Why Nobody Takes PARC Seriously Anymore

[Alfonso Jones]

> What I do not recall is anyone recounting stories of them attempting to argue with Rand to the effect that she (Rand) had not accurately characterized Kant, Plato, etc. [bill]

Bill, I think there are several different issues to consider with regard to a major philosopher's positions (and whether someone has fairly captured them) :

i) whether the philosopher is consistent or takes different positions at different times in his long career (Plato's early vs. late dialogues, Kant saying we can't know directly vs. his writing with great certainty on certain scientific and political matters, etc.)

ii) the thinker's philosophical tradition - how the philosopher has been interpreted or spun off from (Kant vs. Kantianism)

iii) what a position boils down to, even if the thinker might not have stated it (or seen it) so clearly

iv) essentializing and dropping certain contradictions to get the overall thrust or most important aspects, despite any internal waffling back and forth or mysterious cryptic exceptions (metaphysics: Plato believed in two realities and we live in the more unreal one; Aristotle believed in only one, the here and the now)

v) full detailing as opposed to essentializing: capturing in an 'academic' manner that would satisfy a dissertation committee every twist and turn, every exception, every inconsistent or deviating statement of an important thinker without excising any, without simplifying or boiling down (“...fascinatingly, in Wittgenstein’s journal entries he offers a rather different view while under heavy medication: ”)

Yes, Phil, and my quesiton was whether someone can report on having attempted to do that with Rand.

I'm not arguing it would be easy with anyone (least of all with Rand) but whether one had written (or could speak) of experiences discussing with Rand whether the characterizations of such as Plato or Kant were accurate.

What you point out are a variety of ways in which "the position of Kant," for instance, would in itself be a difficult thing to define, even given infinite time and a perfect audience. Academic philosophers make careers off of such activity. I think the meaning of my question is clear, however - whether the characterizations of Kantas given in articles such as FTNI or the widespread (in the writings of Rand and others in the Objectivist literature) demonization of Kant, for example, were broadly accurate or rather based on a very inaccurate caricature of the philosopher's thinking. (substitute names and the characterizations of other philosophers in the O-literature as desired.)

Bill P (Alfonso)

[Alfonso Jones]

[....] What I do not recall is anyone recounting stories of them attempting to argue with Rand to the effect that she (Rand) had not accurately characterized Kant, Plato, etc... I'd be grateful for any cite someone can offer to that effect.

Bill,

I don't recall any specific reference by anyone who attempted to argue with her on such points, though "fleshing in" from Hospers' Liberty Memoir, "Conversations With Ayn Rand," it sounds as if he might have raised some detailed points about her interpretations. George Walsh thought she'd made errors about Kant (possibly about Plato, too, I don't know there), but I don't specifically recall a report from him about having argued the issues with her. Doesn't mean he never did, but unless he says something I've forgotten in his Full Context piece critiquing her on Kant, I don't know of anywhere where he might have said anything in print about attempting to dispute with her. People did tend just not to try to argue.

Ellen

Edit: I missed the "etc." in the "Kant, Plato, etc." on first reading. Unfortunately the answer's negative on the "etc." too: I'm unaware of a report in print of anyone attempting to argue with her. I'm aware from personal report of a philosopher, J. Roger Lee, a graduate student at the time, who got into some detailed exchanges with Leonard Peikoff in which, according to J. Roger, Peikoff's ignorance of philosophy post about Hegel was glaringly revealed. I believe the accuracy of J. Roger's estimate; he truly knew his stuff on contemporary philosophy. However, although J. Roger was present at gatherings at Rand's a number of times, I don't recall his ever telling me that he tried to argue with her.

___

I've just listened to the Hospers portion of the Objectivist History Project DVD (in Volume II):

He recounts attempt to discuss with Rand how not all philosophers in her era were "subjectivistic" in the way she used the term. In fact that few if any believed in the primacy of consciousness as she defined it. (He reports this happened on their first day of speaking.)

I didn't notice him mentioning any philosophers by name, but the broader reference was to modern philosophers.

THis is at least an example of someone taking her on wrt the issue of what moderns believed (her time) and at least enduring to tell the tale and not sounding as if it were a miserable experience.

Bill P (Alfonso)

[Ellen Stuttle]

I've just listened to the Hospers portion of the Objectivist History Project DVD (in Volume II):

He recounts attempt to discuss with Rand how not all philosophers in her era were "subjectivistic" in the way she used the term. In fact that few if any believed in the primacy of consciousness as she defined it. (He reports this happened on their first day of speaking.)

I didn't notice him mentioning any philosophers by name, but the broader reference was to modern philosophers.

THis is at least an example of someone taking her on wrt the issue of what moderns believed (her time) and at least enduring to tell the tale and not sounding as if it were a miserable experience.

Bill P (Alfonso)

Notice, you say that he "reports this happened on their first day of speaking."

He did endure for more than 2 years, April 1960 - ("the last Friday night of") October 62. But if you get hold of and read his Memoir, you'll see that things became increasingly tense for him, and he says he started to take to phrasing objections as put in the mouth of a particular exponent so she could curse the 3rd party. He describes the beginning of their relationship, when they mostly talked about literature and other art forms, as "the honeymoon" period. He gives the strong impression of her being someone quick to ire at disagreement, and not really interested in trying to understand the framework from which he was coming.

