Philip Coates

The inscriptions are poignant. The arc of a life. But it takes time to sink in, so sharing it in writing like this is better. Allows time to absorb and to seek its own level among some readers.

> wondered what had to happen for a person to take a "God Bless Our Happy Home" sign off the wall and donate it to charity.

Guy ended up in the penitentiary and the other inmates didn't appreciate seeing it on the wall every day.

> you don't know how to hurt people.

What makes you think my purpose is to hurt people? Not exactly a skill I'd want to spend time acquiring.

My purpose in the second part of the post was to teach like a schoolmarm - to instruct or explain to the recalcitrant. Sometimes with the obstinate you have to use "Scherckian" over-the-top language. to get people to see that how they are behaving like people they would not admire. You don't try to rap knuckles otherwise. That's sort of a last resort.

(I thought the metaphor of the recalcitrant flunkies slash juvenile delinquents was sort of clever and vivid, actually. -- Phil pats himself on the back.)

> Is this a transgression on a discussion forum?

it's a response to his telling me to fuck off. Dish it out, you gotta take it.

> You're being told to take your schoolmarmism and fuck off this thread [brant]

And I'm telling -you- to fuck off, you moronic asshole who almost never makes a post longer than a paragraph or which is grammatical or makes any half-coherent sense.

> Time and time again you jump into threads the subject of no interest to you to lecture about thread posting etiquette.

Character issues and whining:

Time and again, you and your "snark pack" brothers need to learn to accept when someone 'teaches at you'** with important lessons about character, conduct, reading skills, thinking and fallacies.

**I suspect the gnashing of teeth, the tortured howling, the shoot the messenger insults may come when the shoe fits a bit too tightly

What a small group of you guys do instead is whine about side issues like whether there is a link to something which only appeared a few posts ago, stew in sullen foot-draggin, insulting, contemptuous "hey, yoiu patronizin' at me??" resentment. You remind me of hoods drawn over their heads, pants down around the ankles, flunkie juveniles hunched down in the back row fuming over past slights and whining over minor injury.

(Really gets boring when you guys keep repeating this.)

> So the Aughtofocus on OL is "American national interests".

No Carol, this would be a dumb thread even if it were domestic, even if it were on how a major political figure were rescued from a mob and lost a shoe. And especially if it were part of, I'll repeat again, out of balance focus on politics.

If you provided some concrete examples and explanation it might be possible to know what you're referring to here.

I know that DL is a novelist and I have an unread book by him on my shelf but what "reading Cosmopolis through Ayn Rand" refers to specifically, I haven't a clue. Nor any reason to know if he's a -good- novelist, let alone how you'd connect him to Rand. (Please don't tell me the critics and academics like him. That's as likely to be a negative as a positive.)

Dennis, that's an interesting point but I'd need some concrete examples and what is extreme about them to more clearly understand or appreciate it.

Subject: Reductio ad Ludicrous

> a frightening security breakdown for the Australian Prime Minister is..worthy of comment [WSS]

Right. Because brouhaha and embarrassment in Australia is directly relevant to American national interests. Why not start a thread on when a Burmese general fell down the steps of his airplane ladder? Or how a Czech prime minister spat on someone? Or how there was a riot in the Supreme Judiciary building in Japan?

In fact, let's turn this website into competition for a daily newspaper. Don't knock contemporary yellow journalism. Try to compete with it....I'm ready to start an entire thread just to post a video I have of the leader of South Korea picking his nose. Let's have an entire thread on a clip from National Enquirer showing a shot up Angela Merkel's skirt at Germany Day!!! (Without the mandatory sourcing "links" that la Ms. Stuttle seems to only be upset at missing when I'm the one who doesn't provide them.)

All very relevant and "topical" and "worthy of comment" for Objectivist trivial "news" collectors with spare neurons that need to be engaged and have been busily telling us what intelligent books they are reading.

Oh, I forgot....that was never very topical or worthy of comment. Would require too much actual thought and work compared to "snipping" from a tabloid story.

> In favour once more of Adam fetching this particular story up for inspection, I want to point out again what a large-ish story this was internationally (and how important a story it is in Australia). [WSS]

Reaaally? You're going to use the fact that our current low-level, sensationalist, scandal-hunting, yellow journalists and media as an -example-? SERIOUSLY???? And using the fact that something is important for now in Australian politics as a reason it should be comparably important in ours?

