Michael Kelly and James Heaps-Nelson have gone several rounds, arguing over whether or not Objectivist Living has become a haven of Rand-bashing. MSK better than anyone can point to considerable amounts of material on OL that is laudatory of Rand, while J H-N no doubt can cite an impressive amount of material attacking her.

One aspect of this topic that I'd like a little more clarity on -- and which might defuse some of the anger and tension on OL -- is to what extent J H-N is talking about the critiquing of Rand's bad behavior and bone-headed errors, as against the smearing of her character or intelligence.

For instance, while we may agree on particulars, a number of us think that Rand has made some really stupid or ignorant mistakes in her philosophy. Some have argued that she was an "ignoramus" about science and math. I have pointed out a particularly blatant piece of illogic in "Art and Cognition" where she discusses architecture and her definition of "art," as well as her ignorant claim that newborn babies are not yet capable of perception, and her muddled notion that our awareness of musical tones is "sensation."

There has probably been a great deal more of that kind of comment lately than examples of "good things about Ayn Rand." But is that tantamount to calling her a bad or stupid person? And is that any justification for branding Objectivist Living as Rand-Bashing Central?

REB

Just to say something good about Rand. She was dead on right about Capitalism. Also her presentation on Money (put in the mouth of Fransisco D.) was first rate.

Her theories of concept formation, formulated in the 50's and 60's were o.k. for what was known about the operation of the human brain -then-. We know a lot more now because of better instrumentation and technology.

Much more is known about perception now than then, particularly vision.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ba'al, I agree with your comments about Capitalism and Money -- even Concept-Formation (if I may continue the caps that you discontinued).

But regarding Perception -- sheesh, who needs scientific theory or experimental data? Just hold a newborn, and you can ~see~ that they are aware of entities, not just the Jamesian "bloomin', buzzin' confusion" of unintegrated sensations.

Perhaps my older daughter (now 29) was a bit exceptional, but I could tell at the age of 3 days (hers, not mine!) that she was perceiving objects. She even rotated her torso in order to track a particular object that drew her attention (the portable tv set, 2 feet away), no matter which way I turned my body while holding her.

When I saw that, I knew that Rand's uncritical echoing of James's view of infant perception was due to her ignorance and lack of experience. She may have been able to be a better and more prolific writer because of her decision not to have and care for babies, but it definitely robbed her of an experience that would have saved her from making a rather goofy blunder in her epistemology.

REB

P.S. -- And in saying this, I am ~not~ dissing Rand as a person or a philosopher. I am saying that, like all humans, she had blind spots resulting from her making choices that closed her off to certain potentially very useful information. (I happen to think that a number of other beneficial things would have resulted from Rand's having had children, but for details, you'll have to consult with the folks at Crosstime Traffic, c/o Harry Turtledove.)

This isn't a Rand-bashing place. Look at what it's homepage description is sasying, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. I think a lot of it is that sometimes people might phrase a little harshly, when less will suffice. But, it's often a pretty big deal for people to even get to the place where they are criticizing Rand. If they are on a Rand site, there's a pretty good chance they are because she has had impact on their lives. I've seen it come out a little funny.

And some people get upset when [b]any/b] aspect of Rand is criticized. I've always said that Rand is a hero to me, and that heroes don't have to be perfect. As a matter of fact, if I ever found one, I'd be a touch suspicious.

Way too much energy goes into this site to reduce it to an AR bashing site--those are easy to find, for comparison's sake.

rde
Everything (God) ever makes has a little crack in it.

Roger,

I couldn't agree with you more that Rand missed a whole lot about human nature by not spending "quality time" ( ) with a newborn baby. Not only about perception did she miss the obvious but also about emotion. Infants show emotion immediately upon being born (and I'll bet inside the womb as well, after a certain state of development). And that is way before they are capable of abstract thinking involving language!

The emotions have a definite nature of their own apart from cognition. That is not to say they are somehow of a lower order, fighting with reason. However, they are already on the scene in a very powerful way at least from birth. Reason develops gradually and later in childhood.

