The Impostor Syndrome

Columnist Ken Hoffman of The Houston Chronicle is usually a pretty light read, but last weekend, he briefly mentioned a psychological condition I'd never heard of called the "impostor syndrome" and quoted the following description from a web site devoted to the condition:

Despite evidence of their abilities, many bright, capable people do not experience an inner sense of competence or success, believing instead that they have somehow managed to fool others into thinking they are smarter and more competent than they "know" themselves to be. [bold added]

If the emphasis on innate ability rings a bell, it may be because you recall an intriguing article I blogged some time ago about how flattering children for their intelligence stunts the development of a work ethic and genuine self-esteem.

"That's the smart thing to do. Steer clear of situations where your dumminess may be exposed," jokes Hoffman, but this is exactly what children who have been told they are smart all their lives learn to do, as Po Bronson, discussing results of a psychological study, pointed out:

Of those praised for their effort, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The "smart" kids took the cop-out.

Why did this happen? "When we praise children for their intelligence," Dweck wrote in her study summary, "we tell them that this is the name of the game: Look smart, don't risk making mistakes." And that's what the fifth-graders had done: They'd chosen to look smart and avoid the risk of being embarrassed. [bold added]

I think it would be inaccurate to claim that a tendency to flatter children for "being smart" is the sole cause of impostor syndrome, but I suspect that it is a major culprit, and not just for those being flattered.

It's easy to see how the "smart" kids could develop impostor syndrome, but what of the ones who are not flattered? An article about the syndrome suggests how:

Such sentiments seem at odds with entrepreneurship. Starting companies, after all, requires plus-size confidence, and few positions are more exposed than the summit of one's own business. In addition, factors that often contribute to the impostor syndrome -- such as poor academic records and uninspiring early careers -- are badges of pride for many entrepreneurs, who often speak derisively of M.B.A.'s and have made "fake it till you make it" a mantra. [bold added]

These people have had brilliance pounded into their skulls as an important quality all their lives. And they have also had it pounded into their skulls that they lack it. But they nevertheless do work hard, and they do in fact apply their minds successfully to problems.

In other ways, though, entrepreneurship is a perfect breeding ground for the syndrome. "People who have had bad experiences in organizations may see entrepreneurship as the only way out because it allows them to control their lives," says Manfred Kets de Vries, a psychoanalyst and professor of leadership development at Insead, in France. With no boss, company founders can avoid critical scrutiny. Buffered by their relative control of the environment, entrepreneurs may feel ill-equipped to survive in the outside world. "I've always felt if I stopped doing Cornucopia, who would hire me?" says Stockwell. "If I think about it rationally, I know there's good reason I'm successful. But it wouldn't take a lot to shake my confidence." Adds Steven Myhill-Jones, CEO of Latitude Geographics Group, a $2.5 million geographic-analysis software company in Victoria, British Columbia: "I know my company, but I don't have skills that I could go apply somewhere else. I feel like a lot of what I've done has been a fluke or good timing." [bold added]

Never mind that, as Louis Pasteur put it, "Chance favors the prepared mind." Someone who is not used to knowing his virtues as virtues -- but is used to not enjoying praise for the usual reasons it is handed out -- is going to fail to appraise himself in the way he deserves and he will expect others not to appreciate him. Only there is a twist: Since he "knows" that success demands a superior intellect, he feels a constant, nagging fear of exposure rather than occasional indignation.

Having said that, I reiterate that the kind of flattery of children so much in fashion today is probably not the only circumstance that can predispose someone to eventually have impostor syndrome. False theories about how man acquires knowledge also doubtless play a role, for example.

It is common, for example, for people to hold omniscience as a standard for knowledge, as seems to be the case here:

Another Achilles' heel has to do with expectations. The public assumes CEOs will be knowledgeable about every aspect of their businesses, and business is getting more complex. In this respect, those with scant education are especially vulnerable. "It's like the skills I have are just commonsense skills, like being able to relate to people," says [Bud] Stockwell. "They don't feel as valid as knowledge-based skills." [Steven] Myhill-Jones, for his part, is the founder of a software company who knows very little about technology. "To this day I can't do the work we do," he says. "I can make a comment on the user interface or something. But I don't understand the underlying technology." [bold added]

Note that in addition to selling his well-honed interpersonal skills short as mere common sense (i.e., an ability everyone has), Myhill-Jones also accepts the false premise that he should understand technology in minute detail.

This man understands his limitations well enough to exploit division of labor to make up for them -- so well, in fact, that he can run a software company that probably employs its fair share of programmers who would be unable to head up a company on their own. Everyone does this in a sense every time he purchases services from someone else with an unfamiliar specialty. There is no shame in not being omniscient, so long as one takes his knowledge gaps into proper account.

The way in which philosophy can affect the culture extends beyond how it guides the actions of men to how the consequences of philosophy can affect us psychologically. Ayn Rand's essay, "Our Cultural Value Deprivation" (anthologized in The Voice of Reason), for example, discusses how modern culture can sap our motivation by making it difficult for us to achieve or experience many rational values. (Search "deprivation" at the link.)

The impostor syndrome strikes me as a particularly demoralizing example of value deprivation, in which countless individuals have been made unable to objectively evaluate their own good qualities and their own fitness for survival. Sad and fascinating all at once!

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Corrected a typo.

Quick Roundup 307

Having it Both Ways with the Marketplace of Ideas

"Buying a Spot on the Syllabus" (HT: OActivists), which smears the philanthropic efforts of BB&T to foster a better understanding of capitalism on American college campuses, is an article begging for even more reader criticism than it has already received.

The leftist drumbeat of the article, to which more than a few commenters dutifully march, is that it is morally wrong to pay for the spread of ideas with which one agrees and worse, that it is inherently non-objective.

After all, to use the gist of one comment I noticed, if Ayn Rand's ideas are so compelling, why aren't they being taught all over the place anyway? Why does Objectivism have so little market share in the "marketplace of ideas"?

(On re-reading this, my immediate reaction to this is to wonder why their panties are in a wad over this. Why not let the evil corporation bleed itself dry on its futile crusade? They have nothing to fear from an obscure philosophy, anyway. Their reaction to Ayn Rand's ideas is like their reaction to President Bush. Not that I care for Bush, but they see him as nearly retarded one moment and diabolically clever the next.)

I just love the outlandish combination of skepticism and determinism my conformist fellow academics nearly all display! It's as if Rand, being human, can't possibly be correct, and if she were, her ideas would automatically compel anyone who collided with one of her books to agree with them anyway. So Objectivists, being in the minority, are not even worth serious consideration. QED.

In fact, quite the opposite is true. First of all, the fact that highly successful businessmen are putting their money where their mouths are more than suggests that they honestly believe that getting Ayn Rand's ideas heard will benefit them as capitalists. These are men of proven ability who have thought about Objectivism. Second, the objection that Objectivism isn't a majority view already ignores the obvious question of how it would achieve this status in the first place. The actions of BB&T are demonstrating one way this can occur.

And don't even get me started on the whole implicit equivocation of economic "power" with political power. So one company asks that Atlas Shrugged be taught -- in a non-required course -- as a condition for an educational institution receiving its financial gift. This forces nobody to do anything!

To see what real force can do to academia, just consider California's recent moves towards requiring the teaching of global warming hysteria throughout its entire education system or attempts by religious conservatives to use public schools to have Creationism taught at taxpayer expense. So why do leftists insist -- in the name of "academic freedom" -- on snuffing out what little freedom still exists in academia? That question just about answers itself.

This article and all its leftist supporters demonstrate only one thing: The left is intellectually and morally bankrupt. They demonstrate this by their opposition to the smooth operation of the marketplace of ideas.

Qwertz on Gay Marriage

I haven't finished this lengthy, but interesting post yet, but Qwertz considers the question of gay marriage from an angle I haven't seen before:

Marriage [as it exists today in the welfare state] is a package deal. ... Marriage combines a constellation of legal obligations in contract (concerning property, intestacy, finances, parenting, medical decision-making, etc.) with a set of privileges conferred by the state under various mandates and entitlement schemes.

