william.scherk

-- I should have looked this up first -- I was wrong in thinking this was Joe Rowlands. In fact it was two folks, in October of 2005, Joe Maurone and Andrew Bissell. -- and then the next day, in another thread, Lindsay Perigo advances his reasonable take on dogpiling . . . (from Perigo's recap of his "Slime on SOLO") Yes, Lindsay, your words bear repeating: "PUSBALLS! CREATURES! UNUTTERABLE SCUM!" Ick. Double Ick.

Howzabout a Greatest Hits of Summer summary to welcome her back, listmates? There's bound to be some goings-on while she's on hiatus. Anglosphere conquers France? -- (Henry IV heraldry from The Fleur-de-lis) I figure Ellen's gonna have a big easy on the eyes and mind for a spell. Good on her, sez this western Canuck . . . elle a des perçus bien aigus, ansi je la lis en pur délice d'argument.

I think I see what you mean. From my first days observing (and then posting to) O-lists I was struck by a nastiness that seemed out of proportion to what it was nastifying. I should probably look it up (from the old SOLOHQ), but I remember Joe Rowlands explaining to a puzzled poster why it was that newcomers who took a mild poke at O-ismatics were dogpiled. Rowlands said something to the order that it was a reaction of an unjustly attacked minority. I more or less accepted that. "Ah, yet another ignorant attack from an outsider, one who does not understand." Seemed a reasonable explanation. Another thing I noted over the first few months was Lindsay Perigo: his namecalling. It was not necessary, I thought, unnecessary and not to the point. One exchange in particular exemplified the diffuse denunciation -- instead of engaging with a poster with whom he disagreed (Laj), he un-artfully flung off insults directed obliquely -- the standard pomo-wanker, blah, pusball, blah blah blah . . . -- and then later, I noted that when challenged, Perigo would underline than he did apologize when he had unjustly raged. And then would come another round of pusball, pomodinkie, wah blah blah . . . It seemed to me that he never actually did apologize for his real excesses. In fact, he expected pats on the back for his supposed passionate passionateness. And then indeed the whales (thinking of Cresswell the Magnificent and Robert "yeah pusball, that's the ticket" Weinhead) would surface in the oily stinking pool, wave about their fore-flippers, and blow out a huge gust of nasty in turn -- exemplified by the truly demented threads that cast Joe Rowlands to the innermost circle of Heck. Pusball, pomo-weenie, Saddamonger . . . smearer-in-chief . . . all this seemed so weak and unfocussed as to be worthless as a tool of rhetoric. Comic opera, whale ballet, mexican wrasslin', Objectivist Keyboard Olympics . . . all of which made me feel like I would never actually want to spend time in a pool with these sorts of whales. As with my banning from the front yard and precincts of Perigo's blowhole, I was bemused. Nothing in my actual online oeuvre would he quite grapple with. No, just 'jerk,' blah blah pusball, blah blah . . . at his worst I was reminded of Wilhelm Reich at his most paranoid and monomaniacal . . . Total passion for the total heights? Total heights of just exactly what?

Yeah, Victor, I think it's clear -- you jumped from SOLO after the hungry SOLO Coyotes turned on you. It only took two weeks. Gee, there you were, driving calmly in traffic, and suddenly the other drivers leapt down from their Humvees with verbal tire-irons swinging (though Quintana flung his tire iron back in the trunk and pretended to have been in a mere authoritarian snit) . . . ________________________________ -- I note that you had asked about this thing, this rage thing, over at SOLO only a short week or so ago . . . I note also that nobody bothered to give you any facts in response, just a lot of titanic blurts from their blowholes . . . other readers here may not have seen it: "Questions about Objectivist Rage" is a since-deleted post on SOLO, from June 16th. -- from the Atlas Society site: July 4 (Tuesday) Program Barbara Branden, M.A. – Rage and Objectivism -- from NoodleFood blog: The Downward Spiral -- from the RoR forum, a report on a Barbara Branden talk "Libertarianism, Objectivism, and Rage" written by Roger Bissell:

Can we please see the original original original photo? I'd like to see what Barbara looked like at the time, and whether or not she had Objectivist Hair (total passion for the total height and volume -- was she wearing a bouffant?) . . . (from D P Johnson's Beehive!) [Edit: added "total passion . . . volume"]

David Koresh, Jim Jones, and Marshall 'Bo' Applewhite . . . Ka - reepy.

My postings have been few, true . . . but have been lurking happily in the O-zone. It's a busy time at work (I am an HR manager for a silviculture company) and I have also been taking a step back for analysis . . . I appreciate your greeting. -- I am taking Jenna's advice and cooking up a blog to replace my ersatz New Blog 46, which is already stale and a chore to maintain. I scored an 8 on the adult autism quotient, dang. I am wondering (not concluding) if there is any relation between the autism quotient and the emotional deafness/malevolence found in the occasional ravings of certain O-ists . . .

So says the result of a personality test at Personal DNA Not entirely surprising . . . you can see the full results here. Thanks to Jenna Wong, who posted her own profile at her marvelous blog, Cyberspace Rendezvous.

Please do post the traits. Asperger spectrum disorders interest me -- the very best I have read is Temple Grandin herself, autism from the inside, so to speak. She is very articulate, and what she writes about the love she imagines other people might feel is moving. She believes she doesn't have that facility, and has had to teach herself the many signs and gestures and tones that indicate the mind of another. I only scored 10 on that danged test.