But by then, emotion has integrated with lots of things -- actions, memories, habits, etc. There's a lot of one's personality, both good and bad traits, that forms before one can think conceptually, and some of it is very hard or impossible to change.

I give a detailed treatment of infant affect in my JARS article (Fall 06, v8 #1).

MSK also reviews my work here

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...p?showtopic=785

Steve Shmurak

It is not what Ayn Rand was wrong about, it is what she was right about.

--Brant

~ Analyze, pro or con, a person's views, and one is 'critiquing' the correctness (or lack) of their beliefs...as to being worthwhile for one to accept. This is the stuff of worthwhile debates. --- Then there's mis-representation out of ignorance...or (as in a recent NR by a Novack) lies.

~ Analyze, pro or con, a person's behaviour, and one is praising or attacking ('smearing' is over-generalizing the import of one's attack) the person. This is the stuff, too much of, which be pedastalizing or dragging down an image of them, as a person; else, it's merely admiring or scandalizing (regardless the truth or falsity.) --- Then there's 2nd/3rd-hand gossip and pure speculation (usually 'scandal'-oriented.) --- All of this is the stuff of E! (as in the 'latest' tsk-tsking of Britney's jump into a papparazo car for ride home.)

~ As to how much of which re what-vs-who is done here on Rand...all readers can decide on their own. I see no point in arguing how much is too much of whichever...anymore.

LLAP
J:D

Nice. Always a pleasure to read you.

I've been thinking about OL slightly differently, i.e., the interface. SOLO is gaudy and overblown graphically. Takes forever to load on a dial-up. Then there's the cult of personality. Maybe it's my my middle class second-rate brain that feels comfortable here at OL. I can speak my mind without toeing a party line, half of which I don't understand. The strength of OL is a lot like the free market. Lots of specialists, bunch of newbies, some old hands and very easy-going moderation.

Hey, Michael, how do I send a check to help pay the rent?

W.

It's fine to criticize Rand, but I think a lot of the criticism generally (not here) is of the kind that can't be answered straightforwardly or accepted. It just kind of sits over in a corner and smells until somebody brings it out for show and tell. Now, my main complaint with Rand goes back to To Whom It May Concern. In that essay, she basically accuses 2 people of financial impropriety and offers no proof. Then she asked a whole bunch of people to take her side without evidence. In 1968, I would not have taken her side. I used to see some Maalox moments from orthodox Objectivists when I said basically, you can't do that and expect people to believe you.

Now, what would I have done in that case to render justice? I would have simply opened the books and said you're wrong, I'm asking for a retraction and given the gravity of the charges I don't consider your accusation lightly. That's what would have happened in a rational world. Instead what happened is that nobody said anything and everyone took potshots from fortified bunkers and talked about anything but proof or evidence about the real charges.

Everything else to me is just window dressing and beating around the bush. Even PARC makes a flimsy attempt to prove the TWIMC charges. There's a great big tapdance on all sides around that issue. Everything else is a side issue to be tackled separately and disappointing perhaps, but in a civil world mostly a private matter.

Jim

Wolf,

LOL...

Thank for the thought. I wasn't dropping a hint in my other post. I really don't like politics and I think paying the rent is far more useful in today's world.

Michael

I have on occasion said to people that the two biggest shocks in 1968 were the riots in Washington DC and the Rand-Branden split. I can tell you were I was when I first heard the news.

I have to say that I found TWIMC provided some information and the Branden's statement even more. But I still did not know the real reason.

I did not find out that till later.

I was and remain critical of Nathaniel Branden's actions. I never felt the same way about Barbara.

Jim,

One of the things -- possibly the main thing -- I find so frustrating about your way of delivering your opinions is that you're so characteristically vague, I'm left guessing as to what in particular you are talking about.

Here you say that in To Whom It May Concern, Rand "basically accuses 2 people of financial impropriety and offers no proof."

