New Developments re Harriman Induction book

[Starbuckle]

"Perigo the pedant can't even get his pseudo-old fashioned grammar right. 'Get thee to nunneries'? How sad."

To nitpick or not to nitpick, that is the question.

Perigo's fulmination is hypocritical, and not exactly edifying, but isn't the above complaint itself pedantic? So what if he didn't check the declension before he wrote his sentence; it's not pedantry per se to invoke a famous line, and what people remember from Shakespeare is "Get thee to a nunnery" not "Get you to a nunnery." Moreover, any writer could have been aware of the second person plural form and decided to use "thee" instead of "you" given the inextirpability of the word "thee" in our memory of that line, whilst also supposing that "nunneries" would be a less obtrusive tweak. "Nobody is going to crucify me for a minor breach in the observance," the writer might nod to himself as he decides bravely to stick to "thee." "After all, what I want is the Shakespearean resonance there. I'm not trying to win a pedantry contest, am I? No, I am not!"

As long as we're being pedantic, what's "pseudo" about the "old-fashioned grammar"? So, "thee" is not old-fashioned? It's in current usage? Sounds like a false "pseudo" to me. We're not all Quakers here, I hope.

Finally, even if it is a slip, what's so "sad" about it? I'm sure it's a dark tragedy that people are fallible, including in posts on discussion boards. But I hope nobody is cataloguing my own typos and solecisms for posterity to weep over.

[kiaer.ts]

"Perigo the pedant can't even get his pseudo-old fashioned grammar right. 'Get thee to nunneries'? How sad."

To nitpick or not to nitpick, that is the question.

Perigo's fulmination is hypocritical, and not exactly edifying, but isn't the above complaint itself pedantic? So what if he didn't check the declension before he wrote his sentence; it's not pedantry per se to invoke a famous line, and what people remember from Shakespeare is "Get thee to a nunnery" not "Get you to a nunnery." Moreover, any writer could have been aware of the second person plural form and decided to use "thee" instead of "you" given the inextirpability of the word "thee" in our memory of that line, whilst also supposing that "nunneries" would be a less obtrusive tweak. "Nobody is going to crucify me for a minor breach in the observance," the writer might nod to himself as he decides bravely to stick to "thee." "After all, what I want is the Shakespearean resonance there. I'm not trying to win a pedantry contest, am I? No, I am not!"

As long as we're being pedantic, what's "pseudo" about the "old-fashioned grammar"? So, "thee" is not old-fashioned? It's in current usage? Sounds like a false "pseudo" to me. We're not all Quakers here, I hope.

Finally, even if it is a slip, what's so "sad" about it? I'm sure it's a dark tragedy that people are fallible, including in posts on discussion boards. But I hope nobody is cataloguing my own typos and solecisms for posterity to weep over.

It's one thing to be a pompous ass. It's another thing to do it badly. It's yet another to waste your time defending someone else's doing it.

Perhaps you're not familiar with Perigo, who, among his other, filthier habits, spends hours berating people about grammatical minutiae. (Not that I recommend you go looking.) In any case, it was the entirety of his fuckity fuck fuck fuck post that was sad; sad in how it shows his decline from one-time TV personality to lonely drunk, sad for his more recent fans as former editor of the once interesting Free Radical, and sad for the Objectivist movement which he embarrasses almost daily with everything from his incoherent "news releases" to his violent threats. One would have to work quite hard to parody the man as well as he does himself.

That is far more than enough said on this topic.

[Peter]

Shamus McDougal AKA Starbuckle (AKA . . . is Shamus your real name?) wrote:

Perigo's fulmination is hypocritical, and not exactly edifying, but isn't the above complaint itself pedantic? So what if he didn't check the declension before he wrote his sentence; it's not pedantry per se to invoke a famous line, and what people remember from Shakespeare is "Get thee to a nunnery" not "Get you to a nunnery."

End quote

One thing I dislike about other forums is that the participants don’t use their real names.

When taking a mixed graduate and undergraduate English Literature course on Shakespeare’s plays, at Salisbury University from Professor Horne, we reviewed Hamlet. An undergraduate female asked professor Horne what, “Get thee to a nunnery” meant, and what was The Bard “really” saying?

He hemmed and hawed about it and then said, “Peter, perhaps you could enlighten the class about what Will Shakespeare was really saying.”

