Turning Over a New Leaf
I am overly optimistic about my future. When I plan things, I base my expectations on everything coming out as well as possible. I know there are a lot of things I’m good at doing well and quickly, so I just take that into account and ignore all of my personal weaknesses and the little hiccoughs of real life and set my expectations way too high. I set myself up for failure when I could be achieving greatness.
I am a perfectionist. When I inevitably fail at a goal I have set out for myself, I see only the failure and none of the success. I feel like a single mistake, or even a setback outside of my control, completely invalidates my entire effort.
I am a procrastinator. A seriously bad procrastinator. I undertake tons of projects that I hardly even start working on, let alone complete. Of the responsibilities that I do actually fulfill, I’d say it’s 1 in 50 that I don’t put off until the very last minute. I have a whole slew of automatized behaviours and emotional responses that I’ve trained to make productive work as hard as possible, no matter how much I like or dislike the work at hand. I have passion, I have plans, I have ability, I could be great but instead I stretch minor issues into major excuses and make up excuses when there are none. I delude myself with my optimism and so feel OK about putting things off until the very last minute, and I use my perfectionism as an excuse to waste a whole day when I mess up one hour. This is why I left Atlanta: I recognized myself slipping into some of my serial procrastination patterns. I told my employer that, in the past, I had failed to overcome those behaviors and that I couldn’t guarantee that I would succeed this time, so they let me go. Most of the time, I do manage to pull through in the end when someone else is relying on me, but at a cost of high stress, low sleep, and reduced quality. I can’t even try to estimate how many times I’ve failed to pull through when it’s just me relying on me.
I am a liar. I have this image of myself that is based on my principles and how strongly I believe in them, my abilities, and my ambitions. It’s really my image of who I want to be, and I truly believe I can be that person someday, but I’m not yet. And so, when the truth of what I have done or failed to do threatens that image, I lie to myself and others about what happened. Sometimes, the lie is pointless, and no one would think any differently of me had I told the truth, but the habit of lying is so ingrained that I just tell the lie. Sometimes, the lie is to protect my image of myself. Sometimes, the lie is to avoid admitting I need help, because I have this irrational fear that if I need to get help with my problems then I will be a failure.
These are my major character flaws and bad decisions that I have made. Not to say that I don’t have other problems, but these are the significant ones. Yesterday, I reached a breaking point and decided it was time to choose to either live my life right (because I DO know what’s right, one of my positive attributes is a really strong, clear grasp of morality) or not live it at all. I was miserable with halfways, trying to make myself better without fully admitting there was something to fix. I decided that I wanted to live right, and the first step was to admit, to myself and others, exactly where I had been failing. I told Alyssa about the lying and set straight all the lies I could remember, and I plan to do so with all of my friends that I have lied to.
Yesterday was a turning point. I still have all the bad habits automatized, I still have to make up for the damage I’ve caused, but I truly believe I am a different person. Hiding and lying about this stuff to myself and others is so obviously much worse than whatever feared consequences of owning up to it, and in truth most of the feared consequences aren’t even real. I knew all that intellectually before, but having come clean about it I really believe it to my core. It’s weird, I’ve simultaneously given other people every reason not to trust me or think well of me and given myself reason to believe I have changed. I don’t expect to immediately have rational projections about my future, stop being overly critical of myself when I fail, stop putting things off, or stop wanting to lie to cover my mistakes, but I do believe that when those things do happen, I will acknowledge them to myself and relevant others and take the steps necessary to make up for it. I also believe that I will finally take the actions I need to reduce the negative pull my past actions have on my psychology, both in terms of helping myself and accepting help from others. This is going to sound really cheesily Objectivist of me, but it’s a little bit like I’ve finally taken a real hard look at the primary choice, chosen life, and after how hard that was and how much better things are that I’ve chosen it the rest seems easy. Not that there won’t be struggles, not that I won’t make individual bad choices, but that I’ve switched to a firm commitment to the good ones so I won’t be holding those back any more.
So. Those are the words, now here are the actions. By the time this post is published, I’ll have talked to my parents and my employer about this. For the time being, I will be reducing my life to eating, sleeping, getting therapy, my relationship with Alyssa, and my job. I will be changing my passwords on reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and my Google account, and putting them in a place where I have to undertake serious conscious effort to get them (or possibly give them to Alyssa to keep). I will pull back from my relationships with my friends and family for the time being, though I will still be reading my email in case anyone wants to reach out to me or ask about something they think I may have lied to them about. I will shelve my personal long-term projects, except the one I’m working on with my brother that has a few days’ work left in it. I will cut myself off from all entertainment sources except when I’m doing something with Alyssa (watching TV, reading, whatever). I will spend today looking for a therapist, removing all the distractions, and sitting down with Alyssa to plan out what needs to be worked on for the next few days, and will revisit all this then. I will try to keep a log of all of the good and the bad so that I have a more objective measure to look at to evaluate myself. I will slowly add back in other values when I have reason to believe I can handle them again. I will try to explicitly identify as many bad habits and emotional responses that I have and work to counteract them. I will try to explicitly identify as many good habits and responses that I have or want to have and work to ingrain them. If some or all of this fails, I will keep trying different things until my image of who I am matches the image of who I want to be, and I can look back at this time in my life and say “that’s not me anymore”.