If we get rid of all the illegitimate, welfare-state junk associated with marriage, all we are left with is a complex, legitimate two-party contract. [minor edits]

I have already noted that the welfare state makes choosing candidates in elections more difficult than it has to be even for people who understand the concept of individual rights and know the proper purpose of government. Here, we see that it also makes many political discussions even more difficult than they should be by effectively altering the definitions of common words!

Incidentally, Qwertz, who jokes that he is "also opposed to straight marriage", may be interested in knowing that Texas has such a badly-worded -- and accidentally (?) passed -- anti-gay marriage statute that it arguably bans all marriage. The fact that the poor wording is circumvented here by a non-literal interpretation of the law does not comfort me in the least.

Note to Self

Via HBL is a link to an article against so-called "Fair Trade", which Harry Binswanger calls an anti-concept. It looks to be very good, and I plan to read it later on today.

Gosh. I might even print it out, take it to a coffee house to read, and then "forget" to leave with it.

Someone is Wrong on the Internet!

Andrew Dalton adds quite a bit to a point of Ayn Rand's I commented on awhile back about how an implicit premise of determinism can lead one to waste valuable time arguing with evasive individuals. (HT: Noumenal Self)

-- CAV

Recycling Complexity-Worship

Via Arts and Letters Daily is an article poking bemused fun of the latest fads in academia even as its author refuses to completely reject them. The following passage will sound eerily familiar to anyone with a solid familiarity with the works of Ayn Rand:

To defend binary thinking is to invite opprobrium. It is true that fixed oppositions between good and evil or male and female and a host of other contraries cannot be upheld [Really? --ed], but this hardly means that binary logic is itself idiotic. Binary logic structures the very computers on which most attacks on binary logic are composed. Some binary distinctions are worth recognizing, if not celebrating: the distinction, let us say, between pregnant and not pregnant, or between life and death. Others are at least worth noticing -- for example, that between a red and a green light. You either have $3.75 for a latte or you do not. Can that be "complicated"? [bold added]

The phrase "complexity-worship" immediately popped into my mind, along with that old ivy-covered hex, "simplistic". A search of the latter term yielded the following, from "How to Read (And Not to Write)", an essay penned by Rand in 1972!

By "clear, simple extremes," modern intellectuals mean any rational theory, any consistent system, any conceptual integration, any precise definition, any firm principle. Pragmatists do not mean that no such theory, system or principle has yet been discovered (and that we should look for one), but that none is possible. Epistemologically, their dogmatic agnosticism holds, as an absolute, that a principle is false because it is a principle -- that conceptual integration (i.e., thinking) is impractical or "simplistic" -- that an idea which is clear and simple is necessarily "extreme and unworkable."Along with Kant, their philosophic forefather, the pragmatists claim, in effect: "If you perceive it, it cannot be real," and: "If you conceive of it, it cannot be true." [The Ayn Rand Letter, vol. 1, no. 26; bold added]

Thirty-five years after that essay, the academic left is still using deductive logic unmoored to reality as a straw man for reason so that some fuzzy alternative to whatever rational conclusions its adherents don't like can get a pass.

It should come as no surprise that those who would sell this old snake oil in new bottles would speak of multiple "alternatives to academic dishonesty" or that their political standard-bearer, Barack Obama, would shout "change" while advocating the same old statist chicanery (minus troublesome specifics) as before.

Or that he would so easily deflect charges of plagiarism with his own alternative to unoriginality. Or that his grand ideological larceny would go unnoticed while he stood accused of the petty theft of Deval Patrick's words. His speeches, apparently accepted as other than plagiarized, sound familiar only to people who fail to notice that this time, collectivism isn't being pushed by an old white man.

Russell Jacoby would, I imagine, say that he is merely pointing out the "excesses" in modern academia. But one cannot concede a premise so monstrous that one cannot uphold a "fixed opposition" "between good and evil" while pointing out the obvious usefulness of logic -- which still isn't the equivalent of reason -- in computers, without having something up his sleeve. Jacoby is in fact merely making fuzziness -- that is to say, irrationality -- look respectable by keeping the kids from running with it to its logical conclusions while the adults are looking. (Alternatively, Jacoby has a perfectly valid point in mind, but due to philosophical error, he achieves the same end result.)

-- CAV

PS: On linking to the web site that sells the Ayn Rand Research CD-ROM, I noticed that sales will end at the end of this month!

Updates

Today: (1) One minor edit. (2) Added parenthetical note at end of post.

Quick Roundup 306

Conception Advice

Over at the addictive group medical blog, MDOD, 911Doc, who plies his trade in an emergency department, offers the following advice for couples trying to conceive: "[D]rop out of school, drink a lot, lose your job, shoot heroin, and smoke crack. Works every time."

If you find the field of medicine interesting or want to see how government intervention in medicine interferes with the vital work of physicians, this is the blog for you. And did I mention that -- despite this and partly because of this -- it's often hilarious?

I was thinking of adding it to the sidebar already when I mentioned it the other day to my wife, who is going to start her residency this summer. Now, I have to add it!

So it's there! Enjoy!

Laura Mazer on "The Business of Healthcare"

One subject that frequently comes up at MDOD is the high financial cost imposed on hospital emergency departments by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), which forbids hospitals to deny care to patients in an emergency setting regardless of ability to pay. Regarding EMTALA, I recommend Laura Mazer's recent article in The Undercurrent, which I read Saturday at my favorite pub.

In other industries, services provided for free are considered voluntary charity. They are provided only as far as they can be supported by the business's other income, and they are neither legally nor morally required. But in healthcare, any suggestion that a hospital accept only the patients it can afford to treat is greeted with moral outrage.

The article does a good job of showing the reader that medicine is just like any other life-sustaining enterprise, and that as a moral and practical matter, it should be left free from such government interference.

Wrong Reason to Oppose McCain-Feingold

An article at National Review Online considers the dilemma John McCain faces with his impending selection of a running mate and takes a look at the opposition to campaign finance "reform" of two strong contenders for the role.

On campaign-finance reform, McCaim's signature accomplishment in the Senate, both men described policy preferences that are greatly at odds with McCain's. "I've come to the point in my career, watching campaign finance reform, having been involved in it somewhat at a state level, that the premise that government can control this stuff, or should control this stuff, is flawed," [Minnesota Governor Tim] Pawlenty told me. "No matter what they do to regulate it, it always seeps out somewhere else, so I think a better system would probably have to have full disclosure, real time, online, instant disclosure -- but quit pretending, both as a constitutional principle, or as a matter of politics, that government can contain this." [bold added]

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford unfortunately also agrees that "money" (meaning one person having the ability to help a candidate of his choosing when another does not) in political campaigns is morally wrong, but also impossible to stamp out.

This is exactly the wrong reason to oppose McCain-Feingold. Freedom of speech does not equal an entitlement to the means necessary to broadcast what one is saying or the "right" to deprive someone else of such means. Furthermore, preventing someone from donating to the candidate of his choice violates his property rights.

Freedom of speech and property rights are not necessary vices "everyone does" to get by under government supervision. They are inalienable individual rights. The great shame of the Republicans is that they seem to have forgotten these facts, if they ever knew them in the first place.

Worth Seventy-Two in the Bush

Anyone who doubts the power of philosophical ideas need look only to what Isaac Schrodinger often calls the "magic kingdom" for examples thereof:

Saudi Arabia began interrogating 57 men Saturday who were arrested after allegedly flirting with women in front of a shopping mall in the holy city of Mecca, a local newspaper reported. [links dropped]

How much more obvious can it be that adherence to Islam means a denial of earthly happiness? This religion urges its followers to murder themselves and infidels by bribing them with sex in the afterlife, and yet treats young men like criminals for attempting to become acquainted with young women.

And yet you don't see young men standing up for themselves and rejecting Islam all over the world. This is despite the fact that they know they are alive now and the women they flirted with are real, but that they have not one jot of evidence confirming the existence of the deity that allegedly insists that they be miserable during life in exchange for eternal happiness.