I'll look up later the exact wording he used about her "ire" -- a comparison to "the wrath of God." Have to scoot just now.

Ellen

___

Edited June 2, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Alfonso Jones]

I've just listened to the Hospers portion of the Objectivist History Project DVD (in Volume II):

He recounts attempt to discuss with Rand how not all philosophers in her era were "subjectivistic" in the way she used the term. In fact that few if any believed in the primacy of consciousness as she defined it. (He reports this happened on their first day of speaking.)

I didn't notice him mentioning any philosophers by name, but the broader reference was to modern philosophers.

THis is at least an example of someone taking her on wrt the issue of what moderns believed (her time) and at least enduring to tell the tale and not sounding as if it were a miserable experience.

Bill P (Alfonso)

Notice, you say that he "reports this happened on their first day of speaking."

He did endure for more than 2 years, April 1960 - ("the last Friday night of") October 62. But if you get hold of and read his Memoir, you'll see that things became increasingly tense for him, and he says he started to take to phrasing objections as put in the mouth of a particular exponent so she could curse the 3rd party. He describes the beginning of their relationship, when they mostly talked about literature and other art forms, as "the honeymoon" period. He gives the strong impression of her being someone quick to ire at disagreement, and not really interested in trying to understand the framework from which he was coming.

I'll look up later the exact wording he used about her "ire" -- a comparison to "the wrath of God." Have to scoot just now.

Ellen

___

Ellen -

I'll look forward to that. And I'll try to find the Memoir. Pardon my ignorance, but do you have a cite for it? Are these articles in Liberty? (I'll have access to my back issues next week.)

Bill P (Alfonso)

Edited June 2, 2008 by Bill P

[Philip Coates]

> whether FTNI [and] the..widespread demonization of Kant, for example, were broadly accurate or rather based on a very inaccurate caricature of the philosopher's thinking. (substitute names and the characterizations of other philosophers in the O-literature as desired.)

Bill, I think this depends. The moral denunciation and psychologizing [Kant is the most evil man in history] are inaccurate and embarrassing.

But you or anyone else would need to post concrete examples = specific quotes and a bit of context for where you say she or Peikoff were very inaccurate in their reports of the views of certain philosophers.

I'm perfectly willing to be proved wrong, but my recollection is that when I usually looked it up when there was an occurrence of the tendency of Rand or Peikoff to give a simplified, essentialized 'thumbnail' of, say, Kant's fundamental principles or Plato's, for example, I found Rand and Peikoff to be basically correct. I have the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosphy and the W.T. Jones series, etc. and have also looked up the philosophers in the online Catholic Encyclopedia and the Stanford.

Again, this is just a very rough sense, but I had a sense that as we entered the 20th Century and more 'technical' philosophy, both Rand and Pekoff may have given up in disgust trying to sort through or keep track of the vast sea of second rank thinkers on principle no longer doing grand (or metaphysically-grounded, since metaphysics has been discredited?) theory and so would not have been aware of many pro-reason or otherwise valuable thinkers. With a few exceptions, such as Brand Blanshard. People like Searle, the Aristotelian revival, metaphysical realism, virtue ethics are too recent.

But Peikoff's insight -- in his history of philosophy II as I recall, that the Analytic school and the Existentialist school have both -broadly- accepted the Kantian idea that reason cannot know reality and each has (broadly? tacitly? implicitly?) embraced one side: (i) ANALYSTS embracing what they call reason, logic, truth (logic chopping, linguistic analysis, floating rationalistic constructs - which the existentialists rightly disdain) while discarding reality & (ii) EXISTENTIALISTS (the "Continental" school) on the other hand, plunging blindly, illogically, without analysis into reality (an 'existential experience'), in other words disdaining 'reason' --- this very simple insight by Peikoff is a profoundly illuminating one.

Since it's essentialized, there may be thinkers who don't fall into this mode at all or fall into it sometimes and in some degrees. But like a yardstick as opposed to a micrometer, it can provide a valuable broad gauge 'approximate' standard of measure.

In FTNI, on the other hand, the mystics of mind and mystics of muscle, Attila and the Witch Doctor as applied to certain philosophers or entire schools is not meant to be taken literally.

[Alfonso Jones]

But you or anyone else would need to post concrete examples = specific quotes and a bit of context for where you say she or Peikoff were very inaccurate in their reports of the views of certain philosophers.

Did I say that somewhere above? I know I asked if anyone had attempted to persuade Rand that she was wrong in her view of Plato, Kant or others. I don't recall stating that I assessed Rand as incorrect in her evaluations of Plato and Kant - though I in fact actually do believe her to have been at best engaged in an amazing amount of exaggeration and selective reading in her characterizations of Plato and Kant, based on reading the two. (As do you based on your comment:

"The moral denunciation and psychologizing [Kant is the most evil man in history] are inaccurate and embarrassing."

Seddon's book on Objectivist treatment of the history of philosophy is useful in this regard. (I don't have it with me, and hence I can't cite the exact title at the moment.)

