News: Goddess of the Market by Jennifer Burns

[Philip Coates]

Subject: How to Conduct an Intellectual Discussion

There is an extended 'heavyweight' debate between Dragonfly and myself going on over on the Dagny and Hank thread (which may or may not have a few more rounds to go). To date, it has been an example of how to post and conduct an intelligent debate, no matter whether you are more sympathetic to DF's arguments or to mine. There have been other participants who have contributed individual points, but it's mostly Dragonfly and myself who have been in a full scale, lengthy nuclear war, using multiple weapons fired at multiple positions.

The disagreement centers, basically, around whether Atlas Shrugged is great literature or a poor novel. Other issues about the validity and meaning of Objectivism have come up and are very important. There is some heat or temper and sharp jabs ("typical oist excuse"...'are you truly unaware of this?'...etc.) We are both strongly convinced and emotionally attached to our viewpoints.

But to date the line of escalation into personal contempt, name-calling, or accusations of dishonesty has not been crossed. This is always a genuine risk when people are strongly committed to their views and can't see how the other person could possibly not understand. [Hint to Robert who is engaged in food fights and name-calling and character-questioning over on SoloP and Michael who does it with a range of people on this site. Hint also applies to others, but those are the two that spring to mind.]

I hope some people may even print out and study the totality of these exchanges with regard to learning how imporove their conduct of an intellectual discussion. ((Just as he seldom takes many notes at Oist summer conferences, thinking "hey I already know everything already", the lazy reader and thinker doesn't know what he is missing or maybe doesn't much try to improve himself, reads everything only once, pretty much never prints anything thought-provoking out for further review to be underlined, rethought or re-processed. Nor does he much edit what he writes. "Aw gee, it's only a post---just havin' fun--can't be too serious".))

DF is articulate and can write precise and clear English. He "gives as good as he gets" with me. He makes strong, plausible arguments (even though they are wrong, hee hee ) because he takes the time to think through what he is going to say, to give examples from the book not just airy-fairy generalizations, in order to thoroughly address the points at issue. And he is not a sloppy, slovenly, lazy one-liner, humorously dismissive poster. [An occasional witty jape is okay, as long as it does not substitute for reason and evidence on the topic itself.] The posts are long enough to deal with multiple points, yet not usually more than a typewritten page (so that even the most hurried or multi-tasking or indolent reader is capable of absorbing them.) I like to hope that I am making the same sort of effort in -my- posts.

Another good thing about this debate is that it has stayed rather focused (avoiding being larded over with all sorts of irrelevant, off-topic crap by either main poster.

It's enjoyable (for me) to have this kind of debate -- even with a bitter adversary regarding a particular issue in Objectivism, literature or anything else. Whether or not I convince my opponent, I am learning to formulate my ideas more carefully under the heat of attack. I hope all this effort is appreciated and is of similar value to other readers, bringing back to mind many points or questions from principles of Objectivism and from reading Rand's novels.

[Brant Gaede]

There are no intellectual discussions on SOLOP.

--Brant

[jriggenbach]

Subject: How to Conduct an Intellectual Discussion

There is an extended 'heavyweight' debate between Dragonfly and myself going on over on the Dagny and Hank thread (which may or may not have a few more rounds to go). To date, it has been an example of how to post and conduct an intelligent debate, no matter whether you are more sympathetic to DF's arguments or to mine. There have been other participants who have contributed individual points, but it's mostly Dragonfly and myself who have been in a full scale, lengthy nuclear war, using multiple weapons fired at multiple positions.

The disagreement centers, basically, around whether Atlas Shrugged is great literature or a poor novel. Other issues about the validity and meaning of Objectivism have come up and are very important. There is some heat or temper and sharp jabs ("typical oist excuse"...'are you truly unaware of this?'...etc.) We are both strongly convinced and emotionally attached to our viewpoints.

But to date the line of escalation into personal contempt, name-calling, or accusations of dishonesty has not been crossed. This is always a genuine risk when people are strongly committed to their views and can't see how the other person could possibly not understand. [Hint to Robert who is engaged in food fights and name-calling and character-questioning over on SoloP and Michael who does it with a range of people on this site. Hint also applies to others, but those are the two that spring to mind.]

