Your TAS Dollars at Work

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

In fact, I like this series of posts so much, I want it on record here if that is OK with you. If you object, let me know and I will remove the posts.

For the readers, the links are provided and you can go to the SOLOP thread where the posts are, but do not expect any answers of substance from the locals. If you enjoy heckling, there is some free entertainment available.

Michael

Not here at Mr. Rowlands' request

Submitted by Robert Campbell on Mon, 2008-01-14 04:11.

Mr. Dawe,

You've said a couple of things that are worthy of note:

"If Joe [Rowlands] needed a defense, which I don't think he does, you would be the last person I'd pick to do it."

Mr. Rowlands didn't ask me to defend him. I barely know him. Nor have I ever imagined that he is in need of my help.

My point was simply that Mr. Perigo keeps charging Mr. Rowlands with a crime, and failing to provide evidence of such. If Mr. Perigo can't substantiate his charges, his continuing to make them is proof of irresponsibility.

And TAS needs to invite a speaker with such a record of public irresponsibility... why?

I kinda wonder whether you brought this up because Mr. Perigo has so much trouble understanding how anyone could defend one of his innumerable enemies, unless that enemy was personally behind it.

You know, like Neil Parille allegedly criticizing Mr. Valliant's book only because Barbara Branden told him to do it. Mr. Perigo has repeatedly alleged that this is going on, when in fact it is not, and as a consequence Mr. Perigo can produce no evidence for his assertion.

I asked Mr. Perigo to substantiate his assertion about Mr. Parille. He hasn't. He can't.

Of course, he hasn't retracted it, either. And I suspect he won't.

You also said:

"I wanted to chime in here and point out that Robert Campbell's whole tone and attitude in his posts here are rotten."

Well, thank you for the constructive criticism. It just brims with helpful content.

Mr. Perigo told me that my rottenness was stinking, cackling, and conscientious. Mr. Valliant added old and boring to the stew.

Can't you at least come up with a descriptor of your own?

Robert Campbell

Mr. Winefield's disparate standards

Submitted by Robert Campbell on Mon, 2008-01-14 04:17.

Mr. Winefield,

Your admonitions to me on this thread have now included:

"By all means discuss Nathaniel and Ayn over your favorite brew, but stop blowing the bloody thing and her legendary temper out of all possible proportion."

Have you ever said anything like that to Mr. Valliant? Writing a 400-page back on Nathaniel and Ayn might be construed as blowing a lot of things out of all possible proportion.

Have you ever said anything like that to Mr. Perigo? Since "Drooling Beast," he can't seem to quit blowing the Nathaniel and Ayn thing out of all possible proportion.

Your admonitions to Neil Parille have included:

"Please Neil, can you take this to another thread so I can continue reading this one and ignoring your morbid fascination with what James thinks. The man is married OK, he's off the market. Go stalk another author."

So a persistent critic of Mr. Valliant's book is stalking Mr. Valliant.

Since Mr. Perigo can't stop publicly frothing about a bunch of people--Chris Sciabarra, Barbara Branden, Michael Stuart Kelley come to mind--is he stalking each of them?

It seems to me that you have one set of standards for Mr. Perigo and his allies, and a completely different set of standards for anyone you deem an enemy of Mr. Perigo and his allies.

So why should anyone take your disparate standards seriously?

Robert Campbell

Moral lapses: Ayn Rand's and other people's

Submitted by Robert Campbell on Mon, 2008-01-14 04:21.

Mr. Valliant is pretending, as he so often does, that we've never discussed this subject before.

Good God amighty, we've nearly worried it to death.

Those who want details should consult the archives of SOLOHQ (either here or at Rebirth of Reason) as well as the archives of SOLOPassion (from the spring of 2006).

But I'm going to net it out, one last time, for those who are inclined to accept Mr. Valliant's statements at face value. Only example 5 below is new.

First, I judge Ayn Rand's moral perfection against *her* announced standards, not my personal standards, Christian standards, Buddhist standards, Stoic standards, Kantian standards, or what have you.

Second, the evidence that Mr. Valliant and his claque absolutely cannot impeach comes from Ayn Rand's published statements. (Mr. Valliant, you see, adamantly refuses to accept any negative judgments about Ms. Rand's character or actions from persons who knew her, unless their last name is Peikoff.)

1. Ayn Rand considered arguments from intimidation to be deliberate instances of irrationality and dishonesty. Her slam at Bertrand Russell ("Observe what Bertrand Russell was able to perpetrate") in ITOE condemns Russell and anyone who might be inclined to accept his position ("because people 'kinda knew' the concept of number"), without saying how he committed errors or fallacies, or establishing that he committed them on purpose. Classic argument from intimidation. Therefore, Ayn Rand committed a breach of rationality, therefore, by her definition of moral perfection as unbreached rationality, she had a moral lapse.

2. Ayn Rand claimed, in the preface to the 2nd edition of We the Living, that her editorial changes had no effect on the philosophical meaning of anything in the book. In fact, she deleted statements by Kira Argounova condemning the ideal of justice for all and acclaiming the mass coercion employed by the Communists ("I loathe your ideals; I admire your methods"). Obviously, Ms. Rand was right to take these statements out, but wrong to say that they did not affect the philosophical meaning of the book. Hence she lied, hence committed a breach of rationality, etc. etc. (You could get her off the hook for lying, but only on the assumption that she honestly believed that the changes made no philosophical difference. I doubt, however, that Mr. Valliant would be content with the conclusion that she wasn't lying because she was delusional instead.)

