Ross Barlow

Thanks, Fran. I will check out your link when I get a chance later. -Ross Barlow.

Blackhorse, have you ever read the poetry of Robert Service? He wrote of the gold-rush days in the Yukon, and his celebration of cold wild places would be familiar to someone from Montana. His poems are humorous in a gritty way. “The Cremation of Sam McGee” is a favorite of mine. -Ross Barlow.

I have never been able to complete any of the survey-questionnaires for determining psychological types, and I think I have tried them all many times. I do not like the way the questions and alternatives are phrased. I feel that they do not really address *me*. Many questions seem to be answerable equally well by several choices or else by none listed. It seems that these attempts to pigeonhole me are severely limited and lacking in imagination. It is the same sort of frustration I often feel when someone offers me to participate in a poll on politics in which the only choices available are the ones appropriate for only conservatives, “liberals” or greens. Just as those surveys make me feel politically homeless, these psychological polls make me feel more alien than usual. I know that I am extremely introverted and quite hermit-like. Of course, I have always known this. But that is as far as these classification scales can measure. Maybe I am from another planet. That would explain a lot. -Ross Barlow.

Hello, Brant. Good to run into you again online. As a fellow Vietnam veteran, you are always a brother. There are not many of us in objectivist-related circles. Indo-China is still as hot and humid as ever. It is noon ICT for me now, but when night falls I will raise a big mug of cold Chang beer while thinking of you. Cheers! -Ross Barlow.

Fran, Dubai sounds like a great place. Enjoy your visit there and be sure and give us a report. You appear to be a true “cosmopolitan,” in the Stoic sense of being at home in the “universal city” of the human world, so you will have the wisdom to appraise whether or not Dubai is for you. Dubai seems to have a lot going for it. Just for a balance, on the down side, it apparently has no solid constitutional basis for its present freedoms, and this gives them a weak foundation. Of course, the historically magnificent freedom-friendly constitutions of England and of the United States have eroded in time and lost much of their original spirit. Yet these constitutions were strong enough that they protected freedoms for many generations. Therefore, Dubai may be a bit like Hong Kong was, in that a question mark is always in the back of one’s mind about the future of power. Keep your assets fluid, i.e., passports and bank accounts, and you should not have too much to worry about. I am sojourning in the Kingdom of Thailand, and I love it here. It is a constitutional monarchy with a strong Army influence. There have been many constitutions written in the 20th century and several military coups alternating with new parliaments. Still, the kingdom is relatively stable because of the ethics of Buddhism and the guiding wisdom and moral authority of most of the outstanding kings of the last 150 years. A separatist Muslim insurgency in the South will be testing this nation. I hesitate to criticize my adopted country, not because I am afraid of repercussions but because I am a guest here and it would be bad form to be rude. Thais are remarkably tolerant, so I am quite tolerant of their institutions whenever they seem odd to me. One recent thing did upset me a bit. When the movie, The Da Vinci Code, came to theaters here, the government censors prohibited the last 10 minutes of the film to be shown because Christian groups were whining about it. Christians make up less than 1 percent of the population of this predominantly Buddhist country, but their feelings are protected (in the name of keeping the religious peace) to the point where such censorship is accepted. I think that the thing that got to me the most was the fact that Thais did not even blink about this. The outrage came from us Western expats, used to our natural rights traditions of freedom. Tell us more about what you think of Dubai after your visit. It sounds fascinating. I envy you for visiting a new corner of the world for the first time. Like that that other great fellow wanderer, Bilbo Baggins, you are off on a new adventure. -Ross Barlow.

Barbara, this is truly scary. The immorality of such consequent mass killing of innocents speaks for itself. Maybe not so obvious is the idiotic counter-productiveness of it in strategic terms. The whole idea reeks of mad zealotry. Why does Objectivism always have such lepers around? Remember the legendary discussion among some of taking out a “hit” in the aftermath of the 1968 Split? I do not read Solo websites and have not for years. I belonged once, long ago, but left after several months. There was something about the leadership there that struck me as pretentious and creepy. -Ross Barlow.

