Ominous Parallels?

[Roger Bissell]

In these turbulent, troubled tims, three points from "For the New Intellectual" (pp. 20-1, ppbk) seem appropriate here:

1. "Attila and the Witch Doctor form an alliance and divide their respective domains...Attila rules by means of fear, by keeping men under a constant threat of destruction--the Witch Doctor rules by means of guilt, by keeping men convinced of their innate depravity, impotence and insignificance."

Ask yourself who is lining up a media event during TOC's summer seminar and at which he will take his shots at Nathaniel and Barbara -- and who write books and blogs making massive amounts of personal attacks on the character and integrity of Nathaniel, Barbara, David Kelley et al, and Chris.

2. "Against whom is this alliance formed?...the men who produce."

Ask yourself who in the Objectivist movement has been even one-half as productive as Nathaniel, in terms of books published about philosophy and psychology? (OK, Tibor Machan -- but he's probably next on their list!) What is even more outrageous to me is that one of the Witch Doctors making the most virulent attacks against Nathaniel, Barbara, and Chris has yet to write a single book, and one of the leading Attilas apparently needs to READ four more books before he has read more books than Chris has WRITTEN ! (This is only a minor exaggeration. With "Sense of Life Objectivism" as your touchstone, reading is just an unnecessary nuisance, don't you know.)

3. [The good news] "...the alliance of the two rulers is precarious: it is based on mutual fear and mutual contempt."

In other words, all of this stupendous torrent of judgmentalness and belligerence by certain parties -- ALL OF IT -- amounts to nothing more than the PROJECTION outward onto their enemies of the loathing and suspicion they feel toward each other. The werewolves and the vampires will eventually turn on each other. They always do.

Folks -- this is not the proudest moment for the Objectivist movement, but it may be the moment when the fever breaks and the infection subsides...IF we can hunker down and let them impotently bluster on and on and show their viciousness for what it is. I will continue to bite my own tongue. Jumping into this mess would only encourage them. There are times when there is nothing you can say that will help things, and your most sincere, righteous, civil comments will be used against you -- not to mention things said in confidence!

It's obvious that the Attilas and Witch Doctors are operating by the precarious rule of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

I think we should all operate by a similar rule: "the enemy of my friend is NOT my friend." In other words, beware of anyone who has already publicly trashed people you care about. (I don't mean "criticized." I mean "character-attacked.") If they approach you with kind or civil words, DO NOT TRUST THEM.

I intend to focus on my work, my family and friends, and being happy--and I hope you will all do the same.

Best premises,

Roger

P.S. -- For you lurkers from Poodle Poop and So-Low Bashin', I invite you to check out my other RANT entitled "Case Dismissed!"

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

What you are doing is the best medicine. Taking care of your life is the number one priority.

I fully agree about the folly of trying to debate the ill-willed on their own turf. There is a problem, though. I'll illustrate by metaphor.

If you are farmer and you receive a vermin attack, you have to deal with it in some manner. Otherwise, the vermin will damage all your hard work. Do you simply devote all your energies to the vermin and ignore planting, weeding, harvesting, feeding the livestock, etc.? Of course not. You go on with your productive work, but if you don't deal with the vermin in some manner, they will make their presence felt destructively.

What you did in this post is a good example of what needs to be done. Break down the principles rationally and show clearly what is going on. Doing this in Rand's language is certainly appropriate. The true-believers who sympathize with the attack are beyond rational thought, so there is absolutely no reason to try to convince them.

However, people who want to understand - who are living their lives and do not have the time, mental energy or inclination to read all the posts and articles in order to analyze a loud attack like this - will come to places like OL seeking some kind of overview. We can provide them with a road-map of what to look for.

That is exactly what I intend to do. And you are also doing this brilliantly with your For the New Intellectual analogy.

What Hsieh and Perigo are trying to accomplish reminds me very much of the small "clubs" Toohey founded in The Fountainhead. At the beginning, nobody took them seriously. Then they started growing and attacking people - until they finally went after full control of the Banner. That was their whole purpose.

