For the New Intellectual – Ayn Rand

December 31, 2011

Devon Sampson Ayn Rand , , , , Leave a comment

For the New Intellectual is essentially a “best-of” collection from Ayn Rand’s fiction novels. It begins, however, with a lengthy, original essay which shares its name with the book’s title. It spans the history of philosophy and presents the fundamentals of Objectivism, Rand’s philosophy, in contrast to the Attilas (brute leaders) and the Witch Doctors (irrationalists) that have ruled for almost all of history. The following notes are select passages from the title essay.

 

“When a man, a business corporation or an entire society is approaching bankruptcy, there are two courses that those involved can follow: they can evade the reality of their situation and act on a frantic, blind, range-of-the-moment expediency – not daring to look ahead, wishing no one would name the truth, yet desperately hoping that something will save them somehow – or they can identify the situation, check their premises, discover their hidden assets and start rebuilding.” (7)

“The essential characteristics of (force and faith) remain the same in all ages; Attila, the man who rules by brute force, acts on the range of the moment, is concerned with nothing but the physical reality immediately before him, respects nothing but the physical reality immediately before him, respects nothing but man’s muscles, and regards a fist, a club or a gun as the only answer to any problem – and the Witch Doctor, the man who dreads physical reality, dreads the necessity of practical action, and escapes into his emotions, into visions of some mystic realm where his wishes enjoy a supernatural power unlimited by the absolute of nature.” (10)

“For an animal, the question of survival is primarily physical; for man, primarily epistemological.” (11)

“(The men of faith and force) seek to exist, not by conquering nature, but by adjusting to the given, the immediate, the known. There is only one means of survival for those who do not choose to conquer nature: to conquer those who do.” (11-12)

“Attila feels no need to understand, to explain, nor even to wonder, how men manage to produce the things he covets – ‘somehow’ is a fully satisfactory answer inside his skull, which refuses to consider such questions as ‘how?’ or ‘why?’ or such concepts as identity or causality.” (12)

“(Attila’s) view of the universe does not include the power of production. The power of destruction, of brute force, is, to him, metaphysically omnipotent. An Attila never thinks of creating, only of taking over.”

“The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher.” (21)

“The intellectual is the eyes, ears and voice of a free society: it is his job to observe the events of the world, to evaluate their meaning and to inform the men in all other fields.”

“The more specialized and diversified a society, the greater its need for the integrating power of knowledge; but the acquisition of knowledge on so wide a scale is a full-time profession.”

“A free society has to count on the honor of its intellectuals: it has to expect them to be as efficient, reliable, precise and objective as the printing press and the television sets that carry their voices.”

“If it were possible for an animal to describe the content of his consciousness, the result would be a transcript of Hume’s philosophy. Hume’s conclusions would be the conclusions of a consciousness limited to the perceptual level of awareness, passively reacting to the experience of immediate concretes, with no capacity to form abstractions, to integrate perceptions into concepts, waiting in vain for the appearance of an object labeled ‘causality’ (except that such a consciousness would not be able to conclusions).” (24)

“The major line of philosophers rejected Kant’s ‘noumenal’ world quite speedily, but they accepted his ‘phenomenal’ world and carried it to its logical consequences: the view of reality as mere appearance; the view of man’s conceptual faculty as a mechanism for producing arbitrary ‘constructs’ not derived from experience or facts; the view of rational certainty as impossible, of science as unprovable, of man’s mind as impotent – and, above all, the equation of morality with selflessness.” (26-27)

“The relationship of reason and morality is reciprocal: the man who accepts the role of a sacrificial animal, will not achieve the self-confidence necessary to uphold the validity of his mind – the man who doubts the validity of his mind, will not achive the self-esteem necessary to uphold the value of his person and to discover the moral premises that make man’s value possible.” (31)

“Having accepted the premises, the moral values and the position of Witch Doctors, the intellectuals were unwilling to differentiate between the businessman and Attila, between the producer of wealth and the looter. Like the Witch Doctor, they scorned and dreaded the realm of material reality, feeling secretly inadequate to deal with it. Like the Witch Doctor’s, their secret vision (almost their feared and envied ideal) of a practical, successful man, a true master of reality, was Attila; like the Witch Doctor, they believed that force, fraud, lies, plunder, expropriation, enslavement, murder were practical. So they did not inquire into the source of wealth or ever ask what made it possible (they had been taught that causality is an illusion and that only the immediate moment is real). They took it as their axiom, as an irreducible primary, that wealth can be acquired only by force – and that a fortune as such is the proof of plunder, with no further distinctions or inquiries necessary.” (33)

