The Nature of Online Objectivism

[Barbara Branden]

Michael Marotto: "When someone said that they liked Mozart, Rand could show that they accepted the epistemology of Immanuel Kant. Followers who mimicked the method would then turn on people (or each other) with similar denunciations, inferring deep problems from minor differences. And here we all are today."

Michael, I would like to edit your first sentence to read: "When someone said that they loved Mozart, Rand would present an argument for the thesis that they had a deeply flawed psycho-epistemological sense of life." But you see, I believe she was mistaken. And her own theory of music contradicts her mistaken view. She wrote: "Until a conceptual vocabulary is discovered and defined, no objectively valid criterion of esthetic judgment is possible in the field of music. No one, therefore, can claim the objective superiority of his choices over the choices of others. Where no objective proof is available, it is every man for himself -- and only for himself."

Peter: "Historical question: did Rand endorse The True Believer?

No. I never discussed Hoffer with her, and I don't think she had read him.

Chris: "Were any books by Hoffer in Rand's library?"

No.

Barbara

[syrakusos]

Michael, I would like to edit your first sentence to read: "When someone said that they loved Mozart, Rand would present an argument for the thesis that they had a deeply flawed psycho-epistemological sense of life." But you see, I believe she was mistaken.

Thanks for the clarification.

Peter: "Historical question: did Rand endorse The True Believer?

No. I never discussed Hoffer with her, and I don't think she had read him.

Chris: "Were any books by Hoffer in Rand's library?"

No.

Thanks again. I apologize for promulgating that falsehood. I always remembered having read a review of The True Believer in The Objectivist Newsletter. However, checking the archives, I see that I was wrong about that. In point of fact, I must have read it in the Academic Associate's publication which I received when it came out. However, I have none of those with me now, having lent all of them to my sister-in-law some decades back when she read Atlas Shrugged. Now that my memory has been remediated, I will stop making that claim.

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; I commend you for willingness to admit you are wrong. It shows you an adult in the best sense of over-used word.