I agree with Roger here that *The Disowned Self* is an extremely important book. I think it is especially helpful for both Objectivists and “recovering Objectivists.” It is easy for people to allow the strong idealistic and moralistic elements in Objectivism to encourage self-alienation from their emotional selves. E.g., “I should not feel this way, therefore I cannot feel this way and do not feel this way.” If I remember right, Nathaniel wrote this book after treating many Objectivists as a therapist. He saw it as a very big problem in this specific group. In my own experience after returning from Vietnam, I kicked around for several years haunted by unrealistic self-expectations and self-understandings, and I had buried a lot of my emotional life. I grew up with Christianity’s encouragement to repress important parts of my emotional self, and I graduated to an incomplete interpretation of Objectivism’s exhortation to be rational. I strived for “rationality” at the expense of ignoring my emotions. Randian literary heroes were “feel-no-pain” models, which, mixed with my hard-core transformation into a Marine, made me aspire to be a Spartan robot. Nathaniel’s book arrived at the right time for me. It helped me to re-discover myself. Thanks, Nathaniel. -Ross Barlow.

Thanks, Michael, for telling us about the extra feature for pinpointing the *specific posts* that I have not yet read within a thread. It is very useful. I am talking about the small square (with the little triangle in its bottom right corner) that is located immediately to the left of the “Topic Title” of any thread containing posts I have not yet read. These Topic Titles are on the “Your topics” page I get when I click on “View New Posts” on the OL home/index page. This little square with triangle gadget saves me a lot of time. Instead of always scrolling through a thread, trying to find exactly which posts I have already read or not, this pinpoints the unread ones. I wish that I would have known about this earlier. (I am very active on a wildly busy Buddhist discussion board that uses this same software, so I am going to see if this trick works there as well.) I try to visit OL here when I have enough time to read everything I might be interested in during one visit. Then I click “Mark all forums [sic] as read and return to index.” I am a relative newcomer here, so I am working slowly to discover some of the early writings on this site. Kat, in your post above you say you are trying to find an easier way to view unread posts. But I think this little square/triangle feature covers that quite well. (But, then, why is anyone listening to me on technical matters? About all that I can do is switch on my computer, and on a bad day that is troublesome.) Again, thank you for a lovely website. -Ross Barlow.

I want to add that the film *Equilibrium* (2002), which I reviewed briefly on the OL Movies and Entertainment forum, reminds me of the point you brought up, seeker. In this movie’s future world, all emotions are outlawed and chemically suppressed, and all artwork of any kind is destroyed on discovery. What I am very curious about is this: What does that statue of Atlas mean in the film’s overall message? Writer/director Kurt Wimmer did not seem to put anything unessential into his creation. Really, see this movie. -Ross Barlow.

