Peikoff flip-flops

[Dennis Hardin]

And then along came Lenny (and, while we’re on the subject, Harry). One glance at either of them and all anxiety was instantly relieved.

Jesus, man! Even I’d say you’re crossing the line to puerile abuse. One glance? How would that standard apply to Stephen Hawking?

Geez man. Puerile abuse? My post was partially intended to be satirical, while also pointing out a rather obvious fact. One glance would be sufficient to determine that both Lenny and Harry are nerds. How is that abusive? The contrast with Nathaniel Branden is immediately obvious to anyone with a shred of honesty. But so what? I'm sure a lot of people would label me a nerd. Big f'ing deal, as Biden would say. It is ridiculous to make any comparison with Hawking. Obviously a very different standard applies, given the context of his overwhelming physical disability. There is no way he could not be considered supremely heroic by any rational standard.

[Dennis Hardin]

Dennis,

You mentioned something about Peikoff approving of an Objectivist confirmation service.

I listened to a podcast of his about a year ago where he was asked about an Objectivist liturgy ("And Dagney Said, Amem to Dagney") and he said it was a horrible idea.

Maybe he mispoke about the confirmation business.

-Neil Parille

Neil,

In his podcast of March 3, 2009, Peikoff states that he thinks it is fine for an Objectivist to attend a Catholic confirmation ceremony without sanctioning religion because, like marriage, it is a rite that “can have a secular base.” Despite all of the viciously irrational religious indoctrination involved, he does not see it as fundamentally different from a secular “coming of age” ceremony, a rite of passage. And then he states that he has attended such services. “I have attended a couple of Catholic weddings and a confirmation,” he says.

I made it a point to listen to it three times to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind.

[Brant Gaede]

I just caught this thread.

Come on, folks. Peikoff didn't flip-flop.

Well, he has been flopping, at least, for nearly 42 years. He hit the turbo button in 1986.

--Brant

waiting for the flip

[Philip Coates]

Subject: More Inappropriate Moralizing Abuse and Psychologizing

> "One glance would be sufficient to determine that both Lenny and Harry are nerds...The contrast with Nathaniel Branden is immediately obvious to anyone with a shred of honesty." [DH, #76]

It's wonderful how you add typical Randroid moralizing: The over-the-top and untrue "one glance" allied with "obvious'" and "immediately" only because you have concluded it and adding "anyone with a shred of honesty" as a form of psychologizing intimidation to a conclusion that is -not- obvious unless you know the people and has to do with ability to judge people, not with honesty.

Are you so used to leveling this sort of abuse by now that you don't even know you're doing it? Does DH stand for "Designated Hitman"?

Reading some of this contemptible rhetoric makes -me- want to shower and scrub myself with a stiff brush. I remember when you seemed a calm, judicious, thoughtful, fair-minded person back at the end of the 80's. What the -hell- happened?

Here's what a careful and thoughtful person would have said:

"If you've met them and spoken with them, you can see that Lenny and Harry are nerds. By nerd, I mean X . You can see a contrast with Nathaniel Branden because of Y."

,,,,,

On the other hand, maybe it was just a rant or shooting from the lip so to speak, and you're going to withdraw or amend or explain it?

Edited May 24, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Dennis Hardin]

Reading some of this contemptible rhetoric makes -me- want to shower and scrub myself with a stiff brush.

If you're going to sling gratuitous insults at me, you could at least have the decency to be original. I responded to your last comment by saying that I felt the need to take a shower. Come on, Phil. You can do better than that.

,,,,,

On the other hand, maybe it was just a rant or shooting from the lip so to speak, and you're going to withdraw or amend or explain it?

Now why would a cruel, heartless SOB like me ever do a thing like that?

[9thdoctor]

How is that abusive?

I called it puerile abuse, meaning it’s a childish taunt. I’m all for ridicule when its called for, but I keep it tied to the intellectual content at hand. Except when Phil tries to get on my nerves, then all bets are off. I brought up Hawking because he’s the extreme example of why not to judge someone based on looks. Don’t you see that your comment is the kind of thing a fundy will quote as typical of this site? You really think it’s fair comment in the context of a discussion of Peikoff’s political views?

It's wonderful how you add typical Randroid moralizing: The over-the-top and untrue "one glance" allied with "obvious'" and "immediately" only because you have concluded it and adding "anyone with a shred of honesty" as a form of psychologizing intimidation to a conclusion that is -not- obvious unless you know the people and has to do with ability to judge people, not with honesty.

Sometimes you’re a very sloppy writer. There was no moralizing or psychologizing in Dennis’s post. It was childish, nothing more. Also, the sentence I quoted is such a mess, I’d flunk your ass for it.

Reading some of this contemptible rhetoric makes -me- want to shower and scrub myself with a stiff brush.

In addition to scrubbing, may I suggest something else you can do with that stiff brush? Alright alright enough, I just couldn’t resist.

