Wolf DeVoon Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 Roark would dynamite the conference center the night before the seminar began....I wonder what Rand's judgment would be of Perigo's behavior over the past few years and of TAS inviting him to speak at a seminar claiming to advocate the advancement of her ideas. My guess is that she'd line up Bidinotto, Hudgins and Thomas, and do that Three Stooges slap-them-all-with-one-swing maneuver...MSK, I think what just happened is that you've taken the first step toward being invited to give a few speeches at the 2009 TAS seminar! All you need to do now is call Robert and Ed scumbags and various other names, and insult TAS on an almost daily basis. Then, instead of taking leave of you and your website, they'll be doing everything they can to reach out to you and heal the wounds.Laugh out loud funny, my face hurts from smiling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dailey Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 ~ I'm with Bidinotto on this one.~ There're obviously too many Hatfields/McCoys whose idea of 'burying the hatchets' is ONLY in terms of 'into the others heads'. Getting (more accurately, staying) wrapped up...in these obviously external 'problem times'...with personally-based partisanal and intramural who-owes-who-which-apology-for-what-done/said-by-whom-long-ago (never mind "Who 'insulted' whom 1st and started this all, but won't admit it?") arguments is what left Greece open to Rome's expansion. It's what's leaving Objectivism and its 'admirers' open to no more than snickering by actual decision-maker influencers of political power.~ Some (on both 'sides') have argued about applying 'moral judgement.' Too bad they don't agree on the judgements themselves! Ntl, apropos attitude, agreed. Ergo, "Let's keep belittling our 'O-ist competitors" is the way to stress 'activism' about O-ism's worth to our culture? This is not a logical conclusion from that attitude.LLAPJ:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dailey Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 (edited) ADDENDUM:~ I repeat: let the cards play out as already dealt, with no deck changes merely because of anyone's 'ifs, ands, or but(t)s.'LLAPJ:DPS: A shame both sides caused Bidinotto to feel compelled to comment on how both are making Ed's invite, and Linz' acceptance...'impossible.' --- Nothing like village-torch-carriers (torchers?) 'supporting' each side, man. Edited January 22, 2008 by John Dailey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 John,I can't speak for anyone, but I really don't care what TAS does except for a very selfish personal wistfulness in my heart. I share many of the values TAS holds and it is more than saddening to see what it is doing right now, expecially since I believe it is betraying those values through an excess of zeal (or whatever).My problem is not TAS. It is to keep a distance from people I find contemptible like Perigo, who exists only as a parasite feeding off the reputations of others. If others (even those providing him with such spiritual feed) find value in him, fine. I personally will not be where he is honored while that stuff is going on. I want no part of it.But that is my personal decision. My main problem is here on OL with the anti-Branden bashing policy. To quote from a post on another thread, which is self-explanatory:I want to make it clear that I am not advocating anyone boycott TAS or any kind of movement whatsoever. Each person speaks for himself and does what is in his/her best interest. I also want to make something else clear. In the posting guidelines to OL, I stated that there will be no Branden-bashing. I meant it.Promoting one of the main Branden-bashers of all time (who is in bed with other principal Branden-bashers) is almost the same thing as direct bashing. I will not have it on OL. If people want to promote a Branden-basher, let them do it elsewhere. It's an awfully big Internet world out there. I HATE making this kind of statement, but this goes for everyybody.No Branden-bashing. No promoting Branden-bashers. (And yes, it is OK to bash Branden-bashers. )I don't care who likes this or who approves of it. This has been the policy since the founding of OL and it has been stated many times. Kat and I have been open about it. OL even went for about 6 months at the beginning being bashed everyday by SOLOP people without response to the incessant goading. I worked the emails to keep it down, too. But I finally gave up the ghost before the inevitable...If anyone needs or wants to see how to properly disagree with a Branden on OL, especially with Barbara, please look at a recent post by Dan Edge, a young ARI OAC student (or any number of posts by regulars). If you want to see how not to, look at SLOP.Michael(PS - Jonathan, you are wickedly funny... .) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 (PS - Jonathan, you are wickedly funny... .)Thanks, but I don't think what I wrote above was quite to the level of being wickedly funny. This is wickedly funny: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 Jonathan,That is side-splitting... LOLOLOL...Even Robert B is laughing... Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 Since I really don't like the ad h., including some of my own from time to time, I think the root of the ARI/TAS problem might be addressed (thanks, Neil P., for helping me think of this) by recognizing that Objectivism is NOT the philosophy of Ayn Rand.It cannot be for that would violate any possible standard of objectivity, which must be to find out what is what and what is best.Now the ARI isn't going to go along with this, but if TAS did and stuck to its guns it might yet land on its feet.I suggest using what is understood as classical Objectivist metaphysics and epistemology as the foundation, discarding the esthetics as indemonstrable as opposed to personal preference, and focusing on the ethics and politics.These last two must be combined or else it's just libertarianism.The basic difference is one between cultism and individualism. We don't have to chase Linz around with whatever we think makes him run. We can ignore ARI. I can support TAS.--Brant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 Well...After that pleasant interlude, back to pyromaniac mode...Wanna know how Perigo accepted Barbara's critique?Civility incarnate, of course!... the filthy, unutterably disgusting, low-life bitch.Ta daa!!! Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 Just so I can get this off my mind, are their any people here on OL who are engaged in "finding 'moral' reasons to rationalize their gleeful pyromania"?Are there any ungleeful pyromaniacs on OL?Are there any pyromaniacs on OL, gleeful or ungleeful, who do not rationalize with moral reasons?Is it necessary to be a pyromaniac in order to rationalize on OL, or is being gleeful enough?Am I the only one who found this statement by Robert B strange? MichaelEr...I think I just answered my own questions in that last post...(scratching head...)Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
william.scherk Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 Am I the only one who found this statement by Robert B strange?[ . . . ] participants on all sides of these contentious issues are deliberately making any positive resolution impossible -- by pouring more gasoline on the fire and then finding "moral" reasons to rationalize their gleeful pyromania[ . . . ][T]he continuing competition in vituperative, intramural one-upsmanship is putting Ed Hudgins (and TAS) in an impossible position, when his only aim all along was to heal wounds within the Objectivist movement by encouraging greater civility.Er...I think I just answered my own questions in that last post...(scratching head...)What strikes me is the unspecific nature of the finger-wagging and huff. A schoolmarm dismayed with an unruly class might say, "I am very disappointed with my classes. You are all to be punished, since you have wrecked everything, and you will never see me in this class again!" -- followed by sniffling and stomping noises. It is a blanket condemnation, without no names named. Who are among the guilty in these classes? All? An unspecified 'they'?Where did the unspecified pupils pour gasoline? who is responsible for vituperation? Which person used one-upmanship and nasty asides . . . in an attempt to box in Ed Hudgins?I totted up all the posters and their posts in the three relevant OL threads. I wondered who had throbbed and thundered with fire-rage and hot venom. I wondered who and what the heck Emperor RJ Bidinotto was roistering.We have a number of real names, those of us who (unlike James Heaps-Nelson, Philip Coates and Emperor RJB) continue posting to OL and who participated in the three threads. I guess we must all accept a scolding from Headmaster B and all hang our heads in shame. Well, here are the 30-odd suspects for whom all the classes are punished, with scores counted up by classmember post per page of topic.I haven't yet assigned vituperative weight per post, as my staff has gone on strike; my first rough eyeball of the stats fingers Emperor MSK as the object of the wagging.I suggest that the fairest way to re-enter the pantheon for everyone is to accept floggings in strict rota: 79 lashes for MSK . . . 25 lashes for JHN . . . and 3 for Bidinotto hisself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Grieb Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 Bill; Re My Lashes. You'll have to find me first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Bissell Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 "There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who shoves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube." -Ayn Rand, Atlas ShruggedVery apropos, thanks for posting this.Also, check out Ayn Rand's essay "Altruism as Appeasement" in The Objectivist, January 1966. Wonderful little piece. Here are a couple of relevant excerpts:The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority; it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind; it is appeaser's intellectual abdication that invites them to take over.Moral cowardice is fear of upholding the good because it is the good, and fear of opposing