Why Nobody Takes PARC Seriously Anymore

[Alfonso Jones]

Does anyone else think that the case of "Mr X" seems at best, um, highly fictionalized?

fic·tion·al·ize –verb (used with object), -ized, -iz·ing. to make into fiction; give a somewhat imaginative or fictional version of: to fictionalize a biography.

Most definitely.

Bill P

[Ellen Stuttle]

I wonder why she cut out the story of person Y from the book version. It might have simply been for reasons of space, since including the story would make the essay go over to another page, which would have caused troubles for the page layout. As it is, "The Simplest Thing in the World," the last entry in the original edition, had to be set differently from the other selections -- starting it on a left-hand page -- to get it in. However, if less lead space had been used on the first page of each essay, and if one of the other essays had been started on a left-hand page, an extra page could have been acquired for including the person Y story.

So maybe it was cut for personal reasons, such as no longer being friendly with the unnamed person.

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

Robert,

I see that you've started, in a post on SOLO titled "Fire and the rack," to tackle the ersatz "psychological" terminology which was coin of the realm in O-land.

This lays background for a point I've been waiting to bring up -- the tragi-comedy of Rand's building in her long July 4, 1968, analysis of the story and her reflections so far about Nathaniel to her diagnosis/verdict, delivered with utmost seriousness, as if she's stating the most horrendous of deep dark secrets which she's uncovered. With the sort of build-up she provides, the progression is appropriate to revealing that he's been repressing all along being a serial murderer or some other ghastly secret. But what instead is the hypothesis she formulates -- and underlines to emphasize?

This:

PARC, pg. 337

I believe that he is repressing the fact that in the personal-emotional realm, he is a social metaphysician.

Gasp! On, no! A social metaphysician!?! Could it get worse??

I felt a reaction of laughing through tears reading that -- the pathos of its being delivered as a serious verdict.

A related point: I agree with you in not finding the "inquisitor" comment "hyberbole," as I've indicated before -- see my post #243.

Ellen

Edit: PS: Valliant says in his reply to RC:

[Here]

We need to see Rand wielding these "psychological instruments," of course, in order to judge her this negatively for ourselves.

Her diaries, provided in his book, are public exhibit A.

___

Edited June 30, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Brant Gaede]

Brant,

Here's the simple version.

Rand stated outright that she had multiple-session techniques and procedures for teaching a person who was psychologically screwed up and miserable to become happy (mentally healthy) and productive. She not only stated she provided them, she presented two successes.

To me that's therapy.

The rest is words.

Michael

Imagined therapy. Look, if she didn't get paid .... it didn't matter what she did. Really. Money changing hands is the only objective standard. Every thing else is arbitrary musings. And most of official therapy is probably babbling crap anyway because the "problem" squirms around because of game playing by both the client and therapist. Nathaniel Branden would nail you to the wall with sentence completion. With sentence completion you either worked or not. The therapist leads you on or guides you, but YOU WORKED! That's the secret. It's not the therapist doing therapy it's the client working, with help. Therapy is self-therapy, ultimately. That's why I don't understand a lot of Nathaniel's recent work--energy therapy--where HE seemingly does (most of?) the work. It's why I don't see Ayn Rand as a therapist--aside from money or no money. She's presenting herself (or someone is) as therapist-authoritariatist, but it's the client who knows deep inside what has to be discovered. He's the one who actually makes the identifications. I assure you that if he doesn't actually want to work, the therapist is helpless. All the therapist can do is ID that fact. Nathaniel told one client that working with him was like "pulling teeth." (Not me!) Please notice that in the case you described above it's really all about Ayn Rand and her view of things that is imposed on that young man. There was no therapy. There was only material for an Ayn Rand essay confirming (part of) her world view.

--Brant

Edited June 30, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[Roger Bissell]

Pursuing the question of what paper she delivered at the American Society for Aesthetics meeting in October 1962, I found something which could reconcile dates and titles.

John Hospers wrote -- quoted here:

And so it was that on the last Friday night of October 1962, she gave her newly-written paper "Art and Sense of Life" (now included in The Romantic Manifesto).

As I've pointed out -- see the post above -- the article by that name which appears in The Romantic Manifesto wasn't published until March 1966 and it specifically states that it builds on two earlier articles, "The Psycho-Epistemology of Art," The Objectivist Newsletter, April 1965, and "Philosophy and Sense of Life," The Objectivist, February 1966.

