Cultural Capital

[Jonathan]

Most of America is not eagerly gulping down postmodernist ideas, or rushing to see exhibitions of Jackson Pollock's paintings, or believes that cannibalism is just another not-to-be-judged way of life.

I personally know of no one who is not revolted by the idea of cannibalism, other than Objectivist gourmand Hannibal Setzer, and perhaps his buddy Joe Rowlands, who appears to believe that respecting the recently dead and those who grieve their loss, as well as avoiding eating them, is an act of "blind worship of tradition."

But then again, who am I to talk? The world is perishing because I like the art that I like. After all, I really enjoy the art of Wassily Kandinsky and Sam Francis, which I think is similar enough to Pollock's work that my liking it must be at least as disgusting and culturally damaging as cannibalism.

Sorry that I've doomed mankind and wrecked everyone's lives with my tastes in art.

Best,

J

[Wolf DeVoon]

But then again, who am I to talk? The world is perishing because I like the art that I like. After all, I really enjoy the art of Wassily Kandinsky and Sam Francis, which I think is similar enough to Pollock's work that my liking it must be at least as disgusting and culturally damaging as cannibalism.

Sorry that I've doomed mankind and wrecked everyone's lives with my tastes in art.

Best,

J

Jonathan,

I read your post and thought about it for an hour. Glad to make your acquaintance. Please consider two items: First, that maybe we can draw a line between politics and art criticism as separate endeavors with nontransferable first principles, although both figure in a cultural result, just like language and science do. Lots of different languages in the world, some of which do not translate well. Bahasa has no past or future tense, no plurals. Plenty of scientific speculation that isn't A=A exactly.

Anyway, let's move on to my second item. In the early 70s I wrote a letter to Miss Rand, attempting to explain why Frank Zappa was the Richard Halley of my generation. This and five other heresies got me excommunicated repeatedly. But I refused to be ostracized. I call myself an Objectivist, no matter what anyone else thinks about my taste in music or movies or dinner menus or the philosophy of law.

I know you're mad. Irony is anger. Let's put art aside and talk about US political culture.

W.

[Jonathan]

Jonathan,

I read your post and thought about it for an hour. Glad to make your acquaintance.

Likewise. I'm glad you're here. I enjoy your writing, including your "literary silliness."

Please consider two items: First, that maybe we can draw a line between politics and art criticism as separate endeavors with nontransferable first principles, although both figure in a cultural result, just like language and science do. Lots of different languages in the world, some of which do not translate well. Bahasa has no past or future tense, no plurals. Plenty of scientific speculation that isn't A=A exactly.

Anyway, let's move on to my second item. In the early 70s I wrote a letter to Miss Rand, attempting to explain why Frank Zappa was the Richard Halley of my generation. This and five other heresies got me excommunicated repeatedly. But I refused to be ostracized. I call myself an Objectivist, no matter what anyone else thinks about my taste in music or movies or dinner menus or the philosophy of law.

I know you're mad. Irony is anger. Let's put art aside and talk about US political culture.

No, not anger. Just a tinge of disappointment, and a light poke at Barbara's comment.

As for political culture, as a hinterlander I find myself in agreement with Barbara's non-art-related sentiments.

J

Edited August 19, 2007 by Jonathan

[Barbara Branden]

Most of America is not eagerly gulping down postmodernist ideas, or rushing to see exhibitions of Jackson Pollock's paintings, or believes that cannibalism is just another not-to-be-judged way of life.

The world is perishing because I like the art that I like. After all, I really enjoy the art of Wassily Kandinsky and Sam Francis, which I think is similar enough to Pollock's work that my liking it must be at least as disgusting and culturally damaging as cannibalism.

Sorry that I've doomed mankind and wrecked everyone's lives with my tastes in art.

Best,

J

Jonathan, did I say the world is perishing because you like Kandinsky and Sam Francis, or that your liking them was disgusting? I don't think I did. I don't know who Sam Francis is, but I've seen Kandinsky paintings I liked. By the way, I don't see his work as the equivalent of Pollock's. I like many aspects of surrealism -- and I don't think I'm destroying the world because of it. Besides, my examples were intended to indicate that middle America is not rushing to embrace whatever are the latest fads of the intellectual elite. Perhaps this was not as clear as it might have been. So, for the record, I would never dream of judging someone morally or psychologically by the paintings -- or the books, or music, or sculpture -- that he liked; certainly not before knowing why he liked them, and probably not even then.

You jumped a bit too fast, I think.

Barbara

[Jonathan]

Jonathan, did I say the world is perishing because you like Kandinsky and Sam Francis, or that your liking them was disgusting? I don't think I did. I don't know who Sam Francis is, but I've seen Kandinsky paintings I liked. By the way, I don't see his work as the equivalent of Pollock's. I like many aspects of surrealism -- and I don't think I'm destroying the world because of it. Besides, my examples were intended to indicate that middle America is not rushing to embrace whatever are the latest fads of the intellectual elite. Perhaps this was not as clear as it might have been.

