Peikoff rant against libertarians


9thdoctor

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As I said on the Objectivism Online forums:

I don't want a flame war. I want to know if you think Peikoff is a dogmatist and if you spend time bashing him.

Hey hi, Overt!

Welcome to OL, where bashing has gradations undreamt of in your philosophy.

No need for a welcome. I'm only here because I couldn't get an answer to my question while on OO.

In

As I said on the Objectivism Online forums:

I don't want a flame war. I want to know if you think Peikoff is a dogmatist and if you spend time bashing him.

Hey hi, Overt!

Welcome to OL, where bashing has gradations undreamt of in your philosophy.

No need for a welcome. I'm only here because I couldn't get an answer to my question while on OO.

What are you willing to pay?

--Brant

trader

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Thanks for the attempt at friendliness...

Overt,

I wasn't trying to be friendly.

I was practicing good manners. (Many people in our subculture have no idea what this means. And they act like rudeness is Randian heroism, which it is not.)

From your attitude, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't work out here, though. So you are better off gone.

Goodbye.

Michael

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On my dime?

Heh.

That's a hell of a trade. For you, that is. You take. I give. And you make statements about setting the conditions.

I actually invited him over so I could reply to him in kind without having my posts deleted. Hope you don’t mind. Looks like he’s not sticking around. Good thing, see he's not housebroken.

However, thanks for admitting your guilt and pointing me in the direction of further examples of your guilt. My statements on OO were not directed at you in particular, but I see now that they fit.

I hope you find a way out of your confusion, but I'm not going to sit here and try to convince you of anything. I don't practice blind hatred, despite what you may think; but I don't practice appeasement either.

Oh well, turns out I had you pegged right from the beginning. Let me guess, if there was a Checking Premises Forum, you’d be on it like stink on shit. They ought to put one together, seriously.

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Dennis,

You can invite anyone you want. And I certainly don't mind.

But if a person comes in with rudeness, negative insinuations about OL members and snotty sanctimonious statements about what he is going to do here on OL, I am going to let him know that there are posting guidelines. If he dishes it out, he's going to get it right back.

But I have nothing against this dude except an observation about his poor manners. From the first impression, this is not a person I would invite into my home (that is, my home home, not forum home). I don't like people like that and I don't have them around me in my personal life. But he's not banned or moderated or anything.

If you need space for a flame war with him, let me know and you guys can go at it all you want.

Michael

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This event got me thinking.

This issue of good manners is a real problem with ortho-Objectivists before they mature. (After they get older, they seem to become more rationally cordial.) I think they try to live within the novels of Rand, instead of assimilating her values into the stories of their own lives. I mean this literally.

They behave as if real people exist whole as she selectively portrayed aspects of them. Hell, Rand would be the first to admit she strove to be selective, not natural, in her characterizations--with pride at that. She did it on purpose. But these knuckleheads wouldn't know it. So they ape her manner of dialog from her books.

I know they are distantly aware that this doesn't work in the real world as it does in Rand's books. Their put-downs fall flat. People are not psychologically devastated by their insults. Their preemptive rejection does not sting their targets. On the contrary, people often get pissed at the hostility, or scratch their heads and think they are before a fruitcake or basket case. And I know the wannabe heroes slam their minds shut on wondering why. But they can't get it all the way shut, so it makes them irritated.

How do I know this?

I used to do it.

:smile:

The reason I'm writing this is the interaction with Overt above reminded me of something in the not so distant past. When Robert Campbell was doing his comparisons and disclosures of Mayhew's many (and often unnecessary) changes to Rand's Q&A texts, Dianah Hsieh sent me an email--the first and only time she ever communicated with me--to complain about copyrights. It started with something like, "I despise you and you despise me. but..."

How on earth does a person who starts like that expect to enter into a conversation with someone else? So I responded that before I would continue, I must insist on good manners. And, from her reaction online, she thought that was the weirdest, most disgusting thing she had ever heard.

When people think Objectivism is for autistics, the kind of presumptuous rudeness to strangers that Hsieh and this dude Overt have displayed is one of the main reasons why. But I don't think it's autism. I think this rudeness has the same roots as garden variety bigotry, i.e., tribal collectivism. With a dose of insecurity for good measure. And, what's worse, I don't think these people even know that's what they are doing. They framed themselves by a goddam book in their minds, by a fictional story, not by reality.

(But isn't that what bigots do? Or religious people?)

A truly rational individual who is sure of himself qua individual knows that good manners are called good manners because they are good. For him and for others. And he is comfortable practicing them with strangers when he approaches them, even when the strangers are people he has disagreements with.

