Speaking of New Developments at ARI...


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"But, at the end of the debates, ARI presents one, consistent position on each issue that we're prepared to take a stand on."

What's the old "Demotivators" saying, "None of us is as dumb as all of us"? Seems appropriate here -- "If all of us on the Board know even less about a given subject than Lenny does, and then someone who actually knows what he's talking about is constructively critical of Lenny's ideas, our default position is not to do any heavy intellectual lifting and to learn enough to consider the merits of the criticism, or to thank the critic for saving us from embarrassment, but to side with Lenny because we're his little bitches. He owns us."

J

At the risk of sounding Grim and Morbid I ask the question: Must L.P. first die in order for Objectivism to live?

Sorry if that offends anyone, but I think it is a fair question.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Nothing now to do with him, frankly. It was Ayn Rand who did the real damage and all else is inertia. She never got the morality in the politics right, seeing politics mostly as a derivative while the Objectivist Ethics itself lacks enough empirical oomph and justification. Thus she blew off the libertarians and all others who lacked the requisite purity leaving Objectivism in its jejune state. Interestingly, it took Shayne and his new book on rights for me to see this clearly. He went a little too far but in such cases it's much better to go too far than to come up short. Go back to the Founding Fathers. They got the rights right but screwed up with the creation of the Republic. Once Americans had their Constitution and Bill of Rights they seem to have forgotten all about it, thinking their rights had been institutionalized and thus protected forever and ever. Anyway, they won the war and eventually lost the peace, literally and figuratively, starting with the Whiskey Rebellion and continuing to this day. Not one justified war in over two hundred years. Not one. The only possible exception being the Barbary pirates, if you want to call that a war. That means the Revolutionary War wasn't justified either except for people who like kicking ass. Few talk about the imperial impulse that has always informed what America is all about, right at its center, and how the Brits tried to rein it in but only succeeded in fomenting rebellion and bankrupting France creating in its turn the Reign of Terror and the Napoleonic Wars.

--Brant

all the Constitution really did was institutionalize ass-kicking, and we are now getting our own asses kicked by our great and glorious government

Do you even know what the topic at hand is?

The nonsense above sounds like what you hear from the Reverend Phelps. Yeah, America is a great place, but God Hates Fags, and it all went wrong when the Supreme Court shot down sodomy laws, so its no wonder they flew those plnes into the towers. I mean, really? You have your own pet anarchist ideas, and you think that Rand's not endorsing anarchism is what has caused Peikoff to ostracize every threat he's imagined to his authority within the movement since Rand's death? How does the one follow from the other? This is plain conspiracy theorist epistemology.

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"But, at the end of the debates, ARI presents one, consistent position on each issue that we're prepared to take a stand on."

What's the old "Demotivators" saying, "None of us is as dumb as all of us"? Seems appropriate here -- "If all of us on the Board know even less about a given subject than Lenny does, and then someone who actually knows what he's talking about is constructively critical of Lenny's ideas, our default position is not to do any heavy intellectual lifting and to learn enough to consider the merits of the criticism, or to thank the critic for saving us from embarrassment, but to side with Lenny because we're his little bitches. He owns us."

J

At the risk of sounding Grim and Morbid I ask the question: Must L.P. first die in order for Objectivism to live?

Sorry if that offends anyone, but I think it is a fair question.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Nothing now to do with him, frankly. It was Ayn Rand who did the real damage and all else is inertia. She never got the morality in the politics right, seeing politics mostly as a derivative while the Objectivist Ethics itself lacks enough empirical oomph and justification. Thus she blew off the libertarians and all others who lacked the requisite purity leaving Objectivism in its jejune state. Interestingly, it took Shayne and his new book on rights for me to see this clearly. He went a little too far but in such cases it's much better to go too far than to come up short. Go back to the Founding Fathers. They got the rights right but screwed up with the creation of the Republic. Once Americans had their Constitution and Bill of Rights they seem to have forgotten all about it, thinking their rights had been institutionalized and thus protected forever and ever. Anyway, they won the war and eventually lost the peace, literally and figuratively, starting with the Whiskey Rebellion and continuing to this day. Not one justified war in over two hundred years. Not one. The only possible exception being the Barbary pirates, if you want to call that a war. That means the Revolutionary War wasn't justified either except for people who like kicking ass. Few talk about the imperial impulse that has always informed what America is all about, right at its center, and how the Brits tried to rein it in but only succeeded in fomenting rebellion and bankrupting France creating in its turn the Reign of Terror and the Napoleonic Wars.

