Robert Campbell, on Dec 31 2008, 06:12 PM, said:
I don't know whether anyone noticed this little aside amidst the gloating over at SOLOPassion:
http://www.solopassi...1#comment-63861
Quote
With Bidinotto gone they've lost their only dynamic public speaker and KASSest writer. Frankly they should put me in there as editor of their magazine, with all those years of The Free Radical behind me.
During the controversy over Will Thomas's decision to invite Lindsay Perigo to speak at the 2008 Summer Seminar, I was regularly lambasted as a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist (and even publicly chided by Ed Hudgins) for suggesting that Mr. Perigo saw an opportunity to insinuate himself into a leadership position at TAS.
Robert Campbell
Robert,
Just as an exercise in futile speculation, let us suppose one day TAS took Perigo up on his word. He was uninvited to make a speech at TAS on music, but he has presented his ideas and discussion over on his own site. So it is reasonable to assume that what he does at one place (posturing as an "Objectivist leader") will reflect what he would do at another in the same role.
Let's start with, say, the headline—the title of a lecture.
Why Catholicism Is Beating Objectivism's Ass ... Still
This is the latest thread Perigo kicked off on his theory of why romantic music is superior to all other types. Try to imagine a TAS publication, with pictures of David Kelley, Will Thomas and Ed Hudgins, all smiling while the copy is spitting out headlines laced with vulgarity like the one above, allied to a motto of "Total Passion for the Total Height." That's quite an image.
I personally find the idea of competition between warring camps applied to aesthetics rather silly, which is what the headline suggests, but I will let Perigo speak for himself on what he really means. All the quotes below (here in my present post) are from the SOLOP thread that is linked above. I have cherry picked some items. I did not link each post because of a technical problem they have on the link being null after the first page, but if anyone wishes to identify it, all they have to do is browse through the 5 pages of posts (so far) and use the search feature.
Let's start with a few statements of Perigo's actual thoughts:
Perigo said:
I believe I'm the only Objectivist in the world to argue Romantic music's objective superiority. Even when it appears in mystic guise. Why won't anyone take me on??
... there's absolutely nothing wrong with Rand's love of "light," or "tiddly-wink" music. Doesn't alter the fact that in the realm of serious music she was an ignoramus. She said Beethoven's music was "malevolent," for starters. Complete and utter crap.
Well, actually, I'm saying out loud the corollary of that: Romantic music is objectively superior. Its [sic] means music by Catholics for Catholics.
Anyone... ...want seriously to contest the proposition that Catholicism is beating Objectivism's ass, on account of "hitting the spot" that Objectivism is missing because of anal-retentiveness?
What I'm driving at on this thread is that the value-swoon induced by The Priests and Schubert and the like is exactly the spot that Objectivism must hit, and is failing dismally to hit.
It was hideous. Utterly mindLESS filth. Identifying it as such is not "cultist," it's simply exercising discrimination and trying to rescue contemporary "music" from the gutter, as Rand said she was attempting with the whole culture.
Hendrix et al died early, thank goodness, because of their death-worship. Mario [Lanza] died early because his sense of life was at odds with that incipient death-worship.
It's all crap, and more subversive of freedom than The Communist Manifesto or Mein Kampf, since it speaks to anti-reason directly at a sense-of-life level.
These days, in the humanities at least, the greater a person's credentials, the more pieces of paper he has, the less credible he is, the more certain it is that he's a total idiot, fit to be employed only by some half-assed Human Resources Department in a firm stupid enough to have such a thing. Or by the university that handed out the pieces of paper.
These represent, from what I can gather, some fundamental positions he holds.
Now let's see how he tries to influence the posters on the rhetoric side (since very few facts were presented). I assume he would try to influence a TAS audience in the same manner, being KASS and all...
Perigo said:
Apart from having a very ordinary voice, the silly bitch can't sing more than 2 words without gasping for breath.
You're a moron.
Kiri's a bore.
... you're a musical moron.
Marsha Enright knows nothing fundamental about music.
It's simply not possible for a benevolent, rational person to like such garbage.
What he inadvertently revealed was the sense of life and ethics (i.e. none) of a lover of headbanging caterwauling. That's why I'll never be forgiven, by Joe, by Sciabarra, or the ARI. Ironic, no?? All these supposed adversaries, united in nihilism-worship!!
You dishonest pricks should simply go to your own pomo-territory and listen to headbanging caterwauling of your own free will.
