The OL "tribe" and the Tribal Mindset

[Jonathan]

Pigero grunted:

"On the basis of stuff I've been reading right here lately I think I'm headed for a divorce from Objectivism anyway. If Objectivism truly means, in a way I hadn't tumbled to hitherto, acquiescence to the mindset of Binswanger, Schwartz and Hull and a commitment to The Virtue of Obnoxiousness as practised by those gentlemen and defended by James then I don't want to be anywhere near it."

Pigero's just having a momentary crisis. It'll pass. It's kind of like in Atlas Shrugged when Hank was having a tough time of it. Like Hank, Pigero will lift himself up and remember that Objectivism doesn't mean making a commitment to The Virtue of Obnoxiousness as practiced by Binswanger, Schwartz and Hull, but that it means what he's always taken it to mean: a commitment to The Virtue of Obnoxiousness as practiced by Pigero.

J

[Brant Gaede]

Pigero grunted:

"On the basis of stuff I've been reading right here lately I think I'm headed for a divorce from Objectivism anyway. If Objectivism truly means, in a way I hadn't tumbled to hitherto, acquiescence to the mindset of Binswanger, Schwartz and Hull and a commitment to The Virtue of Obnoxiousness as practised by those gentlemen and defended by James then I don't want to be anywhere near it."

Pigero's just having a momentary crisis. It'll pass. It's kind of like in Atlas Shrugged when Hank was having a tough time of it. Like Hank, Pigero will lift himself up and remember that Objectivism doesn't mean making a commitment to The Virtue of Obnoxiousness as practiced by Binswanger, Schwartz and Hull, but that it means what he's always taken it to mean: a commitment to The Virtue of Obnoxiousness as practiced by Pigero.

Jon, you're one wicked dude.

--Brant

[Alfonso Jones]

Gentlemen:

I would insist on joint custody on existence.

Adam

do not know about Perigo or Valiant except from reading their thoughts sequences of words, punctuated and arranged in paragraphs.

However, just to be safe they would only have supervised visitation to existence.

With regard to existence: This won't work. I've read PARC. It's clear to me that there MUST be a restraining order forbidding James Valliant from wandering within 100 miles of existence.

Bill P

[Robert Campbell]

The post on "I'll Be Seeing You" is still on SOLOP, but it's been abruptly pulled from the blue area of the front page, and taken out of chronological sequence so it can't be seen by scrolling down the front page, or even venturing onto the second page.

Hmm... Mr. Perigo must be thinking about burying it entirely. I took the precaution of PDFing the post and its short thread.

Interesting analysis by MSK. Jim Valliant is already disposable, from the ARI leadership's viewpoint, but not as easily as would be ideal, on account of his membership in Leonard Peikoff's personal entourage. Lindsay Perigo, on the other hand, can be cut loose at any time without cost.

Robert Campbell

[Brant Gaede]

The post on "I'll Be Seeing You" is still on SOLOP, but it's been abruptly pulled from the blue area of the front page, and taken out of chronological sequence so it can't be seen by scrolling down the front page, or even venturing onto the second page.

Hmm... Mr. Perigo must be thinking about burying it entirely. I took the precaution of PDFing the post and its short thread.

Interesting analysis by MSK. Jim Valliant is already disposable, from the ARI leadership's viewpoint, but not as easily as would be ideal, on account of his membership in Leonard Peikoff's personal entourage. Lindsay Perigo, on the other hand, can be cut loose at any time without cost.

Robert Campbell

Those posts only last one day in the blue area and I did find it in chronological order. It is easiest to find by clicking on "recent posts."

LP is more and more to be found there only by himself plus some lurkers. SOLOP used to have about a third more traffic than OL. I doubt if this is any longer true.

--Brant

[Rich Engle]

I just want to know who did this Peikoff tribute. She subscribed to my youtube account for some reason, even though I don't even have stuff up there. Badly produced, but still...morbidly fascinating.

[Brant Gaede]

I just want to know who did this Peikoff tribute. She subscribed to my youtube account for some reason, even though I don't even have stuff up there. Badly produced, but still...morbidly fascinating.

I listened to a little then turned it off. I don't listen to people who don't know what they are talking about and Leonard Peikoff doesn't.

--Brant

[Robert Campbell]

Rich and Brant,

I'd heard this podcast before.

Listening again, with a reasonably accurate transcript on display, doesn't make it any better.

He doesn't explain his pet theory and I see no rationale, beyond his wanting to cling to the notion of unconscious premises, as to why anyone should consider it plausible.

This answer is more coherent than some others he's given in the past year, but I still think it's time for him to hang up the podcasts.

Robert Campbell

[Rich Engle]

I just didn't know, hadn't seen the thing before, that is all.

But, after all that being said, I don't think LP got even close to talking about homosexuals.

rde

[Dragonfly]

Apart from the content, I find his way of speaking unbearable, with its heavy EMphasis on every second word or so, esPECially as it goes on and on.

