Why Nobody Takes PARC Seriously Anymore

[william.scherk]

Re: Valliant's sloppy rejiggling of a supposed quote from John Hospers, and the difference between:

A: Hospers said that he was merely being "challengingly exegetical if not openly critical of Rand"

B: He must say things, if not openly critical, at least challengingly exegetical.

Does he see the changed order but (a) not realize that changing word order is misquoting; and (b ) not realize that the changed word order changes the meaning? I.e., does he see the changed order but believe it makes no difference?

I'm truly puzzled as to what's going on when he does these things. He doesn't exhibit general signs of dyslexia.

Well, he has a new take on misquotation . . .

To reorder words within the quotation of a phrase is not "misquoting" someone.

Try to parse that one out, Ellen. I had no idea the man could be so intransigeant or obtuse.

I commented on this clangingly wrong idea in the SOLO post Misquote, rinse, repeat, or "What misquote? I don't misquote"

[Ellen Stuttle]

William,

Thanks for cross-posting current corrections to JV's misquotes and misrepresentations:

Misquote, rinse, repeat, or "What misquote? I don't misquote"

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4787#comment-54622

It is so weird the way he keeps doing it, despite having been caught out time and again.

The repeat offending makes me wonder if there might be some physiologic contribution occurring -- from medications for whatever his illness is. Or is he maybe on dialysis? That can interfere with brain function.

Ellen

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[Ellen Stuttle]

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4787#comment-54622

Maybe note the title of the talk, Art and Sense of Life?

Correcting again:

Rand's talk at the American Society for Aesthetics meeting -- according to a list compiled by Dr. Todd Goldberg -- was titled "Art as Sense of Life," not, as Hospers said in the memoir, "Art and Sense of Life," the title of her later, by several years, article which was published first in the March 1966 The Objectivist and then re-published, with some minor changes because of the book versus magazine format, in The Romantic Manifesto.

Please see this long post which includes most of the exchange between me and Roger Bissell on the issue of what talk Rand gave at the meeting.

The cite from Dr. Goldberg's bibliography is quoted here.

Ellen

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Edited July 1, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4787#comment-54620

To reorder words within the quotation of a phrase is not "misquoting" someone.

-- James Valliant

!!!

___

[Neil Parille]

The Lost Journals of Ayn Rand, introduction by Leonard Peikoff, edited by Robert Mayhew, with additional commentary by James Valliant.

Introduction

Admirers of Ayn Rand have lamented the fact that, until recently, it appeared that no additional posthumous works of Ayn Rand would be published. As Ayn Rand’s legal, moral and intellectual heir I sanctioned this regret.

Much to my delight, in 2007 I received a package containing additional journals of Ayn Rand. Apparently, Miss Rand, in 1981, directed that her attorney keep these journals in safe keeping until 25 years after her death. Pursuant to her instructions, they were sent to me. These journals contain accounts of Ayn Rand’s psychological counseling sessions. Their discovery was almost a revelation from beyond the grave (not that I, as an atheist, would put it exactly that way).

I asked Dr. Robert Mayhew to edit these journals for publication. Readers of Ayn Rand are familiar with Dr. Mayhew’s splendidly edited collections of Ayn Rand’s works, including Ayn Rand’s Marginalia, Ayn Rand Answers, Ayn Rand’s Shopping Lists and Ayn Rand’s Back of the Envelope Math Calculations.

After receiving the edited collection of the journals from Dr. Mayhew, I asked James Valliant to provide commentary. As Ayn Rand’s admirers know, Mr. Valliant provided insightful comments to some of Ayn Rand’s journals in his The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics.

Chapter 5 (1970)

Mr. Z usually wore an expression of anguish. It was the weariness of a lifetime of defeat. Mr. Z was only 6 years old.

Rand here sees that a child’s psycho-epistemology is formed at an early age. She developed this point at greater detail in her essay “The Comprachicos.”