I wish you would do more than entertain the thought, Ellen. I figure you enjoy your observations, your depth of perception, and especially enjoy a fox-hunt of analysis and conclusion -- don't you figure you would enjoy the review process and its fruition? We all seem to want synthesis and culling of the varied threads of critique -- I believe you could do us up a bracing synoptic. -- the better, even-tempered reviews have engendered some rational response from the reviewee, even extended dialogues --as with the La Chibarra review, which drew considerable Vallliantero entailments once Notablog comments were closed. So, only good could come of your application of skill and tact, Ellen . . . : ) My reading of El Glorioso Valliantero online stalls at the authorial style. The haranguing, indicting tone, the confirmation bias, the Crown/Judge/Executioner hectoring -- this is unappealing to begin with. The very genre is unappealing. I resist buying this book because it smells stale and a bit hysterical, because it took so long to write, because it's been over-sold by too many one-eyed flacks for too many months now (I find the very fact that El GV himself has been flacking nonstop online odd and unseemly -- verging on kookish: what the hell other author spends as much time flacking an opus online with anything like the tenacity of El GV and his Claquitos?). Does a good book need such shilling? Is this minor ick factor not apparent to the actors of this masque? I am coming to believe that those deeply immersed in O-ist psychodrama don't really appreciate how awful it sometimes looks from offshore. I think all you need do, Ellen -- distill the best critiques, sip, savour, and then craft a jewelbox of a brief.

It's very amusing, Rich. Lindsay did exactly what I had imagined he would do when it was time to push the red button -- it hardly mattered that I posted quotes from Lincoln on the subject of enemies . . . all but Lindsay can see that he has done me a great favour. Although he himself will not read the New Blog 46, he knows that I will have a wide readership . . . Flustered is right! Like he had been in a car accident. Here's what he had to say in response to my post to Joe Maurone, ""By the better angels of our nature": Sorry, but I just can't stand this jerk's type of smart-assing, & I won't subsidise it. He was duly warned. Sherk, as I said, yer an idiot, a waste of space. Go be a clever-dick in the house of someone who doesn't despise you. You're through here. (From the SOLO thread "A Challenge to Ed Hudgins")

If this is true, does it add missing context to the brouhaha over Greg Salmieri's comments (hiding behind 'Mysterious Stranger', Sciabarra's reaction, Diana's defence of her chief advisor, and Chris's retraction . . . followed many months later by Diana's return to picking her scabs?) Is this supposed to be an insider 'open secret' or is La Mertz somehow justified in not confirming identity (well, MS hisself is the coward, not her, if this is an open secret, IMHO)? -- I wish Phil had made a concordance along with his valiant analyses -- it is really hard to sort out the chronologies, missing information, unexcerpted exchanges, and identities (and dang it, how come you folks don't give references more often, fergawdsake?) -- El Divino Salmieri takes on El Monstro Chibarro. The take-home message on this point is Excluded Middle. -- an honest judge would compel the revelation of identity. How many Mr X's -- hooded, voice-garbled, pixilated, or by way of secret affidavit -- do we see these days, and in what sorts of juridicial venues?** Not being able to face and question one's accuser is a weak stab at justice, the way I see things . . . I am so struck by the (non-christian) appearance of the contrary virtues in the skirmishes of La Sciabarra Lucha Libre . . . I picked up this snippet at <a Changingminds.org, and so cannot testify to its originality -- though I do wonder if they obtain in the excellent 'whole brain'*** comments of Jenna and Roger on a companion thread): Lucha Libre en Noodlefood

. . . events move quicker than we mortals can capture, at times. I know I am often flabbergasted, which should not be possible given my cynicism. I am pleased that my moderation was rescinded. It shows the grasp of details that characterizes SOLO's genius. As my fans will understand, I am appreciative of all forms of irony, and today's events are rich and copious. Burp. [i was the entirely other kind of kid, Rich. What I knew deeply in my heart was that if the monster under the bed or the monster in the closet, or the monster in the basement could be watched, then I was relatively safe. Under the covers was death. My early nightmares (triggered by a too-young viewing of the Outer Limits) set the tone and plot of a lifetime attitude (as my innate atheism kept me a skeptic), and a key to my character. On top of my sunny disposition is the certain knowledge that monsters walk the earth. IF I keep my eyes on them, they cannot eat me. Thus my interest in the extremes.] I admit to being irked by the sloppy criteria for non-moderation. As a nuke protocol it is weak. The 'host' analogy extends no further than putting your drunken maniac of a host to bed, although he has just ordered you off his property and threatened to dismember you. Analogously, the host, because he a great great man, and a friend to all . . . is watched over throughout the night, is turned to the left and to the right and examined for coma, and has his drool gently wiped from his face.** And in the morning the watch continues. Someone makes coffee and brings it to the host, who gets a bit choked up and hugs his 'enemy' very hard. And we get back to the business of living. I am such a dope. I haven't yet figured this one out. WHO THE HECK IS MS***, and WHO THE HECK IS CNA? **I extend the metaphor in a post-'oops, I can't say sorry, but I goofed. Yer actually not moderated' post (a kind and encouraging response to Lindsay's sense of life). *** OK, I get that Mysterious Stranger is somebody. Just who?

. . . events move quicker than we mortals can capture, at times. I know I am often flabbergasted, which should not be possible given my cynicism. I am pleased that my moderation was rescinded, just as I am pleased that Lindsay is as yet unable to spell my surname. It shows the cohesion and masterful grasp of details that characterizes his genius. As my fans will understand, I am appreciative of all forms of irony, and today's events are rich and copious. Burp. [i was the entirely other kind of kid, Rich. What I knew deeply in my heart was that if the monster under the bed or the monster in the closet, or the monster in the basement could be watched, then I was relatively safe. Under the covers was death. My early nightmares (triggered by a too-young viewing of the Outer Limits) set the tone and plot of a lifetime attitude (as my innate atheism kept me a skeptic), and a key to my character. On top of my sunny disposition is the certain knowledge that monsters walk the earth. IF I keep my eyes on them, they cannot eat me. Thus my interest in SOLO] I admit to being irked by the sloppy criteria for banning. As a nuke protocol it is weak. The 'host' analogy extends no further than putting your drunken maniac of a host to bed, although he has just ordered you off his property and threatened to dismember you. Analogously, the host, because he a great great man, and a friend to all . . . is watched over throughout the night, is turned to the left and examined for coma, and has his drool gently wiped from his face. And in the morning the watch continues. Someone makes coffee and brings it to the host, who gets a bit choked up and hugs his 'enemy' very hard. And we get back to the business of living. I am such a dope. I haven't yet figured this one out. WHO THE HECK IS MS, and WHO THE HECK IS CNA?

