ObjectivismOnline Objectivist Opposes Objectivism!


Jonathan

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I thought that some of you here at OL might be amused to learn that I've been censored over on OO for agreeing with and defending the Objectivist position on the separation of ethical judgments and aesthetic judgments!

On the thread titled "Hsieh's Own-Goal on the Subject of Beauty and Objectivity," I posted the following a few hours after posting my post #22:

Now that I have a little more time than I had when writing my last post this morning, I want to address one specific sentence from Old Toad's last post. He wrote:
The ultimate, objective standard of value is man's life. Every kind of particular value judgment--from beauty and love to stylized cartoons and rock arrangements--is measured relative to his standard.

The above is not the Objectivist position. In fact, it is an anti-Objectivist approach to aesthetics. The Objectivist Esthetics does not hold that aesthetic judgments have an ethical basis. It does not hold that "man's life" is the standard of aesthetic judgments. Rand was very clear in stating that one need not like or agree with the philosophical content expressed in an artwork, and that such agreement or disagreement was irrelevant to an aesthetic appraisal. She clearly distinguished between aesthetic judgments and ethical judgments.

In post #9, I mentioned that "Hsieh's foray into attempting to objectify her subjective aesthetic tastes by equating beauty with health is a deviation from Rand's Objectivism." Old Toad is making the same mistake by ignoring Rand's severing of aesthetic judgments from ethical judgments.

So, not only has Old Toad not identified an objective standard by which to judge beauty, but the

approach that he has taken in attempting to do so is a repudiation of Rand's Objectivist Esthetics.

J

My post was deleted by a moderator, so I asked the following on the same thread:

Why has my most recent post been deleted? It contained nothing offensive, insulting or impolite, and, in posting it, I was doing nothing but agreeing with and defending Rand's position on the separation of aesthetic judgment and ethical judgment. Is there some reason that I'm not allowed to defend a major tenet of the Objectivist Esthetics here?

J

That post was also deleted, and then I received a private message from the moderator Eiuol in which he asserted that I was intentionally trying to misconstrue some of Rand's statements, and that he was sure that I knew better!

Can you believe how ignorant of Rand's ideas this moderator must be?

He suggested that if I think he's being unreasonable that I should take the issue up with the other moderators, which is what I've done -- I've sent each of them private messages and asked them to read Rand's comments on Esthetic Judgment (http://aynrandlexico...c_judgment.html), and to then let me know if they believe that my defense of her ideas should be prohibited on OO. I've asked them if they agree with Eiuol that I have misconstrued Rand's position, and that my position should not even be allowed to be heard, and that he doesn't have to make a case against my position.

It'll be interesting to see if I get any responses from them, and if they're as irrational as Eiuol's response was.

If this dude's mindset represents the next generation and the future of the Objectivist Movement, then Objectivism is fucked. Honestly, it never would have occurred to me that I'd be censored on an Objectivist site for agreeing with and defending an Objectivist position!

J

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There are often good discussions on OO despite occasional meddling from moderators. In my experience, the site has become significantly more open to the free exchange of ideas than it used to be. It's actually pretty rare now that I run into the idiocy that I described above. And if you've misinterpreted my tone, let me assure you that I'm not upset. I think that my being censored is hilarious and incomprehensible. There have been other posts of mine on OO that I suspected might raise some eyebrows among some of the more emotional moderators, but not the one in which I defended Rand's separation of ethics and aesthetics. When I read the private message from the moderator, I was laughing in disbelief.

J

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I have been kicked off there, as well. The moderator suggested that I am senile. Indeed, I may well be, but it is a difficult diagnosis to make at a distance, especially for someone lacking a medical degree. It just goes to verify the unlimited self-adulation and unmitigated hubris of the folks who run Objectivism Online. Nothing terrifies them more than a difference of opinion. It is better to remember the old joke about the guy who died and was being shown around Heaven by St. Peter. They pass huge halls and mansions of many rooms. "Whoa!" says Saint Peter. "We need to tiptoe." The man asks why. "That room is for Methodists [or whatever] and they think they are the only ones up here."