the evil because it is the evil. The next step leads to opposing the good in order to appease the evil, and rushing out to seek the evil's favor.Not naming any names, but if the shoe fits, wear it with my compliments.REB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 Over on SOLOP, I am pleased to see that the tribal spirit is flouishing and in great health. I was just honored with a Drooling Beastie thingie. Whew!Somebody over there finally got the idea right. You cannot bash the Brandens on OL. That took some doing, but they are starting to understand. Yay! You can disagree with the Brandens, but that is a distinction I do not expect the SOLOPERS to comprehend due to their cultural limitations. (I speak of the higher management and the tag-team, not the underlings.) Believe it or not, Valliant was a member of OL for a short while, but apparently he did not read the OL guidelines back then. Anyhooo... er... uhm... ... this is fun. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 (edited) Over on SOLOP, I am pleased to see that the tribal spirit is flouishing and in great health. I was just honored with a Drooling Beastie thingie. Whew!Somebody over there finally got the idea right. You cannot bash the Brandens on OL. That took some doing, but they are starting to understand. Yay! You can disagree with the Brandens, but that is a distinction I do not expect the SOLOPERS to comprehend due to their cultural limitations. (I speak of the higher management and the tag-team, not the underlings.) Believe it or not, Valliant was a member of OL for a short while, but apparently he did not read the OL guidelines back then. Anyhooo... er... uhm... ... this is fun. MichaelOh yeah? Bash Branden! Take THAT Barbara! Whamo! Bash, bash, bash! --Brant edit: best I could do. Edited January 23, 2008 by Brant Gaede Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Bissell Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 Over on SOLOP, I am pleased to see that the tribal spirit is flouishing and in great health. I was just honored with a Drooling Beastie thingie. Whew!Somebody over there finally got the idea right. You cannot bash the Brandens on OL. That took some doing, but they are starting to understand. Yay! You can disagree with the Brandens, but that is a distinction I do not expect the SOLOPERS to comprehend due to their cultural limitations. (I speak of the higher management and the tag-team, not the underlings.) Believe it or not, Valliant was a member of OL for a short while, but apparently he did not read the OL guidelines back then. Anyhooo... er... uhm... ... this is fun. MichaelMichael, another distinction the SOLOPERS (including some who have posted here) do not seem to be able to grasp is criticizing Rand vs. bashing her. You have certainly come down on the few people with Rand-bashing tendencies--and what credit do you get for that? To hear the detractors on SOLOP (again, some who posted here), you'd think that you were a ring-leader of the Bash Rand society. Or at least, standing idly by while the "inmates run the asylum." Sheesh.As you well know, I have my own bones to pick with Rand, and I think she did some bone-headed things, not only in her personal life, but (more importantly) in her philosophy writing. And I have laid out my arguments and evidence, and you have not rained down on me for it--and I appreciate that. It's part of how we put her in perspective--as a creative, brilliant writer and thinker, but one who was not perfect in either an intellectual or a moral sense.But one thing I respect above all: Rand operated by the principles/virtues of ~rational achievement~ and ~trade~. She cut a hell of a swath through literature and philosophy, whether you fully agree with her ideas or the behavior of her characters. And that's just plain admirable. And for the same reasons, I admire not only the Brandens, but also some of the other people related to the Movement--not only Peikoff and Kelley and some of their associates, but also people like Sciabarra, Rasmussen, Den Uyl, Machan, Hospers, Mack, (George) Smith, (Kay Nolte) Smith, and...the list goes on. They have stimulated me, challenged me, but above all, ~inspired~ me. Emotional fuel is hard to come by in our culture, and I'll gladly take it where I can find it--even when it comes from people I sometimes simply cannot get along with for more than an hour or two.So, if you think about it for a moment, I think you'll realize that this Movement of ours--WARTS AND ALL--is a HELL of a group of bright, feisty human beings. Next time you partake of your favorite adult beverage, please join me in toasting some of the brightest and best of the human race. And say "thank you" to Ayn Rand for bringing us together--at least, as close together as we can stand to be at any given time!REB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiodekadent Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 Am I the only one who found this statement by Robert B strange?