Edith Packer

[Donovan A.]

http://edithpacker.com/

I just listened to the first lecture of The Art of Introspection by Edith Packer. I thought it was quite excellent. Does anyone know anything about Dr. Packer? What does she have her doctorate in? Does she still lecture?

Looking forward to hearing from everyone.

- Donovan

[Alfonso Jones]

http://edithpacker.com/

I just listened to the first lecture of The Art of Introspection by Edith Packer. I thought it was quite excellent. Does anyone know anything about Dr. Packer? What does she have her doctorate in? Does she still lecture?

Looking forward to hearing from everyone.

- Donovan

Have you been to http://www.capitalism.net/edith.htm? YOu will find some helpful information there about how to acquire more of Dr. Packer's recorded lectures.

Bill P

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Donovan,

I read a couple of essays from Ms. Packer a while back and I remember disagreeing strongly with some of her psychological premises. I have to revisit what I read to remember exactly what I didn't like, but it was strong enough for me to put off reading anything further from her, except as a duty to do much later for completeness in Objectivist literature.

I might go back and take a peek again before too long. This is prompted by your interest.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

http://edithpacker.com/

I just listened to the first lecture of The Art of Introspection by Edith Packer. I thought it was quite excellent. Does anyone know anything about Dr. Packer? What does she have her doctorate in? Does she still lecture?

Looking forward to hearing from everyone.

- Donovan

Donovan; I believe she is a lawyer. I believe she got some training in therapy techniques from Alan Blumenthal and stopped practicing law. She may have also had some training from Nathaniel Branden. She started a pschotherapy practice in the early 70ths. There were Objectivists in the DC area who went up to New York City on weekends to see here.

She is married to George Reisman. They have been married since the 70ths.

[Barbara Branden]

Chris: "She [Edith Packer] may have also had some training from Nathaniel Branden."

To the best of my knowledge, no.

Barbara

[jordanz]

Chris: "She [Edith Packer] may have also had some training from Nathaniel Branden."

To the best of my knowledge, no.

Barbara, if you don't object, I'd appreciate hearing what you know about the Reisman's split from ARI. I've enjoyed George Resiman's work but don't know much about him or his relationship to Ayn Rand, ARI, TAS, etc.

[Reidy]

One side of the story is at http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/kirk/index.html. You can probably guess what the other side is.

Edited January 16, 2009 by Reidy

[jordanz]

One side of the story is at http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/kirk/index.html. You can probably guess what the other side is.

Very interesting - thank you. As usual, follow the money.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

As usual, follow the money.

Jordan,

LOL...

That principle is one of the first things I noticed here in O-Land when I first started reading up on all this.

There's another point. You would think people familiar with Objectivism (some people, not all) would be proud of the money they make, but if you tell them they are about money, they get really angry and treat it as if you say they sold out. It's almost a kneejerk reaction. They don't deny money, but they never seem to own up to it and they are overly-sensitive to any insinuations they perceive, whether real or not. (As I said, not everyone, but I have seen it enough times to notice a pattern.)

When I see an Objectivist person, or one very friendly to Objectivism, behaving just like everyone else (i.e., intrigues and backstabbing for money), then I hear him/her preach that Rand's ideas will change the world, all I can think is, "Well they didn't change you."

But those are almost the blind and innocent ones compared to Objectivists who publicly say they don't do hardly anything for money. That's a critter to beware of. Look underneath the facade of one of those and you will usually find a very nasty person.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; While I agree with your last post I also think that the ARI crowd was fearful of anyone with a reputation which might be greater than their's.

I would like to think that some of these people feel a little shame about the whole affair.

[Barbara Branden]

Jordan: "Barbara, if you don't object, I'd appreciate hearing what you know about the Reisman's split from ARI."

Jordan, it's a very long story, but you can find the relevant documents at http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/ari/index.html.

Here are some of the tributes paid to George Reisman's book, Capitalism: A Treatiseon Economics.

