tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291960342024-03-27T16:54:27.827-07:00Ayn Rand Contra Human NatureGreg Nyquist's 'A.R.C.H.N'
and other criticisms of ObjectivismDaniel Barneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06359277853862225286noreply@blogger.comBlogger749125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-63247609708443701992024-03-04T09:05:00.000-08:002024-03-04T09:05:40.079-08:00Objectivist Roundup, March 2024<div style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">1. ARI scholar Jason Rheins said that he hopes <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DGGmtABu7Fzg@t%3D2:18.40&source=gmail&ust=1709657906776000&usg=AOvVaw2uOuqh-5qBeTnXDtfDg1Zg" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGmtABu7Fzg@t=2:18.40" rel="nofollow" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">Donald Trump has a stroke </a>and calls conservative Republicans Nazis. The ARI party line is that Trump is bad and Republicans a mixed bag, so this is rather extreme.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">2. ARI scholar Mike Mazza wrote an interesting article<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://newideal.aynrand.org/why-cant-professional-philosophers-get-rand-right/&source=gmail&ust=1709657906776000&usg=AOvVaw0v4dTdABefmrQA_cx3D_s6" href="https://newideal.aynrand.org/why-cant-professional-philosophers-get-rand-right/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"> Why can't Professional Philosophers Get Rand Rights? </a> Mazza is correct that many philosophers don't understand particularly well, probably in large part that they disagree with most of her ideas. (Rand had a hard time understanding <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2005/07/the_importance_.html&source=gmail&ust=1709657906776000&usg=AOvVaw1pJ27L8kFl-xIlXanS9r3A" href="https://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2005/07/the_importance_.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">people she disagreed with as well</a>.) On the other hand. he writes as if disagreeing with Rand equals misunderstanding her. His solution is to read more ARI affiliated authors.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">3. There is a new self-help style book out: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/Exploring-Individualism-Journal-Inspired-Philosophy/dp/B0CWS44BWL/ref%3Dsr_1_2?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x%3D31%26Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y%3D18%26dib%3DeyJ2IjoiMSJ9.UePIxV_QXdKVWPTt172gEiLcp2iZjIEg19HIdFSFiNlBQbHZHPEJzlrSKEA-ZoS_BPN33PiqFb5UlygnDDLV0MM54CkdM4yDRwWyPJBeZeIlatdUakmj9pHGYFiruoftq0CIxkr0-MtRoN7l2JPQjbhMeh_eTQUSzsKAXtqJw7OYWFqELIFuqoegeYwg5KhZsEeUkJa4BQugGumktdOFMBdbi6cItooqgjoIZPrQ-aI.8aeUeFiHY4N2an7Yuf1SlbMuk9LJOXqG2RrfLzVxcgI%26dib_tag%3Dse%26qid%3D1709469364%26refinements%3Dp_28%253Aayn%2Brand%26s%3Dbooks%26sr%3D1-2%26unfiltered%3D1&source=gmail&ust=1709657906776000&usg=AOvVaw3CzH4Jxg2sYZ4PFXTClrR4" href="https://www.amazon.com/Exploring-Individualism-Journal-Inspired-Philosophy/dp/B0CWS44BWL/ref=sr_1_2?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=31&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=18&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.UePIxV_QXdKVWPTt172gEiLcp2iZjIEg19HIdFSFiNlBQbHZHPEJzlrSKEA-ZoS_BPN33PiqFb5UlygnDDLV0MM54CkdM4yDRwWyPJBeZeIlatdUakmj9pHGYFiruoftq0CIxkr0-MtRoN7l2JPQjbhMeh_eTQUSzsKAXtqJw7OYWFqELIFuqoegeYwg5KhZsEeUkJa4BQugGumktdOFMBdbi6cItooqgjoIZPrQ-aI.8aeUeFiHY4N2an7Yuf1SlbMuk9LJOXqG2RrfLzVxcgI&dib_tag=se&qid=1709469364&refinements=p_28%3Aayn+rand&s=books&sr=1-2&unfiltered=1" rel="nofollow" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">101 Days to Exploring Individualism; A Guided Journal Inspired by Ayn Rand's Philosophy</a>.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">4. One Vladimir Lincoln Armstrong published the Kindle book, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Ayn-Rand-Creation-DOESNT-ebook/dp/B0CVSS5K16/ref%3Dsr_1_5?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x%3D31%26Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y%3D18%26dib%3DeyJ2IjoiMSJ9.UePIxV_QXdKVWPTt172gEiLcp2iZjIEg19HIdFSFiNlBQbHZHPEJzlrSKEA-ZoS_BPN33PiqFb5UlygnDDLV0MM54CkdM4yDRwWyPJBeZeIlatdUakmj9pHGYFiruoftq0CIxkr0-MtRoN7l2JPQjbhMeh_eTQUSzsKAXtqJw7OYWFqELIFuqoegeYwg5KhZsEeUkJa4BQugGumktdOFMBdbi6cItooqgjoIZPrQ-aI.8aeUeFiHY4N2an7Yuf1SlbMuk9LJOXqG2RrfLzVxcgI%26dib_tag%3Dse%26qid%3D1709469631%26refinements%3Dp_28%253Aayn%2Brand%26s%3Dbooks%26sr%3D1-5%26unfiltered%3D1&source=gmail&ust=1709657906776000&usg=AOvVaw2pcl_8huKnB4OpcNJfeMI7" href="https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Ayn-Rand-Creation-DOESNT-ebook/dp/B0CVSS5K16/ref=sr_1_5?