I added a comment under the title "Que Wankero! - La Sciabarra Lucha Libre" at SOLO. A sampler for those who don't venture into such arenas as Objectivist Death-Pit Lucha Libre Snack Bar, a snippet:

Of course, and thanks for correcting any inferences drawn -- if I would answer Senor Giles' question honestly, it is that I only wonder at the depth of friendship claimed, and find it sad that these two never looked into each other's eyes or clasped hands. Sadder still that they likely never will. Glad you like the Keats cartoon! I do believe it translates well without a word of Italian -- but hope Ciro does up a precis for those who want it. Empress K, the copyright notice in Italian is warning us all that my link to the original site (via a google thumbnail) is riding the rail between fair use and theft. Look closely and you will see a fair resemblance to cognates in English. I left it in to save me and you and Michael from being clapped into a Roman jail (although Rome is said to be nice this time of year). (from VRoma)

My classical education is nil, I'm afraid, so the point of Keats' "deep-browed Homer" (as if a new world On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer) almost escaped me . . . but the imagery is compelling and the firm sureness of the insight is genius. So what if I'm so danged ignorant I gotta go look it all up? Thanks indeed for the note, Sr Gomez -- apropos to current muck or not, your gloss on Keats' (a comment at the link above calls Keats "minstrel of the emotions") is mordant and pithy, two of the best attributes of your confections. -- in response, a piquant cartoon of Keats, "young english poet," from the hilarious Inkspinster.com (in Italian, but comprehensible): link to deleted comic strip image TUTTO IL MATERIALE PRESENTE SU QUESTO SITO E' DI PROPRIETA' ESCLUSIVA DELL'AUTRICE E PROTETTO DA COPYRIGHT. PER NESSUN MOTIVO TALE MATERIALE PUO' ESSERE MODIFICATO, DISTRIBUITO O RIPRODOTTO SU SITI WEB E SUPPORTI CARTACEI SENZA L'ESPLICITA AUTORIZZAZIONE DELL'AUTRICE Il fatto che detto materiale sia visibile qui gratuitamente non significa che possa essere usato per scopi diversi dalla visione privata. CHIUNQUE SI RENDA RESPONSABILE DELLA VIOLAZIONE DI TALE REGOLAMENTO INCORRERA' NELLE SANZIONI PREVISTE PER LA VIOLAZIONE DELLE LEGGI INTERNAZIONALI SUL COPYRIGHT. - Grazie per il Vostro rispetto - © Deco 2oo1 Postsciptum -- oddly enough, I posted a reference to you (and, obliquely, to the trundling Miss W) --- in a post to Blog 46 entitled "The New Philosophy of Chatons and J-thons," AND got to write "I am all about fun"! Y'all here check out my esteeemed colleague Senor Giles' query on, oh, gee, guess what . . . : "did it strike you at all that Diana Hsieh has never actually met Chris Sciabarra?"

Hey, no problem. Haack is wonderful, like a really tart and satisfying salad dressing for the mind, logical and astringent. She has helped sharpen my thinking --it's just gravy that Jody Allen Gomez is also a fan(!) and that you too appreciate her sharp sense. At the risk of turning this thread into a bear-rug lovathon, though . . . I've gotten into the habit of reading your "Cyberspace Rendezvous." One of the most positive aspects of my forays into online O-worldz has been running into the likes of you and my esteemed colleague Gomez. -- reading your blog actually forced my hand on putting up my retirement cottage Blog 46 (where I have just posted, into the heart of snarkness, "What if Ayn Rand had been a Man?" ) -- you quite matter-of-factly trundle about your business, which just happens to be a very stimulating intellectual journey. I find it sadly ironic that Miss Mertz would have turned her sour bark upon you . . . as if she could stymie you . . . as if her opinion mattered to you . . . as you are everything she had hoped to become in her precocious imaginings . . . young, intelligent, beautiful, informed and richly well-befriended. (I will carry your eight hundred and fifty pounds of books around anytime, anywhere you want . . . even if we never quite get to the BC forest cabin this year -- though I hope to see Gomez and Wong in the City this summer, and you both MUST OUGHT come to BC for the Olympics).

