Saturday, January 28, 2012

Leonard's Shitlist

For fans of Objectivist Kremlinology everywhere, a bunch of little-known ARI enthusiasts have set up a new site, www.checkingpremises.org. Ostensibly and hilariously described "a tool to help each person decide independently", in practice it is simply The Official Leonard Peikoff Shitlist where the ancient enemies such as David Kelley, Libertarianism, and The Brandens can be ritually vilified, and all-new Enemies of Objectivism can be thrillingly unmasked by a some Junior Woodchucks waving a copy of "Fact And Value."

The latest Enemy of Objectivism is, like most Enemies of Objectivism, a former close associate and orthodox ARIan Diana Hsieh. In fact, the site seems to be really all about this latest schism; the entries on standard villains like the Brandens are meagre and have a pro-forma feel. Hsieh's an odd figure. She was first a Kelleyan Objectivist, then in a dramatic conversion flipped to the Ayn Rand Institute, issuing the required endless blistering denunciations of her former friends and colleagues in the process. Her orthodox enthusiasm later led her to a similarly overwrought denunciation of her former friend and colleague, Ayn Rand scholar Chris Sciabarra. Now the wheel has turned, and it is she who is getting the anathema treatment. As usual, the intellectual content of the charges is close to nil; Hsieh's offending discussions are often breathtakingly inane, like whether it's ethical to eat severely retarded children should the situation require it (FYI, she thinks it is. The correct answer is, of course, let me know when this is actually a pressing problem mankind faces, then we'll discuss it.). The real issue is not anything discernibly to do with philosophy, but instead the fact that she disagreed with, and even worse said Bad Things (such as accusing him of being "horribly ignorant" and "armchair philosophising") about the aging emperor of the ARI.

Of course, almost everyone bar the slavish have immediately twigged that this is simply a shallow, limply conceived hit site. Hsieh has responded at length here, naturally failing to observe the irony that she has been the source of plenty of similar excommunications in the past. But the notable series of schisms over the past few years I would speculate is really just a sign of palace politics, of frantic jockeying for position as Peikoff's frail health and grip on the organisation - and reality - continues to deteriorate. After all, there is some money to be had, some future roles to be played, and some prestige to be garnered, even if it is only within the hermetic world of the Objectivist subculture. And judging by her track record, Hsieh has never needed a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Hat tip: Neil Parille

19 comments:

  1. It's a good thing I took the Check Your Premises name first! ;-)

    http://check-your-premises.blogspot.com/

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  2. It will be interesting to see what happens after Peikoff is gone. His daughter Kira is not a philosopher (I assume she'll inherit Rand's copyrights and the like).

    On the other hand the movement is small enough that there will be a lot of institutional inertia. When McCaskey was excommunicated he was replaced on the board by Robert Mayhew, who notoriously Bowdlerized Rand's questions and answers.

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  3. You may get a bit of extra traffic Henry, though not perhaps of the kind you'd want...;-)

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  4. Echo Chamber Escapee1/30/2012 04:14:00 PM

    @Neil: It will be interesting to see what happens after Peikoff is gone. His daughter Kira is not a philosopher (I assume she'll inherit Rand's copyrights and the like).

    I have heard through fairly reliable channels that ARI expects to inherit all rights to Rand's (and Peikoff's) work. Kira will presumably get at least some of Leonard's money. Peikoff has also said repeatedly that he will not name an "intellectual heir."

    It will be interesting to see if anything changes at ARI once the pope is dead and there is no one to claim the mantle of Rand-Given Authority on Objectivism.

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  5. Poor Diana is in a bit of a torment. I have documented some of the funnier bits of her pain with a Storify assemblage.

    Doctor Comrade Diana and the self-hoisting petard

    One of Diana's horrors is Facebook. Because she wants the largest audience possible, she has chosed to make her account 'public.' So anyone can have a look at her whining, fussing and (dare we say it) Fear.

    The guys at Premises are no prize, but it seems to me that Diana trained them well in the procedures of Proper Objectivist Shunning.

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  6. It will be interesting to see if anything changes at ARI once the pope is dead and there is no one to claim the mantle of Rand-Given Authority on Objectivism.


    Without a central authority, who's going to resolve the inevitable conflicts that arise among the orthodox elite? Without a central authority, without someone who can say, "I spent 30 years at the foot of Ayn Rand learning Objectivism and I know it better than anyone," orthodox Objectivism will have a great deal of trouble maintaining any sort of functional unity. You will have a large number of Objectivist elites and would-be elites, each of them fighting for a shrinking pie of Objectivist funds, masking their conflicting agendas in terms of sheer philosophical moralism -- surely the worst way for attaining any sort of conflict-reconciliation short of outright violence. Without an umpire that everyone acknowledges as an ultimate authority, it could get real ugly.

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  7. It will be interesting to see if anything changes at ARI once the pope is dead and there is no one to claim the mantle of Rand-Given Authority on Objectivism.