I guess it wasn't clear to me because I don't see Pollock as one of the latest fads, and I do see much of middle America embracing his art. It's really no longer avant-garde, and it seems that it's no longer the thing to fear and oppose that it once was. I see a lot of people looking at his art as art now rather than as a threat, and more and more people seem to be open to discovering something to like in it.

So, for the record, I would never dream of judging someone morally or psychologically by the paintings -- or the books, or music, or sculpture -- that he liked; certainly not before knowing why he liked them, and probably not even then.

Then I misunderstood. You seemed to be suggesting that the idea of people not rushing to see exhibitions of Pollock's paintings is an indication of their good character and sanity, which seems to imply a moral or psychological judgment of those who do rush to see his work, or to see similar art.

You jumped a bit too fast, I think.

Okay, but can you see why I took you to be saying something that you apparently weren't?

Btw, my post really was meant to be more funny/sarcastic than angry.

Best,

J

[Barbara Branden]

You jumped a bit too fast, I think.

Okay, but can you see why I took you to be saying something that you apparently weren't?

Btw, my post really was meant to be more funny/sarcastic than angry.

Best,

J

Yes, Jonathan, I can see it. I was assuming people here knew my attitude toward judging people morally by their artistic tastes, but that probably was a mistake. Sorry I wasn't clear.

I didn't think you were angry, I took it as you meant it: funny and sarcastic -- but with a serious meaning. So I wanted to clear up any misunderstanding.

Barbara

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

Great point about preaching:

A preacher only cares about what you think. He isn't concerned about what he thinks anymore. He stopped thinking about that long ago. He is concerned about controlling how you think and that is his entire focus. He wants conversion, not intellectual trade. All his arguments are designed to ensnare you, trip you up, doubt yourself without questioning his approach, make you agree against your will, etc.

Much of what Leonard Peikoff has to say about "the arbitrary" makes sense only when understood as preaching, not as philosophical exposition or argument.

And if you compare what Dr. Peikoff says about "the arbitrary" in "Fact and Value" with what he says in OPAR, you will find that the sphere of "the arbitrary" is much narrower in "Fact and Value." Apparently this is because in "Fact and Value" he wants to recruit the reader into a specific campaign against tolerance of "inherently dishonest ideas," and an idea put forward or maintained dishonestly is one that its proponent knows to be false.

Robert Campbell

[Wolf DeVoon]

This is a sad day for me. I stumbled on a US Supreme Court decision (not to grant cert, ending appeals). See this webpage for fact and implications.

An Arizona man was sentenced to 200 years imprisonment without possibility of parole or pardon, a first offender, for possession of 20 computer images. No, that's not a typographical error. Two hundred years in prison. He did not take the photos. He did not distribute or sell them. He downloaded them from the web. Police acted on a "tip."

Please take a minute to digest the Berger case, linked above, and compare Architecture of Liberal Democracy (pdf). Thank you.

W.

Note: I have been incapacitated by a headache all day, trying to think this through, calibrate what it portends.

We interrupt this thread to bring you an important bulletin on Lindsay Perigo's karma.

Edited August 21, 2007 by Wolf DeVoon

[Robert Campbell]

Wolf,

Funny you should mention Frank Zappa:

In the early 70s I wrote a letter to Miss Rand, attempting to explain why Frank Zappa was the Richard Halley of my generation. This and five other heresies got me excommunicated repeatedly.

If I'd written a letter to Ayn Rand back then--I must admit that from what I knew of her personality in the early 1970s, I considered writing to her to be a fool's errand--I would have included a brief for FZ's music.

Robert Campbell

[Philip Coates]

> ...I stumbled on a US Supreme Court decision (not to grant cert, ending appeals). See this webpage for fact and implications.... Please take a minute to digest the Berger case, linked above, and compare Architecture of Liberal Democracy (pdf).

Wolf, I don't know if it's just me, but I have a lot of email, websites, threads, newspaper articles to read already and you're asking people to click on a series of links just out of curiosity. Just a sentence of summary accompanying links, youtube videos, etc. would be great if people did that, identifying or summarizing the nature of what they want people to take a look at.

By the way, I've just been banned by Lindsay Perigo from Solo . . . for being *too critical* and too negative of all things :-)

[see Monthy Message--July thread on SoloPassion.]

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

By the way, I've just been banned by Lindsay Perigo from Solo . . . for being *too critical* and too negative of all things :-)

[see Monthy Message--July thread on SoloPassion.]

Phil,

I forgive you.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Well, Phil, when in Rome do as the Romans do. You didn't.

