Charles R. Anderson

Fran, I will try to give you some of my perspective and also some of the perspective of my wife. We have 3 daughters, the youngest just finished her first year of college. I came from a large family and enjoyed my childhood with 4 sisters and a brother. It was a middle class family, but with so many children, we lived on a tight budget. Everyone went to college, though only two us chose to finish straight through 4 years, while one sister finished later after leaving to marry. We always got by, but with few luxuries. So what. They are over valued anyway. Anna is Ukrainian and came to the US when she was 6 months old from a Displaced Persons camp in W. Germany, where she was born. Her parents knew no English and were Kulaks, better off than average farmers. Her dad went to work as a carpenter for White Sewing Machine and then for US Steel. Throughout her early childhood, her parents sent every cent they could to relatives and friends to bring them to the US. Anna was about 12 when she received her first ever toy, a doll, from a woman who lived down the street. She has a brother 9 years older and a sister 5 years older. Her sister left home at 15 to marry. Her mom worked nights on a cleaning crew and had some problems with adapting to living in America. Anna largely grew up alone, was given no chores, but told to study and do well in school, which she did. She became very accustomed to being alone a lot. She liked it and still does. We met in 1971when I was in graduate school at Case Western Reserve University, from which Anna had an undergraduate degree. She was then working as a microbiologist at the CWRU Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital. We married in 1973 and we enjoyed a spontaneous lifestyle as I finished my Ph.D. and then did a post doc, while Anna got a M.S. in Biology. In 1980, we moved to Maryland and in 1981, we bought a house. I wanted children, having a particularly strong desire to have at least one daughter. Anna waxed back and forth on the issue, but then in 1982 decided that she would also like to have a child. In late 1982, when Anna was 35, Kirsten, our oldest daughter was born. Kirsten was a cholicy baby and was very hard on us for about 6 months. Then Karen was born in 1985 and Katie in 1987. Anna was then certain that she wanted no more children. In 1984, Anna had started Pharmacy School and after taking time off for the birth of Karen and Katie, she graduated in 1992 and took and passed her Pharmacy Boards. It was a great struggle, with 3 young kids and often having two in daycare at once. We struggled financially and for the first time ever, Anna had problems getting good grades. In retrospect, it was very hard for Anna to adapt to the commitments that children required. In many ways, she was a good mother, but too often her effort was motivated by a sense of duty, rather than one of pleasure. The fact that she was always working meant that she had no time for herself. She really missed spontaneity in her life and she really missed having quiet time alone. She also seems to have suffered from postpartum depression. When the children squabbled, she had a tendency to become a squabbling child herself. Perhaps, because she was so much younger than her brother and sister and because her parents were seldom around, she never learned how a parent should behave with children. Among adults, Anna is very adult, but I found that when surrounded by children, she became a child. Anna never really enjoyed playing with the girls, though she did sometimes enjoy helping them with school work. When the children were young and until Katie was about a senior in high school, Anna tended to be irritable. As the girls became pretty much self-sufficient, Anna became happier. Motherhood was a duty, not a source of pleasure for her. I enjoyed my children. I liked playing with them when they were young. I was able to switch from playing with them to being the adult easily. Mostly, they came to me with their problems, except for the female puberty issues. I spent a lot of time easing the tensions between them and Anna. But too often, I was working when they needed me to be with them. My professional career went from very time-consuming to absurdly so when I took a job with a defense contractor lab in 1990 and they then fired 2/3 of the scientists and closed down the lab in 1995. I opened my own lab, which meant endless work hours. Sometimes, my daughters were angry with me about this. Kirsten spent more time with me by working with me at the labs and Katie worked last summer and will return this summer. From this experience, I draw these conclusions about what makes the necessarily hard and demanding commitment of becoming a parent much more difficult: Not finding playing with kids fun.Having difficulty in taking on long-term commitments. Liking solitude and quiet. Liking an orderly and clean house. Developing a very demanding career, especially if it means operating your own business. Loving spontaneity in your life. If you are inclined to depression. If you are not an optimist. If you are not both tolerant and benevolent. If you have an addiction. If you do not have a partner who loves children and will be available. If the idea of working with a child to help them develop into a self-sufficient and independent person does not seem like a fun project. If you cannot see what the sources of joy would be for you in raising a child. You do not need farm workers you only have to feed, but who will work from dawn to nightfall.Fortunately, for all our errors and all the time we left our kids on their own, they have turned out to be pretty decent people. Kids are not always as fragile as they are made out to be. They can be remarkably resilient. Of course, maybe they are not perfect and maybe they do harbor some resentments that their childhood was not easier. They pretty much all knew some stay-at-home mom who they think was a better mom than Anna and they know fathers who were home more too. But mostly, they seem to enjoy us much more now than they did for a few rough years as teenagers. Being a parent is a bit like being President of the United States. The job is impossible and when you hold it, though you may think you ought to be loved and appreciated more, you will have constant critics, including your kids, especially when they are teenagers. There is probably nothing as hard for two parents to agree on either. In comparison, financial issues are easy. But, I sure do love my three daughters. I loved Anna before we had children and I love her very much now for having given them to me. I know they cost her a lot. How much, I can see in how she is happier now that they are pretty independent. She enjoys them now, though there were times when she wished she had never had children when they were younger. It was hard for her when they were so dependent upon her. Tomorrow, Anna and Katie are going on a walkathon together for medical research. They have been looking forward to doing this, since before Katie started finals at RIT. This summer they will enjoy finding furniture for Katie's apartment in the fall at RIT. It is much easier now that the girls are adults.