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=31&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=18&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.UePIxV_QXdKVWPTt172gEiLcp2iZjIEg19HIdFSFiNlBQbHZHPEJzlrSKEA-ZoS_BPN33PiqFb5UlygnDDLV0MM54CkdM4yDRwWyPJBeZeIlatdUakmj9pHGYFiruoftq0CIxkr0-MtRoN7l2JPQjbhMeh_eTQUSzsKAXtqJw7OYWFqELIFuqoegeYwg5KhZsEeUkJa4BQugGumktdOFMBdbi6cItooqgjoIZPrQ-aI.8aeUeFiHY4N2an7Yuf1SlbMuk9LJOXqG2RrfLzVxcgI&dib_tag=se&qid=1709469631&refinements=p_28%3Aayn+rand&s=books&sr=1-5&unfiltered=1" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">Debunking Ayn Rand: The Truth About Money Creation Or Why Work Doesn't Create Money</a>. It's a small book which claims that Rand believed workers create money and gives reasons why this isn't so (such as The Federal Reserve and fiat money). He doesn't document his claim about Rand's view of money and I don't think even her staunchest supporters think she had much to say about monetary theory. There is no mention of Objectivist influenced economists who have written about money such as George Reisman and Richard Salsman.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></div><div id="m_-6852766372513518075ydpf1093ea9enhancr_card_0079142838" style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "YahooSans VF", YahooSans, "OpenSans VF", "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; max-width: 400px;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Ayn-Rand-Creation-DOESNT-ebook/dp/B0CVSS5K16/ref%3Dsr_1_5?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x%3D31%26Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y%3D18%26dib%3DeyJ2IjoiMSJ9.UePIxV_QXdKVWPTt172gEiLcp2iZjIEg19HIdFSFiNlBQbHZHPEJzlrSKEA-ZoS_BPN33PiqFb5UlygnDDLV0MM54CkdM4yDRwWyPJBeZeIlatdUakmj9pHGYFiruoftq0CIxkr0-MtRoN7l2JPQjbhMeh_eTQUSzsKAXtqJw7OYWFqELIFuqoegeYwg5KhZsEeUkJa4BQugGumktdOFMBdbi6cItooqgjoIZPrQ-aI.8aeUeFiHY4N2an7Yuf1SlbMuk9LJOXqG2RrfLzVxcgI%26dib_tag%3Dse%26qid%3D1709469631%26refinements%3Dp_28%253Aayn%2Brand%26s%3Dbooks%26sr%3D1-5%26unfiltered%3D1&source=gmail&ust=1709657906776000&usg=AOvVaw2pcl_8huKnB4OpcNJfeMI7" href="https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Ayn-Rand-Creation-DOESNT-ebook/dp/B0CVSS5K16/ref=sr_1_5?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=31&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=18&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.UePIxV_QXdKVWPTt172gEiLcp2iZjIEg19HIdFSFiNlBQbHZHPEJzlrSKEA-ZoS_BPN33PiqFb5UlygnDDLV0MM54CkdM4yDRwWyPJBeZeIlatdUakmj9pHGYFiruoftq0CIxkr0-MtRoN7l2JPQjbhMeh_eTQUSzsKAXtqJw7OYWFqELIFuqoegeYwg5KhZsEeUkJa4BQugGumktdOFMBdbi6cItooqgjoIZPrQ-aI.8aeUeFiHY4N2an7Yuf1SlbMuk9LJOXqG2RrfLzVxcgI&dib_tag=se&qid=1709469631&refinements=p_28%3Aayn+rand&s=books&sr=1-5&unfiltered=1" rel="nofollow" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0) !important; 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background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 0px 0px 2px 2px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(224, 228, 233); max-width: 400px; width: 398px;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 2px; margin: 0px; padding: 16px 0px 16px 12px; vertical-align: top;"><img class="CToWUd" data-bit="iit" height="36" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/meips/ADKq_Nabb2U5mG_vswf4vvyJIfWUrFPA41tHiLxuOkeQRvvncsNFTAl4zH-GP5Ua3WmpWH7WCUZHoqFr9h0QoM8AV3TsdKqWol6XrFmYhqj16NxiENxDtXGC=s0-d-e1-ft#https://s.yimg.com/nq/storm/assets/enhancrV2/23/logos/amazon.png" style="margin-top: 3px; min-width: 36px;" /></td><td style="border-radius: 0px 0px 2px; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 24px 16px 12px; vertical-align: middle; width: 314px;"><h2 style="color: #1d2228; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px 0px 6px; max-width: 314px;">Debunking Ayn Rand: The Truth About Money Creation or Why Work DOESN'T C...</h2><p style="color: #979ea8; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px;">"Debunking Ayn Rand: The Truth About Money Creation or Why Work DOESN'T Create Money" by Vladimir Lincoln Armstr...</p></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></a></div><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-20816001063572667842024-02-04T12:41:00.000-08:002024-02-04T12:41:56.039-08:00Objectivist Roundup, February 2024<div dir="ltr">1. There is a new Kindle book, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/Rational-Edge-Rand-Nature-Essence-ebook/dp/B0CS9813NR/ref%3Dsr_1_6?crid%3D1A9X2NLI5CVVX%26keywords%3Dayn%2Brand%2Bnature%26qid%3D1706979727%26sprefix%3Dayn%2Brand%2Bnatur%252Caps%252C193%26sr%3D8-6&source=gmail&ust=1707164991114000&usg=AOvVaw1km9ph0az4txE3EIGwpQx2" href="https://www.amazon.com/Rational-Edge-Rand-Nature-Essence-ebook/dp/B0CS9813NR/ref=sr_1_6?crid=1A9X2NLI5CVVX&keywords=ayn+rand+nature&qid=1706979727&sprefix=ayn+rand+natur%2Caps%2C193&sr=8-6" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">The Rational Edge: Ayn Rand on Nature and Essence</a> by one Andy Randell. It's a brief overview of Objectivism with some objections and possible responses. Unless you are completely new to Objectivism or have Kindle Unlimited, I can't recommend it.