I often asked him what was wrong, and, in dreary resignation, he would say, "Nothing. I'm fine." Then one day he quietly confided in me that he used to love the Flintstones. Oh, what joy the show had given him. But now he couldn't bring himself to watch it, but preferred the lethargic Droopy Dog instead. He cried.

The next time he visited my apartment, I told him that I had a surprise for him. I sat him down in front of the television and played a tape of the Flintstones.

The Flintstones is, of course, the Stone Age cartoon featuring Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. The Stone Age was even worse than the Middle Ages, a period in which Attilas and Witch Doctors controlled men’s mind. (The types Attilla and Witch Doctor were coined by Ayn Rand, for which Nathaniel Branden took credit by deviously inserting a footnote in For the New Intellectual. This, at least, is what my sources tell me. Rand made mistakes, and her failure to catch this was one of her few, but perhaps her biggest.) That Rand would play a Stone Age cartoon to a toddler indicates that she did not look down upon ideas other than her own. Anyone who says Rand was an angry moralizer or that she would break with people for nonessential reasons are refuted by this objective evidence that Barbara Branden, among others, refuses to consider (and indeed suppresses) in her biography.

I had also ordered a Flintstones-shaped cake from the local bakery, and, as we sat watching the program, we ate the cake and wore little paper Flintstones hats. He cried again, but this time it was tears of joy.

Just as Rand, the atheist, could celebrate Christmas, Rand the thinker who held reason as her only absolute could have a party with a six year old to enjoy a Stone Age cartoon. (It may have something to do with the fact that Rand, an anti-feminist, admired the man-worshipping Wilma and Betty.) This is further proof that those who claim that Rand gave people a hard time over artistic matters or would break with followers over minor slights have a distorted objectivity almost as bad as Nathaniel and Barbara Branden’s. As everyone knows (except Rand's critics), six year olds often lose their temper, become argumentative and talk back. Perhaps this fact should be remembered when Rand's former friends claim she couldn't put up with honest disagreements.

After watching a few episodes, he told me that he was now strong enough to feel worthy of watching Fred and Barney again, without feeling any guilt, and he thanked me for curing him. I accepted his gratitude, but told him that there was still more that he needed to discover about himself. I invited him to visit me again the next day for yet another surprise.

Note the gratitude that this youngster displayed, a gratitude obviously not shared by the Brandens. Yes, Rand didn’t like surprise parties, so Rand’s having a surprise party for the toddler might seem to be a contradiction. But unlike what the Brandens did to her to celebrate Atlas Shrugged, Rand realizes here that all knowledge is contextual. Children expect surprises, so there is no attempt to control the toddler’s context through deception. The failure to see that knowledge is contextual is one of the clearest signs that the Brandens have departed from Objectivism.

When he returned the following day, I sat him down again in front of the television, but this time I played a tape of Speedy Gonzales, and explained that Speedy had the most romantic sense of life of all cartoon characters, that he refused to grant evil any metaphysical significance, and that, in comparison to Speedy, the Flintstones were "pre-cartoons." I was certain that he was strong enough to hear this truth.

Note Rand’s concern for the toddler’s psycho-epistemology. Rand, with her MRI mind, begins with a Stone Age cartoon and ends with a cartoon set in modern times that teaches a benevolent sense of life consistent with the beliefs of mature Objectivists who agree with Ayn Rand. This is a psychological method of “orienting” one’s epistemology that will be studied by psychologists for years to come (unlike, for example, the methods of Nathaniel Branden).

Mr Z quickly realized that I was right, and he became a very dedicated fan of Speedy Gonzales. He also learned to defer to my tastes and judgments on all other matters, and, therefore, was allowed to become a member of my inner circle. Needless to say, Mr. Z went on to become one of the most brilliant minds and most daringly successful businessmen who have ever existed in the entire universe. It was a joy to be in his presence - you could tell just by looking at him that he was always on the verge of exploding with happiness. Thanks to me.

