RoR: Forum

"Talent is a mix of innate endowment *and* hard work. And no one else has the right to dictate how one should use it" exactly and thank you to Kelly and Linz for pointing this out.

I'd like to add that for those who choose to develop their innate talents there is more than one way to do so.

It irritates me when, with the benefit of hindsight, commentators criticise the sequence of actions in a person's life. And it happens everywhere not just in the "Duck for cover" thread - so don't lets start the umbrage-taking again. As Hong observed, as we mature, our views change. Kelly may yet discover a love for literature later in life and could pick it up, full time, if she so desired. It isn't as if there is a use-by-date on literary talents.

It is a fact that particular talents are improved with experience and knowledge gained in other areas. Some talents mature as much with age as they do with practise. There a great deal to be said about developing the other areas of your life before taking on a role that dovetails with your talent.

Some examples to ponder:

(1) My father started a sales business at 50, after 30 years as a teacher/headmaster. I'm sure that his subsequent success is due in part to the skills he learnt teaching children, skills like: patience and the ability to listen & watch before recommending a solution.

(2) We see in the NZ Herald a call from the All Black assistant coach to halt the rugby academy system: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=80&ObjectID=10121364 For the uninitiated this is a system where kids with innate athletic talent are plucked from school and immersed in Rugby. Elite coaches, multi-million dollar training facilities all are laid on to develop the Rugby talent to the exclusion of all else. To quote Wayne Smith "In doing so, we run the risk of developing a generation of players who have no outside interests, no career and who can't solve their own problems..." And problem solving is a "BIG" issue in a sport as tactical as rugby.

(3) SOLOist Peter Cresswell (so he told me) spent a few years as a chippy in London. He has argued (and I agree) that to design a home, you should at least understand how one is built and the materials it is built with. How better to do so than participate in the building process?

Some people choose to develop their talents with a "frontal-assault", others use a "pincer-movement". If you choose to develop your talents at all, both strategies can allow you to excel. That is, assuming you don't die prematurely.

(Edited by Robert Winefield on 4/20, 4:45pm)

Post 41

Wednesday, April 20, 2005 - 4:35pm

Winefield - why aren't you coming to SOLOC 4? Dammit, Piker!

Post 42

Wednesday, April 20, 2005 - 4:49pm

"Do I have to ask Phil to keep an eye on you...I trusted you."

I could do that. But hmmm, let's see. There would have to be a price... After all, Michael betrayed you.

Post 43

Wednesday, April 20, 2005 - 4:53pm

Shayne - there's a passage in one of Rand's essays where she refers contemptuously to "the myth of innate endowment." I'm at my day job & can't track it down right now. Maybe someone else here can.

This is appears in "The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made, Part II," in The Ayn Rand Letter, Vol. II, No. 13, March 26, 1973. However, I'm not sure Rand meant in this article, or in that particular passage, to completely dismiss the idea of innate talent as such. She refers many times to capitalism as (paraphrasing) "The system where each man can rise as far as his effort and natural ability can take him."

I once spoke with an "Objectivist" who said he clung to the "no innate talents" thesis because, he believed, it was important to the case for laissez-faire capitalism. If humans truly are born with different capacities, he argued, it might be necessary to smooth out the resultant inequalities through political means. It was a positively Rawlsian worldview, which completely inverted the relationships between politics, ethics, and epistemology.

Post 44

Wednesday, April 20, 2005 - 4:57pm

Kelly, thanks for this article. You brilliantly identified and demolished an error in the thinking of many Objectivists, and one that I think I may have made on a few occasions myself. I'd say this one belongs in any "Best of SOLO" compilation.

Post 45

Wednesday, April 20, 2005 - 5:03pm

"Winefield - why aren't you coming to SOLOC 4? Dammit, Piker!"

For a start I'll probably still be correcting the grammar in that last post! I believe my talent as a scientist would benefit from a crash course in English grammar...

My excuse is simple. I had a choice: SOLO 4 or a car. A week of Bacchanalian boozing vs. several more months of being marooned in Lawrence Kansas without means to escape. Condemned to an excruciatingly celibate, sober and boring existance while I replenished my savings.

Sadly, I didn't find the right car in time fly or drive from Kansas to Longbeach. It hasn't helped that the American's have been slavish in their insistence that I get a licence and full insurance before allowing me to drive on their roads. Apparently it had to do with some foolishness regarding my previously driving experience being on the left-hand side of the road while siting on the right-hand side of the car.

