jriggenbach

I always used to tell the more serious of my students in San Francisco that the first sign your receive that you are making progress in learning about a field is when you begin to realize how much there actually is to know about it - and how much there is to know that, up to that moment, you had never even dreamed existed at all. I'm sorry, Phil, but I've known you long enough and had enough literary conversations with you to know that, where literature is concerned, you've never yet reached that point. You have no idea how much more there is to this subject than you have supposed. You believe you know far, far more about it than you actually do, and, sadly, this renders you incapable of learning as much more about it as your native intelligence would otherwise permit. It does, however, leave you able to take umbrage at what you believe are needlessly insulting remarks about your alleged ignorance. I suppose there's some consolation in that. JR

Well, Phil, I can't say I can recall ever ridiculing any of your literary choices. My recollection is that the worst I've thought and perhaps said is that you probably wouldn't think quite so highly of some of them if you had done more reading - knew more about literature generally. It's not that these choices are bad - it's merely that they aren't really as magnificent as they may seem to someone who hasn't yet read widely enough to recognize their actual merit. Whether we talk further about Light in August is entirely up to you. It's been a few years since I last read it, so it's not fresh in my mind, and I might not therefore have much of any real interest to say about it. JR

What edition do you have? The Modern Library edition, which has been the standard edition in both hardcover and paperback for generations now, ends on page 444. And just before page 432 there's the magnificent, immensely poetic end of Gail Hightower - one of the high points of the novel. If you'd lost interest by that time, you rather seriously missed the point of the whole thing. JR

It is perhaps worth noting that Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises isn't even 250 pages in length. And Faulkner's Light in August, though it exceeds 400 pages, does so only by a handful of pages. By the time Phil got to page 400 in the Faulkner, he was virtually through reading. He had fewer than fifty pages ahead of him. JR

And what exactly was the evidence you offered for this point? JR

Shayne, I still don't understand. You are advocating--in your biological part of your argument--government for different species of human beings? Cats and mice are different species. The last I looked, humans all belonged to the same species. As far as human biology is concerned, raids by groups of adult males on other groups of humans are recorded as part of human history as far back as we have archeological finds, including bones smashed by weapons. These raids have continued throughout all of recorded history. That's part of human biology in terms of species. Michael I really don't see how you're getting all those things out of a relatively simple point. You are not just going beyond, but way beyond what I wrote. When a cat eats a mouse, it is an objective biological fact that the cat interfered with the mouse, and that the mouse didn't interfere with the cat. I am saying that the same biological issue is involved if we say that one human action violated the rights of another human -- that in fact there was an interference. Which is to say that actual rights are real and objective, and that actual violations are also real and objective. This is all just the non-initiation of force principle viewed from a different perspective. Shayne Shayne, I beg of you: cut Michael some slack. He needs to make this point in order to lay the groundwork for his forthcoming argument that [bullying, blah, blah, blah]. Surely you can see that he can't reasonably expect his readers to know what the [blah, blah, blah] part means if he hasn't first attended to the foundation. Tsk, tsk, tsk, JR