I hope some people may even print out and study the totality of these exchanges with regard to learning how imporove their conduct of an intellectual discussion. ((Just as he seldom takes many notes at Oist summer conferences, thinking "hey I already know everything already", the lazy reader and thinker doesn't know what he is missing or maybe doesn't much try to improve himself, reads everything only once, pretty much never prints anything thought-provoking out for further review to be underlined, rethought or re-processed. Nor does he much edit what he writes. "Aw gee, it's only a post---just havin' fun--can't be too serious".))

DF is articulate and can write precise and clear English. He "gives as good as he gets" with me. He makes strong, plausible arguments (even though they are wrong, hee hee ) because he takes the time to think through what he is going to say, to give examples from the book not just airy-fairy generalizations, in order to thoroughly address the points at issue. And he is not a sloppy, slovenly, lazy one-liner, humorously dismissive poster. [An occasional witty jape is okay, as long as it does not substitute for reason and evidence on the topic itself.] The posts are long enough to deal with multiple points, yet not usually more than a typewritten page (so that even the most hurried or multi-tasking or indolent reader is capable of absorbing them.) I like to hope that I am making the same sort of effort in -my- posts.

Another good thing about this debate is that it has stayed rather focused (avoiding being larded over with all sorts of irrelevant, off-topic crap by either main poster.

It's enjoyable (for me) to have this kind of debate -- even with a bitter adversary regarding a particular issue in Objectivism, literature or anything else. Whether or not I convince my opponent, I am learning to formulate my ideas more carefully under the heat of attack. I hope all this effort is appreciated and is of similar value to other readers, bringing back to mind many points or questions from principles of Objectivism and from reading Rand's novels.

Well, since you guys eschew sloppiness, slovenliness, and laziness; since you "write precise and clear English"; since you edit what you write; perhaps you can satisfy my curiosity about this clause: "t's mostly Dragonfly and myself who have been in a full scale, lengthy nuclear war, using multiple weapons fired at multiple positions."

Tell me, please, what you think of the following sentence: "Myself has been in a full scale nuclear war."

Would you write that sentence? If you did, would you characterize it as precise and clear? As free of sloppiness, slovenliness, and laziness?

Just curious.

JR

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

There is an extended 'heavyweight' debate between Dragonfly and myself going on over on the Dagny and Hank thread (which may or may not have a few more rounds to go). To date, it has been an example of how to post and conduct an intelligent debate, no matter whether you are more sympathetic to DF's arguments or to mine.

Phil,

This is precisely one of the reasons I like DF a lot.

(Well... you too when you are not on a behavior tirade... )

I want to point out that in your discussion with DF, neither of you are trying to waste the other's time, either. I have not seen anything resembling preaching, using hamhanded rhetoric in the place of ideas, intimidation, or using subliminal persuasion techniques.

You are right to point this out. If there were a standard for best practices in forum discussions, this could be used as an example.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Well, since you guys eschew sloppiness, slovenliness, and laziness; since you "write precise and clear English"; since you edit what you write; perhaps you can satisfy my curiosity about this clause: "t's mostly Dragonfly and myself who have been in a full scale, lengthy nuclear war, using multiple weapons fired at multiple positions."

Tell me, please, what you think of the following sentence: "Myself has been in a full scale nuclear war."

Would you write that sentence? If you did, would you characterize it as precise and clear? As free of sloppiness, slovenliness, and laziness?

Just curious.

Jeff,

LOLOLOLOLOL...

Dayaamm!

If I want to give a moment of praise to Phil, I guess I had better learn to be quick and not be sloppy, slovenly, or lazy myself!

So let me qualify my "best practices" in the above post. I refer to attitude only. Not to the details of the execution...

Michael

[Selene]

Both new biographies are now reviewed in The Economist.

http://www.economist...ory_id=14698215

Robert Campbell

I am not particularly worried about the responses of the ARIans, since they mainly talk just to each other, and are preoccupied by nervously attempting to enforce conformity to their "party line" amongst themselves.

However, I regret to say that the passage of fifty-plus years has not substantially changed the method of attack that the MSM and liberal reviewers have taken towards Ayn Rand. In large part, they have simply used the publication of these books as an excuse to repeat the same distortions and mis-characterizations. The recent reviews of the Burns and Heller biographies in the New York Times, New York, Salon, The Economist, The New Republic, and at the Barnes and Noble online newsletter review, all pretty much follow the same game plan: recount personal eccentricities of Rand and "The Collective", misrepresent key aspects of Objectivism, and then use this "strawman" to dismiss her views as not worthy of examination by serious people.

