Objectivism Online run by hypocritical babies?

[caroljane]

Please don't make us read it again.

Daunce

Mrs. Lynam

Caroljane

Emile

Lady Honoria Anon Nonninoe

Gord, Asst. Shaman

Nanook, underappreciated dogsbody

Tim Thomas, I don't like it down here

[Selene]

I wonder how long it's been since anybody read Galt's Speech.

LOL..Hell, I skipped it the first time I read Atlas and I would say it has been at least four (4) years since I've read and at least a decade prior to that that I read it.

So that would be two (2) times in the two (2) decades which is more than enough to keep my small "o"bjectist card current and in good standing.

That's twice more than most people...

First, "ouch!" I see the mirror. I use that arbitrary structure as a self discipline exercise. Kinda like coloring between the lines with kids coloring instructions.

As to PDS's observation, quite true.

However, those of us that skipped the speech on the first read, in theory, have to "experience" "Objectivist pennance," otherwise, following the Catholic theological theorim, the Venal sinner, would have to reside in a suburb of Galt's Gulch, allegedly being able to see the "promised land," and," have to suffer to purify/cure their sins; or;

The Moses metaphor of the individual who led the Hebrew people out of bondage and could not enter the "Promised Land," [bob will have to help me out on why that is myth;] or;

MLK's last speech the night before he was assasinated, wherein, he spoke with extreme passion about a Western philosophical path is well worth the listen.

I call it his "I am not going to stop there speech," wherein, he traces Western thought from the Greeks through to the '60's.

At about the 21 minute mark, having anchored his thoughts in the foundation of American values, he veers off.

http://youtu.be/ixfwGLxRJU8http://youtu.be/ixfwGLxRJU8

Now , the "meda' refets to this as his last speech:

http://youtu.be/aL4FOvIf7G8

more to follow...

[Brant Gaede]

Literarily there is only one thing wrong with Galt's Speech: you have to stop reading the novel to read it.

--Brant

philosophically it's a hectoring machine

intellectually it's asseverating lead

as such it's hard to understand except as a religious document

thank Rand someone came along to explain it all--for a price--and set up a not-a school* for young fools who learned they were fools but entitled to a pass out of the innocent ignorance so characteristic of their peer group

*a place of reverence, aka a church--or a cult for those with a secular bent

[PDS]

Literarily there is only one thing wrong with Galt's Speech: you have to stop reading the novel to read it.

--Brant

philosophically it's a hectoring machine

intellectually it's asseverating lead

as such it's hard to understand except as a religious document

thank Rand someone came along to explain it all--for a price--and set up a not-a school* for young fools who learned they were fools but entitled to a pass out of the innocent ignorance so characteristic of their peer group

*a place of reverence, aka a church--or a cult for those with a secular bent

"Hectoring machine"? Seems a little harsh.

"Asservating"? Interesting.

Did you notice that your post is asservating too? Just sayin.'

[caroljane]

Asservating is legal all over the country, last I heard. No one can be refused service, just for braying.

[caroljane]

Brant and PDS walked into a bar....

[Brant Gaede]

Literarily there is only one thing wrong with Galt's Speech: you have to stop reading the novel to read it.

--Brant

philosophically it's a hectoring machine

intellectually it's asseverating lead

as such it's hard to understand except as a religious document

thank Rand someone came along to explain it all--for a price--and set up a not-a school* for young fools who learned they were fools but entitled to a pass out of the innocent ignorance so characteristic of their peer group

*a place of reverence, aka a church--or a cult for those with a secular bent

"Hectoring machine"? Seems a little harsh.

"Asservating"? Interesting.

Did you notice that your post is asservating too? Just sayin.'

It's not asseverating if you go back and read all my +13,000 OL posts and learn the context I've meticulously established.

--Brant

opps! Rand did that too (blush)

(don't know if I should counter your next counter now, spiking your participation or let you go ahead demonstrating my courage)

(going with courage: give me a medal [but not a purple heart])

[PDS]

Literarily there is only one thing wrong with Galt's Speech: you have to stop reading the novel to read it.

