Question: What is the best thing a philosopher can do to further mankind

[Philip Coates]

> This question is for philosophers and those interested in philosophy: Supposing we had a collection of philosophic geniuses at our disposal, what task would they have to set themselves on in order to best further the advancement of Man on Earth? [shayne]

A fully-developed rational epistemology and then applying it in every area. Cleaning out the epistemic stables.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This question is for philosophers and those interested in philosophy: Supposing we had a collection of philosophic geniuses at our disposal, what task would they have to set themselves on in order to best further the advancement of Man on Earth?

The defense of individual freedom.

George,

I submit another answer of yours has to be included in what you just said:

... the most fundamental issue is to make sense, to speak intelligibly. No one . . . has a special privilege to speak gibberish while expecting others to take him seriously.

The point I am trying to make is that all the arguments must have a version in common language--even using common metaphors, etc.--that everyone can understand.

If nobody understands you, it doesn't matter what you say.

At best, they will have to rely on someone who "interprets" you. And things tend to get funkier and funkier with each interpretation.

Michael

[George H. Smith]

This question is for philosophers and those interested in philosophy: Supposing we had a collection of philosophic geniuses at our disposal, what task would they have to set themselves on in order to best further the advancement of Man on Earth?

The defense of individual freedom.

George,

I submit another answer of yours has to be included in what you just said:

... the most fundamental issue is to make sense, to speak intelligibly. No one . . . has a special privilege to speak gibberish while expecting others to take him seriously.

The point I am trying to make is that all the arguments must have a version in common language--even using common metaphors, etc.--that everyone can understand.

If nobody understands you, it doesn't matter what you say.

At best, they will have to rely on someone who "interprets" you. And things tend to get funkier and funkier with each interpretation.

Michael

I agree, of course. My problem is with those who claim to understand gibberish, as if they possess a Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring than none of the rest of us has.

The philosopher and historian Walter Kaufmann had some interesting things to say about this subject. An extremely lucid writer who was not a fan of Hegel or Wittgenstein, Kaufmann asked why these guys have been so popular among academic philosophers. He suggested that much of their popularity is owing to their obscure and difficult manner of expressing themselves. Academics are therefore able to build their entire careers on interpreting Hegel, Wittgenstein, and similarly obscure thinkers without ever having to do a whit of original thinking themselves.

Ghs

[sjw]

I agree, of course. My problem is with those who claim to understand gibberish, as if they possess a Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring than none of the rest of us has.

I agree in spirit, but there are those who won't understand no matter how clearly one communicates. I think you've had plenty of experience with that here. But your interlocutors do not accept even the principle that they should make sense, which explains why no amount of common-sense gets through. They operate on a "higher" plane. A Fountainhead character -- Lois Cook? -- comes to mind.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

I agree, of course. My problem is with those who claim to understand gibberish, as if they possess a Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring than none of the rest of us has.

I agree in spirit, but there are those who won't understand no matter how clearly one communicates. I think you've had plenty of experience with that here. But your interlocutors do not accept even the principle that they should make sense, which explains why no amount of common-sense gets through. They operate on a "higher" plane. A Fountainhead character -- Lois Cook? -- comes to mind.

Shayne

I was thinking primarily of statements that do not meet even the minimum requirements for intelligibility, such as self-contradictory statements. Such statements are literally meaningless.

Ghs

[Roger Bissell]

Playing trombone is more fun.

Shayne

OK that's a cheap shot. So was George's "you mean you didn't take up trombone to become an altruist?"

My position is that REB and George offer false choices. You can have your trombone and your rational approach to helping save mankind (you're part of it!) from tyranny. And no it doesn't consist of "just do what you want to do and the culture will magically change through some kind of Objectivist karma dripping off you onto everyone else!" -- childish silliness.

Shayne

I find it amusing -- if not childishly silly -- that Shayne thinks that I have rejected rationally trying to help save Mankind in favor of playing trombone. And that Shayne thinks that we are somehow shortchanging our children if we don't spend our time focusing on how to make the world a better place. Nice way to trivialize my choice to focus fundamentally on pursuing my own rational self-interest.

