Why Nobody Takes PARC Seriously Anymore

[Ellen Stuttle]

Mike Hardy attempts to explain some grammar realities to James Valliant here.

I think that Mike doesn't anticipate the sort of responses which are likely to greet him.

Laughing in advance,

Ellen

___

[Brant Gaede]

Mike Hardy attempts to explain some grammar realities to James Valliant here.

I think that Mike doesn't anticipate the sort of responses which are likely to greet him.

Oh, Mike anticipates it perfectly. Valliant will see it as the vicious ad hominem attack it really is. He's being compared with a seventh-grader, which, objectively, he .... I can't imagine what names Lindsay will call Mike that will get a purchase on an expect in English grammar. Maybe his typo misuse of "an" before "lawyer"? Pretty weak. Confronting an expert on his turf is not wise. Maybe the legendary legions of PARC admirers will rise up zombie-like and finally repair--I mean repair to--PARC.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Nobody(?) takes PARC seriously anymore is the reason Valliant posted entire chapters of it on SOLOP. Now nobody takes PARC seriously anymore. "Like a rotten mackerel in moonlight, it both shines and stinks."

--Brant

Edited July 7, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[Mike Hardy]

Mike Hardy attempts to explain some grammar realities to James Valliant here.

I think that Mike doesn't anticipate the sort of responses which are likely to greet him.

Laughing in advance,

Ellen

___

So a certain prosecutor in California will have me secretly transported to Guantanamo Bay to spend the rest of my days as a Muslim POW while my family is told I was killed in an terrible accident?

And that amuses you? -- Mike Hardy

[Ellen Stuttle]

[...] in an terrible accident?

"Tsk-tsk," as someone might say.

E-

PS: Apologies to any who looked at this post expecting serious comment. ;-)

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

A serious comment.

William describes "the infelicities of language" in PARC as "occasional": See.

William, I'm afraid that I have to consider that description infelicitous -- though I agree with the other critiques you made of the passage cited. I'd call damned well near everything in the passage -- as is characteristic of all parts of the book written by James Valliant -- "infelicitous" in its use of language.

As I've said (post #780 on this thread), I think that the best advice to James Valliant would be to scrap PARC and do it over intelligently (if, of course, he could do it thus).

Ellen

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Edited July 7, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[william.scherk]

William describes "the infelicities of language" in PARC as "occasional": See.

William, I'm afraid that I have to consider that description infelicitous -- though I agree with the other critiques you made of the passage cited. I'd call damned well near everything in the passage -- as is characteristic of all parts of the book written by James Valliant -- "infelicitous" in its use of language.

I think you are right. I changed the phrase to read "Are the rampant and incorrigible infelicities of language the primary reason to critique PARC?"

As I've said (post #780 on this thread), I think that the best advice to James Valliant would be to scrap PARC and do it over intelligently (if, of course, he could do it thus).

In my humble opinion, he is a crappy writer, with a lurching, lumbering, recursive style of argument -- and no ear for how awful his syntax and constructions actually sound. What he really needed for PARC was an editor.

Consider the blurb from Editor-in-chief Robert Middlemiss on the back of PARC: how could anyone competent have let this phrase through the filter: "most certainly a loadstone of inspiration and guidance"? Probably a copy-editor 'improved' the correct word. Another clue that no one actually edited the book is that the end notes are labeled "Footnotes."

I suspect that the procedure at Durban House was: receive document of text from author, send to typesetting.

Edited July 7, 2008 by william.scherk

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mike Hardy attempts to explain some grammar realities to James Valliant here.

Apologies to Mike if the following is inconvenient, but if something should ever happen over yonder, I want this precious comment to stay on record:

I haven't read this forum

Submitted by Michael Hardy on Sun, 2008-07-06 23:35.

I haven't read this forum in a couple of years. Some discussion of it elsewhere prompted me to look in and see for myself what's going on. James Valliant wrote:

"it actually does not purport to be a verbatim quotation of the sentence, but of the words used"

This is a new one to me. I've never heard of quotation marks being construed that way. Ellen Stuttle is a professional editor and I think she knows this topic.

I certainly wouldn't want to condemn PARC on the following basis, but I came across something in it two years ago that shocked me, and I exchanged a bit of email with James Valliant about it. It is a passage where he quotes from Barbara Branden's book where she said Ayn Rand "was to admit later" that something-or-other. Then he claims that's in instance of the passive voice, and goes on to draw conclusions about Barbara Branden's psychology.

Now let's recall from 7th grade what the passive voice is.

"The dog sees the book." ---> "The book is seen [by the dog]."