--Brant

all the Constitution really did was institutionalize ass-kicking, and we are now getting our own asses kicked by our great and glorious government

Do you even know what the topic at hand is?

The nonsense above sounds like what you hear from the Reverend Phelps. Yeah, America is a great place, but God Hates Fags, and it all went wrong when the Supreme Court shot down sodomy laws, so its no wonder they flew those plnes into the towers. I mean, really? You have your own pet anarchist ideas, and you think that Rand's not endorsing anarchism is what has caused Peikoff to ostracize every threat he's imagined to his authority within the movement since Rand's death? How does the one follow from the other? This is plain conspiracy theorist epistemology.

I'm not an anarchist; you're simply mixing up contexts--the context of where we are now and should be and were way back then. There should have been a confederation of states not a federal republic as was constituted. The "Civil War" caused the death of 5% of the population. Do you know how many people U.S. Marines slaughtered in the Philippines? Do you understand how one situation begets other situations? I could go on: Do you understand the disaster of WWI and how the U.S. helped cause that and the consequences to the present day world?

--Brant

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"But, at the end of the debates, ARI presents one, consistent position on each issue that we're prepared to take a stand on."

What's the old "Demotivators" saying, "None of us is as dumb as all of us"? Seems appropriate here -- "If all of us on the Board know even less about a given subject than Lenny does, and then someone who actually knows what he's talking about is constructively critical of Lenny's ideas, our default position is not to do any heavy intellectual lifting and to learn enough to consider the merits of the criticism, or to thank the critic for saving us from embarrassment, but to side with Lenny because we're his little bitches. He owns us."

J

At the risk of sounding Grim and Morbid I ask the question: Must L.P. first die in order for Objectivism to live?

Sorry if that offends anyone, but I think it is a fair question.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Nothing now to do with him, frankly. It was Ayn Rand who did the real damage and all else is inertia. She never got the morality in the politics right, seeing politics mostly as a derivative while the Objectivist Ethics itself lacks enough empirical oomph and justification. Thus she blew off the libertarians and all others who lacked the requisite purity leaving Objectivism in its jejune state. Interestingly, it took Shayne and his new book on rights for me to see this clearly. He went a little too far but in such cases it's much better to go too far than to come up short. Go back to the Founding Fathers. They got the rights right but screwed up with the creation of the Republic. Once Americans had their Constitution and Bill of Rights they seem to have forgotten all about it, thinking their rights had been institutionalized and thus protected forever and ever. Anyway, they won the war and eventually lost the peace, literally and figuratively, starting with the Whiskey Rebellion and continuing to this day. Not one justified war in over two hundred years. Not one. The only possible exception being the Barbary pirates, if you want to call that a war. That means the Revolutionary War wasn't justified either except for people who like kicking ass. Few talk about the imperial impulse that has always informed what America is all about, right at its center, and how the Brits tried to rein it in but only succeeded in fomenting rebellion and bankrupting France creating in its turn the Reign of Terror and the Napoleonic Wars.

--Brant

all the Constitution really did was institutionalize ass-kicking, and we are now getting our own asses kicked by our great and glorious government

Do you even know what the topic at hand is?

The nonsense above sounds like what you hear from the Reverend Phelps. Yeah, America is a great place, but God Hates Fags, and it all went wrong when the Supreme Court shot down sodomy laws, so its no wonder they flew those plnes into the towers. I mean, really? You have your own pet anarchist ideas, and you think that Rand's not endorsing anarchism is what has caused Peikoff to ostracize every threat he's imagined to his authority within the movement since Rand's death? How does the one follow from the other? This is plain conspiracy theorist epistemology.

I'm not an anarchist; you're simply mixing up contexts--the context of where we are now and should be and were way back then. There should have been a confederation of states not a federal republic as was constituted. The "Civil War" caused the death of 5% of the population. Do you know how many people U.S. Marines slaughtered in the Philippines? Do you understand how one situation begets other situations? I could go on: Do you understand the disaster of WWI and how the U.S. helped cause that and the consequences to the present day world?

--Brant

And the connection of this to Leonard Peikoff's sociopathy is . . . ?

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Here's a thought.

Isn't it weird that this ARI meltdown stuff is happening right around the time that the first installment of the Atlas Shrugged Movie is being finished?

I'm just sayin'...

Michael

I'm glad you said it first. The Wheel has begun to Turn . . .