[Selene]

Apart from the content, I find his way of speaking unbearable, with its heavy EMphasis on every second word or so, esPECially as it goes on and on.

DF:

Good grief. I have never listened to him.

I see that I have missed nothing. Can he be excommunicated?

I think we have found the replacement for water boarding.

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Interesting analysis by MSK. Jim Valliant is already disposable, from the ARI leadership's viewpoint, but not as easily as would be ideal, on account of his membership in Leonard Peikoff's personal entourage. Lindsay Perigo, on the other hand, can be cut loose at any time without cost.

Robert,

I thought it odd to see Gary Hull sign up recently as a member of SLOP. Funny how he didn't use his full name. He just uses "Gary H."

I think my analysis explains what he was doing over there. Push Perigo to sing the party line so they can get rid of him.

Since it's working, I don't expect to see Hull posting anything else there anytime soon.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

I noticed, as I'm sure other readers did, that Lindsay Perigo kept pressing Gary Hull to retract his old letter demanding that Perigo exhibit ideological allegiance to ARI.

And that Hull never responded....

Robert Campbell

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Interesting analysis by MSK. Jim Valliant is already disposable, from the ARI leadership's viewpoint, but not as easily as would be ideal, on account of his membership in Leonard Peikoff's personal entourage. Lindsay Perigo, on the other hand, can be cut loose at any time without cost.

Robert,

I thought it odd to see Gary Hull sign up recently as a member of SLOP. Funny how he didn't use his full name. He just uses "Gary H."

I think my analysis explains what he was doing over there. Push Perigo to sing the party line so they can get rid of him.

Since it's working, I don't expect to see Hull posting anything else there anytime soon.

Michael

Michael,

I think that's a reach. Gary didn't try to do anything on SOLOP except rebut a false Founders College rumor. And you're speculating about someone you haven't met online or otherwise.

Jim

[Ellen Stuttle]

Michael,

I think that's a reach. Gary didn't try to do anything on SOLOP except rebut a false Founders College rumor. And you're speculating about someone you haven't met online or otherwise.

Jim

Here's a link to the thread, which is titled "The Fall of Founders College." Hull posted all of one comment on the thread after starting it, in which comment he wrote:

#85049

Hi Luke,

Thanks for asking. Maybe someday I'll provide a comprehensive explanation. Right now, though, I just don't want to re-live that experience.

Ellen

[Neil Parille]

Is Perigo really surprised that Valliant is an ARI cultist who can't even bring himself to denounce Peikoff, et al. for the airbrushing and rewriting of Rand's material?

Notice that a minor change to one of Rand's plays constituted a "systematic and personal betrayal" of Rand when done by the Smiths (even if the change disappeared into the air) but it's ok when Peikoff does (or permits) much worse.

Peikoff's legacy, not Rand's, is Valliant's concern.

-Neil Parille

Edited March 6, 2010 by Neil Parille

[9thdoctor]

Peikoff's legacy, not Rand's, is Valliant's concern.

I think that the marketing of past and future Valliant books is Valliant’s concern. If this means giving Peikoff’s boots a tongue bath, so be it. PARC had a ready made market among the ARIans, he invests time in non-Ortho venues because that's where the additional sales should come from.

[9thdoctor]

Scenes from the PARC approval process:

[Neil Parille]

ND,

Once someone is excommunicated from the ARI his books and tapes aren't sold, so one can imagine the pressure to conform. I can't say whether this is true in Valliant's case, but it probably explains, for example, why no ARIan has publicly criticized the rewriting of Rand's paper.

-Neil Parille

[Brant Gaede]

Is Perigo really surprised that Valliant is an ARI cultist who can't even bring himself to denounce Peikoff, et al. for the airbrushing and rewriting of Rand's material?

Notice that a minor change to one of Rand's plays constituted a "systematic and personal betrayal" of Rand when done by the Smiths (even if the change disappeared into the air) but it's ok when Peikoff does (or permits) much worse.

Peikoff's legacy, not Rand's, is Valliant's concern.

-Neil Parille

That Peikoff wrote an Introduction to Atlas Shrugged would be enough to make her rise from her grave and wreak vengeance except her coffin has no Internet connection.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I think that's a reach. Gary didn't try to do anything on SOLOP except rebut a false Founders College rumor. And you're speculating about someone you haven't met online or otherwise.

Jim,

I don't think it's a reach at all. It's not like this was ever the first time Founders College, false rumors and all, has been discussed on SLOP. Where was Hull during all those other times?

According to his profile page, as of today, he has been a member of SLOP for all of "1 week 6 days." The guy just joined.

I know I speculate. But, given the level of deception and cult-like behavior exhibited by the earlier generation of ARI hardliners (to which Hull belongs), showing up out of nowhere on a Peikoff-bashing forum like SLOP with deniability pre-built in comes with a strong subtext of a hidden agenda.