"Reisman's exposure of modern mercantilist fallacies takes its place alongside that of Adam Smith." -James Buchanan,. Nobel Laureate in Economics, 1986

"Reisman's Capitalism is the most rigorous and relentless case for laissez-faire capitalism written in our time. It is both a brilliant rebuttal of the charges against the market order and a discerning master plan for the restoration of capitalism." -Hans Sennholz, President, Foundation for Economic Education

"Reisman has compiled one of the best defenses of the economics and morality of liberty I've seen written in recent years." -Walter E. Williams,Professor of Economics, George Mason University

"George Reisman has written a profound, often brilliant work, full of fascinating and valuable insights, wisdom and vision. It is seldom that I find myself underlining or putting exclamation points in the margins of nearly every page of a book. . . . I have learned much from Reisman's magnum opus and recommend it highly to all readers who want to expand their vision of economic reality." -Mark Skousen, Adjunct Professor of Economics and Finance, Rollins College

"Reisman's ringing manifesto for laissez-faire capitalism free of all government influence is at once a conservative polemic and a monumental treatise, brimming with original theories, that is remarkable for its depth, scope and rigorous argument." - Publishers Weekly

"Overall, Capitalism is a book you would want in your library if you want to know what a consistent, intelligent advocate of capitalism would say on almost any economic issue." -Fortune

"Reisman offers the most comprehensive defense of capitalism ever written. . . Capitalism is a classic." -The Freeman

The ARI Bokstore does not carry this book, nor do their lectures and articles on economics mention it. Apparently Peikoff's personal fueds take precedence over the Institute's commitment to laisez-faire capitalism.

Further, for taking "the wrong stand" in his dispute with Reisman, Peikoff withdrew his former permission for the Swedish translator of Ayn Rand's works to continue issuing translations,. Apparently, Peikoff's personal disputes are more important than are foreign editions of the Obectivist philosophy. Relevant documents can be found at http://www.nattvakt.com/peikoff.htm.

Barbara

[jordanz]

Thank you Barbara. Maybe I'll have a dram or two of whisky and peruse this swamp. ;)

[Dennis Edwall]

Barbara, your last link is not working.

[Alfonso Jones]

Barbara, your last link is not working.

Try:

http://www.nattvakt.com/peikoff.htm

and the links you will find there.

Bill P

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Barbara, your last link is not working.

Try:

http://www.nattvakt.com/peikoff.htm

and the links you will find there.

I fixed it with Bill's link.

Michael

[SherryTX]

Wow. I just got done reading Linda Reardan's letter "To Friends of Objectivism".

Not being in the mix of everything - and not knowing the other side - I just wanted to comment that in reading this letter, if everything went down the way she said they did - wow - I think she did the right (and brave) thing!

Now - regarding the rest of my comments - I have only been studying Objectivism for the past 4 years or so, and I know that I haven't fully integrated it all, and know I still have a lot to learn. I know enough to know I still need to study sooooo much more!

Linda Reardan made several points that I think are worthy - but the most important one to me personally: "Objectivism alone is not enough; and a student cannot even learn Objectivism properly without a real-life purpose that he is working towards."

These words are so important because Objectivism is supposed to be the philosophy for living on earth. Not just learning it inside and out, not reach out to people that are not philosophy majors. This is one area - and forgive me if I am going off on a tangent or off topic here - but I have been discouraged by ARI (though I have gotten value out of the org). I think focusing on college and high school students is absolutely important- but I don't see ARI marketing Objectivism towards the "common man" if you will. Not every "producer" goes to college, or is interested in philosophy in high school - or perhaps even has the foundation educationally or maturity wise at those ages.

Why isn't the reach being extended towards others? Sometimes I wonder if Objectivist intellectuals - the same ones that condemn the way public schools have been run for decades (justifiably so in most cases)- seem to forget or ignore the fact that students the last few decades usually are not getting the general educational foundation necessary to absorb a book like OPAR - or even The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrug properly? Why do we settle for for just fishing on the surface of the ocean when there are just as good fish to be found in deeper waters? Because it is harder or work - or because there are some that feel only "intellectuals" are good enough to gain an understanding of the philosophy? I do not mean water down, dilute and skip the principles of Objectivism. More of a classical education approach perhaps - or even (forgive me, as this is a biblical term) "food at the proper time" approach while respecting the whole hierarchy of knowledge needed to fully integrate the philosophy?

Okay...end rant...but on that note, I just ordered "Objectivism In One Lesson" by Andrew Bernstein. I have friends that have read it that tell me it is a great intro to Objectivism that they would hand to people not familiar with this or other philosophies for a good primer.