In a division of labor economy (does Shayne think that this is "fascist" if a capitalist puts up the money to organize it in a business? sounds like it), everyone (or as Shayne puts it, Mankind) benefits when each person puts his energies to use in the activities that best combine his abilities and interests. Kind of an Adam Smithian karma dripping off of each self-interestedly rational, productive individual onto everyone else. Got a problem with that?

But why is everyone's benefitting from reason and freedom the reason why everyone should be rational and free? The justification for these things is NOT ~collectivist~. It is ~individualistic~. The spill-over benefits are a secondary consequence, not the reason why these things are good. Unless you're an altruist-collectivist, of course.

There seems to be a fundamental rift between people who think that order, salvation, benefits, etc. should be imposed from the top down vs. those who prefer a trickle-up approach. I really, really, really am confident that society, i.e., INDIVIDUAL HUMAN BEINGS -- and most importantly, my children -- will be better off if I do what rationally, productively makes me better off in the way that best utilizes my talents and interests, rather than what someone else thinks I "should" do or what "would be a shame/crime/etc" if I didn't do it. Even if I'm not producing a new, rational, complete epistemology -- or leading a movement promoting a consistent, pointed defense of liberty -- or producing a piece of art that awakens thousands/millions to a new way of looking at life and happiness.

Would you, Shayne -- or anyone else -- want to judge negatively anyone who ~didn't~ want to pursue such ends as those, if he really didn't have the talent or interest in doing so? Would you want to judge negatively anyone who didn't want to pursue such ends, even if he ~did~ have the talent/interest to do it, if he didn't see pursuing them as being in his rational self-interest?

And for that matter, how do you know that I am ~not~ working the best I can, in my own way, to doing one or more of those things, precisely because they are the best use of my talent/interest? And I stress: IN MY OWN WAY. Aren't we all ~individualists~ here? And I don't mean subjectivists. I mean ~rational~ individualists.

And what makes you think that I would ~not~, if the situation demanded it, "rise up and take arms" to defend liberty, in the edge-of-the-cliff way the Founding Fathers had to do? No, I do NOT think they were "fools"! Contra the socialist historians (who thought the Founding Fathers were the equivalent of fascists), there is NO CONTRADICTION between their idealism (defense of rights and liberty) and their "materialism," i.e., their desire to protect their property against further predation by the Crown. But they were not on constant red alert. They set aside their personal projects when the situation called for it, and they put the fortunes and reputations and lives on the line. So would I, if we were at that point. But we're not. (Are we?)

As Rand answered the question "What can one do?", we don't all have to be theoreticians of or front-line warriors for reason and freedom. But what we ~must~ do is speak out, in whatever forum we can reasonably do so. Again, Rand said, "Choose your battles," which means prioritize your efforts for reason and freedom, just as you prioritize your actions toward your other values. And since we are all individuals, not products of some rationalistic cookie-cutter, just ~how~ each of us carry out that fight is very individualistic. People would do much better to focus on ~their own~ efforts to achieve reason, freedom, and happiness -- than to spend their time obsessing over and judging others.

I look at "improving the lot of Mankind" a lot the way I look at "cleaning up the environment." Some people really ~do~ succeed in devising social or intellectual systems that help to make life better for a lot of people, and some people come up with good ideas for making large improvements in the environment. But other people, again following the division of labor, prefer to improve society one person at a time, or to clean up the environment one mile of littered highway at a time. I'm not foreclosing on the possibility that I may someday come up with some major boon to my fellow human beings, but doing so is NOT why I'm alive and why I think and create and work and produce.

If lightning struck, and I found myself forced into or inspired into such a situation, I would do it, but I would do it like I do everything else that I find in my rational self-interest: so that I can be happy. That is the thing I think it is fundamentally most important for me to do for my children and my "fellow man," to be a good example of rational productiveness aimed primarily at my own personal happiness.

REB

[sjw]

REB your criticism of me misses the mark. Judging by your rant however, mine of you evidently hit it squarely.

Shayne

[sjw]

Let me add: I fully endorse the trombone playing. I don't intend to demean that in the slightest. You're fantastic. And congrats on the CD.