Epistemology, the branch of philosophy dealing with the question "How does man acquire knowledge?", is not just some drawing-room topic that has no effect on the real world. Every man who morally accepts the authority of the Saudi religious police ultimately accepts "faith" as a correct answer to that question.

In a more rational world, our government would concern itself with Saudi Arabia only to the extent that it needed to to protect our property and lives from such people, and their mistake would destroy only their own lives.

(Scott Powell offers some further thoughts on this incident.)

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Added links to articles by Laura Mazer and Byron York.

Thanks a Heap, Ralph!

If you haven't heard it already, you could have guessed it: Ralph Nader will run for President again in 2008. His impact, if any, will unfortunately be to tip the election towards John McCain:

Tim Russert, the host of [Meet the Press], did point out to Mr. Nader that George W. Bush won in Florida with a little more than 500 votes, as Mr. Nader siphoned more than 97,000 away from Mr. Gore, a numerical factor that left many Democrats embittered.

In 2004, Nader received only about 14% of the 2.74 percent he polled in 2000. He is surely not so obtuse as to realize that he stands no chance of winning. Indeed, he is even aware of his role as a "spoiler" for Democrats. ("If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form.") And yet he runs. His premise is that the candidates are too much alike.

Nader, 73, said most people are disenchanted with the Democratic and Republican parties due to a prolonged Iraq war and a shaky economy. The consumer advocate also blamed tax and other corporate-friendly policies under the Bush administration that he said have left many lower- and middle-class people in debt.

"You take that framework of people feeling locked out, shut out, marginalized and disrespected," he said. "You go from Iraq, to Palestine to Israel, from Enron to Wall Street, from Katrina to the bumbling of the Bush administration, to the complicity of the Democrats in not stopping him on the war, stopping him on the tax cuts." [bold added]

With Nader's expressed concern for voters feeling "locked out", one might wonder why he is so blithely flirting with tipping yet another election the Republicans' way, especially given that John McCain's opposition to freedom of speech threatens to "lock out" anyone with a political mind of his own and endanger open political debate in the future.

Part of the answer doubtless lies in the fact that Nader also supports campaign finance "reform". Despite the fact that all the "corporate" money in the world cannot force a man to act against his judgement like a government gun can, Nader so thoroughly confuses economic "power" with political power that he posits government as the only way to rationally distribute the means of communicating ideas.

To someone who believes this, preventing a company from using its own property to support a candidate looks like a stand for freedom, while placing the means of communicating ideas into the hands of government officials (who may be biased) does not look like it could prevent the open exchange of ideas. As to whether Nader himself really believes this, your guess is as good as mine, but the end result is that his support of the government violating property rights endangers freedom of speech.

So Nader's support for campaign finance "reform" is likely part of the answer to the question of why he wants to run. Why else might he want to run? He doubtless intends to penalize the Democrats for not toeing the line to his statist agenda, but I think that on one score, Nader's words and deeds more obviously match. McCain-Feingold aside, if there really is no substantive difference between the candidates, perhaps Nader gets part of what he wants anyway.

Whatever you may think of leftist commentator Froma Harrop, she is not one to shy away from the implications of her own mistaken principles:

Why might [Clinton backers unhappy with Obama] like McCain? Count the ways. He had the fiscal discipline to vote against the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, and the decency to complain that they unfairly favored the rich. He's OK on the environment, concerned over global warming and against oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He supported tighter fuel-economy standards and opposes torture. John McCain is not an embarrassment.

In other words, McCain will work just about as hard to destroy capitalism as either Democrat, and Nader gets to press for more by running at the same time.

Ralph Nader, it would seem, is just taking Froma Harrop's advice and -- erm -- running with it.

-- CAV

Quick Roundup 305

The Anti-Life Premise of Government Rationing

Paul Hsieh and Amit Ghate point to a New York Times story about government rationing of medical care which so perfectly illustrates the thoroughly anti-life premise behind socialized medicine that there is no such thing as bringing it up too often:

Officials said that allowing Mrs. Hirst and others like her to pay for extra drugs to supplement government care would violate the philosophy of the health service by giving richer patients an unfair advantage over poorer ones.

In other words, the animating philosophy behind socialized medicine is not seeing to it that as many lives as possible are improved or saved, but that nobody gets more of anything good (i.e., life-sustaining) than anyone else.

Coincidentally, I learned from Dismuke (who is blogging actively again) of an even more intrusive and blatant application of this premise. Hugo Chavez, the socialist dictator of Venezuela, is seeing to it that families can't purchase "too many" daily necessities:

[I]n the planned network of large (PDVAL) and smaller markets (PDVALitos) run by the PDVSA subsidiary, they will keep a register of all purchases, limiting purchases to once a day. Moreover, they have done the studies of how much food a family may need and purchases will be limited to those amounts. They will have a "file card" (read rationing card) to register purchases so as to avoid repeats and people exceeding the limits. [bold added]

I guess if you starve the peasants, they won't "need" as much medical care, either. The death premise of central planning does have a way, I must admit, of simplifying things.

I will take the complexity and joy of life as a free man any day.

Early Greek Lawgivers Reviewed

There is a short, positive book review of Early Greek Lawgivers by John Lewis over at the Bryn Mawr Classical review:

The book has some good suggestions for further reading, divided into a general section on sources, histories, and modern discussions of Greek law (pp. 85-88) followed by a chapter-by-chapter list (pp. 88-92). Some useful questions for further study are given on pp. 93-94, followed by a glossary of technical terms (pp. 95-96) and a short index (pp. 97-100).

There is a lot in this short book, which is succinctly written, stimulating, and introduces to students earlier lawgivers as well as the better known figures of Draco, Solon, and Lycurgus, who all too often are the only ones studied in courses.

The review calls it an "excellent introduction" to its material and it strikes me as good for a general reader. Although I could not find it at the Ayn Rand bookstore (which does stock Solon the Thinker), it is available through Amazon for $20.00 new.

Holland -- or Bangladesh?

Galileo Blogs draws the following excellent analogy pursuant to a recent Ayn Rand Institute press release on calls by global warming panic-mongers for global dictatorship:

The proper image of our future, should the global warming dictators be successful, is Bangladesh, a poor and authoritarian country where thousands of people die every few years from floods. Contrast Bangladesh with Holland. Thousands of Dutch have lived below sea level for hundreds of years, yet they are safe from floods, protected today by a multi-billion dollar system of dikes, high-tech sensors and dams. However, the real protection of the Dutch against floods is their wealth. The Dutch can afford to protect themselves from floods.

And this would be if they are right that the earth is warming. Otherwise, our lives will still be nasty, brutish, and short, but other methods than flooding will have to put us out of our misery. See the first section of this post for details and note that the global warming hysterics want human beings to have no "unfair advantages" over the inanimate environment.

Comedy on Both Sides of the Pond

When I was young, I was introduced to British comedy, which I really enjoy, by my mother, who watched Fawlty Towers on PBS and would later introduce me to Mr. Bean and the ingenious Keeping up Appearances. (Come to think of it, between my Mom's comedy and my Dad's Soccer Made in Germany, we could have just about gotten by on one channel!)

In any event, I found the thoughts of Briton Valda Redfern on the difference between American and British humor interesting, and feel somewhat vindicated by her take on Seinfeld.

It will be interesting to see what I think of the British Office. I am planning on renting it at some point having exhausted the American series DVDs some time ago.

-- CAV

Blogging as Intellectual Activism

Editor's Note: This is cross-posted at Intellectual Activism, a blog about how advocates of Objectivism can help the philosophy of Ayn Rand gain greater currency in the culture. I ask that comments be posted at that site when possible, and that Objectivist bloggers link to the post there as a means of promoting that blog.

Introduction

Before I begin, I wish to thank the proprietor of Intellectual Activism for asking me to post about blogging. I hope to live up to the compliment by providing useful advice to his readers and to profit from the opportunity to improve my own blogging further through your constructive criticisms and suggestions.

The focus on this article will be on blogging as a means of engaging in intellectual activism. This may or may not be the primary purpose of your blogging activities, so bear that in mind during this discussion. Also bear in mind that despite my successes in blogging that intellectual activism has not been my primary focus as a blogger.

