Harriman/ARI and/or Peikoff rift?


Ellen Stuttle

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Does anyone know what this might mean?

It was posted yesterday by Teresa Summerlee Isanhart on the Rebirth of Reason thread "John McCaskey Resigns."

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Post 25

Saturday, March 22 - 7:08pm [2014]

The other shoe, namely, David Harriman, is just about ready to drop. Brace yourselves.

Ellen

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Ellen,

David Harriman attended Barbara Branden's Memorial earlier this month and a young connector between the two universes (ARI and TAS) and other freedom-loving communities, a guy named Judd Weiss, snapped a picture of Harriman and posted it on Facebook. In the acrimony from the fundies that unfolded, Harriman said he didn't know Barbara, that he went mainly to meet his friend, David Kelley, and have dinner with him afterwards. Imagine how that went over. :smile: And that is probably what Isanhart (i.e., Teresa Summerlee) was talking about.

For those who have Facebook accounts, you can see it here. (You have to be signed in to Facebook to see it.) Some of the fundies tried to resurrect Valliant on that thread, but there are a lot of people--ARI-side and ARI-friendly--who just want the bickering to end so the Objectivist world can get on with the business of spreading Rand's ideas. It's refreshing to see that they are becoming quite vocal about it.

Incidentally, Joshua Zader wrote a brilliant Facebook post about this (see here). He called it "GOODWILL AMONG OBJECTIVISTS." I posted a comment there, which I give below for those who don't do Facebook:

It's rare I post on these things, but I have to say how pleased I am. David Harriman at Barbara Branden's Memorial. Yaron Brook talking to Nathaniel Branden. Judd and Joshua, you guys rock.

The caravan is slowly passing--passing for real--in our subculture, leaving Schismland behind. Where it goes nobody knows, but it looks like it is not going to turn back around.


If you are interested, here is the photo on Facebook of Yaron talking to Nathaniel (at a party for Peter Schiff). You can read about it on the link to Joshua's post.

This is causing major, major heartburn among the fundies, just read the comments now circulating (some are even denying they talked at all), but everybody else in O-Land seems to be heaving a sigh of relief.

I just started communicating with Judd Weiss yesterday. I didn't know who he was before, but I am now a fan.

I called him a connector. This comes from Malcolm Gladwell's three types of people needed for getting ideas to spread (in The Tipping Point): mavens, connectors and salespeople. Judd, from what I have seen, is the essence of a connector. And, boy, do we need more people like him.

Michael

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Oh, hell, you mean it's just who's talking to whom sort of nonsense?

I was so hoping it was an issue of rejecting Harriman's work - although that would mean rejecting the Peikovian foundation of Harriman's approach to induction, and could that happen with Peikoff still alive?

Ellen

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Michael wrote, “. . . but everybody else in O-Land seems to be heaving a sigh of relief.”

Sigh - oh, what a relief it is. Those who Michael labels “fundies” are a cultish group within a philosophy that requires a rational, not Ob- jest –ivist’s subservient mind. I wish all fundies could go back, forget their conditioned responses, and start rereading Ayn Rand’s “Anthem,” with the eyes of the teenager that they were. And I must conclude that Yaron realizes that Barbara Branden was the one most grievously harmed person during the affair and split. And Barbara was one of the most deserving of the title of Objectivist in the aftermath.

It may not be the perfect time for a unification, but it is time for sharing, reciprocity, and civility. A philosophically combined ARI / The Objectivist Center would rival the once great and EXCITING NBI.

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Michael wrote, “. . . but everybody else in O-Land seems to be heaving a sigh of relief.”

Sigh - oh, what a relief it is. Those who Michael labels “fundies” are a cultish group within a philosophy that requires a rational, not Ob- jest –ivist’s subservient mind. I wish all fundies could go back, forget their conditioned responses, and start rereading Ayn Rand’s “Anthem,” with the eyes of the teenager that they were. And I must conclude that Yaron realizes that Barbara Branden was the one most grievously harmed person during the affair and split. And Barbara was one of the most deserving of the title of Objectivist in the aftermath.

It may not be the perfect time for a unification, but it is time for sharing, reciprocity, and civility. A philosophically combined ARI / The Objectivist Center would rival the once great and EXCITING NBI.