That this method attack has not changed since the initial reactions to the publications of Atlas Shrugged, read these reviews and then read Nathaniel Branden's comments on the line of attacks used by Rand's critics near the end of his essay, "The Moral Revolution in Atlas Shrugged," published in 1962 in Who Is Ayn Rand? (recently republished as a separate pamphlet by TAS). He could have written that today, as a response to the current reviews, and not changed a single line.

Apparently, the reviewers think that if they can label her as nasty, eccentric, or just plain crazy, then few of their readers will bother to check her out for themselves, relying instead on the liberals' mythology. This may work for their acolytes, but risks a serious counter-reaction in those who actually do read Rand, and then realize that the liberal reviewers and their allies have lied to them.

Do the Burns and Heller books have enough positive things to say about Rand to counter the impressions left by the liberal reviewers? Or will readers rely on observations in these books that tend to fit the liberal's "party line" about Rand? I am not sure about reactions that "neutral" readers would have to the view of Rand presented in Professor Burns' book. I can't say anything at all about what is in Anne Heller's book, since it is just now being released.

Jerry; One of the things is that Ayn Rand has reached her audience with all the opposition. The "neutral" readers seem to love her and buy her books

Don't forget that William F Buckley at the time of her death referred to her philosophy dying with her. Do you really think that has happened. Can you think of another novelist from the 50ths whose books are selling like Rand's. I might add from the 60ths, 70ths and 80ths.

Another point that has been made by Jennifer Burns is that Ayn Rand's love life is not so unusual for an artist and philosopher. What was unusual is her gender.

Stop worrying about the MSM.

AND a right wing, fascist, racist Nietzschean also! Because if she was Isadora Duncan, she would have a scarf movie made out of her life. If she were a leftist, any mention of her sexuality would be considered a hate crime under the new bill O'biwan just signed.

Adam

[9thdoctor]

Subject: How to Conduct an Intellectual Discussion

There is an extended 'heavyweight' debate between Dragonfly and myself going on over on the Dagny and Hank thread

What's this doing in the Burns thread? We're all doing fine watching Phil & Dragonfly duke it out over there,

why drift this thread?

[Selene]

Subject: How to Conduct an Intellectual Discussion

There is an extended 'heavyweight' debate between Dragonfly and myself going on over on the Dagny and Hank thread

What's this doing in the Burns thread? We're all doing fine watching Phil & Dragonfly duke it out over there,

why drift this thread?

I think the weight class is wide open to argument in that post, but more importantly, where did you get the cool icon?

Adam

[Philip Coates]

I second that emoticon. If people don't start telling me where they are getting these cool icons, I am going to go on posting strike and quazillions of people will die, stranded by the side of abandoned railroad engines and drunk behind keyboards all over the place.

Edited October 29, 2009 by Philip Coates

[jeffrey smith]

http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab360/almaviva1/popcorn.gif

is the code for that icon, but bracketed by IMG and /IMG

Hit reply to 9thDoctor or Selene's posts, and you 'll see it in the quoted text.

Jeffrey S.

Edited October 29, 2009 by jeffrey smith

[9thdoctor]

Subject: How to Conduct an Intellectual Discussion

There is an extended 'heavyweight' debate between Dragonfly and myself going on over on the Dagny and Hank thread

What's this doing in the Burns thread? We're all doing fine watching Phil & Dragonfly duke it out over there,

why drift this thread?

I think the weight class is wide open to argument in that post, but more importantly, where did you get the cool icon?

Adam

I second that emoticon. If people don't start telling me where they are getting these cool icons, I am going to go on posting strike and quazillions of people will die, stranded by the side of abandoned railroad engines and drunk behind keyboards all over the place.

I lurk all over, and when I see something good I right-click and save, so I don't know where any one emoticon came from. Uploading them to OL takes a couple steps, so I don't do it too much, but since this is a special request, here's a few I haven't used around here before:

With love to Linz:

Conversations with Xray:

How I really feel about Phil:

For when Phil gets all cranky and full of himself:

For when Phil finally goes postal:

[Philip Coates]

> For when Phil finally goes postal: Posted Image Posted Image

Ain't gonna happen for at least another couple weeks. (But not being able to have enuff emoticons for reuse could speed up the process.)