Michael

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Michael,

I think you are right on the money here. Newcomers to the shining world of Rand heroes must long to emulate those highly unreal beings. How many are still waiting for somebody to ask"What do you think of me?" I understand this, because I am still waiting for somebody to complain to me that there is a conspiracy of silence against them, and what should they do about it. But I will probably wait all my life.

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As I said on the Objectivism Online forums:

I don't want a flame war. I want to know if you think Peikoff is a dogmatist and if you spend time bashing him.

Hey hi, Overt!

Welcome to OL, where bashing has gradations undreamt of in your philosophy.

No need for a welcome. I'm only here because I couldn't get an answer to my question while on OO.

Covert/Overt:

Welcome to OL. Did you leave your manners at the portal from OO to OL?

Adam

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Folks:

Where are the Atlas Shrugged heroes/heroines that practice "bad manners?"

I must have missed it in my thirty plus [30+] reads of the book.

Adam

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Where are the Atlas Shrugged heroes/heroines that practice "bad manners?"

How about Chapter 4:

"You mean he refused to see me?"

"Yes, sir, that is what I mean."

"He wouldn't see me?"

"No, sir, he wouldn't."

"Did you speak to him in person?"

"No, sir, I spoke to his secretary."

"What did he tell you? Just what did he say?" The young man hesitated and looked more unhappy.

"What did he say?"

"He said that Senior d'Anconia said that you bore him, Mr. Taggart."

And I haven't read it anything like 30 times. :smile:

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Where are the Atlas Shrugged heroes/heroines that practice "bad manners?"

How about Chapter 4:

"You mean he refused to see me?"

"Yes, sir, that is what I mean."

"He wouldn't see me?"

"No, sir, he wouldn't."

"Did you speak to him in person?"

"No, sir, I spoke to his secretary."

"What did he tell you? Just what did he say?" The young man hesitated and looked more unhappy.

"What did he say?"

"He said that Senior d'Anconia said that you bore him, Mr. Taggart."

And I haven't read it anything like 30 times. :smile:

One exception does not eviscerate my argument "doctore."

Additionally, when one is "tangentially, somewhat rude," as in that case you posited as proof, to a remarkably despicable individual, like James Taggart, who has insulted, and talked down to Francisco since they were teenagers, is of little probative value, wouldn't you agree?

Moreover, James has consciously denigrated the love of Francisco's life, Dagny, so, the alleged "rudeness," would seem to be a valid response.

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There is a lot of twisty Randian psych here, which I admit I do not know well. But the impression that I have,,is that to laugh at someone is to harm them, and to laugh at yourself, is to harm yourself ,.. and that is just so wrong; to laugh is to dissolve barriers, to make insane fun leaps, to forgive and to enjoy common humanity. To dissect humour is to invite tears, in my humble O.

As a comic, in all seriousness,

Carol Bittman (Mrs)

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One exception does not eviscerate my argument "doctore."

Hey, no argument here. "But I don't think of you" was kind of rude, too. And how about "Get the hell out of my way!", when all they want is for him to be dictator? Hmm, that's all I can think of off-hand. Ugh, I've been spending way too much time on Objectivist stuff this week. I should have been an Epicurean.

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One exception does not eviscerate my argument "doctore."

Hey, no argument here. "But I don't think of you" was kind of rude, too. And how about "Get the hell out of my way!", when all they want is for him to be dictator? Hmm, that's all I can think of off-hand. Ugh, I've been spending way too much time on Objectivist stuff this week. I should have been an Epicurean.

But you are an epicurean; labels are so epidermal ...

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Carol,

Daniel Dennett came out with a book recently on humor that gets really close to explaining it: Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind.

The only thing is that he comes from a strictly evolutionary viewpoint, so he lops off parts that don't fit. But full disclosure. I have skimmed the book and only read the first chapter carefully so far. But it's a hell of a read.

His idea (based on a student's work) is first he distinguishes laughter from humor. Lots of times we laugh but there is nothing funny, and often when we find something funny, we merely smile or just reflect.

So with this distinction, Dennett says laughter is a spontaneous expression of delight. Humor can prompt that, which is why it is often thought of as part of the same thing. He claims that laughter is a reward for getting the humor--nature's way of rewarding us for "debugging" our minds and thought processes. If there was no reward, we would not "debug," and thus we would rehearse wrong things in our minds and learn correct stuff with great difficulty. Probably not survive.

It's an intriguing theory. Here is a recent video where he goes into it:



But that one is almost an hour long. For the faint-hearted, here is a shorter talk from a time before he wrote the book called "Cute, sexy, sweet, funny." He gives a brief outline of his ideas in it.



Rand's view of humor is that it is essentially destructive (her word, not mine), so it is only morally appropriate if you are laughing at someone, not with him. Even then, you have to be laughing at a moral shortcoming, never at something like an accident. She restricts the spirit of humor to mocking to humiliate. And she feels it is grossly inappropriate to laugh at yourself. Maybe she has said some other things about this that are different, but I am unaware of them. I can dig up some quotes if anyone is interested.

