An Objectivist Retrospective

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Barbara,

As I have said before, I am the one who thanks you. PAR is one hell of a book.

At a critical moment in my life, it brought a ray of truth to dispel the darkness of my illusions. I cannot communicate in words what this meant at that moment, but I will try.

In order to break the Rand goddess image in my mind, I must have read the three-slap sequence, including a good portion before and after, about 40 or 50 times back then. (It took that many times.) You gave me a tool to think when I was no longer able to think correctly from serious drug addiction. What few notions I had kept active in my soul of Objectivism were clouded by an incorrect perception of Rand.

After I understood that Rand did not live in a completely different dimension than the one I inhabited (normal reality), I understood that truth and the human condition were the same for everybody.

I had perceived human nature throughout my life as given in your book. The Rand goddess myth presented another over-simplified version of human nature that I was unable to see anywhere else, yet I had swallowed it whole when thinking about Rand.

What your book showed me clearly - at a time when I desperately needed it - was that truth existed, not myths. Reality existed - both internal and external - and it was normal to fight internal conflicts in order to produce. From the perspective of drug addiction, this was quite a revelation.

Frankly, it was a precious glass of water in the desert to a man who had stopped believing in truth and believed that there was something intrinsically wrong with him. Your book allowed me to believe in the correctness of my own perception of the world I had lived in up to then on a very fundamental level.

From there I was able to do the rest.

So once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You touched my life in a manner that few ever have or will.

(Edit - I forgot to mention that my image of the BB goddess and NB god were also forever altered by PAR - including the presumed godhood of Frank. Instead, I encountered wonderful people.)

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

Barbara,

People usually get what they deserve in life. Sometimes it just takes awhile. I am enjoying getting to know you. I am glad we can give you the respect and appreciation you deserve. You have a gentle soul with a powerful spirit and a penetrating intellect. I value you for your place in my past, for what you bring here now, and for your contributions to our lives that are yet to come.

You represent a unique element of the Objectivist movement. You touch people on an individual level. You care about and are touched by those around you. This is where you are still fighting everyday for Objectivism. You are a flame reaching-out to sparks in the wilderness. Your spirit is central to what is evolving here at OL.

Thank-you,

Paul

[Dennis Hardin]

Barbara is a goddess, and always will be.

As for myself, Charles--guess what my nickname was in high school....Attila! I never could understood why until now.

[Charles R. Anderson]

Barbara,

PAR is a celebration of a real life. It was not about a mythological goddess. Your love of Ayn Rand and her ideas was your subject. Your love for both rests in the reality of both, not a dishonest fictionalization of either. Such dishonesty would be the cruelest blow possible to Ayn Rand and the philosophy she did so much to develop. To be successful as a way of life, Objectivism needs to be rational, rather than mystical. We owe you a great debt that you have fought for rationality and against mysticism. Thanks.

[Charles R. Anderson]

Dennis,

So what is your take on why you were called Attila?

There was a physics professor at Brown who upon hearing of my discussions with some socialist physics majors, adopted the policy of referring to me as Attila when speaking to them. He never spoke to me about my ideas directly, but he clearly hated me for what he thought my ideas to be. He had a number of opportunities to do nasty things to me and did. One of the somewhat amusing things was to disinvite me to a reception with a well-known physicist Brown was trying to recruit who was a socialist and wanted to meet Brown physics majors. Less amusing was when he arranged to have my application for a program at Brown lost. For another, he asked me to give a talk to the Physics Club and I told him that I would, but that it could not be on one particular night. He scheduled me for that night on which I said I could not do it and told me about it the night before. Well, at least he was denied tenure!

So, we have both been called Attila!

[Dennis Hardin]

Charles,

Upper classmen used to scream "Attila!" whenever they saw me in the hallway. That was well before I discovered Objectivism and Ayn Rand, so I doubt it had anything to do with any views I might have expressed. To this day, I have never understood why they did it. Perhaps I resembled some picture in a textbook. I remember one of them telling me: "You should read about Attila. It's really a compliment!"

BTW, here is the definition of “goddess” offered by Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary:

1: A female god; 2: A woman whose great charm or beauty arouses adoration.

Hopefully it is clear which of those meanings I meant to apply to Barbara. Since I do not wish to be accused of endorsing "mysticism," I thought perhaps I should add that bit of clarification.

Dennis

[Charles R. Anderson]

Dennis,

I figured that you were using definition 2. Admiring women who are intelligent, wise, and very good looking makes a lot of sense to me.