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I have been kicked off there, as well. The moderator suggested that I am senile. Indeed, I may well be, but it is a difficult diagnosis to make at a distance, especially for someone lacking a medical degree. It just goes to verify the unlimited self-adulation and unmitigated hubris of the folks who run Objectivism Online. Nothing terrifies them more than a difference of opinion.

I don't think that it's all of "the folks who run Objectivism Online," but a few who tend to be overzealous and defensive about their opinions of themselves and their (mis)interpretations of Objectivism. Unfortunately, they're the ones that you're going to end up having to deal with the most because they're the one's who intrude with their stupidity. That said, I've had some very good interactions with some of the moderators. A couple of them have been very level-headed and fair, even when disagreeing with me.

J

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he asserted that I was intentionally trying to misconstrue some of Rand's statements, and that he was sure that I knew better!

After all the disputing you've done over there, I'm genuinely surprised that they won't let you make a mistake and stand back as more informed OOers correct you. Never interrupt an enemy while he's making a mistake, quoth Napoleon. I couldn't take part in that thread, since it would have required that I, like, ah-hoo-hoo-hoo, um, listen to Comrade Sonia's podcast, ha-ha.

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After all the disputing you've done over there, I'm genuinely surprised that they won't let you make a mistake and stand back as more informed OOers correct you. Never interrupt an enemy while he's making a mistake, quoth Napoleon. I couldn't take part in that thread, since it would have required that I, like, ah-hoo-hoo-hoo, um, listen to Comrade Sonia's podcast, ha-ha.

Yeah, you'd expect, or at least hope, that Objectivists, especially moderators at a discussion site, would have at least some of Rand's guts and eagerness to take on all comers and kick the shit out of any argument that they thought was flawed. Not so. Lots of chickenshit weaklings instead. With all of the censorship, banning and self-isolation that Objectivists practice -- from Comrade Sonia's hiding out in her own little protective bubble and not facing any challenges, to Pigero's banning of practically everyone, to the moderator meddling over at OO -- you get the impression that they think that Objectivism very fragile, or at least that their ability to defend it against informed criticism is severely lacking. It smells like fear.

J

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If this dude's mindset represents the next generation and the future of the Objectivist Movement, then Objectivism is fucked.

Agreed.

Thankfully, not all young Objectivists are like the people on OO.

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I am beginning to understand how the religions of the world spilt into various sects.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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If this dude's mindset represents the next generation and the future of the Objectivist Movement, then Objectivism is fucked.

Agreed.

Thankfully, not all young Objectivists are like the people on OO.

I'm quite amazed at J.'s moderation over there, since his arguments were very

reasonable, quite rational, and, er...more restrained, I thought. If he is misrepresenting Rand on aesthetics, then it should be shown, and argued. To Jonathan his due: he understands Rand's "Manifesto" better than many O'ists, I think. He also grants her respect for much in it, too.

Compared to some rather acerbic discussions he's had, this one is a pussy cat, so I'm

surprised.

But I disagree with the general critical sentiment of O.O. - I've spent more time

there than any of you I think - in that there has been a perceptible evolution of

a spirit of independent thinking there and a lighter touch at moderation.

This instance is an anomaly.

It's all about confidence in the truth and effectiveness of the philosophy, and the further that grows, the less defensive will be O'ists. Growing pains, mainly.

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The Objectivist Esthetics does not hold that aesthetic judgments have an ethical basis. It does not hold that "man's life" is the standard of aesthetic judgments. Rand was very clear in stating that one need not like or agree with the philosophical content expressed in an artwork, and that such agreement or disagreement was irrelevant to an aesthetic appraisal. She clearly distinguished between aesthetic judgments and ethical judgments.

Alrightee, let's give you a chance to answer the best challenge I can come up with without bothering to do research. Somewhere in The Romantic Manifesto you'll find Rand refer to Anna Karenina as not just an evil book, but the most evil book in, I forget, all history, something like that. Does this not work against your position? Great aesthetic skill (she'd acknowledge Tolstoy's abilities) used for an evil purpose results in a work of art that can/should be judged on ethical terms as evil. Conversely, aesthetic skill coupled with good purposes is, what, virtuous? You ought to revere the author of Atlas Shrugged, that kind of thing?

