Enough with the Objemides, Already!

All right, let's play a game; for those of you who don't know me, I am forever the ludologist, mainly on the playing end but occasionally on the creation end. Remember "Choose Your Own Adventure"? Well, here's an adventure for you...if you're an Objectivist (or at least know enough about it), there's a chance that you'll get the gist of this article and the very point I'm trying to make. In that case, choose option A...which is keep reading. If you're not an Objectivist and know nothing about it... fuck it, stop reading. This piece is no ad captandum, twinkle-toes. Choose option B...which is get the fuck off of this Web page.

Well, I don't know about you, but I enjoyed that immensely. Let's try yet another game...but, this time, it's a matching game. Try to match these hypothetical Objectivist articles (on the left) with the respective category to which they belong (on the right) :

Bill Gates Vs. Jesse Jackson		...As I Parrot Quotes from Rand
Mystics Aren't Rational		Advocate Not Letting Someone Kill You
Academia is a Bunch of Leftist Kooks		Point Out the Fucking Obvious
Be Tough on Terrorism		Unappreciated Businessman #363
Individualism Is Good...		I Learned that from Archie Bunker

Hopefully, the theme of this piece should begin to become apparent. In fact, for old fans of SaveTheHumans, this should all seem very familiar... Jason Roth addressed a similar topic a while back, when some humor corpse decided to denounce his very funny piece on Objectivist sex. For those who are still guessing, I'll go ahead and state it : Cease the Objemides.

What the hell is an Objemide? I have to admit that I love being a neologist...Well, if you're a fan of Ayn Rand (as I am), you're aware of her term for the mundane arguments that permeate the air around our ears; she called them 'bromides'. I like to call them platitudes, but I digress...in any case, I share the same hatred of vacuous dialogue that exists between people who like to think that they're having some sort of abstract conversation :

Fuckface : Hey...uh...you hear about the, uh, two thousand soldiers...you know, who died in Iraq?

Wrinkled Cocksucker : Well...it's all for oil, you know?

Fuckface : The oil...yeah...that's greed, in people...yeah? People...they're just evil inside, really...yeah?

Wrinkled Cocksucker : Well...what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

This bromide-infested conversation is worthy of causing me to lose my grip on reality and to ascend into beserker rage, where I learn the joy of slaughter (or Tötungvergnügen, if you're German) and immolation (because fire is the only thing that can purify these carbon vessels overriden with stupidity). This is bad enough...but there is something nearly as horrid : an Objemide.

Now, let's be clear : I'm on the side of Objectivism since it's the only philosophy grounded in reality. And, contrary to the likely effect of this piece, I actually want to associate and benefit from the company of other Objectivists. Unfortunately, though, my past experiences of dealing with other Objectivists has been more painful than pleasant. Why? Why would I not enjoy the company of other people who share a philosophy I hold dear? How could that be?

Simple - I don't want to be in the company of people who, in the act of accepting a valid philosophy, are content to :

And that, my friends, is the Objemide : it's hearing the same shit that you hear from 99% of Objectivists (especially the young, nascent Objectivists that just got turned onto it - they got a chip on their shoulders the size of my junk). However, it's not just the young ones; there's an assload of octogenarians (some in body, some in mind) who have the same problem. In an attempt to protect the values being verbally assaulted by the various fools around us, the typical Objectivist response to any stimuli is captious paranoia and the subsequent sequestering of the mind into its metaphorical turtleshell - just as my nuts do when I see a paintball headed towards my crotch. There's a pervasive line of thought which believes that exposure to any "impure" elements will simply, at best, be sterile and/or jejune.

All of this shit needs to stop for a number of reasons. First of all (and most important), it's boring me to fuckin' death. I mean, I gotta talk to this bastard Jason since there are so few Objectivists I can stand being around. (That last sentence probably cost me one round at the bar with him, but I've been waiting forever to take at least one jab at him.) Second , we're not getting anywhere by sportin' this style. By expounding the same material repeatedly, not only do you appear to be ingenuous, you ARE ingenuous. Here's a hypothetical example...you're standing around with a buddy, and you hear someone bashing Microsoft. Of course, your first reaction is to defend a company's right to profit, especially one that has produced so much...and I would probably have a similar initial reaction. Let's say, though, he wasn't talking about that...instead, he's bashing Microsoft for having collaborated with the Chinese government in censoring information from the Chinese people. Uh-oh... you've just now stumbled on a new topic : the spreading amorality involving contemporary global business leadership. Why did you never hear about that as an Objectivist? More importantly, where the fuck did that turtle shell go? By towing the line, you're not only stopping Objectivism in its tracks, in the sense that the application of the philosophy isn't being driven to the extent that it should. No, you're also doing one hell of a job pissing over any good PR to come from such a conversation, by looking like you've been spoon-fed your arguments and did not come up with them on your own...which, very likely, is true. Instead of being spoon-fed, be bold and tackle any issue that might present itself before you - even more, go looking for a new angle to everything by exploring the world around you. Don't be content with what you already know; instead, go looking for more... and, if you've got to, be a dick about it. Audaces fortuna iuvat.