Objectivist Roundup

[caroljane]

I will start off by saying I choose Dr Piekoff's masterwork, since I have read enough excerpts to pretend I have already read it once and I am a really fast reader.

I would be too jealous of her accomplishments to read the Hsieh opus, I admit it. I imagine it is a brilliant exposition of an explosive new concept. "You Make Your Own Luck." Her own career, indeed illustrates such a concept. I do look forward to any musings Moralist may have, upon this groundbreaking study in his area of expertise.

[Brant Gaede]

It is entirely possible that if someone were to put a gun in my mouth and turn the safety off I would still refuse to read a book from Dr. H about luck and whatnot.

And Edith Packer, bless her soul, is more commited to recycling than a hairy-legged enviromentalist.

I've never heard before of turning the safety off on a gun, especially before the mouth insertion. Try, "switch off."

--Brant

"Bang, bang, I shot him down, bang, bang, I shot my baby down--bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, I ran out of bullets, Dang!!"

[Selene]

So we have some pictures of you in Cher outfits...yes, or, no?

[Brant Gaede]

So we have some pictures of you in Cher outfits...yes, or, no?

Uh, I would have embedded a video if I cared enough to learn how.

--Cher Brant

what's this either-or crap?

[caroljane]

I always felt there was an Armenian side to you.

[Brant Gaede]

I always felt there was an Armenian side to you.

Emotionalist!

--Brant

rational, rational, rational!

[PDS]

It is entirely possible that if someone were to put a gun in my mouth and turn the safety off I would still refuse to read a book from Dr. H about luck and whatnot.

And Edith Packer, bless her soul, is more commited to recycling than a hairy-legged enviromentalist.

I've never heard before of turning the safety off on a gun, especially before the mouth insertion. Try, "switch off."

--Brant

"Bang, bang, I shot him down, bang, bang, I shot my baby down--bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, I ran out of bullets, Dang!!"

Hey, if you had a gun in your mouth--combined with a threat to read one of those books--you might not have paid hyper-close attention to detail either.

In my imagination, the gun tasted like a burnt matchstick, all I heard was a "click," and I assumed it was a safety mechanism of some sort. I was sweating profusely and on the verge of pissing my pants.

Every time you make me relive this, I am traumatized yet again.

[Brant Gaede]

It is entirely possible that if someone were to put a gun in my mouth and turn the safety off I would still refuse to read a book from Dr. H about luck and whatnot.

And Edith Packer, bless her soul, is more commited to recycling than a hairy-legged enviromentalist.

I've never heard before of turning the safety off on a gun, especially before the mouth insertion. Try, "switch off."

--Brant

"Bang, bang, I shot him down, bang, bang, I shot my baby down--bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, I ran out of bullets, Dang!!"

Hey, if you had a gun in your mouth--combined with a threat to read one of those books--you might not have paid hyper-close attention to detail either.

In my imagination, the gun tasted like a burnt matchstick, all I heard was a "click," and I assumed it was a safety mechanism of some sort. I was sweating profusely and on the verge of pissing my pants.

Every time you make me relive this, I am traumatized yet again.

Ah, poor baby!

--Brant

[PDS]

It is entirely possible that if someone were to put a gun in my mouth and turn the safety off I would still refuse to read a book from Dr. H about luck and whatnot.

And Edith Packer, bless her soul, is more commited to recycling than a hairy-legged enviromentalist.

I've never heard before of turning the safety off on a gun, especially before the mouth insertion. Try, "switch off."

--Brant

"Bang, bang, I shot him down, bang, bang, I shot my baby down--bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, I ran out of bullets, Dang!!"

Hey, if you had a gun in your mouth--combined with a threat to read one of those books--you might not have paid hyper-close attention to detail either.

In my imagination, the gun tasted like a burnt matchstick, all I heard was a "click," and I assumed it was a safety mechanism of some sort. I was sweating profusely and on the verge of pissing my pants.

Every time you make me relive this, I am traumatized yet again.

Ah, poor baby!

--Brant

It wasn't that bad until I imagined it happening in a West Virginia outhouse.

[anthony]

Jesus. Bandler's race and sex obsessions have fused, and he proclaims on Solo to all white men, that their daughters will be raped by black gangs, and in Europe massraped by Muslims, as is already happening, because white women are the most coveted of all women .Not a paraphrase.

I wish I could

To answer your question Tony, I keep bringing it up because Bandler does. This thread is about what is going on in the subculture, and the convergence between the ultraconservative collectivism you note and the Objectivish world goes on sometimes, especially politically .Remember Ron Paul and the racist newsletters he "didn't know anything about"?