Blogging for me has been mainly a way to explore my strong interest in writing. This purpose and intellectual activism often do intersect since I enjoy writing about cultural and political issues, and I consider myself an Objectivist, meaning that as far as I grasp the philosophy of Ayn Rand, I have reached considered agreement with it.

Be an Advocate for Objectivism

This leads straightaway to some fundamental points regarding intellectual activism. I first encountered Ayn Rand over two decades ago -- about eighteen years before I started blogging in 2004. Eighteen years is a long time, and yet, despite having thought carefully about many philosophical issues during that time, I have discovered that during my blogging -- a more intense phase of such thinking -- I have changed my thinking about several applications of Rand's philosophy to the kinds of issues I write about.

As Objectivists, we appreciate the importance of philosophical ideas in shaping the cultural and political trends of the world we live in, thereby possibly also affecting our own lives. And so it is that we all want better ideas -- particularly those of Ayn Rand -- to attain a greater influence in the culture. Certainly, if this is to occur, we should do what we can to ensure that those ideas get a hearing, including when we make our own contributions to the public debate.

This means two things. First, acknowledge Objectivism when appropriate. Second, likewise indicate in your postings that these are your attempts to apply Ayn Rand's ideas to the issues at hand based on your understanding of them. You should also include some kind of disclaimer in an "about", FAQ, or other informational page (accessible via hyperlink from anywhere on your blog) to the effect that you do not claim to be an authority on Objectivism. The first will help your audience discover Ayn Rand, and the second will alert your reader, particularly if you have made an error in applying her philosophy, that what you wrote isn't necessarily consistent with Objectivism.

On a deeper level, consider again the motivation for intellectual activism, i.e., an appreciation of "the importance of philosophical ideas in shaping the cultural and political trends of the world we live in, thereby possibly also affecting our own lives". One mistake many new to Objectivism make, partly from genuine enthusiasm and partly due to the influence of altruism, is to focus too much on convincing others of Ayn Rand's ideas, and too little on understanding them thoroughly enough to profit from them in one's own life.

Objectivism is, as Ayn Rand put it, "a philosophy for living on this earth". As important as intellectual activism is, one must never lose sight of the fact that one's happiness -- not convincing others that Ayn Rand was right -- is the purpose of one's own life. In doing so, one will remain focused on understanding her ideas for oneself, in personally understanding how valuable they are, and, incidentally, also being better at intellectual activism. It is not enough to wail that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, if one does not offer a positive alternative. To make such a case convincingly, one must argue his point well, and one must convey the sincerity that can come only from having lived according to Objectivism.

In case you were wondering, this is why I italicized the phrase "for Objectivism". To win the battle for the mind, we must appeal to the best within our audience. The best arguments in the world will mean nothing if people do not see that gaining and keeping their rational values depend in some way on a proper philosophy.

A Word about Blogging

A weblog (often simply "blog") is a "website that displays in chronological order the postings by one or more individuals and usually has links to comments on specific postings." This leaves an enormous amount of latitude to a blogger, even if he restricts his purpose in blogging to intellectual activism. At the same time, the medium presents certain limitations. Here, we will look at the suitability of blogging for intellectual activism.

Perhaps the most obvious feature of this medium is how easily one can start a blog, what with the wide availability of web sites that offer free blog hosting. To the individual and for the purpose of intellectual activism, this is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, you are suddenly empowered to say something (and perhaps even be heard by someone) the next time you hear about some issue on which to your knowledge, no rational perspective has been offered. On the other, if you are unsure of your grasp of Objectivism or your writing ability, be aware that you will have no editorial backup unless you arrange it for yourself.

The fact that just anybody can blog is reflected by the fact that a very few big-name bloggers get thousands of page views a day while the vast majority get fewer than one. The numbers reflect the fact that there is lots of junk out there to sift through. Of course, a low hit total does not in and of itself imply that a blog has lousy content. It can also mean that few people have heard of it yet, or that it rarely has new content.

Over the time I have been blogging, I have written several times about the many personal benefits I have realized through the hobby. Here is a short, non-exhaustive list: a chance to clarify my own thinking, a place to blow steam (in a constructive manner, of course!), new friends, contacts for more serious writing, exposure to other thinkers, improved self-discipline, practice writing, and a place for occasional diary entries. Blogging has been very rewarding to me.

One thing I have not discussed until now is the price I have paid for blogging. Although writing comes very easily to me, it still takes time -- and sometimes, finding material takes a comparable amount of time. To compare this time investment to holding a second job is not much of an exaggeration. I am talking about several hours a day, every day. I am very lucky that my wife has been supportive of my efforts, and that she is often busy anyway. Until recently, I posted twice a day during the week, but greater time demands at work and other writing activities have caused me to recently decide to normally post only once a day.

When you decide to start blogging, then, you will be one of many voices in a huge, noisy crowd. It is difficult, but not impossible, to be heard. At the risk of sounding negative, my general advice is to consider other forms of intellectual activism, including donations to the Ayn Rand Institute, letters to the editor, helping organize Objectivist clubs or events in your area, or commenting on established, popular blogs and forums -- unless you can gain other benefits from blogging until your efforts begin to bear fruit.

Nuts and Bolts

From here on out, I will focus on some concrete blogging advice. Recall that this is coming from someone who has not focused on intellectual activism or spent that much effort on publicizing his blog. Some of you may have some valuable insights to offer in those areas that I have not brought up.

I have linked to advice about blogging before. Below is a list of posts about blogging in chronological order:

• What Makes a Good Blog? -- Includes an annotated list of links to advice from other bloggers.
• Notes about Blogging II -- Two links include blogging advice. And no, I don't know what happened to "Notes about (or on?) Blogging (I)"!
• Notes on Blogging III -- More blogging advice.
• Advice on Blogging -- Diana Hsieh gives some excellent advice here in list form.
• Good Advice for Bloggers -- This is more applicable to journalists than bloggers, but it's still worthwhile.
• Here's some good blogging advice. -- Executive summary: Avoid social metaphysics in blogging.
• Notes on Blogging IV -- Some discussion of the nuts and blots of blogging.
• Notes on Blogging V -- Discusses and links to some good blogging advice.

Of course, if you are observant, you will note that I stopped blogging about blogging nearly three years ago! That was about the time I started feeling comfortable as a blogger and, perhaps felt less of a need to think as much about it.

So, now that I have enjoyed some success, what have I found to be effective?

As I have already mentioned, my main focus as a blogger has been on exploring my interest in writing as well as mentally "chewing" various issues that have captured my interest over the years. I have made no extraordinary efforts to achieve publicity for my blog other than to force myself to write daily during the week whether I feel like it or not.

For the purposes of intellectual activism, then, it would seem that aside from being sure that you understand and apply Objectivism as well as possible, you should concentrate on what you can do to overcome the "noisy crowd" problem.

The below list discusses in no particular order what I have done on both scores and a few things I have observed others doing on the latter score. (And my observations of others are not confined to Objectivist bloggers.) Generally, four categories of advice follow: (1) making your content readily accessible, (2) helping others locate your content, (3) improving your content, and (4) building readership. Any one piece of advice may apply to more than one of these at the same time.

• Write. Write. Write. But I repeat myself.
• Always go the extra mile to credit people who show you the good stories first. Not only is this good blogging etiquette, it will encourage more of the same in the future since people generally do like recognition. Fellow bloggers especially like you to link to their blogs!
• Blog on a regular basis, preferably at least once a day on weekdays. Think of this from the point of view of a potential "regular". Why do you visit a blog repeatedly? Because you know you can expect new content there. When does it become habitual? When it becomes part of your daily routine. The more regular readers you have, the more eyes you will have out for interesting material (See above.) and the more potential referrals of new readers to you blog. If you can't (or don't want to) blog regularly, consider joining or forming a team blog.
• Connect with other Objectivists. Since I began blogging, a strong community of Objectivist bloggers has begun to take shape. Many of us communicate by such means as the Olist mailing list, and the brand new OActivist list will be especially helpful for those more focused on activism.
  