“(Witch Doctors) proclaimed themselves to be the defenders of the poor against the rich, righteously evading the fact that the rich were not Attilas any longer – and the defenders of the weak against the strong, righteously evading the fact that the strength involved was not the strength of brute muscles any longer, but the strength of man’s mind.” (34)

“The businessman, historically, had started as the victim of the intellectuals; but no injustice or exploitation can succeed for long without the sanction of the victim. The businessman, who could not accept the intellectual leadership of post-Kantian Witch Doctors, made his fatal error when he conceded to them the field of the intellect. He gave them the benefit of the doubt, at his own expense, he concluded that their meaningless verbiage could not be as bad as it sounded to him, that he lacked understanding, but had no stomach for trying to understand that sort of stuff and would leave it respectfully alone. No Witch Doctor could have hoped for a deadlier concession.” (39)

“(The businessman) repressed and renounced any interest in ideas, any quest for intellectual values or moral principles. He could not accept the altruist morality, as no man of self-esteem can accept it, and he found no other moral philosophy. He lived by a subjective code of his own – the code of justice, the code of a fair trader – without knowing what a superlatively moral virtue it represented. His private vision or understanding of altruism – particularly in America – took the form of an enormous generosity, the joyous, innocent, benevolent generosity of a self-confident man, who is too innocent to suspect that he is hated for his success, that the moralists of altruism want him to pay financial tributes, not as kindness, but as atonement for the guilt of having succeeded.” (40)

“Who are to be the New Intellectuals? Any man or woman who is willing to think. All those who know that man’s life must be guided by reason, those who value their own life and are not willing to surrender it to the cult of despair in the modern jungle of cynical impotence, just as they are not willing to surrender the world to the Dark Ages and the rule of the brutes.” (42)

“(The New Intellectual) will be an integrated man, that is: a thinker who is a man of action. He will know that ideas divorced from consequent action are fraudulent, and that action divorced from ideas is suicidal. He will know that the conceptual level of psycho-epistemology – the volitional level of reason and thought – is the basic necessity of man’s survival and his greatest moral virtue.” (43)

“The businessmen need to discover the intellect; the intellectuals need to discover reality. Let the intellectuals understand the nature and the function of a free market in order to offer the businessmen, as well as the public at large, the guidance of an intelligable theoretical framework for dealing with men, with society, with politics, and economics. Let the businessmen learn the basic issues and principles of philosophy in order to know how to judge ideas, then let them assume full responsiblity for the kind of ideologies they choose to finance and support.” (44)

“That which is merely implicit is not in men’s conscious control; they can lose it by means of other implications, without knowing what it is they are losing or when or why.” (45)

“Perhaps the most obscene legacy of altruism among modern intellectuals is their axiomatic acceptance of brute force and of somebody’s sacrifice as a normal and necessary part of a human society, and their refusal to consider the possibility of a non-sacrificial, non-compulsory co-existence and co-operation among men.”

“Free to Choose” by Milton Friedman

December 29, 2011

Devon Sampson Politics , , , , , , Leave a comment

I hope you all have had a great holiday season. Here at the Bank of Notes, we want to give our readers a present as well – so here is Part 1 of Milton Friedman’s legendary 10-part miniseries “Free to Choose”. Each episode starts out with 20-30 minutes of Friedman discussing an economic issue in a fairly succinct manner, while showing video of the various world economies discussed.

However, it is the second half of each episode that makes this series truly epic. Milton Friedman debates various academics, usually of liberal or socialist inclinations, on the topic of the episode (eg: Episode 1 discusses the merits of free markets). It doesn’t take long, however, for these debates to turn into total bloodbaths – which Friedman emerges from triumphant and unscathed. In fact, Friedman dissects and eviscerates arguments against individual rights with such precision that it appears effortless – and to the Nobel Prize winner, it is, because he has an unshakable conviction in his principles and a comprehensive understanding of the logical validity of his arguments.

Economics has long been referred to as “the dismal science”, but Milton Friedman’s uncompromising, unrelenting advocacy of liberty and individual rights has inspired me more than any speech, public figure, or movie (and certainly any academic) has in a very long time.