That was a fine post, seeker. I would like to address one point you make. You wrote: <<Still, there are facets of Objectivism that seem puzzling to me. One of them is that it seems that the philosophy of Objectivism expects that man is to behave in such a rational manner as to totally deny that man is also an emotional being. In seems the objectivists ideal role model would me Mr. Spock from the old Star Trek TV series -- always saying "it isn't logical" and denying or with holding all emotions in every situation…..>> Your point is well taken, and I understand perfectly why you see this impression jump right out at you. Rand’s heroes are often Spartan in their rigorous rationality, and their emotional lives are often overshadowed, seemingly stunted. But the spirit of Objectivism was meant to also encompass the powerful emotional joy of living and of loving those you value, even if we do not see them as prominent features of the philosophy at first. Do not feel bad about this: many, many people perceive Objectivism this way, and some never do tune in to the rich emotional component it has. You know that emotions – in their proper sphere – are important, so you will not become the kind of humorless “logical zombie” that this movement is littered with. I think that Rand’s aesthetic sense is helpful here. I might suggest reading *The Romantic Manifesto*, especially making a list of Rand’s recommendations in literature and film. Also pertinent are the numerous movie and book reviews in the *Objectivist Newsletter* and *The Objectivist*. Not everyone reacts the same to her sense of aesthetics, but I find that it is a great match to my own. If you already know most of these works, or if you are experiencing some of them for the first time, her recommendations and favorites can broaden your understanding of this emotional side of Rand’s Objectivism. (Of course, being a proponent of this being an “open” system, I think we can add our own favorites to the list and call it our genuine revised version. E.g., I love Beethoven, all official Objectivist dogma to the contrary notwithstanding.) As a young man, I knew nothing of Classical music, but Rand’s mentions of Rachmaninoff et al made me curious, thus broadening my horizons beyond belief. There is much joy, albeit mixed with struggle, in her emotional-aesthetic worldview. Perhaps Rand’s philosophical emphasis had to be so radically focused upon the supreme importance of reason and rationality because the 20th century was so hostile to them. She came out of the madness of Revolutionary Russia into an America that was always disappointing her by its irrationality in both philosophy and culture. Emotions did not need a champion, but reason did and does. As to the temptation to read Objectivism as being a grim duty to be rational even at the expense of throttling your emotional life, many have fallen for this and have become zealous so-called “rationalists.” The parallels to religious orthodoxy are obvious here, as the stern-mouthed “Objectivist” puritanically condemns anyone too frivolous or anyone diverging from his own narrow fix on what is “rational.” He might say: “The system is closed, damn it, so watch your heretical thoughts there, boy!” The perversity of turning a commitment to rationality into a religious-like dogmatic mantra, precluding further original thought, is grotesque, but it has been with the movement since its early days. The only emotions these puritans seem to feel are an intense need to belong to a creed, anger, and the love of lashing out at heretics. Centuries ago, you could find the same mentality gleefully adding sticks to the fire of an auto de fe. There is also a close parallel between the emotionally-dead “logical” Objectivist and fanatical ideologues such as some doctrinaire Marxists. Rand intended a balance between reason and emotion, each sticking to its own proper function to ensure a life that is joyfully flourishing on this good earth. It sounds like you already know very well of this balance. -Ross Barlow.

Bravo, Angie! Your article is a great intellectual adventure story, made even more exciting because it is from real-life and is genuinely yours. Thank you for sharing it. -Ross Barlow.

Glenn Ford, R.I.P. He was an actor who seemed to radiate dignity, moral earnestness, coolness and intelligence. He was in numerous Westerns and detective films that were re-played on TV as I was growing up. I do not so much remember specific movies he played in, but I remember the instant recognition when he made his first entrance. You knew that a decent man had just walked onto the scene. -Ross Barlow.

Michael Russell wrote: “I’m a[n] … early Stones fan.” I am as well. In about 1964, I used to fall asleep with my AM radio next to my head, listening to WBZ Boston, the only station in range that would play those raunchy Stones. I still think that their second and third albums originally released in the US were among their very best. I have long referred to Ron Woods (?) as “that new guy.” -Ross Barlow.

BAMF, I am not a researcher, but I will give you my own best guess, for what it is worth. I am a big fan of ScienceDaily.Com, which I scan every day for interesting science news articles. The original research is usually linked for further investigation. http://www.sciencedaily.com Searching their site, I entered <adolescents +”violent music”> and came up with a lot of articles from ScienceDaily. I hope this can help in some small way. -Ross Barlow.

Michael, you blew me away with that powerful article. It is the first that I have read it. I second everything that Victor said about it, and I cannot add anything. I am, for once, utterly speechless. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. I feel enriched for having read it. -Ross Barlow.

A news item just popped up on ScienceDaily.Com about a huge genetic study program concerning substance abuse and the inheritability of addiction vulnerabilities. Michael, when I read this news item I had just read your mention of Dr. Ting-Kai Li, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and he is quoted prominently in this article although this particular study was not his. Here is the article’s link, shortened to a TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/rdr7y I agree that abuse and addiction can be complex mixes of genetic inheritance, environmental influences and volition, and that there are considerable variations of the mix of these causal factors from individual to individual. I have some war stories of my own about personal abuse of a wide variety of chemicals off-and-on over four decades, but I will spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say that the scars left upon my life are still part of my baggage. -Ross Barlow.