Shayne

[Selene]

Ambidextrous cartoon 4 - search ID dcr0054

[sjw]

"Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the earth with a lever" --Archimedes

That is the spirit of my question. I don't buy the "just act in your self interest" Objectivist Kumbaya mantra.

Let us suppose for sake of argument that ARI has the best strategy. Let us suppose they have the best thinkers, and the thinkers have thought seriously about where the lever and fulcrum should be put. This isn't just one activity, it is a constellation of them which together are *calculated for maximum effect*. Now if you have all that donor money, you damn well better calculate where the lever and fulcrum go. And if you believe in ARI's vision, and if you have the means, then you very probably ought to donate or contribute to their strategy to at least some degree -- they probably fit in your rational value hierarchy somewhere.

Note the emphasis: *calculated for maximum effect*. A is A -- with a given set of resources, and given the nature of the culture, there is going to be a strategy that yields the best possible outcome for liberty given the nature of the entities involved. And it isn't just a bunch of hippie cats hanging out and having a good old time. Having a good old time is fun and you should have it, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the question.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

"Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the earth with a lever" --Archimedes

That is the spirit of my question. I don't buy the "just act in your self interest" Objectivist Kumbaya mantra.

Let us suppose for sake of argument that ARI has the best strategy. Let us suppose they have the best thinkers, and the thinkers have thought seriously about where the lever and fulcrum should be put. This isn't just one activity, it is a constellation of them which together are *calculated for maximum effect*. Now if you have all that donor money, you damn well better calculate where the lever and fulcrum go. And if you believe in ARI's vision, and if you have the means, then you very probably ought to donate or contribute to their strategy to at least some degree -- they probably fit in your rational value hierarchy somewhere.

Note the emphasis: *calculated for maximum effect*. A is A -- with a given set of resources, and given the nature of the culture, there is going to be a strategy that yields the best possible outcome for liberty given the nature of the entities involved. And it isn't just a bunch of hippie cats hanging out and having a good old time. Having a good old time is fun and you should have it, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the question.

Shayne

Note that Archimedes said I, not we.

I have nothing against libertarian/Objectivist organizations, but having "a good old time" is not the only alternative to them. Individuals can exert considerable influence by interacting with other individuals and discussing ideas, recommending books, etc.

There is no one strategy that will yield the best possible outcome. One reason for this is because the interests, abilities, and knowledge of libertarians vary a great deal, and each libertarian should play to his or her own strengths. For example, I do far better when speaking to an intellectually oriented audience than I do when speaking to a Joe Six-Pack audience. I would be quite useless as a Tea Party stump speaker.

Specialization and the division of labor apply as much to the production and distribution of ideas as they do to the production and distribution of material goods. There is no one right way to produce and distribute consumer goods. Adjustments must be made as conditions change, depending on the resources of the producer.

[sjw]

Note that Archimedes said I, not we.

Well if you're going to be silly I can just retort that many people can pull on a lever, or that we can have many different levers.

This is the second time I've said "constellation" and you've responded "there's no one way." Do you know what "constellation" refers to? A similar error is when you (and REB) also talk as if something I said implies that there is should be no division of labor.

I never suggested any such constraint. So why the nonsense? The message you apparently wish to send is that there are no principles in this realm except "anything goes" and "do whatever you feel like", as if thinking is completely irrelevant in this realm. Now why you would want people to believe that is going to have to be for you to explain.

Here's the deal. Our enemies are united. Unlike you, they do strategize and work together toward common and specific goals. That's why they are so successful. You can wish for pie in the sky anarchy to win the day, but at the end of the day, you'll have a gun to your head by a machine that is well-designed to take full advantage of your organizational apathy.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

Shayne,

I posted these links some time ago, but you may not have seen them. Together they comprise my keynote address at the California LP Convention in 1997. My talk, Achieving a Free Society: Good News and Bad, addresses a number of issues that are relevant to this thread.

Part One

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle1997/le970901-01.html

Part Two

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle1997/le970901-03.html

Part Three

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle1997/le970901-05.html

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Note that Archimedes said I, not we.

Well if you're going to be silly I can just retort that many people can pull on a lever, or that we can have many different levers.

This is the second time I've said "constellation" and you've responded "there's no one way." Do you know what "constellation" refers to? A similar error is when you (and REB) also talk as if something I said implies that there is should be no division of labor.

