A Question about JARS

[Robert Campbell]

When I took Tara Smith to task for citing Leonard Peikoff as an expert on self-esteem and not citing Nathaniel Branden, SOLOP's resident nutcase declared that anyone who thought intellectual credit should be given to Dr. Branden for his contributions to the Objectivist literature was asking everyone to "suck his cock."

He's still at it:

Campbell really went into the gutter when he accused scholars like Tara Smith of intellectual dishonesty for not including Branden in her discussion of self-esteem and relying for input on Rand's best student and chosen heir instead. Really fucking slimy and reckless MO there.

He and Lindsay Perigo deserve each other's company.

Robert Campbell

[Jerry Biggers]

There is always a certain fascination to watching the behavior of nutcases, if only to consider how deranged a human psyche can become. However, there is also a danger in drawing too much attention or significance to comments from those that act as if they want a real straitjacket to match their self-imposed mental condition. Criticism (however well-intentioned) of their attention-seeking behavior tends to imply a degree of legitimacy to their pronouncements that is counter-productive. Even adverse attention, to them, demonstrates that at least someone is paying attention to them.

Nothing critics can say will change their behavior for the better. Any normal person is quite able to identify what they are up to and what their intentions are. It is probably better to just let them rave on and engage in their contests to outdo each other with their advocacy of the absurd and ridiculous.

It should be obvious that any pretension by these people to intellectual scholarship is exposed when they find it impossible to write more than a sentence or two without resorting to abusive profanity. Their claim to be defending a philosophy of reason and ethical behavior (in this case, Objectivism) by these tactics is self-refuting. Just ignore them. Their statements can only to damage to themselves.

Edit: I had added a reference to an individual's utterings on another site and on his website, but removed it because the reference was violating my own admonition! Arghh!

Edited January 7, 2011 by Jerry Biggers

[Robert Campbell]

Jerry B,

If I were still allowed on SOLOP I wouldn't answer the nutcase there.

But because the nutcase keeps ranting about what I say on this thread, I wanted to give his readers a chance to find out what's what.

I know, all three of them...

Robert C

[Martin Radwin]

Because SOLOP's resident nutcase continues to blather about my alleged misrepresentations of Rand's spoken answers to questions, and cites as authoritative Bob Mayhew's purported refutation on NoodleFood, I refer anyone who is actually interested in what Ayn Rand said during her question and answer periods to an established thread, with 527 posts on it, right here at OL:

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7801

I would normally criticize anyone who recommends Mayhew's piece for refusing to respond to the particulars presented in The Rewrite Squad, but there is little point in chastising a complete loon.

Robert Campbell

PS. A careful reader of Mayhew's piece will be interested to find that Mayhew never quotes a single concrete example of his own editing.

Howard Roark dynamited his own housing project after it was modified without his consent, in violation of the signed contract. Rand was also furious when she discovered that several words of her play had been modified without her consent. If Rand were alive today, I wonder just how she would react to discovering that Mayhew had radically altered some of her answers in a published book, without even any kind of attribution or admission that he had done such a thing. Fortunately for Mayhew, he will never have to find out. Then again, if the hypothetical now living Rand were to discover that Peikoff had named his objectivist institute after her, against her express wishes that this not be done, she would probably throw him down a flight of stairs.

Martin

[Selene]

Because SOLOP's resident nutcase continues to blather about my alleged misrepresentations of Rand's spoken answers to questions, and cites as authoritative Bob Mayhew's purported refutation on NoodleFood, I refer anyone who is actually interested in what Ayn Rand said during her question and answer periods to an established thread, with 527 posts on it, right here at OL:

http://www.objectivi...?showtopic=7801

I would normally criticize anyone who recommends Mayhew's piece for refusing to respond to the particulars presented in The Rewrite Squad, but there is little point in chastising a complete loon.

Robert Campbell

PS. A careful reader of Mayhew's piece will be interested to find that Mayhew never quotes a single concrete example of his own editing.

Howard Roark dynamited his own housing project after it was modified without his consent, in violation of the signed contract. Rand was also furious when she discovered that several words of her play had been modified without her consent. If Rand were alive today, I wonder just how she would react to discovering that Mayhew had radically altered some of her answers in a published book, without even any kind of attribution or admission that he had done such a thing. Fortunately for Mayhew, he will never have to find out. Then again, if the hypothetical now living Rand were to discover that Peikoff had named his objectivist institute after her, against her express wishes that this not be done, she would probably throw him down a flight of stairs.