Bill P (Alfonso)

[Daniel Barnes]

I'm perfectly willing to be proved wrong, but my recollection is that when I usually looked it up when there was an occurrence of the tendency of Rand or Peikoff to give a simplified, essentialized 'thumbnail' of, say, Kant's fundamental principles or Plato's, for example, I found Rand and Peikoff to be basically correct.

AFAICS Objectivism basically "simplifies" other philosophers for the express purpose of distorting their doctrines - usually so that after a few rhetorical twists they can be decreed subjectivist, and thus evil. In fact, Rand and Peikoff are basically misleading or confused about most philosophers - or are correct only in Objectivist terms! This means that most Objectivists either know little about the actual doctrines of most of the philosophers they condemn, or are deeply confused about them.

Here's a perfect example of how Rand and Peikoff distort key facts about Plato with subjectivist spin to turn him into a "primacy of consciousness" philosopher: From the Lexicon

Rand: "The Platonist school begins by accepting the primacy of consciousness, by reversing the relationship of consciousness to existence, by assuming that reality must conform to the content of consciousness (my emphasis), not the other way around—on the premise that the presence of any notion in man’s mind proves the existence of a corresponding referent in reality."

See how she tries to make him sound like Bishop Berkeley? That "any notion in man's mind" is enough to "prove" the existence of something in reality, as if Plato was a subjectivist? In fact, he is more like Peikoff describes in the next quote on the same page:

Peikoff: "Thus for Plato abstractions are supernatural existents. They are nonmaterial entities in another dimension, independent of man’s mind (my emphasis) and of any of their material embodiments."

But do you see how Peikoff contradicts Rand in the key passages I've highlighted? For Plato, supposedly, "any notion in man's mind" is enough to "prove" existents; yet at the same time existents are supposedly "independent of man's mind." So which is it? Thus is deliberate, propagandistic confusion is sown amidst the basic truth of the matter. If you've ever wondered where James Valliant gets his way with "facts" from, look no further than his heroes.

After reading most of Rand and Peikoff on other philosophers, one can only invoke Clark's Law: "Sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice."

Edited June 3, 2008 by Daniel Barnes

[Philip Coates]

> ..Objectivism basically "simplifies" other philosophers **for the express purpose of distorting** their doctrines - usually so that after a few rhetorical twists they can be decreed **subjectivist, and thus evil**. In fact, Rand and Peikoff are basically misleading or confused about **most** philosophers

...This means that most Objectivists either know little about the actual doctrines of most of the philosophers they condemn, or are deeply confused about them.

[Daniel B - asterisks added for emphasis]

Wow! (1) The above preamble is ITSELF so distorted or overstated or over the top for anyone who knows the Objectivist literature --->

--psychologizing about R & P's motives or purpose (first asterisks)

--inventing the idea that R & P's always link subjectivism and evil (second asterisks)

--arbitrary assertion about R & P -mostly- being wrong as opposed to a less strong claim of sometimes (third asterisk)

AND the non-sequitur last statement that because R & P are wrong most Oists know little. As if they blindly followed, have no other source of information.

(2) And the Plato alleged 'perfect example' confuses subjectivism as a psychological drive and subjectivism as a philosophical position. Rand speculating about the motivation to -want- to believe in a world of forms as subjectivist [which she should not have done - it was psychologizing] and her extremely precise, laserlike, and articulate understanding of the details of Plato's actual PHILOSOPHICAL doctrine, which was not subjectivist as she clearly understood:

"The “extreme realists” or Platonists, . . . hold that abstractions exist as real entities or archetypes in another dimension of reality and that the concretes we perceive are merely their imperfect reflections, but the concretes evoke the abstractions in our mind. (According to Plato, they do so by evoking the memory of the archetypes which we had known, before birth, in that other dimension.)"

-- Ayn Rand, ITOE.

[Philip Coates]

And he concludes with a further bit of psychologizing slander, accusing both R & P of a form of dishonesty:

"Sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice."

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Danile's god is KP, not the goddess AR.

The problem would not be a problem if two could sit on the same throne.

The problem is the throne, not the ideas.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

First: Hospers DID refer to some discussions of Kant. See the next post.

Ellen -

I'll look forward to that [some passages from the Hospers memoir]. And I'll try to find the Memoir. Pardon my ignorance, but do you have a cite for it? Are these articles in Liberty? (I'll have access to my back issues next week.)

Bill P (Alfonso)

Bill,

I'm talking about the same Liberty 2-part memoir, "Conversations With Ayn Rand," from which I earlier quoted the concluding section: Here.

To repeat:

"In the first installment -- Volume 3, Number 6, July 1990 -- John talks about how he met Ayn Rand (when she gave a talk at Brooklyn College, where he was then teaching); about what he calls the "honeymoon" period of their relationship, in which literature was the main topic of conversation; about the importance of his discussions with her to his views on politics, a topic to which he hadn't previously given much thought; about some lingering questions he had on political issues.