[ . . . ] participants on all sides of these contentious issues are deliberately making any positive resolution impossible -- by pouring more gasoline on the fire and then finding "moral" reasons to rationalize their gleeful pyromania[ . . . ][T]he continuing competition in vituperative, intramural one-upsmanship is putting Ed Hudgins (and TAS) in an impossible position, when his only aim all along was to heal wounds within the Objectivist movement by encouraging greater civility.Er...I think I just answered my own questions in that last post...(scratching head...)What strikes me is the unspecific nature of the finger-wagging and huff. A schoolmarm dismayed with an unruly class might say, "I am very disappointed with my classes. You are all to be punished, since you have wrecked everything, and you will never see me in this class again!" -- followed by sniffling and stomping noises. It is a blanket condemnation, without no names named. Who are among the guilty in these classes? All? An unspecified 'they'?Where did the unspecified pupils pour gasoline? who is responsible for vituperation? Which person used one-upmanship and nasty asides . . . in an attempt to box in Ed Hudgins?I totted up all the posters and their posts in the three relevant OL threads. I wondered who had throbbed and thundered with fire-rage and hot venom. I wondered who and what the heck Emperor RJ Bidinotto was roistering.We have a number of real names, those of us who (unlike James Heaps-Nelson, Philip Coates and Emperor RJB) continue posting to OL and who participated in the three threads. I guess we must all accept a scolding from Headmaster B and all hang our heads in shame. Well, here are the 30-odd suspects for whom all the classes are punished, with scores counted up by classmember post per page of topic.I haven't yet assigned vituperative weight per post, as my staff has gone on strike; my first rough eyeball of the stats fingers Emperor MSK as the object of the wagging.I suggest that the fairest way to re-enter the pantheon for everyone is to accept floggings in strict rota: 79 lashes for MSK . . . 25 lashes for JHN . . . and 3 for Bidinotto hisself.A question regarding my "1" in the column "TAS Policy."What does that mean?If it is a dummy variable reflecting "1 for pro-TAS, 0 for anti-TAS" then giving me a 1 is accurate in the sense that "I back Dr. Kelley's "The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand". This does not imply that I agree with everything TAS does. My knowlege regarding the Perigo situation is limited. To my knowlege, Lindsay used to love Barbara (and I have seen the adulatory posts on SOLOP) until Barbara recommended Lindsay seek help for his alleged drinking problem, when Lindsay suddenly turned against Barbara for suggesting he had a drinking problem and then hopped into bed with James Valiant and Diana Hsieh and began calling Barbara a bitch. (MSK et. al, is this an accurate portrayal of the Barbara/Perigo split?). Now, I am not exactly someone with intimate knowlege of the split. I drink a fair amount (although I only drink good booze!), but I certainly do not get on the forums and rant when I have had a number of glasses of Roederer. If Lindsay is truly an alcoholic (and let me stress, I do not know if he is or isn't) then turning against Barbara for recommending he seek help is plain irrational. If Lindsay is not an alcoholic, merely a lush, then his campaign against Barbara for recommending he seek help is monumental overreaction to say the least. Regardless, given merely Perigo's proposed topic of speech, i.e. "anyone that doesn't like my favorite music is a Kantian Communist Evangelical" (or some variant thereof), I find it somewhat unadvised for TAS to invite him. I do not doubt TAS's good will whatsoever, but if someone is going to simply stand up on stage, play Rachmaninoff, and say "if you dont like this, you are a moral cannibal," it might be best to invite someone else. Regardless my respect for Dr Kelley for saying something that needed to be said is not diminished. Either way, does that really translate into a "1" "TAS POLICY"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 Michael, another distinction the SOLOPERS (including some who have posted here) do not seem to be able to grasp is criticizing Rand vs. bashing her. You have certainly come down on the few people with Rand-bashing tendencies--and what credit do you get for that?Roger,Sshhhhhhh!Nobody is supposed to notice that. It does not fit the fantasy the personality cult preachers sell to the sheeple."A" doesn't have to be "A.""A" can be what they say. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonfly Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 Michael, another distinction the SOLOPERS (including some who have posted here) do not seem to be able to grasp is criticizing Rand vs. bashing her. You have certainly come down on the few people with Rand-bashing tendencies--and what credit do you get for that?And where is the evidence for that alleged Rand-bashing on OL? My impression is that the terms "Rand-bashing" and "Rand-hater" are rather used as rhethorical devices against criticisms of Rand's arguments. That has nothing to do with "bashing", let alone "hating" (which is even more absurd). To equate attacking an argument with attacking the person who advances that argument is a characteristic of cultism. If you want examples of bashing, just read the posts by Perigo on Solo, like "the filthy, unutterably disgusting, low-life bitch". I can't remember that anyone on OL used such terms for Rand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
