Rand-like quote

[tjohnson]

But you've already admitted to being ignorant of the history here. You don't even know who his intellectual influences are and haven't, from your many other comments, demonstrated a familiarity with intellectual history here. So, how do you know?

And, by the way, a familiarity with the history of philosophy might reveal to you that thinkers who think they've solved it all -- including transcended philosophy by showing all its concerns are the results of mistakes or are even insane -- are peppered throughout history.

This doesn't mean Korzybski is merely another pretender -- though, from you admissions, you're in no position to judge. But doesn't it strike you as rather funny that you believe all the things you do -- Korzybski has built a science, his is the first, etc. -- yet haven't really, it seems, done much work to approach this scientifically -- i.e., looking at where it came from, having some skepticism, and testing your beliefs about it rigorously?

Maybe I should mention that part of general semantics involves training oneself in proper (according to the theory) semantic reactions. This is an ongoing affair that one does everyday of their life - you can't just "be" sane, it's a constant struggle, if you will. I have been doing this for around 35 years and I have found it invaluable to my life. So from my point of view, GS makes sense on a theoretical level and a practical level and that is enough for me. Perhaps others who have a more academic interest might want to explore the history of Korzybski's ideas but I have no interest in doing so.

[George H. Smith]

Question to George H. Smith: where has your article Is Objectivism a Religion been published?

Didn't Albert Ellis write a book with that title? I'm unaware of George writing an article with the same title...

Correction: G. H. Smith's essay has the title: Objectivism as a Religion:

I just found this link: http://web.archive.org/web/20041217041217/http://www.dailyobjectivist.com/Spir/ObjectivismasaReligion.asp

I had no idea this article was available online. Thanks for posting the link.

The version on the LF site (reprinted from Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies) is an abridged and somewhat revised version of a much longer version that I originally published in three parts in Invictus, in 1972. And that article, in turn, was a revised version of a much shorter lecture that I delivered in 1970 for the UA Students of Objectivism club, while I was still a student.

Readers of ATCAG may recall the discussion of "rules" versus "standards" in that book. The core of that discussion was taken from "Objectivism as a Religion." I had worked out those ideas while in college, after observing the deleterious effects that "religious Objectivism" had on some of my friends.

Having found in Objectivism an escape from the pervasive guilt that I had experienced in my earlier years as a Christian (until age 13 or so), I was at once astonished and disturbed by how Objectivism was generating the same kind of guilt in some of its adherents. I then tried to figure out why this was so, since Objectivism had precisely the opposite effect on me. It was a liberating experience for me, not a constraint.

Ghs