Martin

Yep, Ayn's Kiss of Death!

[algernonsidney]

Chris Cathcart has been active in the forums for a long time now. I first got to know him back in the days of Paul Vixie's Objectivism Mailing List. This was in early 1996.

When I went out to Liberty, Chris was also in Washington at the time. I visited him one weekend in February of 1997. I was in Port Townsend (northwest), and he was at Whitman College in Walla Walla (southeast). He was a nice guy, and we just talked sports and life. I also seem to remember that we spent a lot of time making fun of the various nutcases who posted on Usenet and such.

I got to hangout with Chris again in 1998. I was living in Columbus, Ohio. He was in grad school at Bowling Green, which was about two hours away. He spent a couple years there, and our talks again were mostly the same topic.

I haven't seen him in person since probably 1999 or 2000.

Of course, the Objectivist movement has taken a great turn for the worse since that time. People I once respected have lost that respect (including one person who posts here).

It certainly can't be good if he is friendly to the likes of Perigo.

I added Chris as a friend on Facebook. He accepted.

[Robert Campbell]

Chris B,

I didn't know Chris Cathcart in the 1990s.

I did see some of his editorial correspondence with Chris Sciabarra before the Robert Bass article came out in 2006. It was light years away from the stuff he started producing after a few months on SOLOPassion.

He's not the first Randian to go off the deep end.

Unfortunately, I doubt he'll be the last.

Robert C

[Jerry Biggers]

Because SOLOP's resident nutcase continues to blather about my alleged misrepresentations of Rand's spoken answers to questions, and cites as authoritative Bob Mayhew's purported refutation on NoodleFood, I refer anyone who is actually interested in what Ayn Rand said during her question and answer periods to an established thread, with 527 posts on it, right here at OL:

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7801

I would normally criticize anyone who recommends Mayhew's piece for refusing to respond to the particulars presented in The Rewrite Squad, but there is little point in chastising a complete loon.

Robert Campbell

PS. A careful reader of Mayhew's piece will be interested to find that Mayhew never quotes a single concrete example of his own editing.

Howard Roark dynamited his own housing project after it was modified without his consent, in violation of the signed contract. Rand was also furious when she discovered that several words of her play had been modified without her consent. If Rand were alive today, I wonder just how she would react to discovering that Mayhew had radically altered some of her answers in a published book, without even any kind of attribution or admission that he had done such a thing. Fortunately for Mayhew, he will never have to find out. Then again, if the hypothetical now living Rand were to discover that Peikoff had named his objectivist institute after her, against her express wishes that this not be done, she would probably throw him down a flight of stairs.

Martin

Extrapolating on Martin's amusing speculation on what would happen to Peikoff and the ARIans if Rand if was still aline , let's go a step further and imagine that scene if the theological assertions of J. Neil Schulman are correct (they're not, but let me continue with this flight of fantasy) as he has enthusiastically stated on his website, books, interviews, and at great length in the thread under the Epistemology section here on OL.

Assuming that I have correctly understood his arguments about his life-changing Spockian "mind-meld" with God; it appears that Neil's God is in substantial or complete agreement with Rand and Objectivism (well, almost complete. God takes exception to Rand's lack of belief in his existence). But otherwise, God and Rand think alike.(well, almost alike. God ia actually a libertarian!)

Now, if Neil is right on this (I said this was a fantasy, o.k?), and if God consults with the ethereal Ayn on what sort of justice He should mete out to for such blasphemers-of-Objectivism ....Leonard and his ARIans are in DEEP, DEEP trouble.

Probably a lot more severe than Martin's vision of a vengeful Rand just pushing Leonard down a flight of stairs!

Whew! Man, I don't want to think about it!

[And now, back to reality]

Edited January 8, 2011 by Jerry Biggers

[algernonsidney]

Chris B,

I didn't know Chris Cathcart in the 1990s.

I did see some of his editorial correspondence with Chris Sciabarra before the Robert Bass article came out in 2006. It was light years away from the stuff he started producing after a few months on SOLOPassion.

