Rand on Sex

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

In your own way, you are a member of the cult of personality that has always surrounded Rand, both when she was living and after she was dead. The only difference is that your obsession with her personal life focuses on the negative rather than on the positive aspects.

George,

This is the reason I don't engage her anymore.

Back when she showed up, after a gazillion posts with her overly-biased anti-Rand personality cult agenda, I literally caught her rewriting her previous posts (from months earlier) to conform to what she had later learned during the discussions. I found this out trying to quote her and not being able to find what I knew I had read. And the examples were many. (She tries to deny this to this day, even when shown. I got tired of playing her games and that impacted my respect for her.)

This rewriting habit had the oddest effect on long discussions for people who were reading them for the first time. It made her look like a sage and the people she was discussing things with look like ignorant fools who couldn't read simple English--like people who mischaracterized what she said on purpose, when they were merely discussing what she had actually written at the time.

This is why I changed the policy from unlimited to a 2 day limit for making alterations to posts. I also made another policy change, but this time specific to her. She developed a habit of making a gazillion rapid-fire posts--all saying the same negative thing--when threads started getting interesting in a manner flattering to Rand. This derailed several discussions, some where research and hard work had been presented, so I limited her to 5 posts every 24 hours.

I thought these measures were better than banning or moderation, since I do see a measure of intelligence in her. I just don't let her hog the forum anymore, nor do I let her rewrite her own history on OL. Thus her comments have to stand on their own merit, not on her manipulating the medium in which they are delivered.

But if you discuss things with her over time, you will see that it almost always boils down to (1) Rand was basically a lunatic, or (2) all values are subjective. Even the questions she asks almost always end up there if you are careless enough to start answering them.

Sometimes she makes interesting comments about ideas instead of her habitual preaching, but the signal to noise ratio is way in the red. Still, there is a meek little signal in there if you look hard, so I have hopes of being able to lift these restrictions over time, that is while still allowing others to use the forum.

I like dissent, I don't like preaching and rewriting and manipulation and hogging.

Michael

[Xray]

In your own way, you are a member of the cult of personality that has always surrounded Rand, both when she was living and after she was dead. The only difference is that your obsession with her personal life focuses on the negative rather than on the positive aspects.

George,

This is the reason I don't engage her anymore.

Back when she showed up, after a gazillion posts with her overly-biased anti-Rand personality cult agenda, I literally caught her rewriting her previous posts (from months earlier) to conform to what she had later learned during the discussions. I found this out trying to quote her and not being able to find what I knew I had read. And the examples were many. (She tries to deny this to this day, even when shown. I got tired of playing her games and that impacted my respect for her.)

This rewriting habit had the oddest effect on long discussions for people who were reading them for the first time. It made her look like a sage and the people she was discussing things with look like ignorant fools who couldn't read simple English--like people who mischaracterized what she said on purpose, when they were merely discussing what she had actually written at the time.

This is why I changed the policy from unlimited to a 2 day limit for making alterations to posts. I also made another policy change, but this time specific to her. She developed a habit of making a gazillion rapid-fire posts--all saying the same negative thing--when threads started getting interesting in a manner flattering to Rand. This derailed several discussions, some where research and hard work had been presented, so I limited her to 5 posts every 24 hours.

I thought these measures were better than banning or moderation, since I do see a measure of intelligence in her. I just don't let her hog the forum anymore, nor do I let her rewrite her own history on OL. Thus her comments have to stand on their own merit, not on her manipulating the medium in which they are delivered.

But if you discuss things with her over time, you will see that it almost always boils down to (1) Rand was basically a lunatic, or (2) all values are subjective. Even the questions she asks almost always end up there if you are careless enough to start answering them.

Sometimes she makes interesting comments about ideas instead of her habitual preaching, but the signal to noise ratio is way in the red. Still, there is a meek little signal in there if you look hard, so I have hopes of being able to lift these restrictions over time, that is while still allowing others to use the forum.

I like dissent, I don't like preaching and rewriting and manipulation and hogging.

Michael

I don't like preaching and rewriting and manipulating and hogging either. We are on the same page here.

As to your accusations, I have addressed and countered them in numerous posts. Anyone here can retrace those discussions.

I once edited a post to Brant which imo contained too much hyperbolic banter. You seem to have inferred from the banter post that I believed I had "swayed" Brant to abandon Objectivism. That you believed this I found amusing, and as for Brant, he could not even remember that post.

Another post I edited to expand on a reply I had given to a question. Another poster had saved this, posted it and then asked where there was any 'distortion'.

As can be seen, I edit nearly all my posts. Mostly to weed out my many typos, but also to work on the text to phrase it better.

Therefore you will often find posts of mine quoted with a different text than the edited version. The purpose of an edit function is to allow working on the text. "I edited since you posted" - you yourself told a poster this.

I don't edit to "alter" what I have actually written to suit my arguments to the discussion.

Not only is this against my standard of ethical value, it would also be stupid (you concede to me "a measure of intelligence") in view of the fact that every forum has quite a few people who save posts and even whole threads for their archives.

I'm less interested in Rand than in the 'objective value' question as such. That I have stayed here for so long - that too has less to do with Ayn Rand than with the brain trust of the many knowledgeable posters at OL. I have learned a lot here, and intend to learn more. For example, Baal's and Dragonfly's posts on natural science topics made me realize I have to educate myself more on these issues.

You stated that "you like dissent". I don't "like" dissent, but appreciate learning from dissenting opinions. I suppose this is what you meant as well.

Edited May 16, 2010 by Xray

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

As can be seen, I edit nearly all my posts.

Xray,

Of this, I have no doubt. But you no longer do that on posts months old. I have made sure of that and this is something that will not change anymore.

Mostly to weed out my many typos, but also to work on the text to phrase it better.