3. Ayn Rand wrote an article about "psychologizing," in which she presented a loaded concept; indeed, in the text of her own article repeatedly indulged in the very practices that she claimed to oppose. In other words, she made inferences about other people's motives that by her own stated criteria were improper. Apparently they did not qualify as "psychologizing" for subjective reasons--because she was making the inferences and not someone else. By Rand's own criteria, she was hatching and promoting an anti-concept, which according to her is always irrational... I think you know the rest of the chain of reasoning.

4. In 1968, Ayn Rand published an article titled "To Whom It May Concern," on a subject dear to Mr. Valliant's heart. In it she withheld some little pieces of relevant information, such as her affair with Nathaniel Branden, her anger at him for jilting her, and so on. According to one of her answers after a lecture (now in Ayn Rand Answers) half truths are a particularly vicious form of lying. She concluded the article with a demand that everyone in earshot condemn Nathaniel Branden for unspecified moral infractions, for which she had provided no evidence. Demanding the acceptance of a statement on faith is one of the worst kinds of irrationality in the Randian canon. (The meticulously fair-minded Mr. Valliant condemns the half-truths in Nathaniel and Barbara Branden's answer to Ayn Rand, while completely ignoring the half-truths in her article.)

5. In her last Ford Hall Forum speech, in 1981, Ayn Rand declared that the theory of evolution is the only scientific theory in its field and that a lot of "valid" evidence supports it. But she still refused to take a stand on evolution, though she ripped anybody who didn't want it taught in schools! By Peikovian standards, if you believe what Ms. Rand believed about evolution, you should conclude that some form of evolutionary theory is probable. Not taking a stand, when in possession of relevant evidence, is agnosticism, which in turn Dr. Peikoff condemns as one of the worst forms of irrationality. Hence Rand's position was plainly irrational, according to standards elaborated by Dr. Peikoff and endorsed by herself.

These are all facts in the public record. No new biography is likely to revise them or change their import in any significant way.

So, yes, objectivity requires acknowledging that Ayn Rand committed moral lapses. Over and out.

(I should add that Ms. Rand's own stated standards, as in "And I mean it," implied that she was a living, breathing equivalent of Howard Roark, or John Galt. Hence, the mere fact that she became depressed in 1958 was an indication of moral failure. But this kind of halfway Stoicism is so far removed from real human possibilities that I'm not going to address it further here.)

Now, have I committed moral lapses, by Rand's standards in 1 through 5?

Sure.

I've lied to people.

I've tried to convince myself of stuff that I could easily have known was bullshit.

I've done mean-spirited things.

I've treated people unfairly when I knew better than to do that.

And so on.

Am I proud of having done any of this? No. Am I planning on doing this stuff in the future? No. Does that mean I'll never do any of it? I can't give anyone, including myself, a 100% money-back guarantee on that. I'll just have to try my best.

On to Mr. Valliant now.

Mr. Valliant can't even admit (in a recent exchange with Neil Parille) that his book misquotes a key passage in Barbara Branden's biography--a passage that pertains to one of the most incendiary issues under discussion, namely Frank O'Connor's drinking. Nor can he admit that he substituted an unattributed statement from Jeff Walker's book The Ayn Rand Cult in its place, although anyone who compares the sources can see exactly what happened. Instead, he blasts Mr. Parille over irrelevancies and (for the nth time) impugns his motives.

People who refuse to admit errors when caught red-handed in them, preferring to go after the purported motives of their critics, are lying. Lying is dishonest, dishonesty is irrational... again if know anything about the Objectivist ethics you can follow the chain of implications.

If you care to follow the exchanges between Mr. Valliant and his critics, you will find manifold other examples of this type.

Oh, and since Mr. Valliant is once again denying his allegiance to the Leonard Peikoff, er, Ayn Rand Institute, I direct readers to his statement, up-thread, of essential agreement with "Fact and Value." Since one of the theses of "Fact and Value" is that everyone in Rand-land must heed and obey Ms. Rand's designated vicar on earth, Pope Leonard I, and only the Ayn Rand Institute exhibits what Dr. Peikoff would consider adequate deference to his papal authority, Mr. Valliant is insulting his audience's intelligence with these denials. Those who wish to study the archives of this site and of SOLOHQ will, in fact, discover that Mr. Valliant has yet to find fault with a single decision by the leadership of the Ayn Rand Institute or by the Estate of Ayn Rand. Walks like a..., swims like a... , quacks like a...

Such smarmy denials of the obvious--and Mr. Valliant has indulged in many others that I won't mention, for fear of stretching this post out to insufferable length--are all moral breaches, according to the Objectivist ethics.

Finally, to Mr. Fahy.

Everything that applies to Mr. Valliant applies with equal force to his sidekick, Mr. Fahy. The only noticeable difference is that Mr. Fahy does less slipping and sliding than Mr. Valliant, and goes completely off-argument into extravagant verbal abuse faster than Mr. Valliant does.

Might be a few moral lapses in there...