This won’t be easy. I know I will struggle and fall and be hurt and feel helpless at times, but I also believe I can succeed and be who I want to be. The middle ground I’ve been walking is not an option any more, so I’m choosing to commit to a good, happy life, and the struggle will all be worth it.
My Divergence from Objectivism and Objectivists
I consider myself an Objectivist*, but there are some places where I disagree or, at least, don’t yet agree with Objectivism or with what many/most Objectivists think. I thought it might be fun to make a list of these issues, and maybe I’ll keep this up to date as my ideas grow and might eventually put links in to posts where I explain my views in more detail. Not all of these ideas are dealt with directly by Rand’s work, but for those that aren’t I believe my view differs from that of a significant portion of Objectivists, and that those Objectivists view the issue as an important philosophical one.
- I don’t think metaphysics on its own can tell us very much about cosmology or ontology, even to a greater extent than most Objectivists. For example, I don’t think we can say from philosophy alone whether the universe has finite spatial extent, whether the universe contains empty space or is completely filled with matter, whether instantaneous action at a distance is possible, or whether conscious awareness can play a special role in a fundamental physical theory. I do think all of these questions can be answered, and that many of them have been partially or totally answered by scientific study, but the answers cannot come from philosophy.
- I do not think all generalizations are fundamentally statements of causality. An important class of generalizations are, perhaps the most important class, but statements like “tables are furniture” and, even, “lightning is electrical discharge” are not statements of cause and effect (though they may have to be proven by identification of certain cause-effect relationships).
- I do not see that definitions are as important in the concept formation process as Rand did. I’m not convinced that they’re not as important as she thought, I just don’t see it (yet).
- I think Objectivists are libertarians.
- I disagree with the vast majority of the Objectivist sexual ethic. I think things like pornography (consumption and creation), casual sex, prostitution (selling and buying), non-monogamy both in terms of sexual partners and probably even in terms of life partners, and all sorts of kinks, fetishes, and orientations, even those that I might find extremely painful or disgusting, can all be moral in a wide variety of non-exceptional circumstances. This topic deserves its own blog post, and I just may write it some day.
- I think the gender roles that Rand’s theories of masculinity and femininity try to put people into (both in and out of bed) are rubbish. I think a women can rationally want to be president, that a man can be a primary caregiver, that transvestitism, transsexualism, and all sorts of gender-bending can be completely moral. In fact, I think most of the assumptions in our society about how a person’s genitals relate to their behaviour and preferences are largely fucked up and the fact that we need a concept for, for example, men who wear dresses is largely an indictment of our culture, not an indication about the nature of the behaviour itself. Also, while I do think that in cases of undetermined gender the singular masculine pronouns (e.g. “he”) are more grammatically appropriate than the third-person plural (e.g “they”), I think the word for person is “person” and not “man” and the word for people is “people” and not “men”.
- I think that the government must be the ultimate arbiter of retaliatory force, but not necessarily the only wielder of said force. For example, I think that a private individual who follows the proper procedures (e.g. obtaining warrants from a judge, following the proper limits on search and seizure, using only due force, announcing his presence, etc.) could be able to investigate crimes and even perform arrests. How such a system might work or whether the system would be preferable to the current one is not my point, my point is just that as long as there is a single entity ultimately responsible for determining the justice of the use of physical force the actual force-wielders need not be government agents. In particular this applies to military action: if there is a country where rights violations are occurring on a massive scale but there is no threat to your country or its citizens, I think there should be a path you can take to get together private volunteer forces, get your goals approved, and use force to stop the rights violations in the foreign country.
- I think that the “total war” view on warfare is completely mistaken. While I do think there are limits to the steps the military should take in preventing civilian casualties when attacking military targets, the idea that it’s moral to purposely target civilian centers is abhorrent. I think military actions like Sherman’s march to the sea are viciously unjust, and ideas like “the citizens are responsible for the actions of the government” and “the government couldn’t do what it’s doing without the support of its people” are extremely collectivist and completely ignorant of just how hard it is to change a government, especially a totalitarian one. I definitely don’t think things like building a mosque near ground zero or cheering in the streets after a terrorist attack are as such deserving of a forceful response.
