Bertonneau contra Rand


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It is "Weltanschauung", not "Weltanshauung". It has nothing to do with Hitler, it's just one of those German words that have become part of the English language, like "Angst", "Zeitgeist" or "verboten". Perhaps some of them due to the influence of German philosophers who used such words extensively.

DF,

I don't associate Weltanschauung with Adolf Hitler. It's a perfectly OK German word that I've run into in many contexts.

I do think there is a difference here between native speakers of Dutch, who are likely to be able to speak several other languages, and native speakers of English, who, alas, are unlikely to speak any other languages.

To a native speaker of English, Weltanschauung sounds pretentious. That's why Frederick Suppe calls the views of Thomas Kuhn and Imre Lakatos Weltanschauung philosophies of science and I call them worldview philosophies of science.

And Dr. Bertonneau comes across to me as pretentious out the wazoo.

Robert Campbell

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With all due respect George, Bertonneau's prose may contain more than a hint of smug snobbishness, but his basic take on Rand's writing is accurate.

I read Bertonneau's article again, and two of his criticisms stood out. One is that Atlas Shrugged is "morally incoherent" -- a phrase that Bertonneau uses on at least two occasions.

The second criticism -- indeed, the major theme of Bertonneau's article -- is that Atlas Shrugged is "primarily...a sacrificial narrative" and that this is "the novel's borrowed premise."

Do you agree with either of these charges?

Ghs

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Random thoughts:

Girardianism strikes me as what Thomas Szasz, in some of his later writings, calls a "base rhetoric."

Szasz's classic example of a base rhetoric is Freud's reduction of all human motives to sex or aggression. A classic instance is Freud's announcement that the desire to paint pictures is a sublimated version of the desire to smear feces.

Bertonneau, in turn, strikes me as a real live right-wing pomo. There's no, um, logical reason why pomos have to be left-wing; it's just that, as Stephen Hicks has argued, the people most likely to seek refuge in pomoism have been Leftists who've lost their faith in socialism.

And that "Holocaustic imagination" is an allusion to ole Whittaker and the gas chambers. I'm ready to bet money on it.

Robert Campbell

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I don't associate Weltanschauung with Adolf Hitler. It's a perfectly OK German word that I've run into in many contexts.

I have no problem with the word Weltanschauung, though I generally use worldview instead. This has been true especially in lectures, since I often manage to mispronounce Weltanschauung. <_<

Ghs

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With all due respect George, Bertonneau's prose may contain more than a hint of smug snobbishness, but his basic take on Rand's writing is accurate.

I read Bertonneau's article again, and two of his criticisms stood out. One is that Atlas Shrugged is "morally incoherent" -- a phrase that Bertonneau uses on at least two occasions.

The second criticism -- indeed, the major theme of Bertonneau's article -- is that Atlas Shrugged is "primarily...a sacrificial narrative" and that this is "the novel's borrowed premise."

Do you agree with either of these charges?

Ghs

The first charge stood out for me too. I can't see that and can only think the novel, which seems all too morally coherent -- so much so that some readers say it's preachy, just depicts the kind of morality that Bertonneau deeply disagrees with, especially Rand's egoism and her deep critique of altruism. Whether one disagrees with Rand's views here should be beside the point. One can, e.g., disagree with the morality projected in Crime and Punishment yet still say Dostoyevsky's novel is morally coherent.

Calling the novel "sprawling" is another matter. That's the feeling I got reading Bertonneau's essay: sprawling. rolleyes.gif

Regarding the second one, I don't think Atlas Shrugged is primarily that. Yes, I do think one can read certain parts of the novel as that -- and that might be an interesting and even fruitful reading -- but my view here is Bertonneau is looking at the novel through Girardian glasses and seeing everything in terms of that sort of thing. This is no different, to me, than how comic book Freudian (not that I believe all Freudians are) might look at any novel as revealing the Oedipus complex welling up onto the page.

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Random thoughts:

Girardianism strikes me as what Thomas Szasz, in some of his later writings, calls a "base rhetoric."

