Starbuckle

GHS wrote: "Funny, I've noticed the same thing [relentless moral condemnation of all and sundry] about socialists, especially Marxists." Funny, I've noticed the same thing about Internet comments whether the topic of the article being commented on is politics at the New York Times or the latest gadget at CNET. At NYT I've seen variations on the following (in response to an overview of Rep or Dem prospects, let's say) about a million times: "The problem with the GOP and Tea Party members is that they are all racist neo-Nazis who eat babies for breakfast and want to destroy the economy as quickly as possible (they may hide this from themselves). And Obama is supposed to compromise with such drooling monsters? He should not...." BTW, Kimmler, I've noticed that some people who believe in productivity, reason and happiness and happy, rational, productive people. Is there anything we can do about this? Or are we stuck with this result?

I've now seen "Inception." It is a stunning movie, so good that it made me momentarily forget my distaste for diCaprio. However, my zero belief in Ed Koch as a movie reviewer--based solely on his unpersuasive review of "Inception," which I had read a couple months ago--has now declined even further. Koch dismissed the flick as nothing but "junk," nothing but special effects and pretension; and declared that the critical praise for it was nothing but "hype." He also complained that it's emotionally unengaging, although I find the (psychological and secret) plight and struggle of the protagonist to be quite vivid, and nicely revealed in stages. My suspicion is that hizzoner either didn't pay very close attention to what was happening in the movie, or is no fan of challenging speculative fiction to begin with, or both. But it is the job of the critic to be honest and fair even when the item under review is not to his taste. The one gripe I might have is the music, which seemed too bombastic. In story and in execution--dare I say, even in inception?--"Inception" is much superior to "Dark Knight." For one thing, the theme does not take the form of a giant hammer to be pounded over the viewer's head at periodic intervals. For another, major motives in "Inception" actually make sense, as they often did not in "Dark Knight." In which latter, for example, Batman seriously considers revealing his secret identity, and jeopardizing everyone he knows and cares about...to appease a terrorist? Really? And the Joker really burns a shitpile of money just for the fun of it? And Batman really lets the Joker live when he knows he's a mass murderer and the Joker is bragging about how he plans to keep it up? And the citizens of Gotham have such fragile and stupid senses of right and wrong and the truth that the only way that they can possibly continue to respect these is if they're grossly lied to, about Dent's character and the Batman's? If Batman had offed the Joker when he should have, that could have been set up as a much more valid and interesting motive for a Batman-hunt, with Gordon sympathetic but conflicted. But the storytellers had a Theme, and apparently everything had to be rammed and distorted and shoehorned to conform to that Theme (portentously announced first by Dent and then portentously recapped by Gordon as Gordon explains to his boy why betraying the hero who just saved the kid's life is The Only Possible Way). Viewer can swallow all this is only if he allows spectacle--and there is some truly terrific and mesmerizing spectacle in "Batman Begins"--to occlude his awareness of every other element that makes a movie a movie. Story. Character. Intelligibility. Things like that. I hope Nolan isn't too deluded by the surfeit of off-target praise he got for "Dark Knight." He shows with "Inception" that he still has what it takes to craft a clean, tight, persuasive dream. Even "Batman Begins" had too much baloney at the margins, but the hokum and blunders of "Dark Knight" really weigh it down. Nolan should forget about trying to be even more spectacular with his third Batman outing, or throwing in every kitchen sink he can think of to please fans and critics, and find a vision that he can give his all to. Start with the story. Get the story right. Something streamlined, searing and convincing. How about Batman as a ruthless, driven avenger, not Batman as thumb-sucker?

"And why not tell their customers that they'd be glad to get any book for them at X off list, if possible?" It's an idea. But a mail-order operation like LFB often gets steeper discounts the more copies of a book they buy. And these copies are non-returnable (unlike the stock of a regular brick-and-mortar bookstore). You shouldn't assume that any particular business policy is an error without considering the context of what is required to keep the business going, what the costs and other limitations are, etc. My own current notion is that LFB should provide as many ebooks as possible, including those in the public domain which can be offered at sets or with introductions to permit some modest charge. A relatively small mail-order printed-book operation just can't get the necessary economies of scale in the post-Amazon age to compete very effectively; that is the biggest reason why LFB struggled as much as it did in the mid-1990s and later. The impulse of many a customer who comes across an interesting title at LFB is to flip to Amazon and, yes, order it from Amazon. Another way to hang on to customers would be to offer more exclusives like the transcript of Branden's Objectivism lectures. But to make much progress that way, LFB would have to become a bigger publisher of print books than it has ever been before. It could, however, publish or republish quite a vast array of e-books of interest to libertarians.