There's very little you can conclude about what Yaron thinks about Barbara. What do I think of him?--if anybody cares--he seems to raise a lot of money as head of ARI for ARI and is an unacknowledged neocon. Even Ayn Rand had some neocon in her, but better sublimated into Objectivism. In the abstract she was against the Vietnam War, but in considering what to do about it she advocated winning it ASAP and then getting out, completely begging the questions of how and how. She was for Goldwater, Nixon and Ford. I understand Goldwater, even Ford--but Nixon? Starting with AS, if you read her carefully, it was really about top down reform informing the masses. Mr. Thompson just didn't offer Galt enough power ("Fire your government employees")--enough power to rip the head off the state--so Galt merely let the head fall off on its own. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Torches and pitchforks are needed. Mr. Thampson needs to be executed, along with his bitch wife, running around a courtyard trying to escape the consequences of their perfidity.

--Brant

did Yaron say something I missed? (I don't pay much attention to him)

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Eric Daniels may have left ARI, he's no longer on their website anyway. Anyone know?

He specialised in American history and gave a number of talks on free speech and censorship. May of last year he was still associated with ARI.

Added: According to LinkedIn he is now "History and Science Teacher and Curriculum Developer at LePort Schools" and has been since July 2013. I'm still curious why he severed relations with ARI or vice versa.

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Rand gave several reasons for endorsing Nixon in 1968. He wanted to end the draft (and did, though not until his second term). He supported the ABM program. He talked a free-market line. I suspect her endorsement also had to do with the fact that he had Alan Greenspan and Martin Anderson (sometime NBI student) among his advisors, though she never said this. In 1972 she endorsed him because he wasn't McGovern.

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I think Rand neglected the radicalness of her vision in the 1960s by concentrating on her philosophy generally and morality and moralizing. Moralizing is against hence against Humphrey and McGovern. Too much of her ongoing persona was wrapped up in moralizing--passing moral judgments--but what is behind that has to be the desire for control and the use of morality as a weapon. And what does a novelist do but recast reality, likely into a controllable one? There is a great deal of room for morality out of a political context--it's immoral to violate individual rights--but why not leave the rest of it mostly alone? She even addressed the nature of her readers' souls as revealed by their taste in art.

--Brant

social metaphysician?

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Brant,

This is what happens when people believe an archetype is concrete reality.

Apostates are for scorning by the tribe. No exceptions.

It's an irrational thing.

Part of the mythology of totemic tribal people.

Observe that this archetype and social structure are as old as humanity itself. Recorded history since the beginning is full of stories based on The Apostate's Journey. What's happening now is merely tradition.

The underlying principle is slightly different, though: Those who live by the tribe die by the tribe.

:)

Michael

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Brant,

This is what happens when people believe an archetype is concrete reality.

Apostates are for scorning by the tribe. No exceptions.

It's an irrational thing.

Part of the mythology of totemic tribal people.

Observe that this archetype and social structure are as old as humanity itself. Recorded history since the beginning is full of stories based on The Apostate's Journey. What's happening now is merely tradition.

The underlying principle is slightly different, though: Those who live by the tribe die by the tribe.

:smile:

Michael

It's Rand's fault--and by extension, Nathaniel Branden's apropos the NBI years respecting how the philosophy was presented. All Leonard Peikoff did was ride the cult tumbrel existing on inertia generated mostly by them.

--Brant

"No bad students, just bad sensei"

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I was wondering why Harriman would be so foolish as to attend the ceremony for Barbara.

Here's a clue:

link

This much is simple: Harriman worked under Leonard Peikoff for decades, making his living under Peikoff's guidance (not even feeling the need to finish his PhD), knowing what Peikoff thought of Kelley and the Brandens and explicitly agreeing with his position. Once his relationship with Peikoff hit a dead end (we know they stopped speaking a year or so ago), it looks very much like he saw his opportunities dry up, and he moved on to the next bidder, completely betraying everything he's operated by for the past 2.5 decades. Whatever you think of Kelley and being "open" and tolerant and trying to water down Ayn Rand's philosophy to make it cool and hip, what Harriman did was to feign agreement with one set of beliefs and then completely reverse it when it suited him. This is truly pathetic, and it's indicative of someone who has zero integrity. I'm not outraged and heartbroken about this like many are, I'm just disgusted.