"In the second installment -- Volume 4, Number 1, September 1990 -- as Stephen [boydstun] describes:

[Hospers] relates their discussions concerning free will, determinism, causality, identity, logic, language, necessity, contingency, possibility, skepticism concerning existence of the physical world, and analytic philosophy. These recollections are interesting to have as a companion to Rand's subsequent, nonfiction writings, especially her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology in expanded second edition.

I'll type in a few more excerpts. Along with including part of his description of learning free-enterprise economics from her, the sequence shows the development from their early non-tense relationship through growing strain -- culminating with her feeling betrayed and discontinuing the friendship, as recounted in the full excerpt I've previously posted.

.

Memoir

Conversations With Ayn Rand

by John Hospers

Liberty

Volume 3, Number 6

July 1990

This was the honeymoon period. There had been no major tensions between us on any issue. I did not have any idea how quickly her ire could rise. I thought we could discuss any subject as dispassionately as we were now discussing the arts.

She kept inviting me back. For many months I was at her apartment about once every two weeks. We would meet around 8 p.m., and usually agree on a cutoff time of midnight. But when midnight came we were always engrossed in a discussion we didn't want to terminate, and the result was that I seldom left the apartment before 4 a.m. Occasionally we would talk all night, after which she would prepare breakfast for me and I would drive off to Brooklyn in the early hours of the morning. [He was teaching at Brooklyn College.] [pg. 27]

--

[up to this point, he's been describing conversations about aesthetics, especially literature. He next turns to economics and political philosophy.]

At Ayn's suggestion I bought a copy of Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson and it transformed my entire thinking about economics (not that I had done much thinking about it before). She gave me a copy of von Mises' Socialism and I devoured that also. (She explained to me that she would not autograph gifts of books, if those books had been written by others.) Here I was the student and she the teacher. Though the conversation always turned to ethical implications, Ayn was not bothered if I asked her purely economic questions. I may have been the only person who learned free-enterprise economics personally from Ayn Rand. [pg. 28]

[some of the Collective members would also be in the category of having learned free-enterprise economics personally from her.]

--

[The next pages include mentions of a few instances where she became irritated and a description of one where she exploded, when he was visiting his parental home in Iowa and was talking to her over the phone. On his way to see his parents, he'd "stopped to visit a colleague who had just returned from Peru."]

I had given Ayn my phone number in Iowa, and sure enough, she phoned. I remember asking her on the phone what she would say about the situation in Peru, where a few landowners (descendants of the Spanish conquistadors) owned almost all the land, leaving the native Indians little or nothing.

[Ayn said the Indians could buy the land bit by bit, but he said the aristocrats didn't want to sell; they left the land fallow as a matter of pride to show that they didn't need the profits from growing crops.]

I suggested that under such conditions a government policy of land redistribution was called for.

Such a torrent of abusive language against compulsory redistribution then came over the wire that my parents could hear it across the room. I could hardly get a word in. I had no idea that mention of compulsory redistribution would ignite such venom. I said why I thought it was usually a bad policy, but that in the conditions described it would probably be desirable, as when MacArthur did it in post-war Japan. But she would not hear of it. Dinner had been set on the table, and I motioned my parents to go on eating without me. But they didn't, and by the time Ayn's telephone tirade was over, half an hour later, the dinner was cold. [pg.33]

--

[He speaks of the pleasure of some evenings at Ayn's when he met the Hazlitts and the von Miseses, and of some personal meetings with Hazlitt and with Greenspan.]

I learned much more economics from my conversations with Ayn. But once I put my foot in it. She was explaining why, if some industry was to be deregulated, the businessman would have to be given fair warning, else he would be unable to make the rational calculations he would have to make at the time.

I said nothing in response on that occasion. But a few weeks later, when she exclaimed that the New York taxicab medallions should be abolished at once, I said "But consider the taxi driver who has bought a medallion for $25,000 just before their abolition. He would lose that whole amount. Shouldn't the taxi driver be given an interim period also for making his own rational calculations?"

She saw the point. "You bastard!" she exclaimed, and flounced out of the room to prepare tea. I could hear the cups clattering in the kitchen, and Frank trying to pour oil over troubled waters. When she returned to the living room she had partially regained her equanimity, but was still curt and tense.

I learned from that incident that it didn't pay to be confrontational with her. If I saw or suspected some inconsistency, I would point it out in calm and even tones, as if it were "no big deal." That way, she would often accept the correction and go on. To expose the inconsistency bluntly and nakedly would only infuriate her, and then there would be no more calm and even discussion that evening. I did not enjoy experiencing her fury; it was as if sunlight had suddenly been replaced by a thunderstorm. A freezing chill would then descend on the room, enough to make me shiver even in the warmth of summer. No, it wasn't worth it. So what, if a few fallacies went unreported? Better to resume the conversation on an even keel, continue a calm exchange of views, and spare oneself the wrath of the almighty, than which nothing is more fearful. [pg.34]

