How many objectivists are there in the world today?

[BaalChatzaf]

But, of course, the enemies of Objectivism certainly would not stoop so low. And, anyway, why would they go to all that trouble when we have some O'ist devotees who are so eager to metamorphize Rand into something out of Cervantes!

Could you clarify that a bit? How do you get from Rand to Don Quixote, even with a stretch?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[George H. Smith]

But, you need to do -something- to fight for your deepest values, just for your own self respect. LAZY, DISENGAGED people who do nothing but quarrel and make posts DISGUST ME !!!

You preach civility, so why don't you practice it? OL members will tolerate many things, but not hypocrisy.

Perhaps Michael will give you the same absolute authority over OL that Hsieh exercises on Noodlefood. Then you could delete any posts that you don't like. This would shrink the number of active posters to nearly zero, thereby advancing the cause of freedom.

Another option would be to remove the pole from your ass. But it's been in there for so many years that you might not be able to stand upright without it.

Ghs

[9thdoctor]

Flouncy Pouncy Phil Recidivus!

I have lots of disagreements with Diana H. and the group around her, but she's a hard worker, intellectually serious fighting against a world moving into darkness....not a dissipated, defeated, time waster:

Presumably since the rest of us don’t have a web presence to match Comrade Sonia’s, we’re all slouches. Residents of our parent’s basements, posting one liners to OL in between marathon masturbation sessions. I don’t follow her very closely, so correct me if I’m wrong: does she have a job? Far as I can tell, she manages her web sites, her dogs, her diet, her thyroid, and did some politicking over the last couple months. She’s not in school, not teaching, but probably spends time preparing proposals for talks at ARIan conferences. So alright, she’s no slouch, but to excoriate OLers, since we don’t keep up with her productivity, at least not in a way that you’re aware of, well, just get over yourself Phil. Why don’t you keep up with her? Start your own forum, and observe the cyber-tumbleweeds that blow through.

Now as far as time wasting goes, to expend effort giving Keinrick Kimmler serious answers to his trolling is what I call wasting time.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dennis,

For the record, Ms. Hsieh earned a doctorate degree. And I believe she does teach at a university. I know this from skimming. I would need to look it up to give you more details, but if you go to her site, I am sure you will find the information.

Michael

[9thdoctor]

For the record, Ms. Hsieh earned a doctorate degree. And I believe she does teach at a university. I know this from skimming. I would need to look it up to give you more details, but if you go to her site, I am sure you will find the information.

I know she finished a doctorate some time ago. I get queasy visiting her site, she makes me sick, though I've tried following the discussions on McCaskey/Biddle. I don't like the blog format for discussions like these, but that's where it's happening, so one must soldier on. I'm not up for a research project on her professional status, but I don't recall seeing her mention current study or teaching at a university. My point being that she seemingly has more free time than your average professional careerist and/or wage slave.

Speaking of, lookee lookee, ARI is hiring "instructors"! http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=employment#SI

They don't mention one of the key requirements for employment: no critical comments on the McCaskey/Biddle situation, past, present, or future. Not even private comments. We'll find out.

[Rich Engle]

Reading over those questions Mike put up was a sad experience. I cannot imagine using up any of my main cycles for that kind of thing. This is how you are supposed to "change the world?" It's like volunteering for Puritan reform school. These questions are the same questions that were the same questions that were . . . Real doing has a lot more sweat and a lot more joy to it, emphasis on the latter.

And this whole emphasis on developing what looks like a somber, "proper" countenance--as far as I'm concerned you've already sold the farm as soon as you are adopting some notion of how you "should" act. According to whom? That whole assumed, Stoic thing smells like the inside of a coffin. I wonder what is "proper Objectivist humor?"

Modeling is a very expedient way to develop certain talents, but when it goes wrong, it goes way wrong.

And Phil, well, you have your wonderful moments, but the day you ever knock off the Mrs. Grundy stuff will be a joyous, historical moment. I'm not holding my breath for that one, buddy.