He's not the first Randian to go off the deep end.

Unfortunately, I doubt he'll be the last.

Robert C

They've been going off the deep end since the planes hit the towers.

He might very well have attended an IOS seminar back in the 1990's if I had not told him about some of the things that had happened there. I know he went to IHS and the Mises University.

[Robert Campbell]

Chris B,

You may be right about Cathcart going downhill after 9/11.

But I haven't seen him advocating the carpet-nuking of Iran during Friday prayers. And he posts on a site where the proprietor would applaud him for saying things like that.

Robert C

[Robert Campbell]

Roger,

Doing a little catch-up on the 100 Voices thread here, I found Cathcart's chortle:

http://www.solopassi...4#comment-94298

I'll quote it in its full demented splendor:

Nathan/Babs

We may just have to disagree which of these two Vultures is worse. What I would like to point out, though, is how everything in the supposed wing of the Objectivist movement associated with the Vultures has collapsed since PARC. KASSless is basically nothing but a run-of-the-mill website now; JARS looks like it's going defunct (last issue was Spring '09), Campbell and Parille are crawling over one another at OL to see how much productive energy they can waste, Nathan has crawled into a cave, Babs . . . well, she's Babs.

What's instructive to note is how the crowd gathering around the Vultures appears in denial about it all, especially about PARC - both in how it accomplished what it set out to do, and in terms of its effects in collapsing that supposed wing of the movement.

I do like how this thread turned out. Parille starts with his usual sad routine, and it comes to this, the end of the line for Babs. Wasn't what he was hoping for, was it. My only disappointment is how long it took for the Estate to come out with all this to put the Vultures in their place once and for all.

Robert Campbell

[Jonathan]

Does anyone else here find it really creepy that Pigero's followers adopt his lame expressions -- KASS, Goblianity, ARSI, etc. -- and sometimes even use them outside of their creepy little circle where no one knows what the hell they might mean? And they apparently believe that copying Pigero makes them super cool and clever (and "KASSy")?

J

[Selene]

Does anyone else here find it really creepy that Pigero's followers adopt his lame expressions -- KASS, Goblianity, ARSI, etc. -- and sometimes even use them outside of their creepy little circle where no one knows what the hell they might mean? And they apparently believe that copying Pigero makes them super cool and clever (and "KASSy")?

J

Jonathan:

I sure do. Having attended NBI in the '60's in NY City. Seeing Ayn, Barbara and Nathanial "in the flesh" and then being absent from the Objectivism wars, particularly on the internet, I am still dumbfounded by this cultish "secret handshake" semantic that is rampant.

Sometimes a global village brings out the crazy uncle from the attic or the crazy aunt from the basement and gives them a sounding board for their illness.

Adam

[9thdoctor]

You may be right about Cathcart going downhill after 9/11.

Do you suppose he’s trying to maneuver into Comrade Sonia’s erstwhile position in the Church of Peikoff? He’s got an upcoming book, after all. Nothing like distribution through the Ayn Rand Bookstore (or whatever it’s called) to boost sales above the default zero copies level.

[Philip Coates]

> Does anyone else here find it really creepy that Pigero's followers adopt his lame expressions -- KASS, Goblianity, ARSI, etc. -- and sometimes even use them outside of their creepy little circle where no one knows what the hell they might mean? And they apparently believe that copying Pigero makes them super cool and clever (and "KASSy")?

Yes it is creepy. Or more precisely non-objective and secondhanded.

"Schoolmarm", "Comrade Sonia", and "Pigero" are several more examples of Perigonian type smearing or loading of words in that way, even if Perigo himself literally only invented one of them.

Making cartoons of people or otherwise caricaturing is a related tactic.

The fake snarky, humorous style of "renaming" putdown or caricature very much apes him.

Edited January 8, 2011 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

"The nutcase" is along the same lines but not as clever.

It's just a lazy insult rather than a real caricature.

[Robert Campbell]

Do you suppose he's trying to maneuver into Comrade Sonia's erstwhile position in the Church of Peikoff? He's got an upcoming book, after all. Nothing like distribution through the Ayn Rand Bookstore (or whatever it's called) to boost sales above the default zero copies level.

ND,

It's hard to know what Cathcart's strategic vision is. I'm not convinced he has one.