--

Volume 4, Number 1

September 1990

When we discussed metaphysical and epistemological issues, a certain tension between us would very gradually and almost imperceptibly arise. I could usually avoid an unpleasant scene by attributing (correctly) the view being discussed to some actual philosopher, living or dead, and then she could curse the philosopher in question and take the heat off me. It's not that I wanted to avoid responsibility for the view, but I wanted to avoid unpleasant scenes, which only impeded the progress of our discussions, and achieved no worthwhile end that I could think of. But it was clear that I was not "giving in" to her brand of metaphysics, and equally clear that my methods of what I liked to call philosophical clarification were falling on arid ground in the present case. I became somewhat discouraged, especially since she seldom acknowledged an error and seemed less interested in learning than in defending prepared positions. Moreover, what seemed like a blinding philosophical light to me would be a total dud to her, and her highly abstract philosophical pronouncements often seemed to me confused, unclear, or false, effective though they might be as banners for enlisting the philosophically unwashed. [pp. 50-51]

--

The more time elapsed, the more the vise tightened. I could see it happening; I hated and dreaded it; but knowing her personality, I saw no way to stop it. I was sure that something unpleasant would happen sooner or later. The more time she expended on you, the more dedication and devotion she demanded. After she had (in her view) dispelled objections to her views, she would tolerate no more of them. Any hint of thinking as one formerly had, any suggestion that one had backtracked or still believed some of the things one had assented to previously, was greeted with indignation, impatience, and anger. She did not espouse a religious faith, but it was surely the emotional equivalent of one. [pp.51-52]

.

___

Edited June 7, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

Hospers does make brief comments specifically about discussions of Kant with Ayn.

I've also included a couple references to her reading little philosophy.

.

Memoir

Conversations With Ayn Rand

by John Hospers

Liberty

Volume 3, Number 6

July 1990

She reserved her best-chosen curse words for her philosophical arch-enemy, Immanuel Kant. She considered him the ultimate altruist and collectivist. Though not a Kantian, I did not share her extreme view of him. I invited her to read his book on philosophy of law, with its defense of individual rights, and certain sections of his Metaphysics of Morals in which he discussed duties to oneself. But it was all in vain. She insisted that these were only incidental details, but that the main thrust of Kant's philosophy was profoundly evil. I did not consider him more altruistic than Christianity, and in some ways less so.

I did get her to acknowledge agreement, I think, with Kant's Second Categorical Imperative, "Treat every person as an end, not as a means," even though I tended to believe that the implications of this precept for ethical egoism might be ominous. And I told her that I thought she was also Kantian in her insistence on acting on principle (even though she and he didn't share the same principles). I even thought that she shared some of his emphasis on universalizability: that if something is wrong for you to do it is also wrong for others (in similar circumstances), and that before acting one should consider the rule implied in one's actions as [if it] were to become a universal rule of human conduct. She would praise impartiality of judgment as strongly as any Kantian. Sometimes, when we were discussing another view, such as existentialism, I would twit her, saying "You're too Kantian to accept that, Ayn," and she would smile and sometimes incline her head a bit, as if to admit the point before going on with the discussion. [pg.35]

--

Volume 4, Number 1

September 1990

[i ]n time I realized that she read almost no philosophy at all. And I was amazed [at] how much philosophy she could generate "on her own steam," without consulting any sources. [pg. 47]

Somewhere she had picked up the idea that philosophers in the twentieth century were skeptical about the existence of an "external world" (tables, trees, stars, etc.). I told her that skeptical arguments in this area were still extensively examined, in the tradition of Hume, but that no one so far as I knew had any actual doubts about the existence of the chair they were sitting on, and so on. But that, she said, was the mistake: they don't doubt it in practice but they do in theory--they don't practice what they preach. I explained that when skeptical arguments occur, as in Hume, they have to be met, in an attempt to make theory accord with practice; one can't just assume that "common sense" is always right. I explained a similar situation in Zeno's paradoxes, and Parmenides' attempt to deny the reality of motion. I said there were lots of problems about the relation of the world to the senses by means of which we perceive it.

I did mention, almost incidentally, an attempt to prove that we know the existence of the external world for certain, namely by Prof. Norman Malcolm in his essay "The Verification Argument" (in Max Black's anthology, Philosophical Analysis). Instantly she picked up on this, inquiring about Malcolm as a possible ally. She wanted to know more about him and even to invite him to New York for a personal meeting. She did not read his article, or anything else by him, but I outlined the rather complex argument of the article for her in two typed pages, trying to state his premises accurately and show how they yielded his conclusions. She expressed gratitude to me for doing this. But, she wondered, why should a person go to such lengths to defend a thesis that was so obvious? I realized that to Ayn the existence of the physical world was axiomatic and didn't require defense, and told her that she would probably find no particular ally in Malcolm, who was most interested (in the essay) in exploring the implications of terms like "verification" and "certainty." At any rate, there the matter dropped. She took my word as to what his arguments were, and as far as I know she never read anything to enlighten her further on the issue. [pg. 50]

.

___

[Alfonso Jones]

Ellen -

These reflections from Hospers bring back some painful memories of my own. In the course of my career, I two times had strong relationships with "guru" types. People who were strong thought-leaders, visionaries (both in fields of business). Interestingly (at least to me) in both cases I served as advocate and expositor, to a great extent.

In both cases, the guru over time gradually grew more controlling, more and more viewing agreement on EVERYTHING as the test of loyalty - one couldn't disagree on anything, no matter how small, without it becoming the subject of extended discussion which would terminate only when the dissenter (me) modified their position.