Your blinders were in great form this time, since they thoroughly overlooked a giant land mass of stimulating discussion topics done here during your hiatus. Apparently they were not performed with the proper, funeral-like demeanor. As was said, I guess you really do think that this is all a lot of us do. Believe it or not, if you crank up the power levels, you can do this, and a whole helluva lot more in between. And that "have another drink" crap, well, I don't drink hardly ever, even if at all anymore, but I really don't care who does. What's with the Victorian Prude Society malarkey?

The better part of posters I see on OL appear, without question, to be high-output types, and I count myself among them. Why? Because all I have to do is honestly inventory what I manage to pull off in a day (a day in my case consisting of 18-19 hours of being awake and doing). I was just looking over even today, a Saturday, and I have to say I'm pretty satisfied with myself (except for having to learn this one song in Db, which is kind of a drag, but that is why the Guitar Gods invented capos; transpose to C forms, up 1, voila).

How many Objectivists are there in the world? How many Rotarians are there? Who the fuck cares? If I had the time or interest to look at metrics at all, I might wonder how many self-actualized, high-output, creative non-fascists there are in the world, and how they are doing. I truly believe that Randian thought can be a liberating springboard--but it was never designed to be ported into some kind of organizational body. Individualism doesn't work that way, and the bottom line is that every single attempt at propagating Randian thought through closed-system organizations has had very, very little impact on the world at large. It is going to be miraculous if even the movie has any real changing power. And that is OK, because in the end things get done through actions, not position papers, and especially not directives telling you what, uh, proper male/female behavior is supposed to be. Fuck that.

rde

[sjw]

Brilliant post Rich. I especially agree with "I truly believe that Randian thought can be a liberating springboard--but it was never designed to be ported into some kind of organizational body."

Shayne

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Some time in a lifetime, fight hard for your deepest beliefs - if you believe a livable world depends on them.

> I am not here on earth to serve Objectivism [Roger]

Serving oneself would be more like it. Don't make the 'activism = self-sacrifice' fallacy.

I've not seen a lot of people actively defending -whatever their deepest cultural/philosophical/political/societal values happen to be-.

If one is not an Oist, I would respect them fighting fiercely for 1/2-Oism or 9/10-Oism or whatever it is.

There was a guy I knew in SF who after studying O, advocated Epicureanism. He was philosophically nuts. But I respected his passionate committment to getting off hjis fucking butt.

And not letting a lifetime slip by without ever really lifting much of a finger for the world he believed in.

(You are an exception to my criticism -- with your writing for various journals etc., as is George with regard to anarcho-cap, Michael with running an intellectual website, Robert C. w his Randianism related opinionizing...and maybe one or two others.)

Edited November 6, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

> not a single goddamn one of you even TRIES to answer this very important question!!!!

> Phil, Funny how you didn't, either.

Michael, my fault!!!

I wrote the following just after I wrote my post, but for some reason had a Brain Fart and didn't paste it before posting -- I guess I'm going to disappointed my acolytes who thought I was the fartless model of perfection:

" ANSWER - The Number of Objectivists:

1. The number is on the order of magnitude of the cumulative graduates of the NBI courses and subscribers to The Objectivist: That was the biggest 'pulse'. Many died. Some drifted off. More came in in subsequent decades with the subsequent courses and 'spread' of P. and ARI and TAS, but nowhere near that magnitude or retention and education. That number - of those who are in basic agreement with O. on fundamentals - is therefore more than 20K and less than 150K. (You can add a few in other countries but it's small.)

2. Those who have been deeply influenced but are not Oists is dozens of times greater. "

.

.

.

--Still waiting, though, for another serious attempt to grapple with this question. .....Just -one-!!!!!!!!

--30 plus posts and counting.... (real productive masturbatory thread / not even answering the question that is supposedly the topic.)

[sjw]

There was a guy I knew in SF who after studying O, advocated Epicureanism. He was philosophically nuts. But I respected his passionate committment to getting off hjis fucking butt.

One wonders if you'd respect Hitler on the same grounds.

I don't really give a damn about integrity divorced from the truth, which is precisely what you are glorifying Phil.

Shayne

[9thdoctor]

--Still waiting, though, for another serious attempt to grapple with this question. .....Just -one-!!!!!!!!

--30 plus posts and counting.... (real productive masturbatory thread / not even answering the question that is supposedly the topic.)