Szasz's classic example of a base rhetoric is Freud's reduction of all human motives to sex or aggression. A classic instance is Freud's announcement that the desire to paint pictures is a sublimated version of the desire to smear feces.

Bertonneau, in turn, strikes me as a real live right-wing pomo. There's no, um, logical reason why pomos have to be left-wing; it's just that, as Stephen Hicks has argued, the people most likely to seek refuge in pomoism have been Leftists who've lost their faith in socialism.

And that "Holocaustic imagination" is an allusion to ole Whittaker and the gas chambers. I'm ready to bet money on it.

Robert Campbell

I think the Girardianism as Bertonneau deploys it might be exactly that. (And I just posted comparing this to Freudianism... I like to think great minds think alike, but I doubt I've a great mind.)

As for postmoderism not being a monopoly of the Left, I agree and good point. If my reading of history is correct, too, I think we could locate the start of postmodernism on the Right, especially with the Right wing and conservative critiques of classical liberalism that were already underway in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. I might seem like Ayn Rand here -- and also be hoisted on my own pitard regarding reductionism -- but it does look like there's a stream of anti-liberal thought and postmodernism finds its roots in that -- even if it's usually been coupled with modern liberal politics. (Of course, modern liberalism is anti-liberal from a classical liberal perspective.)

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sophomoric

1. Of or characteristic of a sophomore.

2. Exhibiting great immaturity and lack of judgment: sophomoric behavior.

Ayn Rand immature?

That doesn't grok according to her history.

If one calls Ayn Rand sophomoric, would it be fair to use the same standard and call, say, Glenn Beck, or maybe someone on the other end like Hugo Chavez "sophomoric"?

Agree or disagree, radically, if need be, and even question understanding of academic issues, but "sophomoric"?

Gimme a break!

That's a silly term to use for disagreeing with Rand.

"Populist" and "not academic" would be more precise terms for what I believe is meant.

Michael

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It is "Weltanschauung", not "Weltanshauung". It has nothing to do with Hitler, it's just one of those German words that have become part of the English language, like "Angst", "Zeitgeist" or "verboten". Perhaps some of them due to the influence of German philosophers who used such words extensively.

Does anyone dispute that the use of the term Weltanschauung in a discussion of an English language author is snobbish, pretentious, artificial…BAD WRITING? I explained my association of the term with Hitler, and qualified my statement amply. If the association were a general one, Bertonneau’s use of it would have been both snobbish and sarcastic. As it is, it’s merely snobbish, nevertheless I feel I can stand by my original post (#6), including the spelling.

Weltanschauung is not nearly as familiar a loanword as angst, zeitgeist, verboten, schadenfreude, sturm und drang…I’d say it’s in the same category with ding an sich. I’ve never heard anyone use it, and I’ve rarely if ever read it in a piece originally written in English. If it weren’t for Mein Kampf, I probably would have had to look it up.

It is good to have a German and French language spellchecker available, too bad he’s not available in real time, before posting. I might take the time to point out that the last sentence in his post #13 is not grammatically sound, but Jesus you know what I’ve got better things to do. For instance, pointing out to Dan that pitard is incorrect, it’s petard.

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I associate Weltenschauung with a book recommended for O'ists, the teacher of Ayn Rand's teacher, the German historian of philosophy Windelband. I agree with the person who said it has become part of the english language like 'verboten', and it doesn't sound pretentious to my ears.

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I associate Weltenschauung with a book recommended for O'ists, the teacher of Ayn Rand's teacher, the German historian of philosophy Windelband. I agree with the person who said it has become part of the english language like 'verboten', and it doesn't sound pretentious to my ears.

Well, then Weltanschauung’s got a vote or two. Had to see that coming. Would you care to share your opinion of the Bertonneau piece? I didn’t provide a comprehensive critique either, I mainly provided a sampling of “eye roll inducers” and appended some comments. Ich denk I’ve given it mehr time than it’s worth.

Perhaps we can move on now to Bertonneau’s reference “King Pentheus in Euripides' Bacchae”. As Brüno would ask: In or Aus? Mmm, Funkyzeit!