(Try Winning) BAYTL: The Anatomy of the Worst Album of the Year

December 21, 2011

Devon Sampson Uncategorized , , , , , Leave a comment

I contribute to a blog called TRY WINNING, which some friends of mine created as a hub to post awesome/hilarious things that we find. I recently made a post about a recent rap album that’s already being heralded as the worst album of the year. Enjoy.

BAYTL: The Anatomy of the Worst Album of the Year.

Nathaniel Branden – Self-Esteem Articles

December 21, 2011

Devon Sampson Human Psychology , , , , , , Leave a comment

“Nathaniel Branden is a psychotherapist and writer best known today for his work in the psychology of self-esteem from a humanistic perspective (see self-esteem in humanistic psychology). A former student and one-time romantic partner of novelist Ayn Rand, Branden had a prominent role in promoting Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism.” -excerpted from Wikipedia entry on Nathaniel Branden

 

Yesterday I did some independent research on Nathaniel Branden, one of the key figures of the Objectivist movement. I was curious to find out how someone so intimately familiar with Rand’s philosophy had grown to reject it (or at least some aspects of it.) During the search, I came across a number of outstanding articles written by Branden that were particularly interesting to me because they represented the first legitimate critiques of Ayn Rand. Granted, the main article in which this came from also included vast amounts of (rightly deserved) praise for Objectivism as well.

As I continued researching, I discovered that Branden went on to do extensive research in the field of self-esteem, penning numerous books and articles on the subject. I’m just scratching the surface of his body of work, but so far I’m extremely impressed.

Here are my notes on the various articles featured on his blog, which you can find at NathanielBranden.com:

______________________________________________________________________

 

Self-esteem is the experience of being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and of being worthy of happiness.

 

You cannot have a world that works, you can’t have an organization, a marriage, a relationship, a life that works, except on the premise of self-responsibility. (“Self-Responsibility”)

(People) have been taught that the essence of virtue is self-sacrifice. To a large extent that is a doctrine of control and manipulation. “Selfish” is what we call people when they are doing what they want to do, rather than what we want them to do.

High self-esteem seeks the challenge and stimulation of worthwhile and demanding goals. Reaching such goals nurtures good self-esteem. Low self-esteem seeks the safety of the familiar and undemanding. Confining oneself to the familiar and undemanding serves to weaken self-esteem. (“Our Urgent Need For Self-Esteem”)

The higher our self-esteem, the stronger the drive to express ourselves, reflecting the sense of richness within. The lower our self-esteem, the more urgent the need to “prove” ourselves—or to forget ourselves by living mechanically.

The higher our self-esteem, the more open, honest, and appropriate our communications are likely to be, because we believe our thoughts have value and therefore we welcome rather than fear the clarity. The lower our self-esteem, the more muddy, evasive, and inappropriate our communications are likely to be, because of uncertainty about our own thoughts and feelings and anxiety about the listener’s response.

“Self-esteem” is sometimes used interchangeably with “self-image,” which is unfortunate, because the concept is much deeper than any “image.” Self-esteem is a particular way of experiencing the self. (“Self-Esteem as a Spiritual Discipline”)

To observe that the practice of living purposefully is essential to well-realized self-esteem should not be understood to mean that the measure of a person’s worth is his or her external achievements…The root of our self-esteem, as I have discussed at length elsewhere (Branden, 1994) is not our achievements, but those internally generated practices that, among other things, make it possible for us to achieve all the self-virtues mentioned above. (“Nurturing Self-Esteem in Young People”)

To give a child the experience of being accepted and respected does not mean to signal that “I expect nothing of you. “Teachers who want children to give their best must convey that that is what they expect. Children often interpret the absence of such expectations as evidence of contempt.

Self-esteem is an experience. It is a particular way of experiencing the self. It is a good deal more than a mere feeling. It involves emotional, evaluative, and cognitive components. It also entails certain action dispositions: to move toward life rather than away from it; to move toward consciousness rather than away from it; to treat facts with respect rather than denial; to operate self-responsibly rather than the opposite. (“Answering Misconceptions About Self-Esteem”)

Excessive and inappropriate self-absorption is symptomatic of poor self-esteem, not high self-esteem. If there is something we are confident about, we do not obsess about it-we get on with living.

(S)ometimes when people lack adequate self-esteem they fall into arrogance, boasting, and grandiosity as a defense mechanism-a compensatory strategy. Their problem is not that they have too big an ego but that they have too small a one.