• Edit for spelling and grammar. Poor spelling, like poor grammar, is very distracting, and will make many people leave your post for the sake of sanity before they even know what you're trying to say. Those who do slog through anyway will, if they have any doubts about your point, understandably have them magnified by large numbers of errors. ("What else is he being sloppy about?") And any opponent who comments on what you said will delight (as I often do) in peppering your quotes with "[sic]" just because he can. Don't discredit yourself or help your opponents do so by being sloppy.
• Make your content as easy to read as humanly possible. Let me repeat myself here, because this is a more common problem than you might think: Make your content as easy to read as humanly possible. A good way to do this is to make it easy for people to find the web address of your blog's RSS feed. I don't actually visit that many of the blogs I follow because I don't have time to do so. I use RSS feeds in the Netvibes feed reader. This way, I can scan for interesting headlines, mouse over them for the first few lines, and read the whole post if that piques my interest. If I decide to comment on a post at my blog, I can click through to the actual site to get the web address. People who truncate their feeds (in order to force readers to visit their site for whole posts) cost me time. If I'm in a real hurry, I skip their blogs entirely. (Time is money, and not just for me.) But wait! There's more ....
• Use scripts and off-site content sparingly. These not only make your page load more slowly, but each one is a potential failure point that can make part or all of it not load at all. A couple of blogs I otherwise like take minutes at a time to load over a cable modem. Do you want to wait three minutes to see whether there might be a new post somewhere that takes (maybe) thirty seconds to read? Then don't ask your readers to do this, either.
• Use standards-compliant HTML. If faulty code -- like substandard HTML "extensions" that work only with Microsoft products -- at your site crashes my browser every time I visit (with 15 other tabs open) or I can't read it easily for some reason, I'll stop visiting out of frustration. And so will anyone else in your potential audience who has a similar difficulty. Never make someone fire up a browser (or worse, recover from a browser crash) just to view your blog. Substandard HTML is the virtual gag of the blogging world.
• Seriously consider blogging under a pseudonym if you are in academia. (HT: Diana Hsieh) Although I am openly an Objectivist at work, using a pen name allows me to control when and to whom I disclose my full views on, say, Islam, abortion, or the current war. There are many reasons besides the very compelling ones mentioned in the linked article to consider this.
  
• Consider moderating comments. I have heard this called the "nuclear option", probably because of the amount of work involved or the fear of inhibiting discussion. However, I have done this for over a year myself with no noticeable drop-off in comments. If checking your email counts as "work" then it does entail more work (and it could easily be quite impractical for a larger blog), but you will always know when someone attempts to leave a comment. This has made comment spam and drive-by flames nearly non-existent and totally preventable, and has allowed me to respond to the occasional question posted to some old, half-forgotten post.
• Join Technorati. My blog, Gus Van Horn, has been listed as relevant blog commentary several times by RealClear Politics and at least once by each of The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and The New York Times. It has been quoted twice by Slate and linked several times on the front page of City Journal. I have been asked to comment at a forum by The Chronicle of Higher Education. (I had to decline. Science is a beast of a day job!) Objectivist ideas have been heard each time, and yet this blog has never averaged more than a modest, but respectable 300 readers a day. Most of these high-impact posts were discovered by these media outlets though Technorati, which tracks blogs that link to news stories, among other things. In addition, Technorati (along with referral tracking via Sitemeter) is a good way to detect when other bloggers choose to comment on something you have said. Other, similar services may also be useful but remember that every tracking script you include in your blog template risks turning it instead into a "bog template", as we have already alluded to. This will more than negate any advantage of being tracked by more people.
• Advertise. I have noticed Google ads placed by both Diana Hsieh and Leonard Peikoff in my Gmail reader upon logging on. I haven't done this myself, but if you want more readers, Google Ads does target your ads according to web page context. I would imagine that any Objectivist blogger or Objectivist email list subscriber who used Gmail would become a potential reader of yours.
• Leave comments and trackbacks to higher-profile blogs. Your comments should be on-topic, say something intelligent, and link back to your blog only if your post adds to what you have just said. Ditto for trackbacks, which should always, as a matter of blog etiquette, link back to the post. Remember: You are more likely to get favorable notice for your blog and win minds if you actually participate in the conversation at hand, rather than just spamming someone else's blog for attention -- which everyone will see through, to the detriment of your reputation in the blogosphere. You can make an ass of yourself with one posted comment, but to develop a reputation as someone with intelligent things to say will likely take persistence.
• Be a link Santa. (I thank Joe for that term!) If you can blog regularly and you follow a few good bloggers who don't, you can send them traffic (which they will appreciate) by linking to them from time to time. On days you don't have as much time to post, if you link to several such posts at once, these bloggers will have already returned the favor by saving you time. Incidentally, my roundup posts are among my more popular features, probably because I save my readers time tracking down these other good bloggers.
• Add value to your blog with a good blogroll. Sure. Everyone already knows about NoodleFood, but aside from the fact that I like Paul, Diana, and Greg, why should I link to a blog everyone knows about anyway? To make it easy for them to visit there after they pay me a visit. If other good blogs are easy to visit from yours, your blog is a more useful place to visit than it would be if you made them bookmark those other sites themselves or -- shudder -- visit some other blog that does do this. If you want Objectivists and those receptive to our arguments to visit your blog, make it easy for them to get more. Other bloggers usually return the favor, which will sometimes send you more readers. You should include a note to the effect that links do not imply an endorsement of the other sites, whether you choose to link only to other Objectivists or, as I do, will link to almost anyone. Note that part of having a good blogroll is to update it by adding new links and removing defunct links periodically.
• Accept only unobtrusive ads. If you choose to accept advertisements, avoid irritating your readers with pop-up ads, roll-over ads, or anything else that obscures your content.
  
• Help your readers visit you from work. Basically, this means avoid posting images to your blog that you would not want your boss to observe you viewing from your computer at work. Never post anything that automatically makes noise when your page loads. Provide a warning with any material (e.g., a risque YouTube embed) that is not prudent to view from an employer's computer.
  
• Take advantage of social bookmarking sites. I don't use Digg, DelIcioUs, Stumble, or the like, but I do make it easy for those who do to bookmark me with appropriate links at the end of each post. I do not normally get a large amount of traffic from these sources, but the next time I get an Instalanche, I will probably get multiple Diggs and thus leverage such publicity by getting a high rank at such sites.
• Link to some favorite posts. Every blogger gets noticed by an A-list blogger from time to time, and every blogger experiences disruptions to his normal posting schedule. Whether it be to give potential new readers a chance to see your (other) best stuff or to tide over your regulars, a list of favorite posts will do the job.
  