There is something that has been stuck in my mind for over twenty years now which may have some small relevance here. If I remember correctly, David Kelley read the great Rudyard Kipling poem “If” at the graveside service of both Frank O’Connor and Ayn Rand. That was an immense honor. My question is: Was it Rand who chose David to be the one to read it? David was at that time a relative “new-comer” on the Objectivist scene, in the sense of not being one of the Old Guard from the 50s and 60s like Peikoff et al. But my sense of it was that he was looked at even then as kind of a symbol of hope for the future of Objectivism. There seemed to be a feeling that David was a prodigy, a decent and highly intelligent young man of integrity who was also articulate, polite, presentable and good-looking to boot. I could not help thinking at the time that, if Ayn was the one who chose him to read “If” at Frank’s funeral and at hers, then this may have been experienced as a slight by the Old Guard. The one name that came to mind when I thought about possible feelings of being snubbed over this was Leonard Peikoff. He never struck me as being a particularly gracious or forgiving guy. Maybe I am guilty of “psychologizing,” but I have long thought that the emotion of Jealousy was capable of provoking powerful corruption within the higher echelons Objectivism, starting at the very top. This thought started to dawn on me 38 years ago, if you catch my drift. -Ross Barlow. P.S. – Kipling’s poem, “If,” was one of my father’s favorite poems, and he would recite the whole thing while we would do farm work together when I was a boy. I read it at his funeral.

Hello, Christian, good to run into you again. I hope that life is good for you there in Colorado. -Ross Barlow.

[i do not know if I posted this already and it was swallowed into the Black Hole, but I found it in my files so I will (re)post it.] The original post by DavidMcK that started this thread asked about Fritz Lang. David asked: “I'm particularly interested in any reviews or comments on Fritz Lang, I've only seen 'Metropolis' when it was re-released some time ago.” *Metropolis* (1927) was a fantastic movie. I first saw it in the 1980s during its re-release with the excellent pounding rock soundtrack. Brigitte Helm is mesmerizing. If you have not already seen Lang’s *Siegfried* (1924), which Rand liked very much, see it. Even though -- by today’s standards of special effects -- the dragon looks very hokey, the heroism portrayed throughout makes this a great movie. I highly recommend this one. Another Lang film that I have seen is *M* (1931), starring Peter Lorre. Very weird, but very well done. A classic. I have never seen any of Lang’s American films after he fled the Nazis. -Ross Barlow.

I want to recommend the movie *Equilibrium* (2002). I think some of you may enjoy it. Ari Armstrong of Colorado had recommended it a number of years ago on the [Old] Atlantis e-list, and I'm glad I wrote the title down and eventually viewed it (and then I immediately bought a copy). Apparently, the movie never made it to US theaters, as it made enough money in its overseas showings and the producers did not want to risk losing money in the US with high advertising costs, etc. It is a low budget film of a dystopian future, written and directed by Kurt Wimmer. Christian Bale stars, and also appearing are Taye Diggs, Emily Watson and Angus MacFedyen, with Sean Bean in a cameo. It was filmed mostly in Berlin. It is possible that Wimmer borrowed much of his vision for this flick from Orwell, Huxley, Bradbury, Fritz Lang, etc. But his championing of individualism against conformity is very powerful and worth watching for its own virtues. I like the mood of this movie. After a devastating World War III, the rulers among the survivors try to build a world in which war will never happen again. They see elemental human nature to be dangerous and evil (“Hobbesian” or “original sin” in our terms). To prevent war and murder, all war-like human emotions such as anger and hate must be eliminated. So everyone is required by law to take regular “interval” doses of a drug which completely kills all emotions, all feelings and all passions. All positive feelings and passions are killed also -- all emotions connected with love, art, literature, music, etc. -- but this is considered to be a worthwhile trade-off as long as murder and war are gone. It is a world of humorless zombies, sort of like my image of an Objectivist Hell run by the ARI elite. The punishment for "sense crimes" (i.e., not taking your interval dose and thus being enabled to "feel") is prompt execution. All artworks, books or music are destroyed immediately when discovered. There is no compromise. The primary enforcers of this totalitarian rule are the Clerics, whose dedication and extreme "gun kata" martial arts training makes them indomitable. What would it be like if you missed your daily interval dose and experienced, for the first time in your life, the ability to “feel”? I did notice in particular one piece of artwork that was apparently allowed to be in the office of one of the top rulers (Angus MacFedyen). It was a statue of Atlas, crushed down under the oppressive weight of the world. Hmm. This makes my wonder about Kurt Wimmer’s intellectual lineage. There is a resistance movement in this society, and they consider their best ally to be … human nature. This is the element of Jeffersonian hope. Go and rent this movie if you have not yet seen it. It is on my favorite movie list. -Ross Barlow. P.S. -- Can you imagine if the very first piece of music you ever heard was Beethoven's Ninth Symphony? That would be shock therapy, indeed.