The very mess of Founders College itself speaks volumes about the methods these people use.

So I stand by my speculation. It was time to cut Valliant loose from SLOP and, if a false public image was to be kept in place, he could use some help.

I admit this is speculation qua speculation, but I think it is good speculation.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Just to be clear, let's have this on record over here. The following is from Perigo's thread called: KASS Music Gem of the Day: Mario—I'll Be Seeing You, dated March 4, 2010. He is discussing the movie, The Notebook. According to him, despite expectations that he would hate the movie, he actually loved it.

I imagine some anal-retentive Randroid will now label me, yet again, an "emotionalist" for doing so. Frankly my dears, I don't give a damn. On the basis of stuff I've been reading right here lately I think I'm headed for a divorce from Objectivism anyway. If Objectivism truly means, in a way I hadn't tumbled to hitherto, acquiescence to the mindset of Binswanger, Schwartz and Hull and a commitment to The Virtue of Obnoxiousness as practised by those gentlemen and defended by James then I don't want to be anywhere near it. I should add that I would still wish to be even less near the likes of Babs and Campbell, whom I regard as lower than anyone I've ever encountered.

What I'm certain of is that a theory of reason and emotion that ends up cheerleading for intrinsicist religiosity is just as fucked as one that ends up cheerleading for subjectivist amoralism. Hitherto I thought Rand and Peikoff thought so too, but James has gone to bat so hard for intrinsicist religiosity, with no hint of demur from anyone who speaks for Objectivism (or anyone who doesn't but knows better), I've concluded I must have missed something.

This suggests to me that, in addition to what's on the forum, the offiline route has been burning a bit...

I wonder what he missed. Maybe "acquiescence to the mindset of" Perigo?

Michael

[James Heaps-Nelson]

I think that's a reach. Gary didn't try to do anything on SOLOP except rebut a false Founders College rumor. And you're speculating about someone you haven't met online or otherwise.

Jim,

I don't think it's a reach at all. It's not like this was ever the first time Founders College, false rumors and all, has been discussed on SLOP. Where was Hull during all those other times?

According to his profile page, as of today, he has been a member of SLOP for all of "1 week 6 days." The guy just joined.

I know I speculate. But, given the level of deception and cult-like behavior exhibited by the earlier generation of ARI hardliners (to which Hull belongs), showing up out of nowhere on a Peikoff-bashing forum like SLOP with deniability pre-built in comes with a strong subtext of a hidden agenda.

The very mess of Founders College itself speaks volumes about the methods these people use.

So I stand by my speculation. It was time to cut Valliant loose from SLOP and, if a false public image was to be kept in place, he could use some help.

I admit this is speculation qua speculation, but I think it is good speculation.

Michael

Michael,

I knew Gary off and on for about 4 years in college and I think you're way off base. He is hard line ARI, but he really cares about introducing young people to Rand's ideas. I think he really wanted to set the record straight about Founders when a parent of a former student joined the forum. I'm guessing he shrugged off most of the previous discussion as partisan noise if he was aware of it.

Jim

[Robert Campbell]

I knew Gary off and on for about 4 years in college and I think you're way off base. He is hard line ARI, but he really cares about introducing young people to Rand's ideas. I think he really wanted to set the record straight about Founders when a parent of a former student joined the forum. I'm guessing he shrugged off most of the previous discussion as partisan noise if he was aware of it.

Jim,

I've never met Gary Hull or corresponded with him, so I can't claim to know a lick about his character and methods.

However, once he popped up on SOLO, Lindsay Perigo made sure to make an issue of his old letter, and he conspicuously did not respond.

If Dr. Hull is still hard-line ARI, I doubt that he considers his old letter in any way inappropriate. I likewise doubt that he would prefer not to defend it these days. So I have to wonder why he didn't take the bait.

Robert Campbell

[James Heaps-Nelson]

I knew Gary off and on for about 4 years in college and I think you're way off base. He is hard line ARI, but he really cares about introducing young people to Rand's ideas. I think he really wanted to set the record straight about Founders when a parent of a former student joined the forum. I'm guessing he shrugged off most of the previous discussion as partisan noise if he was aware of it.

Jim,

I've never met Gary Hull or corresponded with him, so I can't claim to know a lick about his character and methods.

However, once he popped up on SOLO, Lindsay Perigo made sure to make an issue of his old letter, and he conspicuously did not respond.

If Dr. Hull is still hard-line ARI, I doubt that he considers his old letter in any way inappropriate. I likewise doubt that he would prefer not to defend it these days. So I have to wonder why he didn't take the bait.

Robert Campbell

Robert,

My guess is that he came on the forum with an initial specific purpose of rebutting the Founders rumor. Lindsay chose to throw that letter back at him right when he joined the forum. I think he didn't want to be sidetracked and considers these topics sort of Inside Baseball. I don't agree with that stance, but I don't think he had some grand plan behind joining the forum.

Jim