Freaks, psychopaths and the tone-deaf need not apply. Unfortunately, they've been the dominant musos for generations.
Fuck Jimi and his repugnant noise.
Why eat shit when you can have food?
Jonathan is a pomowanker from way back in the O-Lying swamp.
Now here is the clincher for me. Fair is fair, so others get a chance to use the same rhetorical system. Here are some quotes from other posters said to or about Perigo during the discussion. Wouldn't it be good to see TAS rise to this total passion for the total height?
Different posters posting to or about Perigo said:
Shut Up, Perigo
You clearly cannot distinguish between esthetic and epistemic problem.
... you bloated feeb
You can go straight to hell with my earnest compliments.
... you outgrown slug
Look, fool:...
Lindsay Perigo substitutes reasoned debate on this topic for arguments from intimidation and name calling.
That's like saying that you are a fat-ass blubberslug because you're alive..
... you thick jackass
What's outrageous about you, you creepy poser, is the attitude that you're not worth by a small fraction. You don't know what you're talking about and you never shut your stupid yap about it.
Shut the fuck up.
This is big part of why I despise you, Perigo. Words mean shit to you.
You're not interested. That much is safe. The thing is, you really act like an idiot when you sound-off about it.
Maestro Pigero
Well, he's a pretentious slug.
It really is amusing how many Objectivists have been dazzled by a real-life Ellsworth Toohey like Pigero.
When will Ellsworth Pigero take the Romantic Manifesto seriously and lift himself out of the gutter in regard to the art forms about which he and his lackeys here on SOLOP are currently extremely ignorant?
... Pigego has very little influence outside of his little band of nutjob toadies, like you, and he doesn't even quite rise to the level of mediocrity.
Face it, Pigero, you're as much of an ignoramus about non-musical art forms as you accuse Rand of being in regard to music. You're a Rand-diminishing aesthetic gutter dweller.
I prefer to call him "Pigero." It sounds like "Figaro," which reflects his love of opera, while also making reference to his many pig-like qualities that he takes such pride in.
I admit, I sympathize with a lot of this.
But that is not the point. According to Perigo, TAS should promote this manner of presentation because of his experience.
I personally will not host this kind of disrespect to me. People can do that elsewhere, not here on OL. When I gave up drugs, one of my first items of priority was to distance myself from things that had hurt me. I was sorely hurt by too much toleration. So I decided that if a person wishes to disrespect me, I will not put up with it to my face using my resources. I have ticked some people off with this attitude, but I am at peace with myself. Only once did I allow a poster to call me "asshole" on OL and not delete it or demand a retraction. I learned over time this was a bad mistake. It will not be repeated. (Keeping posters respectful with each other is another can of worms with other problems, the least of which is that I do not wish to control anyone's life, but I have to keep the forum reasonable in many directions. That is another discussion.)
Here's the rule, and it's almost an axiom.
Self respect is necessary before respect for others can exist.
From my read of all this, Perigo does not respect others and does not respect himself. He turns the other cheek and demands that others do likewise on the simple matter of respect. This he holds as the good. (He would never say that, but that's what he does. All anyone needs to do is look and there it is.)
As to his ideas, he has latched on to a phrase he coined "value swoon" and tried to make it a criterion of music, something Objectivists should shoot for. Conceptually, this is a mishmash of the work with the audience. (
I.e., it's an oversimplification.) An art work by definition is an end in itself. Its only function is appreciation by human beings, but qua work, it exists as an independent entity. There is no way on earth to rationally discuss an emotion and leave out the person feeling it. In other words, art works are appreciated within the context of the appreciator. There cannot even be a "value swoon" (to use that klunky phrase) without a valuer. (I have a lot to say about this, but later, in another discussion.)
I will not discuss the other boneheaded arguments presented by Perigo. They speak for themselves. As for any input he could have to TAS, let's use his own words again, from that same thread:
Perigo said:
Objectivists still haven't learned to emulate Roark. Precisely my point again.
TAS now wishes to devote time and resources to the Internet. I think it should, too. According to Perigo's self-appraisal, he should be the one to usher them into the mysteries of publication and teach them how to do it right. I do agree that TAS can learn much from Perigo's Internet thread on music dealing with the ideas and manners he almost presented at a TAS seminar. As the saying goes, no man is useless. At the very worst, he can be a good example of what not to be.
Maybe Perigo thinks he can teach TAS how to emulate Roark on the Internet. That's not hard to teach, though. All anyone has to do is read that thread and imagine Roark there.
Michael
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