Even better, though not "officially" part of Objectivism, is Peikoff's recent blubbering about James Joyce having set out to destroy values for the sake of destruction, making him a nihilist. Does this make Ulysses evil? In that case no one (at least of Peikoff's ilk) is acknowledging that there's genuine artistic skill being employed.

http://www.peikoff.com/2012/07/16/if-a-person-doesnt-like-oral-sex-is-this-a-form-of-nihilism-or-just-an-arbitrary-sexual-preference/

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Evil in art is only art being used by consumers and Tooheys for evil things. If art seems "evil" buy other stuff. Fucking around with the artist and his customers and fans by mixing in morality with esthetic judgments is what cultural control freaks do--hence, Objectivist esthetics, actually a contradiction in terms. The existence of such damns the philosophy generally qua philosophy for it's turn off your brain and listen to the authority and agree with it. If that's correct then you can Objectivist your way through the whole wide world of human being pretending to control or claiming the moral-intellectual right to control everything therein in the name of "reason." Hence, the current obsession with an Objectivist physics, albeit not labelled as such.

--Brant

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mixing in morality with esthetic judgments is what cultural control freaks do--hence, Objectivist esthetics, actually a contradiction in terms.

Ok, but Jonathan made a statement about Objectivist Esthetics, so if I can make a case from Rand's writings then that should be that. I actually agree with him (qua truth), but I think you can quote Rand to support either position. I ought to double check that by rereading The Romantic Manifesto, but the fact is I don't have a high enough level of interest in arguing esthetic theory to make such a project of it.

This way he gets to answer objections here, since they're not letting him do it on OO.

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Evil in art is only art being used by consumers and Tooheys for evil things. If art seems "evil" buy other stuff. Fucking around with the artist and his customers and fans by mixing in morality with esthetic judgments is what cultural control freaks do--hence, Objectivist esthetics, actually a contradiction in terms. The existence of such damns the philosophy generally qua philosophy for it's turn off your brain and listen to the authority and agree with it. If that's correct then you can Objectivist your way through the whole wide world of human being pretending to control or claiming the moral-intellectual right to control everything therein in the name of "reason." Hence, the current obsession with an Objectivist physics, albeit not labelled as such.

--Brant

No such think as Objectivist physics. That is like talking about "Jewish Physics" which the Nazis did mumble about.

One of the few things I regret about the way WW2 ended is that the Germans did not last until August of 1945 or the A-bombs were not ready sooner. Then the Nazis could have learned about "Jewish Physics" first hand. One of the two bombs produced by the Manhattan project was scheduled to be used on Germany, but the Germans folded before it was ready..

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Alrightee, let's give you a chance to answer the best challenge I can come up with without bothering to do research. Somewhere in The Romantic Manifesto you'll find Rand refer to Anna Karenina as not just an evil book, but the most evil book in, I forget, all history, something like that. Does this not work against your position? Great aesthetic skill (she'd acknowledge Tolstoy's abilities) used for an evil purpose results in a work of art that can/should be judged on ethical terms as evil. Conversely, aesthetic skill coupled with good purposes is, what, virtuous? You ought to revere the author of Atlas Shrugged, that kind of thing?

No, it doesn't work against my position. Rand distinguished between ethical and aesthetic judgments, but that doesn't mean that both types of judgments can't be applied to a novel. One can make both aesthetic and ethical judgments. Rand's calling a book evil is an ethical judgment of the book's content. Her praising its author's artisitic abilities is an aesthetic judgment of the book's style. Her judging the author to be a vicious bastard for wasting his considerable artistic talents on promoting evil ideas is an ethical judgment of the author.

As I've written to a few OO members in private messages, the Objectivist position is that the standard of aesthetic judgment is the artist's views. The viewer is to disregard his or her own values and judge the artwork based on how well the artist presented his views. An artist can come from a purely subjective, anti-man, existence-hating, envy-ridden, death-worshiping, pro-destruction mindset and his artwork can be an act of promoting pure hatred and evil, and it can still qualify as being aesthetically great by Objectivist standards. Its style can be judged to be aesthetically great despite being horrifically shocking and vulgar, as long as it powerfully conveys the artist's views. Therefore the assertion that "man's life" is the standard of aesthetic judgment is false.

