This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://curi.us/2587-toxic-attitudes-about-greatness
2 Likes
Oh ok, I think i have it in the form of i gotta be great.
One of my first thoughts is why not focus on the bad stuff then? It’s like focusing on a bunch of good things and hopefully maybe it makes you a good person. It’s like focusing on global optima i think
Oh i see how it can be all stick no carrot like one tries so hard to be good only to be seen as not as bad.
Why the focus on relationships? Questioning monogamy like that sounds like excusing certain kind of behavior
There’s still successful people without questioning induction like that.
That’s a lot of all or nothing thinking from them
Probably maybe, but I’ve seen so many reasonable religious people that it’s hard to believe they do immoral stuff like that.
I don’t like DD’s attitude like there’s so much hostility and it’s so black and white
Those fans secretly disagree with DD about taking criticism
It’s hard to express in words but that moral condemnation stuff is so extreme from DD
That sounds like whataboutism to me like an agenda is trying to be pushed
P.S. I think after my 4th or 5th comment to a quote in this reply I thought that it would be hard to handle a lot of criticism or questioning to the things I said. I don’t know why i thought that.
1 Like
I appreciate you sharing this thank you.
So does toxic here means like an insidious attitude? An attitude that’ll block me? An attitude that will poison things (me? my life? my thinking?)
I like the “all stick, no carrot” metaphor. I hadn’t heard that before.
When you first mentioned Deutsch, I was actually kind of surprised. I thought my attitude might have more to do with Rand, but the examples you gave from Deutsch all resonated with me. I somehow didn’t pick up on that attitude from Deutsch.
I read half the article. That kids were/are literally kidnapped by masked people from their beds at night is so fucked up. Deutsch’s comment really seems to miss what is so objectionable about what’s happening there. I think you’re right that he is implicitly defending the camps as not being worse than other schools.
I guess things being qualitatively different can matter a lot. I remember reading an idea that I think Charles Tew said (but I’m not sure and I’m not quoting him). The idea as I remember it was: the difference between murder and wasting someone’s time is a matter of degree. And I’ve thought about that idea from time to time. But I don’t think wasting someone’s time and murdering them are as bad as each other. I think everyone would prefer to have their time wasted by someone to being killed by them. I don’t think someone should be condemned as a murderer for wasting someone’s time. Similarly, I don’t think normal schools should be condemned like a kidnapping wilderness camp, nor parent’s who send their children to normal school condemned like parents who organise to have their child kidnapped by masked strangers.
Deutsch basically replied to “abusive teen wilderness camps are bad” with “all schools are bad”.
This has some parallel to replying to “black lives matter” with “all lives matter”. That’s a well known attitude which I think Deutsch also favors. The point of it is to deny that anti-black racism (particularly by cops) is a problem in society. Saying “all lives matter” is a defense of many people, particularly many cops, as non-racists (or alternatively one could claim there are roughly equal amounts of racism against all races). People on both sides (who think society is or isn’t racist) should be able to agree that that’s the meaning.
Toxic = harmful. For more nuance see e.g. Urban Dictionary: toxic
Oh cool I’m glad I could provide some insight there.
What’s a good vs great idea? I guess in this context I have a hard time differentiating due to my lack of knowledge. Going to another field, if I were to pick out a random modern physics researcher I would probably see him as just as great as Einstein (or any other great names). I know nothing about physics really so whatever they say and whatever small contributions they made to the field sound great to me.
That makes sense. Even if people were less concrete(?) they could still make mistakes like that. Very different ideas are hard to understand correctly.
I think I have somewhat of a similar attitude though I would have picked it up from Rand (and maybe some older stuff of Elliot’s?). I’m very happy with small accomplishments for myself. Whenever I feel like I figured out something I’m happy about it. I think this is fairly common but hearing that some people may not be fine with something unless it’s great makes me think they might not enjoy their small accomplishments. I like math and I remembering understanding small things and being happy about it while I knew these weren’t amazing things I understood.
I do think I have an attitude of where if I don’t achieve greatness I haven’t done anything with my life. I guess for me though I just have a vague idea about what is great here. I think I’m a bit confused on how I’m thinking on this. On one hand I definitely have an image that I need to be as great as one of Rand’s hero’s. On the other hand when it comes my own personal levels of accomplishment I am very happy at times with accomplishing things that are, in the grand scheme of things, not so great. I remember beating the Path of Pain in Hollow Knight and being very proud of it even though I knew there were a lot of people who did it faster and in one go.
Hmm. I remember Galts Gulch having people that were good but not amazing.
Great means extra good. “Great idea” is vague. It’s not a specific, well-defined concept like “bottleneck”.
That sounds related to perfectionism. Maybe having such big goals makes you give up or avoid stuff to do easier things?
The people who can beat it deathless have practiced it a lot. That isn’t comparable to doing it the first time. They died a bunch on their first time, too. You’re comparing yourself in an unfair way to a very high standard.
Why? She didn’t say that Eddie Willers had to be like that. Have you shown signs in your life of being that heroic? Any indicators you’re close to it and it’s realistic for you?