I never suggested any such constraint. So why the nonsense? The message you apparently wish to send is that there are no principles in this realm except "anything goes" and "do whatever you feel like", as if thinking is completely irrelevant in this realm. Now why you would want people to believe that is going to have to be for you to explain.

Here's the deal. Our enemies are united. Unlike you, they do strategize and work together toward common and specific goals. That's why they are so successful. You can wish for pie in the sky anarchy to win the day, but at the end of the day, you'll have a gun to your head by a machine that is well-designed to take full advantage of your organizational apathy.

Shayne

You referred to a constellation of activities centered around the "best strategy," using ARI as a hypothetical example. If you don't want to be misunderstood, you will need to express yourself more clearly. (One of your problems is your failure to distinguish clearly between strategy and tactics.)

In the early 1980's I originated and co-founded the The Voluntaryist (which is still being published by Carl Watner) for the express purpose of developing non-political strategies for a free society. I also organized some conferences on strategy, and I have given more talks and participated in more public debates on the subject than I can remember. I also published a lengthy critique of Rothbard's strategic ideas in Sam Konkin's zine Libertarian Strategy.

In addition, I spent 16 years working with the Institute for Humane Studies, and I have worked with the Cato Institute for much longer than that. During the 1980's, I co-founded and worked as the executive editor and chief scriptwriter for Knowledge Products, a company that reached literally hundreds of thousands of people with its taped presentations of the ideas of Locke, Paine, Jefferson, and other liberarian thinkers.

In no instance did I say "anything goes" or "do whatever you feel like," nor did I recommend wishing for a pie in the sky anarchy. So lighten up.

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

A philosophy needs to be sold to make an impact.

Any tract on competent selling says you sell with emotion and justify with reason.

If you look at Rand's career, that's exactly what she did. She did her fiction, then she justified it with essays.

The ones who followed have not been so good at selling with emotion. Not even interested, in fact.

In order to sell with emotion, you have to get into the head of the person you are selling to and look at his needs, fears and desires, not yours. Then you have to show him the benefits of what you are selling and demonstrate how this will meet his needs, fears and desires.

You also have to study persuasion techniques and "engineering of consent" to use a phrase from Bernays.

From what I have seen, people interested in saving the world through philosophy are more interested in imposing their own view on others than in persuading people. They want to be the preacher, but they don't want to have to worry about meeting the needs of their flock.

I say, the best thing to do is step away from that view altogether. If you want to reach the average person, start writing fiction, set up a forum, learn how to do Beck-like presentations, or engage in any other activity where emotions with a message are strong.

George has a point, though, about staying true to your nature. If strong emotion is not your thing and you want to save the world, then ally yourself with people who do know how to navigate strong emotions in others.

Those are my suggestions for saving the world through philosophy..

Now, if only I can get interested in saving the world through philosophy...

Michael

[Philip Coates]

Excellent post, Michael! Many good points.

.

.

.

.

(I knew you had it in you.)

[George H. Smith]

A philosophy needs to be sold to make an impact.

Any tract on competent selling says you sell with emotion and justify with reason.

If you look at Rand's career, that's exactly what she did. She did her fiction, then she justified it with essays.

The ones who followed have not been so good at selling with emotion. Not even interested, in fact.

I doubt if Rand gave much thought to "selling with emotion." She wrote in the style that came naturally to her, while emphasizing clarity above all else.

My problem with the Randian model -- it worked great for Rand; I'm talking about those who attempt to emulate her -- is the conviction, common among O'ists, that we need to renovate people's beliefs from the ground up, starting with epistemology and metaphysics before moving on to ethics and finally politics. In truth, most people don't give a damn about the fine points of philosophy, and it's not necessary to persuade them of the hierarchical nature of concepts and other technical matters in order to demonstrate the value of freedom.

Generally speaking, people will take certain political ideas seriously when they believe those ideas will serve their interests. The classic problem here is the tension between short-term and long-term interests. We can shout from the hills that there is no conflict, but in fact there frequently is. People dependent on government, or people who profit from government, will not be receptive to the notion that we should do away with the Big Tit.

