My AmazonReview of "The Reasonable Woman," allegedly by Wendy McElroy

[PDS]

I don't know what in recent posts made me think of this, but I suddenly remembered an electric typewriter that I used to own -- a German-built Adler that was reliable and heavier than a Buick.

The interesting thing about that Adler is that I purchased it from Nathaniel Branden for $150 in order to write ATCAG. Nathan told me that he had used it write his articles for The Objectivist Newsletter. I then used it to write all of ATCAG.

I wish I had been able to hold on to that Adler over the years, because it was a unique historical curiosity. Oh, well...

Ghs

Careful George. Typewriters from bygone eras are a really big deal for some folk around here.

[Selene]

I also heard rumors that there are problems with intellectual property and lovers relationships around here also...

[caroljane]

I also heard rumors that there are problems with intellectual property and lovers relationships around here also...

If you are referring to that to which I think you refer, Fluffy is not all that intellectual, but that does not detract from his intrinsic value.

[PDS]

Ghs said above, "ome things are better left in a bottle with a cork on, locked in a safe, and buried 50 feet underground." So very true. This is especially apt from an evolutionary perspective. Think of the average cave man seeing his children eaten by dinosaurs, etc.

Seriously, I have never understood the modern willingness to poke the hornet's nest of bad childhood memories. God knows I have my share of them, and am comfortably willing to leave them where they belong--buried deep. Jung's journeys into the subconscious were fairly self-directed, and therefore somewhat safer than a layman trying to pull this trick. But he was a full time psychiatrist and mystic.

Most of the rest of us have a payroll to meet, or the taxman to beat.

[Selene]

Most of the rest of us have a payroll to meet, or the taxman to beat.

A poet and he don't even know it!

[George H. Smith]

Ghs said above, "ome things are better left in a bottle with a cork on, locked in a safe, and buried 50 feet underground." So very true. This is especially apt from an evolutionary perspective. Think of the average cave man seeing his children eaten by dinosaurs, etc.

Seriously, I have never understood the modern willingness to poke the hornet's nest of bad childhood memories. God knows I have my share of them, and am comfortably willing to leave them where they belong--buried deep. Jung's journeys into the subconscious were fairly self-directed, and therefore somewhat safer than a layman trying to pull this trick. But he was a full time psychiatrist and mystic.

Most of the rest of us have a payroll to meet, or the taxman to beat.

Again, you have to understand that I never thought of my activities as any type of therapy. That was never the point. They were fascinating inner journeys that were light, fun, and exciting. And they posed no problem with women who were grounded. But when the person already had a lot of demons (to use Sharon's term), they could get very serious very quickly and backfire.I really had no way of knowing at first that we were tapping so deep into the subconscious. That came as a complete surprise to me.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Before I leave this thoroughly unpleasant topic alone for a while, I want to summarize some essential points:

!. In 1998, after I posted some parallel passages between TRW and my 1974 handout for FOR classes, Wendy replied with Excuse #1. She claimed that she had erased all my FOR material and started TRW from scratch in 1994. She explained the parallels by saying she had an excellent memory and may have duplicated some passages inadvertently.

2. Later, after I posted 8 pages of additional examples of plagiarism from my FOR transcripts, Wendy came up with Excuse #2. She said that she had forgotten about an intellectual diary she had kept while attending my classes -- the one thing relating to FOR that she had not destroyed - and that the duplicated FOR material came from there.

Of course, Wendy has never produced this mysterious intellectual diary, and it seems highly unlikely that a person with an excellent memory would have forgotten about it until Wendy, backed into a corner, had to concoct another lie.

Excuse #2 is absurd on its face, for two basic reasons.

First, are we to believe that Wendy, in her diary, literally transcribed 200 pages of the remarks I made during my classes? This makes no sense.

Second, the intellectual diary had nothing to do with taking notes. It was a diary of one's thinking, personal goal-setting, etc. that occurred outside of class. In fact, I specifically requested that students not take any notes during classes because they were interactive, and I didn't want students to be distracted.

3. After it became clear, even to Wendy, that #1 and #2 would never fly, she presented Excuse #3. This was the claim that she had actually co-developed and co-written all of my FOR material.

Of course, this created even more problems for Wendy because Excuse #3, as I pointed out in detail earlier, flatly contradicts #1 and #2. For example, if Wendy had really co-developed FOR, then why did she need to take notes during classes?. Since when does a person need to take notes on her own material with which she would be intimately familiar?

4. I have posted a link to online versions of articles on logic that I published in the LD/Extemp Monthly 12 years before the publication of TRW. The parallels between my published articles and the chapter on logic in TRW are massive, consisting of around 8 pages in TRW.

Should Wendy ever attempt to explain these duplications, she has only one recourse. She will claim that I took my articles on definitions from the (supposedly) co-written FOR manuscript, even though it is actually a transcription of what I said during classes, and that I based my published articles on that material.

5. If this should ever constitute Excuse #4, consider the awkward implications.

First, if Excuse #4 is correct, then how did all those duplications end up in TRW? If Wendy destroyed all the FOR material in 1994 before beginning work on TRW, then how did her chapter on definitions come about? Is she saying that she copied directly from my published versions? If so, Wendy is confessing outright plagiarism, since those articles were published under my name alone.

Moreover, even if we accept, for the sake of argument, Wendy's absurd allegation that I defaulted on our contract -- a charge for which she has never offered a shred of evidence -- and that the legal rights to my FOR material reverted to her, such rights would not apply to material that I had already published. A defaulted contract would never transfer the rights to her of my published material. Or will Wendy now claim that she now has the right to any and all material that I have published on reasoning and logic, including the discussions in ATCAG, published in 1974?

Never mind that if Wendy really believed in 1994 that she had a legal right to publish my FOR material under her name alone that Excuses #1 and #2 are demolished, since it is absurd to suppose that Wendy erased all FOR material from her hard drive in 1994 in order to write the same book over again from scratch in nearly the same words.

Lastly, as I have pointed out before, if Wendy relies on the legal argument, then she is admitting that she copied half of TRW from my writing. Otherwise, her claim that she had the legal right to publish my part of FOR would make no sense -- for if Wendy was a co-writer of FOR, this means that I was at least a co-writer as well.

If I was only a co-developer and co-writer of FOR, then why, in TRW, does Wendy say that I created FOR and that she merely participated in the classes? Why did she not say then that she had co-developed the material?

Never before in the annals of plagiarism has a string of excuses been so ineptly presented.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Hey, Brad!

Just a note to let you know that I have completed Round 1 of the Great Plagiarism Scandal. It will take a while to compile my Evidentiary E-Book and send it to everyone under the Sun. That will constitute the second and final round. No getting up off the mat for Wendy after that.

There may be a silver lining for you in this cloud. Since Wendy has probably not been in a great mood lately, you will have had time to replenish your precious bodily fluids.

Ghs

[Robert Campbell]

George,

Before you take leave of this thread:

Any thoughts as to why Wendy McElroy would offer even qualified praise for Jim Valliant's book?

Also, Wendy's Domestic Violence blog from September 2004 not only makes you out to be a serial physical abuser of women; it also claims, in effect, that she and Annie have become good friends. How well did they ever know each other?

Robert Campbell

[kiaer.ts]

So, what's the matter Engle, is this thread too dirty for even your coprophiliac tendencies?

[Selene]

"Coprophilia (from Greek κόπρος, kópros—excrement and φιλία, filía—liking, fondness), also called scatophilia or scat,^[1] is the paraphilia involving sexual pleasure from feces.^[2][3] In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV-TR), it is classified under 302.9 Paraphilia Not Otherwise Specified and has no diagnostic criteria other than a general statement about paraphilias that says "the diagnosis is made if the behavior, sexual urges, or fantasies cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning". Furthermore, the DSM-IV-TR notes, "Fantasies, behaviors, or objects are paraphilic only when they lead to clinically significant distress or impairment (e.g. are obligatory, result in sexual dysfunction, require participation of nonconsenting individuals, lead to legal complications, interfere with social relationships)".