But back to Edith Packer - I would be interested in reading your criticisms on her Michael, as I hoped to have time in the near future to read what she has written as well.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

SherryTX,

I am not going to be able to get around to reading and rereading Edith Packer for a while, but I can give you my general thoughts from what I remember.

Ms. Packer seemed to me when I read her to swallow Ayn Rand's view of psychology hook, line and sinker: that everything in psychology ultimately boils down to volition. In other words, if you do the right thinking, you will clear up any neuroses you may have. Rand even thought that if you do the right thinking, you would fall in love with the right person. She threw everything she did not understand or that appeared contradictory into a container called "sense of life." The certainty with which the theories based on this oversimplified volition premise is presented shows that this is prejudice, not verified fact. It is not borne out by research, but instead often contradicted by it.

Fortunately Nathaniel Branden went his own way and grounded his later theories on actual practice. To be fair to Ms. Packer, however, I really do need to reread her stuff and read more of it.

I remember her talking about emotions only from the internal perspective of Rand-like identifications. This leaves out a lot when you talk as if you are covering the entire scope of human psychology, even if it is only for therapy.

I have recently become very interested in the work of Sylvan Tomkins and Paul Ekman. Both contend that an emotion has a corresponding physical expression. Ekman went so far as to develop his Facial Action Coding System (FACS). He mapped the movement of each muscle in the face to a specific emotion. (His work is studied and utilized greatly by cartoon and animation professionals in Hollywood.)

I became interested in Tomkins through Steve Shmurak, who is an Objectivist (see here: The Wonderful Way Shmurak Faces Emotion), and a new best-selling author, Malcom Gladwell, who writes about non-volitional elements that make up our character but appear as volitional. (I have read Blink and a good part of Outliers.) Gladwell's approach is refreshing because he does not deny that volition exists, as is common with people who study these things. Instead, he tries to focus on correctly identifying what is going on in our inner life, backed up by an impressive array of scientific behavioral experiments and data crunching.

I have also been reading Cialdini's works on persuasion and influence, which are also backed by lots of empirical studies. Madison Avenue even runs on Cialdini.

I mention these other writers because they present a view of man with volition, but with a lot of mental baggage, even value judgments, that run on autopilot and are rooted in anything but volition and "proper thinking."

For one outstanding example, see the Implicit Association Test you can take yourself at the Harvard University site:

Project Implicit

I haven't fiddled with this yet (I'm almost afraid to), but I read the results on Gladwell's own racial associations—as given by the tests he took—that he presented in Blink. Just this passage alone made me rethink some serious premises.

I see no room for any of this in the Packer literature that I read before. Maybe there is in some of the works I have not read, but my gut feeling is that Packer is a staunch Objectivist in her psychological theories to the point of not considering research like this. I almost want to say that these things are not there because you cannot read Ayn Rand and influence them with volition and "correct thinking," but that would be unfair until I reread what little I did read of her and read more of her stuff.

You can do a lot with volition. What can be done is a fact that should not be denied. Man's progress alone is proof enough for that. But Rand really overreached in the psychology area. I often say that her problem is not being wrong. In what she got right, she was deeply insightful. Her problem is often scope. A theory that works well for a part does not necessarily apply to the whole, but she often claimed it did, like, for instance, her theory of sex. Until I read more, I cannot issue anything but an opinion, but I suspect that Ms. Packer built her own work on trying to validate such scope.

This does not mean that Ms. Packer's work is worthless, but that it probably reflects the same form that Rand's writing on psychology took: wonderful insights allied to serious scope problems.

Michael

[SherryTX]

SherryTX,

I am not going to be able to get around to reading and rereading Edith Packer for a while, but I can give you my general thoughts from what I remember.

Ms. Packer seemed to me when I read her to swallow Ayn Rand's view of psychology hook, line and sinker: that everything in psychology ultimately boils down to volition. In other words, if you do the right thinking, you will clear up any neuroses you may have. Rand even thought that if you do the right thinking, you would fall in love with the right person. She threw everything she did not understand or that appeared contradictory into a container called "sense of life." The certainty with which the theories based on this oversimplified volition premise is presented shows that this is prejudice, not verified fact. It is not borne out by research, but instead often contradicted by it.