In both cases, the break was unpleasant - with many others feeling they had to "choose" between us. Fortunately for me many choose to side with me.

Strange and eerie - and you can see from this why some of the reminisces such as those you are quoting from Hospers have special interest for me. I'll make certain to check out my back issues of Liberty for the full articles next week.

Bill P (Alfonso) - with lots of deja vu going on...

[Ellen Stuttle]

In FTNI, on the other hand, the mystics of mind and mystics of muscle, Attila and the Witch Doctor as applied to certain philosophers or entire schools is not meant to be taken literally.

That isn't how I'd interpret what the lady herself said about her depictions of "Attila" and "the Witch Doctor."

"For the New Intellectual"

© Copyright, 1961, by Ayn Rand

Random House

pp. 8-9

These two figures--the man of faith and the man of force--are philosophical archetypes, psychological symbols and historical reality. As philosophical archetypes, they embody two variants of a certain view of man and of existence. As psychological symbols, they represent the basic motivation of a great many men who exist in any era, culture or society. As historical reality, they are the actual rulers of most of mankind's societies, who rise to power whenever men abandon reason. *

The essential characteristics of these two remain the same in all ages: Attila, the man who rules by brute force, acts on the range of the moment, is concerned with nothing but the physical reality immediately before him, respects nothing but man's muscles, and regards a fist, a club or a gun as the only answer to any problem--and the Witch Doctor, the man who dreads physical reality, dreads the necessity of practical action, and escapes into his emotions, into visions of some mystic realm where his wishes enjoy a supernatural power unlimited by the absolute of nature.

Superficially, these two may appear to be opposites, but observe what they have in common: a consciousness held down to the perceptual method of functioning, an awareness that does not choose to extend beyond the automatic, the immediate, the given, the involuntary, which means: an animal's "epistemology" or as near to it as a human consciousness can come.

* I am indebted to Nathaniel Branden for many valuable observations on this subject and for his eloquent designation of the two archetypes, which I shall use hereafter: Attila and the Witch Doctor.

___

Edited June 3, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Daniel Barnes]

Wow! (1) The above preamble is ITSELF so distorted or overstated or over the top for anyone who knows the Objectivist literature --->

No, it's not distorted or overstated for anyone who knows Objectivist literature but does not subscribe to Rand's doctrines. In fact it is a fairly common assessment or Rand and Peikoff's by non-Objectivists. (Ah, but this is because as non-Objectivists they are proceeding from inherently false premises...;-))

--psychologizing about R & P's motives or purpose (first asterisks)

It seems quite clear that the aim is to present Rand as The One True Path; as (almost) sui generis.

--inventing the idea that R & P's always link subjectivism and evil (second asterisks)

No, that never happens in Objectivism....;-)

--arbitrary assertion about R & P -mostly- being wrong as opposed to a less strong claim of sometimes (third asterisk)

Heaven forfend.

AND the non-sequitur last statement that because R & P are wrong most Oists know little. As if they blindly followed, have no other source of information.

That seems to be the case with most of the Objectivists I engage with, sad to say.

(2) And the Plato alleged 'perfect example' confuses subjectivism as a psychological drive and subjectivism as a philosophical position.

Now you seem to be freestyling.

Rand speculating about the motivation to -want- to believe in a world of forms as subjectivist [which she should not have done - it was psychologizing] and her extremely precise, laserlike, and articulate understanding of the details of Plato's actual PHILOSOPHICAL doctrine, which was not subjectivist as she clearly understood:

"The “extreme realists” or Platonists, . . . hold that abstractions exist as real entities or archetypes in another dimension of reality and that the concretes we perceive are merely their imperfect reflections, but the concretes evoke the abstractions in our mind. (According to Plato, they do so by evoking the memory of the archetypes which we had known, before birth, in that other dimension.)"

-- Ayn Rand, ITOE.

Well, this is one of the quotes from the very page I sent you to. All it is is another example of Rand says black, then she says white. As Greg Nyquist remarks, the chief difficulty of critiquing Objectivism is the complexity of its confusions. Rather than simply acknowledging she was fudging the situation, we are asked to take this as her addressing a profound and obscure point that it looks to all intents and purposes like you simply invented for her on the spot. Sorry, no soap.

[Ellen Stuttle]

AFAICS Objectivism basically "simplifies" other philosophers for the express purpose of distorting their doctrines - usually so that after a few rhetorical twists they can be decreed subjectivist, and thus evil.

Where does either express that purpose?

In fact, Rand and Peikoff are basically misleading or confused about most philosophers - or are correct only in Objectivist terms! This means that most Objectivists either know little about the actual doctrines of most of the philosophers they condemn, or are deeply confused about them.

I'd agree there is, on the part of O'ists, widespread confusion about, and plain ignorance of, the actual doctrines of the philosophers condemned by Rand (which is most philosophers -- and she falls short in accuracy on those she praises, too), but I think you're stretching for it to get a contradiction between the quote you give from Rand and that from Peikoff:

Rand: "The Platonist school begins by accepting the primacy of consciousness, by reversing the relationship of consciousness to existence, by assuming that reality must conform to the content of consciousness (my emphasis), not the other way around—on the premise that the presence of any notion in man’s mind proves the existence of a corresponding referent in reality."