True, there are some Fahyan gems that I would not chalk up to any intent to intimidate, or to deceive. In the present thread: "Unjust anger is only immoral if intentional." Well, gee, what is unjust is contrary to the virtue of justice, and virtuous and vicious action are understood by Objectivism to be intentional .... So how could there be unintentionally unjust anger?

To explain these, mere incompetence will suffice.

Robert Campbell

Outreach and inreach

Submitted by Robert Campbell on Mon, 2008-01-14 04:22.

Jim (H-N),

I'd like to amend what I said about The New Individualist publishing a review of Mr. Valliant's book.

I understand that Robert Bidinotto considers his magazine an outreach publication that purposely does not focus on matters of interest only within Rand-land. And he is precisely right that the book has gotten no attention and made no waves outside of Rand-land.

I still think, however, that the TAS leadership needs to respond in some way to a book that covertly but insistently seeks to reject the message of Truth and Toleration by linking the enduring value of Objectivism to the moral perfection of Ayn Rand. For starters, the entire leadership ought to read the book.

Robert Campbell

Arbitrary assertions

Submitted by Robert Campbell on Mon, 2008-01-14 04:28.

Mr. Cathcart,

It's unwise to take statements about events that you've previously admitted knowing little or nothing about, put pieces of them in bold print, and declare the phrases and sentences in bold to be whoppers. You are much more likely to put your own ignorance on display than to mount any effective criticism.

And before ridiculing anyone for criticizing the doctrine of the arbitrary assertion, you might benefit from a close reading of the relevant sections of Dr. Peikoff's OPAR.

I challenge you to identify clearly what makes an assertion arbitrary, then to provide evidence for all of the dire attributes that Dr. Peikoff tells us must belong to such an assertion. For instance, how an arbitrary assertion gets to be neither true nor false, or wronger than wrong and worse than bad. Or how anyone who produces such an assertion becomes (temporarily?) dumber than a parrot.

A close comparison between the doctrine as propounded by Nathaniel Branden in the early 1960s and Leonard Peikoff during the mid 1960s and in subsequent years might also prove informative.

Unless, of course, you still hold to a position you enunciated during our last round of exchanges on this board. Do you still think that expecting people who are honestly crediting published work on Objectivism to cite the early work of Nathaniel Branden is asking them to "suck [NB's] cock"?

But, OK, let's suppose that the doctrine is legit, in the formulation we know from OPAR.

Surely, then, Mr. Perigo's assertion that Neil Parille criticizes Mr. Valliant's book on orders from Barbara Branden is arbitrary. He has provided no evidence or reasons for it.

From which it apparently follows that Mr. Perigo has made a claim that "cannot be cognitively processed," that it is sheerly contextless and impossible to locate in an epistemological hierarchy, and that indulgence in such claims is entrenching his inner chaos for life.

All of that, just from making one wild guess or unsubstantiated assertion?

Wow!

Robert Campbell

PS. Before I put the quietus to my entertaining visit to this site, I will explain why I put forward a certain hypothesis about Mr. Perigo and Mr. Valliant's current projects. If you want to argue against it, be my guest. But I will tell you exactly why I think it might be true. So calling it arbitrary will get you nowhere.

Shark repellent

Submitted by Robert Campbell on Mon, 2008-01-14 04:32.

"Oh the shark has pretty teeth, dear

And he shows 'em, pearly white"

--Brecht/ Weill/ Blitzstein, Mack the Knife

Jim,

I apologize for suggesting that you may have shaded any of your judgments to suit the audience at either SOLOPassion or ObjectivistLiving.

I believe you really do call 'em as you see 'em, and I'm sorry I doubted you.

But I don't think you have any idea how far outside the candor zone Mr. Perigo and Mr. Valliant customarily operate.

Do you realize how starkly Mr. Perigo and Mr. Valliant loathe Barbara Branden's 2006 talk on Objectivist rage?

Have you listened to the audio of Mr. Perigo's 2006 counter-talk at the Borders bookstore in Orange? The one that was supposed to slay the serpent by discrediting Ms. Branden's talk, and proving the enduring excellence of raging Randianism?

Have you noted how Mr. Perigo and Mr. Valliant make no reference to the October 2007 Atlas Shrugged commemoration in Washington, DC? What a lineup of speakers: Charles Murray, Rob Bradley, Anne Heller, Mimi Gladstein, Doug Rasmussen, Tibor Machan, John Fund, John Stossel, John Aglialoro, Ed Younkins, Howard Baldwin... I was impressed and uplifted by it, and I've heard glowing reviews from many others who attended. Many regard it as the best event TAS has ever put on. Go back through this board and see how many good words it got over here.

Now ask yourself who didn't speak there: Lindsay Perigo and Jim Valliant. Ask yourself who might have spoiled their fun by speaking there. We all know who did: Nathaniel and Barbara Branden.

Right now Messrs. Perigo and Valliant are uncomfortably aware of attention from The Atlas Society, so they are trying to maintain a semblance of good behavior.

But their silence about that event, one of very best things that organization has done, is a clear indicator of their deep despisal for TAS.

If they were not so desperately in need of your support, they would have lit into you mercilessly for praising Barbara Branden's talk.

They will light into you, as soon as the spotlight is off them. It may just take a little while.