And why would "this be the kind of thing Wikileaks bashers want to remain hidden"? Cash for kid sex is exactly the same thing as either compromising diplomacy or exposing the identities of informants and translators in a war zone?

See Nathaniel Branden's comments on this issue in Alec Mouhibian's interview with him: "One of the mistakes that Rand makes is that after she condemns a belief or an action, she goes on to tell you the psychology of the person who did it, as if she knows. I focus my judgment on the action and not on the person. My primary interest is: do I admire or dislike this behavior? And there, judgment is important for me. People often attribute all kinds of things to another person, without ever knowing where that person’s coming from. Most of the time, I regard the judgment of people as a waste of time. I regard the judgment of behavior as imperative. "Now, there are some people who are so clearly evil (e.g., Saddam Hussein) that we can’t imagine anything mitigating their horror. But even there, I’ve come to feel the following: if there is a mad animal running around, eating people, I may have to shoot him. I don’t think: 'Oh, you rotten bad dog, you.' There’s nothing you can do except shoot him. "But the Saddams are only a small minority. Take the Middle East suicide bombers. God knows, if I had the opportunity, I’d kill them without any hesitation. But I also know, as a psychologist, that they were raised in a culture in a world I can’t even conceive of. They were propagandized about the glory of martyrdom since the age of five. Whereas Leonard Peikoff might be hell-bent on calling every one of them evil, I wouldn’t. They may or may not be. All I know is: in action, one kills them, rather than getting killed by them. Lots of times, we don’t know the ultimate truth about a person. And here’s the point: we don’t need to know. "Everybody has to be responsible. That is why, if we were in a relationship, and you had a terrible father and grandfather, and I don’t like the way you deal with me, I might say, 'Alec, listen. I need for you to know that you’re turning me off. I need for you to know that when you do such and such, it really kills my interest in being a friend of yours. Am I mad at you? No. Am I condemning you as an immoral person? No. But if you feel the need to continue doing these things, there’s no place for us to go from here.' "Now that’s the type of conversation that might terminate a relationship. But I wouldn’t feel a need to tell you that you’re immoral or that you have no integrity. That’s all pointless and destructive. It’s just to make me right and to make me superior. Unnecessary. I only have to know that I don’t like what you’re doing. "I think that’s a very important clarification, especially when talking to an Objectivist. Because Rand always says, 'Never pass up an opportunity to pass moral judgment.' Well I say: 'Look for an opportunity to do something more useful instead.' Nobody was led to virtue by being told he was a scoundrel." THis link is to a part of the interview that has the above passage and related comments. The interview in its entirety is also available online as a downloadable PDF. http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Mouhibian/Nathaniel_Branden_Interview,_Pt_3.shtml see also: http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Hardin/Nathaniel_Branden_vs_Ayn_Rand_on_Morality.shtml

"The standard comeback is that this is merely constituent service and that as long as the system is in place he might as well get some of his consituents' tax money back. This might have merit if he were candid about it and explained himself this way, rather than ignore it and let others do the explaining, and if he merely abstained, but as it works out in practice it's simple hypocrisy." Such a rationalization would not have merit from a libertarian and constitutional perspective. Earmarks and porkbarrel spending are corrupt in themselves and the gateway drug to even larger corruptions. Paul should all along have refused such requests from his constituents. The way to let taxpayers keep more of their money is by tax cuts, not by enabling, however "reluctantly" or disingenuously, the very system of pelf-grabbing and pelf-dispensing that Paul claims to oppose.

"Surely it was giving the Midas Mulligan's carte blanche that lead to this crisis in the first place." Surely it was giving the Kimmlers apostrophes and verb tenses that led to the possessivization of the plural and presentification of the past. And don't call me Shirley.