Dustan, I would agree that people are generally more friendly in Texas than in Maryland. Actually, people are generally more friendly almost everywhere in the US than they are in the Northeast, which these days is from Washington, DC north. I have little recent experience with the Pacific Coast, so I should leave it out of my personal evaluation. I suspect there is a tie-in here with socialism. This area is very socialist, which pits group against group and neighbor against neighbor. Society becomes meaner when an impersonal use of force becomes commonplace and one's person means less and less. Once you sign on to socialism, your role is that of a child and you feel more helpless. This makes people feel desperate and angry. When something goes wrong, it is more likely to be seen as the fault of others. In the Washington, DC suburbs people seem rarely to talk to one another anymore. It was friendlier in the 1980s and has become steadily less friendly. The county governments require all approved housing developments to have homeowner's associations, so there is constant warfare even in the neighborhoods now over their policies. The public schools are ever more bureaucratic and they are run for the sake of the teacher's unions, not for the children. This puts parents more and more in conflict with the schools. The social services programs of the counties are more and more likely to interfere with parents raising their children and this causes tension. The roads are poorly designed and inadequate and this causes tension and leaves people with less time to be friendly. In this area, people take the post-modern claim that one can only see things from the perspective of one's own race very seriously. Many of the African Americans are inclined to believe in all sorts of conspiracies against them. For example, many are convinced that the public school system of DC is awful because white people want it to be awful. They fail to note that they have been running the school system for decades now. The mayor, the city council, the school board, and the school administrations have been in the hands of African Americans for decades now. The schools spend more than is spent in the wealthy suburbs, yet they are bad, really bad. But the white man is the cause of this! There is a lot of bad will between the races here and much of it is fed by socialism and by the Democrats. The blacks always vote for the Democrats, but the Democrats do little for them and what they do is generally hurtful to them. In this sense, the African American sense that there is a conspiracy against them is correct, but surprisingly few of them ever understand the nature of that conspiracy of dependency and ignorance. Nonetheless, the good news is that more and more are moving into the suburbs and they are slowly coming to understand better what has been going on. There is progress, though it is slow. My neighborhood has become a mixed neighborhood, though it is predominantly black. My black neighbors stand off a bit, but their kids are good kids. While the adults stand off a bit, they are not inclined to interfere as much in the lives of their neighbors through the homeowner's association as was a previous set of more elderly white neighbors, especially the widowed and divorced women among them. They were super meddlers! The good news is that kids now growing up in the suburbs are likely to be less angry adults than were their parents.

Gary, I am having a hard time remembering any time when we had a disagreement of major proportions. Everything seemed very minor to me, though you have given me the impression at times that our disagreements were more important from your perspective. Maybe it is just your gung-ho style! Anyway, my own perspective is that we agree on more of the important things than we disagree on. That is not so bad. I would like to save some of my time for more major and important arguments, business, science, and family. Moving on sounds like a good idea to me.