And you are the investigative reporter whose job it is to expose what she sees...?

I know very little about the poster, except for reading a piece of his years back, and thinking that he had a fine mind and wrote well. If he's become a bit weird I believe that's a great pity.

I don't cruise the forums anything like you do, but my objection is how representative you make such crazy excesses appear.

There is a huge quantity of good, original and honest thinking around O'ist circles. Granted that in that quest to truth, we are all guilty sometimes of rash or ludicrous statements, does the observer ridicule our anomalous remarks as indicative of the individual, the totality of his mind and of all Objectivists - and further, of Objectivism itself? I shouldn't think so. Unjust and too easy: like shooting fish in barrel.

Tony, I take your point and understand your concern, but I think it is unfounded.

Even the newest of newbie browsers on the internet soon notices that some posters are barking mad, and do not reflect upon the various ideologies they espouse or discuss.

Bandler himself says he expects to be considered a madman, and that the Objectivist world rejects his racist views.

When fish like that swim to the top of the barrel I expect I will still shoot them,old habits die hard. But nobody reading any such posts would ever infer that OL, let alone Objectivism in general, endorses the barking.

Ooohh, Carol: I am but a mule,

Darlin' I love you,

Though you treat O'ists cruel...

(C. - only your "not an anomaly" remark got me stirred up.)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Carol,

You are not on your gig.

Swan song for the racist? (See here.)

Dayaamm!

You missed the big one.

Michael

[caroljane]

Oh, no! No wonder I slunk into flacking! You are right, I missed it. Too much going on locally.

As to thethe to the Swan Song, words fail me. But not entirely. Dog provides a fair example of Bathos ...rings his despairing alarm against the greatest ignored evils of today..the reality of "black on white crime, and the higher rate of unemployment among males than females".

Maybe on top of all else he has to suffer, as a lone truth teller who is morally superior to all seven billion other people in the world, he has lost his job?

[PDS]

Carol,

You are not on your gig.

Swan song for the racist? (See here.)

Dayaamm!

You missed the big one.

Michael

One of the worst flounces in the history of mankind.

There is a cautionary tale for young Objectivists in there, me thinks.

[Brant Gaede]

Carol,

You are not on your gig.

Swan song for the racist? (See here.)

Dayaamm!

You missed the big one.

Michael

One of the worst flounces in the history of mankind.

There is a cautionary tale for young Objectivists in there, me thinks.

He sounds like an American Firster after Pearl Harbor.

--Brant

James Taggart after John Galt?

[anthony]

Carol,

You are not on your gig.

Swan song for the racist? (See here.)

Dayaamm!

You missed the big one.

Michael

One of the worst flounces in the history of mankind.

There is a cautionary tale for young Objectivists in there, me thinks.

What I was thinking. Yet again I was reminded of D. Kelley's caution of Objectivists having to walk that fine line between intrinsicism and subjectivism.

There are some truths in what Bandler observes - it's what he makes of it, that is wrong, I believe. He's like the scientist who has studied a virulent disease his whole career, but himself succumbs to it and dies. Collectivism destroys the spirit. It looks like Bandler has concluded that if you can't beat 'em, join the conservatives, and so doing, bought into collectivism in another form.

He's bright and knowledgeable enough to figure the error out one day, I would think.

But yes.

As we see, the contemporary response to sexism? "Reverse" sexism.

The p.c. answer to racism, and all its accompanying personal guilt and public hypocrisy? "Reverse" racism.

'Progressivist' statism is the disease.

But don't spend too long staring into the altruist-collectivist abyss or it will reach out and pull you in.

[Brant Gaede]

'Progressivist' statism is the disease.

But don't spend too long staring into the altruist-collectivist abyss or it will reach out and pull you in.

Ah, the Stocky syndrome!

--Brant

hasn't caught me yet, but, pant, pant, it's getting closer, pant! (I wish it would just bribe me so I can go on a cruise and relax.)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Tony,

I don't believe the problem is intellectual. It's the story the person lives in his mind. If it were restricted only to this misguided soul (who, I believe, will outgrow his racism over time since he appears to have a spark of intelligence at times), I wouldn't comment.

Only I can see the truth. The world is perishing in a orgy of [FILL IN THE BLANK]. Oh... the bastards! The BASTARDS!!! But I will carry on... And I won't complain... Such is my lot... (sniff sniff)

Basically, this is an orgy of self-pity from martyrdom that is encouraged on SLOP. The misunderstood genius wannabe.