As far as crankiness and being full of, well, myself...don't knock it. It's taken a lot of hard work and listening to many Peikoff tapes to perfect.

Edited October 30, 2009 by Philip Coates

[Selene]

> For when Phil finally goes postal: Posted Image Posted Image

Ain't gonna happen for at least another couple weeks. (But not being able to have enuff emoticons for reuse could speed up the process.)

As far as crankiness and being full of, well, myself...don't knock it. It's taken a lot of hard work and listening to many Peikoff tapes to perfect.

Phil:

If you hit reply, then you will be able to rt click on the icon and copy and transfer it into an e-mail or a file in the other window and e-mail it to yourself and then you will always be able to use them quickly.

Adam

It may seem round about, but it works for me as I only have to do it once, it is like a library icon file...even has x rated ones lol

[Philip Coates]

Ok, I just copied one of ND's emoticons...I'm going to paste it in now and see if it works:

Yay!!

My next attempt at learning will be how to copy and paste images..into posts...or find libraries of images and emoticons.

Edited October 30, 2009 by Philip Coates

[DavidMcK]

Ok, I just copied one of ND's emoticons...I'm going to paste it in now and see if it works:

Yay!!

My next attempt at learning will be how to copy and paste images..into posts...or find libraries of images and emoticons.

[jriggenbach]

Here's the video of the Cato event featuring Jennifer Burns and Anne Heller.

http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=6416

JR

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Just look at this crap from SLOP:

Let's face it, much of the driving force behind the fever of expectation ahead of the publication of Jennifer Burns's Ayn Rand biography, Goddess of the Market (and the Heller biography) was—whom would it vindicate: Valliant or TheBrandens?

Uhm... no...

The driving force had—and has—nothing to do with PARC, except for a minuscule subcommunity.

I didn't see PARC or even the fundamentalist versus Branden crusade mentioned in the New York Times, on the Jon Stewart interview, or anywhere else for that matter. Well... there was SLOP, here and some fundamentalist sites (both sides), but that was all I have detected. What is this? One millionth of one percent of the media public served?

Heh.

Some driving force.

Folks who think like this should try stopping the motor of the real world.

This is a pure case of the Ayn Rand Love/Hate Myth. To these folks, the people familiar with Rand are divided into Lovers and Haters of Rand. The reality is that there is 1% at best on either side. (I have an essay from 2006 that explains this number: The Ayn Rand Love/Hate Myth.)

"Let's face it, much of the driving force behind the fever of" these impotent and incompetent souls is pure delusion.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

Lindsay Perigo is delusional.

Jim Valliant and his opus have gotten no play except on SOLOP and here at OL.

Since the Burns and Heller books came out, he hasn't even gotten much mention on the Orthodox blogs and fora, probably because none among the Orthodoxy really believe that his book will shield them from an avalanche of biographical fact.

I have yet to see a review of either Burns' book or Heller's that so much as alludes to either the credibility of TheBrandens ™ as sources, or to Jim Valliant's book.

Robert Campbell

[Brant Gaede]

Lindsay is trying to get off the sinking PARC boat and board Burns'. It won't work. The new bios totally sink PARC and he has no place to go with the thesis of the Brandens ruining Rand for public consumption, an ad hominem premise if there ever was one.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Let's not forget Kamikaze Stuttle's gush:

Linz: Applause! I really liked the review.

I feel like I am in a Dali painting at times...

Michael

[Dragonfly]

I've now also finished Burns' book. Its focus is more on the political aspects of Rand's theories, but as with Heller's book I see no essential difference with the image of Rand that we find in Barbara's book, or it would be that Burns is more critical. Two spelling errors: on page 63 Synder instead of Snyder and on page 146 Wiedman instead of Weidman.

Here follow a few interesting tidbits from the book: on page 153, Rand is quoted: "I could be just as good in music as in economics if I applied myself". Hmmmm...

About the little intellectual recognition of Rand's novels Burns writes:

Rand's romantic fiction, with its heavy political messages and overdrawn contrasts between good and evil, was hopelessly out of fashion as a vehicle for serious ideas. Atlas Shrugged was a throwback to Socialist realism, with its cardboard characters in the service of an overarching ideology.