Although not all coprophiles would necessarily be sadomasochists, little data on the prevalence of this behavior is available except from studies of the SM community. A study of 164 male sadomasochists from Finland from two sadomasochism clubs^[4] found that 18.2% had engaged in coprophilia; 3% as a sadist, 6.1% as a masochist, and 9.1% as both. 18% of heterosexuals and 17% of homosexuals in the study pool had tried coprophilia, showing no statistically significant difference between heterosexuals and homosexuals. In a separate article,^[5] a subset of 12 men from that study who engaged in bestiality was analyzed and found that 54.5% of the 12 men had engaged in coprophilic behaviors, compared with only 8.3% of 12 of the men who did not engage in bestiality who matched up logically with each of the 12 who did."

OL is such a great vocabulary enhancer...

[George H. Smith]

George,

Before you take leave of this thread:

Any thoughts as to why Wendy McElroy would offer even qualified praise for Jim Valliant's book?

Also, Wendy's Domestic Violence blog from September 2004 not only makes you out to be a serial physical abuser of women; it also claims, in effect, that she and Annie have become good friends. How well did they ever know each other?

Robert Campbell

1) Both of these are good questions, but I'm not sure about the answers. Here are my best guesses so far.

When someone posted Wendy's review on this thread, I was preoccupied with other things, so I read it quickly and only once. I didn't pick up any vibes, as I might have in earlier years, partly because Wendy's style has changed since I knew her, and her review didn't connect with me as something that Wendy would have written. Please understand that I am not suggesting in the least that Wendy was not the real author of that article. In a way I am paying her a compliment, because I am saying that her writing has become more methodical. It lacks the spontaneity and enthusiasm of her earlier work, which I liked.

Wendy's review didn't kowtow to the Valliant crowd as much as I had expected, though there are some things in there, such as a remark to the effect that Valliant gave us a portrait of the real Rand that BB had not, that were outrageous.

In any case, Wendy didn't lick ARI boots sufficiently clean to follow in the footsteps of Hsieh, and the stab wounds she inflicted on BB were not deep enough to bring cheers from the ARI bleachers, as occurred when Hsieh stabbed Chris in the back. Moreover, there is no realistic way that Wendy could ever ingratiate herself with the ARI crowd enough to get funding from them. Her anarchism and associations with various libertarian groups are more than enough to guarantee that that would never happen, and Wendy surely knows this.

So what was going on? Well, my best guess at this point is that nothing overly dramatic was going on. Wendy knew that BB was supportive of me during the 1998 conflict, so she had little to gain from licking the boots of BB supporters. And since, as I said, ARI support was out of the question, Wendy positioned herself the middle of the conflict. She positioned herself as the objective "Reasonable Woman" who rejected both extremes, probably in the hope of appealing to her own crowd.

As I said, this is just guesswork on my part. I could very well be wrong, so take the preceding comments for what they are.

2) The claim that Wendy and Annie have become good friends strikes me as extremely unlikely. She probably invoked Annie's name to give a vague credibility to her charge that I was physically abusive. I never touched Annie in anger, and I doubt if she would ever claim that I did, however much she may dislike me at this point, given how things fell apart at the end.

(I still have a meticulous record, kept by Annie, of our daily expenses for drugs for around a year. She kept this account because I had a $5000 credit line with our dealer, and he trusted Annie keep track of how much I owed him. Considering that our drug expenses ran from $100-300 per day, this is quite remarkable in its own right. When I look at that record now, I wince and think, What a waste.)

Anyway, during my years with Annie, she and Wendy never actually met in person, though they talked on the phone numerous times. Wendy was very curious about Annie and was benevolently disposed toward her, because she knew that Annie and I were engaged in the same Mind Sex games but with considerably more success. Wendy prodded me several times to arrange for the three of us to "get together," but I knew better than to place myself in the eye of that hurricane, so such a "meeting" never occurred. Moreover, I repeatedly warned Annie to be very careful when talking to Wendy on the phone and not to answer any personal questions. Annie, a decent, straightforward person, was no match for Wendy's labyrinthian mind and could easily have been manipulated by her.

Wendy and Annie may have had some phone conversations shortly after the Robert Murphy incident, but I seriously doubt that they have become close friends. This just doesn't ring true to me.

Annie had a more difficult time in rehab than I did, so she remained there for around two weeks after I left. This is why I was alone when I flew to Norman, Oklahoma to stay with Agnes and Robert, at their invitation, after I got out of rehab.

I had a very difficult time reaching Annie by phone, because Agnes wouldn't let me talk to her. I finally got through to her once, and I received at least one letter from her. Annie was agitated because Robert had lied and downplayed the violence involved in Murphy's Indian Therapy. She denied that Robert had ever threatened my life -- which is bunk; there were two explicit threats to shoot me in the head, the latter made with a loaded and cocked revolver inches from my left temple, and many more implicit threats. But since Annie and I, while we were in rehab together, had already agreed that it would best for us to go our separate ways, and since Agnes was the only real grounding that Annie had, I decided to let the matter drop, and I never attempted any more communication with Annie after that.

Ghs

Addendum: My closest brush with death during the Murphy incident had nothing to do with a gun. After my attempted escape, Robert tackled me in the living room as I was going for the phone. I don't remember anything until I found myself back in the garage. This time Robert had hog-tied me, so there was no chance I could attempt another escape.

I was again wrapped in that tarp, but this time much more tightly, and no provisions were made for air. I remember gasping as the small amount of air quickly ran out. I also noticed tiny pinholes in the tarp, as the light shined through them. I put my mouth next to one of the pinholes (I have no idea why they were there) and tried to suck in air, but to no avail. As I felt myself passing out, I shouted over and over again for help. Robert heard me from another room, or from the driveway, came back in, and loosened the rope around the top of the tarp so I could breathe.

Then, when it came time for Robert to drag me from the garage to the back of his pickup, he told me that if I screamed for help from neighbors, he would shoot me in the head on the spot. I had no reason not believe him.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

One last thing....

A while back someone asked if my articles on swinging, published in the late 1970s under the pseudonym "Camille St. George," can still be found somewhere. The situation was this.

Sam Konkin made a living at the time as a typesetter. A night person like myself, Sam worked all night out of a large warehouse in an industrial part of Los Angeles, where he also did the typesetting for his "New Libertarian." I frequently published in this zine, so I would take my articles to Sam at 3 a.m., so we could hang out and chat for a few hours.

I soon learned that Sam did the typesetting for one or more of those cheap sex tabloids -- owned, curiously enough, by a libertarian businessman -- that were available in sidewalk vending machines throughout the city. These were easily recognizable by the front page, which typically featured a woman with large breasts and stars over both nipples. Real classy stuff.

Anyway, I asked Sam if I could get some articles on swinging published, each of which would only run around 750 words. Sam thought this was a good idea and said he could probably get me $50 per article. This is what happened, and I believe I published five articles over a one year period. I don't recall if all my articles appeared in the same tabloid, however.

I clipped these articles and kept them in a file folder for years, but I lost them, along with nearly everything I owned, in storage during the Dark Ages of my life.

So unless someone has meticulously saved the original tabloids, my answer is, no, they are probably not still available. Too bad. I would love to have copies myself.

Ghs

Addendum: During the early 1970s, while I was writing ATCAG, I lived for around a year with a lovely woman named Camille. I sometimes joked that if I ever wrote pornography, I would publish it under a pseudonym that included both of our names. Hence the pseudonym Camille St. George.

Another historical tidbit, previously undisclosed, that you learned about on OL!

Ghs

[Robert Campbell]

George,

I didn't know that Barbara Branden supported you in 1998. That definitely gave Wendy an incentive to go after her. Not to mention a further reason to avoid this board...

How well did Wendy ever know Nathaniel Branden?

I don't know a whole lot about Wendy's latter-day personal following. But the regulars on the ifeminists board, when I participated there, were largely uninterested in the internal politics of Rand-land. I recall making one post with some critical remarks about Rand-worship and Jim Valliant's role in promoting it; no one responded. I doubt the regulars would have cared how she reviewed PARC.