Gary, OK, one could say that homophobia is common in whatever state of the union we may be talking about. I do not think it is worthy wherever it resides. When someone includes in a list a number of bad traits of a person that they are clearly unhappy with, terms that play on the prejudices of others, this is a bad thing in my perspective. It does suggest that one holds those prejudices oneself. Of course, you apparently only thought this humorous. I just did not share your sense of humor on this. Our senses of humor are less than fully compatible. Get over it. Or don't. Your choice.

Gary, You make an interesting point. Nice work! The liberal culture in Maryland probably does cause a higher fraction of crimes to be reported as hate crimes. There are also more crimes of all kinds per person in MD than in TX, I believe. You might check that out for me! Can you tell me about the relative numbers of people who hear sermons against homosexuality in Texas versus those in Maryland? Maybe the larger fraction of Christians in Texas leads to less violence, or is it the larger number of guns, or is it the smaller fraction of African Americans? While all of these questions need to be answered to really understand the significance of your statistics, I give you points for looking into this. Now, do you remember when you first decided you did not like me? Wasn't it after I said good things about Sarah House and then later disagreed with her on an issue. I still think well of Sarah House, but you have been going after me about one thing or another ever since. Well, I understand wanting to impress a fine lady and I understand that you love her. Please remember that I am not her enemy! Neither do I hate Texas.

Jenna, Well I just got a bit carried away with fun and forgot to comment on the soundbite issue. You are right that laziness and insecurity play a big role, but it is also true that there are many people of average and less than average intelligence. You have to remember that you have something like a 50 point IQ advantage over the average person. Some of them do try hard and yet they do not develop highly sophisticated ideas on their own and they cannot follow the arguments that other very intelligent people might make in their writings. Now, mind you, I do respect people of average intelligence in many ways. Most of them do productive work, most are nice and benevolent beings, and many of them know far more about some subject or subjects than I do. Very intelligent people can learn a lot by finding out what a person of average intelligence knows a lot about and taking the time to get them to tell you about it. But, the total breadth of their knowledge is much more limited than yours. Many subjects you find fascinating, they were never able to become interested in. There is often a critical mass of knowledge one must have about a subject before one simply knows enough to integrate the facts in that subject and before one can have a meaningfully creative idea about that subject. People of average intelligence will have fewer subjects on which they reach this critical mass of knowledge even when they try hard. Of course, when the rate of success in reaching that critical mass is slower, it becomes harder to motivate oneself to make the effort. You could call this laziness, but that is unfair in a way. You and I are spurred on and on in our efforts by the frequent reward of our Ah Ha! moments. Imagine being without many of those moments. We need to bear in mind that the person of average intelligence really does have to try harder and has few rewards for their effort if they are to understand many of the issues we understand. But having said this, there is much room for improvement of the ideas that these people hold today. We can make it easier for them by finding more and more ways to illustrate the advantages of our ideas in improving the lives of everyday people. We can lead by example. We can develop spheres of activity in which Objectivist principles are put to work and then point to their success. This may be one business at time, one academic lab at a time, one discussion group at a time, or one area of human activity in which the government footprint is kept small. Then someone must point at these efforts and their success. When I grew up, histories of heroes and fiction about heroes was common. Now, such books are much more rare. We need to feed our children many more books about heroes. Roger Donway was pointing at businessmen's and inventor's success in his articles a lot for this reason. Ed Hudgins likes to find many everyday rational actions that people engage in and applaud them. He also looks for heroes with new ideas and the will to carry them out. We need more efforts like these to help the many people of more average intelligence to grasp and embrace Objectivist ideas.