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My response to

Bertonneau's reference "King Pentheus in Euripides' Bacchae".

Il pète plus haut que son cul.

For native English speakers: he's being pretentious out the wazoo.

Robert Campbell

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The following is from one of several posts for Atlantis II that I wrote about Bertonneau's article. It appeared on March 9, 2005. Dan quoted a brief passage from this post earlier.

I wrote:

"I don't know if "Modern Age" publishes letters or not, but a relatively minor point like this would be suitable only for a letter."

Dan Ust replied:

"I believe there are many more points in the essay worth commenting on..."

I will leave this to someone who can figure out what the hell Bertonneau's point is supposed to be. My eyes glaze over whenever I read this sort of literary criticism, if that's what it is supposed to be, but I'm flabbergasted by his claim that *Atlas Shrugged* "is primarily...a sacrificial narrative," and that "the novel's borrowed premise is sacrifice." Illustrating the point by referring to the disaster in the Taggart Tunnel only compounds the problem. Bertonneau's exegetical skills are dubious, to say the least, and his description of AS as "a strenuous pontification" applies more to him than to Rand.

I've corresponded with Bertonneau and believe this "sacrificial narrative" view of Atlas Shrugged comes by way of Girard. From my reading of Girard and Girardians, of which it seems Bertonneau is one, it looks like he and they see just about everything as a "sacrificial narrative" or evincing envy and resentment (or even ressentiment).

My correction (about the origin of "middle ages") is admittedly a minor one, but it becomes more important when viewed in the context of Bertonneau's intellectual posturing and his claim that Rand and her followers have "a naive attitude towards history and philosophy that at times can only be described as sophomoric."

Agreed.

Another obvious error is Bertonneau's claim that Rand "never achieved a significant screen-credit; Warner Studios even farmed out the screenplay for The Fountainhead to someone else." In fact, Rand wrote the screenplays to both "The Fountainhead" and "Love Letters."

Btw, the title of Bertonneau's article (which refers to Rand's "Holocaustic Imagination") and the preliminary quotation from Gans (which refers to "the SS torturer" and "Nazi cinema") seem to revive the old charge of Whittaker Chambers that Rand was a neo-Nazi of sorts. Am I reading too much into this?

Bertonneau's inflated, pretentious style gives me the literary equivalent of a headache. I don't think I can stomach reading it again, so perhaps someone will serve as an interpreter for me.

Rand, whatever her faults, knew how to write clear, concise prose. Bertonneau should give this a try....

Ghs

And therein was the reason for me comparing his to Chambers' review on another topic here: they both ultimately equate Rand's views with those of the Nazis. This is funnier or sadder, in my mind, with Bertonneau because he seems to praise Plato -- all the while ignoring any influence his [Plato's] philosophy might have had on the course of history, especially Plato's extolling the kind of social control Nazis would surely admire and imitate.

The point of contact between Rand and the Nazis is not total control of society; nor does it have anything to do with Plato. Rather, it's a line of thought that goes back almost to Plato's time, but not quite; and its greatest monument in Western literature if The Unveiling [alternately, Revealing] Made to John of Patmos--usually called in modern America Revelations, the last book of the New Testament (although there are earlier examples found in the Hebrew Scriptures and some of the Apocrypha). The inventor of the idea seems to be Zoroaster and the Persian Magi. Evil gets completely out of hand, so Good and Evil have a battle, and since God is on the side of Good, Good wins; Evil is completely defeated, and for good measure gets to suffer a good deal of pain and torment not only during the battle itself, but for the rest of eternity. Rand's version differs mainly (and for obvious reasons) in not having a God to make sure that Good wins, and not letting the pain and torment continue throughout eternity. Millions, whether innocent or not, will die during this global conflict, and only the purest will survive to live in a utopian society. I think it's this aspect of Atlas Shrugged, the great purging of society in which the unworthy will perish--and will deserve to perish--that Chambers was hitting on in his phrase "to the ovens, go!"; it's a trait found not only in Nazis and Communists but in jihadis, Christian fundamentalists, etc.