"A zebra ate grass." ---> "Grass was eaten [by the zebra]."

"I forgot that idea." ---> "That idea was forgotten [by me]."

"God created the world." ---> "The world was created [by God]."

In each of these pairs, the first sentence is in the active voice and the second in the passive voice. ONLY when a sentence with a transitive verb is transformed in this way, the object of that transitive verb becoming the subject of the verb in the transformed sentence, the past participle of the original verb appearing in the new sentence---ONLY then do we have the passive voice.

Anyone who claims the phrase "was to admit later" is an instance of the passive voice flunks that question on a grammar test in 7th grade.

Although it's not at all surprising that a lawyer is ignorant of what 7th-graders are expected to learn about grammar, seeing a lawyer draw inferences about someone's psychology based on their grammar and messing it up in a way that would normally cause 7th-graders to flunk was shocking. I said so in an email to James Valliant two years ago.

In his reply he said I'd called something "shocking for a 7th-grader", and put quotation marks around it.

I would not consider a 7th-grader flunking a grammar test shocking. I did consider an lawyer publicly commenting in that way on someone's grammar while getting it so wrong that he'd flunk a question on a test administered to 7th-graders shocking. So does this use of quotation marks preserve the meaning while permuting the words? Clearly it does neither.

So, Mr. Valliant: Ellen Stuttle is your benefactor. Let her help you. -- Mike Hardy

It really is something when a grammar lesson becomes high comedy.

Just in case anyone wants the phrase Valliant wrote, here it is (hat tip to William in his post on Solo Passion immediately following Mike's. From PARC, p. 152:

And, once again, Ms. Branden strangely opts for the passive voice, Rand, "was to admit." (At this point, one is tempted to call it the "passive-aggressive" voice).

btw - This is another example of Valliant's rhetorical arsenal: first he craps all over himself, then he gets smarmy about it as if he just put down Barbara (or Nathaniel) with an exceptionally clever bon mot.

Valliant does that with posters, too, in his online behavior. For a recent examples, see several instances with that boneheaded business about how he thinks quotes are supposed to be used. (Sorry, don't have time to dig up exact quotes, but they are numerous for anyone who wishes to look.)

Michael

[Mike Hardy]

Mike Hardy attempts to explain some grammar realities to James Valliant here.

I think that Mike doesn't anticipate the sort of responses which are likely to greet him.

Laughing in advance,

Ellen

___

Ellen, I think maybe Valliant and all other good people are attending the ARI's annual conference, and that's why they haven't yet shipped my to Guantanamo or whatever it was you had in mind.

Maybe I should have waited until that was over. -- Mike Hardy

[Ellen Stuttle]

As I've said (post #780 on this thread), I think that the best advice to James Valliant would be to scrap PARC and do it over intelligently (if, of course, he could do it thus).

In my humble opinion, he is a crappy writer, with a lurching, lumbering, recursive style of argument -- and no ear for how awful his syntax and constructions actually sound. What he really needed for PARC was an editor.

He did have his friend Casey Fahy's editorial help. Judging from the result, however, I am disimpressed, to put it mildly, by Fahy's editorial skills.

What the book needs first is a complete overhaul for focalization and organization. He'd have to get clear to start with what his "thesis" IS. He persistently provides no answer when pushed to "name that thesis," but in order to produce a halfway coherent book, he'd first have to get clear in his own mind what he is trying to say. Line-editing alone wouldn't fix the book's problems, although radical line-editing would be needed following focalizing and general re-organizing.

I suspect that the procedure at Durban House was: receive document of text from author, send to typesetting.

I share the suspicion. Furthermore, I doubt that there's anyone on staff at Durban House who is competent to edit even details of punctuation and grammar let alone to provide what's called "big" editing.

Ellen

___

[william.scherk]

Consider the blurb from Editor-in-chief Robert Middlemiss [ . . . ]: "most certainly a loadstone of inspiration and guidance"? Probably a copy-editor 'improved' the correct word.

Seems I am incorrect. Style and grammar master Casey Fahy assures SOLO's remaining 17 readers that 'loadstone' is an acceptable variant of 'lodestone.'

[Brant Gaede]

Consider the blurb from Editor-in-chief Robert Middlemiss [ . . . ]: "most certainly a loadstone of inspiration and guidance"? Probably a copy-editor 'improved' the correct word.

Seems I am incorrect. Style and grammar master Casey Fahy assures SOLO's remaining 17 readers that 'loadstone' is an acceptable variant of 'lodestone.'