Unlike the Brandens, the toddler graciously accepts Rand’s instruction. If, like the Brandens (and the Blumenthals, John Hospers, the Kalbermans and various other people with distorted objectivity), you can’t stick with Ayn Rand, then Objectivism is not for you. In fact, in subsequent articles and lectures (which I won’t cite because the demand for sources and accurate quotations is unscholarly), these people stated that they never moved beyond the “Flintstones phase” in their psycho-cartoonish epistemology, thus indicating that they never really believed in Objectivism anyway, further justifying Rand’s breaking with them. The relationship between cartoons and allegiance to Objectivism was developed brilliantly by Leonard Peikoff one night using the Hat.

Edited July 1, 2008 by Neil Parille

[Dragonfly]

Ha, ha! Valliant's command of the English language must be even worse than mine if he doesn't see that the two versions have different meanings.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

Valliant's cavalier attitude toward accuracy is symptomatic of someone who does normative-before-cognitive abstractions as his epistemological method. I know this because I used to do it.

I am certain that accuracy in quoting someone about Rand in Valliant's mind does not entail correspondence to reality as a primary. The primary, the axiom on which the concept is built so to speak, entails clarity on love/hate Rand. Another fundamental part of that axiom is that he loves Rand.

I am not talking about whether he should or not love Rand. That is a normative abstraction (a higher level one). I am talking about replacing "identity of Rand" with "love of Rand" as the conceptual foundation. He lodges an evaluation into the place where Law of Identity should be.

Where this gets confusing is that concepts do not necessarily develop chronologically in a person's life from the fundament on up. They are built. But once formed, a concept's validity is checked by comparing a higher level abstraction against the fundament. If there is a contradiction, the fundament prevails and the higher level abstraction must be changed. Rand calls this fundament a "premise."

In Valliant's case, the concept's fundament is love of Rand, not fact of Rand. That is why word order, actual historical events and so forth are inessential details to him. They are in the place of higher level abstractions (often normative ones). If one gets some of the details wrong, who cares? So long as it is clear that Rand is being praised or criticized, Valliant is confident that his cognitive process has operated correctly and that the world is mostly wrong.

In fact, you might notice that he gets irritated about details when his inaccuracy is pointed out to him. The emotional equivalent could be verbalized as the following: "Don't these people see that this doesn't matter? So-and-so was denigrating Rand and someone can use this to attack her. What's wrong with these people? Can't they see? The only rational explanation is that they are enemies of Rand. And they are dishonest." Etc., etc., etc.

This is the same kind of concept formation as a Muslim who defends the honor of Mohammad. (I don't mean just Islamists, either. I mean all religious people who get enraged at blasphemy.) The sanctity of Mohammad is axiomatic and the rest of the facts have to fit that.

In Valliant's case, the sanctity of Rand is axiomatic, even when she is clearly in the wrong. That's also the reason for the double-speak about Rand's faults. The problem goes way beyond belief. It is literally a cognitive malfunction. He got the axioms wrong when he fixed his concepts in his mind.

This is why he is so sincere. I think you are perplexed because you sense his sincerity and cannot imagine how one can seriously be sincere using such boneheaded logic and in the face of so many errors. There must be a con somewhere and you don't sense a con (at least I imagine this is the case). But Valliant is not on the same epistemological wavelength as you. If he were, there would be a con. But he comes off as sincere because he has automated a mutilated concept formation process. Belief in a value judgment is more fundamental to him than correspondence to reality.

One day, if Valliant really wants to preach Objectivism, he should learn that "A is A" is a correct expression of the Law of Identity. Not "Rand is the greatest."

Micheal

[Ellen Stuttle]

[Here]

In any event, such re-ordered wording is standard practice -- so long as the meaning is undistorted -- and these instances accurately conveyed the meaning of both. (Indeed, I got high grades from professors doing just this with their own words, both as an undergraduate and as graduate student.)[*]

Were they law professors teaching him how to deceive!!???