Jenna, For the record, you are a much better Objectivist than most people who call themselves Objectivists. But, if you find the word constraining, I would not push you to use it. On the other hand, I do not think we should allow others to make us feel constrained by their interpretations of what Objectivism is. If we believe that our purpose is to achieve happiness in our individual life on this earth, that to do that we must identify reality, that our means of doing that is reason, that we must create ideas and control our environment to support human life, and free enterprise with limited government is the best way to allow everyone the right to these activities, then one is an Objectivist. Many would quibble that some other requirement exists, but it makes a lot more sense to me to be happy with this minimalist set of ideas. This means that you may disagree with Ayn Rand on numerous issues, but still be essentially an Objectivist. Realistically, there simply is no way that invidualistic, thinking human beings are ever going to be able to reach a broad consensus on any philosophy that gets more detailed than this. There will be many schools of thought within this envelope of ideas. There will be many a sharp argument, but the world will be much better off for such a consensus than it is now or ever has been. Of course, many people will still imagine that a much better world might exist, if only everyone else agreed with them! On the other hand, worshipping Ayn Rand while being unable to make rational arguments in support of one's positions does not make one an Objectivist. Wrapping one's arguments in Objectivist phases and sprinkling in liberal doses of Rand quotes, does not make one an Objectivist. I am sure that if John Galt were to walk among us, many of these people would be completely adamant that he was not an Objectivist. Afterall, Ayn Rand was just the novelist fisherwoman in Galt's Gulch! (Joke, Jenna, Joke) Should you wind up at the University of Rochester or simply ever come to the Washington, DC or Baltimore area, it would be a pleasure to meet you. Oh, and I love to show off my laboratory, so you are welcome to visit it if you ever come out this way! My daughters often groan when I give such an invitation! Well, I think it is interesting.

Paul, I understand the need to chew on ideas when pushing into new territory. On some of the issues we are talking about, I chewed for many years with no one to talk to about them. Having someone to talk to sure can stimulate new ideas and provide more perspectives, to speed the process up. On the other hand, I also understand that some aspects of this conversation are becoming sufficiently personal that it would be understandable that you might not want to share some thoughts here at all. I do not share all of mine. If it makes more sense to discuss some things in personal correspondence, feel free to do so.

Barbara, I do understand! I have hopes of finding the time to read many of the articles here myself. Some that I have read, I have not responded to since I did not have enough time to do them justice or justice to my comments. I really appreciate your interest. Exchanging ideas with you is a great thrill. It does not hurt that you are what an angel ought to be, not perfect, but genuinely good.

Thanks Kat for adding the two articles so quickly.

Barbara wrote: Thanks for your feedback on this idea that would seem to fit the facts as I know them, but which admittedly might not fit enough of the facts known by someone who knew Ayn Rand well. Relative to the more current discussion of how people's evaluative memories become rewritten, I had earlier (18 May) mentioned one of my four sisters. The oldest of my sisters is only 16 months younger than me. I remember very little before I was five, but she remembers many of the events that I first remember and remembers them in more vivid detail. Much of that additional detail seems to be correct, though some is enhanced, when checked out against my mother's memory. But, where her evaluation of relationships is concerned, the actions and events giving rise to the evaluations are often enhanced with details that never occurred. Now, this sister, as is the case with all four of my sisters, is very intelligent. She is the most bookish by far of them. For many years she thought of herself primarily as a poet, though she taught English and History in middle school, then English and Literature in high school, and finally English and Literature in a community college. She had an abusive first marriage, which she fought hard to think of as loving for a very long time. Her poetry was partially an idealized romanticizism of love and partly a dark,hinted scream against her abuse and disappointment in life. During those years, she continued to add color to her childhood memories and reinterpret them. She had always been inclined to spend many hours alone, though she was reasonably popular in school. She had been inclined to see herself as underestimated and neglected relative to her older brother. She had to leave her friends every 2 to 3 years and move with her Navy family. She tended to have friends who were troubled and spent a lot of time counseling them. The evaluations of childhood events and relationships shifted in the negative direction during her years of marriage abuse and never re-emerged even to the tarnished version she held before that period of her life. Just as my sister lived very largely in her mind and her memories and she was a creative writer, so it appears there is a parallel with Ayn Rand. She was always something of a loner. She lived for her creative writing of idealized people and worlds. She suffered many hardships relating to acceptance: leaving her family and her country, learning a new language, functioning in a new culture, the longer and harder road of learning to write creatively in a new language, having her great novels rejected over and over, being rejected by the intelligensia, a marriage to a less than Randian hero, and finally a heroically-styled love affair with a disappointing end. It seems plausible to me that Ayn Rand's many life disruptions and rejections, her many hours alone with her thoughts, her love of creative and idealized writing, and her very intelligence, might have provided her the many tools to creatively re-write the events and people she remembered much as my sister did. Many of their memories are right in the details, but both embroidered the details a bit and both imposed evaluations upon them rather readily, especially in the darker direction. While my sister will say mean and cruel things about the people she loves, she actually does love them. She will go to really remarkable ends to help other family members and friends. She is in many ways a rational person, but you must pay a great deal of attention to where the boundaries are for those areas of rationality. She is in many ways a good person, but again, you need to pay attention to where the boundary lines are in her good nature and where her nature slips to the Dark Side. She is a paradox, as Barbara has described Ayn Rand in so many ways. My sister is a somewhat over-abstracted thinker. I believe that Ayn Rand was a much more over-abstracted thinker. It is clear that Rand's evaluations changed faster and more radically than did my sister's, but in all respects, the disruptions, the rejections, the hours alone, the disappointments, the creativity, the idealism, and the intelligence seem to be enough more extreme for Ayn Rand relative to my sister to make the parallel seem quite plausible to me.