- I don’t think an aesthetic view is fundamental in philosophy, and I don’t agree with Rand’s aesthetics. I don’t disagree with it either, I just don’t really have any views on the issue either way. I don’t get much out of painting, sculpture, architecture, or any other visual arts, and I’ve never understood how a philosophical understanding could deepen my appreciation of the arts I do care about (literature, television, film, theatre, and music).
- I do not think patents and copyrights, when awarded in a proper intellectual property framework (which I think we don’t have today), should have any limits on their duration.
- I think any clear term in a properly signed contract should be enforceable. This includes contracts in which one person makes himself a slave, a person promises to allow another to punch him, etc. How these terms should be enforced is a difficult matter: in the absence of an enforcement clause, I can see a fine or jail until the uncooperative participant allows the contract to be followed. I don’t think it’s reasonable for the courts to have to bear the burden of actually enforcing each term (e.g. holding a person still so the other can punch him), but I don’t in principle have an objection to a court issuing permission to the winner of a breach-of-contract case to use appropriate force himself to satisfy the terms of the contract. I think that if such a system were to be put in place, most contracts would (properly, IMO) include a clause specifying monetary damages in case of breach.
An Open Letter to Mohel Michael Henesch
This is an email I just sent to the mohel who performed my circumcision 21 years ago today. My goal in sending this was to show him the perspective of someone who wished he hadn’t been circumcised, so that he would understand what his profession could do and maybe so he would question his continued participation in the field. I’ve chosen to publish this openly for two reasons: So that my friends and family can understand how I feel personally about my circumcision (rather than just my intellectual position on circumcision in the abstract), and so that anyone out there who is considering performing a circumcision or having one performed might change their minds.
Before I get to the email, a few notes:
- The account includes personal descriptions involving my genitalia. While there is nothing graphically sexual and no pictures or anything, this may make some uncomfortable.
- I’m well aware that my parents had a significant role to play in my circumcision as well. I do not mean this letter to be construed as faulting only Rabbi Henesch. I am still not sure how to discuss this topic with my parents, or even if I should considering that they will not be in the position to circumcise another boy in the future.
- In the email, I used some transliterated Hebrew phrases that I can be sure Rabbi Henesch knows and that some of my readership doesn’t. Such phrases will be explained in square brackets; these brackets were not included in the original email.
Dear Rabbi Henesch,
You wouldn’t remember me, but 21 years ago you changed my life. Like most of your clients, I was eight days old at the time, so I doubt I was able to articulate my thoughts on the procedure. But now I’ve had a fair amount of time living with the effects of your work, and I’d like to share with you my perspective on what you did to me.
If you haven’t guessed by my tone, I wish I hadn’t been circumcised. I could show you studies that I believe demonstrate the deleterious effects of the procedure on infants, the costs to the adults that had the procedure done earlier in life, and the falsity of the supposed health benefits of circumcision, but I won’t. There are dedicated organizations that can convey that information far better than I could. What I have to offer you is my personal experience, the costs I believe your action has lead me to bear, in the hope that you might understand on a personal level the potential for harm that comes with your profession, and perhaps even consider leaving it. This account will be both physically and spiritually personal, but as someone who has had a permanent impact on my genitals I think we’re past those types of boundaries.
Almost every single day, for as long as I can remember, I have at one point or another felt discomfort in the tip of my penis. It doesn’t matter what type of undergarments I wear, if I wear pants or shorts, or whether I’m sedentary at a desk all day or out playing a sport: eventually, my penis will brush against something in an unpleasant way. It’s not a major discomfort or pain, but it’s there and it’s noticeable, and it doesn’t feel natural. It makes me feel like something is wrong, like something is somewhere it doesn’t belong, and there’s nothing at all like it for any other parts of my body that are covered in clothing all day. I can’t verify this personally, but apparently this is a problem that only happens to some circumcised men, and not to any intact ones. In fact, it is my understanding that intact men experience significantly less genital chafing in any circumstances. Regardless of the cause, the fact remains that most days I get a physical reminder of a fact of my biology that I strongly wish wasn’t so.
The permanently uncovered portions of my glans are calloused. They aren’t big callouses like might form on your hands, but the skin is thicker, tougher, and less sensitive than the skin of the glans still partially covered.
I have a scar around my penis, a visual reminder of what used to be there that I never knew. It’s not nearly as bad as some of the extreme examples of circumcisions gone wrong that I’ve seen, but it’s there and noticeable. It certainly doesn’t make me look more attractive than I otherwise would.
The area underneath the folded shaft skin that remains regularly collects dust, lint, and other foreign particles. Though I wash daily, it is fairly sticky and catches occasionally on my pubic hair or the cloth of my underwear, resulting in an unpleasant sensation when it becomes uncaught.