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Prior to Peikoff's demand that McCaskey be fired, did anyone on the Board believe that McCaskey was obligated to publicly support The Logical Leap? I don't get the impression that McCaksey was going to publicly trash the book, or even go out of his way to privately criticize it.

Is someone with a doctorate in the history of science obligated to support a book on the history of science just because Leonard Peikoff thinks it's great?

What Brook should have written is: "Leonard Peikoff said I should fire McCaskey because he doesn't support his friend David Harriman's book. I was afraid Peikoff would stop supporting the ARI so I decided to have him fired."

-Neil Parille

Edited by Neil Parille
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Peikoff has admitted he has long hated McCaskey. (When someone actually is smarter than you, you can either admit it or resent the person as pretentious and a braggart.) Along came the criticisms of the book, and voila, casus belli. Of course, Peikoff has apparently forgotten that until Peikoff's threat, the matter was entirely private. Peikoff is the one who made it a public issue. When you lie to yourself about your own motives for decades it becomes impossible accurately to judge the motives of others or even to keep the relevant facts straight. This is not rocket science.

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"But, at the end of the debates, ARI presents one, consistent position on each issue that we're prepared to take a stand on."

What's the old "Demotivators" saying, "None of us is as dumb as all of us"? Seems appropriate here -- "If all of us on the Board know even less about a given subject than Lenny does, and then someone who actually knows what he's talking about is constructively critical of Lenny's ideas, our default position is not to do any heavy intellectual lifting and to learn enough to consider the merits of the criticism, or to thank the critic for saving us from embarrassment, but to side with Lenny because we're his little bitches. He owns us."

J

At the risk of sounding Grim and Morbid I ask the question: Must L.P. first die in order for Objectivism to live?

Sorry if that offends anyone, but I think it is a fair question.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Nothing now to do with him, frankly. It was Ayn Rand who did the real damage and all else is inertia. She never got the morality in the politics right, seeing politics mostly as a derivative while the Objectivist Ethics itself lacks enough empirical oomph and justification. Thus she blew off the libertarians and all others who lacked the requisite purity leaving Objectivism in its jejune state. Interestingly, it took Shayne and his new book on rights for me to see this clearly. He went a little too far but in such cases it's much better to go too far than to come up short. Go back to the Founding Fathers. They got the rights right but screwed up with the creation of the Republic. Once Americans had their Constitution and Bill of Rights they seem to have forgotten all about it, thinking their rights had been institutionalized and thus protected forever and ever. Anyway, they won the war and eventually lost the peace, literally and figuratively, starting with the Whiskey Rebellion and continuing to this day. Not one justified war in over two hundred years. Not one. The only possible exception being the Barbary pirates, if you want to call that a war. That means the Revolutionary War wasn't justified either except for people who like kicking ass. Few talk about the imperial impulse that has always informed what America is all about, right at its center, and how the Brits tried to rein it in but only succeeded in fomenting rebellion and bankrupting France creating in its turn the Reign of Terror and the Napoleonic Wars.

--Brant

all the Constitution really did was institutionalize ass-kicking, and we are now getting our own asses kicked by our great and glorious government

Do you even know what the topic at hand is?

The nonsense above sounds like what you hear from the Reverend Phelps. Yeah, America is a great place, but God Hates Fags, and it all went wrong when the Supreme Court shot down sodomy laws, so its no wonder they flew those plnes into the towers. I mean, really? You have your own pet anarchist ideas, and you think that Rand's not endorsing anarchism is what has caused Peikoff to ostracize every threat he's imagined to his authority within the movement since Rand's death? How does the one follow from the other? This is plain conspiracy theorist epistemology.

I'm not an anarchist; you're simply mixing up contexts--the context of where we are now and should be and were way back then. There should have been a confederation of states not a federal republic as was constituted. The "Civil War" caused the death of 5% of the population. Do you know how many people U.S. Marines slaughtered in the Philippines? Do you understand how one situation begets other situations? I could go on: Do you understand the disaster of WWI and how the U.S. helped cause that and the consequences to the present day world?

--Brant

And the connection of this to Leonard Peikoff's sociopathy is . . . ?

That'll be ten dollars, please. I take Pay Pal.

--Brant

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Here's a thought.

Isn't it weird that this ARI meltdown stuff is happening right around the time that the first installment of the Atlas Shrugged Movie is being finished?

I'm just sayin'...

Michael

Michael,

Objectivism has escaped the institutions. Everyone can now enjoy their own mashup of online forums, facebook and other venues. People can now tailor and customize their own Objectivist experience. It's like when network TV switched to cable.

