The Atlas Society Policy and the Summer Seminar


Ed Hudgins

Recommended Posts

I don't know, Jonathan. Is "nastiness," "stupid judgments," "viciousness," "pissing on greatness" and the like primarily what comes to mind for you when you think of Ayn Rand?

No, but I wouldn't say that those aspects of her personality and philosophy are something that can just be overlooked. I think they should be acknowledged, corrected, and not repeated.

Also, those things -- "nastiness," "stupid judgments," "viciousness," "pissing on greatness" -- are primarily what come to mind when I think of some of Rand's followers, like Lindsay Perigo. He and some of his acolytes are little imitations of Rand at her most irrationally contemptuous (without her originality and brilliance to balance it out).

You're not a member of an anti-AR cult here, you know.

Who is? Barnes, Parille, Dragonfly? If so, they've had some surprisingly good things to say about Rand while substantively (and usually politely) disagreeing with her views. And I don't recall any of them saying that Rand was fundamentally immoral or that anyone who thinks she was good is a cultist.

I understand how an artist can feel the way you do, but I don't know particularly where you get this stuff from Rand. I'm not an artist myself so I've not focused strongly on these things.

You might think about reading (or re-reading) the Romantic Manifesto.

J

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 179
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Her words were aimed at me, and at good people I admire.

I don't know particularly where you get this stuff from Rand.

Poor kid, all upset because it wasn't good enough to have monopoly mainstream irrationalist whim-worshipping praise, a free ticket to obscenity with government grants and 10,000 community colleges voting yes to whatever crap anybody cares to -- er -- "create" loosely speaking without defining our terms, which would be judgmental. Open any copy of the New York Times, any page pertaining to the arts, exhibitions, theater, books, film, television. Zero threat of Objectivist critics past, present or future. See? Jonathan wins. No child left behind and it takes a village, provided we honor David Ogilvy's tried and true 100% flagwaving American standard of excellence: It isn't creative if it doesn't sell. Gangsta hip-hop on MTV is art. How cool is that. Or should I say cold?

:angry:

Edited by Wolf DeVoon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Her words were aimed at me, and at good people I admire.

I don't know particularly where you get this stuff from Rand.

Poor kid, all upset because it wasn't good enough to have monopoly mainstream irrationalist whim-worshipping praise, a free ticket to obscenity with government grants and 10,000 community colleges voting yes to whatever crap anybody cares to -- er -- "create" (loosely speaking without defining our terms, which would be judgmental). Open any copy of the New York Times, any page pertaining to the arts, exhibitions, theater, books, film, television. Zero threat of Objectivist critics past, present or future. See? Jonathan wins. No child left behind and it takes a village, provided we honor David Ogilvy's tried and true 100% flagwaving American standard of excellence: It isn't creative if it doesn't sell. Gansta hip-hop on MTV is art. How cool is that. Or should I say cold?

:angry:

WTF?

I oppose government grants, as well as any type of government involvement in the arts.

Gangsta rap, or any other art form, doesn't cease to be art if I don't like it.

J

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Laure,

You said:

What I am sick and tired of, is the insistence that Rand was fundamentally immoral, and the insistence that anyone who thinks she was good is some kind of a cultist.

I certainly don't believe this, and I'm not sure who does.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's only natural to look more critically at the flaws of those you dislike and look past things you wouldn't normally ignore in those you admire. That is not necessarily cult behavior, its normal human behavior. If Ayn Rand wants to criticize and call my rock music katerwauling, fine. If Linz does it, he's an effing jerk!

Anyway, I'll just say that I really felt betrayed and hurt by TAS rejecting Roger, Robert and Phil and not extending an invite to Barbara or Nathaniel. When Linz was invited, that explained a lot. Maybe Will Thomas is the scapegoat on this one, but with an organization as small as TAS, it seems very odd that no one had veto power over this. It was like a slap in the face to many of us over here. And I am sure many will look at TAS far more critically in the future because of this episode. I know I will.

Kat

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I oppose government grants, as well as any type of government involvement in the arts.