    It's nothing a little creativity can't solve. All the ARI need do is organize a meeting of "intellectuals" to elect a new authority. These would of course be trusted insiders. It is true that their choice would not have Rand's direct imprimatur, but as they would enjoy the vestiges of official recognition and naturally lay claim to principles of "reason" and "objectivity", the new heir-designate could be offered as the only rational choice and the only one consonant with Ayn Rand's philosophy. While some might question the result, it would neatly solve the problem and enable things to carry on as before (more or less). However, the biggest stumbling block is that it would take a smidgen of creativity to pull off, which is more than most Objectivists can muster, I'm afraid.

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  8. Without a central authority ... orthodox Objectivism will have a great deal of trouble maintaining any sort of functional unity.

    Which is not at all what I would expect from a system of thought that logically derives all its results from basic premises.

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  9. The guys at ARI are funny - they like making statements like these about businessmen being inspired by "Atlas Shrugged" with very little empirical evidence.

    http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/02/02/businessmen-say-happy-birthday-ayn-rand/#ixzz1lF24Zd99

    What do people think?

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  10. "ARI is proud to announce the naming of Harry Binswanger, Ph.D. in philosophy, as Ayn Rand’s intellectual heir and the foremost authority on Objectivism, succeeding the late Leonard Peikoff."

    This will be immediately followed by a post on NoodleFood: "Even though I was holding out for Yaron Brook and said that Binswanger was an old crank, I can see now that he was the only rational choice all along".

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  11. Echo Chamber Escapee2/03/2012 10:45:00 PM

    @Xtra Laj: The guys at ARI are funny - they like making statements like these about businessmen being inspired by "Atlas Shrugged" with very little empirical evidence.

    Oh, they have lots of evidence! Yaron Brook talks to businessmen all the time while trying to drum up more funds for The Institute. And I don't doubt that many of the businessmen he talks to say positive things about Atlas Shrugged.

    But I do question whether the subset of businessmen who are willing to talk to Yaron Brook is representative of all businessmen.

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  12. A lengthy attack from the website that allegedly wasn't started just to attack Diana Hsieh --

    http://checkingpremises.org/openletter

    -NP

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  13. @Neil, perhaps my favourite part is where the author describes Diana Hsieh as "the epitome of cool."

    Also this:
    http://checkingpremises.org/subjobj

    It's clearly a Hsieh hit site, yes, but the article you cite plus the above shows that its corollary role is as a Peikoff-Worship site.

    Interestingly, both pieces read like the work of college students, and rather dull ones at that; peppered with hamfisted grammar and spelling and the rote thought-stopping cliches that Objectivists specialise in. Hard to believe they're both written by men nearing middle age. It's like discovering Objectivism in their teens arrested their development.

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  14. Dan,

    You are not impressed by writing such as:

    There were no Objectivists to be found in my town and no way to attempt to find or communicate with any at my disposal. I know that there where early, limited forms of “cyber-space” in existence, even then, but, growing up poor in rural Arkansas I had no real knowledge of or access to them. So, it was just me and my books. ?

    The guy hasn't heard of Orwell's rule of not using two words when one will do.

    -Neil Parille

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  15. "like whether it's ethical to eat severely retarded children should the situation require it"

    WTF?! Seriously?

    I remember some dumb discussions from my Objectivist days, but nothing that stupid - or that weird.

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  16. @Michael, I see the Checking Premises site has been rejigged already to remove the Hsieh material (the page "Current Controversies", with 6 sections on Hsieh has been disappeared), being replaced by a "Commentary" section which has a couple of essays with an anti-Hsieh flavour. Although with typical Objectivist incompetence, they've left in a quote by one Serena Smith in the "Positive Feedback section" which just references "her" - as if Hsieh was so obviously the target she didn't need to be referred to by name.

    Here's a link to Hsieh commenting on retarded infant eating if you can't be bothered listening to her podcast.

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  17. Michael,

    Also the FAQ tab has been removed. That contained all the questions about Hsieh.

    Neil

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  18. Reading Hsiehs EXTENSIVE character assassination of that guy got me thinking. In the hard sciences you would never see this, at least not so publicly. They may go so far as to ridicule a theory or some methodology (and even then it wouldn't sound like this), but would never go to the extremes found here.

    This is because it would make them a laughingstock themselves. In those fields logic and reason are the alpha and omega, and allowing your views to be influenced by emotion to such an extent as to formulate am entire argument on Ad Hominem would make even the most seasoned physicist look like a red cheeked freshman.

    But I see this kind of stuff regularly in the realm of the Objectivist. Ad Hominem masquerading as "reason" (poorly). It's not unique to this field, it's common in politics, art, and sports. What it is is a cornerstone of sales.

    This approach isn't so bad in other fields, as there often isn't enough data (or there is too much) for one to make a rational appraisal. So it gets boiled down to an emotional argument.

    The irony here though is that this sales mentality exists in a field that claims to hold reason and logic as the alpha and omega, just as scientists do. Perhaps, however, the failing is with the scientists. Perhaps if they simply stuck to a purely aristotalean understanding of their work they would understand how character assassinations are a fundamental part of logic.

    Also I loved her second point where she was mad at him for tricking her into supporting hist work without thoroughly reading it. Yes, being lazy and having little pride in your views is his fault.

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  19. This site has been taken down.

    Maybe the only un-schism in O'ist history.

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