Another example. You apparently accepted at face value Mr. Perigo's somewhat novel defense of his role in trashing Chris Sciabarra:

"Re the "inexcusable" publishing of Sciabarra's e-mails in Diana's article—we've been through this, have we not? All things being equal, of course one should not publish private e-mails. But the man was using confidentiality as a cloak for dishonest smearing and backstabbing. That was what was truly inexcusable. In the circumstances publication was entirely justified in my view. ... As I saw it, Sciabarra was clandestinely initiating force; exposing what he was up to was self-defence."

The novel part is the assertion that Chris Sciabarra was initiating force against Lindsay Perigo.

Remarkably, though a raucous public controversy that ran for something like 3 weeks and consumed hundreds of posts, Mr. Perigo never charged Dr. Sciabarra with initiating force against him.

Mr. Perigo has just discovered this initiation of force, nearly two years later.

Of what crime does he suppose Dr. Sciabarra to have been guilty?

You must have noticed that he doesn't say.

If Mr. Perigo has evidence for this criminal charge, let him supply it.

Otherwise, the appropriate inference must be that if anyone sufficiently displeases Mr. Perigo, he will go after that person using every underhanded means at his disposal. What happened to Chris Sciabarra can and will happen to others.

For I've yet to encounter any serious criticism of Mr. Perigo's behavior that he does not dismiss as a dishonest smear.

They're going to be lighting into you soon enough about this issue, too.

Keep your shark repellent close at hand, Jim. You're swimming with the triangular fin boys now.

Robert Campbell

Mr. Perigo and Mr. Valliant's plans

Submitted by Robert Campbell on Mon, 2008-01-14 04:54.

Why do I think that Mr. Perigo and Mr. Valliant want to take over The Atlas Society?

I don't *know* this. It is a hypothesis, and I present it as such.

Here's why I think it's plausible.

1. Mr. Perigo and Mr. Valliant have no genuine positive regard for The Atlas Society. For the last two and a half years, they have more often than not expressed withering contempt for it.

2. Mr. Valliant's personal loyalty and ideological allegiance, despite his periodic denials, are to the Ayn Rand Institute. He is a long-time associate of Leonard Peikoff's who claims to believe that "Fact and Value" is true.

But Mr. Valliant has not experienced the career boost that he expected when he published The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics.

Outside of Rand-land, the book has not sold a lick, or occasioned any comment.

ARI is selling the book, and its acolytes sometimes invoke it (not always after reading it).

But within ARI, Mr. Valliant is experiencing what the late Lawrence Peter called Final Placement Syndrome. No position of prominence is open to him.

Mr. Valliant wants to be seen as a scholar, but anyone who has read his book carefully, or engaged him in debate about Objectivism, can quickly discern that he is no such animal. At the Estate of Ayn Rand and ARI, the real scholars have not accepted him. He wouldn't place high on the totem pole in any event, because he did a black-bag job for Leonard Peikoff, using a low-rent publisher.

Mr. Valliant lost interest in the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies pretty quickly. He found that he could not sweet-talk Chris Sciabarra, or any of the other editors at JARS, into endorsing his book. Even publishing a reply to a negative review in JARS was crossed off his agenda once he discovered that Mr. Perigo didn't want him to and such support as he enjoyed from ARI could be at risk.

A couple of years after Mr. Valliant realized that JARS wouldn't supply him with what he wanted, SOLOPassion is not exactly thriving. It is certainly not performing up to his ambitions.

So he needs a platform. If Mr. Perigo can re-establish himself with TAS, after the debacle of 2006, Mr. Valliant hopes to sweep in on his coattails.

3. Mr. Perigo's market share of movement Objectivism has been on the wane since 2005. Two years ago, while sidling toward a rapprochement with ARI, he couldn't be bothered with TAS. Now it's beginning to look like a lifeline to him.

4. As the organization is presently constituted, TAS poses major obstacles to Mr. Perigo's ambitions. Robert Bidinotto, the editor of The New Individualist, has clashed with both Mr. Perigo and Mr. Valliant in public. Nathaniel and, more recently, Barbara Branden have often been featured at TAS events (both of them, in October 2007).

5. Mr. Perigo and Mr. Valliant are grandiose personalities. Neither has any compunctions about resorting to underhanded methods; both are equipped with vast reserves of chutzpah.

If Mr. Perigo could get hired at the TAS office (not on the face of it a crazy idea; he did get hired once, then decided not to take the job after picking a fight with Roger Donway), he could go to work on pushing out his enemy Mr. Bidinotto. He could prepare the skids for hiring of Mr. Valliant and even Mr. Fahy. Why not replace Bidinotto with Valliant, and Donway with Fahy? He would maneuver day and night to kick Barbara and Nathaniel Branden to the curb.

Since Mr. Valliant believes in the truth of "Fact and Value," he could give David Kelley, Will Thomas, and Ed Hudgins a brief sabbatical during which to meditate and reread the scripture, in the hope that they would see the light. And if they didn't ... then out with the lot of them.

Now, this is a hypothesis. It is consistent with evidence available to me about the ambitions of Messrs. Valliant and Perigo, and with evidence about the openness of paths to fulfilling those ambitions within that little corner called Rand-land. It is consistent with evidence about character. Each sees in himself capabilities that neutral observers cannot discern; each is tremendously self-absorbed and suffused with a sense of entitlement; each rejects any and all criticism as disinformation thrown up by the dishonest and the mean-spirited.