Sex and masturbation are less enjoyable than they could have been. I have good reason to believe, given the callouses I can feel and the physical sensitivity studies that I’ve read, that I am not capable of the same level and variety of physical pleasure that would have been available to me had I been left intact. I lose out on the sensation of loose skin sliding up and down my penis during intercourse or masturbation. My penis has less natural lubrication than it should. Sexual activity causes more friction than it should. Sexual activity is more likely to leave my penis feeling raw and sensitive for some time after the fact than it should. I am more likely to require supplemental lubrication for intercourse than I should. In particular, masturbation is more abrasive, less pleasurable, and overall more difficult than it should be (which, not incidentally, was one of the leading arguments that led to the rise in circumcision rates among non-Jewish Americans).
These physical problems are not insignificant, and I think they alone would be enough for me to regret what happened to me, but they pale in comparison to the spiritual problems. You see, Rabbi Henesch, I do not consider myself a religious Jew. Culturally, I still maintain some of the familial values and some practices, especially those that bring me closer to my family, but I do not believe in God and do not find spiritual or moral guidance from the Tanach [The Old Testament, including the Torah] or the Rabbis. I grew up going to shul [synagogue], celebrating the holidays, going to Sunday School, having a Bar Mitzvah [the Jewish coming-of-age, at 13 for boys], and even going to a Jewish Day School, yet today I am in almost complete control over the extent to which Jewish culture and Jewish religion play a role in my daily life. The exception is circumcision: For the rest of my life, I will have to live with a penis that was cut in the name of a covenant I did not agree to with a being I do not believe exists. I expect you are a civilized man and that you would balk at the idea of adults being forced to express belief in a system they have not personally chosen, whether that expression comes in the form of a requirement to wear a cross around your neck or even a requirement that all who were born Jewish wear the tallit katan [a four-cornered garment with long fringes that is worn under everyday clothing]. Yet that is what the circumcision ritual does: it forces one participant, someone who has just barely opened his eyes to see the world, to bear a permanent, irreversible mark of the religion of the other participant. The Jewish cultural practices I’ve chosen to keep remind me of the goodness and greatness that comes from some aspects of Judaism. The physical modification I cannot change reminds me of all of the bad that helped lead me to reject it as a whole.
At one point, not too long ago, I hated you. I wanted to rage at you, to extract justice from you, to make you explain yourself. But I understand now. I understand how you could have chosen your profession, how you could have chosen to do this to me. Circumcision is viewed as a badge of honor in Judaism, is seen as fundamental to many aspects of the religion, and has a history of being a symbol for the autonomy that the Jews have held on to in the face of tyrannical governments and cultures that have conquered them in the past. I do not condone it, but I can understand why someone raised in that culture might view your job as holy and celebrated, and never even question the possible downsides. But now, you don’t have that luxury. You’ve seen the other side of the issue and now you have a choice to make.
Out of the hundreds or thousands of circumcisions you’ve done, it’s possible I’m the only one who regrets it. But next time you stand over a baby boy, ready to cut, ask yourself: Can I be sure that this boy won’t be the same? Can I be sure that I’m not dooming this child to a life of physical discomfort and inconvenience? Can I be sure that this child will embrace my faith and this symbol of it for the rest of his life? Can I be sure that I have the right to make this decision for him?
You might respond: what about the majority, those who never have any physical problems and remain religious Jews their whole life? Well, my question to you would be: What would they lose? Do Jewish daughters have a less joyous start to their life due to the simchat bat [the female celebration of birth ceremony, with no analogue to circumcision] not including any permanent physical modification? Do Jewish women who retain their faith into adulthood have any less of a role in God’s covenant with Abraham as a result of their lack of a bodily symbol of the contract? And could not a Jewish man who was left intact, upon reaching adulthood, decide that he would like to be circumcised? Given that half of the Jewish population manage to be celebrated members of the community without circumcision and that the other half could choose circumcision when they are more aware of what Judaism means to them, can you justify your next cut?
Regards,
Shea Levy
Two Weeks Notice, and the Job Hunt
I just formally gave notice of my resignation from my current job. There were a lot of factors at play, and overall the work environment didn’t work for me, especially considering my pay. My last day will be Tuesday, May 24th.
So now starts the job hunt! My top choice right now is freelance programming work. I’ve had two major clients since dropping out, and the work has been pretty fun and I’m getting good at it. My experience ranges a bit, including general web programming (using Rails and the occasional PHP and Perl), some speech-to-text work in .Net, Android apps, and scientific programming (including modelling and data analysis). Most of my work so far has been through people I already knew personally, and my first preference would be to work for someone I already know or someone referred to me by someone I already know, but I’m also going to be looking at general job postings. Anyone have any tips for finding freelance projects online?