Side note--In the Republic, Plato did not plot out a truly statist society; it was only the elite whose lives were completely regimented, and who in compensation for this were allowed to rule everyone else. He did partially abandon some of the ideas proposed in the Republic is his late dialogues, and in some of those did propose a more truly totalitarian, or at least heavily authoritarian, polity, especially in the Laws and the Statesman.

Jeffrey S.

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I associate Weltenschauung with a book recommended for O'ists, the teacher of Ayn Rand's teacher, the German historian of philosophy Windelband. I agree with the person who said it has become part of the english language like 'verboten', and it doesn't sound pretentious to my ears.

Windelband's two-volume History of Philosophy (1901) is a masterpiece of analysis and organization. (Rather than write a strictly chronological account, Windelband divided his book into fundamental problems and then presented a mini-history of each problem.) It is a difficult read, however, and should not be mistaken for an introduction.

I was always somewhat amused that NBI carried Windelband's book, considering that he was a neo-Kantian.

Windelband -- along with Heinrich Rickert (his student), Wilhelm Dilthey, and other members of the "Baden" school of social theory -- made important contributions to the methodology of the human (or "cultural") sciences. The influence of this school can be seen in the sociological writings of Max Weber, Ludwig von Mises, and F.A. Hayek (especially Hayek's The Counter-Revolution of Science).

Social theorists in this tradition deny that the social sciences, properly understood, should be viewed as poor cousins of the physical sciences, which can progress only if they adopt the methods of the physical sciences. This, of course, is a central theme of The Counter-Revolution of Science, one of the best books that Hayek ever wrote.

Ghs

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George,

Not only did NBI carry Windelband's book, Leonard Peikoff was and still is a big fan of it.

It's interesting that you brought up the line of development from Windelband, Rickert, and Dilthey through Hayek.

A different branch of that tradition leads to Hans-Georg Gadamer and modern hermeneutics.

A colleague of mine is into hermeneutics. I've tried to point out the similarity between many claims from that school and typical Hayekian ideas. I don't think he's ever been quite sure what to make of that.

Robert Campbell

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And why, pray tell, is the phrase "Rand's Weltanschauung" an "eye roll inducer"? You think Rand has no Weltanschauung?

I associate the term Weltanshauung with Mein Kampf. The version I read of Hitler’s masterpiece did not translate this term throughout, and he used it a great deal. Why not say “worldview”, when commenting on an English language author? At best it’s merely an example of snobbishness; I can’t say it was meant to invoke Hitler, however it did have that effect on this reader.

Snobbishness is a feature to which I react with, as I wrote originally, an eye roll. Not exclusively, however, there’s also the head shake, the nose curl, the wince, the grunt, and the Bronx cheer. And this is not yet a definitive list.

Now, why don’t you tell us what you thought of the Bertonneau piece?

Okay.

I think it's barely worth reading at all. I read it only because Ayn Rand and her work are two of my top interests and I read just about everything that is published on those topics. The essay has little to say, nothing of value to say, and what it says is marred by a very shaky organizational skill, which reveals itself especially in the author's characteristic failure to make the necessary connections among his various points and to fill in some necessary background information about certain of them.

I find Professor Bertonneau's style neither "inflated" nor "pretentious." Nor do I agree that he should be faulted for not writing "clear, concise prose." He is concise enough. And his lack of clarity is not a function of his prose per se, but rather of his failure to organize it properly. To put this in another way, Professor Bertonneau is a man who has made an incompetent argument. But the problem is not precisely that he has written the argument badly, rather that he has conceived the argument badly. He has written the argument competently enough, but the argument itself is incoherent.

Don't get me wrong, here. Professor Bertonneau is no great shakes as a writer. He's passable, but no more. And his patience with double-checking his claims and references leaves much to be desired. There is no "ten minutes hate" in Nineteen Eighty-four. There is no "Patrick Henry College" in Atlas Shrugged. As others have already pointed out, Rand did write the screenplay for the film of The Fountainhead. Occasionally, Bertonneau gets one of his details right - his discussion of Robert E. Sherwood, for example, as the likely target of Rand's mini-portrait of "the man in Roomette 3, Car No. 11 . . . a sniveling little neurotic who wrote cheap plays in which, as a social message, he inserted cowardly little obscenities to the effect that all businessmen were scoundrels." Note, please, that Bertonneau is correct here; Rand was NOT thinking of Sherwood Anderson, nor did Bertonneau suggest that she was.