I thought about it, and must have gotten red in the face when I started to explain with the class laughing: “Hamlet's line to the comely young lady could be translated into modern English as, If you don’t go to a nunnery where I cannot get to you, I will be having carnal knowledge, er, sex with you, sooner or later.”

The young undergraduate female was aghast, as was I, but Professor Horne seemed pleased with my translation.

Peter

It just dawned on me, that if Lindsay Perigo knew what the quote meant then he was warning someone at ARI that he would be having sex with them.

Edited October 9, 2010 by Peter Taylor

[Xray]

[George H. Smith]:

A community in which members vow not to work in their chosen professions and to take the lowest jobs they can find instead -- do you seriously think Rand meant this to depict an ideal perfect world? Are you nuts?

Ghs

William Scherk's post cleared up the misunderstanding on your part: (bolding mine)

View Postwilliam.scherk, on 08 October 2010 - 10:01 PM, said:

The passage describes the rule for those who were to join The Strike on the outside, not the rule for the community of Galt's Gulch.

Your admitted the error:

Ghs. Point taken.

Ghs: Although the oath I cited does indeed pertain to people outside of Galt's Gulch, it is also the case that many residents of Galt's Gulch work at mundane jobs. Dagny, for example, offers to work as a "cook and housemaid" for Galt (for ten dollars a month, plus room and board) and he accepts her offer. Dagny, for example, offers to work as a "cook and housemaid" for Galt (for ten dollars a month, plus room and board) and he accepts her offer.

This astute observation of yours takes us right into the heart of the matter.

For it looks like this type of behavior is not unusual in closed communities sharing a common set of values.

At least that's what I have gleaned from exchanges I have had with members of such communities.

A Jehova's witness for example told me that that she was baffled (on her first visit to the community) to see an member high up in the authority scrub the toilets in the JW building.

And academically trained members of the Bhaghwan community seemed to have no objection to working in the Ashram kitchen.

Bottom line for all those "communities": 'The common value we share is the highest value imaginable, and everything we do is to be regarded as service for that highest value.'

It's that simple.

What I want to know from you is how the idea of a common value shared by all can be reconciled with the notion of Objectivism as individualism.

I'll give you an example to hang your hat on: suppose Dagny had told Galt she wanted to work for him as a cook and housemaid without taking money in return, the rules of Galt's Gulch would exclude such option, right? Now doesn't that contradict the notion of individualism?

Edited October 9, 2010 by Xray

[Selene]

Ms. Xray:

Can you think of any closed philosophical/ideological system which has survived?

#231 Rand/rights thread

Apparently you are quite capable of thinking of systems within the same twenty-four (24) hour period all by yourself!

For it looks like this type of behavior is not unusual in closed communities sharing a common set of values.

At least that's what I have gleaned from exchanges I have had with members of such communities.

A Jehovah's Witness[sic] for example told me that that she was baffled (on her first visit to the community) to see an member high up in the authority scrub the toilets in the JW building.

#479 this thread.

and again this thread

And college-educated members of the Bhaghwan community seemed to have no objection at all to working the Ashram kitchen.

Is this self refutation a selfish act or a selfish altruistic act?

Adam

she never ceases to amuse

[George H. Smith]

[George H. Smith]:

A community in which members vow not to work in their chosen professions and to take the lowest jobs they can find instead -- do you seriously think Rand meant this to depict an ideal perfect world? Are you nuts?

Ghs

William Scherk's post cleared up the misunderstanding on your part: (bolding mine)

View Postwilliam.scherk, on 08 October 2010 - 10:01 PM, said:

The passage describes the rule for those who were to join The Strike on the outside, not the rule for the community of Galt's Gulch.

Your admitted the error:

Ghs. Point taken.

Ghs: Although the oath I cited does indeed pertain to people outside of Galt's Gulch, it is also the case that many residents of Galt's Gulch work at mundane jobs. Dagny, for example, offers to work as a "cook and housemaid" for Galt (for ten dollars a month, plus room and board) and he accepts her offer.

This astute observation of yours takes us right into the heart of the matter.

For it looks like this type of behavior is not unusual in closed communities sharing a common set of values.

At least that's what I have gleaned from exchanges I have had with members of such communities.