You're kidding, right?

Hmmmm....I usually get instant response when I say something one of the "usual suspects" on OL like Adam - ND- J. - Ellen - Brant etc. want to snark about.

But dead silence all day on this one.

Does that mean this claim about DMBH was an untruth or smear? Sort of like "I can see Russia from my house"?

> You want to impose...

Big difference between 'imposing' and suggesting or criticizing.

> ...Not your job.

And, yeah, it is my job.

Subject: Politicization Uber Alles

> the primaries are going on now

Carol, there is -always- something political going on; the cycle never ends.

It's an issue of ~balance~.

And my complaint with the press, with the evening news, with the media as well is the too-obsessive focus on politics stories. It's depressing when a supposed site for intellectuals, for the cultured, for those who supposedly have some interest in ideas, the arts, literature, etc. make the same mistake of "politicization" of their interests that the media is leading them by the nose toward. For a time on the old OWL or Atlantis lists there were always multiple threads going on technicla issues in philosophy - free will and determinism, etc. My complaint then was the out of balance in the other direction.

There is also the issue that the -content- of some of those threads can often tend to be numbingly boring and repetitious. The trivia. The minutiae. Reminds me of all those endlessly repetitious discussions about minutiae in the Iraq war which are fortunatley over. Ultimately the direction of the country is not going to be determined by minutiae about Mr. Mormon or Mr. Former Speaker. Or by political trivia huniting or politicized gossip. Unless they get to be President. (Or make it to the final content). Then will be the time to obsess over this.

And the thread about the Australian P.M. losing her shoe! YIKES!! WOW!!!! That is even less relevant and even more NewYorkPost - gossip columnish. That's - the tabloid or supermarket National Enquirer intellects is what pushed has me over the edge to screaming insanity...I see the men with the white coats approaching as we speak...

(Warning: I feel a rant coming on....)

> You're the would be squelcher. Frankly.

What you're doing is mindlessly "piling on" instead of recognizing a perfectly legitimate criticism: the list lately sometimes seems to be a politics discussion list because that's in many cases the majority of new threads.

Tell me the truth, did you honestly not notice this or do you -honestly think- Romney, Gingrich, the Republican primaries, Obama's latest offense, and - worst of all - the Australian prime minister losing her shoe in a scrum are the major topics an Objectivist list ought to be focused on?

And did you honestly take my criticism to be suggesting there should be -no- politics threads?

> I for one enjoy Commonwealth references.

it's the overwhelming frequency of political stuff I was referring to.

> Please refer your complaint to the owners.

Gotta be willing to take criticism and rationally respond to it if you're going to participate in a discussion list like this. INstead of being dismissive and "thin-skinned".

It is perfectly reasonable for someone to say that there are things he doesn't like about a list or its topics. And you shouldn't try to 'squelch' or bristle at those who are "troublemakers" like that. (That would be cultish, Diana-type behavior.)

> her Do NOT Look Me In The Eyes [WSS]

Huhh?!??

Is that an exact quote - did she -say- that? Where exactly?

Why all these ninety zillion threads on political trivia like this, Adam?

One or two, yes, but what's the relevance to an Oistish site? I feel like I'm losing a shoe being mugged by aboriginal protesters. (No offense, but seems like with you it's all politics all the time...)

*deleted*

> They tune out and start seeing red and to hell with understanding anything.

Actually, Michael that's what -you- are doing. You are not reading and posting carefully. You are simply firing off a glib response. Go back and reread my original points on this subject and it will all become clearer to you.

> look at any religious denomination and what do you hear? [MSK]

you have to offer proof. that's just the old "objectivism is a religion" smear. amazing that you'd fall for a form of it. so if someone is in agreement with -any- philosophy, you're going to smear them as religious.

too pitiful to discuss any further. i can't even bring myself to use capital letters

> if Phil's point pertained to the philosophy, his way of putting said point sure fooled me. I did not get the question he bolds from his wording, no. Instead he seemed to be talking about an issue of basing oneself on role models [Ellen, #77]

Ellen, in that very post itself [#77] you quote me as saying "It's odd to me that even half-Objectivists in the sense of having "accepted half of Galt", say, would not want to continually try to be..That-Half-Of-Galtish."

