Inductive generalization concerning dealings with ARI: Lay down with dogs…

[kiaer.ts]

Keer: "You obviously haven't read Shirer. (I hadn't read it until recently.)"

I've read Rise and Fall of the Third Reich twice. That's the book you mean, I hope? If you have any argument that Peikoff is just a "ripoff" of Shirer, go ahead and present it.

Peikoff himself references Shirer, who repeats the theme that the German people accepted Nazism based on their duteous Lutheranism. Shirer's book is much more cogent and sober, and the real historical parallels it demonstrates are with people like George Soros and Rahm Emanuel, not Palin and O'Donnell.

More to the point is Peikoff's endless repetition of the idea that explicit philosophy is the determinative cause and that the right embodies that ominous threat. See today's TIA Daily for the limits of philosophical determinism, and see this thread: "[Peikoff likens] Republicans to terrorists building bombs that will be ready in 10 years" where once again the eschatological threat of the religious right is conveniently more than one election but less than a lifetime away.

"Bomb the Mosque" Peikoff is an hysterical twit who's been parroting the same line about the threat of the Buckley-Reagan-Bush axis since the sixties.

You invite me to demonstrate a negative, that Peikoff is no more than a rehash of Shirer.

I invite you to quote whatever original, fascinating, sober insight you see in Ominous you feel might be worth spreading to a wider audience.

Edited November 2, 2010 by Ted Keer

[Reidy]

I've read (no references offhand) that Debbil John Dewey, late in life, opined that Nazism had its origins in the duty-centered Kantian ethic, decades before Peikoff.

[rodney203]

Perhaps getting off topic just a little:

In my (admittedly, not so humble) opinion, when calling Germans to task regarding the rise of Hitler, there is something that one might consider significant. Though it is true that some Germans supported the German National Socialist Party, or were at least fooled by them, the party won in a plurality race; in other words, the party got in with less than 40% of the vote, if I'm not mistaken. Once appointed chancellor, Hitler began terrorizing officials behind the scenes. When the general population realized, it was too late. (I know this may be a simplification. Please spare me)

Only recently, in this site, I opined how I consider plurality elections to be wrong and dangerous. They are more dangerous the more principled the electorate is (i.e.; the greater the tendency to split votes among alternative parties).

Once again, there is no substitute for principled action. Politicians will fool people. Parties will fool people. But it is more difficult to get away with it if elections have a good old fashioned runoff between the top two vote getters. I don't know about others here, but this is the type of election I'm used to here in Louisiana. I was shocked to learn that some other jurisdictions use plurality elections.

I understand that some of us here, who feel like we are a minority, may be attracted to the plurality system; but just remember that the bad guys like it even more.

[9thdoctor]

I've read (no references offhand) that Debbil John Dewey, late in life, opined that Nazism had its origins in the duty-centered Kantian ethic, decades before Peikoff.

As I recall, so does Shirer. Kant on duty comes up in his discussing the history of Prussia, which I recall being described as being like a latter day Sparta. But Luther, Hegel, and Nietzsche mainly share the blame in Shirer’s conception of ideological history.

[Robert Campbell]

There is nothing particularly wrong in OPAR. It simply doesn't go beyond Rand or have anything of its own to recommend. […] OPAR was simply adequate in its presentation of Rand, but not inspired, and certainly not what it could have been. For example, Rand's philosophy can be situated in or be explained in relation to many traditions, the Aristotelian, Stoic, Epicurean, Scholastic schools, and the philosophies of Spinoza and Nietzsche, to name a few. Her politics could be put into the context of Locke and the classical liberals of the 19th century. This would have made her work much more accessible to academics and much less susceptible to academic resistance. But Peikoff, who had the time, education, and resources to do that, had not the wisdom or perhaps the intellectual capacity to do it.

Ted,

I think OPAR does occasionally go "beyond Rand"—in its shapelessly expansive treatment of "the arbitrary," or in its doctrine of a "premoral choice to live," or in its periodic lapses into Parmenideanizing. Not that any of these are improvements.

Meanwhile, Peikoff retreats on perception, avoiding anything that might unduly remind readers of the recently excommunicated David Kelley and his book.

In tone, Peikoff keeps trying to outdo Rand in the moral denunciation department, while showing little of her stylistic flair.

But, of course, I agree with you about the advantages of situating Rand's ideas with regard to the other approaches you mention, and about Peikoff's failure to take them up.

I don't think Peikoff lacked the intellectual capacity. Judging from his background and prior lecture series, he could have done a competent to proficient job with Aristotle, Aquinas, Spinoza, Locke, and some others in the classical liberal tradition. He would have needed additional study to take on the Stoics, Epictureans, other Scholastics, or Nietzsche.

I think he actually falls short of adequate in presenting some of Rand's ideas.

Meanwhile, Peikoff is absolutely terrible at is nearly anything to do with 20th century philosophy. Hence his repeated garbling of Gödel's incompleteness theorem, as one example among many. He was immersed in Deweyan pragmatism, courtesy of Sidney Hook, and learned the bare minimum about the other schools.

Ominous Parallels is simply awful. When it is not boring and repetitive or hyperbolic and hysterical it is both. I came of age under Reagan. That book was meant as a warning against Reagan.

Well, it was initially intended as a warning against Nixon and Humphrey. But the schedule kinda slipped...

Robert Campbell

[kiaer.ts]

Robert Malcom did publish some lecture notes on RoR about reaction to the Hellenistic schools. The take was as hostile as possible, not taking into account the more secualr and pro-individual happiness versions of later Stoicism. Struck me as the usual dismissiveness and lack of charitable reading.

[9thdoctor]

New commentary from Craig Biddle:

http://craigbiddle.com/misc/mccaskey-faq.htm

What's not discussed is more interesting than what is.