Philip Coates

Kat, I very much like the idea of doing this as a way to see the big picture. And your chart is clean, elegant, and attractive. I like very much your two vertical levels: cognitive and normative. On my first reading, I can see a need for a couple changes or corrections: i) Psycho-epistemology and volition are not purely epistemological. I would put them as 'bullets' under the Nature of Man; ii) in the space vacated under epistemology, I would add these bullets: conceptual thinking & propositional thinking; iii) Esthetics is not an offshoot exclusively of Ethics, so I would replace the line to Ethics with a line to the Nature of Man; iv) Metaphysics -- I would add two more bullets: Causality & Metaphysical Dualism (dualism is the view that the universe has two phenomena, neither one reducible to the other: matter & consciousness -- as opposed to metaphyisical monism, such as idealism or materialism which says there is only one 'substance' in the universe). Phil

Roger, you mean just in the last few days it has expanded to 57? I guess I need to ketchup.

> the L.A. Objectivist Network. ..one woman last month who, when we were all introducing ourselves and mentioning our favorite sport, said hers was S-E-X. Roger, I've been postponing a trip to L.A. for some time now, but I suppose there might be some reasons why I might come down and visit the L. A. Objectivist Network. Provided you introduce me to that woman rather than talking to me about the nineteen forms of objectivity.

> your hunch is correct. Great news! Barbara, you're not going to take 12 years like Leonard does on his books, are you?

> I think such information just sat there uselessly in your mind until or unless you discovered or were taught something you wanted to know to which you could integrate it. ... I was taught geometry in school, but I was not given and did hot have on my own the least understanding of its value or purpose; as a result, I did not authentically grasp it, I could integrate it to nothing I understood, and I did it very badly. [barbara] I agree that much early knowledge sat uselessly in my mind for a time. Facts about history. Rules of arithmetic, for example. But I don't think that is a bad thing, as long as the child is not resistant and it doesn't turn him off on school or learning. Eventually I was happy I had learned all this "stuff". Children go through a sponge stage in early childhood where they eagerly sop up lots of material they don't know how to use yet and this is not harmful to them. Moreover, with material that doesn't seem to integrate to much else, there is a degree of integration at least within the subject that is being taught. I learn Latin. But only later do I see how powerful it is with regard to vocabulary and with regard to understanding English grammar. In your case, how and when was geometry first introduced and taught? If geometry is not taught as a "game" or a puzzle-solving challenge which gets kids interested, if it doesn't emerge from the historical challenge of how the egyptians were able to measure their fields, or the challenge of being able to tell the height of a tall building, if it is not real world connected, then it's a long tedious exercise in memorizing theorems and postulates and weird shapes. Not every child is interested in everything or finds everything relevant. But you can't let them fall a decade behind in learning the basics or the core curriculum. I believe that the classic core curriculum of history, english, math, science (along with other electives) is necessary for the mind to be fully stocked or furnished with the data for thinking and the different methods needed. But the trick is to teach each core subject in a way that makes it relevant, fun, age-appropriate. Kids I've been with usually like to learn almost anything just out of sheer curiosity unless they had bad teachers or poor textbooks or its taught in floating abstraction fashion (all of which is a definite problem). One trick is Socratic: to make -them- come up with the questions themselves, which would fit into your ideas on education: that one doesn't remember things very well unless they are apropos of one's own self-generated questions. In my case, there were many occasions where I didn't have the wit as a child to have any self-generated questions, but was content just to accept the learning of new stuff until such time as something lit a spark. Children are often willing to be led in this manner because they trust adults to take them to places where they will -want- to learn or make new connections. I recently taught a lego engineering class after school hours to young kids. They didn't see the point for a while, but after a time it all began to make sense and be interesting adn wheels and levers and pulleys *became* a bit more relevant. Although there would still be a large distance between their level of childish interest and wanting to become an engineer, for example. I think my view in a nutshell is: the relevance and possibility of integration must exist in -some- degree for the "answers" or material to be appropriate, or even remembered over time. The degree can be very slight and the relevance tentative or remote; one doesn't have to wait for a child to always already know fully why he is being taught math or science or history or literature or its relevance to any real extent. Example: in third grade, "The Emperor's New Clothes" is a great, fascinating story. The child doesn't already know that he is learning a lesson about integrity and thinking with one's own mind and holding to one's conclusions despite public pressure. He loves the embarrassed emperor, the idea he is naked and doesn't know it. And the fact that a little kid gets the best of a pompous bunch of adults. I think it can be described as providing "answers to question that have not arisen in one's own mind, and which therefore have no understood relevance to one's own life", in your words. But in time the relevance will grow, and it will provide moral sustenance. In my case I had long forgotten it until it came time for me to try to teach a lesson about reason and independence to young kids and I was very glad I had been, uncomprehendingly at the time, been taught this story. (This has been over-long and somewhat scattered, flitting from point to point. I will have to use Jefferson's excuse that if I'd had more time I would have been able to write something more essentialized.) Phil