Anyone seriously interested in libertarian strategy (I mean this in the broad sense to include O'ists) must think long and hard about which goals are realistic and which are not. If you set out to convert the "masses" in the hope of electing a libertarian (or O'ist) president within the next few decades, then you are daydreaming. This is not going to happen. We will always be a minority relative to the general population, but minorities (such as the abolitionists in antebellum America) can exert considerable influence. Serious strategic thinkers should begin by developing a theory of political leverage, and this is where a study of history can help. Many political movements throughout history have exercised an influence far beyond their numbers.

Ghs

[Philip Coates]

> I posted these links some time ago...my keynote address at the California LP Convention in 1997...Achieving a Free Society: Good News and Bad [GHS]

I highly recommend that everyone here read this.

I just finished reading all three parts. It is really excellently and clearly written, makes many good points, and the quotes from Hayek are right on target. It's a very good fleshing out of why the 'pragmatist' libertarians' pooh-poohing of theory is mistaken. And he doesn't take any personal shots at anyone or question motives but sticks to the high road. So I can't imagine any libertarian 'pragmatists' in the audience being personally offended.

George is one of the three best writers posting on OL. Even when mistaken (and he isn't here), he makes persuasive arguments, includes both abstract points and examples, and is generally a pleasure to read.

He combines displaying a logical mind [most of the time :-) ]with a good sense of humor, which is an asset to a writer, especially one on 'heavy' subjects.

(If I were to be critical, and it's a relatively minor set of points: He sometimes is too long-winded or makes too many posts beating a point to death or including too many obscure quotes or figures from his extensive reading in intellectual history that are not really right on target -- but that's certainly not the case with his choice of Hayek here..Hayek was a bullseye. This three-parter is a bit too long for an oral presentation and could have used a few more examples. But even when he beats something to death with fifty posts as in the unending Popper discussion with Barnes, his asides or pedantic bits can be interesting...In this one, Hayek's definition of the intellectual and his role is interesting in itself as well as relevant to the argument against short-sighted pragmatism.)

(I have a minor disagreement with his points 1,2,3 in the first part...but it's too small to take time to mention. I also think one might mention a couple more points about why theory is necessary and powerful...but this is plenty for a short 'keynote' speech.)

Edited September 17, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

His distinction between cultural libertarianism and political libertarianism is valuable, as well.

However, I don't agree with the extent to which he downplays "epistemological libertarianism" -- to coin a phrase [see post #42 above]. But that's a lengthy topic...

Edited September 17, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Selene]

A philosophy needs to be sold to make an impact.

Any tract on competent selling says you sell with emotion and justify with reason.

If you look at Rand's career, that's exactly what she did. She did her fiction, then she justified it with essays.

The ones who followed have not been so good at selling with emotion. Not even interested, in fact.

I doubt if Rand gave much thought to "selling with emotion." She wrote in the style that came naturally to her, while emphasizing clarity above all else.

My problem with the Randian model -- it worked great for Rand; I'm talking about those who attempt to emulate her -- is the conviction, common among O'ists, that we need to renovate people's beliefs from the ground up, starting with epistemology and metaphysics before moving on to ethics and finally politics. In truth, most people don't give a damn about the fine points of philosophy, and it's not necessary to persuade them of the hierarchical nature of concepts and other technical matters in order to demonstrate the value of freedom.

Generally speaking, people will take certain political ideas seriously when they believe those ideas will serve their interests. The classic problem here is the tension between short-term and long-term interests. We can shout from the hills that there is no conflict, but in fact there frequently is. People dependent on government, or people who profit from government, will not be receptive to the notion that we should do away with the Big Tit.

Anyone seriously interested in libertarian strategy (I mean this in the broad sense to include O'ists) must think long and hard about which goals are realistic and which are not. If you set out to convert the "masses" in the hope of electing a libertarian (or O'ist) president within the next few decades, then you are daydreaming. This is not going to happen. We will always be a minority relative to the general population, but minorities (such as the abolitionists in antebellum America) can exert considerable influence. Serious strategic thinkers should begin by developing a theory of political leverage, and this is where a study of history can help. Many political movements throughout history have exercised an influence far beyond their numbers.

