Diana Mertz Hsieh Meets The Wall of Hypocrisy


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I just checked it out again, mostly to see if there were new comments, and guess what? Oh yeah, Justin Raimondo's comment is gone! BTW it was just a generic "keep up the good work" comment, with something like "ignore the Premise Checkers" in there too. Did anyone else see it?

ND,

I saw it. It was as you've described it.

And I wondered whether it would get deleted.

Robert Campbell

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Hsieh is a good soldier, but she betrayed her General. I have called what is coming to her an excommunication or shunning and so forth, but now I see it more like a court martial.

Shall we sing?

Onward Christian Ayn Rand's soldiers,

marching as to-oo war...

Michael

Michael,

Good points.

Of course, the ARIans can't say out loud that Ayn Rand was their general, or that Leonard Peikoff is now.

Nor can they get into the way a new commander will be legitimated, if heirship and command should be divided after Peikoff's passing.

I also think that Valliant is a genuine Peikoff-worshipper. But, you're right, it doesn't follow that Yaron Brook is a worshipper, or even that Bob Mayhew is.

Robert Campbell

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Michael,

That booklet by David Horowitz is quite enlightening. I don't usually like Horowitz's writing much, but the Alinskyites were part of the milieu that he came out of, and he understands them very well.

Alinsky's reliance on deception and on sliming opponents personally are also more than a little relevant to ARIan mentalities and tactics.

Robert Campbell

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here I go trying to make trouble over on OO.

http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=23076&view=findpost&p=291769

Where was this link previously on the ARI site? I just checked, and under "community groups" there's:

Colorado

Front Range Objectivism, Denver, CO

Contact

Diana Hsieh

E-mail

fro@frontrangeobjectivism.com

http://www.aynrand.o...ommunity_groups

I suppose that if this disappears in the near future we'll have some evidence for your purge hypothesis.

Well well, guess what? Click the link above and see. Now whether this is just a matter of a change of leadership and/or contact info initiated on the FRO side, or was done at the behest of purge-driven ARI leaders, obviously I don’t know. Neither side is liable to talk to me. One fact that suggests the former is DH’s continuing presence on the FRO site. A “sanctioning the sanctioners” policy lacks solid precedent in ARI history; if there’s been an excommunication that ought to be it, ye “buck privates” are to get in line. It sure would be easier if they’d just publish a list of “unpersons”; perhaps they could outsource this task to Checking Premises, with relish they would manage that for the rest of us. Just don’t leave me out, I figure by now I’ve earned my place in the Pantheon/Bestiary.

But anyway, there’s a new offering on that site which I take to be evidence for the purge hypothesis. Note particularly the line at the bottom: “Mr. Boeckmann is not affiliated with Checking Premises, however, at the time of this publication, he lets it be known that he supports what we are doing.” I’ve sent exactly one question to the Peikoff podcast, and I received a written answer from Mr. Boeckmann, explaining that LP had forwarded him the question, that it was too involved for the podcast, and so he would answer it. He proceeded merely to dodge it, but never mind that, my point is that he is certainly a figure close to the throne. I take “supports what we are doing” to mean effecting the purge of one uppity “PhD with podcast”, since, at least I believe, that’s the whole point of the site.

Nothing conclusive either way.

For my part I’m continuing to enjoy the irony, in fact this post amounts to a bit of stirring the pot, but it feels like a good time/place to suggest some essential reading coming from another point of view. I say it's time to cut out the lunacy.

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I had a lovely (private) exchange of messages with Betsy Speicher on Facebook, civil and frank.

As far as Checking Premises goes, the schisms/fractures do not follow all the expected fault lines.

So, we have Betsy (almost) supporting Dr Mrs Doctor, and various former groupings splitting along unknowable lines ... the frenzy for de-Frenzing Facebook entities is like a merry-go-round for adults, and I no longer know if it is possible to discern any ideological/cult allegiance driving the mini-splits and snits and huffing and puffing.

It reminds me of the glory days of Communism in Canada, when the ML-Trots worked against the ML(non-Trots) who worked against Hardial Bains kookshop, who denounced all other contenders ...

None of it makes sense to me at all.-- unless I re-read Bizarro Superman comics: Thank you, Ninth, for trying to sort out the various unrolled spools of kookery and spreading stains of craziness.