Therefore you will often find posts of mine quoted with a different text than the edited version.

Thank goodness for small miracles. Finally you are admitting it. You used to deny it.

I don't edit to "alter" what I have actually written to suit my arguments to the discussion.

What a crock.

But now I don't care if you do or not. I think a person has a right to reconsider something within a reasonable time. After that, the readers deserve a retraction, not an edit. A couple of days is a reasonable time. More is not.

Still, I am grateful for the progress. Time seems to help certain things.

That I have stayed here for so long - that too has less to do with Ayn Rand than with the brain trust of the many knowledgeable posters at OL. I have learned a lot here, and intend to learn more.

You are more than welcome to do so. I am glad you get such value out of this forum. I have a very high opinion of both Dragonfly and Bob (Baal)--and many others around here, even as I do not always agree with them.

Michael

[tjohnson]

What would be a real life example of an "evil man is the one who, knowing that sex is good, takes pleasure in forbidding it and thus causing men to suffer"?

Several clergy members in various denominations might fit the profile. ;)

I wonder, because it doesn't seem to me that clergy members don't know that "sex is good". LOL

[Dennis Hardin]

I agree with Dennis (hi, Dennis!).

I know what he's talking about NB saying because I've heard it or read it somewhere, for real. I think it might have come up when I was helping him take old tapes and restore them to what they are now. You could ask NB, but I think he (prudently) remains quiet (plus he is probably busy enjoying his life--who knows, I only guess). I just can't remember where that came up, but when you intimated it, I remembered it.

On the other hand, I guess it would be rough to go too hard on her about the basic dominant/submissive issue. I prefer to think of it as an underdeveloped topic, on her part, for various reasons. The general openness (and work done) regarding sexuality kind of outstrips this stuff.

But, I can see where she was coming from, at least I think so. It is sort of a "be all you can be" thing. A man should embrace his manhood, his full capabilities all-around, mind/body/spirit, same thing for a woman. It creates a base-point. There was a certain amount of storming/norming (a lot, actually) that went on in this regard over the past several decades. A lot of it went to extremes, both ends. I get the impression that she wanted a man, or a woman to first embrace their native, er...nature. But after that, it's game-on, you know? The gender thing causes the cannon to flare immediately upon mention. A lot of frustration and pissed-off-ed-ness. In the end, those arguments (gender-based) end up talking the same problems.

So I see the purity of it, what she was saying.

But like anything else, chapter and verse thinkers make it dogma. Creed versus covenant. Psychotic episodes like that couple that got married Rand-style, what, where did they end up...the vows were horrible, and I'm guessing the honeymoon was worse. Bad attitudes, man.

rde

Hi Rich,

I am far less inclined to defend Ayn Rand in this arena then you seem to be.

When you are right and just about everyone else is all wet so often (as happened in the case of Ayn Rand), I think it’s understandable that you might start to make unwarranted assumptions about the universal validity of your emotions. E.g., she felt like a hero-worshipper, therefore all healthy women should feel that way. On the other hand, for someone who was so ruthlessly independent in her thinking on impersonal issues, demanding logic, proof and evidence every step of the way, it’s also very disappointing and even bewildering. When your only evidence is your own emotions, it is clearly not yet time to reach universal conclusions about human nature. It was bad enough to condemn gays for deviancy, but to assume that all men and women can be shoe-horned into such rigid sexual roles, thereby inducing guilt in anyone who did not comport with her internal model of proper sexual behavior, was, well, egregious (IMHO). She had to know the impact her words would have.

I recall reading that Ayn Rand was unprepared to commit herself to the scientific validity of evolution because there was simply not enough evidence available. Her perplexing inability to apply that same characteristic, rigorous psycho-epistemology to her opinions on psychology suggests some not-so-admirable traits about her wish to exercise control over others. She came down extremely hard on people at times when benevolence would clearly have been warranted by the lack of evidence. Whatever was motivating her, I suspect that, unlike John Galt, her countenance was definitely not entirely free of pain and fear and guilt. And that’s too bad, because she just may have been one of greatest minds who has ever lived.

[Xray]

It is a safe bet that if we had our personal lives subjected to the same kind of microscopic examination that Rand has been subjected to, we wouldn't come out looking like paragons of rationality either.

Of course we would not look like paragons of rationality. No one would.

That was exactly my point: Rand's rational man is a creature of her imagination who neither exists in reality nor can this rational man be an "ideal" it would make sense to model oneself after. For we humans cannot be exclusively "rational" beings. This is not even desirable imo. We are no robots who constantly weigh the pros and cons and then always decide rationally.

Some of the best things I have done in my life one could call "irrational", like e. g. letting me persuade - against all sound reasons I had to be against it (and I had a long list!) - by our daughter to buy a dog. I never wanted a dog in our household but finally gave in. Now I can't imagine life without our wonderful Golden Retriever whom we all love to pieces. See what I mean? Many of our decisions we can't even assess as rational/irrational in advance because we can't know the outcome.

Or look at this Galt quote:

John Galt, AS, p. 1022: "Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but but rational values, and finds joy in nothing but rational actions."

"Joy in nothing but rational actions" - give me a break!

GHS: If Rand didn't have balls of steel and a dogmatic personality, it is unlikely that she would have been able to succeed in the hostile culture in which she landed after arriving in America.

A softer, more gentle person, or a person less sure of herself, would probably never have overcome these and other obstacles. She would have given up long before. So let's give Rand credit where credit is due. She had many qualities that were truly heroic.

Rand had chutzpah and charismatic power, no question. But a person's powerful personality has no correlation to the validity and soundness of the premises his/her philosophy is based on.

Edited May 28, 2010 by Xray

[jriggenbach]

"Can't" is an acceptable pronunciation in English . . . .

Acceptable to whom and for what?

JR