If somebody came to me and… wait, I had somebody come to me and ask for advise. He said his family was oppressive. They were religious, and he is an atheist. He asked for advise. I told him what responsible people tell others: It’s your decision. No, I’m not going to be a coach or a mentor, and I’m not going to be responsible for your decisions. You be your own coach, be your own mentor, and make your own decisions.
He is still with his family and he still doesn’t like their religiosity, but now he defends his views and he didn’t tuck tail and run. So I feel he made a good decision. If he had left, it might have worked out well. Who knows? What I do know is that individuals ought to be in charge or themselves and assigning somebody else to be coach or mentor is damn perversion of individual intellectual integrity.
you can eat pancakes for breakfast, but should you?
oh great.
I was touching base with the common ground any of us that are libertarians have. I thought it was worthwhile given how divisive the discussion was getting
Helping someone deliberate doesn’t then confer their actions onto you. The individual still acts/chooses and through those choices show what they prefer.
Well I think it is wonderful that you’ve never had to seek counsel concerning a difficult decision and so imbued with individuality that you’ve never required a mentor to guide you through the road of life.
Coaches and mentors are not ‘in charge’ of their students. having a coach or a mentor perverts individual intellectual integrity not a whit. it merely provides data. data which the student can use or lose.
Allow me to allow you to reduce your own statement to the absurd. When a religion junkie rejects his own reason and surrenders his volition to the cult leader, is this the same as an individual reaching his own conclusions?
When a mother sends her daughter to sleep with the cult leader, would she have done that if she had kept the helm to herself instead of handing it over to her “coach” or “mentor” or “leader” or whatever you want to call it?
And then, is it the same thing, as you appear to think? Ultimately, all decisions of the individual are made by the individual. Really? Really? I would think that at some point, in these group situations, when a kid resigns his sovereignty over to the coach, the coach is then making the decisions for him. The kid is only implementing those decisions.
If you want to deny that there is a meaningful distinction between being self-led and being cult-led, then go ahead and do so, but the place you have then reached is called Absurdity.
Yes. He willingly choices such a state and unless you can show that he does not prefer to do that yet does it anyways in a voluntary manner, then you are going to have a tough time proving my arguments ‘absurd.’
It would depend on the state of being plus other items. Is the daughter willing? Is the daughter capable of rational thought? Does the mother prefer the state of sending the daughter, who let’s assume is willing since if she was unwilling then this whole exercise would be rejected because it violates the NAP, to not sending the daughter?
Yes. Really. What is the first sentence of the opening chapter of Human Action? ‘All action is purposeful behavior.’ Was this action purposeful? If yes, then it was made completely by the individual. Of course this is true only if you’ve discovered a new way of showing that our actions are not our own but the result of society or a select mass of individuals. I’m reading Robert Owen right now so maybe if you push the issue hard enough I will agree and start blaming society for my character development.
It’s purposeful behavior. There is no difference. If people prefer to be ‘cult-led’ then that is their preference. Such a preference is no different then the preference to be self-led.
Root of what? The insane trust and hero worship that these kids show to Stefan? Yes, the kids are the root of that.
But that’s not where it ends, does it? Having accepted that hero worship and cult-leader status, His Holiness then abuses that trust by advising his followers to do X, Y and Z, when he ought to tell the kids not to worship him and to develop critical thinking skills.
I’m not talking about the ones who were forced to drink. I’m talking about the ones who drank it willingly because their leader who they trusted told them to do so.
have you even considered that they might possibly have a reasonable degree of trust, and no hero worship, and still agree with the interpretation of data he provides, and do as he advises? or is that rejected out of hand because… ?
Answer your own question, okay? I’m not here to think for you. Just ask yourself this: Is there a meaningful difference between a man who thinks for himself and makes his own decisions, and a man who has entrusted somebody else to think for him and tell him what to do?
This has turned into opinions. Maybe you’re right, maybe not.
I mean when everybody is partaking with the world voluntarily all kinds of boogie-monsters and virtuous people exist in this world.
If you find something wrong about what Stefen is doing, then this was a great opportunity for you to share that with him.
If you find something right about what Stefen is doing, then this was a great opportunity for you to share that with him.
There are the occasional jim jones but then there’s the the old man at the local church or community club that most if not all trust to teach their children how to be wise. Who are the jim jones’ and who are the virtuous people? I don’t know, but sometimes I get a hunch and sometimes my hunches are wrong. Maybe the ill-feeling about Stefen is due to a real Stefen contextual problem or maybe the ill-feeling is completely on the part of the nay-sayers of Stefen own anxiety and isn’t real concerning Stefen.
It’s a real community that goes through these experiences of decision.
Who said that? Again, try to keep the discussion honest. If Jim Jones tells me to drink and I drink because I trust him, it’s still my voluntary act. But the process by which I have arrived at that voluntary act is vastly different from the process by which a critical thinker thinking for himself reaches decisions.
You’re missing the point. Jim Jones or trustworthy old man makes no difference. People ought to think for themselves instead of trusting others to make their decisions for them.