--Brant

philosophically it's a hectoring machine

intellectually it's asseverating lead

as such it's hard to understand except as a religious document

thank Rand someone came along to explain it all--for a price--and set up a not-a school* for young fools who learned they were fools but entitled to a pass out of the innocent ignorance so characteristic of their peer group

*a place of reverence, aka a church--or a cult for those with a secular bent

"Hectoring machine"? Seems a little harsh.

"Asservating"? Interesting.

Did you notice that your post is asservating too? Just sayin.'

It's not asseverating if you go back and read all my +13,000 OL posts and learn the context I've meticulously established.

--Brant

opps! Rand did that too (blush)

(don't know if I should counter your next counter now, spiking your participation or let you go ahead demonstrating my courage)

(going with courage: give me a medal [but not a purple heart])

At first blush, I courageously refuse your invitation to counter my counter, thus showing my mettle, but not my medal.

[caroljane]

Well braid.

[Selene]

Like I said, get a room...maybe a suite...in Thailand...

[Brant Gaede]

Literarily there is only one thing wrong with Galt's Speech: you have to stop reading the novel to read it.

--Brant

philosophically it's a hectoring machine

intellectually it's asseverating lead

as such it's hard to understand except as a religious document

thank Rand someone came along to explain it all--for a price--and set up a not-a school* for young fools who learned they were fools but entitled to a pass out of the innocent ignorance so characteristic of their peer group

*a place of reverence, aka a church--or a cult for those with a secular bent

"Hectoring machine"? Seems a little harsh.

"Asservating"? Interesting.

Did you notice that your post is asservating too? Just sayin.'

It's not asseverating if you go back and read all my +13,000 OL posts and learn the context I've meticulously established.

--Brant

opps! Rand did that too (blush)

(don't know if I should counter your next counter now, spiking your participation or let you go ahead demonstrating my courage)

(going with courage: give me a medal [but not a purple heart])

At first blush, I courageously refuse your invitation to counter my counter, thus showing my mettle, but not my medal.

I wasn't counting on incoherence.

--Brant

beat

[Ellen Stuttle]

I wonder how long it's been since anybody read Galt's Speech.

I've been rereading certain sections, and the parallel sections from The Objectivist Ethics, in the last couple weeks. For maybe the thousandth time. The sections which are the core of Rand's notions of what man, "being of volitional consciousness," is.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

In post #144, I mentioned an interview of Mary Ann in which she talked about her meeting Rand, and about her being taught basics of Rand's philosophy by Leonard Peikoff.

Below is that section of the interview. I copied it from an old post on a thread about Facets of Ayn Rand.

In Facets, Mary Ann says that the idea of having Leonard Peikoff give lectures to a few people was Nathan's.

I also met Leonard Peikoff, another admirer of Ayn Rand. [i assume she means in addition to her meeting Joan.] Since Leonard wanted to teach philosophy, Nathan suggested that it would be good experience for Leonard to give private lectures on Ayn Rand's philosophy to a few people, including me. This was Leonard's first course on Objectivism, although it wasn't yet called "Objectivism." He gave some of the lectures in Joan's apartment. It was an informal set up.

Institute Interview: Mary Ann Sures

by Susan Ludel

Volume 2, No. 2

August, 1987

Newsletter

The Ayn Rand Institute

Q: How did you discover Ayn Rand's work?

A: In 1952, I came to New York City from my home in Detroit in order to work on my Masters degree in art history at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. I became friendly with another student, who I later learned already knew Ayn Rand. [The student referred to was Joan Blumenthal.] During one of our conversations, I mentioned that I had often been accused of indulging myself by studying art history when I should have been doing something to help other people. Even though, deep down, I felt that I would be perfectly content to spend the rest of my life looking at paintings, at the time, I was troubled about this aspect of altruism. When my friend heard this, she suggested that I read The Fountainhead. This was in 1953. To say that it changed my life is an understatement.

Q: How did you meet Ayn Rand?

