Recently, I have had the great pleasure of making the acquaintance of a remarkable young lady from New Zealand. She grew up in China, but has become a stalwart individualist, all the while being a very sweet and thoughtful young lady. She has made some recent perceptive comments on some of my postings here and goes by the appellation of Miss Breeziness.
Being thoughtful, she has noticed that there are surprisingly large numbers of people who do not have a very high regard for most people. I have made posts in recent times which have emphasized the fact that the liberals or socialists, particularly the radical environmentalists, often do not care for the interests of man. In discussions of human sexuality in my older posts, I discussed the misanthropy of many conservative and religious persons. In my discussions of benevolence and toleration, I noted problems of misanthropy among Objectivists and libertarians. But, Miss Breeziness has put the entire big picture on misanthropy in all these segments of the political spectrum of viewpoints into one well-written essay called "A Study of the Misanthropic Mind" with her own uniquely gentle, yet incisive style. I highly recommend that you take the time to read her essay.
I hope she will continue writing on such interesting topics, as well as visiting here to comment on my postings and to offer her own insights on the topics discussed here. Thanks, Miss Breeziness!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
6 comments:
Why...thank you. :)
I am terribly flattered that you found my "essay" worth linking to. As I've said before, it was more of a rant!
Hey, I think you might enjoy the writings of Callum McPetrie, a young boy from Wellington, New Zealand - same country I'm from. He is only 15, but has already decided he's a libertarian. Some of his essays rank up there with the best of adult writers.
Call it a rant if you wish, but it was well thought out and well-written. If you can write so well when you are ranting, then I sure would like to encourage you to sit down and write some essays or commentaries that you are willing to invest some serious time in doing.
Callum McPetrie's blog is indeed interesting. Quite impressive really. We sure could use more young people like him in the U. S.
Actually, maybe this kind of "rant" is the best I can do. I don't really feel like writing essays, but I would like to write fiction.
Callum is absolutely brilliant, but I'm a bit disappointed that he's running with a bunch of Objectivists who are sometimes not that benevolent.
Well I like good fiction too. By all means, then knock us out with some great stories!
Sometimes youth wants wisdom, though it has considerable intelligence. Some intelligent people develop wisdom in time, so never do. Intelligence can be a tool for doing both good and bad, while wisdom is using one's intelligence to do good things.
I know a very good man who became quite wise at a fairly young age, who nonetheless said that when he first came across Ayn Rand's works in high school his biggest delight was the complete and utter destruction of the arguments of socialists and of their egos. He loved the power itself at first. In time he became a very tolerant and benevolent Objectivist.
To be honest, I would like to write fantasy stories. But I'm not very well read. All the great fantasy writers, Rowling, Tolkien etc, have read lots of great fantasy from the past, and draws inspiration from them.
Maybe I just need to read more, then. It would be worth it.
I'm glad to hear that your friend became a benevolent Objectivist in the end. Believe me, I've had my unbenevolent and intolerant moments, plenty of them. I hope I've matured. I think I have. And, to be honest, I also enjoyed Rand's demolition of socialists and their ideas. Even though, for me, it was more the joy of having my heavy chains snapped.
I hope Callum will also mature into a benevolent and tolerant person. There's lots of time for that - after all, he's only 15 right now. (I'm not saying that he's not that kind of person right now, I'm just worried about the influence of some of his peers.) Also, not all of the Objectivists in that group are unbenevolent, so maybe he'll end up being more like the nice guys.
Besides which, reading is just plain fun, right?
It would be fun to write fiction. I have never given it a serious try, but I am sure it would be fun. Basically, you need a good story with conflicts in values and goals, you need interesting characters who really have a complex individuality, and you need to draw strongly on your own unique perceptions and observations. Oh, so simple, right?
Sure, there is joy in demolishing liberal arguments, but we need to remember that in most cases, it is not our purpose to demolish the person. Then there are those so-called Objectivists who love demolishing others who are interested in learning Objectivism. I have seen a great many of them on various Objectivist websites. They lend credence to the claim that Objectivists are cultists and it often seems that they want to keep the number of Objectivists small, perhaps in hopes that this will make it easier for them to be counted among the elite. Such people treat Objectivism as though it were a dogma, in many cases. Of course, the requirement for independent thought in Objectivism means that anyone who is not rational and who is not an individualist is also not really an Objectivist. There are a great many impostors out there and many of them are so worried they will be found out, that they are a mean lot.
We form our character with many daily decisions. We are constantly presented with opportunities to think independently, to behave decently, and to create something of value to ourselves and very likely for others with similar interests and values. From this multitude of daily decisions, we form our character and express our values. We have learned this, but many people are less aware of it than they should be.
Post a Comment