Why Nobody Takes PARC Seriously Anymore

[william.scherk]

Michael and William,

Hey, don't leave me out. I mentioned this mistake before (at post 446). Do you guys have a "reading problem"?

Yikes! -- thanks for pointing that out. I properly credited you and And Worse, Ellen Stuttle, in an addendum to my post at SOLO.

[Neil Parille]

William,

As you may know, Miss Stuttle, Dr. Campbell and myself are collectively "gang bangers" according to (I believe) one Casey Fahy.

If you are interested in joining this elite group, I will reveal the official and quasi-Masonic hand-grip at the appropriate time.

-NEIL

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I just had a funny thought.

When you analyze PARC, once you get over the stupefaction from accepting the enormity of the boneheadedness of it as real and that an adult (and professional lawyer at that) would produce such a mishmash, it is actually quite enjoyable.

It's like doing a crosswords puzzle or one of those puzzles where you have to draw a line around words in a bunch of random letters. In this game, it could be called, "Valliant says this, Reality is that." The fun comes in checking his sources and works he quoted and lining them up side by side with what he wrote. Then watch as the errors and lies practically jump off the page at you.

Bonus sessions can come from doing the same with his online posts.

If a game ever comes from this, we could call the points "Bones." (I originally thought of "Randbones" because it sounded so good, but Valliant's Bones go way beyond Rand. He is an equal opportunity Bonehead when he gets on a roll.)

I'm not worried about running out of Bones either. The Bonehead is busy making a fresh batch every day.

Also, you could get bonus Bones when you point out where he originally declared victory or stated that another person "conceded" something on one of his Boners where he got it all messed up.

How many Bones did you earn today?

Michael

EDIT: The fun of this game seems to be what is drawing people together. It's a new hobby. That's why it looks like an organized group, but it's only a bunch of people who like to do the equivalent of crosswords puzzles and enjoy exchanging information about it.

[william.scherk]

William,

As you may know, Miss Stuttle, Dr. Campbell and myself are collectively "gang bangers" according to (I believe) one Casey Fahy.

If you are interested in joining this elite group, I will reveal the official and quasi-Masonic hand-grip at the appropriate time.

What I would really like to be a part of, but it is probably too late, is "ugly trolls" -- JSV's appelation for those who challenged him at RichardDawkins.net -- Neil, Calopterix/Dragonfly, Ellen, Daniel Barnes, Robert . . . there were others collectivized under the epithets, but their arguments and stances were utterly ignored in his later commentary.

I tweaked JSV's nose on SOLO for his 50 posts to the Dawkins thread, and for his sniffy and petulant reactions. I was trying to draw him out with some frank criticism and expected maybe some high-toned namecalling as with the trolls and worse and gangbangers, but all I got from James was "Dumb as a rock," "Ole Scherky," and "unexcelled vacuousness." Now he is referring to me as Cambell Junior, so maybe soon I will get inducted in the gang.

-- a note to Michael: I don't like when Perigo refers to all OL denizens as squalid, leprous, pygmies . . . is 'bonehead' worth repeating and glossing? It's not that it mightn't be apt in an informal riposte, but that it doesn't really provide a lot of content in itself nor capture an essential failing in PARC. Maybe Mr McMisquote or Cite-bumbler or . . .

Edited June 24, 2008 by william.scherk

[Dragonfly]

Fahy wrote:

It is ugly to dodge the issues being discussed and resort to attacking the messenger, which is what the gang-bang crew of Campbell/Parille/Stuttle and Calopteryx rode in to do. It took four of them, all lobbing arguments from authority, cheap ad hominem, out-of-context stinkbombs, etc., while managing to gird themselves with a general disdain for Rand that enabled them to ignore the substance of an argument Jim was elucidating with admirable focus under such a concerted attack.