The hypothesis seems so wild because a sensible odds-maker would bet heavily against the success of such a takeover attempt.

But people with a pronounced sense of entitlement, and a dizzyingly inflated estimate of their own abilities, will underestimate the obstacles. I suspect that in their own minds Messrs. Valliant and Perigo are firmly convinced that they can correct every deficiency and solve every problem at TAS while rallying behind them all but a few stinkingly rotten, disposable malcontents.

It could be, of course, that Messrs. Perigo and Valliant are merely looking for a boost to their legitimacy, and will not try to reach further.

But why should TAS have to find out the hard way just how far they aim to go?

Why should anyone?

Robert Campbell

Fronting up and bowing out

Submitted by Robert Campbell on Mon, 2008-01-14 04:59.

My abbreviated return to this board hasn't settled a whole lot.

But one thing is now clear.

Mr. Perigo's repeated demands that his critics "front up" and address him here on SOLOPassion aren't for real.

They're a bluff.

I think they're a cover for cowardice.

They're a bluff because Swami Perigonanda and his acolytes have shown absolutely no genuine interest in responding to criticism. Mr. Valliant's near-immediate response to my reappearance here was a grand sniff about my "presumption." He let slip what the Swami and his fervent adepts really think. They don't really want anyone coming over to challenge them.

The Swami failed to answer some of my questions, responded to others with familiar bursts of abuse, and romped out with a couple of new inventions (such as accusing Chris Sciabarra of committing a crime).

He feebly insisted that his romantic music title, with its name-calling about morons, was just a joke. He declared that he would draw all of his examples for the other talk from what the "O-Lying" crowd had the temerity to say about him, but now he has switched course and says that all of his examples of self-defeating conduct will focus on himself.

The schoolyard adage still holds. All bullies are cowards. Verbal bullies, too.

If the Swami had any guts, he'd take his case to Rebirth of Reason, or Objectivist Living, or some other online forum not controlled by himself.

The same goes for Mr. Valliant, Mr. Fahy, and the rest of the adepts.

Judging from Mr. Valliant's recent disastrous performance on the Richard Dawkins forum, he is not prepared to defend either his book or Objectivist philosophy in an open environment. He has to fall back on Mr. Fahy and the Swami. By and large, they don't even try to answer their critics' arguments; they team up to drive the critics away with their sustained dim obnoxiousness, providing Mr. Valliant with the illusion that he can hold his own end up.

I doubt that Swami Perigonanda would do any better.

But if he thinks he can, the Swami needs to get out and show what he can do when he is not relying on his presumptive status as an Objectivist spiritual leader.

If he can't hold his end up in an online forum that he doesn't control, the Swami has no business peddling his wares to TAS or any other such organization.

With that, I'm out of here. If Mr. Perigo or Mr. Valliant want to answer me they know where to find me. Let's see how they handle the horrid rigors of Cockroach Corner.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Ellen,

You're right about the timing. The news about Mr. Perigo hit just under a week before classes started up again at Clemson. I really wanted to finish off my posting at SOLOP over the weekend because I have a couple of lectures to do for a revamped Cognitive Psych class, I need to start writing multiple-choice test items (ecch!), and I have a couple of authors at New Ideas who are getting impatient.

If the news had been delayed until, say, next weekend, I wouldn't have had time to poat much.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

Thanks for reproducing the whole series over here.

I'd love to see the folks at the Perigonanda ashram prove me wrong, but I'm not expecting much more than heckling either.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

Just had a look at that thread. It reads to me like dispirited heckling.

Let's see whether the Swami apologizes to Neil Parille.

Though I'm not holding my breath on that one either...

Ellen,

The Swami is continuing to insist on his charges of fraud against Joe Rowlands and initiation of force against Chris Sciabarra.

I suppose that if he were backed against the wall, he'd decide that they were strictly in jest.

By the way, if backbiting and spreading malicious gossip (which is what Diana Hsieh, Jim Valliant, Joe Maurone, and the Swami actually accused Chris Sciabarra of doing) were crimes instead of plain old bad acts, wouldn't the Swami's mug shots be on display in post offices?

Robert Campbell

[Wolf DeVoon]

initiation of force against Chris Sciabarra

Somebody punched him in the nose?? Stole his credit card?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Somebody punched him in the nose?? Stole his credit card?

Wolf,

Chris called Hsieh a dogmatist and said Perigo was trying to trip up Barbara Branden in public. He said ARI people intimidate members behind the scenes. He also told a friend to be careful with these people. All (gasp) by email and all (gasp gasp gasp!) while trying to be generally nice in public. He thought he was writing to friends with whom he could reveal his concerns.

(btw - He was right on all counts.)

But that's the initiation of force Perigo & Co. are complaining to the high heavens about. They ran a shameful 3+ week campaign of daily denunciations against him for it (peppered with a huge amount of vulgar language aimed at him and his supporters) and published excerpts from his emails as "proof" of his moral depravity. The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies was raked through the mud as icing on that cake. Perigo featured the denunciations on his home page all during this time.