Thanks, Ellen -- you may also enjoy this simulpost (with pictures here -- I seem to be too incompetent to make the post feature HTML):Denunciasaurs (and toadies and flunkies and lapdogs and anonymous pitbulls, hyenas, vultures and friends) are hypocrites. Not evul immoral folk, and thus irredeemable, no -- the common Denunciasaurus-Rex is a simple, bumbling hypocrite, all too human, alas1 . . . all too human to be roasted on a spit, shredded, marinated in blog-spit, pounded to paste, spread on white toast, chewed, spat out, ground in the sidewalk, napalmed, hosed off with bleach, and finally cast off into the hideous punishing darkness of the inner 0-ring of Heck (Ottawa)2. No, we must pity them for their un-remarked and un-corrected mistakes. We must be tolerant. We must obey our stern internal moral injunctions (e.g., do NOT act like Miss Nasty while pretending to be Miss Nice: "But she started it, the poo-poo head!! She's a fucking immoral piece of shit."3). The plangent whinging and whining and high dudgeon are unseemly of any pretender to the throne of scholarship or the throne of Micronesia (which the SOLO archipelago brings to mind for all its truck and trade with the world, being the crossroads of reason and passion and all). The revelation of La Perigo backstage activities4 put all of this posturing and fervour in perspective: hypocrisy comes in varied delicious flavours. Cringing hypocrisy ('I was forced to be nasty by Events. It's not my fault -- I didn't know I would be caught') Amnesiac hypocrisy ('I disremember. I can explain the discrepancy. How can I remember everything I say in private?') Towering hyocrisy ('Yes, I publish private correspondence. But I have a Higher Purpose!!! I am never immoral myself, in any way: all my errors are undertandable and explicable! I am King [Queen|EmpressFlying Spaghetti Monster creator] of the only moral planet in the universe, cur . . . stupid undergrad, manipulative liar, evul poo-poo head, TOC-infected sub-optimal and unfortunate Jenna Wong-wannabe. I will not engage with the uncivil (except in cases when I am busy or distracted. Don't imagine that I disagree or agree with any comment on my blog. I am strictly neutral and objective. You are banned, cretin.') Wheedling hypocrisy ('But she hurt my feelings. And my feelings matter. And people are Nasty to me, and I NEVER almost ever except for sometimes am Nasty myself. And I was provoked by secret whispers and she hurt my feelings and none of the other kids will like me if she keeps lying about me. Boo hoo, sniffle, grizzle, snort hiccup sob screech . . . She was supposed to be my frie-eeeeeeend! She was never supposed to tell on ME! She was supposed to support ME! Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo, O woe is me, I hurt so much . . . why doesn't anybody understand?! Now I have to find a new best friend and that's HARD!!! Boo hoo whinge, wheedle, cry, snuffle, cough, load aim KABOOM!!! Hi, wasn't it fun to blow Chrissy's brains out? Wanna be my besssssst frie-eeeeend?! That's a pretty anonymous name you have. I won't ban you if you're nice to me . . . ') Shameful hypocrisy ('all of the charges of hypocrisy are themselves hypocrisy, and bad and evul and I won't tolerate them in my comments and send me your secret emails too, huh, please? and all the charges of nastiness are themselves nasty, and you are banned from here, mister, and that's not what I said, you're banned from commenting, and you and you and you and even you if you look at me the wrong way. I'm tired. I write over 5000 words every day of top-flight philosphy. It is tiring. You tire me. You are banned. I'm going away on tour and if you are Nasty while I am gone I might have to spank everybody. I might have to pre-spank you all unless you are very very nice while Auntie is gone. I heard that. You are banned too, mister. I warned you. I don't tolerate stuff around here. And no, NOBODY GETS PIE except ME. Got it? If you don't GET IT, consider yourself pre-spanked, pre-banned, and pre-deleted.') When an author writes "I . . . [he] . . . me . . . digusting lies,"5 we enter a new rhetorical universe. We leave the universe of 'my esteeemed colleague'6 and the planet of, 'my friend and former associate'7 and plunge into the dense atmosphere of 'immoral, contemptible, scum-sucking poo-poo head.'8 There we stagger about deprived of oxygen and cordiality, barking harsh communications at all others we can perceive. Mertz's routine invocations of her fairness and even-handed objectivity (on her blog here, and here, and here*) are revealed to be a sham. As if a raging Borderline patient9, she turns on her closest bosom buddies, she dares not give real love for fear of melting, she feels anguish at real and imagined betrayals, she denounces what once engendered comradely devotion . . . unbeknownst to her, her ability to navigate the social landscape is significantly impaired10. What kind of friendship did she imagine she was performing in her mentor/mentee relationship with Sciabarra? How many confidences did she extract from him? How many has she betrayed in public? How much is she holding back in the mountain of archived communications? How much is she not telling? Who opened this Box of Nasty Emails? Her 400 email trove is then as neutral an object as is Sciabarra's opposing trove (in these two camps, a thumping historical record of their mutual communications; in the massive engorged Inboxes of both, a mountain of material for a future objective historian) -- Mertz's +/-400 vs Sciabarra's +/-400. (Note from administrator: Broken image link) http://weirdeurope.bitacoras.com/evul1.jpg What can we see of these troves? Not much more than what is squoze out by one of the interlocutors. I will reserve judgement on these matters until that future day when the material is open to view. Until then, I consider this a messy internal affair of Rand-followers which is really none of my business . . . This leaves me with the impression of the world as it is: imperfect, full of imperfect people performing imperfect behaviours. I no more indict Diana Mertz Hsieh for her denunciation of Chris Matthew Sciabarra than I do Sciabarra for his stately, scholarly silence in the aftermath11. The are both human, imperfect and yet valuable. With my sense of life (in which it is I, Me, Mine own universe, My precious self doing the living among a lot of imperfect Them) there is no option -- I cannot see round every corner, down every rathole or sewer, nor can I see into the hearts of all the men and women who stagger about the earth -- I can only be staggered myself by the rank hypocrisy which stinks up the public sphere from time to time. To subvert a Fahyism, when one farts in public, the only seemly behaviour for other riders on the train is to ignore it (British and French people will allow a moue of distaste to appear on their granite faces, London/Paris often stinking in other ways12; Americans will