I found in a Google search an item titled:

CHRONOLOGY & BIBLIOGRAPHY OF AYN RAND'S LIFE & WORKS

----------------------------------------------------

Version 2.98, 2006

Compiled by Todd H. Goldberg, M.D., Philadelphia, PA.

http://members.aol.com/TGoldberg/randbib.txt

Dr. Goldberg lists as an item from 1962:

[my emphasis]

#41 - "Art as Sense of Life" (address given to

American Society for Aesthetics, Cambridge, MA,

26 Oct.; revised and published 1966 as #83)

If he's correct, that clears up the issue: her talk was an earlier version of the later article.

Ellen

___

Based on my own research, I see every reason to accept the accuracy of Dr. Goldberg's note, and no reason to doubt the accuracy of Dr. Hospers' recollection. In my essay "A Neglected Source for Rand's Aesthetics" (Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Fall 2002, vol. 4, no. 1), I wrote:

Although it has been available in audiocassette form for quite

some time, “The Esthetic Vacuum of Our Age” has never appeared

in print form in its entirety. Substantial portions of the essay were

published in November of 1962 in The Objectivist Newsletter (Rand

1962–65) and reprinted with some minor alterations in The Romantic

Manifesto (Rand [1969] 1975).

This edited version, labeled (Rand 1962b, 3) as excerpts from

Rand’s 1961 address to the Cultural Arts Festival at the University of

Michigan, was in turn closely related to her 1960 and 1962 radio

talks. In fact, the shorter version is lifted nearly word for word from

the much longer taped lecture that is very likely a full-bodied replica

of the 1961 version.

While the print version runs to only 2,500 words or so, the full length

taped version totals nearly 7,800 words, and it contains much

more than comments on “popular culture” and the Romanticism-

Naturalism debate. The taped lecture discusses Rand’s definition of

“art” and the function of concepts, the nature of sense of life, and the

relation of reason to aesthetics, and is an eloquent, powerful example

of Rand’s writing at its best.

Truly, the manuscript of this taped lecture is the “Ur-document”

for the Objectivist aesthetics. Comprehensive and stirring in nature,

it should have been the lead essay of The Romantic Manifesto, rather

than being tucked away in abbreviated form in the middle. Its general

obscurity is yet another consequence of the Objectivist movement’s

reprehensible tendency toward an oral tradition. As a result, it

continues to be difficult for scholars to trace the genesis and

development of Rand’s thought and for people in general to obtain

a clear, complete picture of how Rand arrived at her challenging

ideas.

Someday, a full-length printed version of “The Esthetic Vacuum

of Our Age” may take its rightful place among Rand’s other published

works in aesthetics. In the meantime, the following review is

offered as a first step toward the excavation of this remarkable work.

[snip]

This lecture is not an obscure object of curiosity. It is the

wellspring of Rand’s Romantic Manifesto. Along with “The Objectivist

Ethics,” it is stark, undeniable evidence of a major spurt of intellectual

integration and creativity right at the beginning of Rand’s nonfiction

writing career. Some of the best of this lecture was saved for

the printed version as well as for later essays, including “The Psycho-

Epistemology of Art,” “Philosophy and Sense of Life,” and “Art and

Sense of Life.” But only some of it. The entire lecture deserves to

take its place alongside the other published works of Rand’s canonical

writings.

For those who would like to read the entire essay, it is posted online at:

http://members.aol.com/REBissell/NeglectedSource.pdf

REB

P.S. -- I could swear that I have already discussed this matter a year or two ago here on OL, but I don't have time to look for which nook or cranny it is posted in, in order to verify my fuzzy memory. So, I will not pump myself up (at this time) for a rant about why am I wasting my time doing all this research and writing, if no one is willing to read it and avoid wasting all of our time in recycling what should be a settled issue.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Based on my own research, I see every reason to accept the accuracy of Dr. Goldberg's note, and no reason to doubt the accuracy of Dr. Hospers' recollection.

That's weird, Roger, since both Goldberg and Hospers can't be right. Hospers says the talk was "Art and Sense of Life" and substantially the same as the essay in 1966; Goldberg says it was "Art as Sense of Life" and that it was revised to become the 1966 essay. It looks to me like Goldberg is right, and that the talk wasn't the same as what was later published in The Objectivist, though it was the forerunner of the later article.

CORRECTION (also posted, with an extending remark, in #686 below): What Hospers says in the Liberty article is that it was the paper later included in The Romantic Manifesto:

[extended excerpt here; my emphasis]

And so it was that on the last Friday night of October 1962, she gave her newly-written paper "Art and Sense of Life" (now included in The Romantic Manifesto).