But ugly variant.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Consider the blurb from Editor-in-chief Robert Middlemiss [ . . . ]: "most certainly a loadstone of inspiration and guidance"? Probably a copy-editor 'improved' the correct word.

Seems I am incorrect. Style and grammar master Casey Fahy assures SOLO's remaining 17 readers that 'loadstone' is an acceptable variant of 'lodestone.'

William,

Ahhhh... since I am the bogeyman for now, let me go ahead and say it.

Do you think these dudes were aware of what lode is before this controversy? Do you think they actually use "load" in their normal everyday language to mean ore?

In other words, do you think they decided to use loadstone instead of lodestone for stylistic reasons (like local color), or do you think they screwed up like they did in the other places from not knowing and not caring about details, but on recently consulting a dictionary from embarrassment, delightfully discovered that they escaped by the gong?

I think they screwed up and are now going to fake it, but hey, that's me. I'm the biased bogeyman.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Seems I am incorrect. Style and grammar master Casey Fahy assures SOLO's remaining 17 readers that 'loadstone' is an acceptable variant of 'lodestone.'

More than acceptable, I think, given that PARC is indeed a "load"...;-)

[Neil Parille]

On page 20 of PARC, Valliant asked “[D]id no one at Doubleday even read the book?”

-NEIL

____

[Alfonso Jones]

On page 20 of PARC, Valliant asked "[D]id no one at Doubleday even read the book?"

-NEIL

____

Your implicit point is well taken, given the relative quality of PAR and PARC. Does Valliant lack self-consciousness?

Bill P (Alfonso)

[Roger Bissell]

I suspect that the procedure at Durban House was: receive document of text from author, send to typesetting.

I share the suspicion. Furthermore, I doubt that there's anyone on staff at Durban House who is competent to edit even details of punctuation and grammar let alone to provide what's called "big" editing.

Ellen

I'm sure this is all true. However, even when your book is in the hands of a major academic publisher, you have no guarantee that your first attempts will be improved to the point of presentability.

My favorite example is Tara Smith's book on Rand's ethics. It has taken a number of justifiable hits for its inadequate scholarship, viz., for not citing Branden and others. My most strenuous criticism of it, though, is precisely the shoddy detail editing that its back cover received. (I don't have that material handy to include in this post, but if you have the book, check it out.)

From whom? Would you believe Oxford [arrrrgh! CAMBRIDGE!] University Press? <sigh> Somebody dropped the ball. The cover material is like your suit of clothes. If it's nicely colored and designed, but it has flaws in the weave that anyone with half an eye and brain can see, it detracts significantly (IMO) from the first impression you make on the world. It makes you look cheap and careless. To each his own, I guess.

REB

[Alfonso Jones]

I'm sure this is all true. However, even when your book is in the hands of a major academic publisher, you have no guarantee that your first attempts will be improved to the point of presentability.

My favorite example is Tara Smith's book on Rand's ethics. It has taken a number of justifiable hits for its inadequate scholarship, viz., for not citing Branden and others. My most strenuous criticism of it, though, is precisely the shoddy detail editing that its back cover received. (I don't have that material handy to include in this post, but if you have the book, check it out.)

From whom? Would you believe Oxford University Press? <sigh> Somebody dropped the ball. The cover material is like your suit of clothes. If it's nicely colored and designed, but it has flaws in the weave that anyone with half an eye and brain can see, it detracts significantly (IMO) from the first impression you make on the world. It makes you look cheap and careless. To each his own, I guess.

REB

Roger -

Are you speaking of the hardback edition? I have the paperback, and did a quick scan of the back cover and didn't detect a problem (other than the rather ugly looking colors!). What is the problem?

Bill P (Alfonso)

[Ellen Stuttle]

My most strenuous criticism of [Tara Smith's book on Rand's ethics], though, is precisely the shoddy detail editing that its back cover received. (I don't have that material handy to include in this post, but if you have the book, check it out.)

If that's your most strenuous criticism, you don't have enough of a critique really to qualify as such. How many reviews of books ever mention jacket copy? Of what significance is jacket copy to a book's eventual repute?

Furthermore -- just a point of publishing procedure -- it can happen that the editor of a book doesn't even see jacket copy before the book appears.

Ellen

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[Chris Grieb]

Roger; Didn't someone say "You shouldn't judge a book by its cover."

[Alfonso Jones]

My most strenuous criticism of [Tara Smith's book on Rand's ethics], though, is precisely the shoddy detail editing that its back cover received. (I don't have that material handy to include in this post, but if you have the book, check it out.)