A Jehova's witness for example told me that that she was baffled (on her first visit to the community) to see an member high up in the authority scrub the toilets in the JW building.

You don't get the point of Galt's Gulch at all. It started out as a private retreat for Midas Mulligan, who later invited like-minded people to purchase land and build houses there. Galt states that "we came to set aside one month a year to spend in this valley." Midas Mulligan goes on to explain:

"It's the destruction of the Colorado that started the growth of this valley....Ellis Wyatt and the others came to live here permanently, because they had to hide....We are not a state here, not a society of any kind -- we're just a voluntary association of men held together by nothing but every man's self interest."

Galt's Gulch was conceived as a temporary refuge, not as a permanent community of cultish true-believers. Galt says that the residents weren't sure at first long it would take before they could return to the outside world, but "now we think that we will see, and soon, the day of our victory and of our return." After "the code of the looters has collapsed...and the road is clear -- then we'll come back to rebuild the world."

What I want to know from you is how the idea of a common value shared by all can be reconciled with the notion of Objectivism as individualism.

There is no problem at all when the common value is individualism, as it is in Galt's Gulch. Other than this insistence on voluntary cooperation, there is no indication of any demand for ideological conformity in Rand's account.

I'll give you an example to hang your hat on: suppose Dagny had told Galt she wanted to work for him as a cook and housemaid without taking money in return, the rules of Galt's Gulch would exclude such option, right? Now doesn't that contradict the notion of individualism?

There are no rules to this effect. It is a matter of voluntary choice and agreement. The only "moral absolute" in Galt's Gulch is agreement on the principle that people do not exist for the sake of others and that "reason is their only means of trade." This is Randian individualism. This is the broad foundation of a free society. I have found no suggestion in Rand's account that residents must agree on other values.

You are reading a lot more into Rand's story than is actually there. But then you do this all the time. You present (often inaccurate) sketches of Rand's ideas, fill them in with what you think they should mean, and then attack a caricature of your own creation.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

I should add that Galt does indeed say to Dagny, "I shall charge you for your room and board -- it is against our rules to provide the unearned assistance to another human being." I won't comment on this, unless someone wishes to discuss it. For now, suffice it to say that I take this "rule" to be a symbolic protest against the outside world, even when trivial amounts of money were involved.

Ghs

[kiaer.ts]

My review of Mayhew's Ayn Rand Answers

Ultimately, the criteria for judging this academic fraud amount to questions of respect—respect for accuracy, respect for posterity, respect for Ayn Rand, and respect for her audience.

has been posted here at Amazon, with Shayne's and Neil's following.

Edited October 10, 2010 by Ted Keer

[Xray]

Galt's Gulch was conceived as a temporary refuge, not as a permanent community of cultish true-believers.

But still, it was model of how a "good" (in Rand's sense, not in mine) society was to be like, right?

The only "moral absolute" in Galt's Gulch is agreement on the principle that people do not exist for the sake of others and that "reason is their only means of trade." This is Randian individualism.

Which means that there exist many different concepts of "individualism", of which Rand's is only one example. But if we have a whole gamut of such concepts of individualism, then to find a common denominator for them all will pose quite a philosophical challenge.

Another question I have is: can the idea of a "moral absolute" be reconciled with the notion of individualism at all? Does a "moral absolute" even exist, given the fact that moral systems are subject to permanent change?

Of course I can call moral absolute anything I like. For example, one can I can call moral absolute what is actually merely a rigid moral rule..

In an islamic fundamentalist society, it is regarded as a "moral absolute" that a female has to remain a virgin until her marriage.

This is the broad foundation of a free society.

It is Rand's idea of a broad foundation of a free society. She also equates a free society with capitalism. (See the very first word's in Man's Rights). This is explainable, given the experience she made in Russia. But the "full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissesz-faire capitalism" she advocates (TVOS, p. 37) is not necessarily conducive to freedom. For example, the clothes I'm wearing may be made by child labor, and I thus participate, indirectly, in the exploitation of the third world where captialists only pay a pittance of wages to the people. Where is their freedom?

