The Qun states that true balance is to be found in working with one’s own nature and the nature of the world — working with what is rather than attempting to make it what you wish it to become. Ajax understands the nature of the world quite well — forget FISS, he’s got Common Sense! And so the Headmaster is suitably impressed with his intelligence and logic. Agreeing to the mission without knowing what it was, for instance, would have been foolish; it would have shown that he wanted gratification without thinking through the possible consequences.
Dumb muscle can be dangerous. But a smart person with his kind of power? He’s going places. Not sure where yet, but I guess we’ll find out when the headmaster tells us.
While the philosophy or philosophies that they represent may be distinct due to the possibility of drawing different conclusions from the objective reality one observes, they sound at their core like they root themselves in the same basis as objectivists: take things as they are, and build your philosophy from that to achieve the goals you set; do not pretend things are as your philosophy would require them to be to achieve the ends you set.
The actual philosophies, again, may be different. The goal of objectivism is to promote the greatest productivity and happiness of a society as possible. (The selfishness many falsely attribute to objectivism is actually the reality that those who follow the philosophy have accepted; it’s how men are, so objectivists try to build a philosophy and rule set that exploits that reality to achieve the above-stated goal.)
The Qunari are an organization of people in a game/book series called Dragon Age. They follow a doctrine called the Qun, which basically says that everyone has a place in the world and that trying to go beyond your purpose is bad. It’s all about working towards the good of the whole and the suppression of individualistic desires. They want to convert everyone in the world to this doctrine, by force if necessary (in the game, they have an ongoing military campaign to that purpose). Those that do not accept the Qun, will not be converted are not killed, but are reduced to mindless laborers (waste not want not).
Your version of what Objectivism is does not fit what Ayn Rand taught. She did not teach her ideas as flaws that were being exploited. For example, it seems that she flat out rejected altruism–not because it didn’t reflect reality, but because she thought it was immoral. She thus doesn’t think a lack of altruism is a flaw.
It sounds as if you neo-Objectivists are are winnowing the chaff, so to speak. You are salvaging the good from her philosophy while jettisoning the bad. Because Ayn Rand’s ideal world had everyone acting in the same way, as an enlightened rationalist. You acknowledge that a lot of her ideas were not ideal.
If nothing else, I’m sure you will agree that what she thought about homosexuality was wrong. My friend who knew her back in the day wound up having to stop being friends with her because she kept telling him he was wrong to think he was gay.
She had some inconsistencies within her own philosophy, honestly. Though I’ve recently read something that suggests her definition of “altruism” and that used by the rest of the world are not the same; I need to do some more research there. But altruism as most of the world uses the term is charity. Charity MUST be something people may do morally, because true charity can only be performed by the person who owns the resources to be charitably given. And one of the central tenets of Objectivism is that the producers may choose what to do with the fruits of their production. If a producer decides that his wealth is best used helping people of his own choosing, that is his prerogative.
I would agree that she did not see pursuit of rational self-interest as a flaw. Honestly, neither do I, inherently. But the point of Objectivism is to accept that people will engage in it, regardless of whether it’s a virtue or a flaw. If the system constructed around human interaction exploits this truth, it is MADE into a virtue.
As discussing Objectivism is fairly far off-topic already, I am not going to be baited into a discussion of an even hotter-button unrelated issue such as homosexuality. I will say this: if you want to try to discredit Newtonian Physics, doing so by saying “surely you’d at least agree that Newton’s belief in the Christian God was flawed” is, at best, a logical fallacy. Even if the person to whom you said it was an avowed atheist (or muslim, or hindu, or pastafarian…), their disagreement on religion with Newton would not preclude acceptance of the scientific theories Newton put forth. (Well, maybe if the faith stated that claiming to be able to use science to predict results of actions was denying the will of its god, as one of those I listed does, but that’s another matter entirely.)