--Brant

[Philip Coates]

Actually, it wouldn't be so bad if he weren't constantly posting about how anyone can say anything on Solo, no censorship, come here and criticize us on our site. We welcome dissent, both sides, etc.

And then banning me because I was "pooping on Solo's parade" a lot.

A cute bit of sophistry which most of the regulars on his site are apparently too dumb or inattentive to grasp:

1. He says its bad form to come into someone's home and constantly criticize the "host". But there is a difference between a private residence or a social outing and a website devoted to free discussion and debate. Where that is actually what you are *supposed* to do in the name of having both sides presented and a full and fair discussion.

2. And there is a difference between "raining on a parade" -- a concept which applies to happy events, good news, etc. -- and making strong criticisms of something that in someone's view is going in a wrong direction and it would be harmful to remain silent about.

Linz so often uses loaded emotionalist rhetoric of a boozy, sophomoric kind -- not as a supplement to careful, precise language or argument but as a substitute for it -- that it's almost embarrassing to have to puncture it.

As for not being allowed to post on Solo? It's a near-mortal wound, but I think I may recover.

[Not quite sure if this deserves its own thread, so I'll just post it here.]

[Brant Gaede]

Phil,

He just didn't want to read you any longer. It's interesting that banned or dropped members can no longer have their posts tracked: "You are not authorized to access this page." In my case I am grateful, for I wasn't able to butcher up all my SOLOP posts that I wanted to. (Posts that were replied to can't be edited.) Now everything is effectively buried and deeper buried as time goes by. Perigo has two great virtues. He's an excellent polemical writer and he's great at chasing smarmy NZ politicos around the table of truth. However, he's even less an intellectual than Joe Rowlands. I think he wasn't capable of engaging you.

--Brant

[Chris Grieb]

Phil; Consider it their loss.

I stopped posting there about the time I found OL.

Michael; Thank you maintaining a great site.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil,

There is a problem in the way Objectivism is applied by many people I have read in one issue or the other—or even generally. I call it a problem of confusing kind and degree (and as another related kind of problem, confusing cognitive and normative abstractions). I mention it here because what you just experienced is a different brand of this problem—one that is not so obvious.

To explain, there is no intellectual area more important than values (morality) for using degree in one's thinking. As living organisms with complex interrelated biological and psychological systems, we often find that what is good for one part is not so good for another part, so it must be qualified and a degree of importance established. Food is a good example. Our taste buds might love chocolate, but our digestive system will turn too much consumption of it into fat, belly-aches, etc. So we temper the importance of chocolate in two manners of measurement: cardinal (fixed quantities) and ordinal (relative value in relation to other foods). If we simply go with our taste buds, we would OD on chocolate and neglect other nutrients. What is good in small doses becomes bad in large ones.

I see lack of this kind of thinking among Objectivists with the concept of "evil" or (currently) "Muslim" or (from the orthodoxy) "anti-Rand/enemy of Objectivism" or so many other concepts. There is a good/evil mental switch these people use that works like an on/off switch with no degrees or context allowed. Let's call this hardening of the categories (which is a bit humorous, but deadly accurate).

When we get a person (like Perigo) who salivates at the thought of being an Objectivist guru and has this mental malady in an advanced stage—and he peppers his discourse with rude manners and vulgar speech—he soon has a huge problem with audience. People (of all stripes) rightly look at his behavior, call it a pile of intellectual BS and move on.

In order to counter this reaction, it is necessary to give the impression of objectivity. But in order to wield power and become a legend in one's own time (the wet dreams of the guru wannabe), one has to be inflexible. This creates opposing standards of behavior to promote. One cannot be objective and dogmatic at the same time.

You know the old routine. If you repeat a lie loud and long enough, some people eventually will believe it (especially newcomers). And this is the point where the "Solo Passion welcomes dissent" mis-identification enters. This smokescreen is loudly touted as a difference of kind. The idea is that other places in Objectivist-land are close-minded (both orthodox and independent) and that Solo Passion is not because it welcomes discussion from all quarters—and particularly welcomes passionate discussion. This last is stated to separate it from TAS, which Perigo and minions constantly accuse of being wimpy.

But the real difference is one of degree, not kind. In terms of kind, Solo Passion actually does need and encourages dissent to maintain the appearance of objectivity. But that is where it ends. Only a certain degree of dissent can be tolerated, otherwise the core value (forming a tribe) will be negatively impacted. It needs weak dissent so that the dissenter can be trounced in an orgy of vulgarity with praises to Rand (and suck-ups to Perigo thrown in once in a while to keep him as guru-leader in mind). Competent dissent against the site and/or the people whom Perigo values (like Valliant) is not tolerated since objectivity challenges his authority. (If he were competent, this would not be a problem.)