Chris thought all this was crazy (which it was) and simply stopped communicating with these people. He also kept his peace in public about it.

That's the long and short of it.

But that kind of behavior is what TAS is now intent on honoring. It would be OK if this were a single lapse, but Perigo has been engaged in one public monkey-shine after another (see Robert's posts above, which are only a partial listing)—all in the name of Objectivism and all while orchestrating a public image of himself as some kind of passionate and fearless leader hell-bent on saving Objectivism and saving the world while he is at it.

I personally don't think TAS needs saving, but that's me. Anyway, I am not involved in their policy-making.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

All three of the principals at SOLOPassion-- Swami Perigonanda, Casey Fahy, and Jim Valliant--have now "responded" to my posts over there.

Of the three, Mr. Valliant seems farthest gone.

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4021#comment-47057

I know how JARS works, and know that whatever the nature of my interaction with Sciabarra, such things wouldn't affect the outcome of any review. Or... AM I WRONG? Does "sweet talking" editors like Campbell himself alter the substance of what comes out on the pages of JARS?

Well, he should know.

Wow -- live and learn, I guess.

I was abbreviating. A play-by-play account of Mr. Valliant's approach to the editorship of JARS includes the following stages:

--Pretend to be reasonable

--Sweet-talk

--Con

--Pester

--Harangue

--Threaten

--Denounce

--Fly completely off the handle

If Mr. Campbell is not simply a pathetically unskilled liar, then he must live in an alternate reality of his own manufacture. I am right here discussing whether I will attend a TAS conference myself -- and if the public assertion that I might doesn't already give him reason to question the whole of his bizarre assertion [??--apparently, that Mr. Valliant despises TAS but sees an opportunity to exploit the organization--??], you might want to consider just the obvious logical inconsistencies within Mr. Campbell's far more elaborate delusions for yourself.

JARS having an editor like him will never be factored into his own analysis of my nefarious motives -- and his psychotic break with reality now only evokes the same uncomfortable embarrassment which results from watching [britney] Spears perform at an awards show.

No exaggeration or hyperbole is involved in saying that nearly everything he has written here is pure fiction, paranoid delusion or an overt lie.

Mr. Valliant is apparently referring to the contents of all 8 posts that I recently put on SOLOP. Including the one that walked everyone, one last time, through evidence of moral lapses by Ayn Rand. Including the one that detailed some of the strange aspects of the Peikovian doctrine of the arbitrary, and asked Mr. Cathcart whether he meant to endorse them. Etc. etc.

Yet, perfecting his uniquely stylish form of projection, Campbell writes:

"People who refuse to admit errors when caught red-handed in them, preferring to go after the purported motives of their critics, are lying. Lying is dishonest, dishonesty is irrational... again if [you] know anything about the Objectivist ethics you can follow the chain of implications."

So, what are we to do with Campbell's looney conspiracy theories so clearly driven by blinding hatred, paranoia and humiliation?

Mr. Valliant will have to explain what he, or anyone else, has done recently that I find humiliating. Some things have been going well, others could go better, but I haven't taken to slinking around, with my tail between my legs...

Mr. Valliant concludes with this appeal to Neil Parille:

do you agree with Campbell, that acknowledging serious moral lapses on Rand's part is a necessary precondition to objectivity?

And here I thought that respect for facts is part of objectivity. Here I was under the impression that proceeding from well documented facts about Ayn Rand and her stated standards to the conclusion that she committed a moral lapse here and there is a consequence of objectivity.

Holy moly and great googa mooga!!!

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

I gotta give credit where credit is due.

Lindsay Perigo finally apologized to Neil Parille, for claiming that Barbara Branden was secretly feeding him material to use against Mr. Valliant.

Read it here:

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4021#comment-47065

Mirabile dictu,

Robert Campbell

[Dragonfly]

This was what you call a forced move.

[Ellen Stuttle]

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4021#comment-47038

[....] Irfan did not specify who the author/authors of the abusive emails were. [....]

Thanks, Jim. The thread was in April 2006, some distance back in list time, and I thought, well, maybe I'd forgotten NB's being identified as the author of the emails, though it didn't seem likely I would have forgotten that, but...my memory isn't as good as it used to be, this is true. I'm glad to be spared having to re-read the (long) thread to doublecheck. ;-)

Ellen

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

I don't know what to make of that apology.

On one hand, it shows good character and respect for the facts. It is what any man of honor would and should do. On the other hand, it shows that Perigo knows how to check facts when he wants to. So it is not to hard to conclude that he chose not to check the facts during the months of accussing Neil of being a conduit for Barbara, despite Neil constantly saying otherwise. Perigo preferred to repeat the accusation. He chose that. Neil said he did that twice. I personally have read many more times than twice.

I think this guy is merely on good behavior right now because he is concerned that TAS might be watching.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Dragonfly,

I'm inclined to agree with you about the forced move.

Swami Perigonanda's comments about "Babs," right before he apologized, let everyone know how he really feels.

Robert Campbell

[Chris Grieb]

One of the problems TAS is having now is Will Thomas is in Mexico.

My hope would be he is learning human sacrifice technique with somebody from New Zealand being the guest of honour.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Dragonfly,

I'm inclined to agree with you about the forced move.

Swami Perigonanda's comments about "Babs," right before he apologized, let everyone know how he really feels.