Jody, I wouldn't try to fight L.A. traffic. and, same comment to you and Kat, you really miss out on a lot of the experience and interacting with the people if you are off campus. Plus parking when I lived in LA or was in Orange County is a constant headache, the roads and freeways super-crowded. And it's a long day. People who stay off campus, even in conferences not held in southern calif. tend to regret it... Wait till conference brochure is out.

> I have long thought that to be given answers to question that have not arisen in one's own mind, and which therefore have no understood relevance to one's own life, tends to be useless. Such answers simply become part of one's unattended intellectual baggage, ... they are unintegrated with the rest of one's authentic and first-hand knowledge. [barbara] This is an important matter. I wonder if it depends on the type and level and pacing of the information? For example, sweeping philosophical abstractions or other matters on a very or prematurely abstract level which you swallow without any attempt (or prior to the ability) to understand I would think might fall within the above. But there are many things I learned in grammar school in terms of the three R's, the earth is round, how hummingbirds fly, that "air pressure" exists, and almost a whole educational curriculum which I learned prior to fully understanding or without the question or surrounding issues having occurred to me... It seems that there is a distinction between outside-generated or outside-proposed lines of thought which are unintegrable or wildly premature, and the ones which "plant a seed", ones which are educationally mind-expanding and begin to gradually stretch a child's or adult's appreciation of what is relevant to their own lives ... and will be more fully integrated over time? In any event, I agree, Barbara, that way too often our educators and over eager Objectivists try to stuff material down throats for which we are not ready or have no context (I've seen this as a classroom observer, for example)...or to do it too hurriedly without time, distance, and perspective for digestion and integration. Phil

> Kat and I are planning on attending TOC this year. Michael, that's great. I will look forward to having a chance to meet you both! Phil

Barbara, I'm so glad you'll be at this summer's conference. It will be great to see you again. And the topic you've chosen is enormously important... I hope you are not speaking at the same time as me. (If so, then one of us will have to bail out and go attend the others talk. ha, ha. :-)

> I think Objectivists on the internet are a bad sample to draw a conclusion about concerning Objectivists in general. [Jim] I agree with Jim on this. If you haven't attended a summer conference, it is striking the extent to which the bitterly angry and personally condemnatory people don't show up at all. The people who come have a certain benevolence, openness, and hopefulness and have their lives well in enough in order that they can plan far enough in advance and commit the resources to do this. People are friendly and in a good, holiday mood for the week. I find it hard to remember a time when I heard a voice raised at an Objectivist summer conference and when I wasn't surrounded by laughing, happy, smiling people who want to have an enjoyable time and learn something without a lot of darkness, a lot of endless bitching and moaning. I've been to many summer conferences across many years and, with perhaps only the exception of the 'schism' conference of 1989 when the Kelley-Peikoff thing blew up right in the middle, the above has been the case. Phil PS, I personally find that I am critical of the Oist movement and online and in articles I have negative things to say and improvements I want to see, but when I go out among people such as at a conference, that is not the time when I personally want to dwell on these things. I want to socialize. I want to laugh, be among old friends. And meet new ones. And put problem areas off to the side or on a back burner for one shining summer week which has often given me a taste of Atlantis. (That seems to also be the general attitude of other conference attendees.)

