Context and Optional Values

Jennifer Snow, reacting to a recent post of mine, brings up an issue that I have seen cause difficulties countless times, and not just among Objectivists, although it is within that context that she speaks of the issue.

I have extremely limited patience with other Objectivists telling me that I'm engaging in even mild immorality because of my choice of clothing, speech pattern, or (criminy) sport. I think there are enough things out there that are a lot more closely affiliated with irrationality than any game could ever manage to be.

I can understand this impatience! Lots of people new to Objectivism screw this up, not that this isn't an issue that is inherently difficult, and probably made more so by the intellectual practice of dropping context that our culture makes it very hard not to absorb.

Along those lines, I have seen positive and negative examples of this type of error in my (this October) two decades of familiarity with the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Two in particular stand out as highly rationalistic misapplications of Objectivism. One guy I knew took up smoking, at least in part because Ayn Rand (and some of her fictional characters) did. He was up to a couple of packs a day the last time I checked. Another acquaintance was a physical fitness nut who regarded overweight people on sight as immoral.

Both smoking and the degree of physical fitness someone pursues are optional values. The former can, far more easily than most, become hazardous to one's health (and a moral issue) if it is overindulged while the latter easily can, if underindulged. Any value can become dangerous if pursued to a degree incompatible with one's own well-being, but I think that with optional values, it is especially easy to misjudge the moral appropriateness of someone's pursuit of said value for a couple of reasons. (That "someone" can be oneself or another person, of course.)

With the case of clothing, both of the reasons I have in mind frequently apply. First, since most people have no trouble dressing to the degree needed to protect themselves from the environment, their choices end up being made for such reasons as comfort and aesthetics. Second, there are also many social considerations that come into play due to the fact that clothing is a form of nonverbal communication. (Not all optional values are forms of nonverbal communication, but most have some social repercussions of one kind or another.)

Consider this news story about how black men who want to become successful businessmen have to adjust themeselves to business culture.

Every day, black men consciously work to offset stereotypes about them -- that they are dangerous, aggressive, angry. Some smile a lot, dress conservatively and speak with deference: "Yes, sir" or "No, ma'am."

They are mindful of their bodies, careful not to dart into closing elevators or stand too close in grocery stores.

...

One selective business program at historically black Hampton University in Virginia directs black men to wear dark, conservative suits to class. Earrings and dreadlocked hairstyles are forbidden.

Their appearance is "communicating a signal that says you can go into more places," said business school dean Sid Credle.

So are these men, as James Weldon Johnson might put it, selling their "birthright for a mess of pottage"? Are they, as many new to Objectivism might wonder, becoming Peter Keatings? Of course not! These are men who share positive values, like hard work and long-range planning, with their larger society and are merely making it clear that they do so. They individually may or may not prefer to wear dreadlocks or athletic wear, but they recognize that these things could very easily convey to most whites that they might prefer some of the more pathological aspects of black American culture.

To put more clearly what they are doing: Communicating seriousness to business associates is more important to these men than adopting the latest fashions among other blacks. These are men with a rational hierarchy of values. Someone who, say, shows up for a job interview at a bank in dreadlocks, is certainly free to do so, but the consequences -- that the interviewer will question his work ethic thanks to the laziness and criminality exhibited by too many other people with the same fashion sense -- will be his to bear.

This is not to say that one should become a total conformist. In the above examples, men merely want their seriousness to be understood. But in this example, we see someone making exactly the wrong decision with regards to an optional value.

Maria Sharapova is under orders from her agent not to talk about her stamp collection. Why? Because "everyone's calling me a dork now," she says.

"We're getting e-mails from stamp collecting magazines asking if I can do an interview," said Sharapova, who is in London competing at Wimbledon. "It's just a hobby.

"I'm actually good telling stories, but that is one I should have never talked about. Let's get off the subject because I'm going to be an absolute geek tomorrow."

I would submit that a more creative agent would find a way for Maria Sharapova to increase her appeal based on her hobby, rather than kowtowing to one of the more negative aspects of our popular culture: Its hatred of anything even remotely cerebral. There are quite a few men out there, myself included, who love it when we see women whose beauty is more than skin deep.

Let me be the first man to shout this into the ether: Stamp collecting is sexy! Meekness is frumpy. Fire your agent, Miss Sharapova, and enjoy your hobby.

Of what value is fame or fandom if it involves one's pretending not to enjoy something one loves? Especially if what goes into the hobby speaks well of oneself? What's worse is that Maria Sharapova's hobby has nothing to do with whether she will become or remain famous! Here we have someone whose fame is assured because it rests on proven ability, who is letting that fame become a prison -- to the expectations of the lowest common denominator -- rather than confidently showing off a very interesting part of who she is and thereby perhaps making the pastime she loves even more popular!

But no, it is apparently more important for Miss Sharapova to tell the world that she's really just another dumb blonde who happens to be able to hit a tennis ball. Too bad.

I have just barely begun to scratch the surface of the interesting topic of the morality of optional values, but it should be clear that, as with any other moral judgement, one must take into account the context of the person making the choices. Specifically, does a person have a rational hierarchy of values?

How one dresses or what hobbies one pursues are optional values, neither of which should detract from other, more important goals. If I were to show most people a picture of a black man in gold chains, loose-fitting clothing, and a backwards baseball cap; and a picture of Maria Sharapova with her stamp collection, and then ask for a snap moral judgement, guess who would usually come out on top? But if the former is a successful stockbroker on his day off and the latter hides her hobby as if it were a dope addiction,would you change your mind? I would.

-- CAV