I know that education in general has deteriorated, that people arrive in college with hardly any skills at reading and writing (or arithmetic, either, but that isn't the subject at the moment). But surely -- please reassure me -- educational standards haven't become SO poor, students are no longer taught that quoting means quoting exactly, not paraphrasing (unless you specify that you're paraphrasing) or re-arranging word order.

Stuttle says that I have claimed a change in mind on her part.

Yes, that's what he claimed when he wrote "come to question." To "come to question" and to currently state a question one has long had are not the same. If what he meant was the latter, it isn't what he said.

Ellen

[*] He's subsequently edited the last sentence of that to:

(Indeed, I got high grades from professors when I did just this with their own words, both as an undergraduate and as graduate student.)

The edit corrects a possible ambiguity in the original, but in this case I think his intended meaning was obvious in the original.

___

Edited July 2, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ha, ha! Valliant's command of the English language must be even worse than mine if he doesn't see that the two versions have different meanings.

As I told you almost four years ago -- during a stretch when both of us were posting on NB's list -- your command of English is better than an unfortunately high percentage of native English speakers. Nonetheless, I would expect at least most college-educated native English speakers to see that the two versions have different meanings.

Ellen

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Neil,

LOL...

You be careful. That stuff might be infectious...

You might actually start writing that way.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

But surely -- please reassure me -- educational standards haven't become SO poor, students are no longer taught that quoting means quoting exactly, not paraphrasing (unless you specify that you're paraphrasing) or re-arranging word order.

Ellen,

All I can tell you is that when I teach my Experimental Psychology students how to write reports of their studies, I always remind them that direct quotes are verbatim.

And this is not one of the harder parts of the course for them.

Robert Campbell

[Brant Gaede]

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4787#comment-54620

To reorder words within the quotation of a phrase is not "misquoting" someone.

-- James Valliant

Unbelievable. BTW, you linked to the wrong JV post. It's further up the thread.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4787#comment-54620

[....]

Unbelievable. BTW, you linked to the wrong JV post. It's further up the thread.

It's in the post I linked, the one titled "Scherk's Mask Is Slipping" -- a long post. The quoted sentence starts the paragraph which is currently 7 from the end. (He sometimes does substantial editing of posts, so it might not remain the 7th paragraph from the end, but that's where it is now.)

E-

___

[Robert Campbell]

Mr. Valliant has made two extremely damaging admissions, in a sprawling rant that ended up being titled just "Scherk"

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4787#comment-54628

Here's my response to it.

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4787#comment-54633

I didn't think very highly of Jim Valliant's standards of evidence or argument—let alone his conduct in public debate—but what he has ended up saying has shocked and appalled me.

There is no recovery from this.

Truly, PARC is now dead.

Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here is Robert reaming Valliant a new bung-hole right to his face (and deservedly so):

Mr. Valliant the anti-scholar

I implore everyone who reads this thread to take a moment to contemplate these two recent remarks from Mr. Valliant.

They are part of a sprawling rant about quite a mixture of topics, where they might not hit the casual reader with full impact:

Placing a word or phrase within quotation marks does not indicate that the word or phrase is even a quotation, verbatim or otherwise. Even if it is a partial quotation, it is not uncommon to reorder the used words within a phrase, so long as the meaning remains intact. The result is not a "misquoatation. [sic]" In these cases, the alleged "misquotations" did not change the meaning of either -- and we've been given no reason to think that they did, just the assertion that they did.

Again, if you put quotes around a phrase or sentence from a published source, an interview, etc., the reader is entitled to expect that it is word for word identical with the stretch of text being quoted.

This is elementary stuff. It is not hard for my Experimental Psychology students to grasp—and some of them got a really, well, sketchy education in writing before they came to Clemson.

In any event, such re-ordered wording is standard practice -- so long as the meaning is undistorted -- and these instances accurately conveyed the meaning of both. (Indeed, I got high grades from professors when I did just this with their own words, both as an undergraduate and as graduate student.)

Like hell it's standard practice. It isn't standard practice, anywhere that I've ever heard of.