A: First, in 1954, I was introduced to Leonard Peikoff. He had recently moved to New York and, like me, wanted to teach. And since he wanted to teach philosophy, the very thing that I very much wanted to understand, we hit it off right away. And we began to visit each other often.

There were two particular attitudes of Leonard's that I admired very much. He was intensely committed to understanding ideas and philosophy. This was a life or death issue to him. So was being a moral person. And he's still the same. Even though we were young adults when we met, I always think of Leonard as my childhood friend. We spent wonderful years learning and growing up together philosophically.

He was my first real philosophy teacher--which is what led to my meeting Ayn Rand. In 1954, as part of his own training, Leonard gave three or four lectures on her philosophy to a few people, me included. It was actually his first course on Objectivism, although it wasn't yet called that, not until after the publication of Atlas Shrugged. The "final" of the course was an oral examination to be held at Ayn's apartment. It was to be informal, with Leonard asking questions that we would volunteer to answer. I was the only one who had not yet met Ayn Rand.

Q: Weren't you nervous, not to say somewhat terrified, at the idea of being tested on Miss Rand's ideas in front of her?

A: Actually, I was too ignorant to be frightened; six months later, I probably would have been. Beforehand, I had a strange sense of confidence. My overriding feeling was one of excitement about the chance to meet her.I remember it very clearly. I went there by myself, and was the first to arrive. Frank O'Connor admitted me, hung up my coat, and then excused himself. I went to stand at the windows in the living room; from there you could see the skyscrapers downtown. A few minutes later I heard footsteps; then a voice behind me said hello. I turned around, and there was a short woman, with dramatically-angled hair, very stylishly dressed in a navy blue skirt and matching polka-dot blouse with a big bow. Her eyes were stunning.

Q: Was she as you had imagined she would be?

A: No. I had expected that she would be like Dominique--stern, reserved, somewhat haughty. But this woman was smiling, grinning at me, really. She projected graciousness, gentleness--and tremendous good will.

Q: What about her most impressed you?

A: Two particular qualities. I marvelled at them after that first evening, and for as long as I knew her. First, her attitude about ideas. If she thought that you really wanted to understand something, she would go to any lengths to explain it. That first night, for example, she sat on the couch, a long chrome and glass cocktail table in front of her. And during the "exam," using the table to illustrate, she explained, in great detail, the difference between attributes and entities. It was an issue I was having some difficulty understanding fully. I gather that each time I grasped a point I would grin, because she kept asking me why I was grinning. And each time I would say "because I finally understand this," she would grin back.

This was so characteristic of her--this combination of almost childlike delight and intensity when she was dealing with ideas and with people who she thought took them seriously.

To me, the other most important quality about Ayn Rand was that she brought out the very best in people. No one else I have ever met cared as much about understanding, fully understanding, not only what something meant to you, but also, why it did. Because of her focus on both your values and on your capacity to understand, when you were with her, you tried to raise yourself to her level. And you were, in fact a better person for having been with her.

Q: How did you do on the "exam"?

A: I assume I passed, because not long after I was invited to join the "collective" [....].

Ellen

[PDS]

I wonder how long it's been since anybody read Galt's Speech.

I've been rereading certain sections, and the parallel sections from The Objectivist Ethics, in the last couple weeks. For maybe the thousandth time. The sections which are the core of Rand's notions of what man, "being of volitional consciousness," is.

Ellen

If you don't mind, please report on what you find. The term does appear to be something just shy of an oxymoron.

I have mentioned this before, but I once heard David Kelley describe how free will (in the conext of focusing the mind) works as something more akin to what I think Rand may have meant by the term.

[Brant Gaede]

It's nice and good to get this 1950s' perspective on what Ayn Rand was like then.

It makes me think NBI was Nathaniel doing for her public what she did with her "collective" friends. I suspect she didn't like that public very much as opposed to the anonymous public that read her books and showed up to see and hear her at the Ford Hall Forum. You have to give Nathaniel credit for helping her break out of her depressive state--this is not an Objectivist myth--but there was no getting her out of the world of Atlas Shrugged. The Fountainhead is full of nuanced psychological give and take gems little continued in her fortress magnum opus, dead-ending in save-the-world from irrational anti-man altruistic-collectivism.