Well, that's one thing she did. But why do you describe this as "basically" what she did, as if there weren't any other charges made? Is it your actual point that this was the one charge which should have been taken with seriousness? That the rest should have been ignored? (Possibly you're forgetting what all the rest was?)

You then say, "in that case [you] would have simply opened the books and said you're wrong." Are you forgetting that the financial issue was answered in the replies by the Brandens? Is your point that you think they should have only addressed that issue and none of the other charges?

You then claim "Instead what happened is that nobody said anything and everyone took potshots from fortified bunkers and talked about anything but proof or evidence about the real charges [by which you're meaning the financial charges]."

Who are the "nobody" and the "everyone" who said nothing on that subject? It isn't true, to repeat, that even in print "nobody said anything." Something was said in the Brandens' replies. Or are you meaning, the O'ist world at large of the time? If the latter, again, you're factually wrong. Some people discussed the financial issue at length, and what do you know of what "everyone" did? Were you there? Rhetorical question; you weren't even born then.

You then say there's "a great big tapdance on all sides around that issue." Is there? I don't recall seeing that issue much mentioned by disputants on the various lists I've read. But aren't you presuming that because you think of that issue as the central one, everyone else ought to also and thus that others are "tapdancing" around it -- when possibly the truth of it is that others don't share your view of the financial issue's centrality?

Ellen

___

Hey, I'm serious. I'd like to contribute $ to Objectivist Living. Preferably by check or debit card. How do I do it?

W.

Ellen,

I'll grant you that most people I talk to think of The Affair and various permutations of what happened related to it as central, but if that's true where's the beef? Even if it was really bad, what does that have to do with the rest of the people in the movement? Ayn didn't mention it in the TWIMC article, why bring it up at all? All participants had to know there would be wildly different reactions to it by many people that wouldn't amount to a hill of beans. My first reaction on hearing about it well before reading PAR was to laugh and think good for her.

It just seems like it's private and not that important for people to know. I mean it would be ridiculous for all of us to wear our sexual histories on our sleeve and pretty boring outside a locker room context if you're not the two (or four) involved.

Jim

I'm sorry you feel frustrated. When I think it's likely that you'll have something to say about one of my posts in the future, I'll try to be more specific and provide more detail. I'm usually pressed for time, as I am now, so sometimes this is the best I can do.

Jim

Here's why: because instead of mentioning it, what she did was to leave a gaping hole as to specifically what she was so tremendously incensed about. She refers to his shocking behavior in deliberately deceiving several persons over the course of several years, without providing particulars in regard to deceiving them about what. The way she makes it sound, he could have been cutting up bodies and hiding them somewhere, she makes the unnamed offense sound so enormous. Also she describes the document he gave her as so irrational she'd broken all personal contact with him. What did he say? Did he argue that Hitler was right or something? I mean, the descriptive language she used was appropriate to that magnitude of content.

I felt when I read the piece that it was obvious what she was hiding; it was sexual interest, why else the very inflamed language while performing a run around the need (to support her case) of providing details on the major charges? (By "major charges," I mean the general characterological charges, not the financial charge; the latter was "tacked on" as an "additional point.") I also thought that she'd been very foolish by in effect announcing to the whole world just what she was attempting not to reveal. She wanted him damned, but without specifics; yet the way she went about writing the piece pointed to the category of specifics which she didn't name.

My opinion is that the whole thing would have been no one's business and that most of the commotion which has resulted needn't have resulted, IF she had had the good sense to go through with her intitial intention of just writing a brief statement that she'd broken with him (and Barbara) and left it at that. SHE was the one who turned the affair into the world's business by the way she wrote her statement.

Ellen

___

Thanks Ellen. This actually clarifies a lot for me. My wife tells me I tend to miss emotionally loaded content when I read it. I'll read it again and see if it comes off differently.

Jim

~ "There they go, again..."

LLAP
J:D

Turtledove talked about Rand?