Michael

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Where are the Atlas Shrugged heroes/heroines that practice "bad manners?"

How about Chapter 4:

"You mean he refused to see me?"

"Yes, sir, that is what I mean."

"He wouldn't see me?"

"No, sir, he wouldn't."

"Did you speak to him in person?"

"No, sir, I spoke to his secretary."

"What did he tell you? Just what did he say?" The young man hesitated and looked more unhappy.

"What did he say?"

"He said that Senior d'Anconia said that you bore him, Mr. Taggart."

And I haven't read it anything like 30 times. :smile:

One exception does not eviscerate my argument "doctore."

Additionally, when one is "tangentially, somewhat rude," as in that case you posited as proof, to an remarkably despicable individual like James Taggart, who has insulted, and talked down to Francisco since they were teenagers, is of little probative value, wouldn't you agree?

Moreover, James has consciously denigrated the love of Francisco's life, Dagny, so, the alleged "rudeness," would seem to be a valid response.

Francisco was playing a role with his rudeness. He was maintaining his character's persona. He was pretending to be part of James' world and in that world--that context--James really did bore him. As for "since when they were teenagers," James was outside of Francisco's personal interest so it was water off a duck's back. One significant characteristic of Randian heroes is how all the bad guys simply bounce off them.

--Brant

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<p>Carol,

Daniel Dennett came out with a book recently on humor that gets really close to explaining it: <a class="bbc_url" href="http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Jokes-Using-Humor-Reverse-Engineer/dp/026201582X" rel="nofollow" title=""><strong>Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind</strong></a>.

The only thing is that he comes from a strictly evolutionary viewpoint, so he lops off parts that don't fit. But full disclosure. I have skimmed the book and only read the first chapter carefully so far. But it's a hell of a read.

His idea (based on a student's work) is first he distinguishes laughter from humor. Lots of times we laugh but there is nothing funny, and often when we find something funny, we merely smile or just reflect.

So with this distinction, Dennett says laughter is a spontaneous exp<b></b>ression of delight. Humor can prompt that, which is why it is often thought of as part of the same thing. He claims that laughter is a reward for getting the humor--nature's way of rewarding us for "debugging" our minds and thought processes. If there was no reward, we would not "debug," and thus we would rehearse wrong things in our minds and learn correct stuff with great difficulty. Probably not survive.

It's an intriguing theory. Here is a recent video where he goes into it:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/X__LXDpmPAk?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

But that one is almost an hour long. For the faint-hearted, here is a shorter talk from a time before he wrote the book called "Cute, sexy, sweet, funny." He gives a brief outline of his ideas in it.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TzN-uIVkfjg?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Rand's view of humor is that it is essentially destructive (her word, not mine), so it is only morally appropriate if you are laughing at someone, not with him. Even then, you have to be laughing at a moral shortcoming, never at something like an accident. She restricts the spirit of humor to mocking to humiliate. And she feels it is grossly inappropriate to laugh at yourself. Maybe she has said some other things about this that are different, but I am unaware of them. I can dig up some quotes if anyone is interested.

Michael</p>

I've lost track of how many people I've destroyed with it--one of the pure joys of my life.

--Brant

didn't work in Vietnam

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And this is why I love OL.

Bright people. Sharply creative comments. Sometimes humorous. Sometimes sharply, painfully truthful. Does not get better than this.

Thanks folks.

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Rand's view of humor is that it is essentially destructive (her word, not mine), so it is only morally appropriate if you are laughing at someone, not with him. Even then, you have to be laughing at a moral shortcoming, never at something like an accident. She restricts the spirit of humor to mocking to humiliate. And she feels it is grossly inappropriate to laugh at yourself.

Well, yeah, this is what she expressed in her Manifesto.

Making fun of yourself, which she probably found worse than laughing at yourself, is allowing others to feel superior, or more commonly, to relate and feel less alone in their own situations. You can also pretend to be worse off than you are, like a character, and though people know it is not really you, they will laugh at you for your effort and desire to make them laugh. I guess comedy, according to her, ought to be limited to observations of failures that are not one's own. Not complaining, though, because then the laughter would be at your expense once again. However, there is the laughter of potential, where people laugh at reality in relation to what they imagine could be... and that genuinely could fit with Rand's aesthetics.

She only touched on the subject as far as I know, and I doubt she spent very much time thinking about humor in particular.

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Good job with the video Doctor. I know it is painful for you since we are our own worse critics but as someone who also has to learn the slow way by trial and error when it comes to tech I commend the effort. I remember trying to learn how to build a website for work with my ancient knowledge of 7 inch floppies and punch cards. Judging from the finished product on your first stab I bet you’ll be cranking out some great things fast.