SOLO 5 is definite though. Hopefully it won't be so far away from Kansas that I can't drive there and pack in a bit of sight-seeing too.

(Edited by Robert Winefield on 4/20, 5:12pm)

Post 46

Wednesday, April 20, 2005 - 5:14pm

Well, Winefield, fat lot of use *you* are. I was depending on you to protect me from the prissy paragons of propriety. Damn. Well, at least send a bad-boy kiwi message!

Post 47

Wednesday, April 20, 2005 - 5:23pm

Linz: Another Ayn Rand quote demonstrating that she recognized differences in innate capacity: "Whatever a child's natural endowment, the use of intelligence is an acquired skill." (Lexicon, page 225). In other words, "natural endowment" varies among individuals.

Though it's hardly an observation to recognize that different people are born with different capacities.

The thing that some people in this thread seem oblivious to is the difference between a general intellectual capacity (which I grant, may have different categories) and its application. Music is not something the human mind could have an inborn capacity for -- it's a modern invention, no human mind could be wired up for it. Evolution could not have selected for musical ability. There are definitely more basic intellectual abilities associated with music that one can be born with a greater capacity for, but it's ridiculous to assert that these are specifically musical abilities. Indeed, scientists have found associations between things like being good at music and being good at math.

Post 48

Wednesday, April 20, 2005 - 6:05pm

Kelly,

I am sorry that you feel so bad. I was overdoing it on purpose. Me bad. And no, I do not wish to discuss this topic any further.

BTW, you reaction is perfect: such "spiteful" "ugly" message from Linz would be perfectly normal. Were it from anyone else, least me, it'll be absolutely stunning. I would be stunned myself!

Shayne,

What did Newberry say on the other thread �It�s a pleasure you are on the same page.� Is that it? Though it is certainly very scary.

Kat,

You know I love you dearly and you need not worry anything from me. You will always be the one who harvest the fruit of passion of your man.

Unlike certain buzzkiller, I am happily married to a great guy, who is the most Randian man that I�ve ever known. He is from Moscow. Among his many extraordinary feats, he had served with the Red Army in Siberia for nearly two years in the Soviet time (he was drafted). He had spread numerous butterflies and castrated hundreds of pigs while in Siberia. He adores me and I admire him greatly. He knows everything that�s going on here with me but has no patience for empty talks. So, whoever is still left in my fan club, please take note.

(Edited by Hong Zhang on 4/20, 7:26pm)

(Edited by Hong Zhang on 4/21, 7:39am)

Post 49

Wednesday, April 20, 2005 - 6:06pm

Yes well if I remain celibate for much longer I'm in danger of becoming, by default, a prissy paragon of propriety.

Under the premise that if you don't use it you loose it, I'm starting to have nightmares about regaining my virginity. That can't happen can it? Can it????

Besides, Bates is coming. After he gets a few ales under his belt you'll be the least of their (the prissy paragon of propriety) worries. They won't know what's hit 'em... :-) :-)

Said message will be written sometime tomorrow.

Post 50

Wednesday, April 20, 2005 - 6:53pm

Sorry Shayne, but a propensity for music is indeed an inateness- that is, there is a genetic predisposition to it, as an advancement of the kinds of sounds that, for instance, birds and orangutans do in their mating and territorials - only taken to the next level of emitting voluntarily, the same as with the beginnings of speech...

Post 51

Wednesday, April 20, 2005 - 9:56pm

You will always be the one who harvest the fruit of passion of your man.

Thanks Hong, that was a wonderful thing to say. Sounds delicious and I shall have a blast doing just that.... in the kitchen. ;-)

BTW, the phrase sounds like a more positive spin on farming too, which is a noble profession, especially when done with the passion, rationality and dedication Kelly puts into it...rather than than the horrible imposed farming and crap your family had to bear. I can dig why you ain't singing the glories of organic potatoes and lettuce. I now understand also how a simple concept such farming can stir things up.

Welcome back sistah. We missed you.

Kat

Post 52

Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 3:32am

Kelly, wonderful article, which wouldn't be so needed if it weren't for the existence of dogged "Objectivists" and social constructionists.