Fortunately Nathaniel Branden went his own way and grounded his later theories on actual practice. To be fair to Ms. Packer, however, I really do need to reread her stuff and read more of it.

I remember her talking about emotions only from the internal perspective of Rand-like identifications. This leaves out a lot when you talk as if you are covering the entire scope of human psychology, even if it is only for therapy.

I have recently become very interested in the work of Sylvan Tomkins and Paul Ekman. Both contend that an emotion has a corresponding physical expression. Ekman went so far as to develop his Facial Action Coding System (FACS). He mapped the movement of each muscle in the face to a specific emotion. (His work is studied and utilized greatly by cartoon and animation professionals in Hollywood.)

I became interested in Tomkins through Steve Shmurak, who is an Objectivist (see here: The Wonderful Way Shmurak Faces Emotion), and a new best-selling author, Malcom Gladwell, who writes about non-volitional elements that make up our character but appear as volitional. (I have read Blink and a good part of Outliers.) Gladwell's approach is refreshing because he does not deny that volition exists, as is common with people who study these things. Instead, he tries to focus on correctly identifying what is going on in our inner life, backed up by an impressive array of scientific behavioral experiments and data crunching.

I have also been reading Cialdini's works on persuasion and influence, which are also backed by lots of empirical studies. Madison Avenue even runs on Cialdini.

I mention these other writers because they present a view of man with volition, but with a lot of mental baggage, even value judgments, that run on autopilot and are rooted in anything but volition and "proper thinking."

For one outstanding example, see the Implicit Association Test you can take yourself at the Harvard University site:

Project Implicit

I haven't fiddled with this yet (I'm almost afraid to), but I read the results on Gladwell's own racial associations—as given by the tests he took—that he presented in Blink. Just this passage alone made me rethink some serious premises.

I see no room for any of this in the Packer literature that I read before. Maybe there is in some of the works I have not read, but my gut feeling is that Packer is a staunch Objectivist in her psychological theories to the point of not considering research like this. I almost want to say that these things are not there because you cannot read Ayn Rand and influence them with volition and "correct thinking," but that would be unfair until I reread what little I did read of her and read more of her stuff.

You can do a lot with volition. What can be done is a fact that should not be denied. Man's progress alone is proof enough for that. But Rand really overreached in the psychology area. I often say that her problem is not being wrong. In what she got right, she was deeply insightful. Her problem is often scope. A theory that works well for a part does not necessarily apply to the whole, but she often claimed it did, like, for instance, her theory of sex. Until I read more, I cannot issue anything but an opinion, but I suspect that Ms. Packer built her own work on trying to validate such scope.

This does not mean that Ms. Packer's work is worthless, but that it probably reflects the same form that Rand's writing on psychology took: wonderful insights allied to serious scope problems.

Michael

Thanks for the reply.

What you wrote above has given me pause. Not so much the comments about Edith Parker directly, but I think I need to reread what you wrote when I have more time to understand exactly what you mean here. I haven't read enough of Branden's work to be able to make the difference between his work in psychology and Ayn Rand's. (Though, I have not agreed with everything Ayn Rand has written that seemed to me be more for an area of science/psychology to clarify.)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

SherryTX,

To properly evaluate Rand and Branden, think the following (which I got from a poster named Paul Mawdsley):

Rand = concern with Good versus Evil

Branden = concern with Healthy versus Unhealthy

The focus on guiding actions (i.e., ethics) comes from different, but related, angles.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

SherryTX,

To properly evaluate Rand and Branden, think the following (which I got from a poster named Paul Mawdsley):

Rand = concern with Good versus Evil

Branden = concern with Healthy versus Unhealthy

The focus on guiding actions (i.e., ethics) comes from different, but related, angles.