Gangsta rap, or any other art form, doesn't cease to be art if I don't like it.

Okay...

1. Certify you never studied art at a government supported school, never had a Pell grant.

2. Define "art."

W.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Brant,

Don't get me started on music epistemology. Like it or not, gazillions of people freely pay oodles of money for the stuff. No one forces them. So it obviously suits a human need on a basic enough level to attract the gazillions.

I have some theories I have been working on, but I need to save that for later when they are more mature.

This is an aside, but I have started The Poetics by Aristotle. He mentioned something really important that is rarely discussed in Objectivism: that art is imitation and that children learn their grown-up skills by imitation. I just read that and I am still reeling a bit from the implications on aesthetic theory from a human nature angle. (And, of course, not as the whole story, but as a critical component.) Simple rhythms certainly are imitations of normal repetitive movements used in many skills.

(Off to mull a bit...)

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay...

1. Certify you never studied art at a government supported school, never had a Pell grant.

I've never had a Pell grant. I've studied art and a bunch of other subjects at government supported schools, just as Rand did. I've also driven on government roads and I get mail through the U.S. postal service. None of which means that I advocate the existence of those government entities or services. The fact that I disagree with many of Rand's views on aesthetics, as well as her philosophical and psychological diagnoses of artists and composers, in no way implies that I support government funding of the arts. So, where are you getting this stuff, Wolf?

2. Define "art."

Let's use Rand's definition. Gangsta rap is not disqualified as art by Rand's definition.

J

Edited by Jonathan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let's use Rand's definition. Gangsta rap is not disqualified as art by Rand's definition.

Okay, Rand studied art at a government supported school, I guess. Selective recreation of reality has nothing to do with music theory, unless you go with Helmholtz and innate number harmony. I regret we got in each other's way or hair or whatever. Just goes to show that Linz has no business talking about romantic music from an Objectivist position, since there is no Objectivist theory of music.

Subtract menacing hate-filled lyrics from hip-hop, you get thunka-thunka thunka-thunka. Very creative.

W.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Selective recreation of reality has nothing to do with music theory, unless you go with Helmholtz and innate number harmony.

I think that some music is intended to indirectly "recreate reality," and the idea of its being microcosmic, as Roger Bissell believes, has merit.

I regret we got in each other's way or hair or whatever.

Not a big deal.

Just goes to show that Linz has no business talking about romantic music from an Objectivist position, since there is no Objectivist theory of music.

Nor is there really much of an Objectivist theory of visual art, dance, architecture, etc., or an informed view of photography or abstract painting and sculpture. There's no serious critique or any indication of awareness of any opposing theories of aesthetics. My view is that the Objectivist Esthetics is the bare beginnings of an investigation into the nature of all art forms.

Subtract menacing hate-filled lyrics from hip-hop, you get thunka-thunka thunka-thunka. Very creative.

That would depend on the individual work.

J

Edited by Jonathan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

While the recent posts on this thread have strayed -- mercifully -- off-topic, there is a lot posted earlier, and on a related thread, that prompts me to break my silence.

Let me emphasize that this is my personal viewpoint, and it should not be taken as representing the views of my employer or anyone other than myself.

I am saddened and depressed by what is transpiring on this site and elsewhere concerning the matter of the TAS Summer Seminar speaking invitation to Lindsay Perigo.

It didn't have to come to this, and frankly, participants on all sides of these contentious issues are deliberately making any positive resolution impossible -- by pouring more gasoline on the fire and then finding "moral" reasons to rationalize their gleeful pyromania. If there is a market for civility, it is not easy to find on many online Objectivist discussion groups -- and sadly, that observation is not meant to apply exclusively to the SOLO-Passion site.

Let me admit that my own past record on this score has hardly been unblemished; but -- seeing too clearly the dead end of this acrimony -- I have been trying to set a better example more recently, in the interests of better promoting the philosophy that we all claim to value.