No. This was an "inside," tongue-in-cheek comment for the enjoyment of those who are aware of Turtledove's writing alternate histories, alternate futures, and alternate universes. Crosstime Traffic is a series of alternate universe/alternate future novels, aimed at "young readers" (teenagers), and I have read about 5 or so of them to my now-13-year-old daughter for bedtime stories. She loves the stuff. :-)

Anyway, in another universe, different from ours, Ayn Rand would have chosen to have children ~and~ be a writer, and she would have been much wiser about certain issues, including the issue of perception in infants. That was my point.

REB

Wolf,

Since you so graciously stated this so openly, Kat added a PayPal donation button at the bottom of the page.

Thank you.

Michael

Ta-da!

You just paid without exposing your financial information.
Receipt ID: 1KK546748T5569110

Okay, who's next?

Wolf,

Much obliged.

When Kat gets home I will be able to examine it. I didn't get a copy of the Paypal code.

Michael

GETTING BACK TO THE ORIGINAL SUBJECT...

~ Rand was a hypocrite (Ha! Got her!) re being 'honest' about...
1) Her name's origin
2) Her views on receiving 'no help'...she considered worth as regarding as such.
3) Her love for her husband as being more than 'superficial.'
4) Her "To Whom It May Concern" 'explanation' for discontinuing THE OBJECTIVIST.
5) Her ad-libbed commentings on...misc.

~ Rand was 'wrong' (whoopee!) about...
1) Her (can we say 'non-Philosophic'?) ruminating analysis about what makes music 'MUSIC.'
2) Her argument that "Cosmology should be thrown out of 'Philosophy' (as a proper subject.)"
3) Her view that a female being a U.S. President is so too...t-o-o (and look what kind of female, fitting Rand's concern, we have running for it!)
4) ....ah-h-h-h....

~ I'm sure that many more things can be listed under other categories...which have already been covered IN THIS FORUM.

LLAP
J:D

Moi! Moi! (Am I too late?)

--Brant

ADDENDUM:

~ Anyone care to...'add'...to this list? I'm sure other areas (hell: 'categories') can be...'crystallized' re what's already been, um, 'critiqued' about her behaviour, ad hoc commentings, interview-faux-pas's, clarified philosophical views (volition, induction, relation-of-facts-to-'logic', ignorance-of-history/anthropology/biology/quantum-mechanics/u-pick-it)...and, of course, sex.

~ Even Jefferson wasn't psycho-'analyzed' (dare I say 'psychologized'? Oops; she did such, but, no one else does) this much, scandal/gossip-wise.

LLAP
J:D

It isn't my view that she "was a hypocrite [...] re being 'honest' about..."

1) "Her name's origin"
I think she was the source of the typewriter story, although clearly she can't have started that story at the time Fern Brown reports, since the Remington-Rand typewriter didn't exist then. However, my belief about why she started telling the story was that she wanted her real name kept secret during the Stalin era. She'd lost touch with her family, and worry about their safety was reasonable.

3) "Her love for her husband as being more than 'superficial.'"
Who has said that?

5) "Her ad-libbed commentings on...misc."
You'd have to be specifc to provide a basis for assessing.




1) Her discussion of "what makes music 'MUSIC'" is in a formally philosophic essay; I don't know why you'd call it "'non-Philosophic.'"

2) Who says she was wrong that '"Cosmology should be thrown out of 'Philosophy' (as a proper subject.)"'?

~

How odd for you to post such a list. I thought you hated all such discussions as the one you're asking for.

Ellen

___

Good question!

But I think it was ~metaphysics~ in particular that Rand thought cosmology should be thrown out of. (Of course, throwing it out of philosophy will necessarily throw it out of metaphysics as well!)

Now, the answer to your question depends on whether you conceive of metaphysics -- i.e., the Objectivist metaphysics -- in minimal terms, as Rand did in her Journals, or in a more robust manner, as most philosophers do.

Minimalist metaphysics a la Rand holds that metaphysics is just the Law of Identity and its corollaries.

