Peikoff on the new biographies

[9thdoctor]

Someone he will listen to

There’s a mighty small subset of living entities…I heard that even Binswanger wouldn’t go along with his 2006 voting pronouncement; I definitely saw where Betsy Speicher wrote a good reply disagreeing with him on that one. There's Comrade Sonia, but isn't the communication there most likely a one way street?

[Brant Gaede]

Obviously, I don't know anything about Leonard Peikoff's medical condition.

But he is doing himself no favors with these recent podcasts, where some of his answers border on the incoherent.

Someone he will listen to needs to draw him aside and encourage him to discontinue the podcasts, at least for now.

Robert Campbell

Medication can screw one up too. However, Peikoff's basic problem is the only thing he's expert on is Objectivism, but Objectivism from the inside out. That doesn't stop him from implicitly claiming expertise in other areas. Rand did this too, but not as badly. It got weirdly funny when he touted her interpretation of the Oscar streaker as evidence of her great, interpretive, penetrating brain instead of evidence of jumping to a conclusion.

--Brant

[9thdoctor]

Someone he will listen to needs to draw him aside and encourage him to discontinue the podcasts, at least for now.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

Napoleon Bonaparte

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

There's Comrade Sonia, but isn't the communication there most likely a one way street?

Dennis,

I don't know about the current status of the project, but Comrade Sonia has been doing her own podcasts in a direct imitation of Peikoff's format, answering emails from listeners and everything. In her first one, she even slurred out some words in Peikoff's manner of delivery, but she got more natural-sounding as she went along in later podcasts.

I listened to a few, but I finally got weirded out listening to Hsieh giving out Dear Abby advice through a fundamentalist Objectivist lens (i.e., is it moral or immoral to have this feeling or that about being shy, etc.?), so I stopped. Besides, in the parts I listened to, she really rambles a lot and often ends up giving normal boilerplate advice (like what you get with Dear Abby) when she can't get a denunciatory handle on the issue.

I do admit, listening to Peikoff address the philosophy of premature ejaculation is much more of a hoot.

Michael

[anonrobt]

There's Comrade Sonia, but isn't the communication there most likely a one way street?

Dennis,

I don't know about the current status of the project, but Comrade Sonia has been doing her own podcasts in a direct imitation of Peikoff's format, answering emails from listeners and everything. In her first one, she even slurred out some words in Peikoff's manner of delivery, but she got more natural-sounding as she went along in later podcasts.

I listened to a few, but I finally got weirded out listening to Hsieh giving out Dear Abby advice through a fundamentalist Objectivist lens (i.e., is it moral or immoral to have this feeling or that about being shy, etc.?), so I stopped. Besides, in the parts I listened to, she really rambles a lot and often ends up giving normal boilerplate advice (like what you get with Dear Abby) when she can't get a denunciatory handle on the issue.

I do admit, listening to Peikoff address the philosophy of premature ejaculation is much more of a hoot.

Michael

LOL - you guys don't have much to do during the day, huh... ;-)

[9thdoctor]

In Peikoff’s latest (today’s) podcast there’s an interesting tidbit about the Fountainhead movie. The question is why does Wynand commit suicide in the movie, while not doing so in the book. Peikoff’s answer is that it was done for the Hayes office, which he equates to the Catholic Church. The reason was they wouldn’t “allow a divorce on the movie screen”. This part of the podcast starts about 10 minutes in.

So depicting suicide was preferable to divorce, lovely.

I recall Barbara Branden’s book having material about Rand’s dealings with the Hayes office, but I don’t recall this tidbit. It’s the kind of thing that makes listening worthwile (hey, it’s free, and there isn’t even a loyalty oath!).

The last question of the podcast concerns WW2, and the temperature rises as he accuses Roosevelt of conspiracy in Pearl Harbor and…just give it a listen.

[Reidy]

This question of Wynand's suicide came up in one of the Objectivist forums before, and Bidinotto quoted Nathaniel Branden as saying that this was a matter of dramatic economy, a way to move the story along at screen pace rather than novel pace. I suggested at the time that it was also because of the Code's divorce policy. I see no reason why it couldn't be both.

The old rules said that movies could show divorce but things couldn't turn out well for people who got divorced. If Dominique is to marry Roark happily, she can't be a divorcee. You see the same earlier, when she breaks her engagement to Keating rather than divorcing him as she did in the book - keep events moving and keep Dominique respectable.

[Alfonso Jones]

This question of Wynand's suicide came up in one of the Objectivist forums before, and Bidinotto quoted Nathaniel Branden as saying that this was a matter of dramatic economy, a way to move the story along at screen pace rather than novel pace. I suggested at the time that it was also because of the Code's divorce policy. I see no reason why it couldn't be both.

The old rules said that movies could show divorce but things couldn't turn out well for people who got divorced. If Dominique is to marry Roark happily, she can't be a divorcee. You see the same earlier, when she breaks her engagement to Keating rather than divorcing him as she did in the book - keep events moving and keep Dominique respectable.

It's impressive, when one steps back and notices how many things Rand challenged.

Bill P