Checkered Premises

I recently watched Wonder Woman (2017), and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), both starring Gal Gadot. I remember when these movies came out. Everybody liked Wonder Woman, and most people did not like Wonder Woman 1984. Both of these movies have their share of silliness, and I admit that the first movie, Wonder Woman, stands up better. But even though Wonder Woman 1984 has some big things going against it, including a villain who is transparently a stand-in for Donald Trump (cheap shot, Hollywood), and some anti-wealth overtones, it has one surprisingly important thing in its favor: the theme is the danger of wishful thinking. It's a metaphysical theme. What's more, it's a true theme. The movie is a morality tale that uses a physical artifact to symbolize the human temptation to long for what is not over what is. In the movie, the artifact, in granting wishes, always exacts a hidden cost. It's hard not to salute such a well-conceived device to dramatize the theme that wishing ...

Should you want to live? Read that again. Should  you want to live? It's not an obvious question. It's a fishy  question. The term "should" implies a moral basis for an action. For an Objectivist, the purpose of morality is enjoyment, long-range, i.e. life. The whole problem of morality is that we often want to do things detrimental to  that goal . Moral thinking reveals the ideas and the courses of action that further our interest , rather than our immediate pleasure or satisfaction. If you don't want to live, moral arguments are irrelevant, because you've given up what moral argumentation  appeals to: the desire for durable joy . The choice to live is pre-moral. Morality is about how to live. Before you can care about morality, you must choose to live—to pursue happiness. Morality cannot make the choice for you. Some think that because "man's life" is the standard of value in Objectivism, bare survival is all that Objectivist morality invol...

 Some people go to church every week. A church is a place where people go to learn how to live. People need to learn how to live. But the church doesn't really teach you that. Instead, it teaches you how to keep God happy—to do what he likes. Who is God, and why do people want to keep him happy? It's strange, but God is an extra-strong, pretend person that someone made up long ago. People want to keep him happy because they want a strong friend. Children sometimes have imaginary friends, but give them up after a while. God, though, is an imaginary friend that lots of people don't ever give up. Instead, they forget he isn't real. How can people forget they are pretending? It's sad. It happens when they become afraid of not pretending. People like God because he is big and strong. But God isn't always nice. People say that sometimes when God gets angry, he hurts lots of people, even if only some of them have made him angry. God, the imaginary friend, is also a bul...

"Freedom" is a term used to mean many different things, even when limited to the political context. To some, freedom means the ability to speak one's mind in public without being put in jail. To others, freedom means having affordable health-care, and gainful employment. To still others, freedom means the ability to take over the media or make demonstrations that disrupt private functions. However it is defined, freedom is something that all people want, and believe they deserve. This makes the term particularly valuable to politicians. By advocating "freedom," they can promise to satisfy each person's desire—while evading the fact that the desires of people often conflict. Why Define Freedom? Why define any term? To have a clear understanding of it, and to assure that people understand each other when they use it to communicate. When a term is misunderstood, confusion occurs, and bad things can result, ranging from hurt feelings to broken promises, to wars....

No spoilers here. I just finished watching Extraordinary Attorney Woo, a Korean legal drama/comedy, on Netflix. Actually, the season finale was released yesterday, just in time for me, since I saw the penultimate episode last night. I give this show my absolutely unqualified recommendation. I'm stunned by how great a show it is. I'm stunned that a show this good even exists in our world. It shows me that something once present in our world is not actually gone yet. Extraordinary Attorney Woo has an unabashed emotionality. It presents its characters, it shows you their tribulations and triumphs, and and it makes you care about them. The whole show is about high stakes, and the emotion of it all hits hard. Few characters in the show are repressed. They almost always show their emotions. There is no cool, stoic presentation of events. Every scene has emotional impact. The love relationships in the show may seem conservative or innocent by American standards, but to some extent th...

People remain confused regarding whether or not Objectivism is an "open system" of philosophy. Many people don't understand the issue (hint: it has nothing to do with copyright). The confusion is because people on both sides represent the issue differently.  The people on the "open" side claim the issue regards the freedom to innovate and integrate ideas. They hold that to close Objectivism means that any hidden errors in it should be preserved and adhered to; that closing Objectivism means stopping or at least impeding philosophic progress within Objectivism.  The people on the "closed" side claim the issue regards Objectivism's integrity and identity. They hold that opening Objectivism means that Ayn Rand's ideas may be undermined by philosophic inflation—the introduction of counterfeit Objectivism. They also claim that those who want to open Objectivism wish to increase the stature of their own ideas by calling them part of Objectivism.  Who...

In November 2013, I watched an interesting movie called “My Name is Bill W.” It’s about the man who founded Alcoholics Anonymous.  Before watching the movie, I expected to have two concerns with it:  “They’re going to call alcoholism a disease (i.e. an excuse).”  “They’re going to emphasize the ‘higher power’ or God thing.”  I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, they did mention these things but did not dwell on them. And the result is that I came away from this movie with a better understanding of addiction than I did going in. As well, I’m now able to recognize the borderline-addictive behavior that I exhibit in my own life.  With that context, I wish, now, to tell you my understanding of addictive behavior, and my new take on the above two bullet points.  Addictive behavior is a challenge we all have the potential for. Addictive behavior, as I’ll define it, is to make the same bad decision over and over. This bad decision is generally to engage in some pleasu...