Kat, Thanks for the index. It is a good idea. Two of my articles are not yet on your list. These are: The Virtues of Benevolence and Tolerance Benevolence:People as Tolerance:Ideas Now, to date no one has commented on these two articles. I viewed my earlier articles as developments of my ideas and perspectives leading to these two articles. I thought those earlier articles were useful in that just as I needed to develop my perspective to be able to write the last two articles, they would be useful background and might help others to develop a shared perspective, so that these last two articles I wrote would have the proper context for my readers. Somehow, they have had the lowest readership, possibly because they are at the end of the line. Maybe, the total effort to read the entire set is too great. I admit that I have yet to find the time to read many articles by others that I would like to read myself. But, it is these two articles that I have most hoped to have feedback about!

Michael, I agree that your focus is primarily on reality also! That focus and the fact that the people posting on Objectivist Living share it, is what makes this site so valuable. I really have greatly enjoyed my conversations here with the many interesting, intelligent, wise, benevolent, and fun people that you and Kat have drawn to this site. Thank you Michael. Thank you Kat. Your mention of a Beta Version triggered another thought. With a radical new development of philosophy such as Ayn Rand's development of Objectivism was, it is totally unreasonable to expect that there will be no bugs in the software. There is bound to be a need for some additional subroutine. There is bound to be some subroutine that is not working right under all initial conditions upon entering it. Rand's Objectivism was a Beta Version. A very impressive Beta Version, but still a Beta Version. We have many a subroutine still to write and we have yet to examine all the initial conditions with which a person may enter every subroutine. We must fix the bugs and finish the program. I think the program is both very fixable and amenable to completion. How do you know you are the renegade? Maybe you are right and everyone else is wrong or less right? If you develop a philosophy based upon your most rational assessment of reality, then maybe everyone else who disagrees with you is not as good an Objectivist as you are.

Jenna, You wrote: This is very wise. When I was still a boy, I used to counsel my little sisters when they came home from school very upset about some unkind remark made by someone, that if the person was not someone they really respected, then the remark was of little consequence. If they respected the person, then they should examine it and decide whether they had done something to deserve it. If they had not, then they should try to figure out how the person had misunderstood them or simply go talk to the person about it. But, the key thing here is to judge the importance of the remark based upon an accurate assessment of the person's character. In other words, consider the source. And never forget that your time and effort are valuable. Give them to good and deserving people, but ration the time and effort you give to the unworthy severely. Of course, be of a benevolent mindset with people of unknown character, but once you know their character, act on what you know. Isn't it amazing how many useful lessons we can learn as children?