If Mr. Valliant's professors really gave him high marks when he paraphrased what they had written, then presented such a paraphrase as a verbatim quote—or they gave him high marks when he paraphrased what they had said and packaged it as a direct quote—one of two things had to be true:

(a) They were nuts

or

(b) They had abandoned all standards of scholarly writing

Now I doubt that Mr. Valliant studied under a bunch of crazy professors.

I also doubt that every one of his professors was worse than most of the "pomo-wankers" that Mr. Perigo never ceases to rail about.

So I am genuinely shocked here.

This isn't dodging and weaving.

This isn't even thrashing and frothing.

Does Mr. Valliant have any idea what he has just admitted?

All I can figure is that Mr. Valliant has completely flipped his lid.

And—must I say it?— by making these kinds of statements, he has utterly forfeited his credibility as a scholar.

Now no sensible person will ever believe his rendition of anything that anyone else said, unless it matches the original when cross-checked.

And no one ever should.

Unfortunately we have no way of knowing how he might have butchered Ayn Rand's texts. At least we have the standard from the horse's mouth.

Michael

EDIT: My post crossed with Robert's.

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

I think you just credited me with an anatomically impossible act

But, yes, one of the implications is that Jim Valliant and Casey Fahy's editing of Ayn Rand's diary entries is no more reliable than Bob Mayhew's editing of her off-the-cuff answers during Q&A sessions.

Robert Campbell

[Alfonso Jones]

I am left contemplating the massive disrespect for Ayn Rand implied by the cavalier treatment of her journals and her Q&A comments. One is left with the implication that James Valliant (and Mayhew) consider themselves better spokespersons for Rand than Rand herself - even when her written comments are in the journals and the oral ones are on audiotape. The problems are not ones of memory - but of wanting to reconstruct the past - whether in minor ways or in the more substantial ones.

Bill P (Alfonso)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here is something else from Wikipedia: James S. Valliant

He graduated magna cum laude from New York University with a degree in philosophy, where he took courses under the Austrian School economist, Israel Kirzner. Valliant received his J.D. degree from the University of San Diego, where he studied under Bernard Siegan and Kenneth Culp Davis and where he was an Instructor of Law.

What James Valliant says (also quoted by Robert above), see here:

In any event, such re-ordered wording is standard practice -- so long as the meaning is undistorted -- and these instances accurately conveyed the meaning of both. (Indeed, I got high grades from professors when I did just this with their own words, both as an undergraduate and as graduate student.)

If true, this can only mean that Israel Kirzner, Bernard Siegan and Kenneth Culp Davis have some of the shoddiest standards of scholarship in the academic world.

This should be looked into and maybe these gentlemen contacted for corroboration. I am certain they do not want their record stained in such a manner by a former pupil.

Michael

[Alfonso Jones]

Here is something else from Wikipedia: James S. Valliant

He graduated magna cum laude from New York University with a degree in philosophy, where he took courses under the Austrian School economist, Israel Kirzner. Valliant received his J.D. degree from the University of San Diego, where he studied under Bernard Siegan and Kenneth Culp Davis and where he was an Instructor of Law.

What James Valliant says (also quoted by Robert above), see here:

In any event, such re-ordered wording is standard practice -- so long as the meaning is undistorted -- and these instances accurately conveyed the meaning of both. (Indeed, I got high grades from professors when I did just this with their own words, both as an undergraduate and as graduate student.)

If true, this can only mean that Israel Kirzner, Bernard Siegan and Kenneth Culp Davis have some of the shoddiest standards of scholarship in the academic world.

This should be looked into and maybe these gentlemen contacted for corroboration. I am certain they do not want their record stained in such a manner by a former pupil.

Michael

Michael -

To "take courses under" someone doesn't really mean much, other than he was allowed to register for the class. It certainly doesn't say how well he performed. I can recall one student at Texas A & M University (from when I was a faculty member there) who "took a course under me" 3 times - and failed all three times! I'm not implying this happened with Valliant - merely pointing out that "take courses under" doesn't really imply much.