But, to wrap this up: Everybody acting as an enlightened rationalist would be an ideal. It is enlightened and rational to help one another when we need it, but to be very careful how that help is meted out. Better as a loan with reasonable payback than as charity, when at all possible.
One hole you may note in just about every work Rand wrote is a lack of dealing with those who genuinely, honestly, literally cannot care for themselves. She valued human life above nearly all else (as you can see if you really read things like Galt’s rant); she would not have been able to write about a helplessly dependent cripple of any sort and treated them as disposable due to their lack of “productive capability.” But she could not reconcile that with her loathing of altruism. So she dodged the question by never bringing it up.
But such cases are when genuine charity – preferably by family members, but not necessarily – is needed and moral. But again: charity cannot be forced by anybody else. It stops being charity the moment you hold a gun to somebody’s head and tell them that they will pay for something you think somebody else needs. Then, it’s theft. No matter how well-meaning, it’s not charity. Even if you have the government hold the gun to my head for you, it’s not charity on my part, your part, nor the government’s part. (But one thing Rand found especially heinous is how the armed thieves then took credit for being generous and demonized those from whom the resources were forcibly taken, and I do happen to agree with her that that’s pretty repulsive.)
I also would argue that there’s nothing about how this guy is acting that is exclusive to Objectivism. Ajax is just practicing rationality. Those ideas have been around much longer than Ayn Rand’s Objectivism.
Oh, sure. Nothing here is particularly objectivist. I was more reacting to the (apparently incorrect) understanding I drew of “qunari” from another’s comment. There is pretty much nothing that objectivism has in common with qunari philosophy. And nothing particularly objectivist is being discussed in this comic.
So here we have an … educator, who tests his students objectively, continues to follow/support/build up a student who is not the cream of the crop, and appears to reward the use of intelligence/planning/recognition of consequences. He appears to be reinforcing tentative steps in a positive direction for this student.
Were he not planning to sacrifice this isolated student for an obviously one-way mission (why else would he choose a student without close friends or support) he not be entirely ineligible for teaching awards.
I am getting an echo of Baron Harkonnen from the Headmaster (without the lust for excess). Very dangerous, very crafty, but not overly flexible.
Choosing someone without peer support, that has no one to bounce ideas off of. Identifying someone without self-esteem, puffing them up so they will follow you. While 82 does express some critical thinking, the platitudes come too quickly, too easily from the Headmaster. While he is surprised by 82’s thinking, he is aware of the emotional power he holds over this child.
Headmaster is planning to utilize this young man as a disposable asset. Should 82 manage to pull this out of the fire, well, the Headmaster keeps this asset and if 82’s core can hold, he may come through this with earned confidence.
If 82 fails, the Headmaster has not risked one of his more valuable pieces.
It’s nice to see a villain with a good degree of intellect and cognition for once. I mean, this guy gets a 90% on my “Competent Antagonist’s Checklist”, only failing #9: “All employees or magically bound servants will be treated with genuine care and respect to prevent rebellions.”
He’s going on a solo mission; there won’t be anyone to bounce ideas off anyway. No, it looks like The Headmaster is just using the best asset for infiltration; a FISS with intelligence, who doesn’t have to worry about snoopy Praetoriaan schoolfriends trying to find him and is used to thinking things out on his own.
The Qunari destroy minds. That’s bad. The Qunari push acceptance without allowing for the possibility that a person’s reason for existence may be to push beyond their immediately apparent limits to become something greater. That’s shortsighted. The Headmaster seems to understand the idea that students might develop uniquely and he supports rational decision-making. He is not Qunari. And Praetorian Academy might not be quite as bad as it seems.
…He looks… older than Ron, but he’s a FISS, and he hasn’t yet earned the right to operate as an unmasked Praetorian. In addition, he’s showing an undue amount of Common Sense (as another fan notes: almost Tyler levels thereof), and he’s a fan of the FISS movement following 84’s naming schema.