Annie was never referred to by name in the Domestic Violence blog. Actually, no one was referred to by name; Wendy's charges were all leveled at you by implication.

Robert Campbell

[George H. Smith]

George,

I didn't know that Barbara Branden supported you in 1998. That definitely gave Wendy an incentive to go after her. Not to mention a further reason to avoid this board...

How well did Wendy ever know Nathaniel Branden?

I don't know a whole lot about Wendy's latter-day personal following. But the regulars on the ifeminists board, when I participated there, were largely uninterested in the internal politics of Rand-land. I recall making one post with some critical remarks about Rand-worship and Jim Valliant's role in promoting it; no one responded. I doubt the regulars would have cared how she reviewed PARC.

Annie was never referred to by name in the Domestic Violence blog. Actually, no one was referred to by name; Wendy's charges were all leveled at you by implication.

Robert Campbell

Barbara was very supportive, and I very much appreciated her help. Barbara was not pleased, to say the least, when she learned that Wendy had approached her to endorse a plagiarized book.

Nathaniel Branden? I don't recall that Wendy ever knew Nathan.

I know Wendy never mentioned anyone by name in her blog. Typical Wendy. Using anonymous sources to support outrageous allegations -- sources that would be known to participants, such as myself, but to few other people.

Remember when I told the story about how, shortly after Wendy had been called a "slut" at a party, she sent a letter out of the blue to my best friend in Long Beach, warning him that I was a "sex pervert" and that he should dissociate himself from me? I called that a warning shot across the bow. I suspect Wendy's blog was written for the same reason -- Keep your mouth shut, George, or you will be sorry. But this warning shot was one that I never saw until you pointed it out to me.

My interpretation is consistent with your suggestion what Wendy wrote her blog shortly after receiving the email I sent 6 years ago about resolving the FOR dispute. She may have been afraid that I planned to reopen the controversy at that time and so took action to discourage me

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Robert,

After the "slut" incident, and after I hung up the phone on Wendy the following morning on New Year's, she went on a pre-emptive strike rampage against me. I don't know how many people she contacted, but one was my old friend and colleague, the historian Ralph Raico, who had no knowledge of any of this mess.

When Ralph called me to ask what was going on, I said that the situation was incredibly complicated and that I didn't know where to begin. I then said that if Ralph wanted to see how Wendy was not being candid, that he need only say one thing to her during their next conversation. I said, "Tell Wendy that I told you to mention the name Valerie. I guarantee she will hang up the phone and never bother you with this nonsense again."

Ralph called me a few days later and said, "Wendy called me earlier today, so I did as you suggested. I mentioned the name "Valerie" to her and she hung up immediately without so much as a goodbye. Amazing."

That incident was so psychologically twisted that even I couldn't figure out what had happened until thinking about it for a couple weeks.

Wendy was not the only one who knew how to send warning shots across the bow. The difference is that my warning shots were far more menacing because they were based on real incidents.

Ghs

[Robert Campbell]

George,

During our exchanges about her decision to keep Jim Valliant's review on her site and to remove Neil Parille's critique, Wendy said, in essence, that, unlike me, she didn't consider either Barbara or Nathaniel Branden to be good for Objectivism.

This isn't word for word, but it does capture her conflation of a philosophy with a movement. It's a conflation that the Orthodox make on a daily basis, but that I was surprised to see her falling into.

Her apparent frame of reference in the exchanges was the "Objectivist movement."

I wouldn't have thought that she would describe herself, even aspirationally, as having any relationship with such a movement. Conversely, she must have assumed that because I'm here in Rand-land, I'm trying to participate in some such thing—and I most emphatically am not.

So Nathaniel Branden never stood in her way or lent his backing to anyone she had a personal beef with.

Then I have to figure she felt the need to throw him in because for Valliant and the rest of the Orthodoxy, TheBrandens always think and act as a unit.

Robert Campbell

[jriggenbach]

George,

During our exchanges about her decision to keep Jim Valliant's review on her site and to remove Neil Parille's critique, Wendy said, in essence, that, unlike me, she didn't consider either Barbara or Nathaniel Branden to be good for Objectivism.

This isn't word for word, but it does capture her conflation of a philosophy with a movement. It's a conflation that the Orthodox make on a daily basis, but that I was surprised to see her falling into.

Her apparent frame of reference in the exchanges was the "Objectivist movement."

I wouldn't have thought that she would describe herself, even aspirationally, as having any relationship with such a movement. Conversely, she must have assumed that because I'm here in Rand-land, I'm trying to participate in some such thing—and I most emphatically am not.

So Nathaniel Branden never stood in her way or lent his backing to anyone she had a personal beef with.

Then I have to figure she felt the need to throw him in because for Valliant and the rest of the Orthodoxy, TheBrandens always think and act as a unit.

Robert Campbell

Just for the record, Wendy did meet Nathaniel on at least a couple of occasions, but my guess is that she never had any sort of relationship with him. I believe I introduced the two of them sometime in 1973. The occasion was a couple of recording sessions at Nathaniel's home in the hills of Beverly Hills. He was doing a monthly LP at the time, a discussion recorded live between Nathaniel and a group of students, released through Academic Associates - at the moment, I can't remember the name of the series, but I know it has been discussed here. Brant Gaede, I believe you have a complete set and have been in discussions with Nathaniel to reissue the whole thing on CD. Anyway, I organized a couple of sessions in which all the questions were about art and related matters. I invited Wendy to be one of the participants. She was, along with her boyfriend at the time, Larry Montgomery, and a young couple from outside the area who were staying in L.A. briefly while traveling around the country. I had been put in touch with this peripatetic young couple by a fellow named Jesse Knight (now deceased), who was an early Objectivist interested primarily in Rand's aesthetic philosophy and in the arts.

Helpfully (I hope),

JR

[Brant Gaede]

George,

During our exchanges about her decision to keep Jim Valliant's review on her site and to remove Neil Parille's critique, Wendy said, in essence, that, unlike me, she didn't consider either Barbara or Nathaniel Branden to be good for Objectivism.

This isn't word for word, but it does capture her conflation of a philosophy with a movement. It's a conflation that the Orthodox make on a daily basis, but that I was surprised to see her falling into.

Her apparent frame of reference in the exchanges was the "Objectivist movement."

I wouldn't have thought that she would describe herself, even aspirationally, as having any relationship with such a movement. Conversely, she must have assumed that because I'm here in Rand-land, I'm trying to participate in some such thing—and I most emphatically am not.

So Nathaniel Branden never stood in her way or lent his backing to anyone she had a personal beef with.

Then I have to figure she felt the need to throw him in because for Valliant and the rest of the Orthodoxy, TheBrandens always think and act as a unit.

Robert Campbell

Just for the record, Wendy did meet Nathaniel on at least a couple of occasions, but my guess is that she never had any sort of relationship with him. I believe I introduced the two of them sometime in 1973. The occasion was a couple of recording sessions at Nathaniel's home in the hills of Beverly Hills. He was doing a monthly LP at the time, a discussion recorded live between Nathaniel and a group of students, released through Academic Associates - at the moment, I can't remember the name of the series, but I know it has been discussed here. Brant Gaede, I believe you have a complete set and have been in discussions with Nathaniel to reissue the whole thing on CD. Anyway, I organized a couple of sessions in which all the questions were about art and related matters. I invited Wendy to be one of the participants. She was, along with her boyfriend at the time, Larry Montgomery, and a young couple from outside the area who were staying in L.A. briefly while traveling around the country. I had been put in touch with this peripatetic young couple by a fellow named Jesse Knight (now deceased), who was an early Objectivist interested primarily in Rand's aesthetic philosophy and in the arts.

Helpfully (I hope),

JR

It was called Seminar. Production stopped in the Spring of 1973. That probably killed Academic Associates. My LPs are still in possession of Leigh and Nathaniel. Leigh sent me a DVD with I think all the records on it. It's now on my computer. Included are some NBI records from the 1960s. The series went out by subscription and lasted precisely four years and 48 records. Nathaniel got tired of it and the repetitious questions. I purchased them in bulk around 1973. Listened to them once.