[Added] Meanwhile, and I am sure this has been noted already. Noodlefood is now Philosophy in Action:

http://blog.dianahsieh.com

http://www.philosophyinaction.com/wp/

Edited by william.scherk
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I must give props to the Good Doctor Mrs Doctor ... for this intriguing bit of research:

Which Think Tanks Have The Most Influence?

Their Top 50 list includes several whose works I’ve cited in the past, including:

]6) Cato Institute
10) American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
42) Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)
43) Manhattan Institute
48) Mercatus Center

(Note: I don’t necessarily endorse these organizations, but I’ve found some of their publications informative and useful in my own research/advocacy.)

To compare their sizes and/or budgets, one can look up their financial information on GuideStar.com (a website that collates information about nonprofits and charitable organizations). GuideStar lists their “annual expenses” as follows:

6) Cato:
$21.8 million
10) AEI :
$25.6 million
42) CEI:
$4.3 million
43) Manhattan Institute:
$11.8 million
48) Mercatus Center:
$7.7 million

Some friends may be interested in how a couple of other organizations which also perform advocacy (but which aren’t classic “think tanks”) compare in size:

Institute For Justice (IJ):
$9.3 million
Ayn Rand Institute (ARI):
$8.7 million

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I don't know who is advising Diana Hsieh on her technical issues, but I want to make a public acknowledgment.

A while back I become discouraged with Wordpress updates blowing my work to pieces because the themes i chose did not update with it. So rather than go deep into themes, or shell out good money for premium themes, I simply learned how to create child-themes. (Dobn't even ask what that means. :smile: ) I went nuts delving into PHP and CSS and screwing up royally until I got some things right, but at least this allowed the updates without disturbing my customizations.

Then there is the issue of plug-ins, which is another headache with WP. But, after a lot of trial and error, I have a selection of plug-ins with a long history of following WP updates with their own. The point is, if you put your work in the hands of someone else, you better choose people who act reliably when changes occur.

Still...

All that is a big pain in the patooty for a person who is not a code-geek. And I am anything but. So it's pain, real pain, but I gotta do it. Some nasty things come with the territory when you are like me and want to understand all the steps before taking off for real or outsourcing.

Now back to Hsieh. As is my habit, I saw "Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha" at the bottom of her new site and clicked on the link. (I also have a habit of looking at page code at times just to see how people do things. And I tend to do other geek-like snooping, mostly hoping to absorb code by osmosis. :smile: )

I went to the Suffusion theme site and got blown away.

Wow.

This solves so many problems for me it's not funny. The theme can be customized to look like anything I want and it comes with a butt-load of built-in plug-ins and special features. And Sayontan Sinha has a long history of keeping up with Wordpress updates. According to the Suffusion site, there are over 16 million blogs using the Suffusion theme and Wordpress itself lists close to 700,000 downloads of it. In fact, it is one of Wordpress's featured free themes.

I looked at some videos and tutorials on Suffusion and this thing rocks big-time. I even looked at the other WP featured free themes, but none of them hold a candle to Suffusion for my needs. I have already installed it on one of my multisite blogs (another long story) and I will be using it for several projects. This shaves a huge amount of time and aggravation from my work.

I figure if my stuff takes off like I think it will, this theme should last and stay solid with WP until I can afford a steady professional coder. (I am paranoid about coders, having been intimate with the underworld in Brazil and having seen what they can do. My criteria are now so stiff, I am sure that the person I eventually choose will be expensive. So I do my own thing for the time being, aggravation and all.)

Hat tip to Hsieh for the unintended aid.

(Dayaamm, that didn't feel good, in fact my stomach hurts, but I gotta' do it... :smile: )

Michael

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William,

On point, I am not a Tore Boeckmann fan. When he says "learn Objectivism," I don't understand this to mean learn Ayn Rand's work like you would learn, say, the work of Kant or Aristotle. I understand Boeckmann to mean indoctrination.

(If it looks like a cult, walks like a cult and quacks like a cult, whaddya call it? :smile: )

He did say something halfway wise for newbies, however, in the article you linked to: Who Is a (Non-Final) Authority in Philosophy?.

I made the point that any instruction one receives from others must be accompanied by one’s own independent thinking.