• Benefit from the comments. When I can, I answer every comment. This always keeps my mind engaged, and I suspect that it encourages discussion. I strive to provide a comfortable, civilized place to hold a discussion. People from all walks of life have participated in discussions at my blog, and have often contributed valuable leads, insights, or elaborations of their own. Regular commenters include military personnel, a linguist, the proprietor of an Internet radio station, and numerous professionals. In addition, I have heard from school teachers, a historian, a used car salesman, and even a professional gambler! I like the fact that blogging puts me in touch with people who can answer my questions when I don't know about some issue or set me straight when I merely think I do! I enjoy hearing from my commenters, and I have learned a lot from them. Aside from maintaining a cordial atmosphere, I have found the next tip most helpful in gaining the ear of such an impressive array of commenters.
• Always be honest. Don't be afraid to divulge the limits of your expertise on a topic if doing so is appropriate. Always thank the people who take the time to correct you, even if having to deal with such a comment is inconvenient and ruins your mood. If your character is challenged, address the challenge, if it is appropriate, at once and thank whoever brought up the issue. A commenter once indirectly implied that I had plagiarized a comment he had left, but which I hadn't seen, to an item I blogged. Had he not done so, I would not have had the chance to defend myself as soon as I did. I thanked him, too, and I meant it.
• Take advantage of flames. Even some dishonest comments and outright flames can be turned on their head to make a useful point. As a rule, I direct whatever I say about such comments to other readers, thereby making it clear that any intended insult was wasted on me, and that the intelligent discussion of ideas at my blog will end when Hell freezes over. I almost never insult a commenter, but a racist once just about did the work for me. If an insult can be used to convey that stupidity will not be tolerated, then it may be worthwhile. Only occasionally will I simply reject even a bad comment.
• Unless you write 24 hours a day, use a single blogging web address. Two mistakes I see all the time are (1) going through new web addresses like toilet paper and (2) needlessly spreading one blog's worth of content across three or more blogs. Both practices make it hard to build an audience for different reasons. In the first case, changing to a new URL in order to use a better blogging platform is fine, but your last post at your old address should redirect your readers to your new blog. But start hopping around enough, and all but your most loyal readers become more likely to get tired of hunting you down. Yes. That might seem lazy or stupid to you, but every degree of added effort you impose on a potential reader is less effort he can spend reading your blog. In the second case, most blogging platforms allow you to categorize posts anyway, and usually, readers will find more than one of your interests worthwhile. Why send them on an Easter egg hunt for what you decided to post about on a given day? Unless you're about ten times more prolific than I am, just don't do that.
• Have fun! Objectivism and your life are great values. How much time and effort you devote to intellectual activism will depend on your evolving hierarchy of values. If you find that blogging causes you to focus too much on unpleasant things, then cut down or stop entirely. If you enjoy it, then don't be afraid to have fun with it. The misconception, common in our modern culture, that serious equals boring is just another manifestation of the mind-body dichotomy. It's a benevolent universe. Stand up for what is right. Laugh at the evil. Enjoy the many creative ways -- which I have barely begun to cover here -- that blogging and the Internet place at your disposal to begin living in the future of your choice today!
  

Note that I have left many areas unexplored here, such as the value of having rational commentary "out there", just waiting to be Googled long after the initial media frenzy has died down, or the concept of "premise checking" which we Objectivists offer above the mere (concrete) "fact checking" you hear touted as the great virtue of blogging.

Feel free to comment on any of these things in addition to raising questions. I do note, however, that as this topic will be intensely interesting to Objectivists, I probably will not have the luxury or time to answer every comment! Thank you for your time and consideration and, now, for your questions and constructive criticism!

-- CAV

P.S. Readers who are registered to comment at Intellectual Activism should comment there, and I ask Objectivist bloggers to link there when referring to this post.

Quick Roundup 304

Intellectual Activism

Jim May left a comment on the Obama plagiarism kerfuffle that made me laugh this morning:

What a comment it is on our times that people should notice the re-use of some words, while failing to notice his ongoing re-use of the same old ideas.

I imagined this coming up in a debate and Obama shooting back, "It's called 'recycling'!" If the Democrats actually had problems with stealing anymore, I'd worry that this would carry the day....

But for those of us who, unlike The Houston Chronicle, are less concerned with pretending that the youth vote can make a difference in this election than with seeing to it that we all get some real choices in the future, the activity of intellectual activism -- of getting a hearing in the public debate for good ideas -- is vital.

The Houston Chronicle inadvertently illustrates the depth(s) of its election coverage.

Along those lines, there is some good news on the blogging front. First, Diana Hsieh is starting a new mailing list devoted entirely to intellectual activism. Second, The Undercurrent now has an active blog. (The sidebar link here now takes you there, rather than to its main page.) Third, since the webmaster of the new Intellectual Activism blog has asked for my thoughts on blogging, I'll be cross-posting those here and there tomorrow morning. I am not primarily focused, as a blogger, on intellectual activism, but I hope that what I have learned in my three-plus years of experience can be useful. Failing that, I hope to learn something from the feedback I get!

News Flash: Threat from a New Technology Sensationalized

To read this article, one would believe that parents who left their children at the mall for several hours were putting their children at greater risk for sexual predation than those who let them roam the Internet for a similar amount of time!

"There's been some overreaction to the new technology, especially when it comes to the danger that strangers represent," said Janis Wolak, a sociologist at the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

"Actually, Internet-related sex crimes are a pretty small proportion of sex crimes that adolescents suffer," Wolak added, based on three nationwide surveys conducted by the center.

Having said that, I note that the article does offer some useful advice that parents might want to heed regarding how their children interact with strangers on the Internet.

Why Tamper with Just Election Results?

The Democrats, not content with making the United States look like a banana republic in 2000, are set to have a particularly ugly national convention this time around:

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign intends to go after delegates whom Barack Obama has already won in the caucuses and primaries if she needs them to win the nomination.

This strategy was confirmed to me by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday. ...

Pledged delegates are not really pledged at all, not even on the first ballot. This has been an open secret in the party for years, but it has never really mattered because there has almost always been a clear victor by the time the convention convened.

But not this time. This time, one candidate may enter the convention leading by just a few pledged delegates, and those delegates may find themselves being promised the sun, moon and stars to switch sides. [Just like the Democrats promise these things to voters every election cycle. --ed]

...

On Sunday, Doug Wilder, the mayor of Richmond and a former governor of Virginia, went even further, predicting riots in the streets if the Clinton campaign were to overturn an Obama lead through the use of superdelegates.

"There will be chaos at the convention," Wilder told Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation."

"If you think 1968 was bad, you watch: In 2008, it will be worse." [bold added]

John McCain's chances, I am sad to say, have never looked better.

Left-Wing Creationism

A California lawmaker wants to force the "science" of "climate change" down your child's throat via the state-run education monopoly:

The measure, by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, also would mandate that future science textbooks approved for California public schools include climate change.

"You can't have a science curriculum that is relevant and current if it doesn't deal with the science behind climate change," Simitian said. "This is a phenomenon of global importance and our kids ought to understand the science behind that phenomenon."

The state Senate approved the bill, SB 908, Jan. 30 by a 26-13 vote. It heads now to the state Assembly. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken numerous actions to reduce global warming, but he has yet to weigh in on Simitian's bill. Other Republicans in the Capitol, however, are not happy about the proposal.

Some say the science on global warming isn't clear, while others worry the bill would inject environmental propaganda into classrooms. [bold added]

Global warming hysterics package-deal the scientific questions of whether there is global warming and whether it is caused by human activity with the political question of whether the government should do anything about it. Since they do this and treat the answer to the first question as a foregone "Yes!" and take that to logically mean the answer to the second is also "Yes!", the fears of "some" and "others" will be realized if this foolishness comes to pass.

Heh!

Reader Adrian Hester informs me of a curious CD available at Amazon: Black Sabbath songs translated into Latin and re-cast into medieval arrangements. Sez he: "The most unusual thing about it though is that the damn thing actually works."

-- CAV

Religion vs. Nanotechnology

According to a report I found through Instapundit, the American public, increasingly influenced by the anti-reason, life-hating outlook of religion, is having moral qualms about nanotechnology:

In a sample of 1,015 adult Americans, only 29.5 percent of respondents agreed that nanotechnology was morally acceptable. In European surveys that posed identical questions about nanotechnology to people in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, significantly higher percentages of people accepted the moral validity of the technology. ...

The [reason for the big difference, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Dietram] Scheufele believes, is religion: "The United States is a country where religion plays an important role in peoples' lives. The importance of religion in these different countries that shows up in data set after data set parallels exactly the differences we're seeing in terms of moral views. European countries have a much more secular perspective."

The catch for Americans with strong religious convictions, Scheufele believes, is that nanotechnology, biotechnology and stem cell research are lumped together as means to enhance human qualities. In short, researchers are viewed as "playing God" when they create materials that do not occur in nature, especially where nanotechnology and biotechnology intertwine, says Scheufele. [bold added]

Interestingly, on the heels of observing that so many Americans oppose nanotechnology on moral grounds, Scheufele attempts to suggest a remedy -- but succeeds only in exemplifying the real underlying problem:

The new study has critical implications for how experts explain the technology and its applications, Scheufele says. It means the scientific community needs to do a far better job of placing the technology in context and in understanding the attitudes of the American public.