--Brant

[PDS]

Literarily there is only one thing wrong with Galt's Speech: you have to stop reading the novel to read it.

--Brant

philosophically it's a hectoring machine

intellectually it's asseverating lead

as such it's hard to understand except as a religious document

thank Rand someone came along to explain it all--for a price--and set up a not-a school* for young fools who learned they were fools but entitled to a pass out of the innocent ignorance so characteristic of their peer group

*a place of reverence, aka a church--or a cult for those with a secular bent

"Hectoring machine"? Seems a little harsh.

"Asservating"? Interesting.

Did you notice that your post is asservating too? Just sayin.'

It's not asseverating if you go back and read all my +13,000 OL posts and learn the context I've meticulously established.

--Brant

opps! Rand did that too (blush)

(don't know if I should counter your next counter now, spiking your participation or let you go ahead demonstrating my courage)

(going with courage: give me a medal [but not a purple heart])

At first blush, I courageously refuse your invitation to counter my counter, thus showing my mettle, but not my medal.

I wasn't counting on incoherence.

--Brant

beat

You were actually trafficing in incoherence, but I was trying to be somewhat kind about it.

I met your feeler bet with an all-in reraise.

[Brant Gaede]

Fold.

--Brant

"know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em"

(don't think I'm going to lose the war; I'm devious and sneaky; I have powerful friends [in low places])

[caroljane]

You still beat him on the spelling, Brant.

[PDS]

You still beat him on the spelling, Brant.

You stay out of this!

Besides, the Maple Leafs.

[PDS]

Fold.

--Brant

"know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em"

(don't think I'm going to lose the war; I'm devious and sneaky; I have powerful friends [in low places])

In all seriousness, I love that word asserevating. I wonder how much of philosophy is just that and only that, in disguise.

[caroljane]

You still beat him on the spelling, Brant.

You stay out of this!

Besides, the Maple Leafs.

Ad hockinem.

I can go wherever I want, because Freedom.

[Selene]

Folks, thanks for being especially hilarious on this thread...

good stuff PDS, Brant and Carol...

A...

[anthony]

I wonder how long it's been since anybody read Galt's Speech.

I've been rereading certain sections, and the parallel sections from The Objectivist Ethics, in the last couple weeks. For maybe the thousandth time. The sections which are the core of Rand's notions of what man, "being of volitional consciousness," is.

Ellen

If you don't mind, please report on what you find. The term does appear to be something just shy of an oxymoron.

I have mentioned this before, but I once heard David Kelley describe how free will (in the conext of focusing the mind) works as something more akin to what I think Rand may have meant by the term.

Yes, but "a being who can switch his focus anytime he wants" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

;0

[Ellen Stuttle]

I wonder how long it's been since anybody read Galt's Speech.

I've been rereading certain sections, and the parallel sections from The Objectivist Ethics, in the last couple weeks. For maybe the thousandth time. The sections which are the core of Rand's notions of what man, "being of volitional consciousness," is.

Ellen

If you don't mind, please report on what you find.

I don't know what to make of that except to think that you must have skipped the posts in which I quoted from and commented on what Rand said.

The term does appear to be something just shy of an oxymoron.

It struck me as outright nonsensical the first time I read it - and "struck" is almost a literal description, since I felt as if I'd been hit in the forehead as if by the shockwave of a thunderclap occurring in the room and knocking me bolt upright from the relaxed cross-legged posture in which I'd been reading, as I wondered, WHAT does that mean!!??

I have mentioned this before, but I once heard David Kelley describe how free will (in the conext of focusing the mind) works as something more akin to what I think Rand may have meant by the term.

I don't recall your mentioning it, and I don't get a sense of specifics from the comment. I don't agree with Rand in locating volition as solely pertaining to effortful cognition (if that's what she meant).

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

In all seriousness, I love that word asserevating.

Do you love it so much you'll learn to spell it one of these tries?

Ellen