Torres and Kamhi are the ones who described it, at least in print, as "substantially the same." They might have gotten the "substantially" from wording John used in a letter sent to them:

[full endnote quoted by WSS at bottom of this SOLO post]

According to John Hospers, this paper was published in substantially the same form in The Romantic Manifesto. "Memoir: Conversations [W]ith Ayn Rand," part 2, Liberty, September 1990, 52; and letter to the authors, 23 July 1996.

My point is that it makes no sense, either on the basis of chronologic sequence or on the basis of details of wording in the "Art and Sense of Life" article, to think that that paper exactly was what she presented at the talk in October 1962. It's plausible, even probable, that the paper she presented was a forerunner of the later article, but not that it was exactly the later article "newly-written."

The reason why I entertained the possibility that it might have been the version of "The Esthetic Vacuum of Our Age" which appears in The Romantic Manifesto is because that version plausibly was "newly-written" at the time in question: It first appeared in the November 1962 The Objectivist Newsletter, i.e., in the immediately next Newsletter following the philosophy conference on October 26, 1962.

Ellen

___

Edited June 30, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Look, if she didn't get paid .... it didn't matter what she did. Really. Money changing hands is the only objective standard. Every thing else is arbitrary musings.

Brant,

Not really. A student can work for free. So can someone trying to build up a practice. There are many ways a therapist can work for free without musing arbitrarily.

Anyway, Rand certainly got paid for writing about her experiences and the way her sessions improved her patients. And it sounds like she made those dudes work on their psychology, too. Hell, she made everyone around her work on their thinking at the very least.

In Rand's writing, a psychological problem is often called a negative sense of life, death premise and so forth. PARC is loaded with premise this and premise that to explain psychology.

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

Based on my own research, I see every reason to accept the accuracy of Dr. Goldberg's note, and no reason to doubt the accuracy of Dr. Hospers' recollection.

That's weird, Roger, since both Goldberg and Hospers can't be right. Hospers says the talk was "Art and Sense of Life" and substantially the same as the essay in 1966; Goldberg says it was "Art as Sense of Life" and that it was revised to become the 1966 essay. It looks to me like Goldberg is right, and that the talk wasn't the same as what was later published in The Objectivist, though it was the forerunner of the later article.

Ellen

___

I'm sorry you think it's weird.

~Of course~ her talk was the "forerunner of the later article," and yes, it was ~revised~, but why would that rule out its being "substantially the same" as her 1966 essay?

I take "substantially the same" apparently the same way Dr. Hospers does, viz., to mean ~essentially~ the same -- whereas you apparently take it to mean ~virtually~ the same.

In other words, the same tone, concepts, definitions, meaning, &c., but with obvious adding or changing of examples -- vs. no differences except editorial changes, such as grammar, punctuation, a word or phrase here or there.

To me, it is impossible to listen to/read Rand's earlier lecture/essay (the Esthetic Vacuum talk on which her Harvard talk was clearly based) and not think, "My God, this is the guts of her much later essays!"

I guess we could debate "sameness and identity," as to which meaning of "the same" is most relevant and essential here. But unless we toss the Principle of Charity out the window in interpreting reminiscences of people like Dr. Hospers, it is clear to me that he meant that Rand's Harvard talk was the unrevised version of the essay she published four years later in The Objectivist.

In other words, Dr. Hospers may (by your standards) have misspoken himself in saying the 1966 piece was "substantially the same" as the 1962 talk, but there is nothing wrong with his memory. He knows what he heard, and I'm sure I agree with what he ~meant~ to say about it.

REB

[Jonathan]

From the Lost Journals:

Mr. Z usually wore an expression of anguish. It was the weariness of a lifetime of defeat. Mr. Z was only 6 years old.

I often asked him what was wrong, and, in dreary resignation, he would say, "Nothing. I'm fine." Then one day he quietly confided in me that he used to love the Flintstones. Oh, what joy the show had given him. But now he couldn't bring himself to watch it, but preferred the lethargic Droopy Dog instead. He cried.

The next time he visited my apartment, I told him that I had a surprise for him. I sat him down in front of the television and played a tape of the Flintstones. I had also ordered a Flintstones-shaped cake from the local bakery, and, as we sat watching the program, we ate the cake and wore little paper Flintstones hats. He cried again, but this time it was tears of joy.