Robert Campbell

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4021#comment-47065

Also, there's the qualifier "direct" ...

I withdraw and apologise for all allegations that you're a direct conduit for Babs.

Does that mean he still considers Neil an "indirect" conduit?

Is the apology made in "good faith"?

At any rate, it is on record, where he can be reminded of it if there's a next time...

Ellen

___

[Jerry Biggers]

Several initial responses to the Perigo invite ruse:

Awww, shucks!!! You guys are pulling one over on us simple Objectivist folk, right?.... RIGHT???

Forces from the ARIan DarkSide have somehow hi-jacked the OL Forum in order to spread dis-information and confusion

Somebody spiked the TAS New Year's Party with hallucinogens and its effects have not worn off.

Well, I am a mere Sponsor of TAS, but I am SURE that they would let their contributors know about invited speakers to the summer confrerence (especially one who has made a career over heaping abuse upon TAS and its officers). And I haven't heard a thing from them. Couldn't find any reference to it on their website, either.

Judging from comments posted here, on RoR, and SoloPassion, ranging from the incredulous, to the angry, to bewilderment over what could possibly be going on over there at TAS, I must assume this is all a big joke. RIGHT??

Some people have commented that, based on Mr. Perigo's history of erratic statements filled with insults, epithets, course language, and other invective (don't believe me, just go to his own website and review his current and past statements), that it sure would be "fun" to go to Portland to watch his antics. Well, if TAS needs a comedian to get attendees, then try Penn & Teller. They would be vastly more entertaining and informative than Perigo and save the travel expenses from New Zealand, TAS might even be able to afford them.

Next time, you jokers are going to tell me that "Dyin O'Shame" will also be lecturing at TAS Summer Insitute on exhilarating new perspectives objectivists could learn thru creative fabricative confessions at the Peoples' Army "re-education" camps.

But wait. Isn't the Summer Institute supposed to be an intellectual growth experience? Isn't it supposed to encourage attendees to build on Objectivism with innovative and creative applications? Isn't it supposed to encourage and stimulate attendees about applications of objectivism to the real world, and their own lives. Isn't it hopefully to encourage some of its youthful attendees to continue in academia and promote Objectivism in the intellectual atmosphere of the universities?

Or is it simply to be a feel-good clown show, ala Don Rickles? If I want that, I'll go to Las Vegas.

Additionally, I assume that the Brandens have not been invited. Surely, it would seem logical that any such invitation to Perigo, who has been slinging mud at the Brandens on his website, would result in a refusal from the Brandens to show up at the same conference (in the same way that Ayn Rand would refuse to attend any function that Bill Buckley was present!). If this was a ploy to jettison the Brandens, in favor of Perigo and his ilk, I am afraid that TAS is going to lose alot of its current supporters in the process.

Several summers ago, I gave a Participant-sponsored session at the TAS Summer Insitute, entitled, "Does Objectivism Have A Death Wish"? At that time, I was referring mainly to the counter-productive antics of ARI. I stated that TAS was not following such self-defeating tactics. I hope that TAS will come to its senses and dis-invite Perigo and replace him with speakers who can give worthwhile presentations.

BUT,.....you guys are KIDDING.....TAS would not REALLY invite Perigo............would they???

Edited January 15, 2008 by Jerry Biggers

[merjet]

Well, I am a mere Sponsor of TAS, but I am SURE that they would let their contributors know about invited speakers to the summer conference (especially one who has made a career over heaping abuse upon TAS and its officers). And I haven't heard a thing from them. Couldn't find any reference to it on their website, either.

Judging from comments posted here, on RoR, and SoloPassion, ranging from the incredulous, to the angry, to bewilderment over what could possibly be going on over there at TAS, I must assume this is all a big joke. RIGHT??

Like you, I've been a Sponsor for several years. I can't recall having received any special advanced notice of the full slate of speakers. I've learned it when a brochure arrived in the mail or it was put on TAS's (or TOC's or IOS's) website.

[Kat]

Yep, they did invite Linz and I ain't going!

Kat

[Robert Campbell]

Jerry and Merlin,

The Summer Seminar schedule isn't publicly released until roughly two weeks after the invitations (and rejections) go out.

This year Will Thomas sent out the acceptances and rejections on December 31. Now it's January 15 and there's still no schedule on the TAS site.

If Swami Perigonanda had had the tactical skill to match his chutzpah, he'd have made no public comment until the schedule was officially released. (This would have cut 2 or more weeks off the time that his innumerable detractors had to react.)

Instead, on January 4 he crowed at SOLOP about being invited as a speaker. (Really invited, as in directly approached by Will Thomas, not just included in a call for submissions.)

Having trouble believing my eyes or ears, I phoned the TAS office on the morning of the 4th and got a confirmation that the Swami had indeed been invited.

I've subsequently corresponded with Will Thomas and Ed Hudgins about the invitation, and heard from Robert Bidinotto about it. Only David Kelley hasn't said anything so far.

Robert Campbell

[Jerry Biggers]

Robert,

I just sent an email to Ed, David, Robert, & Wil. Of course, I have not yet received a reply. When I do, I will share its content, unless they state that their comments are private.

I am pretty annoyed about this whole thing, including the other rejections mentioned earlier in this thread.

