1. Ayn Rand Institute archivist Brian Lisi has an interesting discussion of Rand’s speaking career.
2. OCON 2026 will be held later this month in New Orleans. As I’ve mentioned before, psychologist Steven Pinker will be taking part in an hour-and-one-half panel discussion. Pinker’s best-known book is probably The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. I don’t know much about Pinker, but he has said that intelligence is largely genetic and some gaps in IQ among ethnic groups might have a genetic component. I thought this was anathema in Objectivism.
3. At OCON, Shoshana Knapp will be giving a talk on Ayn Rand’s writing on Marilyn Monroe. (Monroe would have been 100 this month.) I’ve always thought that Rand’s brief piece on the death of Monroe was one of the more unusual things she wrote.
—Neil Parille
Same here, why didn't she write one about Veronica Lake!
ReplyDeleteNo link to the Brian Lisi piece or youtube?
ReplyDeleteI found this but didn't read it. I guess it's conclusion is "Ayn Rand was the greatest speaker...ever." https://newideal.aynrand.org/when-ayn-rand-took-the-stage-highlights-from-her-public-speaking-career/
DeleteI found this quote fascinating (if I'd seen it before, it was a long time ago):
DeleteAfter she gave a grim prognostication of the state of the world and the lack of men of great ability in today’s culture, Wallace commented that Rand must be “an awful pessimist.” Rand responded: “Oh, not at all. Ideas brought us here and ideas can take us out. I am the opposite of a pessimist. Why do you think I come out and defy 2,000 years or more of civilization? Because I know that if the right is on my side, if reason is on my side, I will win. The right ideas have always won.”
If the right ideas have always won, then why did she need to come out and defy 2,000 years or more of civilization? If it's that she was the first to present the right ideas, then she has no empirical basis for the assertion that they always win. Of course, if Objectivism represents the right ideas, then she's been refuted because it's obviously not winning.
If I remember correctly, Rand was also a great admirer of Farrah Fawcett, though I can't understand why.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair I can...but not from an objectivist point of view
DeleteThat one I remember. She liked the TV show "Charlie's Angels," and thought that the Fawcett character had the same kind of "feisty" nature or something as Rand's heroines. She thought the show was an example of Romanticism in American television. Probably, Fawcett fit Rand's idealized view of feminine beauty or whatever, which of course she derived by applying reason and not at all from any evolutionary cues.
Delete>"I don’t know much about Pinker"
ReplyDelete"2002 Flight Logs: Pinker’s name appears in flight logs for Epstein's private jet. Pinker stated he joined a group of TED speakers flying to a conference in California on Epstein's plane in 2002 at the invitation of his literary agent. He has maintained that at the time, Epstein's sex crimes were unknown."
"Pinker has met Epstein a handful of times in professional and academic settings, including an exclusive intellectual dinner and a 2014 lunch where they were photographed together. Pinker has stated he received no funding from Epstein and disliked him, finding him to be a "distasteful" and "tedious" dilettante."
" Pinker provided a linguistic interpretation of a federal prostitution law to his friend and Harvard colleague Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz—who was representing Epstein at the time—used Pinker's opinion in a letter to the court during proceedings that resulted in a controversial 2008 plea deal. Pinker has stated he did not know his unpaid semantic analysis was going to be used in Epstein's defense and has expressed regret over writing it."
[Pinker's best known pop book is probably "The Language Instinct," in which he claims the parts of speech are "hard-wired" in the brain. Thus, there is a synapse somewhere that produces knowledge of prepositions; another one that produces knowledge of conjunctions; same, of course, for nouns, verbs, et al. Pinker's arguments were debunked by British linguist Geoffrey Sampson in his book "Educating Eve" (later retitled "The Language Instinct Debate." Sampson’s work acts as a significant counter-narrative in cognitive science, challenging how "published demigods" in linguistics (e.g., Pinker and Chomsky) built sweeping evolutionary theories on what he argues are unproven, weak foundations.
Alex Epstein, Objectivism's resident shill for the oil industry, has an association with Peter Thiel, who was heavily involved with the Epstein conspiracy and is one of the most evil people on the planet today. For example, Epstein gave a talk at Thiel's Hereticon II conference that was a hodge podge of distinctly "un-Objectivist" topics like parapsychology and UFOs, and I've spied him referencing Thiel and other people involved with Thiel's Founder's Fund. As long as we're tossing out random facts about people, I mean.
Delete"Sampson is politically active and was elected to Wealden District Council in 2001, serving until 2002 with the local Conservative Party branch. He resigned this position after he was criticised by Labour Party and Liberal Democrat ministers and councillors for publishing on his website an article, There's Nothing Wrong With Racism (Except the Name), containing a number of racist claims."
ReplyDelete>>". . . containing a number of racist claims"
DeleteFor example?
"For example?"
ReplyDeleteBeats me, it's what Wikipedia said. Take it up with them.
But let's be fair, it's about as in-depth as the assertion that Sampson's work "debunks" Pinker. Does it, actually? According to who? And how well? It's very easy to claim such a thing, but of course there's no indication of what logic is used on either side or what evidence counters one stance or another. You'll forgive me if I just don't accept these unattributed statements at face value.
And isn't your entire post just a dumping of innuendo to take potshots at Pinker just because his name was mentioned?
I don't have an actual dog in the fight, I just thought you were taking some cheap shots for no good reason, and it took me all of 10 seconds to Google up a smear quote for someone you mentioned, and who you seem willing to defend. What's good for the goose, you know.
BTW, I'm surprised nobody's mentioned that Robert Tracinski is running for Congress as a Democrat. He's maybe the most consistently anti-Trump of all the Atlas Society people, and in fact I remain surprised that he still associates with them given how different his political positions are from theirs.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Peter Thiel, Objectivists don't like acknowledging the problems capitalists can cause when these guys accumulate their piles of F-U money, and then, when they no longer have to "serve" their customers, they can use their wealth and other assets to promote socially damaging projects.
ReplyDeleteA classic but underacknowledged example of this phenomenon is Friedrich Engels. Engels was a successful businessman and investor who basically hired his otherwise unemployable friend Karl Marx to create the socialist ideology they both wanted; and then Engels deployed his money, business skills and experience as a published journalist to promote Marxism like it was a company's product, with Marx as the company's brand.
Engels was the competent and organized partner in the Marx/Engels friendship, and we have Engels the capitalist to thank for turning Marxism into the destructive force it became in the 20th Century.