[Dennis Hardin]

The following is excerpted from “Memorial Day: What We Owe Our Soldiers” by Alex Epstein, which I saw on another website. I decided to add it here because it speaks so eloquently to the issues I raised in this thread. Contrast this with TOC’s “Position Statement” and their explicit support of so-called “Just War Theory.”

The American government has a sacred responsibility to recognize the individual value of every one of its citizens' lives. . . This absolutely includes our soldiers. . .Soldiers are not sacrificial objects; they are full-fledged Americans with the same moral right as the rest of us to the pursuit of their own goals, their own dreams, their own happiness. . .Soldiers know that in entering the military, they are risking their lives in the event of war. But this risk is not, as it is often described, a "sacrifice" for a "higher cause". . .What we owe these men who fight so bravely for their and our freedom is to send them to war only when that freedom is truly threatened, and to make every effort to protect their lives during war--by providing them with the most advantageous weapons, training, strategy, and tactics possible.

Shamefully, America has repeatedly failed to meet this obligation. . .In addition to being sent on ill-conceived, "humanitarian" missions, our soldiers have been compromised with crippling rules of engagement that place the lives of civilians in enemy territory above their own. In Afghanistan we refused to bomb many top leaders out of their hideouts for fear of civilian casualties; these men continue to kill American soldiers. In Iraq, our hamstrung soldiers are not allowed to smash a militarily puny insurgency--and instead must suffer an endless series of deaths by an undefeated enemy. . .This Memorial Day, we must call for a stop to the sacrifice of our soldiers and condemn all those who demand it. . .

[Mikee]

Mr. Hardin,

I also spotted this on another website. I respectfully disagree with your assessment of it's value. There are several things I am in disagreement with:

1. "The American government has a sacred responsibility to recognize the individual value of every one of its citizens' lives. . . "

No. The American government consists of individuals with jobs they are hired and mandated to do. It is up to you to recognize the value of your own life as you see fit.

2. "What we owe these men who fight so bravely for their and our freedom is to send them to war only when that freedom is truly threatened..."

If our military were only be used in only the most dire of emergencies they would never be prepared and trained to be able to overcome those dire emergencies. There are perfectly legitimate situations far short of the impending annihilation of the United States for using our military.

3. "crippling rules of engagement that place the lives of civilians in enemy territory above their own. In Afghanistan we refused to bomb many top leaders out of their hideouts for fear of civilian casualties; these men continue to kill American soldiers. In Iraq, our hamstrung soldiers are not allowed to smash a militarily puny insurgency--"

It is unconscionable to advocate the wholesale slaughter of civilians. This is an argument by a pacifist which tries to make any military action seem untenable and unreasonable to whatever audience is persuaded by it. Pacifism itself flies against reason and nature and only serves to cripple the motivation needed to take any action at all when action is most needed.

4. "make every effort to protect their lives during war--by providing them with the most advantageous weapons, training, strategy, and tactics possible.

Shamefully, America has repeatedly failed to meet this obligation. . ."

This is an opinion which most of the world disagrees with. The American military is the best equiped, best trained military in the history of the world. Except, perhaps in retrospect, military tactics of any kind are open to dispute and interpretation. I believe the elements that began this excursion into Afghanistan and Iraq are very real, have been somewhat ameliorated but still exist. Pacifism is the worst possible strategy to adopt at this point.

[Charles R. Anderson]

Mikee,

I read this and decided to wait before responding. I am glad I did. It was a pleasure to read your remarks on it. My thoughts are cast a bit differently, however.

The American government has a sacred responsibility to recognize the individual value of every one of its citizens' lives. . . This absolutely includes our soldiers. . .Soldiers are not sacrificial objects; they are full-fledged Americans with the same moral right as the rest of us to the pursuit of their own goals, their own dreams, their own happiness. . .Soldiers know that in entering the military, they are risking their lives in the event of war. But this risk is not, as it is often described, a "sacrifice" for a "higher cause"

While the government has the responsibility to recognize the individual value of every one of its citizens, it does this by asking for volunteers to take on the risk of their life to protect the lives of American citizens. In the real world, not the theoretically perfect world of some libertarians and ARI people, America's soldiers will necessarily die in combat to protect Americans. Someone has to be brave enough and confident enough of their fighting skills and the weapons they will be supplied with to take on this responsibility and the attendant risk. However, as I see it, there is nothing wrong with the Epstein statement. He is right on this part, but we must remember that the fact that the government has a responsibility does not mean that it is always possible to prevent the loss of all life.