Ghs

Gentlemen:

Good points.

I argued strongly when we were forming the Libertarian Party in NY State, that it was imperative that we ran candidates for the most decentralized and local offices at hand.

I argued that we run a full slate of candidates in every school board race in NY City which had decentralized the system and had a peculiar weighted values voting system. This would have virtually insured that we could have gotten at least one (1) and possibly up to three (3) members on each school board in the city. It would have given us a prominent platform for our ideas at a super grass roots level.

Unfortunately, I lost the argument because, as George noted, there is, and was, grandiosity and overreaching by the Libertarians and O'ists which fatally doomed the effort.

The tea party is a good example of the model we should follow while we develop the intellectual impact of our ideas in all forums.

Adam

[Brant Gaede]

Shayne,

I posted these links some time ago, but you may not have seen them. Together they comprise my keynote address at the California LP Convention in 1997. My talk, Achieving a Free Society: Good News and Bad, addresses a number of issues that are relevant to this thread.

Part One

http://www.ncc-1776....e970901-01.html

Part Two

http://www.ncc-1776....e970901-03.html

Part Three

http://www.ncc-1776....e970901-05.html

Ghs

I'm bringing this forward because of Phil's trademark refusal to use the quote function and because these GHS links are very good. I'm amused by Hayek's categorization of "intellectuals," obviously done for clarity, as distinguished from the "specialist" or "expert" who occupies a higher rung of brain activity the intellectuals spread the results of which around the culture for the benefit of hoi polloi (and their egos, of course) and what-have-you. But the expert and specialist are intellectuals too, just in a different category.

--Brant

I'm a very good writer too, Phil; I'm just not sharing the good stuff with this evil world: Strike! Strike! Strike! (Tahnk God for spell check!)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

George,

You are one of the intellectual springs I believe people should drink from. Even if a person does not agree with you, you provide a hell of a panorama of questions a person should be asking himself. And you are extremely fair in summing up the ideas of other thinkers. I find you credible to a fault.

We need springs, but we also need to get the water delivered to people (the majority) who don't live beside the springs. In terms of that--of massive impact on the mainstream--I believe an approach like Beck's to be far more effective than writing a treatise or essays (or worse, the intellectual sermon crap the guru wannabes write).

Take an economic concept like zero-sum mentality. I haven't read anything from you about it (I admit I need to read more of your works), but it's a standard concept in our neck of the woods and I presume you have written about it.

Beck had a show on yesterday about pie-making. He made the point that some of the major influential people in our political culture treat wealth as if it were a fixed number of pies and everybody had to get a slice. Then he told his audience to get their heads out of that mentality if that is the way they think, get off their asses and bake more pies. Then there will be enough pie for everyone. He was dressed as a baker and, yes, there were pies and ingredients on a table. The show was called "Take it or Bake it" and he asked the audience, "Which are you, a baker or a divider?"

To top it off, he interviewed John Stossel about the extent we all accept government subsidies whether we want to or not, since these subsidies are in sugar and other foods, and the things we use and deal with every day. And they don't need to be. They are the fruit of the fixed number of pies mentality. He had a lot of visual props to back up his message. He used stories to illustrate his points.

All these things engage the emotions. He presented words and images that stimulated all five senses, not just abstract concepts or remote examples. He asked direct questions, did not talk down to his public but told them to think for themselves, was alternately reasonable and whispered and thundered.

So who is more important? They guy who dreamed up zero-sum and wrote an essay about it, or the guy who is selling the idea like pie?

I think that's a silly contest, but in our subcommunity (even the libertarian one with a few notable exceptions like South Park), everybody wants to be the guy who dreamed it up--and many even spit on the guy who sells it with emotion.

I think that's a stupid attitude, too. Both are equally important in changing the world through philosophy.

Michael

[George H. Smith]

George,

You are one of the intellectual springs I believe people should drink from. Even if a person does not agree with you, you provide a hell of a panorama of questions a person should be asking himself. And you are extremely fair in summing up the ideas of other thinkers. I find you credible to a fault.

We need springs, but we also need to get the water delivered to people (the majority) who don't live beside the springs. In terms of that--of massive impact on the mainstream--I believe an approach like Beck's to be far more effective than writing a treatise or essays (or worse, the intellectual sermon crap the guru wannabes write).