The only thing I add is that this (Boeckmann's advice to use independent thinking) goes in spades for any "instruction" coming from his quarter.

For an easy example of why independent thinking is so necessary when examining the Objectivist fundamentalist works, check this out. Boeckmann went on and on in that article about the virtues of Robert Mayhew (since this actually is an old article of his for the most part), but look at the crap--the pure unadulterated crap by any honest intellectual standard--Robert Campbell uncovered from Mayhew's editing of Ayn Rand Answers (see The Rewrite Squad and The Rewriting of Ayn Rand's Spoken Answers here on OL and published in JARS).

It's true that you will get "instruction" in Objectivism from those people, but you will not always get correct facts. And you never know when a fact is correct or when it is false because they omit notes and citations of their meddling.

I say to newbies who want to learn or learn about Objectivism: Read it all. Read Rand, of course (that is fundamental), but read these other folks, too. Do your own homework and then follow Boeckmann's advice. Use your own independent thinking. But then come to your own conclusions.

Hell, if anything you read on OL is wrong in your view (and there undoubtedly is a lot wrong, since the purpose of this site is for people to work through ideas, not be indoctrinated in them), then conclude that.

Most of all, don't allow anyone to do your thinking for you simply because he or she makes claims of expertise.

Michael

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Meeting the wall of hypocrisy does not appear to hurt some people ...

Here below is Dr Mrs Doctor Hsieh, in oblique response to Ninth Doctor.

(I wonder if it burns her onions (I mean, gluten-free cult-diet muck) that such as Ninth Doctor can have play on OO.net. I wonder if it burns her turnips and wheatgrass to realize that she is no longer in a position of authority on OO.net. I wonder if after she burps her way through the painful aftermath of her animal fat and mung bean lunch she looks back, back, back to the glory days when she could influence the course of events on OO.net with a toss of her fully-righteous head. I wonder, if after the fever passes from the parasites in her fresh whole-milk fat-shake with coconut oil, she wishes she was still the Empress of the Third Tier, Empress of SOLO, Killer of Sciabarra and ally in monomania with Jim Valliant.

I wonder ... but no, I think she has worn her blinders so long they have fused into her skull, and that all is perfectly fine in her world of horses, dogs, blogs, stomach-aches, rashes, anemia, podcasts, and triumph after triumph. I think her Empire of Right Thinkers is about the size of a paddly pool, and about as powerful as her argument for not eating Wrong Food.

I could be wrong in the justice of my questions, as usual, but I do wonder.)

Neither.

ARI's longstanding policy is to list only ARI donors as contacts for the community pages. (That's a perfectly reasonable policy, in my view.) I'm no longer a donor to ARI. That's why the link to OActivists was removed recently, as well as why I gave ARI a new contact person to be listed for FRO.

I should mention that although I mock Diana, I fully support her mania for Bacon. It is, as I am sure she will agree (obliquely), Nature's Most Perfect Food.

Burp.

Edited by william.scherk
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Meanwhile, and I am sure this has been noted already. Noodlefood is now Philosophy in Action:

Pretty goofy name, huh? Sounds like inaction, as no action going on here! I suppose “The Saucy Philosopher” would have been worse.

http://forum.objecti...showtopic=22337

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Meanwhile, and I am sure this has been noted already. Noodlefood is now Philosophy in Action:

Pretty goofy name, huh? Sounds like inaction, as no action going on here! I suppose “The Saucy Philosopher” would have been worse.

http://forum.objecti...showtopic=22337

Inaction is right. Only the name is new and the format is the same cumbersome/confusing one as before. No general "new comments" just a tedious list of Open Threads (how enticing) and endless categories of Hsieh minutiae. I thought Dr Mrs Dr was supposed to be a web designer. I award her 3 Snakes in the Snakes & Ladders Objectivist Career Watch.

Henceforth I will rely on you and wss to keep me updated on anything noteworthy that emanates from this site, especially the health updates. Also any good new bacon recipes.

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I wonder ... but no, I think she has worn her blinders so long they have fused into her skull, and that all is perfectly fine in her world of horses, dogs, blogs, stomach-aches, rashes, anemia, podcasts, and triumph after triumph. I think her Empire of Right Thinkers is about the size of a paddly pool, and about as powerful as her argument for not eating Wrong Food.