> "What I seek from literature is insight, not inspiration." [Ellen] Hi Ellen, Even though I get both from literature, I don't see anything wrong with this. Maybe you already get enough inspiration somewhere else from a different source. Maybe you most desperately need insight. Maybe you are where you need to be and don't need inspiration so much. Maybe you don't find the characters real or admirable. I don't think being an Objectivist is defined as that or about whether or not AR's personal life is of interest to you. It's about agreement or disagreement with the philosophy. But having said that, I find the debates about who is or is not an O an incredibly dumb waste of time by otherwise intelligent people [i don't mean you but I mean the endless, tedious debates and pulling and tugging over who gets to wear the golden fleece of Objectivism]. (And obviously degrees of fleeciness are possible...so it can be analog not binary). I would rather see people exhaust their neurons thinking about whether they agree with philosophical ideas A, B, C rather than doing the two-step on whether O = A+B+C and a separate step of whether or not they are therefore an O or a non-O. Complete mental masturbation. And not even to climax. Phil

Barbara, I love John D. Macdonald. I discovered the Travis Mc Gee series and read each one right after college. I like Travis himself ... and even his struggles and doubts, because of the -way- he deals with them. And was pleased to discover that he has many other books. I agree that JDMD is much more than a mystery writer. His insight into people's psychologies, his acute observation of situations and the ways things happen in the world, his ability to trace out the detailed steps by which something complex gets done in the business world, etc. An enormously intelligent writer with a good heart. Phil

> trying to base one's own personality and actions on a character (or other person). But maybe you mean something less strong than that, something like getting ideas of possibilities. [Ellen] Hi Ellen, the dictionary simply says that a role model is someone worthy of imitation, or of imitation in a particular role. So that can mean one emulates one aspect of a person's actions or spirit or behavior, but not every aspect. One doesn't feel a necessity to wear a cape or die one's hair to have the same hair coloring as Howard Roark :-). I'm giving a talk on "Heroes and Role Models" at this summer's TOC conference. --Phil Your Marie Curie example is right on target, but that doesn't mean that a fictional portrayal can't have something worthy of emulation. Or maybe a certain movie actress in all her films portrays emotional intensity or some other characteristic you want to remind yourself to have in your life.

Well, sometimes it's an even more to be prized compliment when you are grudging in your compliments and don't like a lot of things ... and then tell somebody, this time you were brilliant or reached another level. As oppposed to if you like or praise everything they do without discrimination. (It's sort of like those public school self-esteem building exercises where everything the kids do is excellent.) The point is objectivity requires you do both. You have to criticize and you have to praise (provided you give good reasons or have a basis in each case). Most people's work will be deserving of each at different times.

Michael, I often have not liked your writing in the past. Especially when you have tried to write on Solo on technical topics, philosophical debates in Objectivism, I have been unable to follow you. But when you write about what you know best, your personal feelings and exultations and heartaches and experiences, your writing is clear as crystal. It is heartfelt, moving, emotional, personal...and authentic. This was brilliant. Everyone who has been exposed to Ayn Rand seems to think they can write like her, grand treatises in Objectivist philosophy. But, while bright, very few have that skill or have been doing that kind of thinking across their lifetime. Don't try to be Aristotle; try to be John D. MacDonald. That you could be enormously successful at, and even get a wide popular audience...something no arcane Objectivist inside-baseball philosophizer can get.

Kat, this is great! This is publishable quality...and it's the kind of thing people will remember. It's simple, funny, clear, people can identify with it. It's the kind of writing that works. Kat, you need to submit this various places...it will be published. It's that good!!! Phil

Hi Kat, don't be disappointed: there are ways to increase turnout. When I jump-started a club at UCLA, I got a number of people I already knew to poster up the entire campus (and in the less obvious places). In previous years attempts to start a club got a half dozen to show up. My attempt (since I knew how to publicize better) got 35, nearly half of them graduate students since I had carefully postered up every floor of every graduate school department. When I started a club in SF, I got the initial names by putting up a sign up sheet at an IOS one day seminar in town in which Kelley and others came to town and a hundred people showed up...so, I got more than 20 names and contact info in the space of a couple hours. Objectivists are diffuse and scattered so you have to use little tricks like this rather than the usual methods... The principle is that Oists are very thin on the ground and not often joiners, so one needs more pump-priming, to do more publicity than one might expect to get critical mass at the "start up". Only once you have some numbers and helpers can you relax.... It's hard work. Phil

