Clearly Confused II

First I thought of putting this as a followup comment, but felt it still better as a continuation post.

Krish, "facts can't be left to interpretations!" I'm unable to agree to that! Will come to it in a little while. Before that, talking of konar Thamizh urai (guide), I always found the paada puththagam (text book) far far better than konar notes! :-) And, Skely, you are heights!! :-)

Biju, what you say is very true. I completely agree upon that. Even I admire objectivism for the "Live for yourself" part. But I see problem with the "Live only for yourself" bit. Exactly, Biju! Reasoning is the process by which you apply your mind on the information acquired by your senses and derive a meaning out of it or arrive at a decision based on it. So, doesn't the phrase "basing your reasoning on facts" means interpretting the facts? When the word interpretation comes in, it definitely is relative and varies with person to person.

Also Krish, what is a fact? It is an information already derived by another person based on his first-hand experience to a situation; or that you derive based on your first-hand experience. Now, how can fact be absolute? :-(

Hi Cogito, thanks for your comments! I feel Doing what others expect us to do is different from Doing for the sake of others. Talking of Einstein or other genius for that matter, they pursued their own interests, against the regular life of an average person... bla bla... is all fine, but that again, as I said earlier, is part of "Live for yourself". Talking of 'Victims of mysterious forces', again, I can interpret it as 'no excuses for what you hold yourself responsible for'. But I do believe in fate-miracle, intuitions that don't have a logical reasoning. Will try your suggested reads sometime :-)

Hey Skely, I guess you are more confused and even more confusing than myself! :-P

As Skely said, 'Living for yourself' and 'Living for others' arrive at the same thing, from different directions- living life to the fullest of your satisfaction.

When you do something for the sake of others voluntarily (i.e when you are living for others) there is a happiness that you experience within and it may be termed as affection/ compassion/ love or whatever. And your actions need to be based on the selfishness for *that* happiness, and not on any other pressure. By pressure, I mean the morality definitions by the society (i.e what you are expected to do) or fear or force of any kind. This point of convergence of the two philosophies serves to guide us for a balanced, complete life.

Consider you are witnessing an accident victim needing help and you are on your way to an important business deal. By Objectivism's selfishness if you choose to go for your business as your higher interest, does that give you all the satisfaction? Or since there is no 'victim' concept should we say he is being punished for his own fault and we leave him as such? Or should we say he is nothing beyond himself and I'm nothing beyond myself and he's free to get himself alive? Should suppressing your monetory gains in that situation to help the victim be considered as a fake show-off behavior?

'Why should I bother about the society?' and 'why should I even think of another person?' - I'm afraid such questions can easily distort the principles of Objectivism and hence feel an explicit balance is needed.