In case anyone reading this might be interested in hiring me, please feel free contact me at shea@shealevy.com so I can provide more details of my past work, my skills, my rates, etc.
Birthday Resolutions: 22nd Year Edition
Today’s my 21st birthday. Woo hoo, now I’m a first-class citizen! I’ve never been a really big birthday person1, but I do love an opportunity for reflection and goal setting, so, without further ado, my goals for the 22nd year of my life:
- Kick my procrastination habit: This is the big one, the one I’m going to spend most of my attention on and the one that will most improve my life if achieved successfully. I know almost everyone procrastinates now and again, but I’m really bad. Nearly every project I undertake gets set back and put off time and time again (I’ve even been getting distracted from this blog post as I’ve been writing it), and the vast majority of my work gets done in the hours leading up to the deadline. The majority of every day is spent in between spurts of productivity. This has resulted in unmet obligations, extreme stress levels, lowered expectations on the part of those who are counting on my work, and a huge gap between the amazing things I could be achieving and what I actually output. Honestly, sometimes the only reason I get by as well as I do is that I’m really fucking good at most things I do. But I could and should be so much more, so this stops here. I’m going to pair some serious research into tricks, tools, and long-term solutions (don’t tell me I need to “just do it”, it doesn’t work like that and is honestly extremely condescending) with brutally honest regular introspection to identify times when I’ve procrastinated, the causes, and how I can avoid it or snap out of it earlier in the future. If I reach September 9 and don’t feel I’ve made significant progress, I will start seeing a therapist. My dad has issues like this on a similar scale, and he thinks this is just how I’ll be the rest of my life. I’m going to spend this year as a big fat NO2 to that attitude.
- Live healthier: This one consists of two main subgoals: Have a better sleep schedule and start eating well. I get into really bad cycles of far too little sleep for too long then oversleeping for a few days and not being able to sleep the next night. My first approach is going to be to set my alarm for 5 AM every morning and get up without fail, no matter when I got to sleep the night before. My hope is that this will force my bedtime to stabilize a bit, but if this doesn’t work I’ll have to go back to the drawing board. As for eating, well, I’ve been eating a lot of shit and it shows around my stomach and bank account. I don’t think I’m going to go full-on Paleo or anything (though I may try that Whole 30 thing at some point), but I just want to be more conscientious about what I’m eating and about stopping eating when I’m no longer hungry. I get cravings, though, so I’m going to have a hard time with this one.
- Treat my belongings better: I’ll probably always be a klutz, but I have way too many things that I’ve broken, gotten dirty, scuffed, and generally mistreated. My electronics are all dented and messy, I drop things all the time, I crumple up really nice clothes, etc. This is largely a problem with conscientiousness, so I’m going to try to set up some sort of system to get me into better habits and then hope I can automatize a new approach to my stuff.
- Present myself better: I’m not unhygenic or anything, but I don’t regularly put too much thought into how I look or how I carry myself. I want to try to find a style that works for me and start really embracing it, and I also want to work on things like combing my hair, trimming my nails more frequently, and improving my posture.
- Figure out what path I want to start on: Right now, I’ve got two really good career paths I’m pursuing: biomedical device design and computer programming. I want to spend this year making progress with both and finding out whether I enjoy both the day-to-day and the long-term outlook for either field. I want to gauge my skill and enjoyment and decide where to focus. Exploring programming will come from my job (most of the money I make is now from programming gigs), and exploring device design will come from research and some basic design attempts on the side. I’m really excited about this one, and can’t wait to see what I find
So, that’s what I’m going to be doing this year. I’ve worked on all of these for a while now, but this year I’m really going to focus on them and hammer them down. If I don’t procrastinate too much, I’ll be sure to keep y’all informed of how it goes!
1: Celebrating on my birthday has been difficult since ninth grade, since it’s right in the middle of AP exam week and college finals week
2: I don’t mean any disrespect to my father here. He has a lot of different coping mechanisms that allow him to live a really productive, great life, and he’s told me he thinks I will be a lot happier when I stop fighting this and accept it as a permanent part of who I am. I just refuse to reach that point without trying everything I can think of to try, and if that means I have the potential to resolve this issue at the cost of potentially wasting a year of my life trying to fix a problem that can’t be fixed, I’m ok with that.
Improving Embloggenations
In writing on this blog, I’ve let style, essentialization, etc. take a back-seat to just getting my thoughts out there. I’m realizing that as easy as that approach seems compared to my normal writing style, it’s much worse overall because my posts are longer than they need to be and filled with irrelevancies (not to mention unnecessary parentheticals!). My points would be much better made if I took the time to plan before I start and edit after I write, and perhaps more of you will actually make it through the whole thing. There’s also a chance it will help my thinking on these issues. Or, all of the above in essentialized form:
My blog writing sucks. I’m fixing it.