I wonder why Peikoff and Harriman stopped speaking. Peikoff has ended up stopping speaking with quite a few former associates.

Ellen

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I was wondering why Harriman would be so foolish as to attend the ceremony for Barbara.

Here's a clue:

link

This much is simple: Harriman worked under Leonard Peikoff for decades, making his living under Peikoff's guidance (not even feeling the need to finish his PhD), knowing what Peikoff thought of Kelley and the Brandens and explicitly agreeing with his position. Once his relationship with Peikoff hit a dead end (we know they stopped speaking a year or so ago), it looks very much like he saw his opportunities dry up, and he moved on to the next bidder, completely betraying everything he's operated by for the past 2.5 decades. Whatever you think of Kelley and being "open" and tolerant and trying to water down Ayn Rand's philosophy to make it cool and hip, what Harriman did was to feign agreement with one set of beliefs and then completely reverse it when it suited him. This is truly pathetic, and it's indicative of someone who has zero integrity. I'm not outraged and heartbroken about this like many are, I'm just disgusted.

I wonder why Peikoff and Harriman stopped speaking. Peikoff has ended up stopping speaking with quite a few former associates.

Ellen

Who besides Harriman knows Harriman this well? Regardless, this is true believer cultist blather--just read the rest of the link!

--Brant

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"Protect me from my followers!"

Having followers is your responsibility.

--Brant

if you have any why are you complaining?

reality and reason = no followers

reality, Rand, reason = followers and "reason" only gets lip service

objectivism = reality and reason

Objectivism = reality and Rand

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Some of the people in that Facebook thread compared Barbara Branden to Fred Phelps, the Westboro Baptist Church pastor who got famous for showing up at memorial services of recently deceased individuals to proclaim how evil they were.

Since Phelps just died and this was a discussion started by Epstein on why he found it repulsive to go to Barbara's Memorial event, these comparing people sure seemed to enjoy their comparing.

That is, in between moments when they and others on that thread were saying how glad they were Barbara died and how evil she was. They think it's an outrage anyone on their side would pay last respects to Barbara and they want everyone to know it, by God.

So who is really like Fred Phelps, hmmmmm?

A wing of ARI we can call The Westboro Baptist ARI?

The denseness of this, the sheer lack of seeing oneself and what one is doing, is awe-inspiring.

I stand in awe.

:)

Michael

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"Protect me from my followers!"

Having followers is your responsibility.

--Brant

if you have any why are you complaining?

reality and reason = no followers

reality, Rand, reason = followers and "reason" only gets lip service

objectivism = reality and reason

Objectivism = reality and Rand

Well, a little hard - I'd think. (You were 'there' so'd know better than I).

Still, I gather that Rand (and Nathaniel) let the whole excitement of those days go to their heads, for a while. The power of the ideas can do that - it becomes power in itself. "Followers" of the idea, easily slip into followers of the personality and the person.

Weighed against: the one thousand times and ways she re-iterated to think for ourselves. Because what else is Objectivism?

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"Protect me from my followers!"

Having followers is your responsibility.

--Brant

if you have any why are you complaining?

reality and reason = no followers

reality, Rand, reason = followers and "reason" only gets lip service

objectivism = reality and reason

Objectivism = reality and Rand

Well, a little hard - I'd think. (You were 'there' so'd know better than I).

Still, I gather that Rand (and Nathaniel) let the whole excitement of those days go to their heads, for a while. The power of the ideas can do that - it becomes power in itself. "Followers" of the idea, easily slip into followers of the personality and the person.

Weighed against: the one thousand times and ways she re-iterated to think for ourselves. Because what else is Objectivism?

You may not believe me when I say that the main import of NBI was heroic counter, cultural and intellectual, of the entire country. I think you had to have been there in the 1960s to have appreciated what they were up against. "The Break"of 1968 was coincidentally congruent with a big shift in the entire country because of the Vietnam War and LBJ throwing in the towel (all after the indigenous communists had distroyed themselves with the Tet Offensive), the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. 1968 was the most powerful transformational year I've ever lived through. I call it the Great Rethink--and the Objectivist movement was part of that and that's when the "movement" died. Generally people started reconsidering the role of governement in their lives as a trustworthy source of right action, at least in foreign affairs. That didn't get them off the government tit, that merely caused them to more and more despise the very politicians they kept electing to national office.

--Brant

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