I certainly have no interest in spending my time and money to attend a supposed intellectually-stimulating event only to find that they have chosen a foul-mouthed clown as a main attraction. I have not met Mr. Perigo, so I can only judge him by what he has written on his own web site. Several year's ago, I admired him for what he was doing in New Zealand and for what he was creating with SOLO. But after his break with Barbara Branden and subsequent embrace of Valliant's scurillous scride, break with Rawlings (oops! I mean Joe Rowlands!), and flirtation with ARIans, his subsequent written output has been in very poor taste (an understatement), and has certainly added nothing to the advancemement of Objectivism as a philosophy and movement.

But perhaps the Logical Structure of Objectivism will have a new chapter on the virtue of "turning the other cheek?" I am kidding.....(I think).

If they go ahead with it, they are risking a considerable loss in financial and membership support

Edited January 17, 2008 by Jerry Biggers

[Jonathan]

Jesus. So, privately discussing one's opinions of others is now "initiation of force"? Man, Pigero's really got some twisted ethical notions (to go along with his anti-Objectivist aesthetic theories, I guess).

Aside from the idea that someone's private comments to someone else are "force," I think it's pretty amazing that Pigero still continues to accuse Rowlands of having committed fraud, yet Pigero and his web design team believed that they didn't do anything wrong when raiding Rowlands' ftp site without Rowlands' knowledge or permission, because they felt that they had the right to take what they had decided was Pigero's.

Is that another good example of Pigero's notion of Objectivism in action? Do I have the right, according to Objectivism, to enter your property without your knowledge or permission and take what I think belongs to me (even though I admit that we had no written agreement outlining the nature of the joint venture which resulted in the creation of the property that I'm seizing)?

It seems to me that Pigero wants to be seen as preaching Objectivism, but when it doesn't suit him in real life, he practices some sort of "anarcho-filth" philosophy in which he's the plaintiff, judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one.

Also, I'm disappointed that, so far, we've been robbed of the entertainment value of Pigero, Valliant and Fahy twisting themselves into pretzels in order to deny that Rand knowingly "lied by inventing misdeeds on the part of the Brandens" and "fabricated all sorts of false justifications in 'To Whom It May Concern'" (as Diana Hsieh has observed in the past). They've been challenging people -- practically begging them -- to give examples in which Rand consciously breached her own convictions, yet now that Robert Campbell has listed on SOLOP what he thinks are some good examples, they remain silent on the issue? Wow. Since they're usually pretty eager to spin reality in defense of Rand, often to the point of looking ridiculous, their silence must mean that even they recognize that their typical bluster, bullshit and transparent lawyerly maneuvering, especially in regard to To Whom It May Concern, would completely destroy what little remains of the illusion of their credibility.

J

Edited January 16, 2008 by Jonathan

[Rodney]

But after his break with Barbara Branden and subsequent embrace of Valliant's scurillous scride, break with Rawlings, and flirtation with ...

Now this is a surprise! As far as I know, there was no break with me--and for me to be listed with such names is a shock indeed. My impression is that, on O-sites, for all and sundry, I am such small fry as to be under the radar.

[Robert Campbell]

Rodney,

I think Jerry meant Joe Rowlands...

Robert Campbell

[Rodney]

Now why didn't I think of that? Thanks!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I want to get to a small bit of philosophical business before too much time passes and it goes down the memory hole.

James Heaps-Nelson stated earlier that Ayn Rand was given very little courtesy and consideration on OL and that he had an encyclopedia of similar annoyances with the site. He also did this at the same time he sang the praises of Perigo being invited to speak at this year's TAS Summer Seminar.

I am still incredulous that he did that on OL, knowing what he knew. Dayaamm!

But instead of granting him the 2008 OL Blind Schmuck Award (which, in my view, was a no-brainer), I said he was lying on purpose.

Despite a lot of discussion, I have not seen Jim retract the inaccuracy (much less his total obliviousness to context in making his claims and evaluations), so, despite being asked in public to apologize to him, I have kept my peace. However, I just came across the following on SLOP:

Views on Moral Judgment in Flux

Submitted by James Heaps-Nelson on Tue, 2008-01-15 17:40.

I'm going to take about a year break, which may last longer, from all online forums to review my views of moral judgment and how to make judgments. I'm not satified that I fully understand it and some of what I do understand is not integrated. I ask forbearance from those I may have judged in haste.I will check my online inboxes occasionally and wish everyone well in the meantime.

Jim

That's a good enough retraction for me.

Jim, I apologize for the charge of lying. I not only accept the possibility that the inaccuracy and blindness to context of your statement were due to sincere but unclear thinking, I find that to be the most plausible explanation. So I see I was wrong. Sorry.

I wish you well on your reflections and hope they bring you greater moral clarity (even if we end up at odds) and, most of all, attentiveness to accuracy.

(Like that year off thing, which I doubt... )

Michael

[Jerry Biggers]

Now why didn't I think of that? Thanks!

Please Accept my apologies for this mis-identification, I meant to say, "after his break with Joe ROWLANDS over the management of the SOLOHQ site and the subsequent division into ROWLANDS' REBIRTH OF REASON and Perigo's SOLO-Passion...."

Edited January 16, 2008 by Jerry Biggers