Shea Levy, College Dropout
So. I’ve dropped out of college.
After a really painful spring semester and a frustrating start to this one, I started seriously rethinking my current path. Due to significant overloading in previous semesters, I was able to drop down to a single course (which I kept because it isn’t going to be offered in the future) and still expect to graduate in May 2012. A couple months later, course registration came around, and my thinking and experience had lead me to one conclusion: The U of R wasn’t working for me.
I’ve had a lot of thoughts about why things didn’t work out. Maybe the U of R teaching style or quality isn’t right for me. Maybe my learning style and goals are such that a university setting in general isn’t right for me. Maybe university is exactly what I need, but I’m just not ready for it at this stage in my life. Or maybe (though I seriously doubt it), I’m not actually as interested in biomedical engineering and neuroscience as I thought I was.
Whatever the reasons, though, the situation was clear: I was miserable, and the only prospective gain I could see from sticking with it was having that damn diploma. Since my Fall ’09 biochemistry and math classes, I haven’t really learned much from lectures. Most (if not all) of the learning I’ve done came from reading the textbooks, looking at posted slideshows, or researching things on my own. For an average engineering class, I could cover in three hours what was meant to take four weeks of classes and homework assignments. And once I got the material, the homework assignments were useless grinding that neither enhanced my understanding nor, in my view, demonstrated my mastery better than exams did. Most disappointing, though, were the labs. Even in my engineering courses, the vast majority of lab time was spent following procedures that were at least 80% laid out for us (often the only parts we had to figure out were determining component values for resistors, capacitors, etc.!). I did not get the sense that was practicing using tools to solve problems (or, in the basic science labs, answer questions), rather I was repeating the solutions/answers that others had come up with. The significant exception to this was the honors organic chemistry lab in Spring ’09. And in case you’re wondering, this all applied in junior and senior-level courses, not just introductory ones. Given the time I was spending and the money my parents were spending, this just didn’t cut it.
With a year and a half left of what I thought would have been more of the same ahead of me, I didn’t have the will to continue. My long-term plans of working in the biotech industry (eventually aiming to run my own company), however, remain the same. So, what now? At first, I was nearly certain that I would eventually need a degree, so I planned to spend the next few years working (as a tutor, tech support, at a book store, whatever), learning and researching on my own, and eventually finding a degree program I could participate with minimal hardship when I’m more ready (or, in a long shot, find a way to start my career without it). But, after having a good chat with Santiago, I’m much more hopeful about the possibility that I’ll never have to go back to school. To explain why, I need to go into a bit of detail about what I see in my longer-term future.
One probable stage in achieving my goals (no matter which path) involves several repetitions of bringing a well-developed product idea (including both technical details and business aspects) to venture capitalists and starting a company based around bringing that product to market (obviously, the real process is quite a bit more involved than I’m saying). Unfortunately, no matter how well qualified I might be from study and work outside of school and no matter how brilliant my product is, no VC is going to take me seriously without some sort of degree. But what Santiago made me realize is that I don’t need ME to be taken seriously, just my idea. If I can find someone who does have the relevant degree(s) that I can convince to be part of a project, and set up a business relationship where he has the primary responsibility of pitching the idea but I still work with the resulting company and get credit for what I contributed, then I could be golden. Once I can point to experience at a successful biotech startup, the degree won’t matter the next time around. And, especially given that I have friends in the field, convincing an engineer to take my ideas seriously will be much easier than convincing a VC. So, while I still may need to go back to school eventually, there’s hope.
For now, then, the plan is this: I will find work for the short-term, hopefully making enough tutoring to not have to do anything else. I’ll start researching to see which of my product ideas are most feasible for production given current scientific understanding, and learn what I need to learn in order to design it. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make some real progress and, depending on the tech, make a rough prototype on my own before finding other people to include. If that doesn’t work out, I’ll start looking at different schools and eventually finish off my degree. I’m pumped.
Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and the Objectivist Movement
In philosophy, as in every intellectual field, I strive (largely successfully, I think) to be a completely independent thinker. I look at the evidence, study the issues, and come to my conclusions on my own. That doesn’t mean I’m never influenced by others, far from it: the ideas and arguments of other people often play a huge role in my ultimate conclusion. But I only accept their stances if I can make their arguments fit with what I see, and in the end my conclusions are, in fact, mine. So, while my philosophy is immensely influenced by the work of others, it is a unique system of thought both in its content (I doubt anyone else believes the same totality of philosophical knowledge that I do, and I have reason to believe that some nuances of my philosophical thought are wholly my own) and in the specifics of the approach that led me to it.