After watching a few episodes, he told me that he was now strong enough to feel worthy of watching Fred and Barney again, without feeling any guilt, and he thanked me for curing him. I accepted his gratitude, but told him that there was still more that he needed to discover about himself. I invited him to visit me again the next day for yet another surprise.

When he returned the following day, I sat him down again in front of the television, but this time I played a tape of Speedy Gonzales, and explained that Speedy had the most romantic sense of life of all cartoon characters, that he refused to grant evil any metaphysical significance, and that, in comparison to Speedy, the Flintstones were "pre-cartoons" and "trash." I was certain that he was strong enough to hear this truth.

Mr Z quickly realized that I was right, and he became a very dedicated fan of Speedy Gonzales. He also learned to defer to my tastes and judgments on all other matters, and, therefore, was allowed to become a member of my inner circle. Needless to say, Mr. Z went on to become one of the most brilliant minds and most daringly successful businessmen who have ever existed in the entire universe. It was a joy to be in his presence - you could tell just by looking at him that he was always on the verge of exploding with happiness. Thanks to me.

Edited June 30, 2008 by Jonathan

[Robert Campbell]

It was a joy to be in his presence - you could tell just by looking at him that he was always on the verge of exploding with happiness. Thanks to me.

ROTFLMAO

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

Based on my own research, I see every reason to accept the accuracy of Dr. Goldberg's note, and no reason to doubt the accuracy of Dr. Hospers' recollection.

That's weird, Roger, since both Goldberg and Hospers can't be right. Hospers says the talk was "Art and Sense of Life" and substantially the same as the essay in 1966; Goldberg says it was "Art as Sense of Life" and that it was revised to become the 1966 essay. It looks to me like Goldberg is right, and that the talk wasn't the same as what was later published in The Objectivist, though it was the forerunner of the later article.

Ellen

___

I'm sorry you think it's weird.

~Of course~ her talk was the "forerunner of the later article," and yes, it was ~revised~, but why would that rule out its being "substantially the same" as her 1966 essay?

I take "substantially the same" apparently the same way Dr. Hospers does, viz., to mean ~essentially~ the same -- whereas you apparently take it to mean ~virtually~ the same.

In other words, the same tone, concepts, definitions, meaning, &c., but with obvious adding or changing of examples -- vs. no differences except editorial changes, such as grammar, punctuation, a word or phrase here or there.

Before signing on, I wrote a correction I was going to add to my earlier post. I'll still add the correction there. Meanwhile, you've responded, so I'll post it here, too.

CORRECTION: What Hospers says in the Liberty article is that it was the paper later included in The Romantic Manifesto:

[extended excerpt here; my emphasis]

And so it was that on the last Friday night of October 1962, she gave her newly-written paper "Art and Sense of Life" (now included in The Romantic Manifesto).

Torres and Kamhi are the ones who described it, at least in print, as "substantially the same." They might have gotten the "substantially" from wording John used in a letter sent to them:

[full endnote quoted by WSS at bottom of this SOLO post]

According to John Hospers, this paper was published in substantially the same form in The Romantic Manifesto. "Memoir: Conversations [W]ith Ayn Rand," part 2, Liberty, September 1990, 52; and letter to the authors, 23 July 1996.

My point is that it makes no sense, either on the basis of chronologic sequence or on the basis of details of wording in the "Art and Sense of Life" article, to think that that paper exactly was what she presented at the talk in October 1962. It's plausible, even probable, that the paper she presented was a forerunner of the later article, but not that it was exactly the later article "newly-written."

The reason why I entertained the possibility that it might have been the version of "The Esthetic Vacuum of Our Age" which appears in The Romantic Manifesto is because that version plausibly was "newly-written" at the time in question: It first appeared in the November 1962 The Objectivist Newsletter, i.e., in the immediately next Newsletter following the philosophy conference on October 26, 1962.

Adding to the correction: Hospers might have later said "substantially," as reported by Torres and Kamhi, a wording which could cover. But that isn't what he said in the Memoir which occasioned my wondering if he'd mixed up "The Esthetic Vacuum of Our Age" with "Art and Sense of Life."

To me, it is impossible to listen to/read Rand's earlier lecture/essay (the Esthetic Vacuum talk on which her Harvard talk was clearly based) and not think, "My God, this is the guts of her much later essays!"

How do you know the Harvard talk was "clearly based" on that earlier lecture/essay? Do you have a copy of the actual paper she delivered at Harvard? (I'd love to see a copy of it, if you have it or know where it can be viewed. I haven't been able to find it at the Society's archives. I'd like to see where she'd gotten to in explaining "sense of life" between the extended earlier Esthetic Vacuum piece -- a copy of which you previously sent me -- and the 1966 article.)