Thanks for the kind remarks.

I have always seen myself as more of an "intellectual" in Hayek's sense than an expert or specialist. Consider ATCAG, my first book. My purpose there was to take some fairly esoteric philosophical ideas and make them comprehensible and interesting to a general audience. A secondary purpose was to introduce Rand to freethinkers by taking them through the back door, so to speak. ATCAG has been successful in both respects.

Walter Grinder, formerly the academic director for IHS, used to refer to me as a "utility player." When I started lecturing at Cato summer seminars, I gave the introductory lectures on the ideas of liberty. A few years later, after Murray Rothbard split with Cato, I was asked to do the lectures on American history. For a number of years I taught high school debaters at the "Economics in Argumentation" seminars, where I sometimes gave the introductory lectures on economics.

I also wrote numerous articles for the "LD Extemp Monthly." I recently learned that some of those article are available online in a pdf book here.

In addition to general articles on elementary logic and value debating (pp. 1-9), I had to write articles that addressed the national debate topic for a given year. This led to the articles "From Abuse to Deadly Force" (p. 10), "Notes on the American Flag" (p. 106), and "Loose Canons in the National Interest" (p. 110). (My article "Frantz Fanon & John Locke at Stanford" p. 68, which is also reprinted in this collection, was originally published in the Cato Policy Report and later reprinted in Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies.)

I mention these articles as a specific example of how a libertarian perspective can be adapted to particular enterprises -- in this case, high school debating.

Ghs

[sjw]

Shayne,

I posted these links some time ago, but you may not have seen them. Together they comprise my keynote address at the California LP Convention in 1997. My talk, Achieving a Free Society: Good News and Bad, addresses a number of issues that are relevant to this thread.

Part One

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle1997/le970901-01.html

Part Two

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle1997/le970901-03.html

Part Three

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle1997/le970901-05.html

Ghs

Magnificent writing George. I wish all of your stuff was in one place. Have you ever thought of compiling everything you've written (that you consider of general value) and putting it in one place? If I want to buy Rand's major works it's easy but for yours it seems you have to dig. I want a set of books: "The Collected Works of George H. Smith."

Regarding Hayek's model, it's pretty, and I note that Ayn Rand seems to have either adopted it or reinvented it (do you know which?), but it doesn't resonate with me as being complete. I see two major systems/patterns myself: 1) the generally top-down Establishment (which the intellectuals are a part of); 2) organic, bottom-up, word of mouth. Activities by the second can replace the first over time, depending on how well something resonates with people (e.g. Ron Paul and the Tea Party).

If you're "coloring outside the lines," it seems to me a folly to be concerned much with the "intellectuals"; you need to make your own intellectuals. Obviously it's nice if you can connect with the Establishment, but it's wrong to strategically depend on them. I think Rand's ideas followed the grass-roots pattern, and then from that sprung up a small establishment pattern she organically created, which has come to have a tiny role in the Establishment. (I'm simplifying a lot here).

Shayne

[sjw]

You referred to a constellation of activities centered around the "best strategy," using ARI as a hypothetical example. If you don't want to be misunderstood, you will need to express yourself more clearly. (One of your problems is your failure to distinguish clearly between strategy and tactics.)

I doubt I'll ever be able to express myself as clearly as you do but I can try to improve.

For me the word strategy refers to an arbitrarily general set of ideas, each of which could themselves be strategies. So when I say "A strategy", it doesn't preclude a strategy that includes others that work together harmoniously to achieve some overall goal. And I think my usage is the logical one. It didn't occur to me at the time that someone might presume that I mean something other than the logical meaning.

This is where I have a hard time with people. They presume meanings, and maybe their presumed meaning has a basis in social convention, or maybe just in their own personal irrational definitions, and I don't have a method for preempting what I see as nonsense. Perhaps you have a hint here.

...

In no instance did I say "anything goes" or "do whatever you feel like," nor did I recommend wishing for a pie in the sky anarchy. So lighten up.

Duly noted -- you deserve more respect and benefit of the doubt than I was giving you.

Shayne