Peikoff: "Thus for Plato abstractions are supernatural existents. They are nonmaterial entities in another dimension, independent of man’s mind (my emphasis) and of any of their material embodiments."

Rand is talking about Plato's idea of the real reality, which is the world of Forms, not the world we're living in. Platonists do hold that if we have an idea of something, there must be a Form of it in the world of Forms.* The world of Forms is "independent of man's mind," however, in that it's eternally existent. Its existence doesn't depend on us. Our recognition of universals depends on it. All our deaths and the obliteration of the sensorial world in which we live wouldn't obliterate the world of Forms.

Ellen

* A logical result of the theory of Forms which causes Platonists some fancy trouble.

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[Ellen Stuttle]

Bill P (Alfonso) - with lots of deja vu going on...

I'm glad you're finding value in the Hospers memoir, even if the value is connected to painful memories.

I find the memoir both poignant and very interesting and informative in the material it provides about where her thoughts were at that time (1960-62).

I did some adding/subtracting. John is going to be 90 in June, which means he turned 42 not long after he met Ayn. (He met her in April '60.) She was just a couple months past 55.

James Valliant was 42 when PARC was published (or soon to turn 42; he was born in 1963, according to the copyright page, but of course that doesn't say what month and I'm not sure what month the book was published).

Interesting contrast between persons.

Ellen

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[Ellen Stuttle]

William,

I just read the latest on the "Exploitation" thread on SOLO.

Would you please inform James Heaps-Nelson that Barbara did not write the script of the movie of Passion?

Jeez, does he have no idea how movies are made, and what's involved in film rights, and how little control the author of a book has over what's done with it in a film?

Ellen

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[Brant Gaede]

William,

I just read the latest on the "Exploitation" thread on SOLO.

Would you please inform James Heaps-Nelson that Barbara did not write the script of the movie of Passion?

Jeez, does he have no idea how movies are made, and what's involved in film rights, and how little control the author of a book has over what's done with it in a film?

It's worse than that. He seems to think Barbara was the primary screenwriter, producer, editor and maybe even the director all rolled into one--plus Showtime itself. I'm afraid, though, you'll find "invincible ignorance" trying to correct him on this.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

This is exactly where I harp on James. What makes him do that? He stated flat-out that the movie was a complete fiction, which is was not. There were fictional elements added, especially that girl instead of Patrecia, but the main part was based on historical facts. James knows this full well, too. Yet he states his incorrect statements as if they were facts.

He even admitted to not having read Barbara's statements, yet had no problem stating that the exploitation of Rand pretty much sums up her motivation.

That's a lot of knowledge for someone admittedly ignorant of facts. I wonder if he has even seen the movie.

The only thing I can see that accounts for this behavior (beside the applause anyone gets on Siberia Passion for mouthing the party line) is putting his evaluations in the place of cognitive identification to the point where facts are not needed in his world-view, at least about Rand.

The illusion is far more important.

He quipped somewhere that I think he has cognitive-normative malfunction, but actually this is a good term for it. I sometimes get the willies thinking about this. I don't ever want to do that to my mind again. (Yes, I used to do that. That is why I recognize it so well.) That leads to a very bad place.

You mentioned mythologizing as one of the great dangers of Objectivism. I agree in part. I don't mind myths when they serve as cognitive or moral guideposts. But the danger lies in replacing reality with myths on an epistemological level. Myths are supposed to be symbols for specific elements of reality ("selective reality" is the Objectivist jargon), not a substitute for the whole shebang. Mythologizing in the place of cognitive identification is desctruction of rational thought and that is exactly what I see with those who worship Rand.

Rand worshippers usually deny worshipping her, but the referents of the concept "worship" are present in their behaivor. It doesn't matter what word we use for it. They replace reality with myth, adore the myth and demonize those who refuse to do the same. They are immune to the evidence of their own eyes when it means giving this up. That is worship.

Michael

[Alfonso Jones]

William,

I just read the latest on the "Exploitation" thread on SOLO.

Would you please inform James Heaps-Nelson that Barbara did not write the script of the movie of Passion?

Jeez, does he have no idea how movies are made, and what's involved in film rights, and how little control the author of a book has over what's done with it in a film?

Ellen

___

I have no ability to make a statement about James Heaps-Nelson. However, I have occasionally noted in discussions with some Objectivists a tendency to hearken back to Rand's experience with the making of The Fountainhead, and her expectations on an Atlas Shrugged movie, and extrapolate to assume this must surely be the norm. James Heaps-Nelson may be making similar assumptions - that the author of the source material (book in this case) must surely have near-total creative control.

His statements seem to be consistent with this (false) assumption, but I don't know what he is thinking, of course. (Only on an Objectivist list would this last clause be needed...)