--Brant

Edited January 24, 2011 by Brant Gaede

[George H. Smith]

I didn't expect anything new to turn up on the plagiarism scandal, but something has, and there may be even more to come. I will keep the background brief. Those who don't recall the details can always scan this thread.

I located the letter below earlier today -- a proposal for a book on reasoning to the publisher Jeremy Tarcher (who was NB's publisher) I located this in my files earlier today after Sharon Presley informed me of a disussion on another forum about the plagiarism scandal, specifically, about the agreement that Wendy and I signed in 1989, and which Wendy posted on her website. (I believe someone posted it on this thread.) Here is what I wrote to Sharon:

Sharon,

I addressed that contract in my original emails in 1998. Wendy was to add three chapters to my original FOR ("Fundamentals of Reasoning") manuscript and smooth out some of my notes and rough drafts, for which I offered to give her secondary authorship. She never did any of this, however. After a year or so, I contacted Nathaniel Branden for a recommendation to his publisher (Tarcher). I then wrote final drafts of my first three chapters and submitted them, but they were rejected. [This was an error. As noted below, I only submitted one final draft chapter and a Table of Contents.]

When I called Wendy (then in Canada) about fulfilling her end of the agreement, she said that she had gotten a grant from the Roy Childs Fund (i.e., Laissez Faire Books) to write a book on porn (I think that turned out to be "XXX"), so she didn't have the time. That was the last time we talked about the book until 1996, when I ended up in SF broke and emailed her about possibly finishing the project. She responded to Vince Miller (I used his computer) by threatening to block all emails from him, if he permitted me to use his computer to write to her again.

Not coincidentally, 1996 was also the year that Wendy later claimed to have erased all my FOR material from her hard drive and to have written TRW from scratch. This was after I had told her that I had lost "everything" in storage, so she thought I no longer had the original FOR disc and related material. She was wrong, of course.

But forget all this. At minimum, that agreement proves my point. It proves that I wrote at at least HALF of TRW. In one of her tortuous revised excuses (she gave three different and contradictory stories in all), Wendy later claimed that she had submitted a polished manuscript to me at some point, but that I did not "review" it in the six weeks specified in the contract, so all rights supposedly reverted to her. (Our agreement says nothing like this,I never would have agreed to relininquishing all my rights to my own material on which I worked for over seven years.)

That is a another lie, of course, and Wendy never offered a scrap of evidence for this outlandish claim. (Nor did she ever mention to Prometheus that she was claiming full rights to material she had not written, owing to some imaginary default on my part. Prometheus certainly would have wanted evidence of this, and they would have contacted me for confirmation.) Nevertheless, Wendy's story -- and the agreement on which it depends -- amounts to an admission that I did in fact write at least half of TRW -- which flatly contradicts her earlier claim that she began writing the book from scratch in 1996, after erasing all of my material from her hard drive.

Wendy made a big mistake by posting that agreement, and I'm surprised she has kept it on her website. (I would have posted it myself in 1998, but I no longer had my copy, and I feared she would claim that I had fabricated a story about a contract.) That contract, and my initial response to it in 1998 (in which I pointed out how it flatly contradicted her earlier "immaculate conception" 1996 fib) is what finally convinced Bob Kephart that Wendy was lying through her teeth. He wrote her a scathing email as a result.

Ghs

Earlier today I began wondering whatever happened to the original letter I wrote to Tarcher, since it was written on a computer and then printed out. I had never run across the letter in my current files, even though I have many other files from those days. So I ran a global search on "Tarcher," and two results popped up. I haven't had the time to investigate the second one yet, but the first contained my original letter to Tarcher in an old Wordstar file that I had hitherto been unable to translate. No one else had been able to do this either, but when I viewed the file in MS Wordpad, I found, much to my delight, that even though it is still very messed up, it is legible and could be translated with a little effort.

The original WS document, as it appears in Wordpad, follows. After that, you will find my translation of the document, which I did word by word. With one minor exception (which I note with question marks), I have been able to translate this important letter accurately. If you don't understand the great significance of this letter, then you haven't been following this thread.

Here is the original messed-up version, taken directly from my old Wordstar file, as it showed up in Wordpad..Don't ask me why the headings came out good while virtually nothing else did. I have no idea.

.op

_

2040 Florida St., #8

Long Beach, CA 90814

Nov. 7, 1991

Jeremy P. Tarcher

Tarcher Publications

5858 Wilshire Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90036

Dear Mr. Tarcher:

Nathanieì Brandeî suggesteä thaô É writå tï yoõ abouô á booë 

proposal® É understanä thaô hå contacteä yoõ abouô á montè agï 

regardinç thió project®

Thå workinç titlå oæ thió booë ió _Thå Psychologù oæ 

Reasoning_® É aí noô happù witè thió titlå -- iô makeó thå booë 

sounä toï abstracô -- buô iô wilì dï foò now® Perhapó á titlå 

likå _Ho÷ tï bå aî Intellectual“ ió betteò suiteä foò thió kinä oæ 

book®

Thió booë haó twï authorsº myselæ anä Wendù McElroy¬ á 

seasoneä writer® É encloså somå informatioî oî ouò writinç 

backgrounds¬ buô É shoulä alsï mentioî another¬ ratheò unusuaì 

credentiaì foò writinç thió kinä oæ book® É waó á high-schooì 

dropouô anä havå nï degreeó whatever® É aí self-educateä -- whicè 

woulä bå singularlù unremarkablå werå iô noô foò thå facô that¬ 

foò nearlù twentù years¬ É havå functioneä successfullù amonç 

highlù credentialeä academics® Foò twelvå yearó É havå taughô aô 

variouó seminaró witè graduatå studentó froí Harvard¬ Yale¬ 

Oxford¬ Cambridge¬ etc® aó mù students® (Foò example¬ Steveî 

Macedo¬ whoså writinç waó mentioneä repeatedlù iî thå recenô 

Clarencå Thomaó confirmatioî hearings¬ waó á studenô oæ minå 

durinç á three-weeë seminaò iî 1982).

Mù lacë oæ traditionaì qualificationó haó rendereä må well-

qualifieä tï writå _Thå Psychologù oæ Reasoning.“ Mucè oæ thió booë 

addresseó issueó likå intellectuaì self-confidence¬ ho÷ tï 

commanä respect¬ ho÷ tï counteò intellectuaì intimidatioî bù 

"authorities,¢ etc® Iî otheò words¬ mucè oæ thå advicå iî thió 

booë concernó preciselù thoså issueó thaô É haä tï deaì witè aó á 

noncredentialeä intellectuaì (á virtuaì nobodù bù conventionaì 

standards© aó É moveä iî á worlä oæ high-powereä academics® Thå 

advicå É givå iî theså areaó ió baseä oî manù yearó oæ practicaì 

experience¬ anä É havå useä mù owî advicå succesfully®

Now¬ abouô thå booë itself® Iô ió á mixturå oæ philosophù 

anä applieä psychologù -- á self-helð book¬ iî effect¬ oî ho÷ tï 

nurture¬ improve¬ anä enhancå thå _intellectual“ sidå oæ one'ó 

life® Iô ió aimeä aô adultó (non-academics© whï wisè tï (1© 

improvå theiò reasoninç skills¬ (2© rekindlå theiò enthusiasí foò 

intellectuaì activities¬ and/oò oò (3© undertakå specifi㠍

intellectuaì projectó (e.g.¬ writinç á book)®

Š

Thå ideá foò thió booë gre÷ ouô oæ á workshoð thaô É gavå 

foò oveò teî years¬ "Thå Fundamentaló oæ Reasoning.¢ Oveò thå 

years¬ aó É workeä witè eighô adultó oncå á week¬ É learneä á 

valuablå lessoî thaô waó confirmeä manù timeó overº Intellectuaì 

problemó usuallù involvå fear¬ anxiety¬ lacë oæ confidence¬ anä 

otheò psychologicaì factors® Anä dealinç witè theså psychologicaì 

factoró caî brinç abouô remarkablå intellectuaì improvements.