"... it doesnt [sic] really have much to say about what is to happen in the aftermath of such a collapse." They could use the same plan that Galt and company were about to deploy at the end of Atlas Shrugged, when it was time to go back to the world.

A very fine summation. Good job.

"And think how amazing it is that Horribly Corrupt Physics (according to Harriman) can lead us to such information." Do you really regard knocking down strawmen as so very persuasive? With respect to the count of stars in the universe, the news report tells us that the updated guesstimate is not yet universally accepted by the specialists themselves.

The first ethical issue at play here is the falseness of the report, at least as vaguely supplied. With the workers presumably obliged to deal with the new massive tax burden as well, are we to understand that the only bottleneck to success is the burden of managerial and executive decision-making, from which the workers are now liberated (with the non-trivial exception of the decision made by somebody mandating equal pay for all but those who deal with hazards)? Any factory or enterprise can be mis-managed. But does that mean no management at all is necessary and that egalitarianism suddenly becomes viable? If that were the case in general, firms that lack any means of executive decision making would enjoy a competitive edge over other firms. Steve Jobs's return to Apple could have made little difference to that company's fate; by all accounts, of course, he turned the firm around. What is the name of this factory? Where and when did the incident take place? Can we get a link to a fuller report that might fill in some of the missing details and answer some of the obvious questions? Abstracting away from all the alleged circumstances, the issue of whether a factory owner can reclaim a factory that he has abandoned depends on whether he has, in fact, abandoned it in the eyes of the law. Did he sign it over to the workers? The issue also arises with respect to any abandoned property. If, by all reasonable criteria, the property has been truly abandoned, the former owner cannot come along later to reclaim it, if, say, the item has been nicely rehabilitated by a later owner.

Reasonable debate about evolution can pertain only to the history of species, the relevance and strength of evidence for this or that mechanism of evolution, what inferences we may plausibly draw from genetic patterns and homologies, etc. What can it mean to reject the fact of evolution, i.e., the fact that conditions internal and external to organisms can bring about changes over time in the average characteristics of species? A rejection of evolution per se is a rejection of causality. What's the alternative to this "mere theory"? Well, when they're not being coy, the foes of evolution make reference to an undetectable magician who, they claim, has created all the species without the encumbrance of any intervening natural processes. This invisible superpowerful magician pulls rabbits, tortoises, mosquitos and all other species out of his omnipotent hat. This "theory" is called creationism. And the "evidence" for this fantastical bio-method? A story in the Bible! That's IT! That's ALL they've got! They scream at Darwin and his successors not because they err or fail to agree on everything, but because they don't regard blindly emotional allegiance to a sketchy Biblical myth as trumping all objective evidence and rational inquiry. The "creationists" look at all the evidence, patterns and conclusions and bleat to each other: "We don't have to believe it, do we? Do we?"

"The Objectivist movement has politics? What happened to reason?" Words have letters? What happened to signification?

"I thought ['Inception'] was an excellent film. Chris Nolan is an amazing director. I did not think it was as good as Nolan's last film, The Dark Knight, but I did find it fascinating and challenging on many levels." I'm curious to see "Inception," but if it is not even as good as "The Dark Knight," "Inception" is a worse film than many in the thread are saying it is. The bloated and often heavy-handed "Dark Knight," despite several scenes thrilling in isolation, represented a steep descent from "Batman Begins."

Natural selection is the chief but not only means of evolution. Also important, e.g., is genetic drift.

"Lawrence Krauss is the niftiest lecturer in physics since Richard Feynman. Have a look!" He is certainly a much better lecturer in physics than anyone who would begin, "Okay, you dumb shmucks..."

Brant Gaede wrote: "...in Texas maybe 20 years ago, a knife-wielding man invaded a home and a struggle began between him and the father of a son who saw what was going on: the very young boy went and got a hunting rifle and killed the bad guy and I assure you that has significantly informed the rest of his life, both good and bad, but since I am not him I cannot tell you the ratio between the two...." I would be interested to hear more about this kid's story if you know more and it is not confidential.