I submit that the problem doesn't lie in better explaining how beneficial the technology can be or in somehow trying to "sell it" to religious zealots. One need only consider a more widely-appreciated example of applied science, modern medicine, and its willful rejection by one well-known, "mainline" Christian sect (among others) to see the flaw in this reasoning.

Science, as I have noted numerous times in the past, is not a worldview and cannot, dependent as it is on certain underlying philosophical principles, provide a philosophical alternative to religion. That is the job of another discipline, philosophy, as I have also mentioned before. (And fortunately, one philosopher, Ayn Rand, has single-handedly, and in the nick of time, addressed many of the issues that have discredited this discipline and made religion a powerful cultural force again in the West.)

More scientists must educate themselves on the proper philosophical underpinnings of their discipline and either advocate rational philosophy or support those who do. Until then, they will find that they can explain until they are blue in the face the wonders they have discovered and the grand vistas they have opened for all mankind -- and still be damned by evil, Bible-thumping men and their witless followers for "doing the Devil's work".

What needs to be explained isn't that science, technology, and the freedom that makes them possible here in America are beneficial to human life. Even those points aren't lost on most followers of religion in America. What desperately needs to be explained, while most Americans still value their own lives, is that religion poses a mortal threat to their lives and to any rational values they may hold.

Scientists can help with that, but science -- as many Christian apologists well know -- is not and never can be up to the job of philosophy.

-- CAV

Quick Roundup 303

Reports of Paternalism's Death Greatly Exaggerated

Over at City Journal comes the following perspicacious observation about socialized medicine.

[T]he real question is whether subsidized medicine is the best way to raise life expectancy -- or whether political and legal reforms that promote the creation of wealth do more.

Indeed, and that is a long-overdue question! But it should be asked not just regarding African aid programs, but in the context of the medical insurance crisis in the United States of America, and anywhere else socialized medicine exists or is being contemplated.

The article at City Journal is, by the way, quite worthwhile, but for the claim at its beginning that paternalism died, except in the area of foreign aid. No. Paternalism is alive and well in the West, sad to say.

As an excellent companion piece to Michael Knox Beran's piece, I would recommend a look at Roger Sandall's Spiked article, "The Dereliction Express".

Campaign Finance Regulations vs. Freedom of Speech

In the Washington Post is an article, "Unfettered Speech, Now", by Bradley A. Smith and Steve Simpson, in which they describe a lawsuit filed by an organization working to further the cause of freedom of speech because it is being forced to register as a political action committee (PAC):

Political activist David Keating created SpeechNow.org to give individual Americans a way to speak about candidates free of the byzantine campaign finance regulations that apply to modern political speech. The group's particular mission is to protect First Amendment rights at the ballot box -- to buy ads urging citizens to vote for politicians who support free speech and against those who do not -- but its model could be applied to any issue or candidate a group of voters cares about.

...

Nonetheless, according to federal campaign finance laws and the FEC, SpeechNow.org must become a "political committee," a PAC, and comply with a host of regulations that rival the tax laws in burden and complexity. Failure to do so could result in up to five years in prison for contributors and the principals of the group. [bold added]

I have to say that I disagree with the article's final paragraph. There is no way to "bring federal campaign finance laws into line with the constitutional principles of free speech and association" because such laws violate individual rights by their very nature. When the government introduces the initiation of force into one area of our lives, it will inevitably bring it into other areas of our lives for the same reason that, in economics, "controls breed controls", as they say.

Scott Powell Interview

Nick Provenzo interviews Scott Powell over at Rule of Reason regarding the latest course in his A First History for Adults series.

[J]ust as the West was achieving supremacy over Islam politically and militarily, after about 1700, its own culture was in many regards abandoning the root of its relative advance--namely the "Renaissance" or rebirth of reason. This is especially the case in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when Western thinkers turned against the Enlightenment, and the brief political flowering of individual rights in the latter eighteenth century was smothered in Europe. The process of the political subordination of the East was then accelerating, but the cultural conduit carrying ideas Eastward was now transmitting the ideologies then in vogue, such as nationalism and socialism, which were contrary to those that had actually spurred Europe's progress. Consequently, when those Muslims who were interested in improving their lives turned West, they failed to find anyone who could articulate the reasons why the West was better. That life in the West was and is better than in the Middle East is manifest, but to identify why is not a simple matter. And if one does not understand the causes then one cannot properly transpose what has happened in Western civilization into the Islamic setting.

The West is thus, as you say, to be indicted--for failing to know, embrace, and defend the values that have nourished its own greatness. Part and parcel to this had been the adoption of counterproductive foreign policies, which have only served to exacerbate the antagonism between the two cultures.

Read the whole thing!

Yaron Brook on the Economy

Over at Forbes, Yaron Brook argues that "To Stimulate the Economy, Liberate It".

Faced with recession, therefore, we should be asking not, "What can the government do to stimulate the economy?" but "What can it stop doing?" Washington should be debating which disastrous programs to phase out first: Sarbanes-Oxley, or the constellation of agencies that distort the housing market, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Politicians should be committing to drastically cutting government spending, so that Americans can have real and lasting tax relief.

Yes. He said exactly that and better yet, he shows how he reached this conclusion.

Don't forget that Forbes invites user comments. A timely article like this deserves a show of support!

-- CAV

A Rude, but Necessary Awakening

Editor's Note: This far ahead of the election, it is a little early to discuss voting strategies, but given what I know now of the candidates and current trends, I suspect that I will be voting for a Democrat for President for the first time in my life.

There is a slew of articles about Barack Obama heading today's link list over at RealClear Politics, the first -- which read in this morning's Houston Chronicle -- being by Charles Krauthammer.

Krauthammer concerns himself with the cult of personality that seems to surround the freshman senator and his youthful, trendy following, and whether his spell will survive the closer examination he is now (finally) receiving as a front-runner. He ends with the following prediction, with which I agree.

Democrats are worried that the Obama spell will break between the time of his nomination and the time of the election, and deny them the White House. My guess is that he can maintain the spell just past Inauguration Day. After which will come the awakening. It will be rude.

The fact that the Democrats are worried that the spell will break before the election is troublesome -- and symptomatic of the fundamental problem both parties pose for America.

A real concern for what is best for America would have been manifested by the Democrats examining Obama very closely themselves long before he built up such momentum. But then this would have further entailed them questioning many of their most fundamental premises long before even that. (Some more deliberate Democrats have begun looking at him in more depth, but it may already be too late for them to stop him if they are dissatisfied.)

Like the Republicans, the Democrats adhere to the morality of altruism, although they still (slightly) more consistently accept its political consequence of collectivism, which ultimately requires government force to be directed against those individuals who must be immolated for "the greater good". And if one's political ends require forcing others to do one's bidding, one will become primarily concerned with obtaining and wielding political power.

And so we see the Democrats blindly jumping onto the "Obamnibus to Victory" (If I may join the neologism game.) without regard for whether all this talk of "change" really represents anything new or good, while the Republicans have found themselves with a candidate many openly despise, but for whom they will ultimately circle the wagons since he's "one of our guys".

What to do?

I have expressed the opinion here before that the Republicans, hardly standard-bearers for a proper government that protects individual rights when they are in power, are more useful to the cause of freedom as an opposition party, as we saw in the early years of the Clinton Presidency when they stopped socialized medicine. I have also noted that when in power, as the early years of the (second) Bush Presidency have shown, the GOP is now a party of big government. (And perhaps being out of power might cause them to re-think that position.)

Obama promises to attempt to unleash a body blow against the economy if elected:

Obama unveiled much of his economic strategy in Wisconsin this week: He wants to spend $150 billion on a green-energy plan. He wants to establish an infrastructure investment bank to the tune of $60 billion. He wants to expand health insurance by roughly $65 billion. He wants to "reopen" trade deals, which is another way of saying he wants to raise the barriers to free trade. He intends to regulate the profits for drug companies, health insurers, and energy firms. He wants to establish a mortgage-interest tax credit. He wants to double the number of workers receiving the earned-income tax credit (EITC) and triple the EITC benefit for minimum-wage workers.

...