Jim

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"Not one justified war in over two hundred years. Not one. The only possible exception being the Barbary pirates, if you want to call that a war. That means the Revolutionary War wasn't justified either..."

So much for "empiricism."

Well, U.S. entry into WWII was "justified" by Pearl Harbor. But Pearl Harbor was a direct consequence of economic war by the U.S. against Japan. All wars can be "justified" and are but I'm using the idea of justified war in the broadest contexts possible--objectively, not subjectively, too boot. I'm also acknowledging how one fuck up, WWI led to another fuck up, WWII. That kind of thing. Now, because of what the U.S. has become it's "justified" in doing this and that war this and that way, but it all begs the question of how it got there and where my freedom and yours has gone. It's gone to Washington and all the other rights' violating governments grinding us down into the ground.

--Brant

remember freedom?

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"Not one justified war in over two hundred years. Not one. The only possible exception being the Barbary pirates, if you want to call that a war. That means the Revolutionary War wasn't justified either..."

So much for "empiricism."

Well, U.S. entry into WWII was "justified" by Pearl Harbor. But Pearl Harbor was a direct consequence of economic war by the U.S. against Japan. All wars can be "justified" and are but I'm using the idea of justified war in the broadest contexts possible--objectively, not subjectively, too boot. I'm also acknowledging how one fuck up, WWI led to another fuck up, WWII. That kind of thing. Now, because of what the U.S. has become it's "justified" in doing this and that war this and that way, but it all begs the question of how it got there and where my freedom and yours has gone. It's gone to Washington and all the other rights' violating governments grinding us down into the ground.

--Brant

remember freedom?

Can you take this goldfish somewhere else? It makes this forum look as looney as an ARI conference call.

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"Not one justified war in over two hundred years. Not one. The only possible exception being the Barbary pirates, if you want to call that a war. That means the Revolutionary War wasn't justified either..."

So much for "empiricism."

Well, U.S. entry into WWII was "justified" by Pearl Harbor. But Pearl Harbor was a direct consequence of economic war by the U.S. against Japan. All wars can be "justified" and are but I'm using the idea of justified war in the broadest contexts possible--objectively, not subjectively, too boot. I'm also acknowledging how one fuck up, WWI led to another fuck up, WWII. That kind of thing. Now, because of what the U.S. has become it's "justified" in doing this and that war this and that way, but it all begs the question of how it got there and where my freedom and yours has gone. It's gone to Washington and all the other rights' violating governments grinding us down into the ground.

--Brant

remember freedom?

Can you take this goldfish somewhere else? It makes this forum look as looney as an ARI conference call.

No.

--Brant

my kindest response

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Here's a thought.

Isn't it weird that this ARI meltdown stuff is happening right around the time that the first installment of the Atlas Shrugged Movie is being finished?

I'm just sayin'...

Michael

Michael,

Objectivism has escaped the institutions. Everyone can now enjoy their own mashup of online forums, facebook and other venues. People can now tailor and customize their own Objectivist experience. It's like when network TV switched to cable.

Jim

MICHAEL: Perhaps I'm particularly dense today...Sorry, I have no clue what you are trying to say here :huh::unsure: ...but let me try:

1) Are you saying that watching Leonard's current inept sadomasochistic attempt :wacko: to bully his ARIan flock is sort of like trying to imagine Peter Keating dynamiting Cortland? :lol: ....OR

2) the current attempt to film Atlas is similar to: a) Leonard's sending a bulldozer :rolleyes: to remodel ARI, or b] the above imagined Peter Keating scenario, or c) both?....OR

3) that the completed Atlas movie will be such a successful artistic and intellectual achievement that those remaining ARIans not flattened by Leonard's bulldozer will flock to the TAS side? :blink::rolleyes::P:wub:

Or, were you thinking of something else?

JIM: Your interpretation of the current situation as Objectivism being set free from the (mental?) institutions, is the most inspiring and optimistic scenario that I have seen. That may be exactly what Objectivism needs.

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The ARI is being revealed as the intellectual Tar Baby it's always been. It's sad, really, but all a logical extension of Ayn Rand's own attitudes, which Peikoff adapted to himself all too well. Aside from this, it was a mistake to have created an institute with her name on it. A dead person has no vitality. "Objectivism" would have been okay. In that case it would simply depend on what you did with it.

--Brant

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What I find interesting is that his dustup is still rather "localized."