william.scherk Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 Either way, does that really translate into a "1" "TAS POLICY"?My error in not clearly labelling the spreadsheet. I simply counted how many times folks posted in three threads. So your one point only means you posted once in the thread regarding "TAS Policy," and so should receive one lash. Bidinotto's finger-wagging was non-specific. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellen Stuttle Posted January 24, 2008 Share Posted January 24, 2008 Michael, another distinction the SOLOPERS (including some who have posted here) do not seem to be able to grasp is criticizing Rand vs. bashing her. You have certainly come down on the few people with Rand-bashing tendencies--and what credit do you get for that?Adding to the lack of grasping the distinction, we now have Jim H-N claiming that the reason MSK called him a "liar" was "for defending Ayn Rand."http://www.solopassion.com/node/4092#comment-47481I admit to being surprised at seeing Jim change in plain sight what he was called a "liar" for. Here is the post which occasioned MSK's charge; this is the exact sentence:You know, with all of the talk of politeness, and I think of myself as a reasonably polite guy, the one person I haven't seen a lot of politeness or courtesy to here is Ayn Rand.He was not called a "liar" "for defending Ayn Rand"; instead for his saying that he sees little "politeness or courtesy" extended to Ayn Rand here. (I repeat that I disagree with the charge -- a charge for which Michael later apologized, another fact not being noticed on SOLO. The point I'm making here is that Jim has changed what the charge was for. Lovely illustration of the way interminably-lived false stories can get going.)Ellen___ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted January 24, 2008 Share Posted January 24, 2008 Adding to the lack of grasping the distinction, we now have Jim H-N claiming that the reason MSK called him a "liar" was "for defending Ayn Rand."http://www.solopassion.com/node/4092#comment-47481I admit to being surprised at seeing Jim change in plain sight what he was called a "liar" for. Here is the post which occasioned MSK's charge; this is the exact sentence:You know, with all of the talk of politeness, and I think of myself as a reasonably polite guy, the one person I haven't seen a lot of politeness or courtesy to here is Ayn Rand.He was not called a "liar" "for defending Ayn Rand"; instead for his saying that he sees little "politeness or courtesy" extended to Ayn Rand here. (I repeat that I disagree with the charge -- a charge for which Michael later apologized, another fact not being noticed on SOLO. The point I'm making here is that Jim has changed what the charge was for. Lovely illustration of the way interminably-lived false stories can get going.)Ellen,This is the accuracy problem over which I have been clashing with Jim for some time. The first time I noticed it was when he presented a laundry list of problems the Brandens's works had when dealing with Rand (see here). Probably the most ridiculous charge was that both Barbara and Nathaniel only dealt significantly with Rand the novelist and not Rand the philosopher. It seems like he goes into some kind of mental fog where he tries to make the facts fit his conclusions. He has been accused by several people of being a fence-straddler. Using that judgment, the fence would be his conclusions. Whatever. I only know he has been dreadfully inaccurate—often. I finally blew up when he bashed OL and promoted Perigo here on OL.I suppose I could have handled that better...Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted January 27, 2008 Share Posted January 27, 2008 Well, January has been quite distressing. Ironically, not for me in the stock market. I'm all wrung out. I've decided to take a leave from Internet posting. The negative value has overcome the positive for now.--Brant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted January 27, 2008 Share Posted January 27, 2008 Brant,WTF?I was just setting up some decent scapegoats to rally the minions for the Brant Gaede Cult. What kind of cult leader are you, anyway? Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Posted January 27, 2008 Share Posted January 27, 2008 Brant,WTF?I was just setting up some decent scapegoats to rally the minions for the Brant Gaede Cult. What kind of cult leader are you, anyway? MichaelNot to worry. I just had a batch of cards printed identifying me as Brant's "intellectual heir."J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Grieb Posted January 27, 2008 Share Posted January 27, 2008 Jonathan; It's dangerous to do the printing of cards when the person is still alive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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