Some cultural effects of Ayn Rand’s theory of concepts, part 2.

I want to set up some circumstances which lead to my motivation for wanting to focus on conceptual thinking as an impetus for communication. Making this argument is not unlike trying to explain a 3-D world to animated entities that lived in a hypothetical 2-D world. (Carl Sagan used this comparison in the _Cosmos_ TV series, but my purpose here is substantially different than his was. Actually, in reality it's a matter of explaining 2-D epistemology to people living with the idea of a fragmented 1-D epistemology.) As I mentioned before, Modern philosophers do use hierarchy although I've never come across any of those types of teachers who explicated the concept (properly.) They take context for granted, but they don't do that as much as they disregard context by attacking the process of conceptualization. (Dr. Leonard Peikoff's "Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy" is actually good for exploring bad teaching methods because that essay suggests how Modernists support all sorts of imaginary splits e.g. terms vs. meaning, object existence vs. object identification, and so on.) Therefore, it's important to identify the sort of problems which people have in understanding objective concepts.

Let's start with hierarchical relationships before regarding potential context. Ethics subsumes self-defense i.e. the concept of morality includes the concept of self-defense. In this case, morality is the more abstract concept. Likewise, self-defense is more immediately understandable and applicable. You can see this by looking at children. In any typical playground environment, children will get into arguments when they play together. As children, they are likely to consider resorting to physical force far earlier in a confrontation than they should. Why do they choose initiating force before making logical arguments? Essentially it seems like a more immediately reliable method. That is, force is a more readily available and recognizable tool as far as children normally learn. More viscerally, emotional reactions are automatic, and its tempting for them to simply respond after feeling. (It takes an act of independence to stop and take time to think instead of immediately following up with initiating force.)

Consider the details of a specific incident as follows. If one kid throws a punch at another, then it's clear that the first kid is upset, it's clear who one of the people he's upset with is, and it's clear that he is passionate. The kid who got hit certainly will have some semblance of understanding the importance of self-defense after getting in a fight. On the other hand, it's unlikely that he will know much about what goes into a code of ethics. Even without formal study but through experience, he'll pick up pieces of information that he'll use to form a morality. Still, without formal study, he will also have a hard time developing the correct ethical code. The larger point then is that while we are born with some ability to deal with concretes via perception, it takes additional work to assemble a body of knowledge let alone one that is more consistent and integrated. The only way to get that improved system is by working with a proper theory of concepts.

Now, typically in public schools, kids are told that fighting is wrong. (This mirrors the Christian idea of "Thou shalt not kill" although there's a difference of magnitude involved between the final attempt to kill and the start of a physical fight.) According to Objectivism, the school administrators' policy contains an error that results in unfair situations for kids who are fighting. The fallacy underpinning that policy is one of equivocation. I will tell you now that this is an error involving an improper view of context as applied to concepts and principles. The equivocation in this case is of considering the initiation of force as morally equal to the defense against force. To see that this is true, consider two different possible resolutions of the aforementioned children's fight. Let's also leave aside motives at first. If the 2nd child who is being hit does nothing, then he will suffer injury and maybe feel some humiliation. On the other hand, if the 2nd child defends himself against the instigator the results are substantially different. Regardless of how the fight ends, if he has some idea in how to defend himself, then he will likely be in better physical shape, and he will probably also feel more pride in his abilities to cope with a bad situation.

Now, note that in order for anyone involved in the children's fight to distinguish between initiating force and defending against force i.e. self-defense, each person needs a code of ethics that makes the distinction important. Likewise, for the kid who was struck to come out the winner of the fight, he has to have the understanding (and motivation) that goes with having a healthy self-esteem. In particular, the concept of self-defense has to be converted into a principle. That is, the concept of self-defense must be related to at least one other concept by way of a consistent connection so that the person in question can make use of the conceptual relationship. Just as a parent should train a child to defend himself physically, that child should be told why he has value so that he is intellectually armed.

This difference in training leads to what I want Objectivist activist do as far as using the power of concepts is concerned.