Even better, though not "officially" part of Objectivism, is Peikoff's recent blubbering about James Joyce having set out to destroy values for the sake of destruction, making him a nihilist. Does this make Ulysses evil? In that case no one (at least of Peikoff's ilk) is acknowledging that there's genuine artistic skill being employed.

Yeah, um, I have no idea on how to cut through some of the opinions out there in O-land, including some of Rand's. When Objectivists start blubbering about artists' destructive intentions, it's usually just an indication that the blubberer is aesthetically lacking and didn't grasp in a work of art what most everyone else did, or that he just wasn't personally emotionally affected by it. And the anger with which he perpetrates his blubbering usually seems to be an indication of the level of resentment that he feels about the fact that others are claiming to experience what he doesn't. He appears to feel threatened by even the mere suggestion that he might have some aesthetic incompetencies compared to others.

Btw, does Peikoff have any degrees in aesthetics? Has he taken any courses on the subject? Does he imagine that he has somehow inhereted Rand's aesthetic gravitas despite having never written a novel, not to mention a best seller? Upon what grounds does he believe that he is qualified to speak on the subject of aesthetics?

J

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Evil in art is only art being used by consumers and Tooheys for evil things. If art seems "evil" buy other stuff. Fucking around with the artist and his customers and fans by mixing in morality with esthetic judgments is what cultural control freaks do--hence, Objectivist esthetics, actually a contradiction in terms. The existence of such damns the philosophy generally qua philosophy for it's turn off your brain and listen to the authority and agree with it. If that's correct then you can Objectivist your way through the whole wide world of human being pretending to control or claiming the moral-intellectual right to control everything therein in the name of "reason." Hence, the current obsession with an Objectivist physics, albeit not labelled as such.

--Brant

No such think as Objectivist physics. That is like talking about "Jewish Physics" which the Nazis did mumble about.

One of the few things I regret about the way WW2 ended is that the Germans did not last until August of 1945 or the A-bombs were not ready sooner. Then the Nazis could have learned about "Jewish Physics" first hand. One of the two bombs produced by the Manhattan project was scheduled to be used on Germany, but the Germans folded before it was ready..

Ba'al Chatzaf

I regret the firebombing of Dresden.

You wanted another four months of war in Europe?

The atomic bombs were only for Japan and we only had two ready to go. The idea was to end the war without an invasion. Germany was invaded. The atomic bomb was a big psy-war shock.

The 8th Air Force should have bombed the death camps out of existence.

If you had a twin brother, I'd bet one was evil.

--Brant

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Btw, does Peikoff have any degrees in aesthetics? Has he taken any courses on the subject? Does he imagine that he has somehow inhereted Rand's aesthetic gravitas despite having never written a novel, not to mention a best seller?

Taken courses? He’s given courses, lots of them. Besides Eight Great Plays, every one of his full scale courses on Objectivism includes sections on Esthetics.

Look, the only response possible to a rational mind, having read OPAR, is to revere the man who wrote it. I think it’s clear that you’re dedicated to persecuting the good for being the good, and my regret is that there’s no rung of hell low enough to damn you to.

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A common argument that I'm getting in private messages now from OO people is that Objectivist standards of aesthetic appraisal are based on the requirements of "man's life" because intelligibility is a cognitive requirement of man's life, and therefore an artwork's intelligibility is the standard by which we judge how good a work of art is.

The problem with that argument is that intelligibility is not the Objectivist standard by which to judge aesthetic greatness, but merely the standard by which to determine whether or not something qualifies as art ("that which ceases to be intelligible ceases to be art"). There's a difference between the standards used in decided if something is or is not art versus deciding if it is good art. A novel or painting can be completely intelligible yet be judged to be aesthetically bad. It can be judged to be ham-fisted and cliched, gushingly sentimental, preachy, clumsy in pace, or artlessy colloquial or pedantic in vocabulary, etc., none of which would make the artwork less intelligible.

J

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Btw, does Peikoff have any degrees in aesthetics? Has he taken any courses on the subject? Does he imagine that he has somehow inhereted Rand's aesthetic gravitas despite having never written a novel, not to mention a best seller?

Taken courses? He’s given courses, lots of them. Besides Eight Great Plays, every one of his full scale courses on Objectivism includes sections on Esthetics.