_Thå Psychologù oæ Reasoning“ ió unlikå anù self-helð booë 

É kno÷ of® Mucè oæ thå advicå ió originaì (thå fruit¬ aó É said¬ 

oæ mù personaì experience.© Anä eveî wherå É dï relù oî fairlù 

standarä techniques¬ É havå adapteä theí tï fiô thå intellectuaì 

sidå oæ one'ó personality®

Iî short¬ thió booë ió baseä oî twï premisesº (1© Developinç 

one'ó intellectuaì lifå caî bå aó pleasureablå anä satisfyinç aó 

developinç one'ó emotionaì life» (2© Therå ió nï waò oò conflicô 

betweeî intellecô anä emotion® Jusô aó thå minä caî assisô uó iî 

overcominç ouò emotionaì problems¬ sï thå emotionó caî assisô uó 

iî overcominç ouò intellectuaì problems®

Well¬ that'ó thå basiã saleó pitch® É encloså á preliminarù 

tablå oæ contents¬ á samplå chapter¬ anä backgrounä informatioî 

oî Wendù anä me®

Thå currenô statuó oæ thå booë ió aó followsº Wå havå arounä 

16° manuscripô pageó -- somå oæ iô verù rougè -- ouô oæ á 

projecteä totaì oæ 25° pages® Wå estimatå thaô á finaì drafô oæ 

thå entirå booë wilì takå abouô siø months®

Thanë yoõ foò youò timå anä consideration® Iæ yoõ neeä morå 

information, I will be happy to provide it.

_______________________________________________________________________

George H. Smith

213-433

-3471_______________________________________________________________________

And here is my translation. If anyone thinks I have made any errors, please correct me.

2040 Florida St., #8

Long Beach, CA 90814

Nov. 7, 1991

Jeremy P. Tarcher

Tarcher Publications

5858 Wilshire Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90036

Dear Mr. Tarcher:

Nathanieì Branden suggested that I write to you about a book proposal. I understand that he contacted you about a month ago regardling this project.

The working title of this book is The Psychology of Reasoning. I am not happy with this title -- it makes the book sound too abstract -- but it will do for now. Perhaps a title like "How to be an Intellectual" is better suited for this kind of book.

This book has two authors: myself and Wendy McElroy, a seasoned writer. I enclosed some information about our writing backgrounds, but I should also mention another, rather unusual credential for writing this kind of book. I was a high-school dropout and have no degrees whatsover. I am self-educated -- which would be singularly unremarkable were it not for the fact that for nearly twenty years I have functioned successfully among highly credentialed academics. For twelve years I have taught at various seminars with graduate students from Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, etc., as my students. (For example, Steve Macedo-- whose writing was mentioned repeatedly in the recent Clarence Thomas confimration hearings -- was a student of mine during a three-week seminar in 1982.

My lack of traditional qualifications has rendered me well-qualified to write The Psychology of Reasoning. Much of this book addresses issues like intellectual self-confidence, how to counter intellectual intimidation by authorities, etc. In other words, much of the advice in this book concerns precisely those issues that I have to deal with as a noncredentialed intellectual (a virtual nobody by conventional standards.) I move in a world of high-powered academics. The advice I give in these areas is based on many years of practical experience -- and I have used my own advice successfully.

Now about the book itself. It is a mixture of philosophy and applied psychology -- a self-help book, in effect, of how to nurture, improve and enhance the intellectual side of one's life. It is aimed at adults -- non-academics who wish to improve their reasoning skills, rekindle their enthusiasm for intellectual activities, and/or to undertake specific intellectual projects (e.g., writing a book).

The idea for this book grew out of a workshop that I gave for over ten years -- "The Fundamentals of Reasoning." Over the years, as I worked with eight adults once a week, I learned a valuable lesson that was confirmed many times over. Intellectual problems usually involve fear, anxiety, lack of confidence, and other psychological factors. And dealing with these psychological factors can bring about remarkable intellectual improvements.

The Pscyhology of Reasoning is unlike any self-help book I know of. Much of the advice is original -- the fruit, as I said, of my personal experience. And even where I do rely on fairly standard techniques, I have adapted them to the intellectual .side of one's personality.



In short, this book is based on two premises. (1) Developing one's intellectual life can be as pleasurable and satisfying as developing one's emotional life. (2) There is no [waò oò ???]conflict betwen intellect and emotion.. Just as the mind can assist us in overcoming our emotional problems, so the emotions can assist us in overcoming our intellectual problems.

Well, that's the basic sales pitch. Enclosed is a preliminary table of contents, a sample chapter, and background information on Wendy and me.

The current status of the book is as follows. We have around 160 manuscript pages -- some of it very rough -- out of a projected total of 250 pages. We estimate that a final draft of the entire book will take around six months.

Thank you for your time and consideration. If you need more information, I will be happy to provide it.

Sincerely,

George H. Smith

213-433-3471

I don't have the time or energy now to explain the great significance of this letter, except to say that it confirms what I have said all along, including in my letter to Sharon above. Moreover, there may be additonal letters or documentation contained in my folder of what I believed to be "untranslateable" Wordstar files, and labeled as such in my "WS Folders.".

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

While rummaging through dozens of boxes an hour ago, I happened across a thick folder of material relating to the original plagiarism scandal in 1998. The material includes not only a complete printout of my original FOR transcripts -- 98 pages, singled-spaced -- but also many of the missives that I wrote in 1998 in S.F., but which I don't have on my current hard drive. Some files were lost because I didn't have email at the time, so I used the computer of Laura Kroutil, my future wife. It is a good thing that I kept hard copies.

Anyway, at least one of my 1998 missives is worth posting, even though it means I will need to retype everything from scratch from the hard copy. The evidence presented here is especially dreadful, because it shows how Wendy plagiarized from virtually everything I ever wrote on this subject -- in this case, a handout that I gave to participants. I still have an early printout of this material, and I also have it in an early WordStar file.

Here is my 1998 post, in full:

WENDY McELROY AND THE REASONABLE WOMAN: A STUDY IN PLAGIARISM

The following are parallel quotations from George Smith's handout for "The Fundamentals of Reasoning" (written in 1974, a full year before we first met) and Wendy McElroy's recent book, The Reasonable Woman (Prometheus Books, 1998). As a conservative estimate, I would say that at least half of McElroy's book has been plagiarized in similar fashion. McElroy had nothing to do whatever with the writing or development of this material. It has been flagrantly stolen without permission or acknowledgment.

This brief sample contains two varieties of plagiarism. The first is of the nearly word-for-word kind. (If Prometheus checks McElroy's pre-edited manuscript, I suspect they may find even more similarities. since some of the minor differences looks like typical alterations by a copy-editor.) I estimate that this kind of plagiarism takes up at least 75 pages in McElroy's book.

The others are less flagrant, but no less apparent. They consist of rewrites of my original. These appear throughout the book, in dozens upon dozens of paragraphs. So far as I can tell, only two chapters in McElroy's book are clean of this rubbish (that is, she only wrote two chapters on her own) -- the opening chapter on women, and the later chapter on statistics. Those are hers entirely. The rest are [largely] mine, to the tune of about 50-75 percent per chapter. Her major changes consist primarily of some adaptations of the material to problems confronting women, adding some cutesy illustrations, and some sections of fabricated dialogue in the "transcipts" of the "intellectual therapy" (though much of those are vebatim quotes, copied from tapes of my discussions with [FOR] participants, even though they are attributed to an anonymous "facilitator" referred to as "she.") McElroy has sometimes added her own twist to my ideas, but that is the exception rather than the rule. What is at stake here is not using someone else's ideas, but using their material verbatim, or nearly so, throughout much of the book, without my knowledge or consent, and presenting them as her own. The couple of brief acknowledgments that I receive in the book -- almost in passing -- give no indication whatever of the vast extent of the plagiarism involved here.

What follows in typical. -- George H. Smith

[in the original, I placed my 1974 writing (from my FOR handout) first, and I placed Wendy's version directly underneath, in italics. I will see if I can duplicate this procedure now.]