Fran said: There are many things that get pushed aside. Understanding reality and developing ideas consistent with it are among them. We forget that in order for Ayn Rand to develop her ideas, she had to focus hard and consistently upon reality. We also forget that we want a philosophy that will provide us the principles we need to live our individual lives happily. So, if we get too caught up in the infighting, when are we going to have the time and energy to develop new ideas to expand our knowledge, and incidently that of the rest of mankind? In addition, this infighting is depressing. One way to keep it from depressing each of us is simply not to engage in it. Sure, we fight for our values, but this does not mean that we have to jump into every sandbox with scabbling toddlers in it and join in the tug-of-war over a bucket and shovel. We are the adults. Some people never grow up. Our hope should be that some toddlers will one day understand the example we set as adults and choose to follow our lead. Some adults with less rational ideas will also be impressed and start to study our ideas. Real leadership is always by example. So, go about living a happy and productive life and develop your ideas with the more rational people you can find. What else would make sense?

Jenna and Michael, Basically, we are all really individuals with our own individual philosophies. I always follow my own mind, as both of you do also. I could call my philosophy Andersonianism, but people would have to get to know me pretty well before they had any idea what that meant. It is of course, the most accurate description of my philosophy. Both of you would have a pretty good idea of what I mean by Andersonianism, but you are rare people both in terms of being exposed to my ideas and being able to understand them. We all are happy to accept the best ideas that we can find among those others have developed. We understand the personal advantages and the advantages in doing that that accrue to society and to mankind's development of civilization. So, I am happy that Jenna is a Jennaist and it is fine with me that Michael is a Michaelist or Kellyist. I am happy because both of you are committed to reason, to learning, and are in fact quite rational. And, of course, it is really quite pleasant to share and trade ideas with good and intelligent people. It is still nicer when you are so kind as to say that you are enjoying our exchanges. Jenna, I sure hope that I will one day see you smile at me in person. I would treasure that moment. My youngest daughter, Katie, is studying biotechnology at RIT and recently told me see wants to go to grad school and study neuroscience, especially brain development in children. Somewhere down the road, I would like to put her in touch with you. Michael, I agree that David Kelley's work is very important. He has identified very underdeveloped areas in Objectivism and developed very sound ideas. David is very reality oriented and he has a good understanding of the Big Picture. He thinks in terms of what a society needs to believe in to become rational and to establish the conditions that individuals need to manage their own lives. He greatly appreciates Ayn Rand's work, but his primary allegiance is always to reality. He does not think that this is in contradiction with the principles of Objectivism.

Jenna, Since we recognize that a closed-system philosophy cannot provide a complete and sufficient set of principles for thinking, for recognizing reality, or for ethics, we simply do not have to accept the claim of anyone who says that the best philosophy available is fixed, closed, and dead. We pick it up and we proceed to add to it and even amend it where needed. Let's not worry too much whether we agree with Peikoff or even Rand. Our concern is always primarily whether our ideas agree with reality. We respect Rand and others to the degree that their ideas correspond well with reality. Reality and how it affects human life is our focus, not great and dead philosophers and writers. What some of the people who say Objectivism is closed want is this: Force us to abandon it as a great start and go off and name our own philosophy. OK, so I start Andersonianism. You start Jennaism or such. Then, they hurl stones at us, because we "stole" substantial numbers of Rand's ideas. They have pushed us into a no-win situation. So, do not let them push you into such a corner. Well, personally, I am determined to recognize the great ideas Ayn Rand did so much to develop, but also continue to exercise my own independence of mind, as I did when I evaluated her work so favorably. It is for me and other rational people to continue to build on the foundation she provided. If one of her supports falls victim to a sink hole opened up by further developments in science or psychology, then we fix it. Where more foundation is needed, we provide it. If our philosophy changes greatly or expands greatly from where Ayn Rand left it, then we can consider changing its name. Of course, some people think any change, no matter how small, constitutes a need for a new name. Should we follow the software route? Objectivism Mod. 1a for Rand's writings, Mod. 1b includes her writings and those she approved publication on. Mod 2a includes those and anything Peikoff added. Mod 2b includes Schwartz, etc. Mod. 3a is David Kelley's work added to Mod 1b. The expansion of mankind's knowledge has always required extensive borrowings from the great minds who preceeded us. Wouldn't it be absurd if everyone had simply frozen philosophy at the point of Aristotle or worse at some earlier Greek philosopher? Or with that of Jesus! You have a generous heart to be so sure that must be intelligent enough to see so much of what you see. It would be a greater society if that were true! Few people have as much objectivity as you do. Of course, it seems odd to encounter this in people who are claiming to be much better Objectivists than either you or me. ;.)