Something about the addition of these facts bothers me and I can’t put my finger on what.
Random powers don’t happen according to a schedule and a family of supers like most parents will generally have their 2.2 kids fairly close to each other (assuming they don’t have twins) – it could be that the FISS before Julie were born only a few years, months, weeks, minutes, seconds before her as a result.
Fiss infiltration mission shouldn’t be overly dangerous.
I still don’t see things going great for him.
He seems slightly pessimistic, characters like that never finish better than average.
It sounds rather as though the Headmaster is threatening to expose Ajax’s internet stalking of 84 (he might not know they’ve met already).
Looking forward to the new stuff as Aaron rolls it out.
Have you ever read Ender’s Game? A large part of the early portions of the book was Ender being purposefully ostracized by the teachers, making so that he would have to struggle for even friendship. It worked, in the end; it made his friendships that much more bullet-proof and meaningful, and it made him a better commander over-all. He then tried to do the same to Bean, forgetting that while it had done him relative good in the long run, the actual doing was torturous for him.
Basically, the headmaster might allow this to happen because he recognizes potential, and tries to hone it in any way he can, including ways that might seem, or even might BE, cruel.
Thing is… there might be a place for something like the Praetorian Academy in society, at least when it comes to handling the Charles of the world. Something akin to military or reform schools for the metahuman set. Too bad the Headmaster strikes me as someone too clever for his own good…
Funny, headmaster: you don’t *look* qunari.
Might be because I’ve never read it, but what does the Qun have to do with the headmaster’s estimations?
The Qun states that true balance is to be found in working with one’s own nature and the nature of the world — working with what is rather than attempting to make it what you wish it to become. Ajax understands the nature of the world quite well — forget FISS, he’s got Common Sense! And so the Headmaster is suitably impressed with his intelligence and logic. Agreeing to the mission without knowing what it was, for instance, would have been foolish; it would have shown that he wanted gratification without thinking through the possible consequences.
So he’s Tyler with the FISS package. And he works for the bad guys. That could be a problem…
All who follow the Qun are Qunari, remember? 😉
Point taken.
Ok, 82 is impressing me so far.
Dumb muscle can be dangerous. But a smart person with his kind of power? He’s going places. Not sure where yet, but I guess we’ll find out when the headmaster tells us.
The only thing is: She is propably the target of his mission. Why else would the headmaster mention internet activity?
What are the “qunari” from?
While the philosophy or philosophies that they represent may be distinct due to the possibility of drawing different conclusions from the objective reality one observes, they sound at their core like they root themselves in the same basis as objectivists: take things as they are, and build your philosophy from that to achieve the goals you set; do not pretend things are as your philosophy would require them to be to achieve the ends you set.
The actual philosophies, again, may be different. The goal of objectivism is to promote the greatest productivity and happiness of a society as possible. (The selfishness many falsely attribute to objectivism is actually the reality that those who follow the philosophy have accepted; it’s how men are, so objectivists try to build a philosophy and rule set that exploits that reality to achieve the above-stated goal.)
What are the qunari and what are their goals?
The Qunari are an organization of people in a game/book series called Dragon Age. They follow a doctrine called the Qun, which basically says that everyone has a place in the world and that trying to go beyond your purpose is bad. It’s all about working towards the good of the whole and the suppression of individualistic desires. They want to convert everyone in the world to this doctrine, by force if necessary (in the game, they have an ongoing military campaign to that purpose). Those that do not accept the Qun, will not be converted are not killed, but are reduced to mindless laborers (waste not want not).
Well, that doesn’t sound like they accept things as they are at all. :/
They see it as others not accepting this the way they are. A person’s place is determined by the Qun, not by themselves.
Your version of what Objectivism is does not fit what Ayn Rand taught. She did not teach her ideas as flaws that were being exploited. For example, it seems that she flat out rejected altruism–not because it didn’t reflect reality, but because she thought it was immoral. She thus doesn’t think a lack of altruism is a flaw.