Smith, p. 3: "Life is a series of decisions, and where there is a decision, there is always

McElroy, p. 91: "Life is a series of decisions, and where there are actions, there is always

the possibility of error. Most of our activities are done habitually,

the possibility of falling flat on your face. Most of our activities are done habitually --

without conscious thought. When we set a new goal, however, we must

that is without conscious thought. When you set a new goal, however, you must

redirect our habits, and the possibility of failure looms ever present.

frequently redirect your habits, and the possibility of failure looms ever closer.

It is this fear of failure -- the fear of taking risks -- that condemns many people to a

It is precisely this fear of failure that condemns many people to a

life of dreary routine devoid of significant risks, but also devoid of significant challenges

life of dreary routine devoid of significant risks, but also devoid of significant challenges

and rewards.

and rewards.

This is only around one-third of the parallel passages, but typing this shit again is literally making me sick to my stomach. l will therefore pause here and post the remaing material later on.

I still cannot comprehend how someone can copy the writing of another person, nearly word for word, and pass it off as her own -- while basking in the praise of her readers. It absolutely astonishes me.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

What follows is typical. -- George H. Smith

[in the original, I placed my 1974 writing (from my FOR handout) first, and I placed Wendy's version directly underneath, in italics. I will see if I can duplicate this procedure now.]

Smith, p. 3: "Life is a series of decisions, and where there is a decision, there is always

McElroy, p. 91: "Life is a series of decisions, and where there are actions, there is always

the possibility of error. Most of our activities are done habitually,

the possibility of falling flat on your face. Most of our activities are done habitually --

without conscious thought. When we set a new goal, however, we must

that is without conscious thought. When you set a new goal, however, you must

redirect our habits, and the possibility of failure looms ever present.

frequently redirect your habits, and the possibility of failure looms ever closer.

It is this fear of failure -- the fear of taking risks -- that condemns many people to a

It is precisely this fear of failure that condemns many people to a

life of dreary routine devoid of significant risks, but also devoid of significant challenges

life of dreary routine devoid of significant risks, but also devoid of significant challenges

and rewards.

and rewards.

Okay, I will now attempt to type the rest of my missive from 1998.

Smith, p. 3: "A risk is any activity <a> that is not done habitually, and therefore must be done

McElroy, p. 92: "A risk is any activity that: <a> is not done habitually

consciously and deliberately; <b> that will, directly or indirectly, put you closer

<b> will put you closer

to something you want;

to some goal you have established.

<c> that entails the possibility of failure and

<c> entails the possibility of failure, and,

thereby creates a resistance to doing it. To qualify as your risk

<d> frequently requires you to overcome emotional resistance to taking action.

for the day, two conditions must be met: (1) The risk must result from a conscious

Two other conditions must be met:(1) The risk must result from a conscious

decison to take an action, and the action must be perceived as a risk at the time.

decision to take an action, and the action must be peceived as a risk at the time.

You must think you yourself, in effect: "I am about to take a risk." Your success or failure

You must think to yourself, in effect: "I am about to take a risk." Then, do it.

is irrelevant -- the important thing is to try. But remember:

there are no "risks in retrospect."

There are no "risks in retrospect."

You cannot reflect on your day and select an action as a risk

You cannot reflect at the end of your day and select an action as a risk

unless you viewed it as one before you took it.

unless you viewed it as one before you took it.

(2) The risk must be recorded in writing.

(2) The risk must be recorded in writing.

I need to take another break. I will finish this later -- as if I have not already made the point.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

You need a drink, George.

--Brant

the corrupter

[George H. Smith]

I think I just solved a mystery that has puzzled me for some time. My claim that Wendy plagiarized directly from my FOR handout, though obviously true, was curious in a way. Why? Because hundreds of people were given that handout over the years, and I know of at least two people who still have copies. I found it hard to believe that Wendy could be so careless as to plagiarize from a document that was so widely distributed, because a number of people could have exposed her plagiarism.

I just found the most likely explanation. Tucked away in my old WordStar files is a file titled "11raw." The file number indicates that the following material was intended to be the 11th chapter of my Fundamentals of Reasoning book, and "raw" signifies that the material in the file is a literal transcription from a class or classes. (You may recall that Wendy transcribed these tapes, supposedly as a favor to me, because she wanted me to finish the book. That's how she got her hands on all my FOR material.)

I had totally lost track of this file. Indeed, it is not even included in my printout of the FOR transcripts, which contains 10 chapters, not 11. This file is therefore the lost 11th chapter, and it is essential to understanding how Wendy thought she could get away with plagiarizing my handout.

In fact, by the time Wendy wrote "her" book, she had probably forgotten about that handout. Instead, she took the material from this transcript, which includes the information from my handout. I typically started the first session of my FOR courses by reading or paraphrasing the handout and then elaborating on it, often from notes and sometimes extemporaneously. I then solicited comments and answered questions.

This "11raw" file is one of several dozen Wordstar files that I was able to translate into MS Word, and, though it is very long, it is also very important -- especially for those who want to see more extensive evidence than I have provided thus far.

I will break this file into three parts. The first part is where I read or paraphrased from my FOR handout. I am virtually certain that this part, and not my handout per se, was the source from which Wendy plagiarized, since she viewed it as just another transcript while plagiarizing it. What you are about to read is a literal transcript from one or more of my FOR classes. There are many typos here, but I have not corrected any of them.

A central theme of this course is the role of purpose in thought and action. Without conscious goals, you cannot have a sense of achievement, because you have no standard by which to measure success or failure. You have no real sense of whether you have achieved what you set out to do.

Although it important to set long-term goals for yourself -- things that you want from life in general, such as a certain career move -- it is equally important to set short term goals. GO THROUGH GET CONTROL OF YOUR TIME AND LIFE. These are goals you hope to accomplish with the next month, week, or even the next day. It becomes too frustrating to have only long-terms goals which are always in the future, and which cannot give you the immediate satisfaction of having accomplished something. Moreover,goalst long-term goasl can be broken down into a series of short-term goals. At each achievement along the way to your major goal, you can enjoy the satisfaction of finishing something, while using your success or failure as a check how realistic your long-term goals really are.

It is important to commit your goals to writing. This accomplishes a number of things:

1. It makes your goals explicit. It is too easy for unstated thoughts to fuzzy. Seeing statements before you in black and white allows you make things very clear. You may discover that your resistance to writing goals down comes from uncertainty about them, or an unwillingness to face how unrealistic they may be. Setting words to paper may well induce you to deal with either of these problems, should they exist.

2. Writing your goals down allows you to break them down into smaller more manageable components. Making your goals explicit gives you control over them.

3. Putting something in writing makes it real. Often people do not say things out loud, or put things in written form. This is becPsychology have power. Pscyhology recognizes this; otherwise, therapy sessions -- an exchange of words -- could not possibly help anyone. By making your goals explicit and real, you are making a commitment to face them and deal with them.

4. Writing your goals down will allow you to show them to other people for feedback and encouragement, if this is what you desire.

Be as specific and concrete as you possibly can. Avoid vague, general goals, unless you intend to quickly break them down into their component parts. It is not useful to write: 'I would like to become an intellectual within the next year.' It is useful to write down what -- for you and your life -- constitutes becoming an intellectual. For example: I want to read one non-fiction book a week; I want to stop watching TV; I want to take a university class; I want to develop a correspondence on current events with someone; I want to stop my mind from wandering; I want to speak more to the point, rather than rambling. Even these more specific goals can be broken down in manageable day-by-day units. For example, developing a correspondence on current events will require reading the newspaper every day, or news journals every week. When goals are broken down in this manner, your original goal -- I want to be an intellectual -- becomes not only manageable, but also intelligible. You now know what it means to you to be an intellectual.

A word of warning: when formulating these goals, do not be dogmatic. Just as you change emotionally over time, you will change intellectually. Your goals will evolve and change over a period of time. This is to be expected. Just because you have written down a goal, does not mean you can't change it at any time. It does not mean that you must stay with the goal, or accomplish it come what may. Remember: you set goals to make life happy and satisfying, not to burden yourself with obligations and unwanted chores. The purpose ofgoal-setting is to make life easier and more enjoyable. It is not intended to cause guilt and ulcers.