Studied under - that properly should imply something more than "take courses under," perhaps writing of some thesis or dissertation with the person or some other more individualized activity. If I were to use the term, I would be referring to the supervisor on my dissertation, for instance, or to someone with whom I did a series of courses or individual studies.

Bill P (Alfonso)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bill,

I am using Valliant's standard. He said "high grades" and "professors" and him "as an undergraduate and as graduate student."

He's the one making the claim, not I.

What am I missing?

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Now Valliant is claiming it's the quote within the quote that can actually be a paraphrase, not the enveloping quote. Reminds me of the Tar Baby.

--Brant

edit: It's completely insane. He gave an example that would have been okay if he had merely inserted two more " ' ".

Edited July 2, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[Ellen Stuttle]

Unbelievable, indeed.

[Here]

Take the following statement:

"Despite claims to contrary, I do sometimes whistle. In fact, as my critic once saw for himself, while walking down a Paris street in May, I was happily whistling a merry tune."

A critic might fairly respond with the following:

"No, I never once saw him 'happily whistling a merry tune while walking down a Paris street in May.'"

What was placed inside the (inner) quotation marks reorders the words, to be sure, but the critic has retained both the words and the meaning exactly. In such a context, it actually does not purport to be a verbatim quotation of the sentence, but of the words used.

One wonders how many books Campbell's actually read.

It's perfectly simple.

If a sentence (or paragraph) is quoted, it is verbatim.

However, if a word or phrase is placed in quotation marks, it may or may not even be a quotation at all. It may only be signaling a technical word or phrase. If it is a phrase within a sentence, and the words and meaning are both retained from the source, they may be placed in quotation marks to indicate this, even if the clauses have been reordered.

It's true that a word or phrase placed in quotation marks doesn't necessarily indicate a quote from anyone. It might be a scare-quoted word or phrase, or quote marks used to designate a term. The context should make the usage clear in these cases, if the writing is well done.

The rest of what he says is just bonkersville re proper citing procedure.

In the example he uses in the first paragraphs, if one were quoting with the re-arranged order, one should quote thus:

No, I never once saw him "happily whistling a merry tune" "while walking down a Paris street in May."

Notice, the parts which are exact quotes are separately enclosed in quote marks without falsely implying that the original entire comment was something different than it was.

I'm believing that Valliant truly does not know better. This makes no difference to what he's revealing about the reliability of his citing practices. They are unreliable -- we already knew this of course through having compared his renditions against original text and having found many examples of misquoting. The shock is to discover that he actually doesn't know that such misquoting is disallowed scholarly procedure.

Ellen

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Edited July 2, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[william.scherk]

[W]hat he has ended up saying has shocked and appalled me.

There is no recovery from this.

Truly, PARC is now dead.

I dunno that PARC is dead. I am dismayed that he would not correct his valliantquoat®. It is inexplicably stupid.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'm believing that Valliant truly does not know better. This makes no difference to what he's revealing about the reliability of his citing practices. They are unreliable -- we already knew this of course through having compared his renditions against original text and having found many examples of misquoting. The shock is to discover that he actually doesn't know that such misquoting is disallowed scholarly procedure.

Ellen,

I have suspected for a while that this is what misapplying of Objectivism does to your mind.

I'm serious.

You can mutilate your cognitive processes.

This reminds me of a person I knew in Brazil who was highly enthusiastic about weight training and did it under poor instruction. Nobody noticed that he was greatly favoring one side. Only after he was all bulging muscles on his right arm, shoulder, pectoral, etc. and was still slim on his left side did he have the sense to stop. He got so disgusted that he refused to train his left side to catch up. Now he is a lopsided person muscle-wise and bitter.

I think this happens to the mind when Objectivism is learned wrong but diligently followed.

(Obviously I mean the cognitive/normative thing.)

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Perigo has jumped in with a non-specific gratuitous smear of Nathaniel Branden with the promise of more to come.

He's not evil. He's trite.

--Brant