However, the continuing competition in vituperative, intramural one-upsmanship is putting Ed Hudgins (and TAS) in an impossible position, when his only aim all along was to heal wounds within the Objectivist movement by encouraging greater civility. Put yourself in his shoes: At this point, any decision he makes, either to affirm or rescind that invitation, will merely be seized upon by partisans to score points and to smugly assert their sanctimonious I-told-you-sos. Any decision he renders will be damned by one side as a "cowardly capitulation" to the other side -- and all of you know it. I could write all the talking points for both sides in advance. Even five seconds of reflection will tell you that this double-bind interpretation of Ed's motives is illogical and completely unjust.

Since I realize that all the combatants on all the competing websites furtively follow all the threads devoted to this food fight, let me address you collectively:

Can any of you honestly imagine a Howard Roark sinking to this sort of mud-wrestling?

Could you imagine his posts on any of these threads?

Then, ask yourself why.

So please stop rationalizing the all personal insults, the obscene language, the gratuitous psychologizing, the He-threw-the-first-punch finger-pointing. This behavior is undignified and unseemly, and nobody involved seems to realize that it is only providing Objectivism's real enemies with an abundance of footnotes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since this was double-posted, here is my reply (as site owner) double-posted.

Robert,

With all due respect (and you are a person I care for deeply), you are under an incorrect impression. I personally do not want to score points or win anything. I want this whole thing to go away.

But I am appalled. Morally appalled. Common sense-wise appalled. Personally appalled. And I freely express it. The enormity of the appeasement with just plain wrong is irking me to no end. What is wrong with you guys?

Can I "honestly imagine a Howard Roark sinking to this sort of mud-wrestling?"

I can't honestly imagine Roark staying in the same room with Perigo for more than a few minutes! I certainly cannot imagine Roark inviting someone like Ellsworth Toohey to inaugurate one of his buildings. Didn't Toohey make a career out of bashing Roark? Perigo has done the same with TAS (and ARI). That's all the guy does is bash. Yet you honor him.

Well that's you. Your corner of the universe is TAS, but mine is OL. I will not stand silent on what I see as wrong, nor will I accept unearned guilt for "putting Ed Hudgins (and TAS) in an impossible position." I did not do that and I will not pretend I had a hand in it.

You guys did it. That's your baby, not mine.

Maybe it did not occur to you just how much what this guy stands for is hated by people seeking to live a life of productive rational values.

I suggest you check your premises.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

However, the continuing competition in vituperative, intramural one-upsmanship is putting Ed Hudgins (and TAS) in an impossible position, when his only aim all along was to heal wounds within the Objectivist movement by encouraging greater civility. Put yourself in his shoes: At this point, any decision he makes, either to affirm or rescind that invitation, will merely be seized upon by partisans to score points and to smugly assert their sanctimonious I-told-you-sos. Any decision he renders will be damned by one side as a "cowardly capitulation" to the other side -- and all of you know it. I could write all the talking points for both sides in advance. Even five seconds of reflection will tell you that this double-bind interpretation of Ed's motives is illogical and completely unjust.

Robert,

I'm sorry to say that it just doesn't wash. Sure, the battling "is putting Ed Hudgins (and TAS) in an impossible position." But the over-riding question I have about the whole incident is WHY did Will and Ed not know that that exactly would be the result? Why were they so oblivious at the wheel? That Ed's aim all along was to heal wounds, I can fully believe. But how could he possibly have imagined that the decision to invite Linz Perigo to talk at the forthcoming Seminar -- so close after the Atlas Celebration, and on the topics Linz has chosen -- would ever accomplish anything except the opposite of the goal? It's the complete out-of-itness as to the realities of who the people are, what the issues dividing them are, what the results would inevitably be which I find mind-boggling -- and a very poor advertisement for the wisdom of the TOC leadership. Had Ed waited till next year and done some preparing... Alternately, if there was a strong desire to invite Linz this year, if a relatively innocuous subject -- such as, e.g., the political picture in New Zealand -- had been proposed to Linz instead of leaving him to choose two subjects sure to inflame, and then accepting the choice...