open a window with a great irrelavant clatter12A; Scots will be stinking drunk and think it their own crepitation -- and giggle13; Brazilians will hardly notice another sewer smell on their grossly-overcrowded Metro14; Russians will imagine that someone has a trove of home-raised mushrooms in a bag somewhere between their legs and will sniff deeply in an attempt to detect its origin15; Chinese will pull up their face-masks and sign inwardly as they watch the stock ticker on the train car -- installed by the Communist Party16; Swedes will not smell the fart, as the train unit has already detected and removed the methane to a collector-tank where it is fed back into the bio-fuel engine17; Norwegians, Icelanders, Faroe Islanders will all think that the party has started and fart themselves. Accordians will appear. Foot-stomping dances will be performed, babies will be conceived18; Canadians will entertain suspicions that it is a secret Yankee** riding the train whose rectal-blurt so befouled the public sphere, and will ask their government to install fart-detector buzzers on every transit seat at an expense of $850 million tax-funded dollars19). WSS _________________________ 1. [Diana Mertz Hsieh:] "Generally speaking, although I do not take a casual approach to my writings, my basic attitude is that I am perfectly willing to err, even in a spectacular and public fashion. Of course, I would prefer not to do so. Of course, I strive to avoid it. But when it happens, I take it as an opportunity to learn and grow, rather than a blow to my self-image. In contrast, when I joined Toastmasters back in 2001, I rather disliked being told pretty much anything other than that my speech was wonderful. Although I understood its theoretical function, I was generally averse to criticism. But in that friendly and supportive environment, I quickly realized that improvement required strong and direct criticism. Of course, some forms of criticism are genuinely destructive. Good criticism aims at correcting errors by noting and encouraging some change for next time. My attitude towards the possibility of error and the value of criticism changed for the better, I think." http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog/2004/04/fro...g-to-error.html 2. [scherk:] "Finally, I like that Campbell is open to inquiry, to refutation -- and sets himself an even tone. Although I appreciate the Grand Guignol of the enraged discussant here wishing him to roast in Hell (or Heck, or the Randian equivalent: Ottawa), I still don't know why people are so belligerent and oafish here on occasion." http://www.solopassion.com/node/841#comment-6432 3. [Mertz:] "Perhaps NS regards both Chris and Robert as obviously beyond the pale. To be clear, I cannot remotely concur with that judgment. Whatever our philosophic disagreements, both have been good friends to me over the years. Along these lines, I should say something about Noumenal Self's comment in that same post about my relationship with Chris. There NS wrote, "Maybe soon she'll turn a similar critical eye to the works of a certain NYU-based dialectical scholar she continues to regard as a friend." Chris Sciabarra has been an excellent friend to me over the years. He has consistently encouraged me in my philosophical work. He was both supportive and challenging in our many discussions about my dissatisfaction with TOC. As my friend, he is worth his weight in gold. Notably, my friendship with Chris does not imply agreement with his dialectical approach to Objectivism, nor with his approach to academia. I have substantial questions about the former and substantial doubts about the latter. Both will surely be hashed out over time, using the same critical eye I employ in all intellectual endeavors. Yet our friendship, which is grounded in far more than a mutual interest in Objectivism, will not thereby be brought into question." http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog/2004/04/fri...philosophy.html 4. [Excerpted from MSK post "Conspiracy Theory": Giving your opinion about a person who has wronged you to a friend is in no way “manipulation.” Sciabarra and Maurone had a friendship that he tried to preserve. Hsieh ditto. According to the information in her article, she was embracing sworn enemies of Sciabarra, and Maurone was embracing her. Sciabarra tried to fight for his friendships and warn these people he cared about to ensure that they did not suffer the same indignities he had to bear from “purists.” Nothing more is evident to me from the excerpts Hsieh posted – certainly not her own theory of a deadly single-person e-mail conspiracy against ARI. Now if you want to understand what real offline manipulation is, you should get near Perigo during one of his campaigns. I was – for several campaigns. Here is how it works. Once someone has posted something online that Perigo believes in (usually meaning something bad about someone he wants to attack), he starts e-mailing and phoning like mad to make sure that people post agreement. (I never talked by phone with him, though. He requested my phone number and I sent it to him, but that happened right when our relationship was deteriorating because I would not cave in to his pressure against Barbara. I have about 500 e-mails to and from him on file.) He is extremely conscious of the impact of public agreement and he manipulates that in the wings quite well. He even says things like “it looks bad if no one comments,” or “now is your chance to say [whatever],” or “isn’t [so and so] a sanctimonious twat?” Yada yada yada. If you ever wonder how his discussions seem to generate so much interest, one of the main reasons is his ongoing “whispering campaign.” ]" http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...post&p=3849 5. http://www.solopassion.com/node/893 6. [Perigo: ] "Note from Linz—Yes, I'm cheating. This is a reprise. I thought with all the discussion raging here about PARC, ARI, TOC, SOLO, the Brandens, etc., and the TOC Summer Seminar coming up, with me among the presenters, it would be timely to re-run this. It's reprinted exactly as it orginally appeared—no ARI-type airbrushing! Smiling I have just returned to New Zealand from The Objectivist Center's Summer Seminar in Vancouver. I am feeling the blues that must inevitably accompany a return to the world of nihilism from one of exuberant rationality. Yes, "exuberant"! Yes, TOC! Just as you, dear reader, thought you'd never see me saying that, so too did I never think I'd be writing it. Fact is, the Seminar was a blast. First, the speakers. I met and heard the world's best-kept secret: a philosopher who is also a stand-up comic (or perhaps that should be the other way round). His name is Fred Seddon. He has a vastly different take from Rand on Kant and Hume, but argues his case brilliantly and entertains uproariously. His presentations are not lectures, they are performances. Though his staple leitmotif, "Did