The Thinking Lab - Objective Self-Evaluation - for Members
December 21, 2021 –
Topic: Objective Self-Evaluation
I put out a request for topics for classes, and got several that involve objective self-evaluation.
-If I feel envious of someone else's money or career, does that mean I hate the good for being the good?
-If I compare myself to other people, does that mean I am secondhanded?
-I often feel like I have a duty to work or a duty to provide. Is that a philosophical or psychological problem?
-I often feel like I could have put in more effort and done much better even though my results were okay. Is that "objectively" a success? Or "objectively" a failure?
-Lots of self-help books recommend self-awareness. How is that different from what you call objective self-awareness?
The common denominator here is thinking that you can tell just from the observable action whether something is good or bad, right or wrong. This is not true. Good or bad is objective, meaning it involves facts as grasped by a conceptual mind. The answer to every one of the questions above is, "it depends." But what it depends upon is the principle of objectivity. In this class, I will discuss:
-What objectivity is in general (the Objectivist view)
-How it applies to evaluating oneself
-Why this leads to the proper way to evaluate and address your own past mistakes
Coincidentally, Lin Zinser shared with me these words from Hank Rearden in Atlas Shrugged, which expresses the view beautifully:
"I am happy that I have seen the truth — even if my power of sight is all that's left to me now. Were I to surrender to pain and give up in futile regret that my own error has wrecked my past — that would be the act of final treason, the ultimate failure toward that truth I regret having failed. But if my love of truth is left as my only possession, then the greater the loss behind me, the greater the pride I may take in the price I have paid for that love. Then the wreckage will not become a funereal mount above me, but will serve as a height I have climbed to attain a wider field of vision. My pride and power of vision were all that I owned when I started — and whatever I achieved, was achieved by means of them. Both are greater now. Now I have the knowledge of the superlative value I had missed: of my right to be proud of my vision. The rest is mine to reach."