It sounds as if you neo-Objectivists are are winnowing the chaff, so to speak. You are salvaging the good from her philosophy while jettisoning the bad. Because Ayn Rand’s ideal world had everyone acting in the same way, as an enlightened rationalist. You acknowledge that a lot of her ideas were not ideal.
If nothing else, I’m sure you will agree that what she thought about homosexuality was wrong. My friend who knew her back in the day wound up having to stop being friends with her because she kept telling him he was wrong to think he was gay.
She had some inconsistencies within her own philosophy, honestly. Though I’ve recently read something that suggests her definition of “altruism” and that used by the rest of the world are not the same; I need to do some more research there. But altruism as most of the world uses the term is charity. Charity MUST be something people may do morally, because true charity can only be performed by the person who owns the resources to be charitably given. And one of the central tenets of Objectivism is that the producers may choose what to do with the fruits of their production. If a producer decides that his wealth is best used helping people of his own choosing, that is his prerogative.
I would agree that she did not see pursuit of rational self-interest as a flaw. Honestly, neither do I, inherently. But the point of Objectivism is to accept that people will engage in it, regardless of whether it’s a virtue or a flaw. If the system constructed around human interaction exploits this truth, it is MADE into a virtue.
As discussing Objectivism is fairly far off-topic already, I am not going to be baited into a discussion of an even hotter-button unrelated issue such as homosexuality. I will say this: if you want to try to discredit Newtonian Physics, doing so by saying “surely you’d at least agree that Newton’s belief in the Christian God was flawed” is, at best, a logical fallacy. Even if the person to whom you said it was an avowed atheist (or muslim, or hindu, or pastafarian…), their disagreement on religion with Newton would not preclude acceptance of the scientific theories Newton put forth. (Well, maybe if the faith stated that claiming to be able to use science to predict results of actions was denying the will of its god, as one of those I listed does, but that’s another matter entirely.)
But, to wrap this up: Everybody acting as an enlightened rationalist would be an ideal. It is enlightened and rational to help one another when we need it, but to be very careful how that help is meted out. Better as a loan with reasonable payback than as charity, when at all possible.
One hole you may note in just about every work Rand wrote is a lack of dealing with those who genuinely, honestly, literally cannot care for themselves. She valued human life above nearly all else (as you can see if you really read things like Galt’s rant); she would not have been able to write about a helplessly dependent cripple of any sort and treated them as disposable due to their lack of “productive capability.” But she could not reconcile that with her loathing of altruism. So she dodged the question by never bringing it up.
But such cases are when genuine charity – preferably by family members, but not necessarily – is needed and moral. But again: charity cannot be forced by anybody else. It stops being charity the moment you hold a gun to somebody’s head and tell them that they will pay for something you think somebody else needs. Then, it’s theft. No matter how well-meaning, it’s not charity. Even if you have the government hold the gun to my head for you, it’s not charity on my part, your part, nor the government’s part. (But one thing Rand found especially heinous is how the armed thieves then took credit for being generous and demonized those from whom the resources were forcibly taken, and I do happen to agree with her that that’s pretty repulsive.)
I also would argue that there’s nothing about how this guy is acting that is exclusive to Objectivism. Ajax is just practicing rationality. Those ideas have been around much longer than Ayn Rand’s Objectivism.
Oh, sure. Nothing here is particularly objectivist. I was more reacting to the (apparently incorrect) understanding I drew of “qunari” from another’s comment. There is pretty much nothing that objectivism has in common with qunari philosophy. And nothing particularly objectivist is being discussed in this comic.
So here we have an … educator, who tests his students objectively, continues to follow/support/build up a student who is not the cream of the crop, and appears to reward the use of intelligence/planning/recognition of consequences. He appears to be reinforcing tentative steps in a positive direction for this student.
Were he not planning to sacrifice this isolated student for an obviously one-way mission (why else would he choose a student without close friends or support) he not be entirely ineligible for teaching awards.