THE METAMORPHOSIS (Franz Kafka) - This is not a novel, of course, but a short story. Was the book your group read a collection of Kafka short stories? I first read "The Metamorphosis" in high school. Later, after reading more Kafka, I decided it wasn't the work I'd suggest to anyone who hadn't read Kafka and wanted to find out what he was like. "In the Penal Colony" or The Trial would be better, I think. WINESBURG, OHIO (Sherwood Anderson) - This blew me away when I read it in high school, but I can no longer remember exactly why, and a couple of attempts to re-read it in the last couple of decades failed; I found myself unable to get interested in it. THE SUN ALSO RISES (Ernest Hemingway) - I read this in graduate school, in a course on Hemingway and Faulkner. I think it's a good book, well written and all that, but I'd give a newcomer to Hemingway some of the short stories or A Farewell to Arms instead. THE DIVINE COMEDY: INFERNO (Dante Alighieri) - I've never read it. My prejudice against Christianity has always made it seem unappealing. OTOH, I had the same feeling about Paradise Lost when I was assigned to read it as an undergraduate, but when I read it I was startled to find that it is a magnificent work, well worth reading even if you regard Christianity (and Judaism and all other religions) as a tissue of absurdity and bunkum. GULLIVER'S TRAVELS (Jonathan Swift) - I read this in junior high school, I think. I've reread portions of it in the years since, most recently back in the late '90s, when I was teaching a course in Fantasy & Science Fiction at an art college in San Francisco. A true classic, though its importance is more historical than artistic. JANE EYRE (Charlotte Bronte) - I read this and her sister's novel, Wuthering Heights, at around the same time in high school. Though I don't agree with Lord David Cecil that Wuthering Heights is the greatest novel of the Victorian Era, I thought back then and I still think now that it is a better, a more original, and a more artistically impressive work than Jane Eyre. THE RED AND THE BLACK (Stendhal) - I never have got around to this. I started it once, but had to stop reading it in order to attend to something else and never came back. I saw a European film adaptation that led me to expect that I'd find Stendahl's way of working out his plot less than impressive, but it remains on my reading list, and there is a copy on one of my many bulging bookshelves. LIGHT IN AUGUST (William Faulkner) - Faulkner is America's greatest novelist and this is one of his three or four greatest novels. LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) - I've read a little Marquez, but not this one. What I read neither impressed me nor left me cold. I vaguely intend to read more of his work one day. KING LEAR (Shakespeare) - If I were leading a group of this kind, I'd choose Hamlet or Macbeth or maybe The Tempest. But King Lear is a fine play, and I agree entirely with Ted's comments above about Shakespeare and Rand's reaction to his work. I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS (Maya Angelou) - I've never read this. I've read a little of Angelou's poetry. It didn't do much for me. My impression is that she is included in lists like these (along with Toni Morrison) because it is believed that we must have at least one or two "great" writers who are black. I'm not much of a fan of any sort of affirmative action, but I'm inclined to say that if we must have such an policy, we ought to at least pick a black writer who actually is great - say, Samuel R. Delany. BABBITT (Sinclair Lewis) - I read this in high school. It's not Lewis's best novel, but it'll do. THE GRAPES OF WRATH (John Steinbeck) Again, I read it in high school. I don't really recall it that well. What little I do recall comes, I suspect, from the movie with Henry Fonda. This book didn't impress me that much, particularly in comparison with the other Steinbeck I read at the same time (and have reread in the years since) - Of Mice and Men (his greatest novel, I think), Tortilla Flats, and some of the short stories - particularly "The Ears of Johnny Bear." JR

Not mine. JR

I know I speak for many when I say I am delighted to see that Phil's posts are getting the re-readings they always so richly deserve. So true. There is absolutely nothing Phil doesn't know exactly how to improve. Think about the possibilities for a vastly improved world if only more people read Phil's posts and took his advice. And why didn't the producers of the new Atlas Shrugged movie just hire Phil to write the screenplay in the first place instead of going with these doofuses they did hire? Incredulously, JR

This should not surprise you. JR

Yes, why don't you leave. As I have already noted, all you've offered and all you are evidently capable of offering is derision. Shayne But it's good (i.e., very high quality) derision - some of the very best and available free on the Internet. JR

George, I recently ran across the assertion that the Tannehill's book was actually based on their understanding of Andrew J. Galambos's theories (as conveyed to them by Walter Block, who had discussed Galambos's ideas in some detail with Durk Pearson). I never knew either of the Tannehills (or Durk Pearson, for that matter), so I have wondered about this. Roy knew the Tannehills, but he's no longer around to ask. Walter confirms that he did meet and talk with both Pearson and the Tannehills in the timeframe specified (the late '60s), but says he doesn't recall any specifics of what they discussed. Can you comment on any of this? JR