And yet. As is obvious to most everyone who knows me online, there is one thinker whose influence on my philosophical thought is of a qualitatively different type than all others. Ayn Rand’s work inspired my systematic study of philosophy, her views and arguments are those I’ve studied and worked to understand far and above any other thinker, and, particularly as the issues get more fundamental, I agree with the the vast majority of her philosophy (excluding her aesthetics, which I have not studied in depth). Moreover, even though there are places we disagree (such as limits on the lifetime of intellectual property), places that she covered where I have no opinion (such as in most important areas of aesthetics), and places that I’ve covered where she has no opinion that I know of (such as the role of statistical methods in scientific discovery), I believe that the essence of the way I live my life is the same as that of someone who lived his life in accordance with the principles of her published philosophy (I don’t know enough about her personal life to say whether or not she was such a person). Despite the importance of her work to my life and our philosophical similarities, however, her philosophy is not, and never will be, mine. Even if I were to spend my life studying her work, understanding it all, and agreeing with all of her philosophical positions, my philosophy would still be mine by virtue of the independent way in which I came to accept it.
Why does this matter? Well, I call myself an Objectivist. But Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand (I will leave aside for now whether it is the philosophy given by her written works, her lectures, and the approved works and lectures of others or whether it is the philosophy she actually lived by, or whether there is a difference). If an Objectivist is someone whose accepted and lived-by philosophy is Objectivism, then I am not an Objectivist (nor, I would claim, is/was anyone except Rand herself, since the tenants of Objectivism preclude someone accepting her word without independent thought). Even if the requirements are looser than that, however, I still have misgivings about the term. It’s hard to say exactly why, but I have a few thoughts.
Calling yourself an Objectivist seems to shift the focus from which principles you accept to the fact that those principles happen to match a particular historical system (whereas calling yourself a laisseiz-faire capitalist, for example, merely describes a particular position that has no relevant historical qualities to it). Because of this, if you call yourself an Objectivist, it seems important to check your views against Rand’s work if given reason to think they don’t match, even if you’re sure your views are right and don’t think seeing Rand’s view will help you understand the actual philosophical issue better for yourself. It also leads to a tendency for some to substitute discussions about what Rand actually meant on a particular issue for discussions about what the participants mean on that issue (not to say that the former type of discussion is always inappropriate, but often the latter type is more relevant).
I also worry that, since Objectivism is now a fixed body of knowledge, there might be tendencies to study of that body of knowledge for study of philosophy as such (with study of other philosophers often being thought of as solely “history of philosophy”) and to subconsciously resist (not to completely block, but to decrease the likelihood of) thinking about ideas that are outside of or contradict Objectivism. Some people, for example, will respond to reasonable challenges to their views that they don’t want to address not with “you may be right, but I don’t have time/inclination to figure this out right now and my current view is serving me well” but with “you may be right, but I agree with Rand on so many issues and she’s a brilliant integrator, so I give her views benefit of the doubt until I have addressed them”. I’ve also seen many people go through many contortions to cast truly new philosophical questions (whether fundamental principles or just applications) in such a way as to suggest that Rand already answered the question or that there is another question that Rand answered that is only superficially different. One possible example of this latter problem is those who present the “total war” approach to warfare as Rand’s, though perhaps she did address it somewhere and I’ve simply been unable to find it. One definite example (which I had seen long before The Logical Leap) is those who try to stretch Rand’s words in such a way as to claim that she already had an (implicit, some argue) theory on induction, even when she clearly stated that she did not. Also, when people DO seriously consider new ideas, they often focus on the question “is this consistent with Objectivism?” rather than “is this consistent with reality and my views?”
Calling oneself an Objectivist may be an injustice both to yourself and to Rand. To yourself, because you are assigning your core set of ideas that you have worked hard to independently arrive at and validate to Rand. To Rand, because unless you are very conscientious in presenting your views you might be implicitly attributing views that Rand did not hold to her simply by calling yourself an Objectivist while presenting them. I’m not sure, however, how significant this issue really is.
So why don’t I just stop calling myself an Objectivist? This is an issue of concept formation. There is a group of people that includes me, a significant subset of my friends and acquaintances, my girlfriend, and some of the public figures I care about that doesn’t include my family, some of my closest friends, or some of my most admired public figures. Conceptualizing this group is important because membership in the group implies similar values, ways of life, and approaches to issues in a way that reasonably affects how members of the group interact with each other. For example, despite all that I have in common with my brother, I have no reason to expect that he’d be interested in an Atlas Shrugged reading group or attending the Atlanta Objectivist Society’s mini-con, but, even though I’ve only just started talking to him and in some ways have far less in common with him, I can reasonably expect that Santiago Valenzuela might be interested. As another example, while I can reasonably expect to be able to discuss the role of measurement-omission in concept formation with any random member of the group without having to explain what I mean by basic terms or set up my cognitive framework, I would probably have to spend a lot of time working just to make sure my good friend Kathy (with whom I’ve often discussed ideas) understand what I’m saying, let alone has cause to believe it (A good illustration of this is the time I listened to the first few lectures of Dr. Peikoff’s Induction in Physics and Philosophy series while in the car with my brother. Seth was legitimately listening and trying to chew what Dr. Peikoff was saying, and about an hour and a half in he paused the CD and asked something along the lines of: why does Dr. Peikoff keep talking about “generalizations”, aren’t those inherently over-sweeping statements (often about people) that don’t apply to all the particulars? I was able to explain what was meant, but that question had never even occurred to me.) So I think there is a good cognitive case for giving that group an associated concept, and the best concept I have for now is “Objectivist”. I’d definitely like to figure out a better term (if not a different concept), however, for the reasons stated above.