Instead, given the way the timing and the details were handled, I can only think, quoting from Francisco:

"Brothers, you asked for it." In other words, contra your statement "It didn't have to come to this," yes, it did. It was doomed to come to this, given the way it was handled, as some careful attention to what goes on in listland could have foreseen.

Ellen

(Post cross-posted here.)

___

Edited by Ellen Stuttle
Link to comment
Share on other sites

In all of this, I wish Will had not invited Lindsay. I believe this was a mistake. That said, people make mistakes. I'm not holding it against TAS (I just re-upped my sponsorship) and I will be attending the Summer Seminar. If Lindsay is there, I will ignore him which is more than he deserves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't quite see what's so important or compelling about the Summer gathering. But I recognize snooty insults. Jonathan, MSK and I were discussing music, one of Perigo's scheduled topics.

Bidinotto: ...recent posts on this thread have strayed off-topic... I am saddened and depressed by what is transpiring on this site... This behavior is undignified and unseemly, and nobody involved seems to realize that it is only providing Objectivism's real enemies with an abundance of footnotes.

Objectivism has enemies? -- oh, no! Islamic jihadists are going to quote my OL posts. :P

Bidinotto: Could you imagine [Howard Roark's] posts on any of these threads?

Asks an interesting question. Who is today's Roark? It ain't Lindsay Perigo. I'm not an architect, so it isn't me. Does anyone know of an architect whose work has been ridiculed for being modernistic, unwilling to build good old Colonial with dark hallways and ducks on the door? Is Ed Hudgins an architect?

Hudgins: At the Summer Seminar, we seek to develop our understanding and application of Objectivism...

Apparently he seeks help understanding Objectivism.

Okay. This is an electronic discussion forum, where Objectivists and others exchange information and ideas pertaining to the world around us today. We know the body of work. It has problems. We know the history of the Objectivist 'movement,' which is shrinking, not growing, except here on the web. Walking away from OL is surrendering the future to guys like me. Good joke on you, Mr. Bidinotto.

:rolleyes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not holding it against TAS (I just re-upped my sponsorship) and I will be attending the Summer Seminar. If Lindsay is there, I will ignore him which is more than he deserves.

Jordan,

I fully agree with your position and admire your independence about doing what is best for Jordan.

I want to make it clear that I am not advocating anyone boycott TAS or any kind of movement whatsoever. Each person speaks for himself and does what is in his/her best interest.

I also want to make something else clear. In the posting guidelines to OL, I stated that there will be no Branden-bashing. I meant it.

Promoting one of the main Branden-bashers of all time (who is in bed with other principal Branden-bashers) is almost the same thing as direct bashing. I will not have it on OL. If people want to promote a Branden-basher, let them do it elsewhere. It's an awfully big Internet world out there. I HATE making this kind of statement, but this goes for everyybody.

No Branden-bashing.

No promoting Branden-bashers.

(And yes, it is OK to bash Branden-bashers. :) )

I don't care who likes this or who approves of it. This has been the policy since the founding of OL and it has been stated many times. Kat and I have been open about it. OL even went for about 6 months at the beginning being bashed everyday by SOLOP people without response to the incessant goading. I worked the emails to keep it down, too. But I finally gave up the ghost before the inevitable...

If anyone needs or wants to see how to properly disagree with a Branden on OL, especially with Barbara, please look at a recent post by Dan Edge, a young ARI OAC student (or any number of posts by regulars). If you want to see how not to, look at SLOP.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Robert B,

I don't envy your situation right now--or Ed's.

However, none of this stuff just started happening.

What you call

the continuing competition in vituperative, intramural one-upmanship [that] is putting Ed Hudgins (and TAS) in an impossible position, when his only aim all along was to heal wounds within the Objectivist movement by encouraging greater civility.

has been going on for two and a half years, since the middle of 2005.

And Mr. Valliant, seeking to restore a 39-year-old schism to full divisiveness, published his book three years ago.

How long all of this had been going on, and what had been going on, needed to be taken into account, when the mere idea of inviting Mr. Perigo to speak at this year's Summer Seminar first dawned on somebody.