Edited October 10, 2010 by Xray

[kiaer.ts]

Edited October 10, 2010 by Ted Keer

[Brant Gaede]

Well, Xray, we can posit that an individualist doesn't initiate force and a collectivist does. That there are many types of collectivists doesn't mean they are many types of individualists. That'd be a contradiction. This is a shorthand way to identify who is whom. It is not the basic, philosophical, Objectivist way, which has to do with the fact there is only one, thinking brain in one skull. That's the basic. The collectivist wants to traduce the integrity of someone else's mind and make his paramount. I didn't write these words to twitify you; you've already done that, but to show that Objectivism and individualism can't be dealt with by twitifications.

--Brant

[sjw]

My review of Mayhew's Ayn Rand Answers

Ultimately, the criteria for judging this academic fraud amount to questions of respect—respect for accuracy, respect for posterity, respect for Ayn Rand, and respect for her audience.

has been posted here at Amazon, with Shayne's and Neil's following.

Excellent review Ted.

Thank you Robert Campbell for the work you did to unmask the travesty here.

Shayne

Edited October 10, 2010 by sjw

[Mikee]

For example, the clothes I'm wearing may be made by child labor, and I thus participate, indirectly, in the exploitation of the third world where captialists only pay a pittance of wages to the people. Where is their freedom?

You remind me of a liberal friend of mine who stated "Behind every pile of money is a crime". In your case you turn the magic of free markets on its head with: behind every product purchased on a free market may be a crime. You are aware that every single advocate of free markets also advocates a strong rule of law? In my opinion the true definition of "regulation" is "opportunity for graft" and regulations (and regulators) actually weaken the rule of law. As far as "participate, indirectly, in the exploitation.." You will do better with free markets and strong rule of law rather than ascribing God like powers (who "watch every sparrow fall") to a ruling class of bureaucrats.

[Selene]

Damn...this is a hopeful sign...

"The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them."

Isaiah 11:6

[9thdoctor]

My review of Mayhew's Ayn Rand Answers has been posted here at Amazon, with Shayne's and Neil's following.

Devastating review Ted, Bravo.

Not to turn schoolmarm, but there are 3-4 threads for the Mayhew book already (I still get a kick out of this post), so how about leaving this thread to discussions of HarriPei vs. McCaskey, as advertised?

[kiaer.ts]

School MARM! School MARM! Yayyyyyy SCHOOL MARM! (Wink.)

Wow. I am simply amazed by the speed with which the negative votes are piling up on the most recent reviews of Mayhew. (Look at the absurd critical comments under Reisman's review.) I know wikipedia has an editor who is paid to create articles for Marxists. Does ARI have an Amazon monitor? I wonder, had I simply posted the two excerpts with no comments, would I have still gotten the "not helpful" votes?

[BaalChatzaf]

Damn...this is a hopeful sign...

"The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them."

Isaiah 11:6

The lion shall lie down with the lamb and the lamb shall be very nervous ----- Woody Allen

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited October 10, 2010 by BaalChatzaf

[Selene]

Damn...this is a hopeful sign...

"The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them."

Isaiah 11:6

The lion shall lie down with the lamb and the lamb shall be very nervous ----- Woody Allen

Ba'al Chatzaf

Yes the humorous child molester had his moments. Good one Ba'al.

Adam

[Starbuckle]

X-ray wrote: "For example, the clothes I'm wearing may be made by child labor, and I thus participate, indirectly, in the exploitation of the third world where capitalists only pay a pittance of wages to the people. Where is their freedom?"

So what's the motive? Why are the children, and adults, laboring for a "pittance," if that's the case? Is it possible that they would be less well off if they did not take the job, i.e., if they were not being "exploited"? Or is the argument here that the factory owner is rounding people up at the point of a gun and marching them to the factory whether they wish to work for the pittance or not?

Would the workers be better off if either (1) the factory owners and businessmen, to avoid the charge of "exploitation" or depriving everybody who works for them of freedom, closed up shop or (2) laws were passed to force the businessmen to raise wage rates far above the market rate, forcing businesses to leave the market and/or creating chronic unnecessary unemployment among those who most desperately need jobs, as is the result of minimum wage laws in the U.S. as well?