I am getting an echo of Baron Harkonnen from the Headmaster (without the lust for excess). Very dangerous, very crafty, but not overly flexible.
Why else chose a student without close friends or support, To keep the mission convert as no question will be asked about his absence.
Choosing someone without peer support, that has no one to bounce ideas off of. Identifying someone without self-esteem, puffing them up so they will follow you. While 82 does express some critical thinking, the platitudes come too quickly, too easily from the Headmaster. While he is surprised by 82’s thinking, he is aware of the emotional power he holds over this child.
Headmaster is planning to utilize this young man as a disposable asset. Should 82 manage to pull this out of the fire, well, the Headmaster keeps this asset and if 82’s core can hold, he may come through this with earned confidence.
If 82 fails, the Headmaster has not risked one of his more valuable pieces.
It’s nice to see a villain with a good degree of intellect and cognition for once. I mean, this guy gets a 90% on my “Competent Antagonist’s Checklist”, only failing #9: “All employees or magically bound servants will be treated with genuine care and respect to prevent rebellions.”
Link please? That group of words is too common in actual professional literature and the exact phrase doesn’t return anything.
It sounds like a distilled Evil Overlord list, as that is also an entry there.
He’s going on a solo mission; there won’t be anyone to bounce ideas off anyway. No, it looks like The Headmaster is just using the best asset for infiltration; a FISS with intelligence, who doesn’t have to worry about snoopy Praetoriaan schoolfriends trying to find him and is used to thinking things out on his own.
The Qunari destroy minds. That’s bad. The Qunari push acceptance without allowing for the possibility that a person’s reason for existence may be to push beyond their immediately apparent limits to become something greater. That’s shortsighted. The Headmaster seems to understand the idea that students might develop uniquely and he supports rational decision-making. He is not Qunari. And Praetorian Academy might not be quite as bad as it seems.
…He looks… older than Ron, but he’s a FISS, and he hasn’t yet earned the right to operate as an unmasked Praetorian. In addition, he’s showing an undue amount of Common Sense (as another fan notes: almost Tyler levels thereof), and he’s a fan of the FISS movement following 84’s naming schema.
Something about the addition of these facts bothers me and I can’t put my finger on what.
He should be a few years older, as he’s two numbers senior to Julie.
Random powers don’t happen according to a schedule and a family of supers like most parents will generally have their 2.2 kids fairly close to each other (assuming they don’t have twins) – it could be that the FISS before Julie were born only a few years, months, weeks, minutes, seconds before her as a result.
Not if there are multiple F.I.S.S.-births, or just multiple manifestations of the power-set, every year.
Fiss infiltration mission shouldn’t be overly dangerous.
I still don’t see things going great for him.
He seems slightly pessimistic, characters like that never finish better than average.
It sounds rather as though the Headmaster is threatening to expose Ajax’s internet stalking of 84 (he might not know they’ve met already).
Looking forward to the new stuff as Aaron rolls it out.
I notice that the headmaster didn’t respond to Ajax calling him out on the continued bullying.
Have you ever read Ender’s Game? A large part of the early portions of the book was Ender being purposefully ostracized by the teachers, making so that he would have to struggle for even friendship. It worked, in the end; it made his friendships that much more bullet-proof and meaningful, and it made him a better commander over-all. He then tried to do the same to Bean, forgetting that while it had done him relative good in the long run, the actual doing was torturous for him.
Basically, the headmaster might allow this to happen because he recognizes potential, and tries to hone it in any way he can, including ways that might seem, or even might BE, cruel.
Holy crap, Ajax; keep this up, and you might become one of my favorite characters!
Thing is… there might be a place for something like the Praetorian Academy in society, at least when it comes to handling the Charles of the world. Something akin to military or reform schools for the metahuman set. Too bad the Headmaster strikes me as someone too clever for his own good…