Recently seen in Kimmler's underground bunker:

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil,

I actually did that a while back in the only manner that makes sense to me:

The Ayn Rand Love/Hate Myth

There are two basic problems with trying to find out how many Objectivists there are in the world:

1. Given the schisms, personality cults, bloviating, etc., that characterize the Objectivist subculture, how do you define an Objectivist that cuts across all that?

2. Once defined, how do you count these folks?

I came up with this:

Use the sale of Rand's books as a measure.

Generously, we can say that about 1% are those who "love" Rand enough to constantly bicker about it and call themselves Objectivists. You also have to be equally generous in giving about 1% to those who "hate" Rand enough for us to be able to call them Anti-Objectivists.

I know that some people will buy more than one Rand book, but this is offset by the people (and libraries) who buy one book and it is read by more than one person.

So if Rand's book sales are about 500,000 in a year, I would say there are about 5,000 Objectivists around (using the standard of "Rand-lover" to define Objectivist)--to be added to the figures of previous years using the same method. Then you should probably chop off about half the total for people dying, changing their minds, etc.

I haven't added all this up for the last 50 years, but I bet it would be pretty accurate if someone did it.

Not perfect, but it's the best I've been able to come up with.

Michael

[sjw]

I think the term "Objectivist" is an anti-concept, thus I estimate the number of Objectivists in the world as about zero.

One could ask how many people *call* themselves Objectivists, but that is hardly a very meaningful question.

Shayne

[Jerry Biggers]

But, of course, the enemies of Objectivism certainly would not stoop so low. And, anyway, why would they go to all that trouble when we have some O'ist devotees who are so eager to metamorphize Rand into something out of Cervantes!

Could you clarify that a bit? How do you get from Rand to Don Quixote, even with a stretch?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Perhaps I should have said, "..O'ist devotees who are so eager to distort Objectivism into something out of Cervantes." That is, by purging each other and labeling as "enemies" those that they should regard as allies (such as most libertarians and some conservatives). To the outside world, this appears, to some critics, as displaying delusions of a paranoid (i.e., suspicious and grandiose) nature, or Quixotic, "tilting at windmills."

Or even, "Kafkaesque," as in displaying behavior of a bizarre and grandiose nature. Distorting Objectivism into a grotesque parody of itself.

[Rich Engle]

I think the term "Objectivist" is an anti-concept, thus I estimate the number of Objectivists in the world as about zero.

Clearly, Hsieh is the only authoritative source. I'm guessing she's got it down to fingers (not even toes).

[Brant Gaede]

Subject: Beaten Dogs -- and Whiners with their Heads Between their Paws

Oh, for Chrissake you f**kin' mental masturbators!!! This many posts and not a single goddamn one of you even TRIES to answer this very important question!!!!

So you wonder why I don't spend much time on OL these days? @#$%^&!*##!!!!!

Have another drink!

And post some more moronic one-liners!!!

I have lots of disagreements with Diana H. and the group around her, but she's a hard worker, intellectually serious fighting against a world moving into darkness....not a dissipated, defeated, time waster:

Have you checked out Noodlefood recently and compared it to what we see here? Intellectually serious, hard-working with all those projects - podcasts, discussion groups, letters to the editor, op eds, activist groups. Trying to change the world. According to her (and their) own lights.

You don't have to fight for your values in all those ways or on many fronts simultaneously. I started campus clubs, gave lectures and speeches, did some writing, helped make parts of California flourishing places for Objectivism.

But, you need to do -something- to fight for your deepest values, just for your own self respect. LAZY, DISENGAGED people who do nothing but quarrel and make posts DISGUST ME !!!

Don't let it slide away and just post cynical, defeated, impotent complaints on a microscopic website. I can understand Rearden's disgust when he said he'd have to save "your damned necks" as well as his own....the other businessmen who would whine, mope, complain yet take no action....

Gee, Phil, you've been back nine days and I didn't even know it.

Everybody has their own context. It isn't apropos that you want everybody to have your context.