If that's your most strenuous criticism, you don't have enough of a critique really to qualify as such. How many reviews of books ever mention jacket copy? Of what significance is jacket copy to a book's eventual repute?

Furthermore -- just a point of publishing procedure -- it can happen that the editor of a book doesn't even see jacket copy before the book appears.

Ellen

___

As a criterion for evaluation of a book, the term "nonessential" comes to mind in considering the back cover.

But I can't even figure out what the problem is with the back cover, looking at the back cover of the paperback edition.

Would one make the same comment about the trailer for the movie The Fountainhead which referred to Peter Keating as "weak, selfish?" (Seriously, I listened three times on the DVD and I'm convinced that's what it says!) Whether you like the movie or not, the trailer is of no consequence.

Bill P (Alfonso)

[Daniel Barnes]

(Valliant would) have to get clear to start with what his "thesis" IS (in PARC). He persistently provides no answer when pushed to "name that thesis," but in order to produce a halfway coherent book, he'd first have to get clear in his own mind what he is trying to say.

Ellen is too generous. The overt theses of PARC are clear enough.

1) The Brandens' accounts of their time with Ayn Rand are completely unreliable, and written with malice aforethought. Even at their best, they are "arbitrary."

2) They are completely unreliable because they are designed to conceal the "spiritual rape" of Ayn Rand committed by Nathaniel Branden (with Barbara complicit).

3) The Brandens are thus fundamentally evil (Nathaniel in particular having "a striking similarity to the psychology of a rapist", emphasis in original)

4) Being evil, ergo they are out to destroy the profoundly good: Ayn Rand, a mind "generations ahead of her time."

5) With the revelation of this evil, the good can finally triumph.

Now if in later discussions he fudges or dilutes these theses - and it must be said they don't really read all that well out in public, as opposed to the confines of the Objectivist commnunity - or if the theses themselves are incredible and/or rely on absurd arguments, or if the book itself is incompetent and childish (which it is) it's still obvious what he's trying to say in it. Indeed, Peter Cresswell and Diana Hsieh got it loud and clear.

[Ellen Stuttle]

(Valliant would) have to get clear to start with what his "thesis" IS (in PARC). He persistently provides no answer when pushed to "name that thesis," but in order to produce a halfway coherent book, he'd first have to get clear in his own mind what he is trying to say.

Speaking of niceties of writing, Daniel, a question: Do you not know the ropes for using square brackets versus parentheses? (I did not write, as you've made it look as if I did, the material you enclosed in parentheses. Those are your alterations and should be indicated as such with square brackets.)

[...] it's still obvious what he's trying to say in [PARC].

Well, so you say, and some others have said. If perchance he reads your post, I'd be curious to hear if he accedes to your description of his thesis. I'd say that there's an appearance of his attempted thesis being as you describe. But there's also material which doesn't fit this interpretation. And if what he was trying to demonstrate is as you say, he came nowhere near to a plausible show of carrying through on his intention.

Ellen

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Edited July 9, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Neil Parille]

This is, I think, Valliant's argument:

P1: The Brandens lied to Rand re: 1968, rendering their credibility suspect.

P2: The Brandens had a nasty falling out with Rand, rendering their objectivity suspect.

P3: There are certain general problems with the Branden books (hyperbole and overgeneralizations).

P4: The Brandens describe Rand in a way that contradicts established facts about her (for example, they claim that Rand made a big deal about artistic disagreements but this is shown to be suspect because she named Peikoff, who likes jazz, her heir).

C1: The Brandens' description of Rand is erroneous.

P5: Others who describe Rand in a manner similar to the Brandens (for example John Hospers describing Rand as controlling) are contradicted by the established facts (for example, Rand never tried to control Deems Taylor or Spillane).

C2: Others who describe Rand in a manner similar to the Brandens have the same distorted biases as the Brandens.

Although I call it Valliant's argument, I have removed all his BS that detracts from his point (e.g., Nathaniel Branden has a "soul of a rapist," Rand's "critics" don't think you should make moral judgments, the Brandens tried to "control Rand's context through deception" by throwing a surprise party, Rand had a mind equivalent to an MRI, etc.).

-NEIL

____

Edited July 9, 2008 by Neil Parille

[Robert Campbell]

Roger,

My complaints about Tara Smith's book on Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics pertain entirely to matters that Dr. Smith had control over.

The publisher, Cambridge University Press, put footnotes at the bottom of the page, where they belong (most publishers refuse to do this, or need a lot of arm-twisting these days).

In general, the copy editing and production on this book were top quality.

I just wish the review process had challenged her deliberate non-citation of certain authors.

Robert Campbell