What shall it profit us to win the approval of the whole world and lose our own?

(T)o be effective, “praise” – or, more exactly, recognition – should be reality-based, calibrated to the significance of the child’s actions (in other words, not extravagant or grandiose), and directed at the child’s behavior rather than his or her character. Sweeping statements such as “You’re a perfect angel,” or “You’re always such a good girl,” or “You’re always so kind and loving,” are not helpful: rather than nurture self-esteem, they tend to evoke anxiety, since the child knows there are times when they are not true.

Neither a business, nor a marriage, nor a soul can be kept alive and healthy without continuous effort. Responsibility for appropriate action never ends.

The E-Myth Revisited – Michael E. Gerber (Part 1 of 3)

December 20, 2011

Devon Sampson Business , , , , 1 Comment

 

Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth Revisited should be required reading for anyone thinking about starting a business or for those who have already taken that fateful step. The title refers to the author’s belief that entrepreneurs–typically brimming with good but distracting ideas–make poor businesspeople. He establishes an incredibly organised and regimented plan, so that daily details are scripted, freeing the entrepreneur’s mind to build the long-term success or failure of the business. You don’t need an MBA to understand or follow its directives; Gerber takes time to explain buzzwords and complex theories. Written in a clear and well-paced manner, The E-Myth Revisited is like receiving advice from an old friend.
-Amazon.com review

_____________________________________________________________________

Just because you understand the technical work of a business doesn’t mean that you understand how to run a business that does technical work.

Gerber argues that we have three different business personality types: the Entrepreneur, the Manager, and the Technician. When these three elements of your personality are balanced, things work. However, too often the Technician, finally happy to be his own boss, takes over. The wrong personality is in charge!

“If you watch long enough, you’ll begin to understand how devastating the tyranny of your strongest personality is to your life.” (31)

Gerber also describes the three stages of a business:

    Infancy
    Adolescence
    Maturity

In the Infancy stage of a business, the owner IS the business. It is the phase of the Technician.

What Technicians fail to understand is that businesses are much more than the aggregate of the various types of work done in it.

Adolescence is the phase where you get some help.

Management by Abdication (rather than by Delegation) is a trap that many owners get caught in during this stage – they let their employees handle everything so they have more time and freedom. Inevitably, when it becomes impossible to juggle all the balls in the air, everything collapses and the Technician takes over again.

“Every Adolescent business reaches a point where it pushes beyond its owner’s Comfort Zone – outside of which he begins to lose control.” (51)

    -The Technician’s boundary is determined by how much he can do himself
    -The Manager’s boundary is defined by how many Technicians he can supervise effectively
    -The Entrepreneur’s boundary is a function of how many managers he can engage in pursuit of his vision

“As a business grows, it invariably exceeds its owner’s ability to control it.” (51)

Any limitation you put on growth is unnatural because instead of being shaped by market forces (or lack of capital), the limitation comes from your own personal limitations.

It is possible, however, to launch your business as a Mature company.

The Mature company still goes through Infancy and Adolesence, but it goes through them in an entirely different way. It’s his perspective – The Entrepreneurial Perspective – that makes the difference.

I realized that for IBM to become a great company it would have to act like a great company long before it ever became one.”
-Tom Watson, founder of IBM

Most people who start a business just think about the work that they’ll have to do in it, rather than thinking about the business model itself. The former is the Technician’s Perspective, the latter is the Entrepreneurial Perspective.

Entrepreneur: Thinks, “How must the business work?”
Technician: Thinks, “What work has to be done?”

Entrepreneur: Starts with a picture of a well-defined future, and then comes back to the present with the intention of changing it to match that vision.
Technician: Starts with the present, and then looks forward to an uncertain future with the hope of keeping it much like the present.

Entrepreneur: Envisions the business in its entirety, from which the parts are derived.
Technician: Envisions the business in parts, from which is constructed the whole.

Entrepreneur: The present-day world is modeled after his vision.
Technician: The future is modeled after his present day world.

The Romantic Lifestyle: Becoming Your Own Magnum Opus

December 12, 2011

Devon Sampson Ayn Rand, Original Content, Philosophy , , , , , 1 Comment

She was looking up at the face of a man who knelt by her side, and she knew that in all the years behind her, this was what she would have given her life to see: a face that bore no mark of pain or fear or guilt. The shape his mouth was pride, and more: it was as if he took pride in being proud.