I go to another site for my save the world work. It's conservative but not jejune. Objectivism is jejune. Libertarianism is too. If Rand hadn't blown off the libertarians over 40 years ago, I don't think both would have whithered so. It has to do with individualism and human rights. (Notice how Leonard Peikoff has so assiduously embraced these his whole Ayn Rand life?) But you think Objectivism is the cat's ass and all that's lacking is educating everybody about it so it will take over the culture. After all these years don't you ever think there might be something substantially wrong with the philosophy itself for all the lousy political results?

--Brant

get thee to a cult

[Brant Gaede]

Dennis,

For the record, Ms. Hsieh earned a doctorate degree. And I believe she does teach at a university. I know this from skimming. I would need to look it up to give you more details, but if you go to her site, I am sure you will find the information.

Michael

I think her university association ended when she got her degree 18 months ago. She has the luxury of not having to support herself so she can do many things, most of them sort of interesting one way or another. I do admire the way she keeps putting stuff out in spite of some health issues. I go to Noodle Food every week or so and skim over what I've missed, generally ignoring the comments. (As for SOLOP, there isn't anything there any longer worth even a skim--at least before I stopped skimming there.)

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

GOVERNOR JERRY BROWN

SENATOR BARBARA BOXER

SENATOR DIANE FEINSTEIN

FAILED TO EVEN GET THE LEGALIZATION OF MARIJUANA PASSED

NOT ONE SINGLE CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT TURNOVER

BANKRUPT

Great job!

Yep - flourishing objectivist environment - when do we go on strike?

All welfare should be shipped to California and denied to other states so all the welfare recipients can enjoy each other's company and go to the beach. If you don't want to live on welfare, pack and leave. In the meantime elect idiots; they'lll serve you well.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

I am curious. Why has no one attempted to estimate the number of Objectists. My guess it is = to one half the number of copies of Atlas Shrugged sold.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

I am curious. Why has no one attempted to estimate the number of Objectists. My guess it is = to one half the number of copies of Atlas Shrugged sold.

Ba'al Chatzaf

As far as I can tell there is only one Objectivist--me.

--Brant

got it right

[kiaer.ts]

I am curious. Why has no one attempted to estimate the number of Objectists. My guess it is = to one half the number of copies of Atlas Shrugged sold.

Ba'al Chatzaf

As far as I can tell there is only one Objectivist--me.

--Brant

got it right

The right answer for the wrong reason.

[Selene]

I am curious. Why has no one attempted to estimate the number of Objectists. My guess it is = to one half the number of copies of Atlas Shrugged sold.

Ba'al Chatzaf

As far as I can tell there is only one Objectivist--me.

--Brant

got it right

Ahh...imagine the scene...people coming out from the ruble after the strike is successful and standing up, like the Spartacus scene and with no

PAIN

FEAR or

GUILT saying I am the Objectivist! Kinda brings a queasy feeling all over me!

Adam

[Kimmler]

I am curious. Why has no one attempted to estimate the number of Objectists. My guess it is = to one half the number of copies of Atlas Shrugged sold.

Ba'al Chatzaf

As far as I can tell there is only one Objectivist--me.

--Brant

got it right

Ahh...imagine the scene...people coming out from the ruble after the strike is successful and standing up, like the Spartacus scene and with no

PAIN

FEAR or

GUILT saying I am the Objectivist! Kinda brings a queasy feeling all over me!

Adam

Be sure to be there with a supply of candy bars and nylon stockings - a-la the Allied troops did in Berlin at the end of WWII. Remember what they got in return

[Selene]

I am curious. Why has no one attempted to estimate the number of Objectists. My guess it is = to one half the number of copies of Atlas Shrugged sold.

Ba'al Chatzaf

As far as I can tell there is only one Objectivist--me.

--Brant

got it right

Ahh...imagine the scene...people coming out from the ruble after the strike is successful and standing up, like the Spartacus scene and with no

PAIN

FEAR or

GUILT saying I am the Objectivist! Kinda brings a queasy feeling all over me!

Adam

Be sure to be there with a supply of candy bars and nylon stockings - a-la the Allied troops did in Berlin at the end of WWII. Remember what they got in return

VD?

[Kimmler]

Adam,

If you are talking about NY...well far be it from me to cast aspersions on the morals of the ladies that inhabit NY, but I think that would be the least of your worries.