Setting goals and pursuing them will probably cause some anxiety, because it will entail taking risks. Life is a series of decisions, and where there is a decision, there is the possibility of error or failure. Most of our activities are done habitually -- that is, without conscious thought. When you set a new goal, however, you must frequently redirect your habits, and the possibility of failure looms ever closer. It is precisely this fear of failure -- the fear of taking risks -- that condemns many people to a life of dreary routine devoid of significant risks, but also devoid of significant challenges and rewards.

You should establish a pattern of taking at least one risk a day. The risk should pertain to an intellectual goal you have set for yourself.

What constitutes a risk? A risk is any activity that:

a. is not done habitually and, therefore, must be done consciously and deliberately;

b. will put you closer to some goal you have established;

c. entails the possibility of failure and, thereby, creates a resistance to doing it.

Risk taking is an excellent means of overcoming such intellectual problems as procrastination. You will find that you risks will add up, over a period of time, to major achievements -- especially if they are a part of your daily routine. If you have trouble remembering to take a risk each day, write notes to yourself and stick them where you can't help but see them. On your bathroom mirror. On the toilet lid. On the refrigerator. On your coffee mug. If you find the risk exercise just too difficult, make your risk for the day to think about 'why'. Or, shift your attention from the content of the risks, and view it, instead, as an adventure and a noble experiment.

Whenever the idea of making a mistake or feeling embarrassed holds you back, keep this in mind: If it were not for the possibility of failure, success would not be an accomplishment. In the intellectual realm, if it were not for the possibility of error, truth would not be an accomplishment. Overcoming the possibility of error and other barriers is what allows us to be justifiably proud of our accomplishments. Both failure and success are a natural part of living and learning. You cannot have one without the other, and neither should be feared.

Moreover, risks need not involve cataclysmic changes to your lifestyle. A risk can be of minor or major important. Many of the risks you do may seem minor, even trivial. This is fine. You are not trying to impress anyone; you are trying to breaking old habits and form new ones. Most habits consist of a network of activities; each activity, considered by itself, is usually mundane. The risks you take might include committing ten minutes a day toward thinking about a particular issue, or reading a book, or speaking up in a conversation. You might specifically look for an opening in order to say, "I am mistaken about that" -- if such a statement is appropriate.

The content of the risk is entirely subjective; it must be determined by what constitutes a risk for you personally. For some people, speaking up in a conversation is a risk; for others, staying quiet and listening is much harder. As a rule of thumb, however, if you feel great resistance to a minor activity, it is probably good risk material.

For an action to qualify as your risk for the day, two conditions must be met:

(1) The risk must result from a conscious decision to take an action, and the action must be perceived as a risk at the time. You must think to yourself, in effect: 'I am about to take a risk.' Then, do it. You success or failure is irrelevant. The only important thing is to try. Remember: there are no 'risks in retrospect.' You cannot reflect at the end of your day and select an action as a risk unless you viewed it as one before you took it.

(2) The risk must be recorded in writing. You must make a brief note each day stating -- at bare minimum -- what the risk was and how you did with it.

The next part consists of material that is more conversational and informal. This means I was probably working from notes, while extemporizing from time to time, in my typical fashion.

The notebook: I would like you to have seven pages for each week. It is important to have at least one sheet per day. At the beginning of each week, take 7 sheets of paper and set up the whole week for recording. The key to this is regularity. How you want to set up your own schedule for a "thinking program" is up to you. But the task demands no less than 15 minutes a day and, if you can, 1/2 hour a day. There are a lot of wasted moments in everyone's life...on the freeway or standing in line. And much of this thinking program can be done in these moments. The only part that cannot be done is the writing part.

Approximately 1/2 the time should be spent thinking and 1/2 writing. Some people like to write while they think. However you want to work it. Basically, this is a record of your thinking process. I don't want essays or a finished process. Just a sort of summary of what you have been thinking about, a record. You should write down not just your ideas but your emotional response to those ideas. Whichever is paramount in your mind. It is a written record of your thinking process. This is a key step toward improving your intellectual habits.

You might come out with a purely intellectual notebook, or you might come out with a combination of emotional and intellectual, or you might come out with a predominantly emotional. Remember that no one has to see this. If you want to, that's fine. I encourage it. But its your choice.

A good method for maintaining your journal is as follows:

(1) Acquire a loose-leaf binder and the necessary paper. At aset time each week (for example, after Sunday dinner) date seven sheets of paper corresponding the seven days for the upcoming week. You can add more sheets per day as required.

(2) Make a daily appointment with your journal, preferably for the same time each day. This does not have to be a chronological time, eg. 9:00 a.m. It can be worked into your schedule, eg. after or during your first cup of coffee in the morning. Establish a routine so that you write in your journal as a matter of habit. The appointment with your journal is really an appointment with yourself. It is your time to consider who you are and who you would like to be intellectually. Be selfish about it.

(3) The topics you can write about in your journal are virtually unlimited. You can select topics such as politics and religion, but the subject matter need not be so abstract. For instance, you can think about a personal problem or a problem at work. The important thing is to think about things in terms of principles. Don't slip into a venting of your emotions on paper. Try to analyse whatever you are thinking about. For example, suppose you want to write about becoming more assertive. Instead of merely recording how bad you feel about being unassertive, ask yourself 'what does it mean to be assertive'? Is it the same as being aggressive? Is assertiveness always desirable? Can assertiveness be learned? This is an example of thinking in principles -- in terms of the fundamental issues involved.

There is practically no subject that cannot be made philosophical. For example, an important career change. How would you think about that philosophically? The way to think philosophically is to think about what basic principles can be applied to the situation. How do you decide between A and B? Which is the best choice? Now, already you are talking philosophically.

(4)In writing about your feelings toward yourself intellectually and toward the process of thinking itself, be honest. If you feel optimistic, say so. Your emotions provide fuel and feedback for your mind, and you cannot expect your mind to function well without motivation. If you are on an emotional downswing, writing about it -- particularly in an analytic manner -- may be much to dissipate it.

(5) On those days when you fail to write in your journal, be sure to note briefly on the appropriate page why you neglected it. This note may consist of nothing more than 'I forgot,' or 'I was too tired.' At the end of each week, you should have at least seven sheets of paper with some writing on each one. You should either have an entry, or a reason why no entry was made. If your pages contain reason after reason why you did not make an entry, then at least you have a pattern before you of why you have trouble with intellectual matters.

What if you cannot think of anything to write about? What if you go totally blank? Of course, you should note this reaction down in your journal. Or, you can try and classify a problem you are experiencing. For example, does the problem result from a conflict between two goals? Is there an obstacle in front of one goal?

Beyond this, you can utilize a powerful intellectual tool called Brainstorming. Brainstorming is a commonly used psychological technique. It consists simply of this: when you are considering any type of problem, you should write down every thought that occurs to you without censoring anything. Write all your ideas down, no matter matter how wild they seem. This is a very creative way to approach problems, or at least to get a handle on them. Instead of racking your mind to be brilliant or correct, just write down everything. Try only for speed. If you wonder what to do about being unhappy, and "quitting my job and combing the beaches" comes up, write it down. This doesn't imply you have any intention of beachcombing. The point is to come up with all the innovative solutions of which you are capable. These are the solution which are usually blocked in normal thought.

In other words, just allow youself to sit down in a freewheeling, non-critical wway write down as many alternatives as possible. Don't think of only good alternatives, but write down everything that comes into your mind. If you are evaluating what you write, you are defeating the exercise. You shouldn't be judgmental. The more creative the solution, the better. The basic rules of brainstorming are: no evaluation, freewheeling, the wilder the better. It is easy to tame down ideas, but not easy to think them up, so quantity not quality is your goal.

By not censoring yourself, you will reveal on paper your natural ways of approaching problems and intellectual issues. Your strengths and weaknesses will be highlighted. In other words, you will gain perspective.