This means that ~any~ speculation about the nature of matter ~or~ consciousness is "out." In other words, metaphysicians cannot do arm-chair physics/cosmology -- except for vetoing models of matter or the universe that are logically incoherent. But neither can they do arm-chair psychology/philosophy of mind -- again, except for vetoing models of consciousness or of the mind that are logically incoherent.

So, how do Objectivists justify arguing for various tenets such as: the causal efficacy of consciousness, consciousness as metaphysically passive, etc., as Efron, Peikoff, and others do? If these are axiomatic, or at least corollaries of axioms, then where do they fit, if not in metaphysics?

I think that this is a fertile area for further work by philosophers sympathetic to Objectivism, but not hamstrung by the closed-system perspective.

I'd like to see a nice, tight argument for how all the axioms and corollaries fit together in and/or between metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, logic, and the various sciences such as physics and psychology. The minimalist model of Objectivist metaphysics makes this a rather tricky enterprise! (I've previously done some writing on it in the old Atlantis list, but I'm not really satisfied with what I did there.)

REB

John,

"To Whom It May Concern" was 1968. The last issue of The Objectivist was September, 1971. Her explanation was for discontinuing with the Brandens, not discontinuing The Objectivist.

Her last essay in The Objectivist, "Brief Summary" is a huge rant against several trends (like anarcho-capitalists) and especially Kant. It sandwiched in an essay from Peikoff called "Kant and Self-Sacrifice" and concluded with a couple of quotes from her previous writing.

Here is a quote from her essay:


Here are the two concluding paragraphs:


Michael

Michael; Thanks for the correction of the date of the Objectivist's closing and thanks for the quotes.

A very nice essay. You are a gentleman and a scholar.

I think it is the closed-system perspective that is the Achilles Heel of Objectivism as a respectable branch of philosophy, politics, ethics and aesthetics. Which is really a shame. Rand had some very valuable insights on many matters which have been tossed aside because of the closed-mindedness of her acolytes. Too many purges and too much vitriol have poisoned Objectivism for many folks. After the current generation of hard-liners dies off (I mean that quite literally) a day may come when Objectivism can be revisited by people without emotional issues and the really good stuff of Objectivism can be mined and brought to the surface. Think of a kind of neo-Objectivism with the narrowness and the errors of the original purged.

When the Peikfoffs and the Harrimans are safely buried, Objectivism can be properly rehabilitated.

Ba'al Chatzaf

So what your saying is that someone with absolutely no training in "the nature of matter" can pronounce judgments as to the "logical coherence" of a theory developed by physicists who have spent their whole lives studying this phenomena? That doesn't seem right to me.

I don't think there is such a thing as a person who has absolutely no training in the nature of matter!

It's always fair game to tell a physicist that such and such doesn't make sense because of such and such. Then if he's inclined he can explain. It's called "communication". Some physicists even write books for non-physicists to read!


Shayne

Any kid who has stumbled and skinned his/her knee has something cogent to say about matter. Cogent, but not necessarily deep. Knowing about matter is a matter(sic) of survival. Knowing its deep structure is useful and important, but not necessarily essential.

Ba'al Chatzaf

It may be a matter of survival for a boy scout to "know" about matter, but for the human race to survive it is essential to know about it's "deep" structure.

Why? The human race (homo sapien sapien) has existed for between 250,000 and 500,000 years. Science capable of plumbing the depths of material reality has only existed for about 200 years. All that is necessary for our survival is the ability to ambush dumb beasts and dress in their fur and eat their flesh.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Rand, flaws warts and all, gave us with libertarian and limited government inclinations a well needed shot in the arm and a boost to the spirit. Whatever other errors Rand committed, she did a good deal to discredit the "liberal" state first agenda that has been growing in our country since the time of Teddy Roosevelt (if not before). At the time of publication -Atlas Shrugged- was a kick-ass work of fiction and a call to arms. Think of it as Unweaving the Spell . For that I say -- thank you.

Ba'al Chatzaf