-Atlas Shrugged, page 531, Dagny Taggert’s first impression of John Galt

 

This weekend I finished The Romantic Manifesto by Ayn Rand. In it, Rand argues that all art is “a selective recreation of reality according to one’s metaphysical value judgments.” This means that any work of art intrinsically says, “This is life as I see it”, either intentionally or unintentionally. If an artist defaults on this responsibility, his work will still represent a certain world-view, but it will be perverse, scattered, and portray some sort of malevolent universe.

Its viewers have to decide whether they agree or disagree with the work’s world-view, again, a process that cannot be avoided even by default.

The objective standard of value that art should be judged by, however, is not whether it is generally agreeable, but by how well it represents its particular metaphysical world-view. For example, even if you disagree with Shakespeare’s view that people have a predetermined fate and a tragic flaw that will lead them to that fate, it does not mean that Shakespeare is not still brilliant. You just won’t personally enjoy his work quite as much.

(A nice illustration of the opposite effect is my love of the HBO series Entourage; I get an infinite amount of enjoyment from that show because of its general themes of friendship and prosperity, despite the fact that it has little objective aesthetic value.)

Essentially, the standard of value for a work of art is not what it is, just that it is.

An easy false conclusion to come to from all of this is that art is a medium of teaching others about your views, but that is only a consequence of art, not the purpose. The purpose of aesthetics, according to Rand, is simply to show. She offers a brilliant analogy to explain:

The primary purpose of an airplane is not to teach man how to fly, but to give him the actual experience of flying. So is the primary purpose of an art work.

-The Romantic Manifesto, page 163 (emphasis added)

In the book Rand is referring to literature, paintings, sculptures, plays, and music. But this got me to think: could this apply to your physical appearance as well?

The answer: of course!

Just as a disheveled and feeble appearance with no thought put into it suggests a weak internal constitution of beliefs and values, a congruent, physically-fit appearance can serve as an aesthetic demonstration of the potential of human beings, what man could and ought to be like. This is romanticism, or, as Rand refers to her particular brand of it, romantic realism.

Crafting your appearance into an aesthetic experience is not the kind of endeavor that one can dabble in, however. Half-measures are pointless; mediocre-to-average is not something to aspire to. It requires a serious amount of sustained effort, but after reading The Romantic Manifesto it’s hard to deny how absolutely worthwhile it is.

Treating your physical appearance as a Romantic work of art is such a brilliant frame of mind to have in your daily life. It’s one of my best ideas in months, and that’s saying something because I am smart.

The War of Art (Part 2: Combating Resistance – Turning Pro)

December 8, 2011

Devon Sampson Motivational Psychology, Spirituality , , , , Leave a comment

My notes from Part 2 of Steven Pressfield’s modern classic The War of Art.

 

It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior’s life.
-Telamon of Arcadia

 

“Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. ‘I write only when inspiration strikes,’ he replied. ‘Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’ clock sharp.’” (79)

The Principle of Priority – you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and you must do what is important first.

The first movie Steven Pressfield ever wrote was horrible and was a commercial failure. However, in retrospect Pressfield has an interesting perspective on it; “That was when I realized I had become a pro. I had not yet had a success. But I had had a real failure.” (87)

Pressfield argues that being overly emotionally invested in your work is more characteristic of an amateur than a professional. Regardless of your enthusiasm for the project, Pressfield insists that an in-it-for-the-money mindset produces the professional attitude necessary to get things done: the “lunch pail-mentality”, the “hard-hat state of mind” that shows up no matter what and slugs it out day after day.

“The professional arms himself with patience, not only to give the stars time to align in his career, but to keep himself from flaming out in each individual work.” (90)

“(The professional) respects Resistance. He knows if he caves in today, no matter how plausible the pretext, he’ll be twice as likely to cave in tomorrow.” (95)

“The professional knows that Resistance is like a telemarketer; if you so much as say hello, you’re finished. The pro doesn’t even pick up the phone. He stays at work.”

