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PollWhat should the government do about ailing financial institutions? Nothing, except to back off and get out—as any Objectivist knows, intervention is treating the disease with the disease 83% Intervene judiciously—enough to avert a catastrophe that is otherwise imminent 3% Intervene massively—as it's doing 3% Nationalize the whole economy and be done with it. Bring on the USSA! 1% Something else (specify) 11% Total votes: 80
 Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
 Economics In One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
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The Psychology of Intrinsicism and Subjectivism Submitted by Philip Coates on Thu, 2006-04-20 20:54.
Posts on various Objectivist forums are very revealing. One thing I notice often is characteristic tendencies toward intrinsicism or subjectivism. There are people who write in a rambling, unfocused manner, just stringing together random thoughts or shiny, glittery pieces of information which strike their fantasy and who don't like to unify their thoughts in a pretty package with a bow attached. And there are those who write utilizing only a very few principles but without giving much in the way of concretes or examples and who drop all qualifications and resent or do not respond to the request for details and fleshing out or to the idea that the principle may be contextual. The method of writing and thinking in which one likes to dwell in the realm of unchanging and context-free principles and not descend into messy or time consuming details is allied to intrinsicism. And the method of writing and thinking which is pretty much the opposite, dwelling in the realm of details and constant change and "well, it depends" and which often finds pure principles to largely be an oversimplification or too far removed from nitty-gritty reality is allied to subjectivism. What is striking is how resistant even the slightest element of intrinsicism or subjectivism is to change. People who have it after encountering Objectivism probably had it before. They are in a "comfort-zone" in terms of a thinking style or thinking methodology. The most resistant thing of all to change is not a viewpoint on a topic in ethics or politics or another field of knowledge, it's the subtle underlying -method- by which you think and write about these things. This was formed early on and is deeply ingrained in one's being (and sometimes self-esteem). And obviously, both intrinsicism and subjectivism are deeply entrenched in the wider culture. And resistant to change. Do others find all this to be the case? If so, how would one go about changing it, remedying the problem, especially since teaching Objectivism is not enough to instantly, or even over a long period of time, cure it?
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Abstraction, not intrinsicism
Philip,
By writing about principles first one saves work and time. I think that saving work and time is why many people, myself included, don't go out of their way to provide concrete illustrations - unless asked to. I agree that when someone fails to deliver examples after being asked, then (but only then) one might validly wonder whether one is dealing with intrinsicism.
Interesting observations,
Interesting observations, Phil. I think many posts could be greatly improved if writers of any style would just take some time to edit what they have written. The "ramblers" are very frustrating. Sometimes I just want to post back, "So, what's your POINT?" But instead, I usually try to infer what their point is, and reply to what I think they were trying to say, rather than what they actually wrote!
Maybe we should make use of "So, what's your point?" a little more often.
Writing vs. Thinking
Phil,
That was an interesting post. As someone with ,for lack of a better term, a "right-brained" natural thinking style, I found in Rand a logician who made logic simple and integrated enough for me to understand. I think that people that try to reprogram their natural thinking style are swimming upstream. It is much better to augment and synergize.
Obviously, our writing should approach, through effort, the objective ideal. However, there is a lot more to thinking than logic and conceptualization. We should take advantage of our natural gifts where we find them.
Your friendly neighborhood subjectivist-leaning Objectivist
,
Jim