Very clearly I state "half-Objectivists": that obviously pertains to the philosophy.

Yeah, that means for about five minutes.

> I feel in this thread the central oddity and distortion of treating Objectivism as a religion, or using it in the role of religion, or misusing its precepts in a religious manner, or behaving religiously.

Nope, it ain't there, pal.

Nice smear job!

You may have gotten that from somewhere else or from others you've talked to: Try to read more carefully and less stream-of-consciousness- ally.

> I am soldiering through Alongside Night. It isn't so Great.

You are not being quizzed on it. So chuck it with decisivenss and great velocity through the nearest open window. (I have another required reading list that I will be sending you instead. Since it is traveling thru canuckistani postal express, you should have it by Easter.)

> I surmise that the theme of this reading series is Colonialism or Imperialism.

Good guess! That will turn out to be part of it, but it's a bit wider. Here's what the 'great books' conference blurb said:

SEVENTH ANNUAL TAMPA BAY GREAT BOOKS CONFERENCE WEEKEND IN LONGBOAT KEY, FLORIDA ... Welcome once again to an intellectually stimulating, mind-expanding weekend at the Hilton Longboat Key Beachfront Resort! Our theme for this year's conference will be:

"CROSS-CULTURAL CONFLICTS AND MISUNDERSTANDINGS"

The exciting program will feature three reading selections for discussion:

A PASSAGE TO INDIA, by E.M. Forster

A BEND IN THE RIVER, by V.S. Naipaul

THE QUIET AMERICAN, by Graham Greene

Our conference deals with the mystery, complexity, and risks that often emerge when different cultures collide. What happens--politically, economically, psychologically and morally--when West meets East, when colonizers interact with the colonized, and when older cultural traditions encounter more modern world views? Registration for the conference will remain the same as last year--$219 per participant....All discussions will be led by moderators trained in the Great Books method of "shared inquiry."

Here is what I wrote about this essay on the Coercive Acts and would have been happy to post on libertarianism.org if it weren't for the hurdles/roadblock I just mentioned:

"This is a very good essay. First of all, the author clearly, logically traces the sequence of events and how they escalate, how one source of suspicion or infringement leads to a small response which leads to a retaliation, which leads to bigger response and so forth. That was never fully clear to me in the history courses I took during my school days. And what I'd call "the logic of escalation" happens all the time and is useful to understand: It has many applications in human affairs. Second, his use of documentation, quotes from Washington and others is helpful and gives the flavor of the times. This sort of exposition would have made my history textbooks far more interesting and the circumstances leading to the American Revolution more clear."

This is a great little essay.

It's good to post a comment on something you like, not because someone is a friend (or not) but because if something is good, that supports it. I just read George's essay and wanted to post a comment but unfortunately (I've seen this elsewhere) you have to comment "using" Facebook or Yahoo. Not quite sure what that means, but I'm no longer on Facebook and when I clicked on Yahoo, it seemed to want me to give permission to make public my Yahoo emall address. No thank you.

(Note also that personal animosities or ill-will or having been insulted by someone are often not a sufficient reason for failing to give credit where it's due. It's not like there is a huge oversupply of good writing on history or in other intellectual areas.)

I forgot to mention below that another good thing about it is its brevity. Like Lincoln, it's legs are just long enough to reach the ground.

I just got an email from a friend who asked me what I'm reading. Here's the answer (this is an update from whatthe thread started with a month ago):

"Hi C****,

I've read two books, "A Passage to India" by E.M. Forster and "The Quiet American" by Graham Greene for this weekend's Great Books Conference in Sarasota. I decided to sign up and read them because all of the books on the agenda are by celebrated authors I hadn't yet read. I'm in the middle of the third book, "A Bend in the River" by V.S. Naipaul. That's the one I'm really enjoying the most.

I'm in the middle of a wonderfully done "biography of a continent" (from the [geological] formation of the continents through human evolution through modern tribes and countries), "Africa" by John Reader.

And I'm continuing to slowly work my way - shifting back and forth between their coverage - through three college-level intro physics textbooks. "