If he's trying to land an instructor gig at the Objectivist Academic Center or a listing from the Ayn Rand Bookstore, he seriously needs to get real.

From an ARIan standpoint, his use of the word "perfectionism" (which he got from some of the neo-Aristotelians) is enough to disqualify him.

Robert Campbell

[Jonathan]

> Does anyone else here find it really creepy that Pigero's followers adopt his lame expressions -- KASS, Goblianity, ARSI, etc. -- and sometimes even use them outside of their creepy little circle where no one knows what the hell they might mean? And they apparently believe that copying Pigero makes them super cool and clever (and "KASSy")?

Yes it is creepy. Or more precisely non-objective and secondhanded.

Your parroting Ayn Rand here with "non-objective and secondhanded" is just as creepy.

"Schoolmarm", "Comrade Sonia", and "Pigero" are several more examples of Perigonian type smearing or loading of words in that way, even if Perigo himself literally only invented one of them.

Um, no. Pigero didn't invent the term "schoolmarm." I suppose he could have been one of the first in O'land to call you "schoolmarm," but I think it's just as likely that someone else did. I've seen lots of people refer to you as such over the years, as well as with similar terms like "Mrs. Grundy," and "prig" and "priss," etc. They generally don't seem to be copying anyone, but realizing for themselves what you are, and saying so. I think the only thing that Pigero invented was something like "prissyholic," and no one here is going around calling you that.

As for "Comrade Sonia," the term conveys information. It aptly compares a person to a well-known fictional character. Kind of like how Rand said that when you call someone a "Babbitt," people know what you mean, they understand the type of person that you're talking about. See, Phil, I was talking about terms that very few people outside of Pigero's creepy circle would know, and then you gave an example of a term that many people outside of Pigero's circle would know. You seem to have completely missed the point.

And I invented the term "Pigero." I think I'm the only person who uses it. I don't recall ever seeing anyone else here on OL using it.

Making cartoons of people or otherwise caricaturing is a related tactic.

No. Caricaturing people's vices is not at all related to the issue of Pigero's toadies adopting his special little language. The fact that you may have hurt feelings over both doesn't mean they're related. Cartooning and caricaturing have long been very powerful means of attacking bad behavior, and they don't suddenly become inherently nasty things just because Phil Coates refuses to own up to his bad behavior and therefore resents being caricatured.

The fake snarky, humorous style of "renaming" putdown or caricature very much apes him.

So, you're proposing the theory that Pigero invented the idea of putdowns and caricatures, and that anyone who uses them is aping him? Pigero also eats and breathes. Is your theory that anyone else who eats and breathes is aping Pigero?

J

[9thdoctor]

As for "Comrade Sonia," the term conveys information. It aptly compares a person to a well-known fictional character. Kind of like how Rand said that when you call someone a "Babbitt," people know what you mean, they understand the type of person that you're talking about.

I believe it was Chris Sciabarra who gave the vile DMH her moniker. Can't fault the fit.

And I invented the term "Pigero." I think I'm the only person who uses it. I don't recall ever seeing anyone else here on OL using it.

I usually call him Jabba. But Pigero is a great fit. There, I just used it.

[Jonathan]

I usually call him Jabba. But Pigero is a great fit. There, I just used it.

Secondhander.

J

[9thdoctor]

I usually call him Jabba. But Pigero is a great fit. There, I just used it.

Secondhander.

J

[Selene]

I usually call him Jabba. But Pigero is a great fit. There, I just used it.

Secondhander.

J

Excellent! Nice icon. Thanks.

[Robert Campbell]

"The nutcase" is along the same lines but not as clever.

It's just a lazy insult rather than a real caricature.

Phil,

As you may have noted, I remain unreceptive to your advice concerning writing style.

And may I ask how you would describe Chris Cathcart? Have you read any of his posts about "The Rules" for discussing Rand's ideas?

In any event, I was neither being clever nor trying to be.

Some of the denizens of Perigoland make rich targets for satire. I don't believe Cathcart does, because I don't find any humor in his condtion.

He's too far gone.

Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

To get with the program (well... maybe not Phil's program), all you have to do is consult Skunk and Write, The Elements of Smile.

Michael

[Reidy]

I wouldn't call him a nutcase, but if I were his congressman I'd be careful.