I am tempted to do a "name and shame"

[fpb]

Minutes after I had posted about dignity and honesty, I meet with the exact opposite. A (former) friend had posted that the current writer's strike in Hollywood seemed "Ayn Randian" to him, because the writers had brought the industry to a halt by withdrawing their brains. Now that seemed like nonsense to me. I reminded him that what was going on was called trades-unionism, and that Rand did not have much time for that sort of thing. Yes, you know, unionism - the kind of thing that Reaganthatcher was supposed to have consigned to the dustbin of history?

And that was it. Nothing personal; no insults; only a disrespectful reference to a few conservative idols whom everyone knows I have no time for.

So I wake to find my comment deleted and myself banned.

Wow, laddie, that is really brave. That shows integrity, belief in your convinctions, and confidence in your ability to defend them. That absolutely does not suggest that you are terrified that all your ideologies may be built on sand.

Comments

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Hmm, actually

1) It does seem Randian, and

2) Rand opposed union violence -- I'm not so sure that she opposed unions as bargaining entities.

But they were wrong to ban you.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, you see, that is a point we could argue. I think that what we are seeing is the full deployment of union power as it has always been - the association of employees, using not only the withdrawal of their own labour but the more or less willing cooperation of other employees (think of George Clooney's refusal to cross a picket line) to answer a case of employer bullying. I do not think that it is particularly significant that the workers in question are writers; and I think that your argument founders upon the fact that the creative intelligences who withdraw their services from society in Randian mythology are the employers - the wealthy, the capitalists. In effect, Rand describes the very reverse of a strike: in her world, it is the capitalists who, just as they provide labour to the brutish masses, so are entitled to withhold it from them if they find themselves incommodated. IN real life, this sort of thing is called a lock-out, and it happens. But I think the resemblance to a strike is superficial.

However, you are perfectly justified in taking a different view. What is not justified is just refusing to argue the point. It shows a lack of belief in the strength of one's arguments.

[notebuyer.livejournal.com]

In each case, it was the creative ones who were "on strike" (and that may be the only Ayn Rand point). Its superficial resemblance is only superficial if you accord some difference in quality to the two withdrawals: and I see that you do. Somehow capital (stored labor which enables current labor to produce more than it would unaided) is different than current labor in its withdrawal.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I would rather say that only Ayn Rand could possibly imagine that most rich people were in any way creative or even enterprising.

[notebuyer.livejournal.com]

The rest of us have to observe it?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

What is the percentage of people who deserved their wealth, let alone made it in a creative and novel way? Bill Gates (whom everybody hates)... Warren Buffett... er... um. My view (and I have posted about this) is that a major and increasing percentage of rich people are rich because they inherit wealth and position, or because they are part of a social network that occupies the top ranks of big business, politics and related fields. The notion that wealth has anything inherently to do with achievement is, to say the least, very hard to prove.

Again?

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

What is this, the tenth time?

Re: Again?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Third or fourth that I know of. And people who go online ought not to be afraid of disagreement.

Re: Again?

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

That's true, but this is beginning to be like the story about the driver.

Re: Again?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

My dear Rebecca, this LJ is called "reflections of a stormy petrel" for a reason. Of course people will defriend me from time to time - if anything, it happens less often than I expect it. I am the sort of person with whom people quarrel, and who quarrels with people. I know that. Even if I wanted an easy life, I know better by now than to expect it. However, I do see a difference between fighing fairly and acting like a self-serving sneak.

Re: Again?

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

*Sigh* I suppose ... but I worry about you.

Re: Again?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I worry about you too, sometimes. You have a tough enough row to hoe to waste time worrying about me. Now just have a *hug* and forget about it. This particular person is not important enough - I mean, to me - to lose sleep over. I mean, it's not like when I broke up with kennahijja. Ye'll gae yuir way and I'll gae mine, and I'' be in Scotland afore ye - and good luck with the rest of your life (I don't mean you in particular - if I quarrelled with you, now, I definitely would not like it).

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

People tend to be pretty irrational about politics these days. I think it's because many don't have much to identify with these days except political alliances. I'm not saying that makes it okay; I think it's wormy and weak-minded of those who can't distinguish between a disagreement about public policy issues and an attack on their identity.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I quite agree. That is not to say that serious political differences do not make any social contact, let alone friendship, difficult: but we should not assume that they will. After all, GB Shaw and GK Chesterton were close friends, and as wide apart in politics and religion as anyone can very well be.

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

Sure: if people have any depth at all they will care deeply about stuff, and that will sometimes make for deep disagreements that are hard to talk around. I have a sense that many people interacting online are doing so at a much shallower level, though, fighting over shibboleths rather than ideas. That may be my own lack of charity or insight speaking, though.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That is probably the case. But it hardly began with the Net, you know. I think it was Dr. Johnson who said something like: "There must be thousands of fit young fellows in England today who hate Popery without knowing whether it is animal, vegetable or mineral". Many people use the violence of their feelings to convince themselves - and their opponents - that they are serious and well-rooted, when they are nothing of the kind.

Over-reactions

[culturalnomad.livejournal.com]

All I know about the Hollywood writer's strike is what I haven't been able to avoid because it has been in the news headlines. I only have a passing acquaintance with Ayn Rand's views. And I have mixed feelings about trade-unionism. But I have had experiences similar to yours with someone deleting comments I've made because I happened to express a view contrary to his own.

My brother has a Live Journal. Fortunately, most of what he writes is about things I'm not interested in, but occasionally there is something that sparks a response from me. I write something, but he misunderstands and takes offence at what he THINKS I said. His response often bears little relation to what I've actually said. I write to try to clarify and he gets even more upset. Before long, he deletes most or all of what I've said. He always insists it is not because I have disagreed with his position but because I have "violated 'netiquette'" in some way. But the "sins" he accuses me of are usually based on a misunderstanding of what I actually wrote, and he also does things on my LJ similar to what he accuses me of having done on his.

Isn't sibling rivalry -- at ages 50+ -- wonderful! (Not!)