None of the orthodox is saying that this has anything to do with Peikoff's previous conduct, his desire have Harriman be the resident ARI expert on physics, the rewriting of Rand's papers, much less Rand herself.

-Neil Parille

Edited by Neil Parille
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Travis Norsen made an excellent point over at Hsieh's blog: we need to know when the ARI magically arrived at the "we need to have a common voice when it comes to ARI projects such as LL" line.

McCaskey's criticism of the book didn't appear to be an issue for the ARI until Peikoff deemed it one.

-Neil Parille

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What I find interesting is that his dustup is still rather "localized."

None of the orthodox is saying that this has anything to do with Peikoff's previous conduct, his desire have Harriman be the resident ARI expert on physics, the rewriting of Rand's papers, much less Rand herself.

-Neil Parille

These people have had to compartmentalize for years, often having to justify to themselves obvious evil act that occurred even before they had a relationship with ARI. I remember first reading, at 16, that Nathaniel Branden was "no longer associated" with Ayn Rand or Her Philosophy and knowing that it was as fishy as Fulton street.

I mean, please. Are you going to tell me that these experts on philosophy don't recognize a breach of simple human decency when they see it? That they have no concept of petty jealousy under which to classify the endless parade of breaks and ostracisms that are dressed up in jargon as if making them "philosophical" makes them any less shameful.

Reread Tracinski's rationalization that with Kelley it was justified, but in this case it's shocking, just shocking.

These people are maladjusted moral dwarves.

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we need to know when the ARI magically arrived at the "we need to have a common voice when it comes to ARI projects such as LL" line.

ARIstrip One and Oceania have always been at war with East Asia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airstrip_One

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What I find interesting is that his dustup is still rather "localized."

None of the orthodox is saying that this has anything to do with Peikoff's previous conduct, his desire have Harriman be the resident ARI expert on physics, the rewriting of Rand's papers, much less Rand herself.

-Neil Parille

These people have had to compartmentalize for years, often having to justify to themselves obvious evil act that occurred even before they had a relationship with ARI. I remember first reading, at 16, that Nathaniel Branden was "no longer associated" with Ayn Rand or Her Philosophy and knowing that it was as fishy as Fulton street.

I mean, please. Are you going to tell me that these experts on philosophy don't recognize a breach of simple human decency when they see it? That they have no concept of petty jealousy under which to classify the endless parade of breaks and ostracisms that are dressed up in jargon as if making them "philosophical" makes them any less shameful.

Reread Tracinski's rationalization that with Kelley it was justified, but in this case it's shocking, just shocking.

These people are maladjusted moral dwarves.

I think the problem here is characterological. That is, most of those who have sworn fealty to the orthodox Peikovian/ARIan party line are quite different, in their personality structures, from others who are attracted to Ayn Rand.

To paraphrase from an earlier post:

The real question is why this phenomenon continues at all in a philosophy that stresses reason, individualism, and independence. Many of us here on OL and with groups such as The Atlas Society, look upon the behavior - antics - of Peikoff and others associated with ARI, and just shake our heads, "Why are they acting like this? Don't we share common beliefs and values as expressed in Rand's writings? What's wrong with them?"

We assume that the leaders of the "orthodox" ARIan wing, and their vociferous adherents are really, deep down, "just like us," but have just failed to understand certain essential aspects of Objectivism. That if we could only talk more to each other, these differences would be resolved.

I think that this conclusion is a major error. We tend to believe it because, superficially, we seem to share the same values.... [but] the key behaviors of the ARIans bear a much closer resemblance to similar traits expressed by the the Trotskyites and other ideological sects on the left, than they do to us. The call for "loyalty oaths," the restriction on what topics can be discussed, the re-writing of Founder's sayings and the attempted deletion of written references to others that are now considered persona non grata, the incessant purges of deviant individuals, the shunning of those expelled, the refusal to cooperate with "tolerationists" (such as libertarians, or worse, "Kelleyites") even on commonly shared political goals, all of these are behaviors that the ARIans share in common with the members of extreme leftist groups and with some religious cults.

Some of us keep waiting for our ARIan "friends" to "come around." Some think that this will happen when Peikoff and the "old guard" pass away. I think that this is unlikely to occur. The Hsiehkovians are eagerly waiting in the wings to supplant the Peikovians (in fact, they can hardly wait). Of course, they will have competitors for the throne, so expect some power struggles. ...this is happening because Objectivism fulfills for the "orthodox," a chronic need that is also shared by adherents of other "closed" ideological systems and some religions - it is a totalistic system that they are depending upon to fulfill a need in their personalities, in their character. It is complete. It seems to have all the answers, no need to work it out for yourself. But, the ideology itself, is all "window dressing." Instead of Objectivism, it could be a variant of Marxism, or some religious cult. The set of behaviors that these people display has been accurately described and analyzed in Eric Hoffer's The True Believer. Those that have not read that book should pick it up and see how much in common the ARIans have with other "true believers."