Although I had no doubts that I never used any ad hominem (let alone a cheap one) or an out-of-context stinkbomb, nor said anything disdainful about Rand in that discussion on the Dawkins list, I checked to be sure. I was right, all my posts in that thread were polite and gave detailed to-the-point arguments without any ad hominem whatsoever. So Fahy is lying big time here. Note also that he refused to back up his claims when WSS repeatedly asked him to do so, falling back on the rather transparant tactic of attacking WSS to avoid answering an unwelcome question. Whom does he think he's kidding? Anyone who makes the effort to read that thread on the Dawkins list can see for himself that Fahy is lying.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

-- a note to Michael: I don't like when Perigo refers to all OL denizens as squalid, leprous, pygmies . . . is 'bonehead' worth repeating and glossing? It's not that it mightn't be apt in an informal riposte, but that it doesn't really provide a lot of content in itself nor capture an essential failing in PARC. Maybe Mr McMisquote or Cite-bumbler or . . .

William,

I will stay with Bonehead instead of Mr McMisquote or Cite-bumbler.

That's because this is a philosophy forum and Rand was a philosopher. In giving a proper name to my contempt for Valliant (and as deeper rhetoric) I prefer to deal with causes and not effects. And, for the record, it is contempt no matter how good-natured it may come off from my horsing around.

A bonehead in the vernacular uses the image of someone who has more bone than brain in his head to mean he doesn't know how to think properly and is stubborn (hardheaded) about it. After all my citations of Valliant's normative before cognitive reasoning, unending repetition of meaningless details, attribution of evil intentions when none are present, context dropping (often eliminating the genus altogether in using a definition), reliance on rhetoric to replace facts, not even to mention the misquotes and so forth, I believe that image to be accurate.

(And it is certainly more accurate than "soul of a rapist.")

Valliant's lack of proper thinking leads to all those errors and lack of accuracy. It is a fundamental characteristic. It is a cause. In my own mind, when I think the word "bonehead," the image of Valliant pops up in my mind and when I think the name "Valliant, the word "bonehead" appears.

Notice how this image is different than the kindergarten level of "squalid, leprous, pygmies" and so forth. Those are just names without referents in reality when applied to philosophy discussion members. They are on the cognitive level of one child calling another "pooh-pooh head."

That's not a bonehead, though. There are other images that are far more accurate for an adult mind that thinks like that, but that is for another post.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here I'm trying to be funny and Robert is simply upstaging me. Dayaamm!

Check this out: A few items omitted from Mr. Perigo's refresher

... Mr. Perigo has left out a few things.

Such as what he was planning to talk about at this year's Summer Seminar: The objective superiority of romantic music (as selected by Mr. Perigo), and what's wrong with Objectivists.

Or how he planned to talk about it: Those not sharing Mr. Perigo's musical judgments were to be be told that they are "morons," and Mr. Perigo's many enemies in Rand-land were to be exhibited as epitomizing what's ailing Objectivism.

Nor did Mr. Perigo see fit to mention that for three straight weeks after announcing that he had been invited to speak, he kept on the main page of SOLO Passion a poll with an item intended to ridicule and diminish "the KASSless Society," which epithet he insisted on continuing to use in place of the orgnanization's actual name.

Mr. Perigo also failed to mention how in 2006 he "reneged" on "a deal that was already done and dusted"--but I presume that Mr. Nevin is aware of that episode.

Nor has Mr. Perigo brought up his novel legal theory, according to which backbiting is an initiation of force, and the public quoting of private emails from the alleged backbiter is a just retaliation against said initiation.

I doubt that Ed Hudgins believes Mr. Perigo is "befuddled by alcohol." Nothing that Mr. Hudgins has said to me indicates that he believes it.

I made no reference to Mr. Perigo's drinking habits in my communications with TAS.

I referred to his bad character, his furious anti-intellectualism, his participation in a spite-ridden effort to ruin Chris Sciabarra's career, his unsupported charge that Joe Rowlands had committed fraud against him, his decision to renege on a speaking engagement in 2006, his refusal to say a single positive word about TAS's 50th anniversary event for Atlas Shrugged, and his vehement public contempt for TAS and all of its principals.