This thread demonstrates just how vulnerable ideologues of all stripes are to ignoring reality for the sake of maintaining their ideology (Andrew's anecdote comes to mind). Of course, the moment you do so is the moment you undermine the value of your ideology. I think Objectivists are particularly prone to do this (as I was) when denying the obvious extistence of inequities -- both innate and environmental. Of course I'm far more "fortunate" than someone who was born in Afghanistan, or born to a family that didn't value education, or born to no family at all. Of course the road for such people is tougher -- in some cases, much much much tougher. That doesn't mean that predetermined conditions outweigh individual choices, or that they justify egalitarian intervention, or entitlement, or guilt, or a focus on anything other than self-betterment. But they do exist, and to deny them is to profess a dogma that anyone you're trying to convince will take as representative of capitalism.

And notice how the very same "clean slate" dogma is used by wretched Marxist "social constructionists" to justify their belief that every problem and inequity in the world is the fault of capitalist society (i.e., a "social construct").

At this point, all levels of science are proving that "who we are" is due to a pretty mixed combination of the innate and environmental. I think this applies to personalities as well as talents, if not to the same degree. This is where "commonsense" comes in. (On a different thread, there's a misconception that "commonsense" is another term for social metaphysics. But I think it much more prevalently connotes observation. Observation can often very easily refute rationalist concoctions.) Anyone who has spent any time around babies can note radical differences in personality from a very early age. Indeed, my cousin's distinct personality was perfectly observable since I first saw her, when she was three days old. (And I'm just waiting for some fools to emerge and explain that her experiences in those three days shaped her personality, that it wasn't innate. I've actually had someone tell me this. As if the extremely similar experiences of babies in their first days can explain their infinitely varied personality-types. Sigh. Choke.)

Moral of the rant? Always beware when you find yourself denying reality -- denying commonsense observation -- because it means there's a weakness in your argument somewhere. If someone is too afraid to accept the reality of inequities because he fears it will undermine his case for capitalism, then his case is a weak one, and he must attend to it.

Thanks, Kelly, for issuing a reminder to whom it may concern,

Alec

(Edited by Alec Mouhibian on 4/21, 3:33am)

Post 53

Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 7:21am

Kat,
Thank you. Yes, you go and do just that...

And oh no, I have nothing against any of those things: teaching, farming, midwifing, writing, or raising children, homemaking, etc. I even got into a debate opposite Joe Rowlands (!!) in the Parenting Forum to defend the values of doing these things. But here the context is different...

Hong

Post 54

Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 3:08pm

Linz,

Thank you very much! It is so nice to be appreciated. I sure wish I was coming to meet you all tomorrow.

Kelly

Post 55

Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 3:19pm

I wish you were too!!!!! Couldn't you make it if you started pedalling now?? :-)

You *must* come! I'm giving you special mention in my speech!!

Linz

Heading to California in a few hours, speech still unfinished. Oh well ...

Post 56

Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 6:47pm

I was puzzled over Kat's comment that why I "ain't singing the glories of organic potatoes and lettuce", since nowhere in the article at hand organic farming is mentioned. Only now that I realized that for some reason, people had automatically assumed that I should have read Kelly�s organic farmer article. Well, I hadn�t. I only realize now what it is about and the source of miscommunication.

Post 57

Friday, April 22, 2005 - 2:30am

Kelley: "Strangely enough, I am finding that I enjoy writing SOLO articles. I just hated academic writing. So maybe I can turn my talents this way!"

Hah! So perhaps after all one cannot turn one's back on talent. I'm not at all convinced that one can. I cannot quite imagine a person having a real talent for, say, painting, and happily deciding to do something else. Can you conceive, for example, of a Mozart deciding he didn't want to compose music? I think the extent of the talent is relevant to how insistently it demands one's attention; if it is minor, one can pass it by, but if it is real, and important, I believe it will demand fulfillment.

There's a wonderful novel that deals with this subject: "My Name is Asher Lev," by Chaim Potok. It's about a boy born into an orthodox Jewish family, in which the demand that one make no graven images is taken to mean that it is a sacrilege to paint or sculpt. But Asher, from his earliest years, sees the world as a painter sees it; he has no way to escape a way of perceiving that feels as natural and inevitable to him as breathing. He MUST be a painter, however much it is agony to betray the family and the world he loves. The book is the story of his conflict. It's a small masterpiece.

Barbara

Post 58

Friday, April 22, 2005 - 5:37am

Perhaps you are right, Barbara. In my case, it certainly seems that I am returning, at least for a hobby, to writing. I have even considered writing an article on Keats for SOLO. Literary writing, even. I still don't think morality enters into it, but you may be right that it is an intense pull for most people, especially in the case of great genius.

Post 59

Friday, April 22, 2005 - 6:48am