A zen-objectivist alpinist - [intro post, belched out of the black hole and re-posted] Hello, everyone. Glad to be aboard Objectivist Living. You seem awfully friendly, tolerant and cheerful for Objectivists, which is a welcome relief, since I am a perennial heretic. (I have the feeling I have joined this group after yet another dozen or so schisms within Objectivism, which is par for the course in this philosophy, as it usually is for any philosophy, ideology or religion with strong moral positions.) Objectivist Living was recommended to me by Ellen Stuttle, an online friend whose taste and judgment I respect so much. I see that I also know a lot of other members here from objectivist-inspired e-lists in the past. Hello to Barbara, Roger, Chris, Rich, Mike and many others who might remember running into me online. For anyone else interested, I will introduce myself so that you know where (i.e., which planet) I am coming from. I am a retired American high school teacher, who taught history, philosophy and geography, and who retired early because of health problems. I now live in Thailand, so I am a stranger in a strange land, and you folks will have to keep me up-to-date on what is going on in the West and in Objectivist-land. My intellectual history: Having escaped from a strict Christian upbringing, I first read Rand’s works back in the 60s while in high school. I was already an atheist drifting toward libertinism [yes, I spelled that correctly], and I found her writings to be a welcome model of disciplined thinking. Rand taught me the basics of philosophy and ignited a passion for the further study of the history of ideas. I read almost everything published by her and the Brandens up to about 1969, thoroughly. I already had an intense love for liberty, but it took Rand to articulate a radically principled libertarianism for me. I have always been inspired by heroes in both art and real life, so Rand’s aesthetic vision really got me off. Her greatest lessons to me were the ideas that a ruthless and rigorous scientific attitude is also to be considered an essential moral virtue and that a heroic sense of life is sacred. In addition to Rand, I have always been strongly attracted to the individual intellectual and psychological quest modeled by Gautama the ascetic, the original founder of Buddhism. I still try to make every waking breath and activity as meditative, clear and mindful as possible. Long ago, I also used to read a lot of the Beat Zen writers like Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder. So you could label my journeys as those of an “objectivist, dharma bum and mountain climber.” Therefore, with heretical interests such as these, I have always felt like an outsider in the Objectivist movement, although I have always drawn great spiritual sustenance from Rand’s depiction of outsider figures like Howard Roark. During the 1970s, Nathaniel Branden’s works supplemented my Buddhist studies to help me achieve more equanimity and peace. Thanks, Nathaniel. Also helpful to me in my philosophical studies were any writings, translations or recommendations by the late Walter Kaufmann, a scholar that I greatly admire. Many of the Beats were pathetic, irrational and self-destructive losers, but as a teen in the 60s I felt some affinity with Kerouac as a fellow alienated wanderer and chronic stranger. I have always been a loner and very hermit-like. Today, wandering through the side-streets and back-road paths of Thailand as an out-of-place “farang” (Western foreigner) fits me well. Gary Snyder, a mountain climbing Zen poet, was the healthiest Beat influence on me. Snyder’s translations of the *Cold Mountain Poems* by the ancient Chinese Zen/Taoist mountain hermit, Han Shan, introduced me to an aesthetic of nature – of mountain peaks in the fog, silent full moons, roaring brooks, pines singing in the wind, and soaring rock cliffs – that I recognized at once as part of my own aesthetic synthesis and that goes well with my outdoor lifestyle. I love the aesthetics and the ascetic style