The reaction got its own thread:

Quote of the Day: Hero-Worship and Its Enemies

The purpose of Robert Campbell's benighted ("benighted"—lacking cultural, intellectual or moral enlightenment) campaign is to tear down a hero: Ayn Rand ... and to belittle those who hero-worship her. More, it's to tear down heroism and hero-worship as such. By this wretch's own admission, he doesn't think "worship"—that most human of phenomena—is appropriate for human beings at all, either as object or subject. In his effort to delegitimize and discredit all worship, he equates any worship (especially the most warranted) of one human being by another with blind, religious adulation. Well, all heroes make mistakes and sport flaws, to be sure ... but they remain heroes, worthy of worship. That is the reality the "squalid leprous pygmies" of Campbell's ilk cannot hack. For such creatures, the decisive currency in life is sardonic derision, disdainful diminution for its own sake. The battle against them is part of the battle for human life itself.

Heh.

Boy did Robert get that dude wound up!

I didn't know Robert was such an evil threat against "human life itself"!

Nothing left over for Hitler or Stalin?

Dayaamm, that's funny.

There is an old style of melodramatic acting from when movies started having sound where a lady would bat her eyes, look innocently at some pious person or other and say in a tremulous voice—with one arm outstretched and the back of her other hand against her forehead—that she was being threatened with "a fate worse than death itself." (She was talking about sex.)

Perigo just reminded me of that.

LOL...

(I can't stop laughing...)

The so-called hero Robert really does not admire is the one Perigo painfully knows in his heart of hearts is not worth admiring and never could be: himself.

And that hurts. Especially when someone says it out loud with such objectivity and certainty, with each fact stinging like a whip.

What a nasty little man that creep is. He deserves to get wound up like that over nothing (meaning him).

LOL...

Michael

(EDIT: I just saw the Wikipedia entry on Perigo. That's even funnier. His main achievements in life are defined in terms of Barbara Branden. Social metaphysics anyone? )

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

I also found it most interesting that Lindsay Perigo's Wikipedia entry (currently either written by himself, or ghosted to his express instructions) devotes more space to his feud with Barbara Branden than to anything else he has ever been involved in.

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

The crossword-puzzle comparison is apt. It does aquire a sort of gamelike fascination, wondering what new errors JV will come up with.

I wonder if he'll ever catch up to its having been Rand who split with the Holzers according to Erika's website rendering of her "Full Context" interview. He goofed on that one again in one of his recent posts.

I'm interested to see that he evidently considers the subscription-cancellation policy just fine, no problem.

Oh, and also by his defense of its being reasonable to expect people to believe AR's report in TWIMC.

One thing he very much leaves out of account is that some of us were there back then, and we know what the atmosphere was like. He might succeed at pulling some wool over the eyes of persons who weren't around then, but those of us who remember know the reality of it.

Ellen

___

[Daniel Barnes]

those of us who remember know the reality of it.

Ellen, if you ever get the chance to compile your recollections of that period and its atmospherics it would make interesting reading, good moments and bad.

[Daniel Barnes]

Whom does he think he's kidding? Anyone who makes the effort to read that thread on the Dawkins list can see for himself that Fahy is lying.

Valliant was way out of his depth on that thread.

He bluffed for a bit till Physicist Dave caught him in an obvious fib, at which he evaporated. I fear Mr Fahy would fare little better in an open forum, not surrounded by friendly Objectivists.

BTW, just a side note on the whole civility thing generally, I don't really think the name-calling etc is all that big an issue. I've been called plenty of names over the years; I can dish it out too now and again - that can be kinda fun - but generally I hold back. But it's important, I think, to say that this whole civility gig can be taken too far. If Voltaire had been Little Miss Manners we probably would never have heard of him today. When you're faced with something as ridiculous as a book like PARC, ridicule is a perfectly reasonable response. Likewise, I don't mind too much about arguments from intimidation or similar coming from Rand or anyone else. From what I recall, over the years I haven't really ragged on Rand for her rudeness or aggressive tactics. I always say: the argument from intimidation only works if you are easily intimidated. What I generally focus on is the poor quality of her arguments, not so much their packaging. The main problem with Objectivists like Perigo is not that they're rude, but that save for a certain rhetorical flair, they can't argue for toffee. That's their real problem. Like Valliant on Rand's alleged "empirical" rigor over at Dawkins, they're just really bad at it. Rand gave them a few debating moves that are roughly the equivalent of the Fool's Mate in chess, and once they've used those up, they're all over. I don't really care if people are rude if their logic is good, or they've got an imaginative new take on a problem. That's the main thing. I'll put up with quite a lot for that.