The Wall Street Journal's Steve Moore has done the math on Obama's tax plan. He says it will add up to a 39.6 percent personal income tax, a 52.2 percent combined income and payroll tax, a 28 percent capital-gains tax, a 39.6 percent dividends tax, and a 55 percent estate tax.

And our "alternative" is the green, national servitude-supporting (Why coin terms with just Obama's name?), anti-free speech McCain!

Ignoring, for the sake of argument, how much McCain will enable religious conservatives to continue building strength within his party (which may make him worse than Obama), there is no substantive difference between these candidates, except that we know McCain to be against freedom of speech (which makes him worse if Obama does not also oppose freedom of speech).

Now, with Obama openly stating that he favors big government and perhaps also having questionable patriotism (But see the comments.), while McCain, hiding behind the flag as a war hero, smuggles in big government when he isn't openly moving his party in that direction, who will do less harm as President? The one more likely to be thwarted by stiff opposition and, when successful, to not easily direct the blame onto what is capitalism in our political-economic system.

That man, I am sad to say, is Barack Obama. It is sad that with the prospect of John McCain being President that we have to hope for an accident in the form of a cult of personality -- or a Michael Bloomberg run -- to come to the rescue.

This election is shaping up to be an Obamination, pure and simple. Let's just hope that we do wake up come Inauguration Day.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Added parenthetical comment regarding Obama's patriotism.

Quick Roundup 302

Special Edition of Objectivist Carnival

Kendall J hosts this week's roundup of Objectivist bloggers over at The Crucible & Column. This week's theme is "Best of 2007".

Why "Cornering the Market" is So Hard

The next time you hear someone complaining about the fact that companies in a free market can attempt to nickel and dime consumers through vendor lock-in, stop them dead with this example (HT: Glenn Reynolds) of capitalism coming to the rescue:

Printers are sold using the razor blade business model -- the printers are dirt cheap, but you have to keep buying ink for eternity. And wouldn't you know, it turns out that printer ink, especially for photos, is probably the most expensive substance per volume you'll ever buy....

[T]o stave off competition from low-cost generic refill cartridges, the industry giants circled their wagons and began putting chips into their printers and cartridges to make it so that you had to buy their brand. Lawsuits on both sides have since raged fast and free....

Even at barebones prices, it's now far cheaper to order prints through Flickr, Shutterfly or iPhoto, or if you need them in a hurry, from your local Wal-Mart, Walgreens or even mom-and-pop photo store. At my local drugstore, a small chain, if you order more than 100 prints, they’re 15 cents each and available in a couple hours on archival paper with archival ink. And I can put my order through online. Compare that with the cost of photo paper, ink (which in my case, by the way, has to be used at least once every couple weeks or it dries out) and the time involved, and my venerable i70 simply can't compete. [bold added]

I really, really hate vendor lock-in and avoid it whenever I can. But far be it from me to attack the right of an entire industry to open the doors wide open to unanticipated competition by charging ridiculous prices!

But remember, refuting a common misconception about the ability of capitalism to deliver the goods at cheap prices is no substitute for defending it on moral grounds.

The Impending Collapse of Venezuela?

And speaking of the morality of altruism trumping practical considerations, reader Dismuke points out an eloquent example: recent events and trends in Venezuela.

[A]s if lost in its own incompetence, the Government has decided to hand an empty shell to whomever or whatever is the opposition when this all self-destructs. Except that this is spiraling down so fast, that while they may be thinking they can survive for at least a year, their own actions will precipitate their own and revolutionary demise before the dawn of 2009.

This is the final paragraph. The rest reads like it was lifted straight out of Atlas Shrugged.

-- CAV

The Science of Deception

Via Arts and Letters Daily is a fascinating article about lying, which reminds me a little about a study of ravens I once encountered there in that it considers the issue from the perspective of what it says about cognitive development.

Although we think of truthfulness as a young child's paramount virtue, it turns out that lying is the more advanced skill. A child who is going to lie must recognize the truth, intellectually conceive of an alternate reality, and be able to convincingly sell that new reality to someone else. Therefore, lying demands both advanced cognitive development and social skills that honesty simply doesn't require. "It's a developmental milestone," Talwar has concluded. [bold added]

As with the cunning avian scavengers, we see that lying requires a child to have a conception of another's mind distinct from his own, a significant cognitive milestone that is easy for adults to take for granted.

The article gets even more interesting later on, in part because the findings it reports -- and how the scientists interpret them (up to a point) -- are interesting, and in part because of how seriously the usefulness of the results stands to be compromised by the conventional wisdom regarding certain philosophical issues.

As an example of the latter, the article speaks at one point of indiscriminate lying being more or less "socialized out of" children by a certain age, and speaks of the following "demonstration" that social pressure is more important than objective reality in curtailing it:

[S]ometimes the researcher will read the child a short storybook before she asks about the peeking. One story read aloud is The Boy Who Cried Wolf -- the version in which both the boy and the sheep get eaten because of his repeated lies. Alternatively, they read George Washington and the Cherry Tree, in which young George confesses to his father that he chopped down the prized tree with his new hatchet. The story ends with his father's reply: "George, I'm glad that you cut down the tree after all. Hearing you tell the truth instead of a lie is better than if I had a thousand cherry trees."

Now, which story do you think reduced lying more? When we surveyed 1,300 people, 75 percent thought The Boy Who Cried Wolf would work better. However, this famous fable actually did not cut down lying at all in Talwar's experiments. In fact, after hearing the story, kids lied even a little more than normal. Meanwhile, hearing George Washington and the Cherry Tree -- even when Washington was replaced with a nondescript character, eliminating the potential that his iconic celebrity might influence older kids -- reduced lying a sizable 43 percent in kids. Although most kids lied in the control situation, the majority hearing George Washington told the truth.

The shepherd boy ends up suffering the ultimate punishment, but the fact that lies get punished is not news to children. Increasing the threat of punishment for lying only makes children hyperaware of the potential personal cost. It distracts children from learning how their lies affect others. In studies, scholars find that kids who live in threat of consistent punishment don't lie less. Instead, they become better liars, at an earlier age -- learning to get caught less often.

Ultimately, it's not fairy tales that stop kids from lying -- it's the process of socialization. But the wisdom in The Cherry Tree applies: According to Talwar, parents need to teach kids the worth of honesty, just like George Washington's father did, as much as they need to say that lying is wrong. [bold and link added]

Rereading the fable of the Cherry Tree indicates that the full extent of George Washington's father's teaching "the worth of honesty" was in expressing approval for the truth. Showing a respect for the truth is important, but not simply because lying "affects others".

Ultimately -- as most adults grasp on some level as shown by which fable they thought would be effective -- lying is wrong because, as Ayn Rand once put it, the need to concoct new lies to cover old ones results in an all-out war against the very thing one must apprehend in order to live and flourish: reality. In short, lying ultimately harms the liar himself.

The counterintuitive results here tell me not that there isn't enough "socialization" (whatever that is) of children, but that while deception might be a cognitive landmark, an even higher level of development is an understanding of why honesty is moral and practical. Popularly, the moral and the practical are, thanks to altruism, regarded as unrelated and even antithetical. Furthermore, anyone who still has a conscience in such a milieu will act often on what he thinks is moral when there is a conflict. The kids learned only a little about the value of honesty and were mainly shamed into being more honest by the fable of the tree.

I think that the odd results here are due to the fact that the connection between the apparently inconsequential lying called for by these studies and the whoppers seen in "The Boy Who Cried 'Wolf'" is too abstract for most children to grasp, and so they continue to lie in unimportant circumstances. On the other hand, many children have not fully grasped altruism (or how anti-life it is), still want to be good, and want their parents' approval, hence the fable of the cherry tree is more effective.

Reared by parents whose professed moral code conflicts with the requirements for their own survival, most children will end up rejecting lying -- including self-deception -- sometimes when its consequences are obviously impractical and adopting it at other times as a survival strategy when "morality" is "too impractical".

And thus it is that so many children are prevented by their parents and teachers however well-meaning, from reaching an important further milestone in their development: a grasp of the highly abstract moral and practical case for honesty.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Corrected a typo.