The people attracted to the "orthodox" ARIan wing are not interested in actually practicing Objectivist virtues such as "independence:" people who cluster (perhaps I should say, "cloister") together, constantly check each other's loyalty and purge those felt to be "tolerationists," and show suspicion and hostility to outsiders, are hardly displaying "independence" as a character trait.

Edited by Jerry Biggers
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Are you going to tell me that these experts on philosophy don't recognize a breach of simple human decency when they see it?

Yes.

That they have no concept of petty jealousy under which to classify the endless parade of breaks and ostracisms that are dressed up in jargon as if making them "philosophical" makes them any less shameful.

Yes.

To wildly paraphrase/amplify Heinlein, I can deal with a shameless huckster. I can even deal with certain kinds of con-men, maybe out of deference to their craft. These are easy things, and you can even learn from them, if you care to. They are just out there working it, trying to make a buck. Not for me, but I get that, in a way--there is a certain discipline to it, and kind of a great tradition, if you think about it--sometimes I think God gave them that so they would be out there to keep the rest of us a little sharper. For many reasons, but a lot due to the fact that I was so heavily in sales, and secondly that I wanted to learn how to protect myself (having been burnt), I spent a great deal of time studying what you might call "the art of the con." One very important principle that you can be fortunate in learning from such study is that no one, and I mean no one, is immune from the con. That is the nature of it, how it works.

Now, you might conclude from what I just wrote up there that I am accusing these people of being con artists. I am not, and, whether or not they do or do not have that in their souls, I do not know, because I do not know them well enough to say so.

What I am saying is that well-schooled connies should be feared, because their craft is strong. However, the real ones to be afraid of are of an entirely different persuasion.

The real ones to be afraid of, the ones that become highly effective, it seems, are incredibly deadly for one reason, and one reason alone: they believe their own bullshit.

If you are so good at the con that you can actually con yourself into believing your own bullshit, then you really have it going on. That is a kind of denial that has retard power.

But, of course, where was it, from Blade Runner? "The candle that burns twice brightly . . ." (I guess I am too lazy to get quotes right, I will leave that to people that are worried about working in APA format, or perhaps trying to conform to the rules of the Atlas Shrugged Video Contest).

I think George has talked well about psychological egoism. I think Nathaniel Branden is probably, if he has time out of his happy life, thinking "I told you so," (or more likely if you asked "I have covered that before in my work, read it.") because he knows how self-esteem works, does he not?

Ayn Rand made a mistake in bequeathing LP, because she was scorned. That means she was a woman, she was human. The Great One faltered. You know, if you re-watch the Phil Donahue interview very carefully, listen very carefully, you can see what was left of her on this. By her own suggestion, by the way.

But I digress, and we all have wasted thousands of screed-droppings on that particular part of things.

My main point remains: the most dangerous connies are those that believe their own b.s.

TV Evangelism, at the least, taught us that much.

rde

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No, Rich. Peoikof did not fool Rand. He is her last joke on us.

Don't read into me--it is hard enough for me to write clearly in the first place. :) Peikoff never had to fool AR. And that is a good thing, because he wouldn't have been good enough to pull it off. That is not what I was saying. I was saying (and this is not anything new) that AR got her wiring panel blown when her relationship w/ NB smoked yonder breakers (even though she had tried, with all her Greatness, to justify the sanctioned affair, etc., etc.--read a billion analyses on that elsewhere). And so that she was (what with being a human woman with romantic feelings, and all) not quite where she started out as being. She erred. Goddesses are not allowed to err, right?

This kind of stuff happened in Roman history all the time.

I really don't think she would have resorted to this just for making a joke on all of us, but I suppose if you stretch it out it could be viewed as an extreme teaching technique. When you are a teacher, you get down to trying out some really radical stuff. I can only imagine what one might contemplate when you are thinking about imparting a legacy. I just don't see that kind of humor in her, but you never know. There is something to be said about watching your students suffer.

rde

this is what happens when you throw out syntax and grammar for the sake of raw speed, plus fun multitasking action

Edited by Rich Engle
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