Jenna, If, as Peikoff largely maintains, you believe that science and philosophy are entirely separate, then the last 22 years do not matter. Whatever science learns will not affect philosophy. This has to be nonsense. If we need philosophy as a tool to live our lives, and science informs us about the nature of life and the world in which we are attempting to live, then there must be an important feedback between the two fields. So, not only did Objectivism, as far as it was developed by Ayn Rand, not cover all aspects one should find in a complete philosophy even based on our scientific knowledge of 22 years ago, but it also has not addressed the implications of 22 years of scientific research or the thousands of years of research we hope lies in mankind's future.

Gary, Sorry, Gary, but it is not the case that I dislike you. Some aspects of your character I like and a few are minor irritations. I like Texas. I like the cowboy as hero. I lived at Rod Field (a WWII Naval air station) when I was 5 to 8 years old and loved the 15 mile bike rides I used to take. I loved the horned toads. I thought the cottonmouths were fascinating, as were the scorpions, the tarantulas, and the copperheads. The abandoned barracks and the cotton bale filled hangars were a great play area. We had huge dirt clod forts in the freshly plowed cotton fields. Texas was a place of great adventures. I also worked summers in Texas when I was in college. I lived in Gainesville one summer and worked with some very nice guys in the Red River oil field. Another summer I spent many weeks in the Texas panhandle. One of my best friends was born and raised in and could never leave Dallas. My oldest daughter graduated with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. She is now buying a house in Houston. My parents, two sisters, and my brother live in the Tulsa area. I also like Oklahoma in many ways, but it has some of the same limitations as does Texas. I graduated from high school in OK and also worked in the oil fields and on pipelines in OK. But the many things I like in Texas come with a bit too much religion. So, I wish that the many good things about Texas were less compromised. But please do not exaggerate and say I hate or dislike Texas. I do not. It's more like expecting that something so good should be better. In many ways, I would be about as comfortable living in Texas as in Maryland. Religion is slightly less an issue here, but we have a more advanced stage of socialism. You cannot win on location. I am here mostly by virtue of employment in 1980 with the Navy and then my wife's license as a pharmacist. That was quite a long list of names that Linz called Michael. I am impressed that you collected so many. But my point was that there is more than enough to criticize Linz that is real. It is simply more effective to stick with that and not give him a simple out. If you point out 10 serious errors on his part and call him a low-down homosexual, then all he has to do is point out that you are prejudiced and he does not have to answer to any of your 10 serious points. In reality, you make it too easy for him by turning to such foolish name calling yourself. With Linz, the best answer is that of simply setting a good example of being what a man ought to be. Or maybe it does not matter much to Linz, but it does matter to the people we want to reach and those we want to engage. When you have to deal with the bad behavior of a child, it is better to be an adult, rather than another child. Being serious about the importance of ideas, I do sometimes tend to the pedantic and even pompous. You are not without a point there. I like fun, but I prefer that it not be at the expense of furthering Objectivism. On one issue, you slandered me seriously. I am not politically correct. Affirmative Action is racist. Men and women are different from one another. One of the most important reasons for going to a university is to discuss controversial issues. Putting most of them off-limits is stupid and also unconstitutional at a government-owned school. Group think and communitarianism are nonsense. On the other hand, homosexuality is not immoral. These are just the facts as I see them. I am generally glad to discuss these issues rationally with someone who wants to engage in a rational discussion about any of them. So Gary, it is good to have a steady hand, whether to control your horse or your car, or your Peacemaker. I expect nothing less of a Texan.

Mikee, Paul, and Michael, Thanks for your support. I appreciate it.

Gary, The rest of your play was fair, but this is not. Perhaps this was the hypothetical idiot talking and not you, but it still does not belong here, in my unhumble opinion. These are not relevant issues and this play on the prejudices of many, which have no doubt had a field day already with Linz, is hitting below the belt. You are intelligent enough that I think it is reasonable to expect you to rise above this prejudice so common in Texas.

