Happy Birthday Robert Heinlein

[Rodney]

By the way, an interesting fact: one of AR's favorite TV shows was Perry Mason. It is also one of mine, and one night, near the end of the show, I was startled to hear the "hobgoblin" quotation emanating from the mouth of Raymond Burr! This may have rankled with Rand, and indeed triggered her comment. I don't remember whether "foolish" was included.

It would be interesting to know the relevance of the thought to the action on the screen. Was it about resistance to change, stubbornness? Does anyone know?

I should know better than to get into these discussions while I'm so busy. So I'll now sign off with some appropriate video:

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Rodney,

That's all right. We can disagree about Rand's treatment and understanding of Emerson and still think highly of each other.

I think the real issue is that there is an attempt by the orthodoxy to whitewash all of Rand's shortcomings and this is on the borderline.

It's a shame Emerson never read Atlas Shrugged.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

And note that he includes "philosophers," so it's debatable what his exact meaning is.

Although I agree that his exact meaning isn't pellucid, I think that reading the FULL essay would help with understanding his point. Also, I don't think he meant all philosophers; notice the wording of the sentence:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

I think the "little" is meant as modifying "philosophers" and "divines" as well as "statesmen."

Would Emerson ever have a hope of forging the is-ought connection as Rand did?

Considering that I don't think she did a good job on that one, I wouldn't myself hold his not "forging" said connection "as Rand did" against him. ;-)

Lest I be misinterpreted here, I do not think of Emerson as having been a great philosopher. But I think that Rand incorrectly rendered his meaning in the selected (mis)quote. Also that her describing him as "a very little mind" was, as Dragonfly said, "a nasty and petty remark, based on nothing but an incorrect quote, taken out of context." If she was thinking of a wider frame of reference beyond the selected quote, she should have said so. And even then the remark would have been "nasty and petty."

So, as a poet, possibly big. As a mind (in the senses important to Rand), very little.

I can't resist posting an example of his "possibly big" stature as a poet:

http://emersoncentral.com/poems/concordhymn.htm

Concord Hymn

HYMN.

SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF

CONCORD MONUMENT, APRIL 19, 1836.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world,

The foe long since in silence slept,

Alike the Conqueror silent sleeps,

And Time the ruined bridge has swept

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,

We set to-day a votive stone,

That memory may their deed redeem,

When like our sires our sons are gone.

Spirit! who made those freemen dare

To die, or leave their children free,

Bid time and nature gently spare

The shaft we raise to them and Thee.

from: Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Early Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York, Boston, Thomas Y. Crowell & Company: 1899. Introduction by Nathan Haskell Dole.

Ellen

___

Edited July 31, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ross Barlow]

Thanks for including the “Concord Hymn” poem, Ellen. Reading it again reminds me of the first time I read it on the foundation of that great Minuteman statue at the North Bridge at Concord. It was the middle of June 1968, and I was an 18-year-old on a hitchhiking trip to see America before going off to war. This statue and its poem were the high point of my pilgrimage. I remember being blinded by tears as I stood there before it.

As I hitched with a light pack that summer, I had small copy of the “Self-Reliance” essay in my pocket. To my personal taste, I find that it is best read by browsing, by seeking short poetic and inspirational phrases rather than expecting a tightly integrated work that you read straight through. Emerson had a writing style that seems “conversational.”

-Ross Barlow.

[John Dailey]

~ If there's going to be an 'argument' (aka disagreement) about a quote being wrong, why doesn't someone specify where ashley was incorrect in the quote he gave? For that matter, instead of insinuating his quote was wrong, give the 'correct' one, and argue from there! I hate these 'insinuation' style of arguments which seem to have become preferable.

~ If his quote is 'correct', let's stick to arguing the differing interpretations we each have (not to mention why THAT-vs-the-argued-'OTHER'.) Elsewise, all everyone's doing is using innuendo to 'argue', in effect, ad irreleventium.

~ ashley placed the quote. It's incorrect or not. If it's correct, what's *your* (not someone else who talked-to/e-m'd you) interpretation? If it's NOT correct, what IS the 'correct' one?

~ Will the 'correct' quote please stand up?

LLAP

J:D

Edited August 1, 2007 by John Dailey

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

John,

I get the impression we were talking about meaning. The person who got the quote wrong was Ayn Rand.

