Yes, that is a general description of how it works. Now we have to explore how in particular our own individual “I” here is the embodiment of that. And then examining what “for all practical purposes” the implications of that might be regarding our own value judgments. For example, do I go too far in one direction while others go too far in another?
The Amish however reflect a particularly extreme example of how an objectivist frame of mind is embodied. Not only do they predicate their values on a God, the God, my God, but virtually every aspect of their lives is then anchored to this God.
As long as they steer clear of the “English”, they are able to go about the business of choosing behaviors in the is/ought world as they do in the either/or world. There’s a proper place for everyone and everyone is in his or her own proper place. And that means always thinking and feeling and saying and doing the right thing. For the Amish, as with other objectivists [God or No God], my point revolves around their need to anchor “I” psychologically to an overarching belief about that which is said to make life both meaningful and purposeful.
And then in how comforting and consoling that must be.
But this part…
…is considerably more problematic. Particularly in what is often referred to as our “postmodern world”. That which we are indoctrinated as children to believe will almost certainly bump into conflicting narratives. And just at a time when, as young adults, we tend to become increasingly more autonomous in our reaction to the world around us. New experiences, relationships, books, movies, art, politics, religion and on and on and on. And it is here that I tend to focus in more and more on the manner in which I construe “I” to be an existential contraption rooted in a particular confluence and conflagration of all the vast and varied factors we may well have access to. Including all of those we never have access to. “I” here is not just the embodiment of the life that we live, but the lives that we never live as well.
I understand this. And it is of course no less applicable to me. To all of us.
But [from my frame of mind] it doesn’t change this:
1] that all of this unfolds in a particular historical, cultural and experiential context
2] that new experiences, relationships and access to ideas are always there able to reconfigure how you think about yourself in the world around you.
The point isn’t what you grow into an adult believing but all of the actual existential factors that predispose you to. And then, once you recognize this, is there a way [using philosophy, science etc.] to come up with the optimal or the only rational manner in which it is said that reasonable and virtuous men and women are obligated to, say, react to Donald Trump. There are clearly facts that can be established about him. For example, that he lies and lies and lies and lie and lies and lies. But this is simply rationalized away by many who embrace him because the policies themselves are always what count in the end.
Then the part where once again you note for us the actual trajectory of your actual life.
But my point is that those who embrace values at odds with your own here can note the same thing about their own lives. Things happened to you that precipitated points of view. Things happened to others that precipitated a different set of values.
Then what?
How here in a philosophy forum are we to deal with that? What makes this particular thread of yours interesting is that an attempt is made to intertwine the political animal and the philosopher king. I have just come to construe that relationship differently.
Again, I don’t have access to a “who I am” as others do. Not in the is/ought world. If I am basically an existential contraption there how can “I” not be encompassed in turn in an existential hole?
Somehow you are able to think yourself into believeing that your own values are less fractured and fragmented. And [here and now] I am not.
It’s the assumptions we seem compelled to take our political leaps toward that [to me] are largely [profoundly] problematic.
But then…
This seems beyond reach of me. Not while I’m down in the hole. In other words, the point you raise here is, to me, just another assumption. You are still confronted with those newspaper headlines that scream for a reaction such that “I” is either more or less intact – more or less convinced that it is in sync with the right thing to do. Here you seem considerably less “broken” than I am. But that too is ever and always subject to change in a world awash in contingency, chance and change. And for both of us.