Dan Ust writes: "Jeff Riggenbach and Herbert Spencer might have some insights into why this is so [why there are such glaring "contradictions in American conservatism -- specifically things like praising free markets while adopting a basically Christian worldview or praising individualism while supporting all means of stifling individual initiative and expression"]. I believe their explanation can be boiled down to classical liberals losing a home among the Left, which turned ever more statist during the 19th century in Europe and the 20th in America, and, sadly, making an unwitting Faustian pact with the Right. which always being anti-Left mouthed some support for limits to the state. Fortunately, Jeff participates here, so he can tell me if I've recalled his view correctly."

You have.

Ninth Doctor writes: "Does anyone dispute that the use of the term Weltanschauung in a discussion of an English language author is snobbish, pretentious, artificial…BAD WRITING?"

Yes, I dispute that.

"I’ve never heard anyone use it, and I’ve rarely if ever read it in a piece originally written in English."

I first heard it used during my freshman or sophomore year of college, by a fellow student (he mispronounced it - he was not and never had been a student of the German language - but he knew the word and what it meant). I've seen it frequently in works originally written in English. I do not associate it with Adolf Hitler and have never met anyone who does.

JR

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George,

Not only did NBI carry Windelband's book, Leonard Peikoff was and still is a big fan of it.

It's interesting that you brought up the line of development from Windelband, Rickert, and Dilthey through Hayek.

A different branch of that tradition leads to Hans-Georg Gadamer and modern hermeneutics.

A colleague of mine is into hermeneutics. I've tried to point out the similarity between many claims from that school and typical Hayekian ideas. I don't think he's ever been quite sure what to make of that.

Robert Campbell

Hasn't that line -- the similarity between Hayekian and hermeneutics views -- been pursued by a few writers in the journal _Critical Review_ over the last two decades?

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Dan,

My reading of Critical Review has been sporadic (subscribed to it on two different occasions, eventually lost interest each time), but yes, that's one place where the Hayekian-hermeneutical relationship has been explored.

Hermeneuts usually fall somewhere in the academic Left, and are suspicious of economics or of anything that smacks of individualism (my colleague, like many social scientists with hermeneutical leanings, always says "individualism" with a faintly pejorative tone). Hence their surprise that Hayek might have been developing comparable themes.

Robert Campbell

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Dan,

My reading of Critical Review has been sporadic (subscribed to it on two different occasions, eventually lost interest each time), but yes, that's one place where the Hayekian-hermeneutical relationship has been explored.

Hermeneuts usually fall somewhere in the academic Left, and are suspicious of economics or of anything that smacks of individualism (my colleague, like many social scientists with hermeneutical leanings, always says "individualism" with a faintly pejorative tone). Hence their surprise that Hayek might have been developing comparable themes.

Robert Campbell

I think this sort of thing is bad and happens often: someone discovers, invents, or improves on some idea but is forgotten because he or she is either an outsider or linked to otherwise unpopular ideas and then someone more recent repeats the same work being totally ignorant of the earlier thinker (and is often touted as being a creative genius for it). The example that comes readily to mind is the recent discovery by many that the mainstream neoclassical equilibrium models of markets don't work -- things Austrians and others having been telling everyone who would listen about for decades now.

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If one calls Ayn Rand sophomoric, would it be fair to use the same standard and call, say, Glenn Beck, or maybe someone on the other end like Hugo Chavez "sophomoric"?

Glenn Beck, isn't that the idiot who recently called Wilders a fascist?

DF:

I was not aware of this, but apparently he did. The video has been "taken down." I can see where he would call Geert a fascist because of allegedly wanting to ban the book, the Koran and declare the Islamic Religion illegal.