I'd say also that Rand had a heavy focus on "the sanction of the victim." Branden on being a psychologist. Note that Rand dropped being a novelist after she wrote and published "Atlas Shrugged" in the sense of writing another novel. With one or two exceptions the novel writing tradition which was all hers in Objectivism ended there. The problem is that there is a profound difference between being an Objectivist novelist (Rand) and being a novelist. Branden went from being an Objectivist psychologist to a bio-centric one to a psychologist. Thus he embraced, eventually, Howard Roark on the professional level while Rand turned her back on him that way. Branden more and more wanted the real world and Rand wanted her artificial Objectivist world and the whole thing blew up; it had to, because each going in different directions lost sight of the other and themselves. Boom! Branden found himself and Rand was stuck with herself--and her stunningly great accomplishments: her novels and Objectivism and the knowledge of one hell of a life. She was not an Objectivist hero. She was a hero.

--Brant

[Selene]

Michael, Brant:

Very well put. I think it speaks strongly to the seriously different paths that were pursued after Atlas Shrugged was published by both Rand the creator and Branden the self actualizing acolyte.

When I interviewed Branden at NBI, obviously I was impressed with being there, as I was perhaps 20 or 21, but I sensed some "not nice things" about him, almost a tortured condescension which I was strikingly unimpressed by and my image of him was transformed by that one on one meeting.

At any rate, his book Breaking Free positively effected me and I was quite glad to see both Barbara and Nathaniel achieve so much after the implosion/explosion of NBI.

Adam

[Philip Coates]

> I just listened to the first lecture of The Art of Introspection by Edith Packer. I thought it was quite excellent. [Randall]

Yes, it was. Some of the other lectures are life-changing. I remember the impact "Happiness Skills" had on me.

> Does anyone know anything about Dr. Packer?

She was a major thinker in Objectivist-leaning psychology - practically applied to life problems. Both one of the most intelligent and one of the most commonsensical people I've met in my life. I knew her quite well. Spent thousands of hours with her over a decade. And she helped me / taught me a lot.

Be very cautious about accepting MSK's negative view based on some dim recollection. No, she did NOT believe that you can volitionally will problems away in short order or that 'mental baggage' doesn't exist or doesn't hold people back. WHAT A RIDICULOUS IDEA!! That's WHY she was a psychotherapist - to help people deal with mental baggage. I mean what do people think therapy IS? To help the average person or all of us who didn't have the ideal upbringing or encounters start to go back into their lives and unsnarl the conclusions, defenses, events that have shaped us. Unless you're *perfect* -- MSK you still there...:-) -- having therapy with a competent professional can help you see inside yourself, control angers and fears and self-doubt and lack of social skills or malevolence or whatever. . . and be all you can be psychologically and emotionally.

> Does she still lecture?

I don't know. She'd be getting along in years now. Older than Peikoff or the Appalachian mountains. She and George live or lived in Orange County. She may still practice.

One more point: She was the one who came up with the idea of summer Objectivist conferences, found the speakers, made this concept work. She also helped get ARI from running off the rails early on when the "young men in a hurry" needed someone down to earth, with business sense to supervise, be on the board. An issue of justice: Instead of being expelled and marginalized by LP, HP, PS, they should be enormously grateful no tjust to George, one of the great geniuses in economomis, but to Edith and should have quoted her and him, celebrated and promoted their work.

[tlhall]

In her talk "The Art of Introspection" Dr. Packer suggested the idea of a dictionary of emotions and their universal evaluations.

Is anyone aware of any work in this area ?

It actually looks like wikipedia has a good list of emotions going (see the right-hand side of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotions).

Could people just start adding a "Universal Evaluation" section to each emotion's wiki page ?

[Guyau]

Hi Tom. Here goes:

List of Human Emotions

An Argument for Basic Emotions

Paul Ekman (1992)

Basic Emotions

Paul Ekman (1999)

Ekman’s Basic Emotions: Why Not Love and Jealousy?

John Sabini and Maury Silver (2005)

Related:

Demystifying Emotion: Introducing the Affect Theory of Silvan Tomkins to Objectivists

Steven H. Shmurak (2006)

If “Emotions Are Not Tools of Cognition,” What Are They?

Marsha Familaro Enright (2002)

The Rationality of Emotion

Ronald De Sousa (1990)

Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion

Jesse J. Prinz (2006)

What Emotions Really Are

Paul E. Griffiths (1997)

Emotions in the Wild: The Situated Perspective on Emotion

Paul E. Griffiths and Andrea Scarantino (2009)

Why Man Needs Approval

Marsha Familaro Enright (1991)

[tlhall]

Thanks Stephen; that's a great list.