Don Watkins’s argument on the Texas Talks podcast isn’t going to land well with a lot of people because he’s making the libertarian case for the producer instead of the producer’s case for the thinker. The problem with framing productiveness as the essential defining characteristic of a moral individual is that it opens the door to an altruist reading: people start thinking that to be good, they must work and produce goods even if the wealth those goods create is taken from them through taxes, institutions, and their laws.
Watkins turns the virtue of productiveness into a duty to others. By raising the life of leisure as the ideal (the ancient Greek model), he ends up describing what organized Objectivists have become: their abstractions float free of reality because they are not doing their own thinking on the ground. They lean closer to Plato than to Aristotle.
If I were answering the question of why Objectivism appeals to people, I would say it appeals to the rational mind, not to mystical, social or economics doctrines of morality. It is a philosophy that demands that people do their own thinking, and treat knowledge as objective. The people who reject it are those too lazy to do their own thinking—they want the government to think for them and want their needs provided at the expense of others.
These interviews (Tal Tsfany, Gregory Salmieri, Ben Bayer, and Don Watkins) of Objectivists on Bradley Swail's Texas Talks podcast are all top notch! Brilliant minds!
Excellent interview, Don! Your responses and explanations were pitch-perfect. Thank you for representing ARI so well.
(BTW, the movie was "Whiplash.")
I can't wait to see the new ARI building. I love Austin. The music and culture is top-notch.
Great work, Don. Loved your characterization of the Ayn Rand Center.
Don Watkins’s argument on the Texas Talks podcast isn’t going to land well with a lot of people because he’s making the libertarian case for the producer instead of the producer’s case for the thinker. The problem with framing productiveness as the essential defining characteristic of a moral individual is that it opens the door to an altruist reading: people start thinking that to be good, they must work and produce goods even if the wealth those goods create is taken from them through taxes, institutions, and their laws.
Watkins turns the virtue of productiveness into a duty to others. By raising the life of leisure as the ideal (the ancient Greek model), he ends up describing what organized Objectivists have become: their abstractions float free of reality because they are not doing their own thinking on the ground. They lean closer to Plato than to Aristotle.
If I were answering the question of why Objectivism appeals to people, I would say it appeals to the rational mind, not to mystical, social or economics doctrines of morality. It is a philosophy that demands that people do their own thinking, and treat knowledge as objective. The people who reject it are those too lazy to do their own thinking—they want the government to think for them and want their needs provided at the expense of others.
These interviews (Tal Tsfany, Gregory Salmieri, Ben Bayer, and Don Watkins) of Objectivists on Bradley Swail's Texas Talks podcast are all top notch! Brilliant minds!