Hi Kat, Can you give us details on how the first meeting went? How many people and their age/sex demographics? Did you try any of the ideas from my long post...or that Luke has given, and did they work? Any big pluses? Any downsides? How was the time spent? Phil

> I don't consider myself an intellectual, just an organizer. Good! Best of luck, Kat. I'm sure you'll do fine. The clubs run by intellectuals who are arrogant about their knowledge of Oism and every little thing and who don't let others participate (or help lead and organize) are the clubs that tend to not last across time. By the way, where are these 'discussion questions' of Luke's you mentioned? Phil PS, I think it's a really great idea to be up front a the first meeting and say I'm a little nervous, I'm not an Oist intllctl, I am just feeling my way here, please advise me and help me... and so on. People can understand and empathize and are more likely to pitch in and do things when you need them. You'll need their help if you want to poster up a campus, as I mentioned.

> My impression or understanding is that Rand was attracted to Branden because he represented her ideal man on the philosophic level. He was the most rational, intelligent man she knew, the man who understood the world intellectually like she did, so naturally you should have the ultimate intimacy with such a man, if you can, right? [Roger] Oh, I see your point now! If that were actually the sum of her thinking, ignoring the other issues then that's a big mistake on her part. (Whether one applies the imposing label MBD is less important than just saying it's a mistake...many people confuse friendship or colleagueship or intellectual harmony or admiration with romantic attraction.) phil...itslateandimtoodamntiredtocapitalizeorpunctuate

Hi Kat, You asked me to comment as a teacher on your lesson plan for the first club meeting, but I clicked on your link above and it took me to RoR where it seems you have to be a Florida club member to read it. That's okay, because what I want to say is as a former club leader and multiple Oist club member. This is an unedited "core dump" so forgive me: The main thing at a first meeting is not intellectual but social and good vibes. It's not school. People have to feel welcomed, noticed, visible, not be talked at until they get to know you. People who walk in and walk out without having had a good conversation with anyone will not likely return in high percentages. A good thing to break the ice is go around the room and have each person introduce self, say something about self, etc. It's okay if that is all you accomplish in your first meeting. You are not in a foot race. More broadly, academic or discussion group formats don't last even in Oist clubs unless you are college age and really don't understand the books. Multipurpose clubs that do lots of different things at different meetings so there is something for everyone ... activism, discussion, a chance to give a talk, a chance to get to know people, listen to tapes, recite poetry, etc... those work. Just because someone is an Oist or student of Oism doesn't mean they came to study. Maybe they do that alone. Maybe they don't think the ringleader or seminar leader knows more. Maybe there is a loudmouth in the group who constantly hijacks it. You can't really crack down on the latter at the first meeting or with people you don't know. Don't do all the talking. Try to form an "executive committee" within the first couple meetings of four or five people and hand out titles like VP, Secy, Treasurer, Social Coordinator, etc. or it will be you doing all the work and being unappreciated. The last title seems a bit social metaphysical or beneath their dignity to many Objectivists, but it's not: You need someone to make a point of greeting and chatting a bit with new people who wander in from time to time in every healthy and hopefully growing club. Most people will gravitate to their existing friends and ignore the totally new people, which is ok for them but disastrous for making lonely and isolated new people feel comfortable and visible. At the end of the first meeting, make sure to ask people with ideas and suggestions to stay a few minutes and make sure to get their contact info. You need a sheet of paper ready for this before the meeting starts. Actually, you need to get everyone at the meeting's contact info (email is bes so contact is not a recurrent hassle, but ask for phone as insurance) at the first meeting so they will know about the next one. And let different EC members be in charge of differfent things, like organizing different meetings. If you have anyone who has ever run a club or seems highly grebarious and warm, latch onto that person. He or she is pure gold. Did I mention, don't deliver an academic lesson plan at the very first meeting unless you haver already met the attendees and know that is what the overwhelmingly want, regardless of what seems correct to want. Those who are new to an Oist club at first meeting don't yet know what mix of social, intellectual, activist, etc. they want not having yet tried it out, so don't take a poll at first meeting, because they will all say yes, let's discuss every book every time...and when they try it they will just quietly not start showing up. So you have to take the initiative till they can molre clearly see (and discuss) what activities and fomat seem the most fun. Do not over-schedule. Have meetings a bit less frequently than people seem to want rather than a bit more frequently. And have the meetings run shorter than exhaustion not longer. Good idea is short meetings and then those who don't have to get up early or whatever can adjourn to a nearby coffee shop or wherever. Learn about all the free ways to publicize your club. Go around and poster up the colleges. You need young people not just middle-aged fogies (or at least for them to have campus clubs and co-sponsor stuff) because they have the most energy and time and enthusiasm. The name "Ayn Rand Club" is better for attracting people than "Objectivist Club" (unless you want to be small and 'advanced', which I certainly wouldn't, but that's just me.) Why? Because the novel admirers all recognize the name Ayn Rand, but not the jawbreaker that starts with the letter O and could mean a club for goal setting and trying to figure out your life objectives. Meeting in someone's house, depending on layout and ability for all to hear and be together, is usually more comfortable assuming comfortable chairs and soft seating than in the back meeting room of a restaurant. For a while we had a nice house to meet in in SF and also in LA. Marsha E and Jackie H have good club articles up on the TOC website. I don't agree with everything, but many good points. Phil C