Notice the rhetoric. Perigo wants to control who does or does not deal with Objectivism. He talks about shakedowns, "good riddance" and all that kind of bluster (on his own site, of course, since he would not be taken seriously at any neutral place). He makes it very clear, also, who is to be in charge after the presumed purge.

I agree with you that Hsieh is aiming higher. All she is doing is attacking right now - the bigger the better, plus putting together a small body of cultural observations. This makes her a much stronger player.

Rand understood how this mechanism works from observing it in Russia. She spent her whole life combating it. It is supremely ironic that this is now being done in her name.

Michael

[C. Jordan]

The same leader can easily be Attila and the Witch Doctor at the same time. Kim Jong-il uses both tactics: by teaching everyone from childhood on that his father (Kim Il-sung) and he are (in effect) God, that everything good in the world was created by them, he tells people to feel guilty for anything they may say, do, or think against him. If that doesn't work, there are the same tactics his father used. And his father used the same tactics as Iosef Stalin.

Or the tactics are combined at once: if anyone dares to leave North Korea, his or her family will be punished in some way. The only question is not whether this punishment is barbaric, but how barbaric it is.

However, this topic was Ominous Parallels with regard to some of the true believers. And therefore let me continue with North Korea, drawing a few broad parallels between Kim Jong-il and Leonard Peikoff. And before I do that, I should make it clear that I am not comparing Ayn Rand to Kim Il-sung.

The official doctrine of North Korea is called "Juche," a word which can be translated literally as "self-reliance." North Korea is disastrously non-productive, not only compared to South Korea but even compared to Vietnam, Mexico, and Sénégal; but that is still what the name means. In practice, Juche is "Communism according to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il" and Juche requires one to believe that only these teachings are to be considered true. Every dictator demands conformity; the only thing striking about Juche is the extremes of conformity.

Leonard Peikoff is not demanding the same degree of conformity. It must also be said that Ayn Rand could, and did, write intelligent ideas in masterful prose. Kim Il-sung wrote unconvincing doctrine, and Kim Jong-il orders others to write his unconvincing doctrine for him. The difference must be underscored, and if I had to choose between conforming to Objectivism or to Juche, I would choose the former.

But with these differences underscored, Peikoff, by saying Objectivism is a closed system, demands conformity. He says the words of Ayn Rand are eternal. This is what Kim Jong-il says about the teachings of his father.

No one believes that Kim Jong-il would be anyone important, were his father not Kim Il-sung. Further: Kim Il-sung would have been nobody had Stalin not placed him in power after World War II. The same thing can be said for Leonard Peikoff. What would he have written, or done, if he had not been Ayn Rand's literary heir? Has he written anything that does more than repeat what Ayn Rand said before?

North Korea boasts of its doctrine, even though the Great Leader Kim Il-sung was unable to persuade any other nation to accept Juche. Leonard Peikoff has been unable to persuade most people to accept Objectivism-as-a-doctrine. People continue to read Ayn Rand's works, and continue to learn from her ideas; but official-Objectivism, meaning conformity to a, only appears to exist in a minority.

The strongest parallel is that Peikoff appears committed to maintaining Ayn Rand's perfect image, just as Kim Jong-il does with his father. In North Korea, you can go to jail for folding a picture of Kim, father or son. That might sound like a joke, but it is not. Leonard Peikoff, and other true believers, have not done that. But they do behave as though any criticism of Ayn Rand is a criticism of rationality or reason as such.

Let me show Dr. Peikoff a courtesy which he did not show to David Kelley: I do not think that any of these parallels mean that Dr. Peikoff is another Kim Jong-il, and I'm not accusing him of collaborating with Pyongyang. I have no doubt that Dr. Peikoff hates North Korea. We should not push a metaphor too far.

I am saying that these parallels do exist, and that official-Objectivism, the closed system, bears a stronger resemblance to a doctrine than to the inspirational example of Howard Roark. That is as far as I am pushing this metaphor. I think that has gone precisely far enough.