I tell you I like sex?" is arguably overdone, there is no question that this man's comedic talents make him unique in Objectivism. There was Molly Hays, who delivered solo a presentation on "The Necessity of Romance" that was intended to be delivered in tandem. Her unavoidably absent co-presenter, Larry Sechrest, would have been proud of her. The only question mark over Molly is her musical taste—she kept insisting that Linz sing, even after he obliged her. There was Tibor Machan, in booming good form as always; David Kelley, delivering a tour de force about Islam; Nathaniel Branden, unmistakably aging but infinitely endearing as he ad-libbed in an unfamiliar interview format; Madeleine Cosman, magnificent and majestic as she swept aside the horrors of socialised medicine and conjured up free market alternatives; Stephen Hicks, suave and sophisticated, aglow from the publication of his new book; Francisco Villalobos, outrageously beautiful but annoyingly reluctant to proffer the empirical validation of the title of his lectures, "Look Better Naked." There were many more, whom it is unjust to omit but whom I cannot include simply because I didn't get to hear them. I walked out of one lecture only, because the speaker was less audible than the one in the next theatre who resonated passionately through the wall and thus staked his claim for my attention. As for my own presentation, I shall leave it to others who were there to post about if if they wish; suffice it for me to say that I couldn't have hoped for a better reception."" http://www.solopassion.com/node/1 7. [Perigo:] "Great to see these comments & good wishes - and some fetching new colour photos! Kat in spectacles! All the better to match-make with! Adam B - how can we know you're what Ashley says you are - a blone cutie - without a colour photo?! Get with it, man! Sir Edward Hudgins - thanks for your good wishes. The fact that you have signed on will no doubt be reported on Diana's blog. Do you know what you have done?! Smiling Diabolical - that was a quick emergence from invisibility! " http://www.solopassion.com/node/1#comment-64 8. [LapdogOne: ] "You love the smell of your own brain-farts." http://www.solopassion.com/node/906#comment-7479 9. "Kernberg believes that borderlines are distinguished from neurotics by the presence of "primitive defenses." Chief among these is splitting, in which a person or thing is seen as all good or all bad. Note that something which is all good one day can be all bad the next, which is related to another symptom: borderlines have problems with object constancy in people -- they read each action of people in their lives as if there were no prior context; they don't have a sense of continuity and consistency about people and things in their lives. They have a hard time experiencing an absent loved one as a loving presence in their minds. They also have difficulty seeing all of the actions taken by a person over a period of time as part of an integrated whole, and tend instead to analyze individual actions in an attempt to divine their individual meanings. People are defined by how they lasted interacted with the borderline. Other primitive defenses cited include magical thinking (beliefs that thoughts can cause events), omnipotence, projection of unpleasant characteristics in the self onto others and projective identification, a process where the borderline tries to elicit in others the feelings s/he is having. Kernberg also includes as signs of BPO chaotic, extreme relationships with others; an inability to retain the soothing memory of a loved one; transient psychotic episodes; denial; and emotional amnesia. About the last, Linehan says, "Borderline individuals are so completely in each mood, they have great difficulty conceptualizing, remembering what it's like to be in another mood."" http://www.palace.net/~llama/psych/bpd.html 10. "Unstable and intense relationships. People with borderline personality disorder may idealize potential caregivers or lovers at the first or second meeting, demand to spend a lot of time together, and share the most intimate details early in a relationship. However, they may switch quickly from idealizing other people to devaluing them, feeling that the other person does not care enough, does not give enough, is not "there" enough. These individuals can empathize with and nurture other people, but only with the expectation that the other person will "be there" in return to meet their own needs on demand. These individuals are prone to sudden and dramatic shifts in their view of others, who may alternately be seen as beneficient supports or as cruelly punitive. Such shifts other reflect disillusionment with a caregiver whose nurturing qualities had been idealized or whose rejection or abandonment is expected. http://psychcentral.com/disorders/sx10.htm 11. http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/notablog/ 12. Especially in the Tube/Metro 12. No offence to my American brothers, sisters, cousins, aunties and drunken racist great-grandpas. They are just can-do kinds of folks and they always smell great. 13. Considering their diet of Scotch and stodge, deepfried candyfloss and sheep offal-and-butter sandwiches . . . who could think them wrong? 14. Though the major cities of Brazil share this special scent with other slumb-ringed holes across the developing world. 15. No offence to the Slavs -- their mushroom-hunting skills are empirically-demonstrated 16. With apologies to the Chinese engineers and owners of the German-manufactured Shanghai Maglev, which smells like boondoggle 17. I extrapolate from recent news of the cow-powered train. Not cow-dung powered, cow-powered. Reference on polite request. 18. This is of course, utter nonsense, silly and extemporaneous. I am Norwegian myself. 19. This is too kind to Canadians. The suspect yankee was probably maced and dragged off the train and sentenced to a Canadian re-education camp, but not before being subjected to the horrors of Socialized Medicine, in the form of waiting in a line for 30 years, an appointment with a busy former Death-Squad butcher, then a pitiful lingering death from taxation . . . . . . 666. . . . This is an all-purpose reference to the unbelievably quite awful and bad to the max, Mr Evul Stuart Kelly, also known as the Spawn of Satan in the Ur-Objectivist Cosmology. See "I have met evul and he is MSK," as yet unpublished in a refereed journal . . . * -- Like La Mertz, I am sometimes too lazy to look up references on blogs . . . as she was in her condescending, contemptuous and disproportionate screed against La Wong, which I also will not bother to look up. ** -- 'Secret Yankees': many Americans are indistinguishable from Canadians until they open their mouths.-- (Not because of their barking delivery, but because of their perfect teeth, a result of a superiour dental health system over that of the foul, socialized Saddamite Canadians -- Ed.)