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

Valliant makes such tiresome messes of things.

[Here]

Finally, when it comes to a source like Walker, it is Ellen Stuttle who suddenly becomes the radical skeptic -- "IF Blumenthal ever said [what Walker reports about the entire system of Objectivism being the result of Rand's psychological problems]..."

Well, then, are some sources so dubious that we can be that skeptical about them?

I've by no means "suddenly [become] the radical skeptic" about Walker. I have always been a "take it with a grain of salt, and double-check before believing details" skeptic about Walker. No one from whom I've personally heard about Walker's rendering of what they said has thought that Walker got them entirely accurately. Reader beware, is my advice about Walker.

About Allan Blumenthal, if he did say exactly what Walker quotes him as saying about Ayn's developing Objectivism as psychotherapy, this does represent quite a change in viewpoint from anything I ever heard him say. The last I saw him was at the end of 1980, which of course was a long while before he was interviewed by Walker. Some of what he's reported as saying to Walker agrees very closely with things he said to me. The particular remark pertaining to the genesis of Objectivism, however, I'm dubious Walker reported exactly as said. Maybe there was something along those lines which was partly misquoted, or which was excerpted; I doubt that Walker completely made up the quote. But I doubt the full accuracy of his report of the quote. Also, although I haven't seen Allan myself since 1980, my husband last saw him, and talked with him for awhile, in 1992 at an IOS meeting. What Larry reports Allan as saying then doesn't really mesh with that Walker attribution.

Re Valliant's remarks about determinism: He appears not to know what "psychological determinism" means.

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

I think you have it, Robert.

[Here]

Ayn Rand, Mr. Valliant wants us to believe but doesn't want us to believe that he wants us to believe, was flawless...

therefore anyone who says she had flaws is warped or bigoted...

therefore anyone who knew her and endorses the accounts of her flaws put forward by the warped or bigoted must also be warped and bigoted...

therefore anyone who objects to Mr. Valliant's exclusion of testimony from the presumptively warped and bigoted (except on those rare occasions when their testimony pleases Mr. Valliant) must be especially warped and bigoted...

therefore, when the testimony of the warped and bigoted and their warped and bigoted corroborators and their especially warped and bigoted defenders, etc. etc., has been systematically excluded (because they said that Ayn Rand had flaws)...

Ayn Rand turns out to have been flawless.

QED—right?

Robert Campbell

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

[Here]

Hospers' claim that for Rand "enmities lasted" is now something even Ellen Stuttle and Campbell himself have come to question in Hospers' account -- one of those dubious characterizations.

See? That's a small case in point of his misrepresenting. Where did I ever say (or Robert say, for that matter) that I (or RC) had "come to question" Hospers' assessment that Ayn wouldn't have wanted to see him, had he tried to contact her in her later years? One doesn't "come to question" what one has never believed. I've thought since I first read the memoir when it first appeared that John was probably mistaken on that one. This doesn't mean that I doubt his sense of a vise tightening, his account of the difficulties of dealing with her, all of which well mesh with my own sense of what she was like. And it doesn't mean that I think she was behaving reasonably in breaking with him to begin with. It thus offers no valid support for JV's attempted defense of Ayn in re the break with John Hopsers.

Ellen

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Good Lord, some things jump from the screen so vividly that I just can't resist lampooning them. Obviously it is Valliant again (see here):

And, yes, Linz, "bad faith" is on vivid display around here -- but, please, don't give those involved the boot!

The didactic value of such a rare clarity on the matter of "bad faith" is hard to measure.

Er...

Let's translate that into English.

And, yes, Linz, "bad faith" is on vivid display around here -- but, please, don't give those involved the boot!

They are the only rare intelligent ones who even discuss my book anymore, and the value of that to me is hard to measure.

There.

That's better.

Michael

[Neil Parille]

Michael,

In a recent SOLO post, Valliant claimed not to have made most of the errors I pointed out in post 631.

For example, Valliant thinks that:

(Quote: Hospers) He must say things, if not openly critical, at least challengingly exegetical. I did this--I spoke from brief notes and have only a limited recollection of the points I made.

Is identical to:

(Quote: Valliant) In a 1990 interview, Hospers said that he was merely being “challengingly exegetical if not openly critical of Rand,” but he was still no more obliging than the Brandens had been about the content of that challenge.

Yes, he does reverse everything.