A technical clarification: On re-scanning the article on Complexity above to check on all of my references to Objectivism in it to reply to Robert's comment, I discovered an unfortunate wording. Eeee, gods, an error! In discussing the many irons of the cast and wrought iron group, I wrote pure iron, when these irons are all rich in carbon. It is the chemistry of the carbon and its distribution in these irons that provides the distinctions between these materials. Apparently, when I wrote this, I was thinking of the alloy of bronze which combines two metals, while the irons have only one metal, so I said pure iron. Bad choice. Actually, graphitic carbon, common in the irons, is in some ways quite metallic. By the way, this error was not an evasion and it is not a very serious breach of morality. It is bad that my prior proofreadings of this article did not reveal it to me. I usually do a pretty good job of proofreading, but it is sometimes amazing what does escape most people when they edit articles. I give you my apologies.

The quote is from the Preface to the article. I also addressed Objectivists in the last paragraph of the article, but the sense there is similar. Technically, I did not and would not say that Objectivism does not make a distinction between honest error and dishonest error (evasion). I did not even imply that Peikoff fails to make some such distinction, though I do believe that he has incorrectly determined that David Kelley has made a dishonest error. Peikoff, and more so some other ARI people and such as Valliant and his group, have a tendency to incorrectly attribute differences of opinion to dishonest error. I think it is and must be a goal of Objectivism to understand the role of error in the life of rational men. That many Objectivists do not understand this is the result of errors on their part. It is not the fault of Objectivism. Of course, if Objectivism were the closed system that some argue it is, then these errors would be locked in place. I do not believe Objectivism is a closed system. It is my business as an Objectivist to note that those who think Objectivism is closed are in serious error, even it this includes Ayn Rand herself. Basically, there is so much right in Objectivism, that I expect its development to continue until it achieves everything that one would want from a philsophy committed to reason and the mission to guide man in living life. This will be a non-ending quest. I am not yet familiar with your views as to the correct interpretation of perception, so I will not comment on your statement about perception being held to be error-free by the standard Objectivist presentation. I can see all kinds of issues arising here due to what is meant by error-free, just as a starter. Another important issue will be establishing the boundary between such things as the physics of light perception in the eye and the interpretation that occurs in the brain. This is a huge subject and one that I am unprepared to get into at the moment. So far, I seem to be disagreeing with you! But, these are probably very little things. I do agree with you that a philosophy of science is badly needed and that it has just scratched the surface on reasoning and decision-making in the complex, real-world domain. We also agree on the moralizing tendency. These are the big issues, so in balance, we seem to agree on the essentials! Thanks for your comments.

Rich, Thanks for your comments. I agree with you. I have a few small cracks myself, yet I think of myself as a pretty good person! In a better world, I might have Robert Campbell's hair. Instead, I got my Mom's father's hair. Now, I might change that, but I would be very concerned that without his challenged hair, I might also have to give up some of the intelligence I may have from him. Genetics sees to it that most of us have a few cracks, even before we start making our own choices in a very complex world and in our own complex lives. So deal with it! I am not really very concerned about my challenged hair, though I am sure that it has been a factor in some women's assessment of me!

Jenna, Of course you would think it natural and adult-like to see the real complexity of the world! This is one of your many admirable traits. Unfortunately, as Phil noted earlier, many people find a great sense of control and power in over-abstracting and over-simplifying many important subjects. There are many fairly intelligent people who also become bewildered by complexity. They can manipulate simple concepts well, but they become lost when faced with too much complexity and to much particularity. We all gain from using concepts and from the use of classifying things, but those with more wisdom stay on a constant guard to check for errors due using these thinking aids. Have you noticed that some scientists make careers of just incrementally changing a condition in a system under study by many other scientists, while some few are able to establish a whole new area of research because they were able to identify the critical question in a sea of questions and then start to address it theoretically or experimentally. Many scientists and many people generally have trouble extracting the important issues from a sea of particulars. Some scientists see important parallels or analogies between what seem to other people to be very different things. It is interesting how much complexity a given mind can examine and work with. Creativity is substantially a function of just this factor. However many years the human race continues on its active quest for knowledge, the tug of war between the temptation to over-simply our understanding of the world and the real complexity of the world will go on. So people like us, who love thinking and exploring, will not likely ever run out of things to study and experiments to do. Isn't that one aspect of this being a benevolent universe?