</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">2. Ben Bayer of the Ayn Rand Institute interviewed Harry Binswanger <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DpWiQXkI0Nwc&source=gmail&ust=1707164991114000&usg=AOvVaw3_zvxd_olYyL6E4aPkSC9M" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWiQXkI0Nwc" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">on his years with Ayn Rand</a>. It's somewhat defensive (for example Rand was not a difficult editor) but it does contain interesting anecdotes and observations. A few of Binswanger's observations:</div><div dir="ltr"><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(15, 105, 255); margin-left: 20px; padding-left: 10px;"><div> i. Rand was always intense, even when reheating the Borscht her cook made.</div><div><br /></div><div> ii. Binswanger concedes that Rand occasionally got unnecessarily angry at interlocutors because she would judge their motives and premises prematurely.</div><div><br /></div><div> iii. Rand didn't see all the implications of some of her ideas until the 1970s. That was a new one to me.</div><div><br /></div><div dir="ltr"> iv. Rand was a great psychologist, including better than many "respected historical psychologists." James Valliant made a similar claim recently.</div><div><br /></div><div> v. Binswanger still hates the Brandens ("villains"). Fair enough from his perspective, but he actually claims Rand's excommunication letter in 1968 (To Whom It May Concern) was measured and even Olympian. It's hard to imagine calling Nathaniel a thief without evidence as being measured. As Nathaniel said in his memoirs, Rand's attack was so "over the top" that people wondered if he was an alcoholic or a child molester.</div><div><br /></div><div dir="ltr"> vi. Maybe not a major point, but Binswanger misrepresents Barbara's Branden's biography (<i>The Passion of Ayn Rand</i>) on Rand's final meeting and phone call with Rand. As Binswanger says, Rand and Barbara met in Rand's New York apartment in 1981. According to Barbara, after the meeting, she sent Rand a letter stating that she was writing Rand's biography. When Rand didn't respond, Barbara called her. Rand refused to talk. Barbara says she was certain that this was due to Rand's disapproval of the prospective biography. Binswanger doesn't mention the letter and says Barbara first mentioned the idea of the biography in the phone call and asked for Rand's assistance. He says Barbara claims that this final conversation was of a "I'm sorry that things didn't work out" variety. This was manifestly not what Branden wrote. (The existence of the post-meeting letter mentioning a biography is confirmed by Cynthia Peikoff in <i>100 Voices</i>). Perhaps Binswanger should have re-read the relevant page in Branden's biography before accusing her of lying.</div></blockquote><p><br /></p><p> </p></div><div dir="ltr"><div id="m_-46644159809619175ydpe2fa191benhancr_card_7931131683" style="font-family: "YahooSans VF", YahooSans, "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; max-width: 400px;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DpWiQXkI0Nwc&source=gmail&ust=1707164991114000&usg=AOvVaw3_zvxd_olYyL6E4aPkSC9M" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWiQXkI0Nwc" rel="nofollow" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0) !important; text-decoration-line: none !important;" target="_blank"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="max-width: 400px;"><tbody><tr><td style="margin: 0px;" width="400"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-color: rgb(224, 228, 233); border-radius: 2px; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; max-width: 400px; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td background="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEib9Dn1FXFQ96s_gKvx_GssFwOdKzcHCchfEt_vlv2Q0ihncHaHsWipSLiE0tK8XbczuqdrnDrs__eiKa4ScaUjWaibwx04fBQ31ZOuwnlhp3s7regxUgACxjfKmlmbGeYSzt8dctr7rG-zkRMZir5GijDbuMUY2aLkNBfk0amxnEvT_Id8LoLb-UyshRJ1B_xRc4iXfkFL1rXKt0CB6bYRb72j2VyxEJfiTGy9CgJU85KLW8xa4pQYBXdFBhSNJmfRtbvQxTHlBGR6M0bvi_neTe6pLQNpRy2_eJ57Bezk4Rj4=s0-d-e1-ft" bgcolor="#000000" height="175" style="background-color: black; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; border-radius: 2px 2px 0px 0px; margin: 0px; min-height: 