“(The professional) understands that the field alters every day. His goal is not victory (success will come by itself when it wants to) but to handle himself, his insides, as sturdily and steadily as he can.” (97)

“The student of the game knows that the levels of revelation that can unfold in gold, as in any art, are inexhaustible.” (100)

“(A professional) does not identify with (their) instrument. It is simply what God gave her, what she has to work with. She assesses it coolly, impersonally, objectively.” (101)

“We cannot let external criticism, even if it’s true, fortify our internal foe. That foe is strong enough already.” (102-3)

“Humiliation, like rejection and criticism, is the external reflection of internal Resistance.” (104)

In a situation where you are the recipient of some negative external force, Pressfield urges us to “maintain our sovereignty over the moment.” (107)

The Virtue of Selfishness – Ayn Rand (1/3)

December 5, 2011

Devon Sampson Ayn Rand, Politics , , , , , , Leave a comment

I was originally planning on making a separate post for each of the 19 chapters, but to truly understand the code of ethics Rand advocates one must have a full understanding of all of its antecedent concepts. Reading the book cover to cover is the only sufficient way to accomplish this; there is no way to give it justice with out-of-context notes.

Still, I have too many gems from the later chapters to let go to waste so I’ll share them in 3 parts.

_______________________________________________________

Chapter 12 – Man’s Rights

“The right to life is the source of all rights – and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.” (110)

“Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object…but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it.”

“Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work.” (Atlas Shrugged.) (111)

“(The Declaration of Independence) provided the only valid justification of a government and defined its only proper purpose: to protect man’s rights by protecting him from physical violence. Thus the government’s function was changed from the role of ruler to the role of servant.”

“Just as in the material realm the plundering of a country’s wealth is accomplished by inflating the currency – so today one may witness the process of inflation being applied to the realm of rights. The process entails a growth of newly promulgated ‘rights’ that people do not notice the fact that the meaning of the concept is being reversed. Just as bad money drives out good money, so these ‘printing-press rights’ negate authentic rights.” (112)
-ie: American democrats claiming that people have the “right” to have a job, no matter what.

“If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labour.” (113)

“Any alleged ‘right’ of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right…there can be no such thing as ‘the right to enslave.’”

“A right does not include the material implementation of that right by other men; it includes only the freedom to earn that implementation by one’s own effort.” (113-4)

“(The Founding Fathers) spoke of the right to the pursuit of happiness – not of the right to happiness.” (114)

“The political function of ‘the right of free speech’ is to protect dissenters and unpopular minorities from forceable suppression – not to guarantee them the support, advantages and rewards of a popularity they have not gained.” (117)

.
Chapter 13 – Collectivized “Rights”

“Just as the notion that ‘Anything I do is right because I chose to do it,’ is not a moral principle, but a negation of morality – so the notion that ‘Anything society does is right because society chose to do it,’ is not a moral principle, but a negation of moral principles and the banishment of morality from social issues.” (118)

“A man can neither acquire new rights by joining a group nor lose the rights which he does possess…any group that does not recognize this principle is not an association, but a gang or mob.” (119-120)

“The notion of ‘collective rights’ (the notion that rights belong to groups, not to individuals) means that ‘rights’ belong to some men, but not to others” (120)

“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).” (121-122)

The War of Art – Steven Pressfield (Part 1: Resistance – Defining the Enemy)

December 4, 2011

Devon Sampson Motivational Psychology, Spirituality , , , , , , Leave a comment

 

The War of Art is one of the greatest self-help books of all-time. In it, Steven Pressfield characterizes the force within us that doesn’t want to get things done, the force that holds us back from reaching our potential, and gives it a name: Resistance. In Part One, Pressfield makes it his mission to explain just how deadly Resistance can be. Part Two elaborates on how we can defeat it. Part Three attempts to motivate us but gets far too spiritual and religious for my tastes. Nonetheless, despite my distaste for the final third of it, The War of Art’s first two parts contain so much motivational precision that it still ranks among the all-time great self-help books in my eyes.

Note: page citations are from the digital copy of the book.

_______________________________________________________________

“Most have two lives. The life we live and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” (16)

 

The enemy is a very good teacher.
-The Dalai Lama

 

Any act that delays immediate gratification in favour of long-term prosperity will elicit Resistance.

Resistance does not come from outside factors, it is generated and perpetrated from within.

“Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify; seduce, bully, cajole. Resistance is protean. It will assume any form, it that’s what it takes to deceive you. It will reason with you like a lawyer or jam a nine-millimeter in your face like a stickup man. Resistance has no conscience. It will pledge anything to get a deal, then double-cross you as soon as your back is turned. If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.” (26)

The more important an action is to our personal progression and evolution, the more Resistance it will elicit. This is not entirely bad – we can use Resistance as a compass towards what truly matters.