Michael

[John Dailey]

Michael:

~ I get the impression that we were talking about meaning. The person who got the interpretation (aka 'meaning') of Rand's shortened 'paraphrasing' (not 'quote', ahem!) wrong was Dragonfly.

LLAP

J:D

Edited August 1, 2007 by John Dailey

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

John,

I just reread Dragonfly's posts on this. I am confused. Where in those posts did he get the interpretation wrong?

He is aggressive against Rand, but that is about all I can see that one could object to.

Michael

[John Dailey]

Michael:

~ You ask: "Where in these posts did he [Dragonfly] get the interpretation wrong?"

~ My response: Please re-read my post #14, then, especially ashley's post #16, then, MOST especially, my post # 19.

~ THAT's 'where.'

LLAP

J:D

PS: I don't think that he's the ONLY one 'aggressive' against Rand, all said and done.

Edited August 1, 2007 by John Dailey

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

John,

You find only a difference of degree and not kind between "consistency" and "foolish consistency"?

I see a big honking difference of kind. Rand was very intelligent and I am sure she knew the difference.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

He is aggressive against Rand, but that is about all I can see that one could object to.

I'm not aggresive against Rand, but I call a spade a spade. And with regard to the post in question, you wrote: "I fully agree with what is written there", so you'd be equally aggressive against her by implication.

Of course my interpretation has been fully vindicated by Ellen's summary of the article and the context of the quote.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dragonfly,

I don't mind noting where Rand was wrong. Facts are facts. I think the difference is that I get no pleasure from it.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

I don't mind noting where Rand was wrong. Facts are facts. I think the difference is that I get no pleasure from it.

Do I?

[John Dailey]

Michael:

~ *You* are bringing up the framework to analyze what I've said...and, what I've asked about...in terms of 'degree' vs 'kind', not *I.* This is an other ad irreleventium style of arguing...back.

~ Characterizing my points (correctly or not) this way, is not really a relevent way of answering them.

~ Can we stick to *my* original comments and questions? (None 'answered' yet in the responses you gave.) --- I wrote NOT of 'degree' or 'kind'; and, I shall not.

~ Let's stick to the subject, if this conversation is to continue.

LLAP

J:D

Edited August 1, 2007 by John Dailey

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

John,

We use different words, but the concepts are the same. But OK, I'll do it your way.

~ That AR was 'lying' in omitting "foolish" presumes that Emerson didn't mean it as a redundant emphasis, but, instead, as a sub-category, as if he considered there to be "non-foolish" consistencies. My reading of Emerson sees his use of "foolish" as being an emphasized redundancy, and her dropping of it in her referencing as being a paraphrasing or merely inaccurate quoting; ergo, I see no meaning lost or changed in her ref...ergo, 'lying' is a pretty strong word for something so easily checked (even before The Web) re 'quoting.'

For clarity:

Emphasized redundancy = degree

Sub-category = kind

(Incidentally, I disagree that "foolish consistency" is a subcategory of "consistency." It is another concept entirely. It merely uses the same word.)

When you say, "I see no meaning lost or changed...," that can only mean:

Consistency = foolish consistency

I strongly disagree with this, Rand or no Rand.

There is a huge difference between correspondence to facts (consistency) and dogma or stubbornness based on vanity or mental laziness (foolish consistency). This even goes beyond thinking. Good consistent habits are those that correctly automate facts. Horrible consistent habits are those that are meaningless routines.

I see a huge difference in kind, not degree (to use my terminology).

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Thanks for including the “Concord Hymn” poem, Ellen. Reading it again reminds me of the first time I read it on the foundation of that great Minuteman statue at the North Bridge at Concord. It was the middle of June 1968, and I was an 18-year-old on a hitchhiking trip to see America before going off to war. This statue and its poem were the high point of my pilgrimage. I remember being blinded by tears as I stood there before it.

As I hitched with a light pack that summer, I had small copy of the “Self-Reliance” essay in my pocket. To my personal taste, I find that it is best read by browsing, by seeking short poetic and inspirational phrases rather than expecting a tightly integrated work that you read straight through. Emerson had a writing style that seems “conversational.”

-Ross Barlow.

