Nate,
>
> Have you considered that you might be infected with the Objectivism mind virus?
>
> Richard
>
Very astute of you to notice that my good sir! However from my
perspective I'd say I was instead cured of the meme virus of
subjectivism! In true randoid fasion allow me to give you a quote from a
book I'm working on. This is the bad guy talking:
"When I was a little boy I used to wonder if mental illness could be
contagious like some diseases are contagious. The answer is yes. All you
need is a bad meme that doesn’t seem bad to the typical person and there
you have it : the mental equivalent of a virus. To get a really rotten
mental infection going you build into the meme an overwhelming desire to
spread the meme. You’ve seen it before. Your typical fundamentalist is a
good example.
"I suppose I have to define what I mean by a mental illness before I go
on any further. Our brains have evolved by nature to judge and evaluate
reality. Those brains which did a lousy job of that task simply died. A
healthy mind is one which approximates to the best extent possible a
world view that fits snugly with the world as it actually is. Your
subjective view of nature in close agreement with objective nature in
other words. As you can see the state of the world now consists of a lot
of unhealthy minds.
"There was a time in which this healthy view was the commonplace. It
was known as the enlightenment. For a brief period in mankind’s
existence ,objective reality was the idea which was the commonplace ,
reason the only valid means to knowledge in the average mind. With such
a view commonplace it was only natural for men to think they had a right
to think and everything that that entailed. America was born in that
era. If you want to know what the right to think entails read the
constitution . They got most of it right.
"The enlightenment did come to an end however. There were too many
people infected with the meme of superstition who wanted to make sure
others were equally infected. One particularly brilliant fellow so
infected with the deadly meme of superstition or subjectivism was
Immanuel Kant. Brought up in a strict religious environment he knew that
it was either reason or God. One could not exist with the other. A lot
of people have tried to prove otherwise but Kant knew better, the
problem was he choose to throw out reason ! He did a good job of it that
fellow. Got to give him credit , anybody who could use reason to destroy
reason and be taken seriously at all is quite an achievement in the art
of deception . This learned philosopher almost single-handily brought an
end to the age of enlightenment. He didn’t kill reason outright he just
said it was “limited” , that there was something “higher.” That’s
where he left the door open for any would be tyrant to walk through. All
that the tyrant had to do was claim he had access to that “higher” form
of knowledge and the fool who believed him would have to let him in."