175px;" valign="top"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 398px;"><tbody><tr><td background="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEi8X088b6fh9yTa7Q763Dl1UBeRITal6A2WbJtuGwHrETGN87Zs33VPOVgIfA-NFdU9rh5Ilf9dyeVqySDDhTTkW4ANEnDG18zg52FUHZiorT9aitTjXAqDw1iU3XiVlhj0rse91qaKwgKRWTjoI1cNTiHvIfWJZwel6S_J1sdg4m6OQKeXQGVSWUXFMnI=s0-d-e1-ft" bgcolor="transparent" style="background-color: transparent; border-radius: 2px 2px 0px 0px; margin: 0px; min-height: 175px;" valign="top"><table border="0" style="height: 175px; min-height: 175px; width: 398px;"><tbody><tr><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: top;"></td><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 15px 15px 0px 0px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;"><div></div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td style="margin: 0px;"><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-radius: 0px 0px 2px 2px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(224, 228, 233); max-width: 400px; width: 398px;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 2px; margin: 0px; padding: 16px 0px 16px 12px; vertical-align: top;"><img class="CToWUd" data-bit="iit" height="36" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEjMe0Vtdx-0o3ZJmhvXZCaT6eE1Kk288VHNzrmCkyP0Abb-8CzooENNfrpuiI-b5iCFDRKdB9_gw-LT-F1vCgROgzXI8w52qo-fgR4J_WGWwphMDxwQqpgqGeBaCY3qcHnNYBCyWSgWlfOkXtuTrsJxhz85Qpenz8alDw0L=s0-d-e1-ft" style="margin-top: 3px; min-width: 36px;" /></td><td style="border-radius: 0px 0px 2px; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 24px 16px 12px; vertical-align: middle; width: 314px;"><h2 style="color: #1d2228; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px 0px 6px; max-width: 314px;">Ayn Rand: A Philosophical Life</h2><p style="color: #979ea8; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px;"></p></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /></div></div><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-70134442442700506392024-01-01T12:44:00.000-08:002024-01-14T16:04:01.549-08:00Objectivist Roundup, January 2024<span id="docs-internal-guid-983e351a-7fff-523f-f1e6-c145e1d562a0"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">1. William O’Neill’s 1971 </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/charity-toward-none-analysis-philosophy/dp/0802220347/ref=sr_1_3?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=0&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=0&qid=1703945202&refinements=p_28%3Aayn+rand&s=books&sr=1-3&unfiltered=1" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">book With Charity Toward None: An Analysis of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> was recently re-published. It was probably the first critique of Rand’s philosophy published. It’s been years since I read it, but my recollection was that it was hit-or-miss.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">[O'Neill's book was the first <i>philosophical</i> critique from an academically trained savant. Albert Ellis had a few years earlier written a book length critique of Objectivism (i.e., <i>Is Objectivism a Religion?</i>) focusing on psychology, politics and economics.]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">2. Carl Barney, the multi-millionaire ex-donor to the Ayn Rand Institute, and head of the Prometheus Foundation, recently posted a curious blog entry, </span><a href="https://carlbarney.com/2023/12/18/who-represents-objectivism/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Who Represents Objectivism</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. He writes:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“There have been many alleged spokespersons for Objectivism—Mike Berliner, Harry Binswanger, John Ridpath, Peter Schwartz, Yaron Brook—and we’re now told of a “Chief Philosophy Officer,” Onkar Ghate. There’s something we should not forget.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I’m wondering if there is a back story here. With the occasional exception of Binswanger, I’m not sure if any of these have ever claimed to be a spokesperson for Objectivism. Barney then goes on to sing the praises of Leonard Peikoff, who claims to quite literally speak in the name of Ayn Rand. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This is something I didn’t know:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Much of Leonard’s clarity and conviction undoubtedly was influenced by his 30-year close relationship with Ms. Rand—thousands of hours of discussion (from which he took careful notes), and the Q&As, and the collaboration undoubtedly enabled him to speak with such clarity and conviction.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Can the publication of Leonard Peikoff’s Journals and Marginalia be far off?