And as an aside, it is also no surprise. With your love of embedded videos to make points this was the obvious next step.

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Concerning #47 Calvin, I have copied below Rand’s uses and remarks on laughter and humor in The Fountainhead. She had a tape recording in which she remarked on humor, in the ’60’s I think. She took the common view that humor comes from incongruity. Some of my Objectivist friends are much attracted to Arthur Koestler’s ideas about humor. I like what Freud had to say in Jokes and the Unconscious. And there are some good jokes in there too.

. . .

Years later, when Roark has become successful and Peter Keating’s success has died out, Keating meets with Roark to hear Roark’s decision on Keating’s proposal for winning the big Cortlandt contract. Keating thinks to himself of Roark: “It’s in his whole body, that look of a creature glad to be alive. And he realized that he had never actually believed that any living thing could be glad for the gift of existence” (HR VIII 630). That was part of Roark’s laughter in the opening scene of the novel. He wants to laugh partly from the joy of his existence.

In Zarathustra laughter is often emblematic of Nietzsche’s campaign against “the spirit of gravity” (Z I “On Reading and Writing;” IV “On the Higher Man” 16, 18, 20; “The Awakening” 1). There is some of the laughter against the spirit of gravity in the laughs of Roark. However, in laughter against the spirit of gravity, Nietzsche includes laughing at oneself and indeed at anything serious (Z IV “On the Higher Man” 15; “The Awakening” 1; GS 1, 382; BGE 294). This is something Rand speaks against in Fountainhead.

Roark seldom laughs (ET IV 253). He laughs as the face of an associate reveals a dawning comprehension of something in Roark’s motives (PK XV 202). He laughs over the prospect, when he has to close his architectural practice, that his enemies will gloat over him being reduced to tradesman work (PK XV 207). He laughs soundlessly at turns in his first bedding of Dominique (ET II 225, 230). He laughs soundlessly upon learning, from Joel Sutton, that Dominique is the one who has persuaded Sutton to decline Roark as his architect and that Dominique told Sutton to tell Roark she was the one (ET VII 288). He laughs softly when Keating finally comprehends that to be able to say “I built Cortlandt” is a gift possible only from oneself and is worth more than any money, fame, and honor that one might receive from others on account of the accomplishment. That soft laughter “was the happiest sound Keating had ever heard” (HR VIII 630).

Robert Mayhew observes that right after Roark’s laughter at the opening of the novel, there enters something arresting of attention and laughter. “He did not laugh as his eyes stopped in the awareness of the earth around him. . . . / He looked at the granite. To be cut, he thought, and made into walls. He looked at a tree. To be split and made into rafters” (PK I 9–10; Mayhew 2007b, 210). When it comes to his work, his life-meaning, and his essential person, Roark does not laugh.

Rand gives to villain Ellsworth Toohey the idea that an ability to laugh at oneself, and at anything one holds to be important, is a good thing (ET III 242, 246–47; IV 251, 257; IX 326; XIII 385). Shortly before Roark’s soliloquy in the courtroom for the Cortlandt destruction, Rand gives Toohey a soliloquy, which includes the following: “‘Kill by laughter. Laughter is an instrument of human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn it into a sneer. It’s simple. Tell them to laugh at everything. Tell them that a sense of humor is an unlimited virtue. Don’t let anything remain sacred in a man’s soul—and his soul won’t be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you’ve killed the hero in man. One doesn’t reverence with a giggle’” (HR IX 636).

Rand was not the first to note that laughter can be used to kill. Nietzsche has the ugliest human (he who had been the object of pity for his ugliness and who had taken revenge for it by murdering God, who had super-pitied him) say to Zarathustra “‘But I know one thing—it was from you yourself that I once learned, oh Zarathustra: whoever wants to kill most thoroughly laughs. / “One kills not by wrath, but by laughter”—this you once spoke’” (Z IV “The Ass Festival” 1). But Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, unlike Toohey, has not the slightest intent to kill, by laughter or otherwise, the truly sacred in men’s souls, the hero in man. It is an earlier writer who observes the thoroughly vicious use of laughter we find admitted in Toohey’s soliloquy.

In The Man Who Laughs (1869), Hugo’s Gwynplaine takes his stand for humanity in a speech in the House of Lords, and these his most serious, most sacred words are laughed into dust. When the mountebank Gwynplaine had been in shows, performing as a freak, laughter had applauded him; but here, on solemn matters of real life, elevated to Lord and addressing his peers, “here it exterminated him. The effort to ridicule is to kill. Men’s laughter sometimes exerts all its power to murder” (VII 610–11).

. . .

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