Mine too. Who woulda figgered. -- a small coda to my lengthy rant above, a dose of pure, unadulterated Haack:

Mine too. Who woulda figgered. Of course, Jody, the coma could be mine, as I am known to sleep through internet history . . . I gave a Haack reference in a note to our Dan Edge ("Rand and Psychological Revolutions ") on the thread "Review of Robert Campbell's JARS Essay." I think I may have droned on about Haack at length at RoR in the last several months -- where it did not have quite the attraction of my Diana Mertz Cyclops: One-eyed Empress of the Universe post . . . I first fell for Haack upon her hypnotic 1997 Skeptical Inquirer essay on 'Preposterism.' It helped crystalize my attitude towards Most-Podernism (and is actually congenial to Randian-influenced thought). Holy shit, I thought, in the Tractor-Pull of today's philosophy, here come Da Krushah. I love the way she guns the afterburners and then just steamrollers Rorty with her big fat common-sense realism. And when she takes apart Bruno Latour's pretensions like an express diagnostic Mrs Lube mechanic . . . Mary Bloody Midgley! Crushed in the mud! Mean Mother Dennet! Crushed in the mud! Red Rockin Rorty! Crushed into splinters and muck . . . (I had almost extinguished my intellectual spirit during a mistaken attempt to tackle the Caverns of Derrida, so Haack was like a puff of oxygen as I lay sweaty, stunned and expiring in a deep crevasse -- one puff of Reason into my lungs and I was able to scramble back to the surface.) And to drone on even more boringly about Haack, it is wonderful to see her straight-up-but-nuanced realism used by such as Meera Nanda (on Butterflies and Wheels) to push back the tide of irrationalism (in this case, Hindutva and Vedic Science). On another even more psychotically-boring note, what do you think of the idea of a J-Con this summer in the good old USA? I can be in San Francisco some weekend in July/August. How about you? -- I've been spending time on Miss Wong's blog and it gave me the idea that the way to win her heart would be to carry her books (no mean feat as she reads fifty pounds of material a day). Would be cool to hang out with somebody who thinks libraries are fun. By the way, Senor Gomez -- do you find it as remarkable as I do that Haack is apparently HUGE (well, as huge as can be philosophy in a capitalist dictatorship) in China? +++++++++++++ From the Unversity of Chicago Press: Haack, Susan Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate: Unfashionable Essays. 240 p. 6 x 9 1998</p> Cloth $22.50spec 0-226-31136-8 Fall 1998 Paper $13.00 0-226-31137-6 Spring 2000 Forthright and wryly humorous, philosopher Susan Haack deploys her penetrating analytic skills on some of the most highly charged cultural and social debates of recent years. Relativism, multiculturalism, feminism, affirmative action, pragmatisms old and new, science, literature, the future of the academy and of philosophy itself—all come under her keen scrutiny in Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate. "The virtue of Haack's book, and I mean virtue in the ethical sense, is that it embodies the attitude that it exalts. . . Haack's voice is urbane, sensible, passionate—the voice of philosophy that matters. How good to hear it again."—Jonathan Rauch, Reason "A tough mind, confident of its power, making an art of logic . . . a cool mastery."—Paul R. Gross, Wilson Quarterly "Few people are better able to defend the notion of truth, and in strong, clear prose, than Susan Haack . . . a philosopher of great distinction."—Hugh Lloyd-Jones, National Review "If you relish acute observation and straight talk, this is a book to read."—Key Reporter (Phi Beta Kappa) "Everywhere in this book there is the refreshing breeze of common sense, patiently but inexorably blowing."—Roger Kimball, Times Literary Supplement "A refreshing alternative to the extremism that characterizes so much rhetoric today."—Kirkus Reviews TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface Introduction 1: Confessions of an Old-Fashioned Prig 2: "We Pragmatists ...": Peirce and Rorty in Conversation 3: As for that phrase "studying in a literary spirit" ... 4: "Dry Truth and Real Knowledge": Epistemologies of Metaphor and Metaphors of Epistemology 5: Puzzling Out Science 6: Science as Social? - Yes and No 7: Knowledge and Propaganda: Reflections of an Old Feminist 8: Multiculturalism and Objectivity 9: Reflections on Relativism: From Momentous Tautology to Seductive Contradiction 10: The best man for the job may be a woman ... and other alien thoughts on affirmative action in the academy 11: Preposterism and Its Consequences Acknowledgments Index You may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, consult our international information page.