Resistance obstructs movement only from a lower sphere to a higher sphere. So if you’re working with the Mother Teresa Foundation but you decide you want to become a telemarketer, Resistance will be nowhere to be found.

Resistance is most powerful at the finish line. The danger is greatest once we approach the end. Knowing that we’re about to beat it, Resistance hits the panic button and hits us with everything it has a desperate last effort.

When you start to overcome resistance, it will recruit allies – other people’s Resistances. These other people will try to sabotage you because your success becomes a reproach to them. (m3taphysics: They have no interest in being inspired because that would force them to face reality, which means facing their own shortcomings.)

“The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration.” (37)

Resistance distracts us with cheap, easy fixes like sex (sometimes manifesting as a preoccupation with sex). The barometer is how hollow you feel afterwards; the more empty you feel, the more likely it is that your real motivation was Resistance rather than love or even lust.

“Creating soap opera drama in our lives is a symptom of Resistance.” (42)

“Sometimes entire families participate unconsciously in a culture of self-dramatization. The kids fuel the tanks, the grown-ups arm the phasers. It’s more fun than a movie. And it works: Nobody gets a damn thing done.”

“Sometimes, if we’re not conscious of our Resistance, we’ll pick as a mate someone who has or is successfully overcoming Resistance.” (46)

“If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no Resistance.” (57)

“Grandiose fantasies are a symptom of Resistance. They’re the sign of an amateur. The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes a by-product of work. The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like.” (60)

“Any support we get from persons of flesh and blood is like Monopoly money; it’s not legal tender in that sphere where we have to do our work. In fact, the more energy we spend stoking up on support from colleagues and loved ones, the weaker we become and the less capable of handling our business.” (68)

“Seeking support from friends and family is like having people gathered around your deathbed.”

“(When you have a powerful, inspiring dream or you experience any sort of motivational epiphany), don’t talk about it. Don’t dilute its power. The dream is for you. It’s between you and your muse. Shut up and use it.” (69)

Resistance’s greatest weapon is rationalization.

“But rationalization has its own sidekick. It’s the part of us that actually believes what rationalization is telling us.” (71)

 

It’s one thing to lie to ourselves. It’s another thing to believe it.

 

However, if Resistance couldn’t be beaten, there would be no great symphonies, no great plays such as Romeo and Juliet, and no great works of architecture like the Golden Gate Bridge.

Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action – Simon Sinek

December 3, 2011

Devon Sampson Business, Social Dynamics , , , , , , Leave a comment

There are two ways to affect the behavior of others: to manipulate and to inspire.

Price is an example of manipulation. It is a great way to stimulate demand and support in the short term but a singular focus on it has devastating effects in the long run.

People are comfortable buying all kinds of different products from Apple. This is because of their ”clarity of WHY”; even though the what’s are different (phones, computers, tablets, etc.), the WHY is consistent among all products underneath the Apple umbrella (challenging the status quo, zen-like simplicity).

Conversely, Dell’s MP3 player was a flop because Dell has always identified themselves based on their WHAT: computers.

The what should only be the logical stuff that the brain uses to rationalize the WHY. This is because WHY’s are difficult to articulate.

Early adopters, that is, those consumers on the left side on the innovation diffusion curve, purchase things based on feel, based on WHY. Don’t blindly sell to the majority, seek out the early adopters on the left side of the curve that believe what you believe and will be loyal to you. These loyal early adopters will “tip” the majority in the middle of the curve (see The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell).

Charisma is clarity of WHY.

Energy excites, charisma inspires.

Charisma breeds loyalty.

As a company grows, its CEO becomes farther removed from its what. It can, and it must, however, maintain control over its WHY.

The best example of brand loyalty is this: there are many people that have tattooed the Harley Davidson logo on their body. And a portion of these people don’t even have Harley Davidson motorcycles.

Products or whats are simply megaphones for the WHY.

There is a difference between achievement and success. Achievement is a something to be reached for, a tangible, measurable goal. Success, on the other hand, is a feeling, a state of being. Achievement is getting what you want, success is clarity and expression of WHY.

The tendency is to become preoccupied with tangible results – achievements – the WHATs, at the expense of the WHY. This is what causes “selling out” and ultimately, the demise of even industry-leading companies.

Older Entries