It would be extraordinary if every [Belgian after Germany’s invasion during the Great War] had rushed to the library, opened a manual of international law, and had informed himself whether he had a right to take potshot at the infernal nuisance tramping through his streets. It would be no less extraordinary if an army that had never been under fire, did not regard every bullet that came its way as unauthorized, because it was inconvenient, and indeed as somehow a violation of the rules of the Kriegspiel, which then constituted its only experience of war. One can imagine the more sensitive bent on convincing themselves that the people to whom they were doing such terrible things must be terrible people.
- Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion
The rest of Chapter 7 provides examples, from hypothetical to historical, of the way stereotypes keep us from challenging our presumptions. Although the above example is the most striking, his use of Aristotle’s defense of slavery struck home, due to my previous “conversion”* to Objectivism. After having studied this philosophy for a few years as well as the logic it promoted, I decided to apply the latter to the former, specifically, to Rand’s essay setting out her ethics. I discovered a circular argument at the very heart of the essay, yet ultimately dismissed it, having invested too much in this philosophy to walk away from it. Only after having left the man who had introduced the work to me and having experienced* the disingenuousness of those on the Nathaniel Branden discussion board was I ready to question it – When I found an argument on line that identified this very circular argument, I was furious. Then, when I tried to share what I had learned, I was surprised that I was unable to convince anyone that her errors were significant, even people who did acknowledge that she had erred.
My next entry chapter will cover the chapter, Blind Spots and Their Value.
* These links go to entries that mention parts of my life that led to my adopting, then rejecting Objectivism. I also wrote a little about them on this discussion board thread, and may cover this in more detail later.
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