I caught part of SNL this weekend, and this skit made me think of Comrade Sonia:

http://www.nbc.com/s...ything/1379100/

J

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Stephen,

Just to be clear, I didn't say Mayhew was dishonest.

I used a metaphor to describe what he did (which you interpreted as "defectiveness"--and I'm more than OK with that). :smile:

I'm cool with Mayhew's notice at the beginning of the book that he made some changes for trivial edits. But that does not justify him changing the substance of Rand's thought without making a notice or footnote at the passage of what he did and why he interpreted the passage the way he did. I'm not talking about minutia. I'm talking about changing the meaning or "agenda sculpting" Rand's words (to coin a phrase).

My real problem (which I see as the cause) is with cult-like practices in Objectivism, often from the ARI side, but from elsewhere, too. I suffered from adhering to them for a while, so I am not sympathetic when I perceive them. I'm not saying the fundamentalist folks operate a destructive cult, but I am saying they often skirt the line. I wish they would stop distorting stuff and merely perform their stated goal of preserving Objectivism as Rand presented it (to give my personal opinion).

I put Mayhew's editing of that book (i.e., "sanitizing" Rand to conform to a public image that has been cultivated for doctrinal purposes to the detriment of historical and scholarly accuracy) within that evaluation.

I base my views of cult procedures on studying the work of several experts and exit counselors (Robert Lifton, Margaret Singer, Steven Hassan, Rick Ross and others).

If you--and others--find value in Mayhew's work, I'm fine with that. I, myself, don't trust his commitment to presenting correct facts when the facts collide with the doctrine he wants to preach. So I would need to double check anything I read by him (or already be familiar with it) before I would ever believe it.

At any rate, I think sounding a warning is a good thing when appearances are misleading. That's what discussion forums are for (among other things).

I fully stand by my opinion that people who read anything by Mayhew, or Campbell, or me for that matter, use their own independent thinking to come to their own conclusions. Each mind is a precious thing--and I include Mayhew's in that statement (believe it or not).

I'm not at war with ARI. I think it does a lot of good amidst some real clunkers. I don't agree with the distortions when they occur.

Michael

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Do I ever like the octopus of free-enterprise that is Google. Even though I fear they look in my closet while I sleep, and though I am sure they know things about me that I no longer know about myself.

Here is a thoughtful little alert from Dictionary.com that popped up in my inline ad space. Like the first splot of rain that heralds spring:

Dictionary.com Word of the Day - hsien: one of a group of benevolent spirits promoting good in the world
Edited by william.scherk
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Tore Boeckmann linking up with the Checking Premises crowd.

That figures.

And this is pretty rich:

When Mayhew indicated, on Dr. Binswanger’s list, that he would not be answering Speicher’s criticism, considering its ignorant and insulting nature [...]

There is no reason to believe that Mayhew wants anyone to take him on faith, or hate those who don’t. All one can surmise is that he demands of potential interlocutors a minimum level of politeness–and of objectivity. Objectivity demands that if you are only barely familiar with a field, you do not criticize, question, pontificate to or write about distinguished authorities (i.e., experts) in that field without, at the very least in some manner of form, taking the difference of knowledge into account.

Do you really think it was because I had failed to acknowledge that I was "barely familiar" with Ayn Rand's spoken answers that Bob Mayhew "replied" to my criticisms of his editing in a forum (run by Diana Hsieh...) where he knew in advance that I would not be allowed to comment ?

Do you really think it was because I had failed to acknowledge that I was "barely familiar" with Ayn Rand's spoken answers that Mayhew announced in advance that he would never respond to any of my emails on the subject?

Here's are the long and the short:

Tore Boeckmann and Robert Mayhew enjoy the personal sponsorship of the generalissimo, Leonard Peikoff.

Those not sponsored by Leonard Peikoff ought to know better than to criticize anyone who is.

Now if Boeckmann or Mayhew ever gets on the wrong side of Jim Valliant, I expect the results will be enlightening.

Robert Campbell

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  • 2 weeks later...

