the capacity of genius. To focus his eyes (which is not an innate, but an acquired skill), to perceive the things around him by integrating his sensations into percepts (which is not an innate, but an acquired skill), to coordinate his muscles for the task of crawling, then standing upright, then walking-and, ultimately, to grasp the process of concept-formation and learn to speak-these are some of an infant's tasks and achievements whose magnitude is not equaled by most men in the rest of their lives.
[”'The Comprachicos,” NL, 190.]
No one is born with any kind of ”talent” and, therefore, every skill has to be acquired. Writers are made, not born. To be exact, writers are self-made.
[”Foreword,” WTL, v.]
See also ARISTOTLE; CONSCIOUSNESS; HIERARCHY of KNOWLEDGE; ”INSTINCT”; PERCEPTION; RATIONALISM vs. EMPIRICISM; VALUES.
Tactfulness. Do not confuse appeas.e.m.e.nt with tactfulness or generosity. Appeas.e.m.e.nt is not consideration for the feelings of others, it is consideration for and compliance with the unjust, irrational and evil feelings of others. It is a policy of exempting the emotions of others from moral judgment, and of willingness to sacrifice innocent, virtuous victims to the evil malice of such emotions.
Tactfulness is consideration extended only to rational feelings. A tactful man does not stress his success or happiness in the presence of those who have suffered failure, loss or unhappiness; not because he suspects them of envy, but because he realizes that the contrast can revive and sharpen their pain. He does not stress his virtues in anyone's presence: he takes for granted that they are recognized.
[”The Age of Envy,” NL, 160.]
See also APPEAs.e.m.e.nT; COMPROMISE; JUSTICE.
Taxation. In a fully free society, taxation-or, to be exact, payment for governmental services-would be voLuntary. Since the proper services of a government-the police, the armed forces, the law courts-are demonstrably needed by individual citizens and affect their interests directly, the citizens would (and should) be willing to pay for such services, as they pay for insurance.
The question of how to implement the principle of voluntary government financing-how to determine the best means of applying it in practice-is a very complex one and belongs to the field of the philosophy of law. The task of political philosophy is only to establish the nature of the principle and to demonstrate that it is practicable. The choice of a specific method of implementation is more than premature today-since the principle will be practicable only in a fully free society, a society whose government has been const.i.tutionally reduced to its proper, basic functions.
[”Government Financing in a Free Society,” VOS, 157; pb 116.]
Any program of voluntary government financing has to be regarded as a goal for a distant future.
What the advocates of a fully free society have to know, at present, is only the principle by which that goal can be achieved.
The principle of voluntary government financing rests on the following premises: that the government is not the owner of the citizens' income and, therefore, cannot hold a blank check on that income-that the nature of the proper governmental services must be const.i.tutionally defined and delimited, leaving the government no power to enlarge the scope of its services at its own arbitrary discretion. Consequently, the principle of voluntary government financing regards the government as the servant, not the ruler, of the citizens-as an agent who must be paid for his services, not as a benefactor whose services are gratuitous, who dispenses something for nothing.
[Ibid., 160; pb 118.]
In view of what they hear from the experts, the people cannot be blamed for their ignorance and their helpless confusion. If an average housewife struggles with her incomprehensibly shrinking budget and sees a tyc.o.o.n in a resplendent limousine, she might well think that just one of his diamond cuff links would solve all her problems. She has no way of knowing that if all the personal luxuries of all the tyc.o.o.ns were expropriated, it would not feed her family-and millions of other, similar families-for one week; and that the entire country would starve on the first morning of the week to follow.... How would she know it, if all the voices she hears are telling her that we must soak the rich?
No one tells her that higher taxes imposed on the rich (and the semi-rich) will not come out of their consumption expenditures, but out of their investment capital (i.e., their savings); that such taxes will mean less investment, i.e., less production, fewer jobs, higher prices for scarcer goods; and that by the time the rich have to lower their standard of living, hers will be gone, along with her savings and her husband's job-and no power in the world (no economic power) will be able to revive the dead industries (there will be no such power left).
[”The Inverted Moral Priorities,” ARL,, III, 21, 3.]
See also CAPITALISM; DEFICIT FINANCING; FREEDOM; GOVERN MENT; INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS; INFLATION; INVESTMENT; PHYSICAL FORCE; PROPERTY RIGHTS; ”REDISTRIBUTION” of WEALTH; SAVINGS.
Technology. Technology is an applied science, i.e., it translates the discoveries of theoretical science into practical application to man's life. As such, technology is not the first step in the development of a given body of knowledge, but the last; it is not the most difficult step, but it is the ultimate step, the implicit purpose, of man's quest for knowledge.
[”Apollo 11,” TO, Sept. 1969, 9.]
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