Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Objectivist Round Up - The New Years Edition!

Welcome to the New Years Edition of the Objectivist Round Up.

In this season of celebrations, parties and other festivities I'm reminded of the passage in Atlas Shrugged where Dagny talks to her Mother after her coming out party...

When Dagny turned, Mrs. Taggart saw only puzzled helplessness in her face; the face was calm, but something about it made Mrs. Taggart wish she had not wished her Daughter should discover sadness.
"Mother do they think its exactly in reverse?" she asked.
"What?" asked Mrs. Taggart, bewildered.
"The things you were talking about. The lights and the flowers. Do they expect those things to make them romantic, not the other way around?"


That sort of emotional abdication, of relying on the moment instead of what we as individuals bring to it is especially prevalent the holiday season. But as we enter a New Year we ought to remember that every day, every hour, minute and second is like that... worthless, unless we put our soul into it.

Happy New Years everyone!

Now without further ado, The Objectivist Round Up!

Kate Yoak presents Abortion: Making the choice posted at Parenting is....
Saying... "Drawing from my recent personal experience, I have decided to brave the subject of pregnancy termination and the principles in making that decision. "

Zip presents UNCOMMON SENSE: The Face of Anarchy posted at UNCOMMON SENSE.
Saying... "A post prompted by the excess of violence perpetrated by Anarchists at the G20 meetings in Toronto this summer."

Diana Hsieh presents Announcing Colorado's March MiniCon: SnowCon! posted at NoodleFood.
Saying... "Front Range Objectivism will be hosting a weekend conference in March in Colorado! Come join the fun!"

Kelly Valenzuela presents The Racist Roots of Anti-Immigration Activism Part III: Lies, Damn Lies and NumbersUSA posted at Mother of Exiles.
Saying... "Santiago Valenzuela finishes up the three part series."

Rational Jenn presents Rational Jenn: Parenting Principles posted at Rational Jenn.
Saying... "My favorite post of 2010. This post represents the culmination of years of thinking about and practicing applying Objectivism to parenting. And it's only a start, really, at outlining the premises and principles that my husband and I are raising our children by."

Kelly Valenzuela presents The Racist Roots of Anti-Immigration Activists Part I posted at Mother of Exiles.
Saying... ""Best of" post from Mother of Exiles by Santiago Valenzuela."

Kelly Valenzuela presents OCON on the Cheap posted at Rant from the Rock.
Saying... ""Best of" selection: Whether you go for the conference or to vacation and socialize with like-minded people or all three, you can do OCON on the cheap!"

Miranda Barzey presents Myers-Briggs Personality Types as a Tool for Introspection and Extrospection posted at Building Atlantis.
Saying... "How learning about Myers-Briggs personality types improved my understanding of myself and others, thus improving my relationships."

Benjamin Skipper presents Divorcing Time from Work posted at Musing Aloud.
Saying... "Have you ever thought that there isn't enough time in the day to get things done? Maybe it's because you're viewing your days in isolated chunks."

Benjamin Skipper presents Garbage Writing posted at Musing Aloud.
Saying... "A somewhat common occurrence for me is that sometimes I'll run into an article where I simply cannot do any brainstorming. Out of frustration I oftentimes go ahead and work to construct the piece anyhow, much of the time knowing I'll just destroy it immediately, and in this I have accidentally discovered the technique of writing "garbage copies.""

John Drake presents Developing habits, part 2 posted at Try Reason!.
Saying... "In this post, I detail some virtues/habits for cultivating in the new year. "

Gene Palmisano presents Sacred Cows posted at The Metaphysical Lunch.
Saying... "The place to cut government spending should start with foreign aid. This blog was written prior to the WSJ article exposing the Afghanistan government for funding the Taliban with American foreign aid dollars."

Jenn Casey and Kelly Elmore present Cultivating the Virtues Podcast #2: Temperament posted at Cultivating the Virtues.
Saying... "This is one of our favorite podcasts of the year."

Noah Stahl presents Out with Denial, in with Adult Conversation? posted at The Undercurrent Blog.
Saying... "Should the government treat Americans as independent adults with the freedom that entails, or should we be treated like children and forced to support one another through taxes and debt imposed upon us by Washington?"

Jason Stotts presents Best of 2010 posted at Erosophia.
Saying... "This post contains 10 of my best essays from 2010. There were a lot of good options this year and I think these represent the best of the best. I hope you enjoy them."

Kelly Elmore presents Thoughts on the Hierarchy of Knowledge posted at Reepicheep's Coracle.
Saying... "I often hear that unschooling, free-schooling, and life-learning violate the hierarchy of knowledge. This post looks at what the hierarchy of knowledge is (according to Ayn Rand and to me) and answers these objections to child-led learning."

Ari Armstrong presents James Discusses New Mars Novel posted at Free Colorado.
Saying... "Thomas James discusses his new hard sci-fi novel about Mars, 'In the Shadow of Ares.'"

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Christmas

I think too many people expect "Christmas" to have some sort of profound effect on people as if the day has some sort of intrinsic spirit, when it is just another day, and the only "spirit" the day can have is a direct reflection of the spirit we give it. But having fostered completely unrealistic expectations people end up pissed off and disheartened that "everyone" is still exactly what and how and who they were throughout the year.

Here is my advice on Christmas... Use the day and the season to celebrate those people who you value. Don't worry about all of mankind... we are not all in this together. We are all individuals and as individuals we have to make rational value judgments about the people in our lives. That means the ones you deal with every day, your loved ones as well as that "idiot" that bumped into you without an apology when you were shopping.

Remember, you will have no more in common with the drug addled thief downtown on Dec 25th than you did for the rest of the year, and just because its Christmas it does not mean that his evil actions deserve to be forgiven, nor conversely do they become more evil because of the season.

It's Christmas. Buy something nice for someone nice, spend time with the people you love. Be good to yourself.

You want to know the best part about that idea? If everyone did it, if everyone rationally and selfishly chose to celebrate the people and things in their own lives that made life worth living (every day and all year) then there really would be peace on earth, and we'd get it without anyone telling us the way we got it was wrong or evil.