Edited June 25, 2008 by Daniel Barnes

[Ellen Stuttle]

Fahy wrote:

It is ugly to dodge the issues being discussed and resort to attacking the messenger, which is what the gang-bang crew of Campbell/Parille/Stuttle and Calopteryx rode in to do. It took four of them, all lobbing arguments from authority, cheap ad hominem, out-of-context stinkbombs, etc., while managing to gird themselves with a general disdain for Rand that enabled them to ignore the substance of an argument Jim was elucidating with admirable focus under such a concerted attack.

Although I had no doubts that I never used any ad hominem (let alone a cheap one) or an out-of-context stinkbomb, nor said anything disdainful about Rand in that discussion on the Dawkins list, I checked to be sure. I was right, all my posts in that thread were polite and gave detailed to-the-point arguments without any ad hominem whatsoever. So Fahy is lying big time here. Note also that he refused to back up his claims when WSS repeatedly asked him to do so, falling back on the rather transparant tactic of attacking WSS to avoid answering an unwelcome question. Whom does he think he's kidding? Anyone who makes the effort to read that thread on the Dawkins list can see for himself that Fahy is lying.

DF, you don't know that Fahy was "lying," as opposed to other possibilities, such as, just for a couple other possibilities, misreading, reading too hastily to assess -- and how do you even know he in particular noticed the details of your posts despite his including you by name in his list of names?

Since you can't know for sure if he was "lying," how much less can you know for sure that "[a]nyone who makes the effort to read that thread on the Dawkins list can see for himself that Fahy is lying"?

Ellen

___

Edited June 25, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

those of us who remember know the reality of it.

Ellen, if you ever get the chance to compile your recollections of that period and its atmospherics it would make interesting reading, good moments and bad.

I'm working on it. Many memories, so little time...

Ellen

___

[Dragonfly]

DF, you don't know that Fahy was "lying," as opposed to other possibilities, such as, just for a couple other possibilities, misreading, reading too hastily to assess -- and how do you even know he in particular noticed the details of your posts despite his including you by name in his list of names?

With that kind of legalistic argument you can of course always find an excuse for a lie. Fahy obviously has read the thread and makes claims about the posts that are definitely not true (as anyone who reads that thread can easily see), in order to demonize Valliant's opponents. In my book that's called lying. It's no coincidence that he refused to back up his statements with direct quotes, as he must have known that they were incorrect.

[merjet]

Ha-ha. Perigo's post about worshipping is typical of him. It also included a very apt self-description: "For such creatures, the decisive currency in life is sardonic derision, disdainful diminution for its own sake."

Let's ponder a moment about glorifying worship ala Perigo. Who are the biggest worshippers there are? Devout religionists, of course. Worshippers pray. Do you believe Howard Roark, John Galt, Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden were fixated on worship of another person? Of course not, they were focused on achievement. In my view there is big difference between admiration and worship. Worship is like admiration wearing blinders. Admiration is quality-oriented, not person-oriented.

Edited June 25, 2008 by Merlin Jetton

[Brant Gaede]

Ha-ha. Perigo's post about worshipping is typical of him. It also included a very apt self-description: "For such creatures, the decisive currency in life is sardonic derision, disdainful diminution for its own sake."

Let's ponder a moment about glorifying worship ala Perigo. Who are the biggest worshippers there are? Devout religionists, of course. Worshippers pray. Do you believe Howard Roark, John Galt, Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden were fixated on worship of another person? Of course not, they were focused on achievement. In my view there is big difference between admiration and worship. Worship is like admiration wearing blinders. Admiration is quality-oriented, not person-oriented.

