I was driving up to Mora to pick up my repaired tractor last week and I listened to a YouTube video by Objectivist thinker Craig Biddle, a lecture on Objectivism, Independence, and Thick Skin. Biddle is smart, a Randian and very practical, and this conservative atheist offers some great advice on how to live. Below I will take notes and comment on his video of his lecture on June 10, 2022.
Biddle wants to talk about Objectivism and Independence, and for each Objective virtue there is an inside, intellectual part to it, and outside, existential part of it in the world. The inside or mental part of independence is thinking for yourself as a matter of principle, in all areas of your life. We think for ourselves and occasionally we may need to modify what we thought earlier.
My response: we cannot be individualists and individuators unless we think for ourselves all the time in all areas of our life, even though we may go along with what someone thinks or proposes: we do so because we thought about it, and like what they propose and can see no flows in their thinking or suggestions.
Biddle: thinking for oneself is a virtue and that is desirable, but my lecture today is about the other side of being independent as an individual—one must act existentially upon what one has decided, out there in the world: one must put one’s plan into effect. One must put into action what one thought about and has decided to do.
The existential side of acting on one’s plans and decisions is not the same as being productive, though productivity is subsumed under existential acting out what one plans. If one acts on one’s plan it is life-transforming.
In an earlier life, I was a furniture designer and furniture-maker. There were two types of people that designed furniture: those that planned to design and make furniture, and those that actually went ahead and designed and made furniture. The first group of designers never acted on their knowledge and plan. The productive designers designed the thing, and then went and built the thing, and made something happen out here in the world.
Procrastinators just never act upon their plans. They don’t. Years later when I switched careers and became an Objectivist scholar, editor, and writer, I noticed the same problem there. Some writers were procrastinators that would read up on Objectivism and on how to write, but over time wrote nothing or very little. I too procrastinate too, and have produced less than I could of.
This is a real, serious problem. Life is not thinking; life is goal-driven, self-directed action.
Living is not thinking. That is important but a first step only.
Why is it that people hesitate and never get around to acting on their life plan? There are several reasons why they fail to act. One reason is fear, but it is not fear of failure. It is fear of judgment, not just judgment from other people but judgment from yourself. When you make something and put it out in the community for scrutiny and comment, and judgment, and people procrastinate to avoid being judged. If it is crappy, then I will feel bad about myself, so I just will not make anything. This fear of judgment is one of the main reasons why people fail to live and act.
My response: I just love the way that he laid this out, and I can find no fault in his reasoning. He seems sensible. Anyone a bit familiar with existentialist ethics (I am not an expert.) would see that Biddle is, from a very different and competing philosophical view of the world, have reached a similar conclusions: Life is not just thinking and planning or adopting a moral code: one is not independent and an individual unless one puts that plan into action as a thinker, a moral agent, a worker and a member of the community. We are obligated to get moving and try to act well, morally, and expertly, even if we fail and are criticized by others, oneself, or God—if one believes in the existence and presence of the Higher Power as I do.
Biddle: I realized that when one acts, works, and produces one will be criticized by oneself and others so I thought that one should have thick skin to not let the barbs penetrate one’s mind and hurt my feelings. Later as I writer, I changed my thinking. I did not need thick skin.
Incoming barbs or judgments—are they inherently a bad thing? No, they are not. Judgments from oneself or others is just information. We need to think differently about incoming judgments as if all of them are good, so we are able to hear and perhaps learn from all of them. We find out where we have erred and have fallen short, and then we iterate the product fabrication, and we get better and better based upon receiving input.
Receiving input makes you grow and improve, and you get better and better, and your life gets better. This is not a bad thing. All feedback from self or others is good information, even if it is harsh, off-base, or unfair.
On the other hand, this does not require that one is egalitarian about all incoming information. Some input is helpful, and some is not but you do not need to make a big deal out of it, one just deals with this sorting of helpful or unhelpful input internally.
I need to tell myself that how would I react to input of any kind if I had thought of it myself first before receiving it. That way I can absorb and adjust to the input quickly and first-hand without bogging down on it. If people are intimidated by criticism of their submitted articles as their editor, they say they will agree to my criticisms because I know more, but that is not how they should respond. Rather I may know more or be an expert, but experts can be wrong. Always think for yourself and try to objectively decide what is good input versus unhelpful input but you make the decision about how to act upon what you are told.
We need to rid ourselves of the false idea that input should stall us out, especially critical feedback. We want to act so we sort out this feedback as helpful or unhelpful, and then we act, produce, and create so that we keep living, and doing out there in the world based upon our plans.
What is a value that we never pursue? It is a fantasy or dream but never become reality and that is not living. Plans acted upon, goals put into effect become achievements over time.
We need the first part of independence which is thinking about what we should do with our lives, but then we must put it into action, and that is living, the second part of independence.
This applies to the philosophy of Objectivism. What is Objectivism? It is a set of principles or ideas about how to live. Reason, the center piece of this philosophy is a tool not an end in itself.
My response: I have not disagreements with Biddle’s wise suggestions for his young audience. Implicit in his argument is that independence is a virtue instantiated in living by reasoning or doing as an individual, and when one is passive, group-oriented, engaging in groupthink and planning nothing and never acting upon such a plan—that is not living but is an evasion of the duty to live.