As a first step toward either figuring out the new term/concept or deciding that “Objectivist” actually fits, I’d like to discuss some of the essential distinguishing characteristics that I think the group has. First, the members of the group live idea- and value-oriented lives. This actually rules out some so-called Objectivists who, to use John Allison’s phrasing, accept Rand’s view only “on the top of their heads” and don’t have them fully integrated with their lives and thinking, but it’s far too broad on its own. Second, these are people whose philosophies were shaped, solidified, and/or confirmed by study of Rand’s work. This rules out people who have come to many of the same conclusions as Rand independently of her (which is important because such a person would probably think in different terms and be less interested in studying/discussing Rand’s work than actual members of the group), but by itself might be said to cover even people such as Alan Greenspan (who, after all, was definitely shaped by Rand’s work, even if he rejects it) who definitely do not belong in the group. Third, these are people who agree with the essential principles of Rand’s philosophy. This is a challenging characteristic since it raises the obvious question: essential, for what purpose? If someone agrees that A is A but disagrees that selfishness is moral, he definitely doesn’t belong to the group, but I differ from Rand on her characterization of percepts as being somehow composed of sensations, yet I think I do belong. I’m not sure how to determine where the line of “essential” is in this case, so for now I’ll have to be content with a vague “I’ll know it when I see it” standard of judging this factor.
Though I’m far from certain, I think these three characteristics, while hardly exhaustively descriptive of the group, are enough to distinguish its members from non-members in a way that best explains most of the characteristics that group members have in common with each other but differ from non-members. In other words, I think a properly condensed statement of these characteristics might serve as a good definition of the concept I am searching for. So now that I have a (sloppy, in current form) definition, I need a word. I’m loathe to create an entire new word without being sure nothing existing covers this, but I’ve had a hard time figuring out what existing word my fit. I’m slightly leaning toward “Randian”, but that might actually increase the emphasis on Rand herself, and it also has a negative connotation as it’s currently used. I don’t really have any ideas besides this one, and it’s not particularly good, so for now I’ll use “Objectivist”, take care to recognize all the potential problems with that term, and keep searching for a better one.
Thinking about this issue has made me rethink what the central goals of an Objectivist social movement should be. Previously, I had thought that spreading understanding and acceptance of Objectivism throughout the culture was the fundamental goal. But now that seems to focused on the particular historical ideology to be a central goal. Honestly, while I certainly wouldn’t mind a world where most people were Objectivists, I don’t view such a world as necessary for the kind of society I want to live in and the kind of values I want to exist, and I have doubts about whether most the population should even be reasonably expected to care about philosophy in the explicit, in-depth way that being an Objectivist requires. That being said, there are certain central goals that I think an Objectivist movement (or some aspect thereof) should reasonably address. The primary social one is implementation of laisseiz-faire capitalism, for reasons I don’t think I have to explain here. Another value, though less important, is more people creating intellectual work based on a philosophical framework influenced by Objectivism in the way described above. Creating more social opportunities for Objectivists to interact would also be a huge benefit. Finally, having a more significant portion of the population approach their work rationally (though not necessarily in accordance with Objectivism) would be a great benefit, especially in intellectual fields (e.g. I don’t care if my physics teacher is an Objectivist, but I do want him to stop telling me that physicist can only describe appearances, not reality). Now, it may turn out that the best way to achieve these goals is to spread Objectivism as such, but even if so I think that should properly be viewed as the means, not the end, of a movement of Objectivists. So from now on, to the extent that I support or participate in any organized Objectivist endeavours, I will be careful to ensure that the aims of those endeavours are ultimately these values (unless I’ve decided that there are other values that Objectivists as such are best suited to pursue). Importantly, I hope to remove any subconscious notion from myself that Objectivist proselytisation on anything more than an individual basis is really that valuable, since ultimately I think there are values far more fundamental than the Objectivist philosophy as such.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’m particularly interested in what people think about my misgivings about the term “Objectivist” and ideas about alternative words for my conceptualization of the relevant group of people.