Beyond that, all I can say is that top managers get paid more money than most of the rest of us do, precisely because they get to deal with problems of this kind.

I think Ed Hudgins will more than earn his compensation this year...

Robert C

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just so I can get this off my mind, are their any people here on OL who are engaged in "finding 'moral' reasons to rationalize their gleeful pyromania"?

Are there any ungleeful pyromaniacs on OL?

Are there any pyromaniacs on OL, gleeful or ungleeful, who do not rationalize with moral reasons?

Is it necessary to be a pyromaniac in order to rationalize on OL, or is being gleeful enough?

Am I the only one who found this statement by Robert B strange?

:)

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just so I can get this off my mind, are their any people here on OL who are engaged in "finding 'moral' reasons to rationalize their gleeful pyromania"?

Are there any ungleeful pyromaniacs on OL?

Are there any pyromaniacs on OL, gleeful or ungleeful, who do not rationalize with moral reasons?

Is it necessary to be a pyromaniac in order to rationalize on OL, or is being gleeful enough?

Am I the only one who found this statement by Robert B strange?

:)

Michael

I don't know. When I was a boy I started a fire; no damage done. But the babysitter never came back.

--Brant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What is the problem here? This, ah,...."discussion," started when Wil Thomas, for some reason not clear (no, incomprehensible) to the rest of us, decided to invite Lindsay Perigo to give a talk at the next Summer Seminar.

Whatever Wil's reasoning for this was, has not been explained. At this point, it no longer matters. However, it is clear from Ed Hudgins' statement that many reasons have been given to him by members of this forum and by other TAS members, why Mr. Perigo's past and current behavior do not justify his inclusion in the Summer Seminar. And Mr. Perigo, has made it abundantly clear by his response to Ed, that he has no intention to change his current inappropriate behavior.

The damage was caused when it became known that TAS had invited him. It was an error. So correct it: withdraw the invitation, with an explanation why, based on Ed's statement and Mr. Perigo's response.

Admitting and correcting an error in judgment would not exactly be unprecedented within the Objectivist movement (gross understatement).

To continue with this Perigo invitation is folly. Please, just end it. Now.

And then we can move on to other things that really count. Like advancing Objectivism.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jerry,

Will Thomas's explanation (pretty consistently expressed in two different emails) is that

(1) Uniting the Objectivist movement is important;

(2) Uniting the Objectivist movement means being inclusive of all significant players therein;

(3) Lindsay Perigo, as editor of the Free Radical and principal at SOLOPassion, is a significant player;

(4) Lindsay Perigo got high marks from the audience for his 2004 Summer Seminar talk ("The Elixir of Youth");

Therefore, Mr. Perigo should be invited to speak at the Summer Seminar.

I've asked Will whether criteria like (1) - (3) wouldn't militate for the inclusion of Jim Valliant, Regi Firehammer, or Peter Schwartz (assuming permission from higher authorities, in Schwartz's case) as Summer Seminar speakers. I never got an answer.

I've asked whether Mr. Perigo's conduct post-2004, particularly his decision to renege on a Summer Seminar invitation in 2006 and stage a counter-speech at a Borders bookstore, might detract from point (4), but Will continues to insist on Mr. Perigo's sterling qualities as a speaker.

I don't know whether Will has listened to the audio of the Borders bookstore oration. I've asked him about it twice now and not gotten an answer. But Will has consistently maintained that Mr. Perigo's positive qualities, as an Objectivist motivational speaker, outweigh his rudeness or his proneness to vendettas or even his slams at TAS and its principals.

Meanwhile, it's 2008 and I'm having trouble finding any of these purported positive qualities...

Clearly, Will's intention is to keep Lindsay Perigo on the Summer Seminar program.

Judging from Robert Bidinotto's recent chiding posts here on OL, I've come around to the view that the TAS leadership is about to reaffirm the invitation.

Either Mr. Perigo's open defiance of Ed Hudgins' request for civility will be ignored--or it will be excused because it was all provoked by some of us at Objectivist Living.

Robert Campbell

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now