You can be sure Linz doesn't worship anybody. He is merely feeding on the subject.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

PARC is essentially an argumentum ad hominem for a purported argumentum ad hominem and it goes around and around in its circularity. It thus at its core sanctions what it criticizes and completely devalues the Objectivist philosophy and Ayn Rand herself. Its author thinks(?) he is attacking an ad hominem against Rand from Barbara Branden's Passion of Ayn Rand. He takes Nathaniel Branden as his primary point of damning reference and uses this as a foundation to segue over to his real target, Barbara, who did a biography of a human being, completely worthless for the idolatry required by the ARI crowd. Ironically, Valliant is the real smasher of icons here, reference his publication of Rand's journals written at a time of great personal distress. After three years of Internet blah, blah, blah, it is becoming clear that actually living in the world of Atlas Shrugged is a serious mistake. It's the equivalent of floating away in a hot air balloon declaiming and believing that your feet are firmly planted on the ground. The ARI has been subsequently further mrginalized, but not nearly as much as by the hysterical and ignorant representations made by Leonard Peikoff on foreign and military policy standing on an ARI soapbox.

--Brant

Edited June 25, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[Ellen Stuttle]

DF, you don't know that Fahy was "lying," as opposed to other possibilities, such as, just for a couple other possibilities, misreading, reading too hastily to assess -- and how do you even know he in particular noticed the details of your posts despite his including you by name in his list of names?

With that kind of legalistic argument you can of course always find an excuse for a lie. Fahy obviously has read the thread and makes claims about the posts that are definitely not true (as anyone who reads that thread can easily see), in order to demonize Valliant's opponents. In my book that's called lying. It's no coincidence that he refused to back up his statements with direct quotes, as he must have known that they were incorrect.

In my book calling Fahy's comments "lying" gives him more intellectual credit for reading with attention to detail and difference than I see any evidence he merits. I think the most likely possibility is that Fahy was simply writing his typical hot-headed froth.

Ellen

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I must say Robert Campbell is taking apart both Perigo and Valliant right in their faces and he has them befuddled so much they are mostly calling him nasty names (like "Robert the Retard") and little else. Well, they do manage to repeat their former arguments a lot without really addressing anything Robert says. But a small breeze of simple reading usually blows that smoke away.

If anyone wants to follow the most recent installment, it starts somewhere around here on one thread and here on another.

Incidentally, I am relieved to see someone finally call Perigo a liar to his face and show the quotes to back it up. He is so nasty about claiming he is honest that most people do not do this just to avoid the hassle. But if his work started being examined with more scrutiny, I believe many people who are taken in by him would be appalled by the outright two-faced nature and blatancy of his lies. They're there. All you have to do is look.

In fact, the very fact that the lies are not perceived—despite being obvious—against this dude's nastiness is a social aspect worth examining on its own merits. This happens throughout the world where there is abuse of power all the time, so there is some aspect of human nature involved. This goes deeper than simple cowardice. It's something to think about...

I comment on this episode of Valliant & Perigo: When All This is Over, Who Cares? because Perigo copied the entire post of Barbara Branden's public message to Ed Hudgins about him at the beginning of this year. (Here is the original, My response to Ed Hudgins' "The Atlas Society Policy and the Summer Seminar" and here is Perigo's rather botched copy/paste, Jesus H. Christ!.) Incidentally, this guy did in that post what all hypocrites do when a lie they made is shoved in their faces (like Robert did), he said he was joking. Heh. So darn predictable. I wonder if he realizes that most people do not distort Barbara's words in the manner he does, and by quoting them in full, he convinces many people against him.

But two things caught my attention right now. Solo Passion is hosting a veiled attempt to legitimize racism by saying they are fighting politically correct language policies and so forth. There is one poster "Elijah" who often makes a point of making an outrageously racist remark and there usually ensues a discussion of whether it really is racism or not. The kinds of racist comments are standard stereotyping about low intelligence, poor social habits and so forth, although sometimes veiled in quips. Within this context, Perigo raised his well-worn "A is not A" argument about his heavy drinking again (you can see him do it and brag about it, but you can't say what you see—if you comment, you have to say that drinking alcohol is good) and one poster over there quipped (he is quoting Perigo first):

Alcohol-dazed zombies

[Perigo] my deterioration into "alcoholic befuddlement" has "vastly accelerated"

Watch out, Linz, you might get mistaken for a Maori.

I nearly fell off my chair laughing at the unexpectedness of that one. Now that's integration for ya.