Ross,

I'll say publicly instead of responding with a PM: Thank you for posting that reminiscence.

I, too, once, have seen the locale of the "rude bridge" -- the glorious Minuteman statue, the inscription of the Emerson "Concord Hymn," the reconstructed bridge. At least as of the time when I visited this scene -- with friends, Larry and several others, who were headed toward, guess what?, an Ayn Rand Ford Hall Forum talk, circa '70 or '71 -- it was kept a quiet place, as much as possible despite many visitors so that one could feel a sense of how it might have looked THEN. The entire scene, for me, evoked with utmost strength what the American ideal is "supposed" to mean. I have never forgotten the experience of being, for a brief while, there.

Regards to you in your current Thailand residence.

Ellen

___

[Brant Gaede]

Thanks for including the “Concord Hymn” poem, Ellen. Reading it again reminds me of the first time I read it on the foundation of that great Minuteman statue at the North Bridge at Concord. It was the middle of June 1968, and I was an 18-year-old on a hitchhiking trip to see America before going off to war. This statue and its poem were the high point of my pilgrimage. I remember being blinded by tears as I stood there before it.

As I hitched with a light pack that summer, I had small copy of the “Self-Reliance” essay in my pocket. To my personal taste, I find that it is best read by browsing, by seeking short poetic and inspirational phrases rather than expecting a tightly integrated work that you read straight through. Emerson had a writing style that seems “conversational.”

-Ross Barlow.

Ross,

I'll say publicly instead of responding with a PM: Thank you for posting that reminiscence.

I, too, once, have seen the locale of the "rude bridge" -- the glorious Minuteman statue, the inscription of the Emerson "Concord Hymn," the reconstructed bridge. At least as of the time when I visited this scene -- with friends, Larry and several others, who were headed toward, guess what?, an Ayn Rand Ford Hall Forum talk, circa '70 or '71 -- it was kept a quiet place, as much as possible despite many visitors so that one could feel a sense of how it might have looked THEN. The entire scene, for me, evoked with utmost strength what the American ideal is "supposed" to mean. I have never forgotten the experience of being, for a brief while, there.

Regards to you in your current Thailand residence.

Ellen

___

Ha, I did the same thing in '72. There were a bunch of Chinese tourists who had been bused in escorted by an elderly, smallish Caucasian whom I took, almost absolutely correctly, to be Dr. Paul Dudley White, famous for being Eisenhower's cardiologist. I knew they were communists for they were escorted by US government security people. (It was even stranger in that some years earlier I had helped take care of Eisenhower after he had had a heart attack in Georgia in 1965 when I was getting medical on-the-job training at Ft, Gordon.) I was wearing my old, seedy army field jacket and as I was getting into my station wagon I made eye contact with one of the tourists who was sitting in the back of the bus. I wondered what he thought of someone wearing such a jacket getting into his own, not so old, personal vehicle and driving away. I wondered what he thought of that statue and whether he understood the extreme American individualism that it represented. Completely surreal to a combat veteran of the Vietnam War; they were the allies of my enemies; the war was still going on.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

For some choice Heinlein quotes see:

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein

We will not be hearing the likes of RAH for a long time to come.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[John Dailey]

Michael:

~ Umm, ok; sorry if I sounded (er, typed-ed?)...snippy...on that last post of mine.

~ Thanx for the clarification of *your* framework-of-meaning re the terms you used ('kind'/'degree'). Really didn't see what you were talking about, without your follow-up explication. Ok. I see now. Ntl, given that, clearly we'll have to 'agree to disagree' on the meanings meant by Emerson (Crap! I thought I was debating this with Dragon!) I see 'foolish consistency'= 'consistency', with no loss of meaning beyond redundant emphasizing; you see (as Dragon does) contrary. Ergo, my and yours perspectives/interpretations are opposite.

~ C'est la vie.

~ Question: This was 'twixt moi and Dragon; why jump in? (Like, *he* needs support?)

LLAP

J:D

PS: If I may correct Baal's last post, 'we' won't be hearing from the likes of RAH...period. His type only comes around as often as Ben Franklin's.

Edited August 12, 2007 by John Dailey

[John Dailey]

Umm...sorry, but...this subject (more precisely, some attitudes displayed) got me going here.