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">3. Long-time Objectivist author Andy Bernstein has a new Kindle book on racism called </span><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Racism-Decline-Baleful-Resurgence-ebook/dp/B0CLYT1BXD/ref=sr_1_1?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=0&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=0&qid=1703945930&refinements=p_27%3Abernstein%2Cp_28%3Aracism&s=books&sr=1-1&unfiltered=1">American Racism</a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Racism-Decline-Baleful-Resurgence-ebook/dp/B0CLYT1BXD/ref=sr_1_1?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=0&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=0&qid=1703945930&refinements=p_27%3Abernstein%2Cp_28%3Aracism&s=books&sr=1-1&unfiltered=1">: Its Decline, Its Baleful Influence, and Our Looming Race War</a>.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">4. Speaking of Bernstein, </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUaX4HPO3jU" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Yaron Brook wasn’t pleased</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> to be asked why he isn’t teaching at Ayn Rand University. Brook claimed not to know. I certainly don’t know but considering that he writes for Craig Biddle’s The Objective Standard I doubt he will be teaching at ARU any time soon.</span></p><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">5. Speaking of Brook, he is scheduled to appear on January 12, 2024 in </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw36NUgZMLU&t=46s" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Centennial, Colorado</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. For a mere $400 you can sit next to him at the post-speech dinner.</span></span><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-43114758093411417232023-11-27T12:13:00.000-08:002023-11-27T12:24:28.595-08:00Objectivist Roundup, December 2023<span id="docs-internal-guid-d87c2776-7fff-4314-5ce2-f296a36c3fae"><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 6pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">1. Just when you thought the last vein of unpublished Ayn Rand material had been tapped, along comes Ayn Rand Institute supporter Jonathan Hoenig with </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Can-You-Really-Love-Dog-ebook/dp/B0CNKVJDGF/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2RS6EUKZZKWIU&keywords=can+you+really+love+a+dog&qid=1701011714&sprefix=%2Caps%2C344&sr=8-1" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Can You Really Love a Dog?: Leonard Peikoff and Ayn Rand on Pets</span></a><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. As the Amazon description says:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 11pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #0f1111; font-size: 10.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span></p><blockquote><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 11pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #0f1111; font-size: 10.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Featuring previously unpublished pictures of Ayn Rand with her cats, this absorbing book makes an amusing and thought-provoking compendium on pets from the world’s foremost Objectivists. In this collection of essays, stories, and photos, Peikoff delves with insight, humor, and philosophy into the meaning of loving a pet.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: -5pt 0pt 0pt 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #0f1111; font-size: 10.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">From Ayn Rand’s lighter side as a cat owner to Leonard Peikoff’s advice on how to cope with the loss of a beloved canine friend, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #0f1111; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Can You Really Love a Dog?</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #0f1111; font-size: 10.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> promises to add value to every moment of your life with a cat or dog. The perfect gift for the pet lover who thinks.</span></p></blockquote><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: -5pt 0pt 0pt 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #0f1111; font-size: 10.