[Dennis Hardin]

How is that abusive?

I called it puerile abuse, meaning it’s a childish taunt. I’m all for ridicule when its called for, but I keep it tied to the intellectual content at hand. Except when Phil tries to get on my nerves, then all bets are off. I brought up Hawking because he’s the extreme example of why not to judge someone based on looks. Don’t you see that your comment is the kind of thing a fundy will quote as typical of this site? You really think it’s fair comment in the context of a discussion of Peikoff’s political views?

Yes. I think it was totally fair and appropriate and that any honest "fundy" would find it refreshing. I could have gone a lot farther and spelled out just how pathetic Peikoff is by comparison to Branden and how much damage his so-called "leadership" has done to the Objectivist movement. But I decided to keep it jovial, perhaps because that was my mood on that particular day. That doesn't make it less truthful. You totally misconstrue my meaning if you think it's a matter of judging people based on looks. Being a nerd is much more an issue of weird and inept behavior than looks.

This feels like a total waste of time. I'm only saying the obvious (to everyone but Phil, apparently). I'm not sure whether to tell you to lighten up or grow a pair. Maybe both.

[Philip Coates]

> There was no moralizing or psychologizing in Dennis’s post. [ND]

It's moralizing because he is calling people who don't agree dishonest. It is psychologizing because he's claiming to mind read, to know what must be obvious (and immediately at that) to -any- other consciousness.

If that's not what he meant, that's what he said. Words have an exact meaning.

Got it straight now? Sometimes, ND, you're a very sloppy reader and/or parser of the English language.

Edited May 25, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

Subject: "Oh Well, It's Just Obvious"

> I'm only saying the obvious [DH]

The repeated assertion of what is 'obvious' without bearing the responsibility to clearly lay out a solid argument is the last refuge of he who can't do so.

[Robert Campbell]

Robert, I hadn't noticed but, yes, my three examples were all after Rand's death. What would you say would be three examples of rationalistic error prior to '83? (Not just an error in your view like the status of the arbitrary, but rationalism.)

Phil,

Most of the doctrine of the arbitrary was in place by 1976.

And that doctrine is an excrescently rationalistic production.

As an expression of Parmenideanism, the doctrine of the arbitrary is rationalistic in a strictly philosophical sense.

Some parts of the doctrine, for instance, the equation of a human being enunciating what Peikoff deems an arbitrary assertion with the sounds made by a parrot imitating the human, are expressions of rationalism in the psycho-epistemological sense.

Robert Campbell

[9thdoctor]

Finally there’s some discussion of the flip-flopcast on another O’ist site.

...

Pas un peep from Comrade Sonia

Just made my periodic visit to Comrade Sonia’s lair, she still hasn’t commented on Peikoff’s fli…change of position. Stay tuned for the non-event. In the meantime, you can read all about her near disaster making homemade mayo.

Edited June 13, 2010 by Ninth Doctor

[Philip Coates]

Subject: The Dangers of Yesmen and Loyalist Buffers

Robert said, way back in mid-May: "As far as I can discern, Leonard Peikoff's been in intellectual free-fall since the mid-1980s. I think two factors did him in:....Barbara Branden's biography of Ayn Rand... He left college teaching, so the audiences for his lectures henceforward consisted entirely of acolytes."

Intellectual free-fall is certainly exaggerated. Peikoff's courses I took were brilliant. And I don't know for a fact that a -general- lessening of his intellectual quality is true even to any lesser degree, but I stopped hearing every one of his new courses and lectures near the end of the 80's, so I can't compare them on intellectual quality. Or assess any decades long trend.

Robert, have you - or anyone else here - taken entire courses of Peikoff's since the mid-80s?

But being removed from the classroom for a thinker is a very big thing: No longer teaching to the "paisans" can remove one from daily contact with everyday types of thinking, hangups, questions, etc. Every time I teach, I am constantly learning from that, deealing with fresh questions and perspectives, etc.

There's a wider context of what changed in mid to late 80's: Until then he had both Rand and Edith around him. Also, after the Kelley thing at the end of the eighties and the loss of George and Edith from his circle, he had many people who weren't around him every day or week like Rand and Edith, both of whom he respected greatly. But nonetheless weren't afraid to question, disagree, keep him on his toes, or simply came from a somewhat different perspective on some practical, psychological, "people skills" issues: myself, Jerry Kirkpatrick, Linda Rearden, and probably others.

Example: I remember once in the late 80's, myself and Gary Hull and Bob Klein and several others took Leonard out to dinner. He had broken with Robert Hessen and his name came up. Someone (Gary?) had said something to the effect that well, Hessen was probably not a very good teacher anyway. Then someone else (if I recall) piled on with, well, he probably couldn't think very well. I said: well, I took his courses at Columbia and I found him great - excellent, lively teacher and thinker. There was sort of an embarrassed silence. (On that occasion, it was sort of like flushing him down the historical memory hole, airbrushing, well I don't like X and so he never had any value. Peikoff didn't join in on it at that dinner.)