Faux "News" = Pure Objectivism JR

Robert: Approximately when were their people pushed out? Adam 1984. JR Thank you JR: Now I recall that in 1980 we reached the national high water mark with Clark and Koch on the ticket. Got close to 1,000,000 votes and over 1%. Then in '83-'84 they were forced out and it has been downhill since then with the party. I remember how pissed off I was because we had gotten a permanent ballot line for the party in NY and we got a local guy elected to town council in NJ and I thought we really had a chance to build. Damn. Again thanks for the memory jog. Adam I'm a little uncomfortable myself with phrases like "forced out" in connection with the departure of the Kochtopus people from the LP in 1984. To me it would be more accurate to say that they (the Kochtopus people) walked out. When they lost the campaign to install their candidate (Earl Ravenal) as the LP presidential nominee in '84, they said, "The hell with it," and decided not to stay and try to take back control of the party, but rather to walk away and put their money and their talents elsewhere. Specifically, they decided to stop focusing on political candidates and campaigns and to focus instead on policy and on researching and promoting libertarian policy recommendations to the candidates who actually get elected - the Republicans and Democrats. It was around 1984 that the Cato Institute finished the process of sloughing off its non-policy-related projects to the Institute for Humane Studies and the Libertarian Review Foundation and began focussing almost exclusively on trying to influence policy. It was during this same period in the early-to-mid '80s that the Mises Institute was founded and began concentrating on exactly the sorts of scholarly and educational work that Cato had largely given up. (None of this should be taken, by the way, as criticism of Cato or any libertarian organization. Cato did excellent work before it changed its focus to policy and it has done excellent work since. It is a great asset to the libertarian movement. But it did change its focus back in 1982 -1984, and that change was not unrelated to the withdrawal of the Kochtopus forces from the LP.) I don't think I'd say it's been downhill for the party since 1984. Not exactly. It quickly went downhill after the Kochtopus walkout, but I'd say it bottomed out in the early '90s with the Andre Marrou campaign. Then, for nearly a decade, with Harry Browne, there was reason for hope. Since then, it's been pretty dismal. Maybe I'm quibbling. JR

I suppose you're right if you want to watch the film only once. Since I'm inclined to the view that any film worth watching at all is worth watching multiple times, I don't regard your cost comparison as meaningful. Also, in theatres, you have to put up with audiences and their noise and their stupidity and their filth; you can't stop the movie to take a food or bathroom break; you can't run it back to double check a line of dialogue or something that may have been in the background of an earlier shot; and you can't drink alcoholic beverages or smoke your favorite herbs while watching. Theatres suck. JR

That's certainly true in my case. I'm a libertarian, of course, and as such, I pay lip service to Ayn Rand but really understand very little about her philosophy. That's why I spend all my time here insulting and vilifying the most thoughtful posters in an effort to get them to leave the list or at least stop posting. JR

Robert: Approximately when were their people pushed out? Adam 1984. JR

Yes, indeed, millions of civilians in the Mideast "want to kill us," and anyone who refuses to accept this asinine statement with a straight face is a "pacifist" guilty of "foolishness." Yes, indeed. JR

Michael, Something I just discovered while reading about FOX News on the web: Rupert Murdoch previously served on the Board of Directors of the libertarian Cato Institute. Small wonder he has a lot of libertarians like Stossel working at FOX. He is one his own self. Oh, yes, Murdoch is directly involved in the hiring and firing of talent on Faux "News." Just as William Randolph Hearst used to be directly involved in the hiring and firing of writers on his newspapers and magazines in the 1930s and before. It's amazing how much Dennis knows about how the world of journalism works on a day by day basis. His understanding of this stuff almost rivals his understanding of exactly how films are made. Astonishing! Humbling! In any case, Murdoch's time on the Cato Board was fairly short. He is not now and never has been a libertarian. He thought Cato might be useful in promoting certain specific policy goals he had, and Cato invited him to sit on the board after he gave them some money, in hopes of impressing people who are easily impressed. JR

Jeff, For the record, I don't hold this view. I do hold that part of freedom is being able to disagree. (I want to say "disagree with civility" but I'm kinda gun-shy on that word. ) As well you might. It's no matter, though, since I don't dance. (Tough guys don't dance.) JR

No, I'm not much impressed with many of the ways human beings try to ground their extravagant claims to knowledge they don't really have and in many cases couldn't possibly have. And, as a methodological individualist who regards statistical analysis in pretty much the way Ludwig von Mises did, I've always been strongly drawn to Thomas Szasz's observation that "there is no psychology; there is only biography and autobiography." JR

Really? I had no idea that was the case. The impression I get around here is that the conservative sources are wonderful and admirable and committed to individual freedom (hell, they're "pure Objectivism," as I understand it), while the liberal sources are horrible and loathsome and committed to tyranny. JR

Ballast seldom needs to be thrown overboard but isn't missed when it is. Pretentious twits seldom need to be ground under someone's boot heel, but nobody much gives a shit on those occasions when it does happen. JR

I'm sure. JR

Gee, it would really be encouraging if you guys could read - you know, if Phil could grasp that I haven't endorsed and don't endorse any TV "news" and if you could grasp that Faux "News" is a Right Wing operation. But then, I guess if you could read, you might lose your enthusiasm for a bunch of conservative hacks and maybe even lose your childish belief that they are on "our" side and will fight with us to restore American freedom. And that would be a tragedy, wouldn't it? JR