But if you praise Perigo, you can even argue for the existence of God as consonant with Objectivist metaphysics and this will be welcomed with open arms (see the recent discussions by Bill Tingley). I suspect you could even argue that Objectivism is pure evil using that method.

It is easy to call all this a personality cult and personal promotion, especially with a buffoon type like Perigo, but I think many of the people involved are sincere—even Perigo at times. (See the Wikipedia description of buffoon, which includes: "In the more modern sense, the term [buffoon] is frequently used in a derogatory sense to describe someone considered a public fool, or someone whose inappropriately vulgar, bumbling, or ridiculous behavior is a source of general amusement.")

The best I have been able to discern to account for the sincerity part so far is that an intellectual mush—an almost arbitrary flip-flopping of degree and kind (and cognitive and normative abstractions)—happens in the way some Objectivists integrate the philosophy per se, and integrate the philosophy with their emotions. That, I think, accounts for what you call "sophistry" and allows blatant contradictions to exist in an intellectual environment without being challenged.

That kind of mentality is a quintessential follower mentality. All you need to do is say "I'm the leader" in public and you will attract many of these kinds of people by default. If you can provide the appearance of a moral sanction for this intellectual mishmash, you can become a tribe leader and the members of your tribe will not even perceive that they belong to a tribe.

The only cure is for people to think for themselves. In my own thinking, I try to keep in mind whether I am identifying kind or degree, and whether I am identifying or evaluating. This makes many seemingly complicated issues simple, but it often gets me in trouble. I think that's a small price to pay for knowing with complete rational certainty that I am doing the best I can.

In short, you were banned not because you dissented, but because you were too good at it. (Degree, not kind.) You refused to be trounced and argued with a lot of competence. This weakened the moral authority of Perigo (who is an incompetent Objectivist, but competent guru-wannabe—mind you, that means "competent wannabe," not "competent guru"). He finally woke up because there is a lot of fresh young meat that showed up. Keeping you around would spoil his game.

Michael

[william.scherk]

As for not being allowed to post on Solo? It's a near-mortal wound, but I think I may recover.

You will recover, Phil. Perhaps, when the SOLO readership dwindles even further, you will be invited back . Hypocrisy (of the SOLO type) does not demand consistency of itself.

What I find interesting about the shrinking-readership SOLO is: how low can it go? How demented and shrill can it get? How unceasingly rabid-dog extreme can it become, before "1 members, 4 guests" is the solid core. How long before it fails to pay its fee and disappears into ephemera? I find the last three months to actually be a vindication of those who predicted its demise -- demise due to in-fighting and corrupt leadership.

In any case, America (and its wonderful ideals/peoples) will survive for a while longer, either due to the principles of its founding, or to inertia . . . I find our human lives are too short to be a good measure of history (as in "the end" of this or that) and its ultimate import. If you have a lot to be pessimistic about, consider the alternatives . . . you could be Canada.

[Robert Campbell]

Phil,

Getting banned by Lindsay Perigo is a badge of honor.

SOLOP is losing readers. Most threads on the site are no longer interesting.

Soon, Mr. Perigo will blow his stack at Neil Parille one too many times. Then there won't be anything new on the site that's worth reading.

Robert Campbell

[Barbara Branden]

What I think is hilarious is that I was told Fred Weiss -- Fred Weiss! -- left Solo because of Lindsay's insults.

Barbara

[Philip Coates]

> You will recover, Phil.

I don't know, William, it's been tough.

My none too strong ego has been shattered, and I have been drinking steadily for the last 48 hours. Jack Daniels has become my new best friend.

Urp.

[Philip Coates]

> Fred Weiss -- Fred Weiss! -- left Solo because of Lindsay's insults

Now that's funny.

[Ellen Stuttle]

What I think is hilarious is that I was told Fred Weiss -- Fred Weiss! -- left Solo because of Lindsay's insults.

Barbara

Do you have any documentation of the truth of what you were told? I doubt the truth of the report. I think that what happened is that Fred Weiss stopped posting when the policy changed to requiring a photo -- May or thereabouts? Weiss's last post dates from whenever the photo-requirement deadline was.

Ellen

___

[Chris Grieb]

Barbara; Is this the "Fred Weiss" associated with Paper Tiger? I have to say I don't get the joke.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Chris,

Fred Weiss is a competent niche publisher and book seller. Paper Tiger caters to Rand lovers, featuring books she read, publications by those close to Peikoff, and so forth.

As an intellectual, Weiss is a caricature-perfect Randroid. He is well known on several forums for his verbal excesses, hostility, rude manners and convoluted reasoning. He used to brag on SLOP that he was an "attack dog."

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; I have dealt with Fred Weiss at Paper Tiger and he has been very helpful to me. I'm sorry to hear about this other side of him.