~ If I may add...regarding 'nasty and petty remarks'...I think Emerson's was the nastiest and pettiest of any regarding any and all minds that have been and ARE concerned with 'consistency.' I see in that quote a bona-fide resentment of better MINDS. Consider what his (in)famous quote implies about those who are 'concerned' with...'consistency'.

~ Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, et al were concerned with 'consistency' in musical structures, no? To search for 'novel' sources or developments is not, per se, to search for...randomly inconsistent John Cage type 'music;' it's to search for 'new' foundations (for a 'consistent' base in->) and/or developments (aka 'consistency') in growth.

2Bcont

LLAP

J:D

[John Dailey]

~ Praxiteles, Michaelangelo, Rodin, Remington, et al were concerned with 'consistency' in statuary-structures, no? (Think what INconsistency would mean in their statues!) We're talking the ancient Greeks' idea of 'harmony-of-elements' here.

~ Freud, Jung, Maslow searched for 'consistency' in the nature of, or the best-that-can-be in Psychological arche-typing. (Pearls, for his few, but good discoveries, reveled in Emerson's view, btw.)

~ Then, there are the 'scientists': Pasteur, Newton, Dirac, Einstein, Hawking. (What IN-'consistent' scientists can one name? Even Velikovsky and Hoyle attempted to be 'consistent'.)

~ "Hobgoblin of little minds", indeed, consistency is; ironically, though, it is The God...of GREAT MINDS.

~ It would take a resentment-filled 'little mind' to see both...and speak only of one, as though it was the other.

LLAP

J:D

Edited August 12, 2007 by John Dailey

[John Dailey]

FOOTNOTE, 'ADDENDUM':

~ Oh, I didn't mention 'Rand', did I?

~ Now THERE's a 'little mind' hobgoblin-ed with concern about 'consistency', no? (of which, way too many hobgoblins chronically attempt to rip-nibble at her attempts, dare I say.)

~ Or, am I mis-interpreting the proper application of Emerson's quote?

~ If I may suggest, for all who've argued pro/con re whichever point in this whole thread, are *you*, in your arguing, concerned with its 'consistency' (in establishing your point), or, aren't you? If so, think of the argued-about quote; if not...think of the quote-source B) .

LLAP

J:D

Edited August 12, 2007 by John Dailey

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

John,

LOL...

If you want a private conversation with Dragonfly, we have OL mail and nobody will jump in. I didn't know you were the jealous type.

(Just joking.) However, the nature of a discussion board is that anyone can jump in anytime, especially if he finds the topic interesting.

You do raise an issue that makes me uncomfortable in Objectivist discussions. You presumed that I "jumped in" to defend Dragonfly. Why would I want to do that? I like him a lot but we often disagree. I especially have no wish to set up a competition and play a game with discussions. I am simply interested in the ideas.

On consistency, every one of the men you mentioned have had their inconsistencies. They repudiated what they discovered was wrong in their past as they discovered and/or created truer and better. For a blatant example, Stravinsky embraced Schoenberg's dodecaphonism as a total inconsistency with his past—and in this particular case, it was a poor choice. Was he less great and envious of others because of it? Or did it take courage?

I think if Emerson were nasty and envious of all the great minds like you claim, he would not have presented great men as his examples (Pythagoras, Socrates, Jesus, Luther, Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton), but instead would have presented the "common man" as a superior kind of being.

But here is one for you. The ARI people currently claim that Ayn Rand had an affair with Nathaniel Branden. That is not consistent with what they preached before for years, when they persecuted people who claimed that the affair existed. Would they have been greater thinkers by staying consistent and continue denying the affair until today or would there be a hobgoblin loose somewhere?

Come to think of it, if you ever think ARI and hobgoblin in the same sentence, it is because of inconsistency or consistency?

And don't you think the idea of consistency and inconsistency is incomplete without discussing what the issue being judged is?

I personally think it is good to be consistent about some issues and absolutely irrational and even evil to be consistent about others.

Michael

[John Dailey]

Mike:

~ No interest in 'PM's (Post Mortems?), 'IM's, 'AIM's or even M&M's, et al (as you may have discovered, by now.)

~ Re the rest: been here too long already; catcha later.

LLAP

J:D

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

John,

Well at least you are consistent.

Michael