Look, the only response possible to a rational mind, having read OPAR, is to revere the man who wrote it. I think it’s clear that you’re dedicated to persecuting the good for being the good, and my regret is that there’s no rung of hell low enough to damn you to.

Okay, so then the answer to my question is, "Yes, Peikoff has somehow inherited Rand's gravitas despite accomplishing nothing in the field himself." Good enough for me. I'll now revere him and bow to his blubberings.

J

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I have been kicked off there, as well. ...

I don't think that it's all of "the folks who run Objectivism Online," but a few who tend to be overzealous and defensive

Right. I should set the record straight. I have David Veksler as a contact on LinkedIn. I never had any problem with Veksler, and in point of fact, we both agree on a single issue where most objectivists and libertarians have given us (or me, anyway) flak: Money as a Crusoe concept. I became a numismatist in large part because of Ayn Rand. I have given a lot of thought about the research I have done about the origins of coinage specifically and money in general. I believe that alone on an island, Crusoe could use money, just as he uses language which is another "social" construct. David Veksler independently thought up a scenario in which Crusoe uses money for his own needs and is victimized by monkeys who introduce inflation. Interesting... So, we had that in common and we never had a negative word about anything.

As for the subject of esthetics... I do not have a complete answer. I believe that art - like almost anything - depends on you, the observer. It is true that as an artist, you engage the same problems, but differently The artist intends meaning by their production. An observer could miss that meaning entirely. Even in speaking in daily life, we often misunderstand each other. It is not a surprise. Yet, in art, regardless of what the artist intended, the observer can have a different and perfectly valid experience of acceptance or rejection.

Understanding the modes and modalities of deliving those artist's intention, is the purpose of studying esthetics.

Also, whether cinema, painting, music, etc., we have different experences of different kinds works by the same artists, a biography by a movie star is an easy enough example: you can admire the performances and be revolted by the life of the person who delivered them.

This is like arguing the rational-versus-empirical (analytic/synthetic). You can make good use of something you experience, even though you lack a consistent theory - electricity is a perfect example: we enjoy a lot of comforts because some people mistakenly thought of electrons as little balls orbiting a central nucleus.

Does it matter? Yes. For a work to be esthetically perfect, the artist and the observer must share an objective morality and sense of life. But you can enjoy yourself - and I have - in a museum of modern art. Not everything... but a few things... regardless of what the artist intended. I can find a positive reflection of my positive sense of life, regardless of the psycho-epistemology of the artist.

Thus, so many of us Objectivists enjoy Beethoven and Mozart - and the Rolling Stones...

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Btw, does Peikoff have any degrees in aesthetics? Has he taken any courses on the subject? Does he imagine that he has somehow inhereted Rand's aesthetic gravitas despite having never written a novel, not to mention a best seller?

Taken courses? He’s given courses, lots of them. Besides Eight Great Plays, every one of his full scale courses on Objectivism includes sections on Esthetics.

Look, the only response possible to a rational mind, having read OPAR, is to revere the man who wrote it. I think it’s clear that you’re dedicated to persecuting the good for being the good, and my regret is that there’s no rung of hell low enough to damn you to.

Okay, so then the answer to my question is, "Yes, Peikoff has somehow inherited Rand's gravitas despite accomplishing nothing in the field himself." Good enough for me. I'll now revere him and bow to his blubberings.

J

What has happened to Peikoff is essentially what would have happened to Rand herself if she had hit the Internet age: instantaneous massive examination and deconstruction of every utterance. Hence some Objectivism biggies hide from it partially or totally. I think if you want to do significant work, scholarship or creative, but not a coward, you have to go away and do your thing. And these Internet postings do suck up a lot of time.

Out of curiosity and something akin to grace, I'm actually going to read his DIM book and take it at face value without any animus to the author.

--Brant

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There are often good discussions on OO despite occasional meddling from moderators. In my experience, the site has become significantly more open to the free exchange of ideas than it used to be. It's actually pretty rare now that I run into the idiocy that I described above. And if you've misinterpreted my tone, let me assure you that I'm not upset. I think that my being censored is hilarious and incomprehensible. There have been other posts of mine on OO that I suspected might raise some eyebrows among some of the more emotional moderators, but not the one in which I defended Rand's separation of ethics and aesthetics. When I read the private message from the moderator, I was laughing in disbelief.