Biddle: Reason is not an end in itself. It is a tool so you can act, so you can live. Objectivism is knowledge, a tool so we can act on it and live and love our lives. Objectivism is not an end in itself. It is not life. Your identity is what you do with your life. Rand has reason, purpose, and self-esteem as the cardinal virtues. I want to set aside self-esteem for not. What is the relationship between reason and purpose? One is a means and one is an end, Your purpose is your end, to build a career. Reason is a tool to get your there, to fulfill your life purpose.
Reason is not just what David Hume described as a slave to the passions, but is a tool that helps your define your purposes. Passions are just your emotions, but your purpose is the goal that you are going to go after. Reason and the philosophy of Objectivism are but tools to help you get to where you want to go. Objectivism is a philosophy for living on earth.
I know good Objectivists leading full lives, and I know Objectivists that have done very little, leading stagnant lives in spite of having access to the best philosophy every devised, and they could be living beautiful lives. We have this powerful tool (Objectivism) about how to live, and how to act and what kind of society that we want to live in, but we have to act, and put this philosophy to work in your life or all is for naught.
We know and then we need to act on our knowledge that we already have.
My response: I approve of all that Biddle recommends. Our philosophy, our values and our knowledge are all inputs that allow us a moral adults to lead productive, useful, purposeful lives as parents, supercitizens, moral creatures, workers, soldiers (citizen militia defending the homeland), self-realizers and as children of the
Good Spirits leading good lives in this world, and likely in the next. We have to act and commit or it is all for nothing: the failure to act is an immoral act.
Biddle: We do not act for fear of judgment but we also fail to act on our knowledge because we have been told to live life for ourselves to be happy and fulfilled is selfish and we do not have a moral right to do our own thing, instead are to be selfless like the saints. That is nonsense.
We have this Objectivist philosophy that works. But you must act upon it. You are not living. Life is action. This virtue of independence is so crucial to good living. You think for yourself but then you must act upon your conclusions: you know what you should do. What is life? It is a process of self-generating goals and actions.
My response: Amen.
Biddle: Question/answer session: Perfectionism is a consequence of fear of criticism from self-judgement, For example, his daughter is a perfectionist. Self-criticism is okay, just one must reconceptualize all criticism as mere information so you can iterate and improve yourself.
Our products are always flawed, so not worry about it, just keep redoing it until you get better.
Rand does the serenity prayer, a wise statement. Replace God with self: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Biddle wants the Objectivist to replace God with self, and this teaches people how to work through the perfectionist dilemma or impasse.
My response: it is a wise prayer but let us keep God in it.
Biddle” Do not waste your life, because when it is gone, it is gone and irretrievable. You must produce the life that you want, or you will not have the life that you want.
The future of Objectivism? Biddle is optimistic that the young are using and learning Objectivist principles. He said these values can threaten altruists and the faithful, but he does not want to attack those with wrong premises but want to offer Objectivism to their right premises which are flourishing and freedom, the master values. If one is not crazy or nihilist because one went to a Ivy League college, one likely wants freedom and flourishing.
If you do not want to flourish, you are not well. You want freedom to some extent. Most people do not know what these master values are. People do not know where rights came from—they think they came from God, government or nature and we know not how. We have rights, they are realm and it is right that they are morally protected.
My response: I like that master values in Objectivism are freedom and flourishing and that can be achieved in my Mavellonialism as a striving individuators and living angel in service to the Divine Couple. Rights do come from God as ethical and spiritual first principles, and through nature for us as living creatures in nature, but they do not come from government.
Biddle: Young libertarians want liberty, but they need philosophical base for that desire and Objectivism can provide this.
Be a jack of all trades or specialization expert at one thing—both work; a constellation of skills that you like to pursue. If you write well, and learn some acting and directing, then you become a better writer. Then your constellation of skills they become a superpower. You make yourself a value in the marketplace. Not a false alternative, not either or. It is contextual or personal. Form follows function.
Can we get moral principles from the facts of reality as Hume denies? Rand we need morality so we can know how to live as rational beings and thrive as such a being. All values and morality rest in the existence of life, so if you act well, you can live and live well.
Values are derivative of the requirements of life. So, we can get oughts from is.
Objectivism to save a drowning person—an obligation to save a life? Rand pointed that we do not derive moral principles from emergency situations but from the ordinary circumstances of life.
Moral impasses or emergencies: so we cannot make good moral choices. One moral principle is that human life has moral value and is our standard, we have moral principles so we can live and thrive. We could save someone because we assume they deserve to be saved so we could save them.
If you can paint prisoner dilemma-type situations, like philosophy professors weirdly concoct but are not real. In everyday life reason works pretty well so ignore prisoner dilemma all is relative and reason cannot work
My response: I think Rand is right that we can accept her view that we can know moral facts on how we ought to live and reason works pretty well most of the time to find answers to problems and how to live.
.My response: I approve of most of Biddle’s suggestions, but would add God and the philosophies of moderation and maverizing to make Ojbectivism more complete and successful.
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