It's also worth noting that prices are often much lower for comparable goods in economies where wages tend to be much lower. In other words, the same "pittance" that would not help somebody living in NYC to pay the bills might help somebody living in Surabaya to do so. If we want poorer economies to improve, nothing would it it faster than full, unregulated laissez faire, protected by an objective rule of law, so that capital could accumulate more rapidly, production and trade could expand massively, and labor would be worth more to those paying for it, with compensation being bid upward by competition for labor as the economy grows wealthier. Read Hazlitt first (Economics in One Lesson), then Mises (Human Action), Rothbard (Man, Economy, and State) and Reisman (Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics).

It's a Marxist view of the world, no doubt not original with Marx, that the necessity of earning a living, of producing, in order to avoid starvation somehow implies that the very persons who most easily enable you to survive are thereby guilty of enslaving you. The doctrine is vicious because it equates voluntarily working to get a paycheck with being forced at the point of a gun to do so. What then makes actual enslavement worse than voluntarily engaging in the production and trade required to sustain your life? If they're both the same, it would be just as dispiriting to work at Wal-Mart as to be chained to a trireme and forced to row, row, row, even if you would dash into the woods at the next port if you found a way to get rid of the chains. But you can quit your job at Wal-Mart tomorrow.

If having to work for a living implies that you are being enslaved, what would freedom consist of? Either (1) living in a magic fantasy dimension where everything you wish for appears automatically, with no effort required; or (2) living in the reality we're stuck with, but with others being enslaved to you--forced by you or by intermediaries at your behest to give you things belonging to them that they never agreed to give you.

Edited October 11, 2010 by Starbuckle

[Selene]

For example, the clothes I'm wearing may be made by child labor, and I thus participate, indirectly, in the exploitation of the third world where capitalists[sic] only pay a pittance of wages to the people. Where is their freedom?

You remind me of a liberal friend of mine who stated "Behind every pile of money is a crime". In your case you turn the magic of free markets on its head with: behind every product purchased on a free market may be a crime. You are aware that every single advocate of free markets also advocates a strong rule of law? In my opinion the true definition of "regulation" is "opportunity for graft" and regulations (and regulators) actually weaken the rule of law. As far as "participate, indirectly, in the exploitation.." You will do better with free markets and strong rule of law rather than ascribing God like powers (who "watch every sparrow fall") to a ruling class of bureaucrats.

Mikee:

Ms. Xray employs the "may" [a conditional unproven assertion of fact] and child labor [which is, she hopes, going to cause the reader to roll up in a ball and weep] and then adds the "evil" words of "exploitation" and "capitalist" and actually believes that she has made an argument.

This is stemming from a public school teacher in Germany who exploits the German taxpayer at the point of her federal gun to sweep the streets of all German children and herd them into state reeducation camps so that she can purchase those clothes made from Sri Lankan child labor!

If the her "argument" were not so vicious, it would be laughable.

By the way, you do know that home schooling has been illegal in Germany from the late 1930's through to today. So she even has a state monopoly to extort money so she can by those "exploited" clothes.

Der Scham!

Adam

[Starbuckle]

Selene wrote: "Yes the humorous child molester [Woody Allen] had his moments."

When did Woody Allen molest a child?

[Selene]

Selene wrote: "Yes the humorous child molester [Woody Allen] had his moments."

When did Woody Allen molest a child?

His adopted daughter was close enough for me.

[Starbuckle]

I wrote: "When did Woody Allen molest a child?"

Selene wrote: "His adopted daughter was close enough for me."

The relationship between Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn/Farrow was publicized in 1992, when Soon-Yi was 22. (They are still married.)

[George H. Smith]

Selene wrote: "Yes the humorous child molester [Woody Allen] had his moments."

When did Woody Allen molest a child?

His adopted daughter was close enough for me.

Soon-Yi Previn is not the adopted daughter of Woody Allen. She was adopted by Mia Farrow and Andre Previn. Allen and Farrow never married, nor did they ever live together, nor did Allen ever adopt Soon-Yi. Soon-Yi stated that she always regarded Previn, not Allen, as her stepfather and father figure.

Soon-Yi was 22 when her relationship with Allen became public in 1992.

Ghs

[kiaer.ts]

I wrote: "When did Woody Allen molest a child?"

Selene wrote: "His adopted daughter was close enough for me."

The relationship between Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn/Farrow was publicized in 1992, when Soon-Yi was 22. (They are still married.)

Of course they are still married. How many 97 year olds have the energy to get divorced?~~~~