Ayn Rand Institute turmoil


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When the John McCaskey fiasco went public, one observer thought that the turmoil resulting from McCaskey's quasi-purge was creating quite a stir in orthodox Objectivist circles to the point where there might be a split.

It's almost a year later and (so far) I have not seen anything that has lead me to believe that a schism has or will occur. Does anyone know if there could be a aplit among ARI rank and file or has the controversy subsided?

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The better question is why did someone this smart get involved with them in the first place. I suspect it's because he just saw the words Ayn Rand and thought that these people actually took reason and reality seriously.

Anybody who has a brain and integrity isn't going to get involved with ARI. Most of them have better things to do.

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I tend to agree except its kind of hard not to sign on with ARI since they have a lot of money and resources. The activism and scholarly work coming out from ARI and other orthodox objectivist groups associated with them is very impressive. The orthodox faction is where the IOS/TAS faction was during the 1990's.

As a result of the resources ARI has I am sure they are able to reach many students, attract new activists and young people which keeps them active with new generations of Objectivists.

The better question is why did someone this smart get involved with them in the first place. I suspect it's because he just saw the words Ayn Rand and thought that these people actually took reason and reality seriously.

Anybody who has a brain and integrity isn't going to get involved with ARI. Most of them have better things to do.

Edited by Mike Renzulli
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Perhaps this is a better way to say this: John McCaskey has better things to do than hang out with the ARI crowd. Most people like him do have better things to do. I would say the same thing for people like Neil Peart of Rush or Mark Cuban. I would love to see those people get involved. But I think they this kind of stuff and decide to go somewhere else.

It's Gresham's Law: the bad drives out the good.

Edited by Chris Baker
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For the benefit of those of us who don't know these things,

Could you explain the turmoil for us?

(By "us" I mean "me.")

Here's a couple threads to read. The first is more directly what Mike is talking about, but the second deals with another issue that arose about the same time. Peikoff's gone off the deep end, to such an extent that very few people try to make excuses for him anymore. This has never been the site where that excuse making went on anyway, so you'll have to look on some other forums to see what I mean.

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9169&view=findpost&p=106683

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8871&view=findpost&p=101821

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For the benefit of those of us who don't know these things,

Could you explain the turmoil for us?

(By "us" I mean "me.")

You can get the comic book version in "Aristotle Responds on Catachresis" in the LOLOL section.

Welcome to OL, Fred.

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