J

There are often good discussions on OO despite occasional meddling from moderators. In my experience, the site has become significantly more open to the free exchange of ideas than it used to be. It's actually pretty rare now that I run into the idiocy that I described above. And if you've misinterpreted my tone, let me assure you that I'm not upset. I think that my being censored is hilarious and incomprehensible. There have been other posts of mine on OO that I suspected might raise some eyebrows among some of the more emotional moderators, but not the one in which I defended Rand's separation of ethics and aesthetics. When I read the private message from the moderator, I was laughing in disbelief.

J

Jonathan, you are being too gracious to those young whippersnappers who ought to have more respect for you.I think you should tie on your sunbonnet and grab your hockey stick and sort them out,

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Out of curiosity and something akin to grace, I'm actually going to read his DIM book and take it at face value without any animus to the author.

Brant,

I have the same intention, if only to get the bad taste out of my mouth from listening to Peikoff's lectures on DIM. My bad taste comes from the vastly oversimplified numbering system he used (and the way he used it) to explain complicated events. The worst part was the evident joy he got from being The One who assigns meaning.

I still don't remember the particulars of the numbering system all that much (though I have tried and even once got entangled in a kerfuffle with Roger over me using wrong numbers in trying to make my point, see here: A Note on the DIM Hypothesis) which shows how little importance in my subconscious I give to the approach.

I'm not against looking at integration, disintegration and misintegration per se as a facet of a body of ideas and actions on a broad scale. In fact, I applaud Peikoff for coming up with this way of analyzing things as it provides another angle--an important one--to probe meaning.

But something deep inside me rebels against isolating one attribute and using it as a basis for judging a collective anything--and I mean judging in the sense of accepting or rejecting the entire collective as significant. This smacks of bigotry to me--a different kind of bigotry, maybe, but it uses the epistemological method of bigotry. I.e., you use one attribute to blank out all the rest in making a judgment on unrelated aspects--which can (and usually does) include actual fundamentals. A good example is using skin color to judge character. And to make matters worse, with racism, you can see the color of the skin. With DIM, you can get into all kinds of disagreements over whether a collective way of being is constructive, destructive or a Frankenstein monster because the definitions and standards are so darn fuzzy.

(I'm sure that supporters who are more intimate with this system will be offended by this comment and will not even try to understand what I am getting at, but I don't care.)

For instance, you can label an entire culture or body of ideas as destructive (D2, nihilistic or whatever), but that begs the question of how a whole bunch of people can become convinced to live and act as if destruction were their top value. This goes against everything I know and have learned about human nature. Destruction qua destruction only exists in then minds of mentally ill people, not an entire culture. In a collective, people destroy something in order to replace it with--or maintain--something else. Even Hitler was building a dream of a superior Aryan race. Misguided and nothing more than a superficial opinion, sure, but it was there--and I submit that this was just as fundamental, if not more so, than any integrative attribute.

It's more like a storyline where you have the good guys and the bad guys. You can't eliminate core storyline as a human fundament. You can get people worked up to destroy the bad guys, but I submit it's impossible to point to something good and get people to follow you in destroying it. You can fool them into thinking something good is bad (according to a different storyline), but you cannot get them to act destructively as an organized body against what they call the good just to eliminate it.

But back to point, I still keep hearing Peikoff's voice in judging entire gobs of history that existed for centuries, like Greek governments, and dismissing them as not significant. The imprints on my memory go something like this. In answer to comments from the audience, in an ultra-satisfied tone, Peikoff took historical issues of great magnitude and said things like, "Well... that might appear like an M1, and I can see why you think that way, but it's actually a D2."

(There go the echoes in the recesses of my mind emanating from between the lines of Peikoff's words. They wave out and beyond--in his tone of voice--and repeat and repeat and repeat as they die off, "Eenie-meenie-minie-moe...")

Voila. No need to probe in deeper. You can now turn your mind off on that chunk of humankind and think about the truly important stuff.

Even now, that memory is like running my fingers through a box of razor blades.

So I fully intend to set aside, as much as I can, the impressions I got from the lectures and pretend this is a book written by another author. Maybe that way I will be able to judge it starting from a clean intellectual slate.

Michael

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