Roger, I agree with Michael, thanks for the thoroughness and detail. I also would love to hear more and wish I could have been there to ask ten thousand questions. On your point about Rand's liking "the rational, productive crusader..the dashing hero" as an ideal man and "the quiet, rock-steady pillar on which she leaned when things weren't going well". I don't think there is necessarily a mind/body split here...neither for her nor for other people. You can have a warrior, a pirate, an Einstein as someone you admire in fiction or on the pages of the newspaper. But what you personally need in your daily life, while not incompatible with that, can be that a certain other constellation of traits are in the ascendant. The same can apply to a man and his needs as to a woman. While I need to see geniuses and unprecedenteded original intellect out there in the world, what I personally need in a woman is that she be intelligent -enough-, but warmth, openness, benevolence, and a predominantly sunny disposition are far more important (at least to me) in person than that she be the second coming (no pun intended) of Aristotle. While every single one of the characteristics you listed would enhance the value to you of either a mate or a fictional or distant hero, you need some of them more and some of them less in each of these cases. There is an objectively valid difference of stress or emphasis in what you need to focus on somewhere out in the world from time to time and what you need to have by your side and constantly interacting with you. Not the slightest degree of mind/body dichotomy involved. Phil

Hi Kat, I would like to see balance in the work of ARI, TOC, etc. between Politics, Ethics, Esthetics, Epistemology...etc. The problem is a lot of Oists are politicoeconomic junkies...and it's easier to write about those topics and there is a large audience for them. Phil

Barbara, I knew nothing about her (her life and her integrity) prior to this, but this makes me want to learn more. Thank you. Phil (By the way the vodka-chocolate-ice cream recipes were a joke: do not try them at home)

> there is very little one can create out of ice cream, vodka, and chocolate bars Barbara, I don't know how you can display such ignorance. Here is what you do: Step 1. Pour a glassful of vodka. Use a chocolate bar to vigorously stir the vodka and drink it. Step 2. Use a chocolate bar as a spoon to scoop out and eat some of the ice cream. Eat the spoon. Step 3a. Lightly heat a skillet. Melt another chocolate bar. Everyone knows melted chocolate is delicious on.... Step 3b. ...vodka. Pour another glass of vodka. Stir in melted chocolare. Enjoy your first chocolate vodka as you continue to cook. Step 4. By now the ice cream may be starting to melt. Scoop out the remainder and add it to the now sizzling chocolate remnants in youir skillet. Add remaining chocolate bars and use a professional quality wire whisk to stir the smoldering mixture very thoroughly. Step 5. If your smoke detector goes off, pour another glass of vodka and ignore. If it does not go off, or in either case, pour the rest of the vodka into the skillet. Step 6. Turn off the skillet and allow the ICCV mixture to cool. When it is cool, pour some into a glass and enjoy. Pour the rest into ice cube trays for future use as a drink freshener.