We should warn Phil.

Interesting was also Rothbard's story. From Nathaniel Branden's memoir I got the impression that Rothbard was only a very short time associated with the circle around Rand, but it appears that he stayed there for almost half a year. Moreover, he went into therapy with Branden for his phobias (the therapy didn't help). I was also surprised when I read how Rothbard in the beginning adored Rand, that was a quite different picture than that which I had got from reading Rothbard's own books. Obviously he changed his mind drastically during the time he spent with the Collective.

About Frank's drinking:

Frank is described as an alcoholic in his later years by Barbara Branden, The Passion of Ayn Rand, 272-73, 339, 366, 384, and Nathaniel Branden, My Years with Ayn Rand, 330, but this claim has been vigorously disputed by James Valliant in The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics (Dallas, TX: Durban House, 2005), 141-47. The dispute boils down to the reliability of the sources whom the Brandens cite as witnesses to Frank's drinking habits. Firm diagnoses of the dead are always tenuous, but given Frank's family history, the pressures he was under, and the testimony of observers, it is not unreasonable to conclude that Frank's use of alcohol was, at the very least, unhealthy. Anne Heller reaches a similar conclusion in Ayn Rand and the World She Made, 494.

[Xray]

About the little intellectual recognition of Rand's novels Burns writes:

Rand's romantic fiction, with its heavy political messages and overdrawn contrasts between good and evil, was hopelessly out of fashion as a vehicle for serious ideas. Atlas Shrugged was a throwback to Socialist realism, with its cardboard characters in the service of an overarching ideology.

We should warn Phil.

And Jeff Riggenbach , who seems to think AR is one of the greatest novels ever written.

Although there are certain surrealistic elements in AS (which don't serve the story well at all imo), things like the wooden "heroic" cardboard characters representing the specific values of an ideology, the black and white good vs. evil opposition indeed could make one think of propagandistic ideological novels.

Interesting btw that socialism had the title "hero" too ("Held der Arbeit" = 'Hero of Labour').

Couldn't this 'hero of socialist labour' painting also illustrate John Galt working at something connected with his motor?

Or Hank Rearden working at something connected with Rearden Metal?

http://images.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bildungsservice.at/faecher/be/b898.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bildungsservice.at/faecher/be/Kunstwerk/sozialrealismus.htm&usg=__mDsH1VrqE5Bktw-S1FYU5Umsy20=&h=408&w=268&sz=37&hl=de&start=1&um=1&tbnid=2HpmI49pUm5iXM:&tbnh=125&tbnw=82&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsozialistischer%2Brealismus%26hl%3Dde%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:de:official%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

And from the other side of the ideological spectrum, wouldn't this sculpture (purely from the visual impression and 'heroic' posture) also fit male Rand heroes like J. Galt or R. Danneskjöld?

http://de.academic.ru/pictures/dewiki/65/ArnoBrekerDiePartei.jpg

Edited November 20, 2009 by Xray

[Selene]

Ms. Xray:

Ayn wrote a novel, you folks showed the world what pure evil is...do you actually notice the cracks in the glass house you live in?

Ah Deutschland Uber Alles ...

Ok so much for the travelogue...

National Socialism Pictures:

http://www.thirdreichruins.com/bueckeberg1oct1934.jpg

http://www.thirdreichruins.com/Crem1945.jpg

http://www.thirdreichruins.com/ovens45.jpg

http://www.thirdreichruins.com/dachaudisninfectchambdoor45.jpg

Pots and kettles and blackness...

Adam

shameful culture

[9thdoctor]

shameful culture

C’mon Adam, lay off the Germans. I’m about ½ German, and have visited 4 times. Every culture has some historical shame in its past, and has been the victim of oppression at some other time. If you feel an urge to stoop to Xray’s level, try employing gibberish. You’re going too far.

[Dragonfly]

And from the other side of the ideological spectrum, wouldn't this sculpture (purely from the visual impression and 'heroic' posture) also fit male Rand heroes like J. Galt or R. Danneskjöld?

http://de.academic.ru/pictures/dewiki/65/ArnoBrekerDiePartei.jpg

Arno Breker could have been a model for Steven Mallory. Rand's esthetics are indeed closely related to Nazi art, like that of Breker or Riefenstahl (Triumf des Willens!)