Thanks to Robert Campbell and Rich Engle for their notes and references. I will try to find Enright's piece (and look forward to the imaginary dialogue). Robert, I just don't get the distance some objectivism supporters hold from scientific inquiry, especially neuroscience, social and evolutionary psychology. It's not that Faction A or Faction B1 takes a 'Pinker is insane and immoral' or a "Chomsky. Look into the leftist eyes and shudder" point of view, it's that there seems to be almost no engagement. Nobody seems to be in the game in the larger world (save for Dr Machan, who is everywhere). I mention the Churchlands and I can hear the snores . . . a note on Susan Haack put several into a coma from which they have not yet awoken. And Rich, no, that was MiSK turning the mole on LziP, not me. I knew nothing of this, so was saddened. O how SOLO needs a jester. Jester outfit from anytimecostumes.com WSS

Thanks for the nice note. I don't recall the invitation (or have a false non-memory of it). I may have ignored it. I probably began reading posts in this archipelago at the time, but reserved membership till I cared to post myself. Re: the ick factor, this has been my garbage-can-lid-banging tune since my first SOLO/RoR post O these many months ago. It is amusing some that this kind of thing appears on the new SOLO. Bang bang bang. "Aren't there a few things about O-ism that are a teensy bit icky?" Bang bang. Ick. Bang. "Whatchagonna actually do with the dang baby in the woods, y'all?" Bang. Ick. Bang bang bang. "Yo, Objectivistic Man, done much research into emotion, or much of anything besides Rand?" Bang Bang. My birth date has been in my SOLOHQ/RoR Profile since I joined that evul place . . . : ) . . . so the special tuning fork organ in your brain wasn't much use to you in this instance. : ) Re: Comprachico. Oi. I must tell you all that the hair stood up on the back of my neck when I read that essay (one of the few freely available on the web: anyone else ever figure that the best thing to do with the corpus is to put it all into the public domain?). I thought to myself, "I must be mistaken. I get the impression that Ayn Rand is telling what she thinks is historical fact." Now that I see much of O-ism and O-istic activities online as entertainment, courtesy of Bill and Teresa . . . I don't really think it matters. Then, I thought it was an awful, tendentious essay, reliant on myth and emotion to browbeat the reader into agreement. Now, I know I was wrong. She was just a stirring the bucket -- during those years, there had been a sort of ersatz pedagogical revolution, and her percepts were timely and well worth the hyperbole and bombast. Please don't call me 'pretty,' if you can help it -- it was the bane of my childhood, my adolescence, and my early performing career. My New Romantic photo is/was an expression of vanity, of course. Being squat, old, hairy and ugly now, I treasure the memento . . . : ) As a aside, I read the commentary of yours in another thread here, excerpted below. I actually found this surprising and sad. Those three paragraphs of yours, whatever your occasional ranting verbosity and sometimes wandering locutions . . . are worth the price of admission to Objectivist Living. I did not know Lindsay Perigo did this backstage management . . . and it saddens me in light of my Sunny Days post at Blog 46.</b> It gives me a reason to test for a link between this and this (although I hope the link does not exist and that I am having a fit of paranoia brought on by standing too close to the hot white sink of evul). Michael, although I will never be in the disciplined vanguard of your supporters (like Jenna perhaps, just not much of a Team Groupthink Faction Nine joiner), I appreciate the large effort you have taken to build what amounts to an archive . . . and this forum. Yours is an alright castle, easily comparable to the others on the distant evul horizon . . . Yours is the moderation policy. Yours is the opportunity. Yours is an adequate stage and launchpad, stately piazza and retiring parlour. You have a pulpit now, as I alluded to in reference to the castle now ruled by you and Katherine the Greatest. ********************* As court jester, Your Majesty, I may once in a long while tweak your nose over a royal misstep or misrule in matters of State. I ask for credit on this account at this time, payable in cold hard laughter to the Bank of Charitable Humour. Mr John Newnham did me a favour when he seemed to dismiss me as a clown. Similarly, you can inhabit and exploit whatever stupid epithet applied to you or slung at you or branded into your metaphorical forehead . . . if people mis-estimate one's self and potential, and if one refrains from refraining from earnest self-criticism . . . one is left with a lucky, precious, wonderful insight into one's own worth and value. As my esteemed colleagues Jody Gomez or Jenna Wong might opine, in much tighter a fashion than me, "I is I." It is telling to me that those who are tone-deaf to other people's emotions and motivations oft try to belittle those they do not comprehend. They do not recall the salient warning of their grandmas: "Don't be small, Missy. Puttin' other people down don't put you up, you is acting nasty. Now you go out on the porch with no pie and you think about it.' Me, I sat in the star-spangled darkness with no pie, and tried with all my little might to understand what she meant about being small. Thank you for understanding and perhaps reading my lonely Blog 46 . . . [Excerpted from MSK post "Conspiracy Theory": Giving your opinion about a person who has wronged you to a friend is in no way “manipulation.” Sciabarra and Maurone had a friendship that he tried to preserve. Hsieh ditto. According to the information in her article, she was embracing sworn enemies of Sciabarra, and Maurone was embracing her. Sciabarra tried to fight for his friendships and warn these people he cared about to ensure that they did not suffer the same indignities he had to bear from “purists.” Nothing more is evident to me from the excerpts Hsieh posted – certainly not her own theory of a deadly single-person e-mail conspiracy against ARI. Now if you want to understand what real offline manipulation is, you should get near Perigo during one of his campaigns. I was – for several campaigns. Here is how it works. Once someone has posted something online that Perigo believes in (usually meaning something bad about someone he wants to attack), he starts e-mailing and phoning like mad to make sure that people post agreement. (I never talked by phone with him, though. He requested my phone number and I sent it to him, but that happened right when our relationship was deteriorating because I would not cave in to his pressure against Barbara. I have about 500 e-mails to and from him on file.) He is extremely conscious of the impact of public agreement and he manipulates that in the wings quite well. He even says things like “it looks bad if no one comments,” or “now is your chance to say [whatever],” or “isn’t [so and so] a sanctimonious twat?” Yada yada yada. If you ever wonder how his discussions seem to generate so much interest, one of the main reasons is his ongoing “whispering campaign.” ] [Edit: added links to "The Comprachicos" and blog comments by Peter Cresswell and Lindsay Perigo ]

__________________________________________________ Well, as a (new) member of OL and a member of SOLO and a member of RoR, I would say, "So what?" : ) In any case, you then submitted your apology and the moderator posted it. RoR is open to you still . . . Everybody is moderated here, you are banned from SOLO, and now you are moderated at RoR. I would just say that it doesn't really matter where you post comments in this day, or where you respond, or who says what particularly there or here or somewhere else. Your and Kat's departure from SOLO was a bit icky, but I figure Linz did you a favour. If it was going to get even muckier there (which, it seems to me, it did), then you can stay relatively clean. Just make sure you observe every civility here (always) that you demand of others anywhere on earth. Never exceed your own speed limit. : ) The only honourable option that I see for myself is to participate in an initial 'Concordance' as I note at both RoR in a reply to Jenna Wong and at SOLO on my Blog 46. There are a few tripartite members still left, O Moderators of OL (!), so let's make use of them while the top dogs are banning and moderating and shunning and grandstanding and barking and slavering and raging about the stage as if players in Grand Opera (or Grand Guignol) . . . In other words, this is the internet. armed with a sharp a href= and the proper "s and 's and width=""s and the correct >s and <s, you can comment on anything written anywhere, and your interlocutors cain't do a dang thing about it . . . So, no ruffled feathers about moderation or banning or shunning or whatnot. If you and Kat are now Empress and Emperor of the Objectivist Universe Castle and Hobby Farm [OL] then thank the other Emperors and Empresses like La Mertz and La Perigo and La Rowlands -- they have done you a favour! You now are acknowledged as an actual locus of evul. Not too many people have accomplished the same thing in the same amount of time. [Edit: as noted, posters here are not moderated. Sorry for the gaffe. I hope my point about that danged newfangled internet still stands.]