Not that this important and not that I'm suggesting that Gary H was a sycophant, but one -- and not just Peikoff, but anyone in a position of influence, like a king or guru or major thinker or writer (it applies to Rand also!! -- always needs to not just be surrounded by 'yes' people. If, as Robert says, you are surrounded by "acolytes" -- the disagreers are expelled or fade away in alienation or you break with them...as Rand and Peikoff, aping her did... you lose a reality check and become hubristically confident in you infallibility and wisdom on any and all subjects.

,,,,,,

ASIDE: As a case in point, I'm beginning to feel that I'm becoming too full of hubris here on this list. People like ND, JR, GHS, DF, MSK etc. are simply too willing to bow down and acquiesce to my every opinion. I need a forum where people are going to challenge me and disagree with me so as to puncture Phillic Infallibility. I'm having it way too easy with all the sycophants, acolytes and yesmen here.

Edited July 11, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

It just occurred to me that there is a connection between how Peikoff viewed me (to the extent he was even aware of me distinctively) and the three or four very different stages that went through across nearly twenty years and how we all 'pigeonhole' people and whether or not that is necessary. This may or may not be of interest to people...

Edited July 11, 2010 by Philip Coates

[George H. Smith]

,,,,,,

ASIDE: As a case in point, I'm beginning to feel that I'm becoming too full of hubris here on this list. People like ND, JR, GHS, DF, MSK etc. are simply too willing to bow down and acquiesce to my every opinion. I need a forum where people are going to challenge me and disagree with me so as to puncture Phillic Infallibility. I'm having it way too easy with all the sycophants, acolytes and yesmen here.

So long as you don't discuss philosophy or history or ideas in general, you are on safe ground, and I have little quarrel with what you have to say.

As for your being "full of hubris" -- well, "hubris" is not the word I would use, but I sympathize with your problem.

Ghs

[Philip Coates]

> ...don't discuss philosophy or history or ideas in general, ...your being "full of .....

Likewise, I'm sure, snarky pants.

(Too bad you didn't get anything out of my two posts.)

Edited July 11, 2010 by Philip Coates

[jriggenbach]

Too bad you didn't get anything out of my two posts.

I got something out of both of them, Phil! I'll say more, just as soon as I finish spreading what I got out in the garden.

That is what E. B. White would do, isn't it?

JR

[Brant Gaede]

Too bad you didn't get anything out of my two posts.

I got something out of both of them, Phil! I'll say more, just as soon as I finish spreading what I got out in the garden.

That's okay for flowers, not vegetables.

--Brant

"Danger, Will Robinson!!"

Edited July 11, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[blackhorse]

OO.net is reporting from OCON that Peikoff is officially retiring.

[9thdoctor]

OO.net is reporting from OCON that Peikoff is officially retiring.

So he’ll only be doing podcasts henceforth. I can’t help wondering if this will work out like the serial farewell tours of Barbra Streisand, Cher, and The Who. In any event, the practical consequence is that he won’t be at risk of public questioning, even from his supporters. On podcasts he picks the questions, and he gets to reword them as he pleases.

[Ellen Stuttle]

There's a wider context of what changed in mid to late 80's: Until then he had both Rand and Edith around him.

Dates.

Rand died March 6, 1982.

Edith (and George) moved to California in 1977 after the Blumenthals had moved there. (No connection between the respective moves. It's just that I remember when Edith and George moved to California because Edith had dinner with Allan before he and Joan left, then Edith and George left not much later. The Blumenthals, btw, didn't stay out there long. They moved back to NYC the next year.)

I don't know when Leonard Peikoff moved to California.

Ellen

[Philip Coates]

Leonard was close with Edith after his move. Leonard moved to the O.C. around '83 or '84; Very tiny Oist community there. Less tiny in L.A. where and helped jump start activism and I personally organized seven college campuses.

[9thdoctor]

For all my antipathy to Peikoff, I basically voted as he directed.

One exception worth mentioning: in Florida we vote to confirm judges in office, and I looked up one of them and he is a rabid anti-abortion activist. Even invented the term “partial-birth abortion”. Outta there! But he'll probably get confirmed anyway.

[Selene]

For all my antipathy to Peikoff, I basically voted as he directed.

One exception worth mentioning: in Florida we vote to confirm judges in office, and I looked up one of them and he is a rabid anti-abortion activist. Even invented the term "partial-birth abortion". Outta there! But he'll probably get confirmed anyway.

ND:

What was his name?

Adam

[9thdoctor]

What was his name?

Canady.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_T._Canady

BTW here is Harry Binswanger's voting advice:

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/politics/elections/6127-Vote-Republican-Rather-than-Tea-Party.html

[Starbuckle]

Were the first posts in this thread really about whether it's okay to use the word "flip-flop" to refer to a flip-flop?