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Enneagram Type 5 Board Archive Well, DEECEE and Pork came closestPosted by Mikko (193.234.247.51) on May 31, 2002 at 03:58:50: In Reply to: What do communism and objectivism have in common? posted by Mikko (193.234.247.51) on May 30, 2002 at 13:36:34: To what I had in mind, that is. Communism was inspired by huge differences in the living conditions and rights of people of different classes. Its basic aim was to give everyone an equally good chance in life. Objectivism was inspired by the negative effects of communism. (I don't if Rand has ever said anything about this, but knowing her personal history it must've been a significant factor) Both are very idealistic systems, while being very restrictive individually as well. Both have a basic requirement that makes them impossible to apply in the real world. They require that people change their very basic nature. Communism requires that people make feelings and tendencies such as jealousy and competitiveness and the desire to have something for themselves alone disappear from their psychological makeup. Objectivism requires that people lose either their desire to give or bond unconditionally or their desire to gain personal good by any means they can. Or both. The communist pipe dream was that people could share everything. The objectivist pipe dream is that people can control their selfishness and subject themselves to collective ruling. (I must point out here that I've learned most of what I know about objectivism from Isaac, and if his view is inaccurate, so is mine) But that's not all. In every society throughout history there have been people who think differently, challenge prevailing thoughts and attitudes. There have also been people who want to bend to rules to gain more than they otherwise could. According to Isaac an objectivistic society (actually now I'm confused, I'm pretty sure he has used that term but has later on denied the existance of the society as a thing with a nature of its own? Well, anyways) would be the ideal one. There would be no confusion about obligations, who has to do what, who benefits, and no waste of human resources, if I've understood correctly. That was also true of the communist society, before anyone actually tried to establish one. Something went wrong and that something is the idealistic point of view that the best human qualities could be extended to cover every facet of society without any problems related individuals' personalities, practical application of of some abstractly fine ideals and human nature in general. Objectivism suffers from the same problems. I've read comments along the lines "In an Objectivistic society people could be selfish, because it would be clearly defined by law when someone is committing an initation of force, which is punishable and not acceptable." Who would define those laws? Who would make sure the people passing the laws and enforcing them aren't corrupted? How would changing to an Objectivistic view of the world change the basic human nature? How would make sure the ideals themselves wouldn't become corrupted and denied? An Objectivistic world might be a perfect one in theory, but in theory a Communist world was more or less perfect as well.
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