The idea is secondary and the posture is all.

It's embarrassing.

Michael

[anthony]

"The idea is secondary and the posture is all". Quite, you're likely correct. Never right to justify one's emotional bias through principles of philosophy, but give him due, he has seemingly acknowledged that with his departure. Still, in the little I've read of DB, there is an amount of 'existential angst' in there too

As PDS suggests, there's an object lesson for young Objectivists. Also, a recollection for older guys like me. The choices can be brutal when young and intensely aware, and making it all harder on oneself than it ever needs to be, cannot be the answer. "What to do when I know the solution in a world that ignores me?"

Ironically, objectivity and perspective get lost by we Objectivists often.

I think it's about pursuing that eternal balance between your life as supreme value, of utmost gravity - and (stealing from Kundera) your life as "an unbearable lightness of being". And (past a certain point) let "the world" go hang.

Holding them both simultaneously - now, there's the feat!

[caroljane]

Michael,

I think the saddest takeaway DB had from SLOP was as he said in his valedictory, "it is important to know who* to hate" The Perigoist Protocol is that hate is more necessary than love, since hardly anything is lovable and nearly everything is hateful. Nice grooming Linz.

*sic

[9thdoctor]

One of the worst flounces in the history of mankind.

What I read of him had a way of calling to mind a famous quote from Alexandre Dumas:

"My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends."

Skimming his flounce-gram you'd think he was about to quote Sinatra's signature song My Way. No wait, here's a performance by, could it be, DB himself?

[PDS]

One of the worst flounces in the history of mankind.

What I read of him had a way of calling to mind a famous quote from Alexandre Dumas:

"My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends."

Skimming his flounce-gram you'd think he was about to quote Sinatra's signature song My Way. No wait, here's a performance by, could it be, DB himself?

Maybe an even more apt line from Dumas--put in the mouth of The Count of Monte Cristo after his friend tries to talk him out of his plan for revenge-- given our would-be* Flouncer's passionate love of hate: "Don't deprive me of my hate." **

*Don't worry, he'll be back on SLOP within a year.

**I can never find this line in the book, but it was definitely in the movie.

[Flea]

One of the worst flounces in the history of mankind.

What I read of him had a way of calling to mind a famous quote from Alexandre Dumas:

"My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends."

Skimming his flounce-gram you'd think he was about to quote Sinatra's signature song My Way. No wait, here's a performance by, could it be, DB himself?

You give him far too much credit. Start at 8:20 of the following and you'll see a more accurate depiction of Bandler's self-image. Note, however, this character lives out his ideals in reality (or at least the reality of the film), rather than posturing in the mirror and crying himself to sleep at his utter inability to match walk and talk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoFRbvpPTgU

[9thdoctor]

Start at 8:20 of the following and you'll see a more accurate depiction of Bandler's self-image.

Good one, I'm not at all familiar with this film.

BTW, I now realize I (inadvertently) defamed the whole category of great apes by referencing them re Bandler, so I'd like to take it back.

[Jonathan]

Pigero:

I'll add it to my to-do list, but not at the top—that place is occupied by a mainly non-literary project that won't be unveiled till early next year, probably, so please don't expect anything straight away, Walter.

Could it be that Pigero is finally going to produce a video (or a series of videos!!!) of him air-conducting? Damn, I hope so! Hurry up and "unveil" it, Pigero!

It's a funny thing, this book business. Charles Krauthammer has just published an accumulation of essays garnered from decades of writing, entitled Things that Matter. I don't doubt that it's headed to the top of the best-seller list if it isn't there already, and that it deserves to be. I published a similar collection, Total Passion, which I unblushingly would claim to be just as good, and of course scarcely anyone's heard of it or is ever likely to, in spite of rave reviews from the few who have.

Yup, you read that right. He believes that he's just as good as Krauthammer. It's not fair that Pigero is not on the best-seller list. Heh.

It's times like these when I wish I could hear the other side of the story about why Pigero is no longer in television. We've heard his side, in which he heroically walked away from the profession due to his high standards and moral righteousness. Given his penchant for delusion and self-aggrandizement, I have no doubt whatsoever that his explanation of events is almost completely false. I wonder what actually happened.

J

[caroljane]

The veiled project could be a return to television, or to politics. Or he could be negotiating marriage with Moeller, on the rebound. Or indeed, a von Fursternburg/Dilleresque alliance with Olivia, Lady HooHa!

I too cannot wait for the first of the year for the exciting news. But he does not say what year.