The third and final part (I have omitted nothing) may seem a little puzzling, because in the beginning you see me commenting on the FOR classes rather than speaking directly to students. This indicates that I did a little work on this file at some point, with the intention of making it suitable for a future book. I don't know for certain, but I suspect you will find that Wendy even plagiarized from the statements I used from students, while attributing them to some fictitious "intellectual therapy" groups conducted by an equally fictitious female "facilitator."

During a class which I conducted -- entitled The Fundamentals of Reasoning -- it was the custom for students to report on progress in their journals. To give you a better idea of the sort of interaction possible between you and your journal, the following are actual reports I received from students:

A. I sit behind my desk at work and turn off the typewriter and say to myself that I am going to think about the question of knowledge. The biggest problem I have is that I ask questions like "How do I know there is a wall there". Then I say to myself, "Well, I know there is a wall there," and then I pack the argument against it. In other words, I don't do an analysis. I defend a position. I don't have an open mind.

B. I was a failure. I would lie back and I would try to think about something and immediately my mind would wander. I couldn't focus. When I tried to focus, I got a headache and gave up. Every day the same thing happened.

C. I was fortunate in that we had some company over the other night and someone made a comment that made me think. I just didn't want to think about religion and such. It didn't seem purposeful to me or useful. It was difficult to sit and think about the subject. I would think in snatches, but not really in what I consider to be a train of thought. And maybe I misidentified the process of thought. I think of thought as being the same way you construct a sentence. I had more success at writing than at just sitting and thinking. I didn't keep it in a diary but I wrote a letter to a friend. I would form thoughts more easily then.

QUESTION: Did you keep a copy of the letter?

ANSWER: No I didn't.

COMMENT: That's important. Correspondence can be good for thinking because you know someone is going to read it and it gives you motivation to write something out.

D. Pass

E. I have been trying to attack the problem of defining the boundaries of a problem I mentioned to you. And I just started a stream of consciousness in writing it down, figuring that some other time I would organize what the thoughts were. Something I had known about my writing before was that I tend to think of it in terms of all the other people who have said something on the subject. I have been involved in arguments or taken classes or something and I just wasn't aware of the extent that I substituted all that I had heard about something for my own thoughts about something. I don't know if I am appealing to authority or whether it is just lazyiness.

F. I enjoyed the assignment. I correspond with various people and it is very important how I say things. One person is in the army and I feel that what I say to him may have a lot of influence on him and how he views the military.

G. I got in three sessions, though I found it was easiest for me to do walking to work. I started out thinking about some of the things that have meant a lot to me in my intellectual life -- projects. The books I'd like to write some day and an intuitive concept in understanding economics and such. I wrote some things down. I have been able to correspond with some good people and I write 26 page letters and such. But I tended to zero in on a problem I was having with thinking. I did find it hard to concentrate and to follow subjects through to their logical conclusions. I tended to sort of drift along. EAch thought would bring on a new thought and there wasn't a concentration. And then I tried to focus on the problems of recall, the idea of recall, of memories and such. The problem of thinking itself and how it effected what I wanted to do with my mind.

H. I have to write as a full time activity. I edit two publications. I work on two levels. On the one level it is a matter of reporting what is going on, strictly the facts. And on another, I get into philosophical matters. I find the factual writing much easier and much duller. I find the philosophic writing more interesting than I did because I am undergoing a radical change and I am hoping to use these technicques to take an objective approach to things rather than emotional. I am coping with problems. I am interested to see how I react over a period of time. I had resolve to get out of my head. I had boxed myself into an almost totally cerebral approach to everything and I have a good idea that that is at least in part a cause of some of my problems. So I have been wanting to get away from that approach and here I am given an assignment to think. Well, it's not all that difficult. But I am totally resistance to sitting down in my spare time and dealing with abstract matters.

Be consciously aware of what your goals are in any given situation. If you sit down and begin a project, if you sit down and begin a conversation, or take a class -- I want you to get in the habit of being very explicit as to why you are doing this. The purpose you have in mind in engaging in certain endeavors. Actually write your goal down or state it explicitly. This also pertains to personal goals.

One reason people often have little sense of personal accomplishment, or of getting where they want to be, is that few people have specific goals. Many people have very nebulous goals. If you ask them what they want, they will say, "a better job" or "a romantic relationship". But if you have no clear goal in mind you never have a sense of achievement.

Your sense of achievement comes from how close you get to your goal. If your goals are vague, your sense of achievement will be vague as well. Measuring yourself by your goals is the only way to determine if you are succeeding. The more specific the goal, the better sense of accomplishment you will have, for then you have a precise standard to judge yourself by. It is not so much that many people are incompetent; it is often a matter of their energy being diverted along many channel.

In making our goals conscious, we will be "making the implicit explicit". Let me explain what I mean by that. Most of what we do in our lives is the result of habit. Very few things we do in the course of a day are conscious decision making things. Daily life is rather like playing a piano. You learn the rudiments and then you progress up the ladder. And it is important to human beings that they can automatize certain types of behaviour so that their conscious minds are free for certain kinds of decisions. If you had to consciously decide on every decision you make in your everyday life, if you had to decide each hand movement, each facial gesture, each syllable you said -- if each of were an issue of conscious deliberation, you would be enmeshed in the trivia of everyday life. Your mind would never get around to the more fundamental, more abstract questions of life, like what to have for dinner.

I will not take the time to line up the material in "11raw" to TRW, but I would bet that very little of it was not plagiarized by Wendy in some form. Those with a copy of TRW can check for themselves -- but keep something in mind. In somes cases Wendy did not plagiarize long sections at a time, so you probably won't find the material in "11raw" in just one chapter. The material may broken up and spread throughout several chapters. Good hunting!

Ghs

Addendum: I haven't read this material in many, many years. Upon reading it this evening, I recall how much potential this stuff had for a truly excellent book. Perhaps some of you will now better appreciate why I got so pissed off, and why I am still pissed off, by Wendy's unbelievable plagiarism.

[George H. Smith]

After reviewing the material that I found last night, I want to make a correction. On several occasions I have attributed Wendy's Immaculate Conception story, according to which she erased all FOR material and began writing TRW from scratch, to the year 1996. The year she claimed to have done this, however, was actually 1994. I apologize for the error.

I found a printout of a long-winded email that the Sun King Kinsella sent to me in June 1998. It is difficult to believe that Kinsella is as gullible as his remarks would indicate, but in this passage he officially backs up Wendy's Immaculate Conception story.

...Ms McElroy *did not* copy any portion of FOR in preparation of TRW and, indeed, had disposed of all of her copies of FOR before beginning writing TRW in 1994.

What a moron this guy is! His only excuse is that he did not yet know about my articles on definitions that I published in the LD/Extemp Monthly c. 1986, and which show up in TRW nearly verbatim. (These articles are available online; I posted a link to them somewhere in this thread.)

Nor, with the exception of Prometheus Books and a few friends, had I distributed any copies of the complete FOR transcripts. But as I release these transcripts (e.g., the "11raw" file above), people can see for themselves how much Wendy took from this material verbatim, or nearly verbatim. They can also see that I spoke to my students throughout in first person, and that much of the material is obviously conversatonal. It is not a written "draft" that was supposedly co-authored by Wendy, as she later claimed in her last, and most outrageous, line of defense (and which Kinsella repeated in his missive).

Wendy concocted her Immaculate Conception story before she had any feel for how much evidence I had. In her first official excuse, after claiming that she had indeed erased all FOR material from her hard drive in 1994, before starting work on TRW, she claimed that she had an "excellent memory" and may have inadvertently duplicated some of the wording from my FOR handout.

We now know that Wendy plagiarized that material from my "11raw" FOR file, just as she plagiarized much of the rest of TRW from my other FOR files. Dozens upon dozens of pages in TRW read exactly or nearly the same as my FOR transcripts. An "excellent memory," my ass.

Should Kinsella ever lapse into a moment of rationality, I wonder how he will feel when it dawns on him that he has been taken for a ride by Wendy McElroy.

Ghs