But the other thing that caught my attention is that TAS is getting ready to do its Summer Seminar and I expect that Perigo will try to use the event to engage in public self-pity of how nasty old them rejected good little him (he calls it being blackballed). He loves to leech off of TAS's audience so I don't expect to see anything different this time. But nobody ever mentions the obvious when this crap starts, so I will mention the obvious.

As an upcoming Objectivist leader (heh), we should all be glad that at least he can still speak at ARI functions.

(Oops... blackballed there too? )

All right... all right...

Enough of this crap. I have to get back to work.

Michael

[syrakusos]

If no one takes PARC seriously any more, why does this topic run 31 pages?

Does "any more" mean that at one time it was taken seriously but something changed? If so, what?

The topic begins with two ad hominem arguments:

Mr. Valiant is an unknown author.

Mr. Valiant is a government attorney.

Those denigrations could be recast by calling this an engaging work by a new author with a distinguished career as a prosecutor for the LA district attorney's office. (Assuming that this is the same James Valiant.) Regardless, the man's status as a previously published author and his current employment are irrelevant to the quality of his work.

As for who said what to whom when, I point to the general inability of the human race to remember whether or not it jellied its collective toast on June 26, 1967.

It is not just that I do not care about what happened to some people in New York City 40 years ago, but that I am surprised that other people do. Hey, did you hear that Britney Spears won weekend visitation rights to see her boys? And by the way, I had two cups of coffee this morning and the sun is shining now, but it might rain today.

Moving right along ...

[Chris Grieb]

Michael M.; I agree about all the time people are taking with a rather unimportant book.

The lesser LP is rather nasty and unimportant person who does not deserve the attention good people at OL are paying to him.

BTW the US Supreme Court has come down with a very important decision today

Edited June 26, 2008 by Chris Grieb

[merjet]

If no one takes PARC seriously any more, why does this topic run 31 pages?

Excellent question.

Hey, did you hear that Britney Spears won weekend visitation rights to see her boys? And by the way, I had two cups of coffee this morning and the sun is shining now, but it might rain today.

Did you know I saw a group of skunks within a couple feet of my house on Monday? I drove them away with the water hose and haven't seen them since. I hope they aren't nesting nearby. If they return often, I'm sure you folks could suggest some names for them.

Edited June 26, 2008 by Merlin Jetton

[Ellen Stuttle]

[Here]

Mr. Valliant pretends that the affair, in and of itself, was of no great consequence to virtually anyone in Rand-land back in the early 1980s. In particular, it was no big deal to guardians of orthodoxy like Leonard Peikoff, Harry Binswanger, and Peter Schwartz.

That is possibly the biggest example of Valliant's thorough ignorance of what things really were like back then. Just dare suggest that there might have been an affair! (I did dare amongst my own circles but wouldn't have said anything about it to Peikoff, Binswanger, or Schwartz.)

And a point of logic: If it truly had been no big deal to people, then why wasn't the line of argumentation used which Valliant himself uses -- viz., that Nathaniel's speaking of the age difference presenting a problem gave a false picture of the historic relationship between him and Ayn, since at one time the age difference hadn't been a problem? Instead, the defense against Nathaniel's age-difference statement was to claim that he -- a self-confessed liar -- was lying in indicating that AR could ever have had any romantic interest in him. It was impossible that she could have; she was happily and monogomously married to Frank; Nathaniel was making up an especially nasty slur in indicating that she'd developed a romantic interest in him.

Ellen

___

[Chris Grieb]

[Here]

Mr. Valliant pretends that the affair, in and of itself, was of no great consequence to virtually anyone in Rand-land back in the early 1980s. In particular, it was no big deal to guardians of orthodoxy like Leonard Peikoff, Harry Binswanger, and Peter Schwartz.

That is possibly the biggest example of Valliant's thorough ignorance of what things really were like back then. Just dare suggest that there might have been an affair! (I did dare amongst my own circles but wouldn't have said anything about it to Peikoff, Binswanger, or Schwartz.)