Bill P (Alfonso)

Edited June 3, 2008 by Bill P

[Ellen Stuttle]

I have no ability to make a statement about James Heaps-Nelson. However, I have occasionally noted in discussions with some Objectivists a tendency to hearken back to Rand's experience with the making of The Fountainhead, and her expectations on an Atlas Shrugged movie, and extrapolate to assume this must surely be the norm.

An odd extrapolation to make, one which forgets that much-used-by-O'ists word "context." The whole big deal about the story of AR and the making of The Fountainhead is how hard she had to fight to get script control.

Also, James Heaps-Nelson has read PARC. And Valliant talks of exactly that fight on AR's part to get script control in his discussion of AR's break with Kay Nolte and Phil Smith.

James Heaps-Nelson may be making similar assumptions - that the author of the source material (book in this case) must surely have near-total creative control.

Maybe he's recalling from somewhere -- except from where, since he says he never until WSS posted it saw that item of BB's? -- that Barbara wrote some script on-set expressing some of AR's ideas (script some of which didn't make it through final cutting). But J H-N talks as if he thinks the movie was Barbara's movie!!

His statements seem to be consistent with this (false) assumption, but I don't know what he is thinking, of course. (Only on an Objectivist list would this last clause be needed...)

More than occasionally, I don't know even what point a post by J H-N is supposedly making, since he tends to be both laconic and vague in posting style.

Ellen

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[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bill,

James has constantly made incorrect statements like Barbara did not deal with Rand's philosophy in The Passion of Ayn Rand (and Nathaniel did not deal with the philosophy in his autobiography). There is a whole list of statements he has made like that. He would set them up, I would knock them down (with quotes), he would grudgingly admit the errors and, after a while, come out with new whoppers.

In the last round I got fed up and concluded that when a person was as intelligent as he was and kept on making blatantly incorrect statements like that, he was lying on purpose. I later reconsidered and apologized, but by then he had a chip on his shoulder ("Nobody calls me a liar!"), a peanut gallery on Siberia Passion for applause, and there is some kind of unstated presumption that my apology only means something if I also forget about that list of incorrect statements.

But I don't forget. I refuse to fake reality for anyone.

Now he has started again. Keep watching and you will see it unfold. With people who use normative-before-cognitive thinking, they can't not do it. It's a very strong itch.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

You mentioned mythologizing as one of the great dangers of Objectivism. I agree in part. I don't mind myths when they serve as cognitive or moral guideposts. But the danger lies in replacing reality with myths on an epistemological level. Myths are supposed to be symbols for specific elements of reality ("selective reality" is the Objectivist jargon), not a substitute for the whole shebang. Mythologizing in the place of cognitive identification is desctruction of rational thought and that is exactly what I see with those who worship Rand.

Neither do I object to myths when they serve as cognitive or moral guideposts. Please try to notice the different meanings in what I'm trying to describe here. The subject is complex and difficult to speak of in an Objectivist context. In a Jungian context, no problem, since Jungians understand what I'm talking about with the term "mythos."

I have praised Atlas for being a mythos. Mythos is the category in which I think Atlas belongs, not properly the category of novel. I consider what AR did with deliberately forging a consciously produced mythos a mold-breaking achievement.

When I speak of the "mythologizing," however, I'm speaking of confusing the mythic with the real. "Myths to Live By" we need, but myths confused with reality are dangers.

Here are excerpts from my 3 previous posts on this thread pertaining to mythos versus mythologizing:

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...ost&p=50868

> the sort of issue going on here is just the sort of issue which produced the big split in Islam and the various splits in Christianity. The argument over whether or not the Brandens -- especially Nathaniel Branden -- are to be viewed as demon figures...an expectation -- or at least hope -- such as Phil's that this Drama might eventually quit occupying attention, I think is historically naive. [Ellen]

Ellen, historically you are far less likely to find a central focus on personal splits and condemnations in the sciences. The difference is that the two historical examples you give are religions [...].

Of course. The history of religion is the history to which Objectivism's history is most accurately compared. Objectivism is an attempt to offer a substitute situating-mythos to those historically provided by religious mythoi. AR was deliberately delivering a New Dispensation. Science can inform tales to live by, but it doesn't provide one of itself.

(My meaning of "mythos" here is pretty well expressed by this definition from Wiktionary (see):

"A story or set of stories relevant or having a significant truth or meaning for a particular culture, religion, society, or other group.")

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...ost&p=51113

My candidate for the "root" problem is: mythologizing. By which I mean seeing oneself and trying to live one's life in terms of mythic dimensions; seeing oneself and trying to live one's life in terms of an idealized image which ignores, or when it notices interprets out of "importance," the details of one's real existence.

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...ost&p=51123

[i ]n regard to the particular features I was talking about, the psychological assessments of others and self, I can't agree about the difference in "contribution," since I find Rand on the subject of psychology -- I mean the psychology of real live people -- a negative contribution to those who take her analyses as having weight.

This becomes complicated. As I've said before, I think that Rand had to have the mythologic view of psychology which I think she had, else she couldn't have written such a deliberate mythos as Atlas Shrugged. It's not that I have any wish that she was other than she was.

But there are non-fiction works of hers which I wish she'd never penned.

Ellen

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[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

We are on the same page about this. (Incredible, I know, but true. )

Michael