Shocka! Glenn Beck Says Geert Wilders is 'Far Right', and the Far Right is 'Fascist'

Weird | Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 5:13:34 pm PST

The wingnut blogosphere is in full shrieking harpy mode over Glenn Beck's statement about anti-Muslim Dutch MP Geert Wilders (who wants to ban the Koran and make Islam itself illegal).

This is one of those Bizarro days, because I actually find myself agreeing with Glenn Beck. Geert Wilders is a far right ideologue, and the European far right does often equal fascism. How the heck did Beck ever get this one right?

Of course, he also confuses Dominique de Villepin (a leftist-centist by US standards) with Jean-Marie Le Pen (a far right Holocaust denier by anyone's standards), so it could have been a shot in the dark.

Adam

Post script: here is more and the at least one video.

http://www.therightscoop.com/glenn-beck-foolishly-calls-geert-wilders-a-fascist/

Edited by Selene
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George,

Not only did NBI carry Windelband's book, Leonard Peikoff was and still is a big fan of it.

It's interesting that you brought up the line of development from Windelband, Rickert, and Dilthey through Hayek.

A different branch of that tradition leads to Hans-Georg Gadamer and modern hermeneutics.

A colleague of mine is into hermeneutics. I've tried to point out the similarity between many claims from that school and typical Hayekian ideas. I don't think he's ever been quite sure what to make of that.

Robert Campbell

The late Don Lavoie attempted to merge Austrian economics with hermeneutics at George Mason University. As the Wiki article on Don says:

"As a scholar, [Lavoie] studied the philosophy of the social sciences (especially the application of hermeneutics to economics) and Comparative Economic Systems (especially Marxian theories of socialism). Along with Richard Ebeling, Lavoie pioneered the attempt to merge Austrian Economics with philosophical hermeneutics in the late 1980s, and in particular with the hermeneutics of Hans Georg Gadamer. His influence here extended to many of his students mentioned above. His effort drew criticism from several members of the Austrian School associated with the Mises Institute, especially Murray Rothbard and Hans-Hermann Hoppe."

I had lengthy conversations about this enterprise with both Don and Murray. Hermeneutics was in vogue at the time, and Don believed that incorporating hermeneutics into classes on Austrian economics would enhance the appeal of the latter for students.

To say, as the Wiki article does, that this plan "drew criticism" from Murray is something of an understatement. He was furious, claiming that the vagaries of hermeneutics could contribute nothing of worth to the work of Mises, Hayek, and other Austrians. Although I think Murray went overboard in his attacks on Lavoie, I generally agreed with his point of view. (I couldn't care less what Hoppe, the Leonard Peikoff of Austrianism, thought.)

Murray had a more favorable view of phenomenology. Indeed, he contributed a major article, "Praxeology as the Method of Economics," to the two-volume anthology Phenomenology and the Social Sciences (ed. Maurice Natanson, Northwestern University Press, 1973).

Moreover, Alfred Schutz, a leading phenomenologist, knew Mises and treated his ideas sympathetically in The Phenomenology of the Social World (Northwestern University Press, 1967).

In my opinion, phenomenology is the most promising among contemporary schools of social theory. For a readable introduction, see The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (1966), by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann.

Ghs

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Ninth Doctor writes: "Does anyone dispute that the use of the term Weltanschauung in a discussion of an English language author is snobbish, pretentious, artificial…BAD WRITING?"

Yes, I dispute that.

"I've never heard anyone use it, and I've rarely if ever read it in a piece originally written in English."

I first heard it used during my freshman or sophomore year of college, by a fellow student (he mispronounced it - he was not and never had been a student of the German language - but he knew the word and what it meant). I've seen it frequently in works originally written in English. I do not associate it with Adolf Hitler and have never met anyone who does.

I first recall reading the term in high school and I think it was while reading either something by or on Mises. But wherever I first read it, the context had nothing to do with Hitler or the Nazis. Nor do I think Bertonneau, who otherwise wants to associate Rand's views with those of Hitler, used it because of its somewhat tenuous association with the latter.