Idk. I think its 50/50. Just going off of memory, I have discouraged myself from doing stuff because I thought it was all done. Like don’t do pursue something in mathematics because at a certain time when I was younger it all felt solved to me (I don’t think its all “solved” anymore). But also I do think I have thoughts along the lines of how long before I do something “great”.
Am I? I think I was trying to make a point about how, I assume, there are people who wouldn’t be happy doing something like that even if it’s their first time because they know their are way better plays. I don’t care that their are way better players. I was just happy with my accomplishment.
I’ve just liked heroic characters. I think I want to be like Miss Rands heros because they are supposedly “realistic” so that’s why I want to be like them, but growing up I just liked heroic like characters. I just liked the characters who did amazing things so I wanted to be like them. I saw Luffy from One Piece do some stuff that seemed cool and then I wanted to be like him growing up. Also, my scale of heroic is kinda all over the place. Being someone like Galt would be cool to me, but also some of the other regular characters were cool to me like the Judge or Doctor. Eddie was cool to me at times. I liked the scene where he cuts the ribbon(?) on the new line opening and eh doesn’t want it to be fake. Or when, at the beginning of the novel, he made himself do stuff that he didn’t like doing and looked straight at Jim when talking to him.
Heroic, to me at least, doesn’t necessarily only include some super amazing accomplishment. O do think I err on the side of wanting a super amazing accomplishment because that’s the coolest kind of accomplishment to me. Eddie did some cool stuff, I think the other characters did cooler stuff. So why not try and be like them.
In terms of my own life: no. I don’t think I have much to indicate in my life that I’m close to some of the more heroic characters like Dagny or Galt. I don’t even think I’m necessarily as good a person as Eddie Willers. Though I could be more harsh on myself on that Eddie point. I think I say that because I know of my own personal issues and the story didn’t talk much about Eddie’s personal issues.
Let’s hypothetically suppose that Atlas Shrugged is realistic. What percentage of people living in the book’s world are heroes?
Heroes like Galt, Dagny, Rearden? And not decent characters from Eddie to the side characters who lived in Galts Gulch?
Let’s see: Dagny, Rearden, Galt, Francisco, Ragnar, Wyatt?), Maybe I’m missing some .So I’ll just say 10. Probably around a billion people in the world. (10/1,000,000,000) * 100. So 0.000001% of the people living in the world of Atlas Shrugged is heroic.
So why would you expect to be top 0.000001%?
Hmm. Two things come to mind:
It doesn’t feel like that when reading about the characters. Reading about huge outliers makes them feel achievable? Normal? Possible? Idk. I don’t think reading about them does a great job conveying how rare and hard it is. Or put another way, you can kinda get the mistaken idea that if you become like them you can be just as great as them.
The other part is kinda more specific to Miss Rand’s stuff. The characters in Atlas Shrugged are apparently so great because of their rationality. So become very rational and you can achieve something like them. I don’t think I’m anywhere like that yet. But becoming very rational seems to me a more achievable goal and then after that its just “simply” doing something great (that’s how its working out in my head at least).
I think I’m very rational, but I’m not achieving things similar to Dagny, Galt or Rearden.
Hmm. I guess that’s true? How would I put it? I’m just taking your word for it? You’re a better judge than me of your accomplishments and their importance.
But I guess the things that Dagny, Galt, or Rearden achieved are significantly better? Though I guess this brings me to my original question from my tutoring thread:
What level/kind of achievement is considered great? Why’s the stuff you’ve done not as great? You told me:
So I guess a different question would be: should I not be thinking about how great people are or something?
I didn’t say their stuff is better, though I do figure Galt’s sci-fi motor would be a better achievement than mine! It’s hard to compare overall. Definitely different though. And I don’t think in today’s society being really rational just lets you be an owner or top executive of a major business. That’s my main point. I thought you were suggesting that rationality will get you results like Rearden, but I don’t think that’s realistic. (You said: “So become very rational and you can achieve something like them.” That says “like” not “equally good or better”. I thought the issue was same type of results, not degree of goodness of results. But your response talks about what’s “better”.)
I didn’t say that.
What do you need to judge people like that for?
Oh like being rational will let you become very wealthy, have a very succesful business, stuff like that? Like Readens literal results?
I was more so thinking of something like his Rearden Metal achievement. From what I know a lot of amazing scientific breakthroughs and stuff are part rationality and part luck (idk I’ve never experienced it, just going off what I’ve heard). Sure I couldn’t “luck out” like Rearden did (hmm is there better phrasing for this?) but I could be rational like him and maybe luck out and achieve something like that.
Hmm. Something like I know being like the main characters won’t get me certain concrete results in the actual world. I’m less concerned (in my imagination?) with the concrete results the main character achieved. I’m more so talking about what those results represented I think. Trying to be like Roark, or Galt, or Rearden, doesn’t mean I’ll get exactly their kind of results but I think I can achieve something cool.
Ahh. No I meant degree of goodness of results for the most part. I do think part of me does think I would achieve certain concrete results of the characters of Atlas Shrugged, but I was concerned more so with stuff that is equally good or better.