And a point of logic: If it truly had been no big deal to people, then why wasn't the line of argumentation used which Valliant himself uses -- viz., that Nathaniel's speaking of the age difference presenting a problem gave a false picture of the historic relationship between him and Ayn, since at one time the age difference hadn't been a problem? Instead, the defense against Nathaniel's age-difference statement was to claim that he -- a self-confessed liar -- was lying in indicating that AR could ever have had any romantic interest in him. It was impossible that she could have; she was happily and monogomously married to Frank; Nathaniel was making up an especially nasty slur in indicating that she'd developed a romantic interest in him.

Ellen

___

Ellen; You have it exactly right. The worst thing to say was any suggestion that there had been an affair and the biggest proof was his suggestion that Nathaniel Branden had had a romantic relationship. Thank you!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

If no one takes PARC seriously any more, why does this topic run 31 pages?

Michael,

I presume that these are actual questions and not the kind of rhetoric where you make a statement but dress it up as a question. If I am wrong, please feel free to correct me.

There is a matter of perspective in your question that is not being considered: the big picture. As the Objectivist saying goes, if you encounter a contradiction in reality, check your premises. One of them will be false.

Here is reality. There are maybe a couple of dozen people (to be generous) in a world of over 6.5 billion who even read about this stuff, much less discuss it.

PARC has been quarantined to OL and Solo Passion. The credibility of its author is being shot to hell contradiction by sorry-ass contradiction and lie by sorry-ass lie. There is a reason for the quarantine and for the attention a few volunteers have given this matter. (They are strictly spontaneous volunteers, too. PARC gets discussed in my emails maybe 0.01% of the time. I don't know if other people are communicating off line about this. Those who do so with me are few and far between.)

If this germ ever starts to spread by cashing in on the publicity of other ventures promoting Rand's work or Objectivism, there is something easily accessible people can point to. And believe me, people will point to it on their own. Then they can ask the germ carriers, "Do you mean that?"

There is a lot of damning stuff on this thread. I fully intend to see that it and a few other damning works are easily available to someone who seeks information for a very long time. And believe me, objective people will seek information.

Does "any more" mean that at one time it was taken seriously but something changed? If so, what?

I thought this was discussed in the opening post. I suggest rereading it.

But for the record, what changed is that people used to think Valliant made a logical and scholarly case. They thought that since he was a lawyer, he would know the rudiments of sound logic and scholarship.

Previous supporters have since seen his shoddy scholarship, logical fallacies and outright lies exposed to the light of day and they are distancing themselves from that. Essentially, what has changed is that Valliant's credibility is being shot to hell, and his boneheaded arguments and insinuations along with it.

Since the orthodox wing of Objectivism likes to rewrite history when it comes to Rand, such obvious boneheadedness blows an enormous hole in their efforts (so long as they are actively endorsing the bonehead) and threatens to sink their ship.

The danger in me (and others) remaining silent right now is precisely because these orthodox people like to rewrite history. I have no doubt they would let this crap creep back in if people at large could not easily perceive PARC's errors and lies.

So I (and others) make it easy for them to perceive PARC's errors and lies.

Not rocket science.

The topic begins with two ad hominem arguments:

Mr. Valiant is an unknown author.

Mr. Valiant is a government attorney.

Those denigrations could be recast by calling this an engaging work by a new author with a distinguished career as a prosecutor for the LA district attorney's office. (Assuming that this is the same James Valiant.) Regardless, the man's status as a previously published author and his current employment are irrelevant to the quality of his work.

Says you.

When a person is a bonehead, one looks for causes if he is attacking values you hold dear. I believe inexperience can be one such cause of boneheadedness. Government employee mentality could be another. Certainly these are not the fundamental causes, but they are definitely part of the mix.

As to your alternative, why on earth would I want to give a connotation of flattery to Valliant if I think he is a bonehead? "

Dayaamm!

Ad hominem" is not a floating abstraction as a blanket dirty word. (Well, maybe here in O-Land where kneejerks are popular it is.) "Ad hominem" is a logical fallacy when presented as rebuttal to a statement of fact. But if the fact I am discussing is the credibility of the author, think about it for a second. You can't claim that the credibility of an author is worthless without talking about the author. That is so painfully obvious to me I don't know how to answer someone who thinks otherwise.

Moving right along ...

Moving right with you...

Michael