of wilderness and wildness. So, take these aesthetic threads – Gautama’s ideal of striving, Han Shan’s visions of craggy pine-tree summits and Rand’s vision of heroic upward achievement – and you get a mountain-climbing madman … I mean, seeker of outrageous adventure. The entire 1970s was for me one big expedition to the wilderness. During the 1980s, two books got me interested once again in Objectivism and libertarianism: first, George H. Smith’s excellent *Atheism: the case against god* got me to re-read Rand again, and then Barbara Branden’s wonderful *The Passion of Ayn Rand* really launched a renaissance in my studies. Thanks again, Barbara. This interest induced me to return to college, study some more philosophy and get a teaching certificate. My concentrations of study have always been philosophy, history, comparative religion and geography. My wife is Thai and a Theravadin (“Hinayana”) Buddhist. Theravada can easily accommodate an individualist and atheist. But, naturally, I do not fit in that well, as it is too traditional and formal for a zen-objectivist like me. I am too skeptical, and I would rather simply seek a glimpse of the Moon and feel that stray cool breeze. My physical history: I grew up on a dairy farm in rural NW Pennsylvania. After high school in 1968, I did the rucksack thing -- the *On the Road*, *The Dharma Bums* thing -- and then I joined the Marines, doing a tour of duty in Vietnam. In my boxed-up library in the States, I still have an extremely battered, mildewed and almost unreadable copy of *For the New Intellectual* that I carried with me during my hitchhiking days and during my year of combat. Since my return to civilian life, I have worked as a psychiatric aide, a certified firearms instructor and a school teacher. For fun, I have had over three decades of priceless experience in mountaineering, especially in alpinism, an aesthetically spare and ascetic style of extreme climbing. I was never really an exceptionally strong climber, but I pushed myself right to the limits of my ability and fear, and frequently beyond them. Some of the things that I have always loved about climbing are that you must use your mind rigorously and you must know your psyche intimately. Decisive action in a potentially dangerous situation, undertaken with clarity of mind and with the rational control of fear, is invigorating. And, of course, aesthetically speaking, the view from the top is beyond belief. I have taught people the fundamentals of mountain climbing on rock, snow and ice, and I have led groups on extended wilderness climbs in all types of weather extremes, including sub-zero expeditions. I intend to write a short primer someday on the Art of the Bivouac, the light-weight style of bare-bones alpinist expeditioning where you usually leave comforts such as tents behind. Light and fast. But it has always been solo climbing – either unroped or roped, on day-climbs or extended expeditions, on rock, snow or ice -- that has been the most rewarding and soul-enriching for me. In those moments, when pulling up over the top of an extreme climb that has radically tested my body and spirit, I feel the same thing I felt when reading Rand’s novels for the first time: exaltation. So, the healthy and productive influences on my life have been the Marine Corps, Buddhism, Objectivism (which includes Rand and the Brandens), and, especially, climbing. I probably will not be able to post much here on OL, as I am trying to learn the Thai language and to build up my health and strength again. But I will try to read as much as I can. Damn! You folks are as wordy as I am. -Ross Barlow. . “To hold an unchanging youth is to reach, in the end, the vision with which one started.” ~A. Rand. . “Strive on with diligence.” ~The Buddha. . My Climbing Log: records of my climbing adventures: http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/blog/zenwind ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My other Blog: reviews, commentary, and other intellectual adventures: http://zenwind.blogspot.com .