I also think what's "snobbish, pretentious, [or] artificial" is going to be relative to each person. I certainly don't find "Weltanschauung" so in most contexts where I've seen it. I don't how most of Bertonneau's readers feel about this. I would, though, probably not use the word were I to write an essay where "worldview" or some other term would do as well, but that's mostly because I'd likely misspell it given my record of botching up spelling among other things.

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The late Don Lavoie attempted to merge Austrian economics with hermeneutics at George Mason University. As the Wiki article on Don says:

"As a scholar, [Lavoie] studied the philosophy of the social sciences (especially the application of hermeneutics to economics) and Comparative Economic Systems (especially Marxian theories of socialism). Along with Richard Ebeling, Lavoie pioneered the attempt to merge Austrian Economics with philosophical hermeneutics in the late 1980s, and in particular with the hermeneutics of Hans Georg Gadamer. His influence here extended to many of his students mentioned above. His effort drew criticism from several members of the Austrian School associated with the Mises Institute, especially Murray Rothbard and Hans-Hermann Hoppe."

I had lengthy conversations about this enterprise with both Don and Murray. Hermeneutics was in vogue at the time, and Don believed that incorporating hermeneutics into classes on Austrian economics would enhance the appeal of the latter for students.

To say, as the Wiki article does, that this plan "drew criticism" from Murray is something of an understatement. He was furious, claiming that the vagaries of hermeneutics could contribute nothing of worth to the work of Mises, Hayek, and other Austrians. Although I think Murray went overboard in his attacks on Lavoie, I generally agreed with his point of view. (I couldn't care less what Hoppe, the Leonard Peikoff of Austrianism, thought.)

Murray had a more favorable view of phenomenology. Indeed, he contributed a major article, "Praxeology as the Method of Economics," to the two-volume anthology Phenomenology and the Social Sciences (ed. Maurice Natanson, Northwestern University Press, 1973).

Moreover, Alfred Schutz, a leading phenomenologist, knew Mises and treated his ideas sympathetically in The Phenomenology of the Social World (Northwestern University Press, 1967).

In my opinion, phenomenology is the most promising among contemporary schools of social theory. For a readable introduction, see The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (1966), by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann.

Ghs

A bit off topic from Bertonneau's essay, but I've read Schutz's Reflections on the Problem of Relevance and parts of On Phenomenology and Social Relations. I also picked up, a few months ago, a book of his correspondence with Aron Gurwitsch that I hope to read some of in the next year or so. (I'm hoping this might relate back to some issues on reference and Frege I'm trying to work through now.) I think Schutz's are highly compatible with Austrian economics, particular in its Misesean form. For instance, I believe his idea of a "finite province of meaning" is useful in understanding human action. This is, if I understand it correctly, that action (including thought as a type of action) has an implied context -- that action divides up existence into separate provinces with things inside treated as relevant for the action and what's outside treated as to be ignored acting in that province. This does appear, to me, to be exactly how people act. (Full disclosure: debates with Georgists have, I think, helped me to better grasp this.)

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Speaking as someone for whom English is not a first (or even second) language, Weltanschauung is pretty much an everyday word. I think it's been fairly well integrated into the English language. Time to expand the old vocabulary. Whatever my opinion of Xray and Adonis (love that name; adore the coutour beret), I find their command of the English language totally amazing.

Ginny

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I associate Weltenschauung with a book recommended for O'ists, the teacher of Ayn Rand's teacher, the German historian of philosophy Windelband. I agree with the person who said it has become part of the english language like 'verboten', and it doesn't sound pretentious to my ears.

Well, then Weltanschauung’s got a vote or two. Had to see that coming. Would you care to share your opinion of the Bertonneau piece? I didn’t provide a comprehensive critique either, I mainly provided a sampling of “eye roll inducers” and appended some comments. Ich denk I’ve given it mehr time than it’s worth.

Perhaps we can move on now to Bertonneau’s reference “King Pentheus in Euripides' Bacchae”. As Brüno would ask: In or Aus? Mmm, Funkyzeit!

I agree with everything else you say from the 2 pages I read, just your take on that one word. From the quotes I've seen it is just more of the same pretentious references and very little intellectual content or disputation.

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