I finally joined Facebook recently, though under a fake name. There was some info I needed access to, so I thought up another clever pseudonym and got what I needed. Maybe I'll do it for real one of these days. Anyway, before long I found myself starting to lurk around O'ist related areas, and tonight I went through James Valliant's thread (?) on the subject of Checking Premises. Therein I found Robert Mayhew's denunciation of Comrade Sonia, and I don't recall anyone mentioning it here. It's pretty lengthy, so here's just a few paragraphs:

Diana Hsieh (DH) has responded to the appearance of a website (CheckingPremises.org) devoted to (among other things) criticizing her ‘work’. She responds as if much of what’s behind these criticisms are disagreements with Leonard Peikoff--which, to these dogmatic critics (so portrayed), is a sin against Objectivism. Although I think that her criticisms of Dr. Peikoff are more disrespectful (and presumptuous) than she lets on (and that that’s not nothing), my primary problem with her is her ineptness as a thinker combined with her promotion of herself as a philosopher—and an Objectivist one at that. (In my view, she was at her best criticizing the Brandens, David Kelley, etc., and taking part in certain ad hoc activism.)

Philosophy is not some game in which one posits: "Let’s see what weird conclusions can be reached by the logical application of the fixed set of maxims that make up this closed philosophy I adhere to." It is precisely this lack of introspective or psychological (or psycho-epistemological) insight, not to say delicacy, that makes DH especially unqualified to talk about virtually any issue involving sexuality. As she does feel qualified, however, as she claims to be an Objectivist philosopher one would expect from her some kind of non-superficial discussion of Ayn Rand’s conception of sexuality and the key concepts related to it (especially masculinity and femininity). But that’s not the response to Ayn Rand’s views that I’ve seen from DH and the pseudo-intellectuals flocking around her. They feel shock or embarrassment or repugnance or whatever at much of what Ayn Rand has said and written about these subjects. In this case, however, instead of setting aside her feelings about the subject (as not an objective measure), and investigating Ayn Rand’s views with rigor, she and her ilk blunder ahead. Take, for example, her response to Leonard Peikoff’s views on sex-change operations.

One could level these same kinds of criticisms against much of what DH writes. But my life is too dear and this particular embarrassment to the movement too puny to devote any more time to, so I hope this will be my last (semi-public) words on her.

Just a couple years ago he turned to her to publish his reply to Robert Campbell's Rewrite Squad thread, so relations have certainly changed. I gotta go cry me a river, so I'm going to cut this off here.

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Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. This calls for a complete cleanse. Ick. Detox. Cult alert. Defector. Purge. Cleanse. Detox. Purge. Detox.

Ahhh, the refreshment and the promise of Objectivish maniacs.

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Yawn.

--Brant

What, the Mayhew thing not juicy enough for you? I mentioned before that the 2006 archives should be mined, I also recall seeing a message from Nathaniel Branden to her back when she was turning to the dark side, and I believe he predicted the future with considerable accuracy. Someone with more free time should go hunting and gathering, and a bigger presentation (like WSS’s storify one) should be constructed, as payback for dialectical dishonesty and the PARC wars.

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Brant hic disapproves, thus we must hobble our efforts, lest he be bored anew. It it does not pertain to Brant, it should not pertain at all. Ought is, Us them, me me me.



PS -- I add that Brant does not gossip, so he comes by his Calvinist views honestly. It is not arrogance to think your own opinions should rule forevermore. It is just chauvinism.

The point of the thread is hypocrisy, that of the Good Doctor. She made a bed. Now she lies bound in it, sweaty, stalked by horses, criticized and shunned in the same terms she introduced to debate (Hi Chris Sciabarra! telling these old gossipy boring things puts Brant to sleep. Stop).

The irony for some is delicious, sharp and festive. That Mayhew turned on her after her repeat lap-dances for him in the 'retouching Rand' wars ... oh foie gras, oh blubber, oh pickled snakes. Delicious for some, repellent for others.

That irony is not appreciated by others, like Brant, pffft, a summer squall, a patter in the driveway, back to drought. It is a matter of (historical) taste and sensitivity to Ox Goring, perhaps. Brant has seen all oxes gored and frankly does not care to see more. He is not focussed on the minutia of self-hoisting petards, and so all should also lift their eyes to the horizon along with him. Pffftt.

I understand that attitude of resolute boredom (it is very Scottish), and in some ways, him -- but I regret his muttering and his sighs and his one-liner Phil isms. Stop talking on this subject, children. Bigger and better things are to be charted. Hic.

Edited by william.scherk
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