"My personal thought is that I'm in charge of my own concept forming process, and if I want to designate it with a word, phrase, act, or anything else, then that's my prerogative." How about hot fudge sundaes to designate and communicate concepts? Rand's point is that the concept has to be represented by a concrete symbol so that it can be automatized and dealt with. What would be the efficiency or even viability of a conversation, or an internal thought process, that consisted only of "acts" without any symbols being invoked by those acts? If I'm a deaf person and hold my fingers in a certain way, I communicate a letter or word. What would the actions be that allowed to me to think and communicate with any facility but which did not involve any mental concretes? Hellen Keller did not gain any ability to deal with the concept of "water" in virtue of the fact that she could pour water or fling water, or have her hand plunged in it. One cannot carry buckets of water around with one at all times just in case one might need to refer to water. She gained the ability to deal with the concept of "water" and with other concepts, including much more complex ones, because Anne Sullivan persisted in trying to relate what Keller could perceive to a method of retaining that perceptual awareness in conceptual form. Sullivan sought to convey to Keller what would constitute a consistent bridge between what Keller could perceive and how she could then conceptualize it. This bridge must be both perceptible and symbolic or representative. It has to be economical, it has to be mentally manipulable. The nature of the purpose imposes limits on what can serve as appropriate means. "Acts" are not mentally manipulable. We might be able to convey a simple set of physical instructions that way, or remember them that way; but we can't translate a philosophical treatise into "acts" and understand it by watching the "acts" (or "pictures" that some philosophers speak of) play out in our minds. We need what every human group that has developed any culture and civilization at all uses: not grunts but words.

"... the fact that induction is not a universally valid or sound means of inference..." How was this truth arrived at? Induction? Deduction? Sensory perception? Some other method?

Veatch is "unfashionable"? There are "problems" with his works? How lucky that there are no unspecifiable problems with the works of any of the other thinkers and writers. The cost of making works available via e-book is so low that any publisher with out-of-print classics on his hand should consider a program of getting them into e-book format.

"Now, as to Steve (and Phil, for that matter). Because of WSS's post, I realized that Steve was feeling so sorry for himself that he did not offer any well-wishes to Perigo, even as he admonished others for doing this within the context of contention. I understand his self-pity, too. I believe it is one of the traps within Objectivism. [etc.]" Steve being Graybird, who said he didn't like the tenor of this thread? If you must disagree, isn't it possible to do so on point, without being a condescending blowhard?

The new policy can be reasonably disputed, but the letter would be more persuasive sans all the heated code-word Objectivese rhetoric and ultimatum. If the argument makes sense, and the recipients are reasonable people, you don't need the two-by-fours to stress your points. Possibly TAS has a reason for deciding on shorter sessions. When I was attending the seminars, the organizers solicited feedback from attendees. Might "we'd like more and shorter sessions to pick from" be among the comments they've been getting? If you can say only 70% of what you had wanted to in a talk, you could conclude by noting: "Well, I had a few more ideas along these lines, but we're out of time. Therefore, I refer you to the handout." Whatever the merits of the new policy, I don't think it falls into the what-the-heck? category. Charging such a high ticket price for their Atlas movie celebration does seem like such a blunder to me, unless they're treating the event mostly as a way to get new donations and members for TAS, rather than as a way to rev activist and Rand-fan interest in the movie. If the latter, you'd think the ticket price would be designed to bring in as many people as possible.

The link in Bissell #2 to Veatch's "Natural Law: Dead or Alive?" appears to be dead. But a search brought me back to the same site: http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?Itemid=259&id=168&option=com_content&task=view

Veatch quoting Blanshard on the Tractatus: "It is full of dogmatic pronouncements, introduced abruptly and left without explanation or defence; the reader is puzzled whether its 'take-it-or-leave-it' manner is due to willfulness or expository ineptitude, and is only likely to throw the book impatiently aside." This was my feeling after reading about five of the Wittgensteinian assertions. We very quickly go from "the world is full of facts" to much more absurd and unintelligible nuggets. All the little snippets in Tractatus are numbered. Unless to help W. organize 3x5 cards of them when compiling his manuscript, what could be the reason? Perhaps so that they could be more easily cited during cocktail-party chatter?

Useful, thanks for posting this. I hope the longer works make it to e-book form. None is currently available on the Kindle. Bissell posted Veatch's review of Brand Blanshard's Reason and Analysis here: http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1726