What we owe these men who fight so bravely for their and our freedom is to send them to war only when that freedom is truly threatened, and to make every effort to protect their lives during war--by providing them with the most advantageous weapons, training, strategy, and tactics possible.

Shamefully, America has repeatedly failed to meet this obligation.

I agree with this, as stated. A lot depends upon how threatened our freedom must be. Epstein seems to think much more threatened than either Mike or I do, from the larger context. With respect to the weapons through tactics part, the word possible must be thought about. We should make a very great effort to do this, including eliminating all sorts of subsidies and welfare programs to ensure that as many of the tax revenues as possible go to the constitutionally mandated provision for the national defense. No matter how you cut it however, it is not rational to provide the military with everything possible. We would then be a military police state and there would be no freedom for them to protect. Yes, we want a strong military, but we also want it over the very long haul. The way you get that is to maintain our strong private sector and keep taxes low, so the American economy can continue to grow and spin off the means to support the military at a high level of readiness, but at a low percentage cost to the economy as a whole. This strategy has worked very well for America.

It is very peculiar to hear Epstein make the argument that the military should be so overwhelmingly superior that we have made every effort to protect the lives of our soldiers. During the Clinton years, the military and the intelligence agencies were badly neglected and greatly abused and disrepected by the Clinton Administration. Where were ARI and Epstein then? They were not nearly as vociferous about his truly humanitarian missions. When they backed Gore and Kerry against Bush, did they really think those men were more inclined to give the military and intelligence agencies the resources they needed in amounts that came close to what Bush has tried to give them? Wouldn't they have continued Clinton's absurd police actions against terrorists and left many Americans far more vulnerable to future 9/11s? What kind of about-face is this on their part? It strikes me as extremely dishonorable.

So, Mike is right that our military is the envy of the world. Epstein is right that it should be still better. But, it is clearly disingenuous that Epstein and ARI are making such an argument when they promoted men for President who were so extremely weak on defense and intelligence issues. Apparently, the all-knowing ARI crowd did not anticipate 9/11. Well, OK, that was not good. After 9/11, to support Kerry was insane if one really believes that "The American government has a sacred responsibility to recognize the individual value of every one of its citizen's lives."

I suspect, along with Mike, that the real consequence of the Epstein viewpoint would be to place the bar on military action so high in terms of our superiority, the magnitude of the threat to us, and the requirement to kill many non-American civilians, that we would wind up ignoring threats and appeasing over and over until it was too late. When it was too late, our military would no longer know how to fight and they would no longer have the will to fight. What's more, if ARI chose the President, they would have nothing to fight with. Ah, but words are so cheap. Back your words with action ARI. Make it a priority to help elect politicians who will prepare the military and intelligence agencies, rather than to defeat them. When they are elected, how about offering constructive criticism at least.

But no, constant criticism is the ARI path to gaining attention. How they crave attention. Rather overmuch like very little children.

[Dennis Hardin]

I came across this debate, http://www.solopassion.com/node/1227, on the proper use of force during war on SOLO Passion. Despite my dislike for that particular Objectivist forum, I found much of it to be of exceptionally high quality, primarily because of the contributions of George H. Smith (in defending a position very different from my own). I knew George personally at one time, and have always considered him to have one of the best minds I have ever encountered. I do not care to post on SOLOP, because I have nothing but contempt for any forum that sanctions and promotes insults, disrespect and vicious personal attacks as appropriate decorum for intellectual debate. However, I feel the above discussion of this issue would be incomplete without the full context that George provides.

Although it is clear that George and I disagree on fundamental points, I should mention that I thoroughly agree with his strong rejection of any suggestion that he or anyone else “should serve as sacrificial animals (or support the sacrifice of other Americans) to bring ‘democracy’ to a thoroughly f__ked-up culture…” Regardless of any particular advocate’s interpretation of “Just War Theory,” the fact that such “theory” can be used to justify Bush’s openly altruistic prosecution of the war in Iraq is sufficient reason to question the extent to which it can accurately be called “just.” Parenthetically, I wonder if George is aware that Brooks & Epstein, the authors of the referenced article criticizing “Just War Theory,” would also agree with his assessment of the war in Iraq.

Unfortunately, time prevents me from addressing his other arguments--particularly with respect to the ethical requirement to minimize enemy civilian casualties during war--at this time. However, many of my prior comments on this thread deal directly with that issue.

Dennis