-NEIL

____

Edited July 1, 2008 by Neil Parille

[merjet]

Ayn Rand, Mr. Valliant wants us to believe but doesn't want us to believe that he wants us to believe, was flawless...

That's hitting the nail on the head. Despite Mr. Valliant's protests, all the evidence, except possibly she was too quick to anger, points to exactly that conclusion. If there is blame, it must be 100% attributed to somebody other than Ayn Rand.

It's about time somebody who still posts there (not me) to challenge Mr. Valliant to prove it. If he doesn't believe Ayn Rand is flawless, then he should be able to identify some flaws. I gave Casey Fahy that challenge 2+ years ago here. His reply was, to copy Ayn Rand: "Blank out."

In Valliant's case, I suggest making the proof even stronger. Ask him for two top five lists: Ayn Rand's character flaws and Ayn Rand's philosophical errors.

Edited July 1, 2008 by Merlin Jetton

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Merlin,

Heh.

Good luck to whoever does that.

I would have to look it up, but Valliant is on record saying that Casey Fahy is morally perfect. It was a bald in-your-face statement, too. Not his normal gobbledy-gook. It was something like "Casey Fahy is morally perfect."

I will let that speak for itself...

I can find a link if needed.

Michael

[merjet]

I would have to look it up, but Valliant is on record saying that Casey Fahy is morally perfect. It was a bald in-your-face statement, too. Not his normal gobbledy-gook. It was something like "Casey Fahy is morally perfect."

That much depends on what he meant by "is".

[Robert Campbell]

It seems like eons ago, when Mr. Valliant's opus was a mere 6 months old...

Here 'tis, from the horse's mouth:

http://solohq.solopassion.com/Forum/Articl...1446_1.shtml#38

Jon,

I can confirm Casey's testimony. He is morally perfect -- and then some!

How can anyone take this guy seriously?

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

Michael,

In a recent SOLO post, Valliant claimed not to have made most of the errors I pointed out in post 631.

The post is Here.

For example, Valliant thinks that:

(Quote: Hospers) He must say things, if not openly critical, at least challengingly exegetical. I did this--I spoke from brief notes and have only a limited recollection of the points I made.

Is identical to:

(Quote: Valliant) In a 1990 interview, Hospers said that he was merely being “challengingly exegetical if not openly critical of Rand,” but he was still no more obliging than the Brandens had been about the content of that challenge.

This is what he says in the linked post:

Parille: "[Valliant m]isquotes Dr. Hospers (he didn't say 'challengingly exegetical if not openly critical of Rand')"

Hospers said: "... a commentator cannot simply say 'That was a fine paper' and then sit down. He must say things, if not openly critical, at least challengingly exegetical. I did this..." (emphasis added)

The example is among the particularly puzzling examples:

Does he genuinely not see that he quoted the word order backward?

Does he see the changed order but (a) not realize that changing word order is misquoting; and (b ) not realize that the changed word order changes the meaning? I.e., does he see the changed order but believe it makes no difference?

I'm truly puzzled as to what's going on when he does these things. He doesn't exhibit general signs of dyslexia.

Ellen

___

Edited July 1, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

I was looking for the Casey's perfection quote while Robert meanwhile found it.

Here are some related links:

http://www.solopassion.com/node/2877

http://www.solopassion.com/node/2877#comment-36063

http://www.solopassion.com/node/2877#comment-35963

[To Neil:] I will not enter the debate over moral perfection with you. I think folks other than Rand have achieved this, too.

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4150

Ellen

___

Edited July 1, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Alfonso Jones]

It seems like eons ago, when Mr. Valliant's opus was a mere 6 months old...

Here 'tis, from the horse's mouth:

http://solohq.solopassion.com/Forum/Articl...1446_1.shtml#38

Jon,

I can confirm Casey's testimony. He is morally perfect -- and then some!

How can anyone take this guy seriously?

Robert Campbell

I don't visit Solo Passion very often, so I don't know much first-hand about the tone over there, but I'm wondering: Do you assume that Valliant was SERIOUS in the quote:

"I can confirm Casey's testimony. He is morally perfect -- and then some!"

I would have read it as humor - but I don't know the context, including what might have been said before or subsequently to qualify give context for the statement.

Bill P (Alfonso)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bill,

He wasn't joking. He was preaching at that moment. (I'm serious.)

Those two are friends from infancy.

Michael

[Alfonso Jones]

Bill,

He wasn't joking. He was preaching at that moment. (I'm serious.)

Those two are friends from infancy.

Michael

Sad.

Bill P (Alfonso)