Hmm. No real reason comes to mind. I think when I first posed the question I shared that I wasn’t looking for a super detailed answer. This thought just came about because @LMD talked about prime-mover level of greatness and it got me thinking what would be considered that. Like what in his head would he have to do to be that great? And then that got me thinking is there some kind of general standard for that level of greatness? Now a new question comes to mind, is it even worthwhile to think in such terms? Like who’s a prime-mover level of greatness and then who’s below them and stuff. I really don’t think so. I don’t see a clear benefit to doing it really. Plus it’d be hard I think.
People usually don’t become vastly more rational by studying. Do you have any particular reasons you expect that to work for you?
People study and improve. That’s good. But studying and changing from an Eddie Willers to a John Galt would be quite unusual. Making that change after childhood, by any method at all, would be quite unusual.
I thought it was very likely, but reading that makes more sense. I think you gotta really be learning 100’s or maybe 1000’s? of things per day to become very rational with studying
Sometimes i just think if you study enough something will just click and you’ll become really smart.
Also studying epistemology to me is getting at the heart of the issue for becoming rational.
Oh making the change to be very rational happens usually in childhood? It seems easier to learn and become rational during childhood
Hmm. I think it’s because the stuff I’m studying from here I think is more tied to being more rational? Or put differently. Given enough time and genuine effort do you think I could understand CF as well as you or pretty close at least? If so, would that not make me vastly more rational? If not, what goes into being vastly more rational?
I think people don’t become vastly more rational by studying because people don’t usually study philosophy and if they do it’s mostly irrational stuff. No?
Hmm. I think I remember Miss Rand making similar comments. Something along the lines of childhood is when a lot of important aspects are set into a child. Do you know of her saying this? I could find it if you want. I’ll probably look for it tomorrow?/the day after regardless.
Hmm. What goes into being a John Galt? Or even a Eddie Willers? What kind of stuff is in a childhood that forms these thing?. I think I’ve had certain aspects that I felt better then the children around me. Such as feeling I better understood certain materials than others, I don’t know how to put it into words. I could be wrong here. Maybe even arrogant. There are also stuff that other people were definitely better than me at.
I’m guessing that LMD picked up some of Deutsch’s attitude.
When I was younger I wanted to be the greatest in my sport, and I think my attitude towards greatness has pretty much remained since then. I also knew it was unrealistic, so I would also have been very happy with just becoming a professional and not becoming great.
I think my attitude is the same now. I would like to become great and I’ll try, but it’s fine to be just good. Greatness isn’t needed to be happy.
The idea I got from Deutsch is sort of like: society is broken, the default status quo is broken, so you have to be way better than most people just to avoid disaster. It’s not that you have to be super skilled in order to do awesome stuff; it’s just that everyone who isn’t super skilled does awful stuff. Like Deutsch basically says if you aren’t a top 0.001% outlier, then you will be an abusive parent (I’m not exaggerating; he’s actually used stronger rhetoric than that including comparisons with slavery). For Deutsch, you have to be one of the very best just to be OK, decent, acceptable – you actually don’t really get to be considered great or special for doing that. It’s all stick, no carrot. It’s toxic.
Rand has a similar idea to this. AS:
“Don’t be astonished, Miss Taggart,” said Dr. Akston, smiling, “and don’t make the mistake of thinking that these three pupils of mine are some sort of superhuman creatures. They’re something much greater and more astounding than that: they’re normal men—a thing the world has never seen—and their feat is that they managed to survive as such. It does take an exceptional mind and a still more exceptional integrity to remain untouched by the brain-destroying influences of the world’s doctrines, the accumulated evil of centuries—to remain human, since the human is the rational.”
They say: current society is corrupting and that the normal ought to be way more rational. Although Akston also says his pupils have exceptional minds and integrity to not be corrupted. Would the pupils be even greater having been brought up in a rational society? Would most people be able to run copper companies like Fransisco did? The problem is that Akston calls them both normal and exceptional. My guess is that the difference between the pupils and the rest of the population would be less than it was, but they would still be among the greats.
A practical result of this is that many of Deutsch’s fans lie about wanting all types and strengths of criticism on all topics, lie about their openness to debate, lie about how open to outlier ideas they are, lie about being thick-skinned, and lie about liking and wanting intellectual conversations when they are actually having negative emotions. They can feel especially pressured to be great regarding this specific issue to avoid Deutsch’s moral condemnation,
I think it bothered me only a little when I admitted I couldn’t take unbounded criticism. I think I must’ve felt the moral pressure some, at least. But I had also picked up on that society is irrational so I couldn’t expect that much from my upbringing and changing isn’t so easy, so it should be fine to not already being able to handle unbounded criticism. Also admitting meant being honest which was a great counterweight.
Roark wouldn’t care about being great in the sense of being around the same quality as Cameron was. But he might’ve cared about making objectively great buildings? Would he still want to be an architect if he was worse at it? I think to a significant degree he would. Unless he was absolutely terrible at it I think he would still do architecture and be happy with it. He was still happy doing small projects after the Stoddard trial. I think he cared more about the integrity and honesty of his work and buildings. I think he cared about doing the best he could do, and not compromising when he saw a better way to do a building.
Thanks for article, I think it was really important and helpful.
1 Like