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #0f1111; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Because I have Kindle unlimited, I was able to rent the book for free. A few things I noted. Edwin Locke is quoted as saying that he saw Rand get angry only once - when her husband Frank O'Connor left the window open. Rand got upset because a cat might fall out. She later apologized. Speaking of O'Connor, Harry Binswanger says he had a "quick wit." Someone confirms that she didn't get her cats neutered since she thought sex was good. (Her biographers report that her apartment smelled of cat urine. Male cats who are not neutered tend to aggressively spray their territory.) The book is billed at 78 pages, but there is a fair amount of padding (some pages contain at most two quotes or one picture).</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #0f1111; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">2. Leonard Peikoff's letter to National Review criticizing Whittaker Chambers' review of Atlas Shrugged </span><a href="https://newideal.aynrand.org/reply-to-whittaker-chambers/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">was recently found and published</span></a><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #0f1111; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Granted Chambers' review was a little over the top, but one could say the</span><a href="https://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2007/10/that-winston-tunnel-scene-in-full.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> same thing about Atlas Shrugged.</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-72793b7d-7fff-c0b2-50ba-840f3bc22606"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #0f1111; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">3. Recently, Somali-Dutch free speech advocate and critic of Islamic extremism </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #202122; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Ayaan Hirsi Ali </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #202122; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">announced her conversion from atheism to Christianity. Many Objectivists admired Ali and seem to take her conversion personally. For example, </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9RPHGwJdaY" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Yaron Brook unleashed an hour long tirade a</span></a><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #202122; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">nd was particularly outraged at Ali's appeal to what he called "the Judo Christian tradition." Brook said there are moral Christians, but they are the ones who don't take their Christianity seriously. How Brook knows this is curious because not too long ago </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9RPHGwJdaY" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">he admitted that he doesn't know what Christianity teaches.</span></a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Here is the video where at 31:30 Brook mentions "the Judo Christian tradition:</span></p><div class="ii gt" id=":oh" jslog="20277; u014N:xr6bB; 1:WyIjdGhyZWFkLWY6MTc4MzcyODI0ODkwNDIzNTc3NiJd; 4:WyIjbXNnLWY6MTc4MzcyODI0ODkwNDIzNTc3NiJd" style="direction: ltr; font-size: 0.875rem; margin: 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="a3s aiL " id=":og" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: small; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 1.5; overflow: hidden;"><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><div dir="ltr"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D8A5C_Guo8Wc%26t%3D1901s&source=gmail&ust=1701201976212000&usg=AOvVaw3Mp_vkcUFjPVVHI8nEOWtc" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A5C_Guo8Wc&t=1901s" rel="nofollow" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?<wbr></wbr>v=8A5C_Guo8Wc&t=1901s</a><div class="yj6qo"></div><div class="adL"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div class="hq gt a10" id=":ot" style="clear: both; font-size: 0.875rem; margin: 15px 0px;"><div class="a3I" style="height: 1px; left: -10000px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: -10000px; width: 1px;">Attachments area</div><div id=":oz"></div><div class="aQH" id=":ou" style="margin-bottom: -16px; margin-left: -16px; padding-top: 16px;"><span class="aZo" style="display: block; float: left; height: 120px; margin: 0px 0px 16px 16px; position: relative; width: 180px;"><a class="aQy aZR e aZr" data-tooltip-align="t,c" data-tooltip-class="a1V" data-tooltip="Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Conversion to Christianity - ANALYSIS" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A5C_Guo8Wc&t=1901s&authuser=0" id=":p0" jslog="119523; u014N:xr6bB,cOuCgd,Kr2w4b; 4:WyIjbXNnLWY6MTc4MzcyODI0ODkwNDIzNTc3NiJd; 43:WyJ2aWRlby94LXlvdXR1YmUiXQ.." role="link" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; height: 120px; outline: none; overflow: hidden; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; text-wrap: nowrap; width: 180px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0" target="_blank"><span class="a3I" id=":pl" style="height: 1px; left: -10000px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: -10000px; width: 1px;">Preview YouTube video Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Conversion to Christianity - ANALYSIS</span><div aria-hidden="true"><div class="aSG" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Google Sans", Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; inset: 0px; margin: auto; position: absolute;"></div><div class="aVY aZn" style="border-top: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); font-family: "Google Sans", Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; height: 0px; left: 0px; overflow: visible; position: absolute; right: 0px; top: 0px; z-index: 2;"><div class="aZm" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); height: 118px; left: 0px; top: 0px; width: 0px;"></div></div><div class="aSH" style="font-family: "Google Sans", Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; inset: 1px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; z-index: 1;"><img class="aQG aYB" id=":pi" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8A5C_Guo8Wc/mqdefault.jpg" style="border: none; inset: -11.7969px -17.7969px; margin: auto; max-width: 120%; min-width: 100%; opacity: 1; position: absolute; transition: opacity 0.5s linear 0s;" /><div class="aYy" id=":pq" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4); border-top: none; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; position: absolute; right: 0px;"><div class="aYA" style="align-items: center; display: flex; float: left; height: 32px; justify-content: center; width: 32px;"><img class="aSM" id=":po" src="https://ssl.gstatic.com/docs/doclist/images/mediatype/icon_2_youtube_x16.png" style="border: none; height: 16px; width: 16px;" /></div><div class="aYz" style="overflow: hidden;"><div class="a12"><div class="aQA" style="color: #777777; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; margin-right: 32px; margin-top: 8px; overflow-wrap: normal; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis;"><span class="aV3" id=":pn" style="color: white; user-select: none;">Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Conversion to Christianity - ANALYSIS</span></div></div></div></div></div><div class="aSI" style="border-right: 20px solid transparent; bottom: 0px; font-family: "Google Sans", Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; height: 20px; position: absolute; right: 0px; width: 20px; z-index: 3;"></div></div></a></span></div></div><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt;"><br /></p></span><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-2824294497540027052023-10-29T13:19:00.000-07:002023-10-29T13:19:21.972-07:00Objectivist Roundup, November 2023<span id="docs-internal-guid-3dab3d3c-7fff-e8c8-e581-e0606e117c18"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">1. Ever since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, it’s been </span><a href="https://newideal.aynrand.org/aris-resources-on-israel-palestine-and-the-middle-east/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">all war all the time for the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI)</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. ARI supporter James Valliant even called Leonard Peikoff prophetic for his </span><a href="https://peikoff.com/essays_and_articles/end-states-who-sponsor-terrorism/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">New York Times advertisement in October 2001</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> calling for the use of nuclear weapons against Saudi Arabia and Iran. One would have thought that this would have been better left forgotten.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">2. Leonard Peikoff turned 90 this month. I’ll make a few comments on his legacy.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">i. Peikoff’s production, given his claim to be Rand’s intellectual heir. has been relatively little. He published </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> (which hasn’t aged well); </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(a summary of Rand’s thought with a few Peikovian extensions); and </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The DIM Hypothesis</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> (which hasn’t made much of a splash in ARI circles). He did give many lectures over the years, which are gradually being published.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ii. Peikoff started the ARI and left his rights to most of Rand’s works to it. This will ensure that Objectivism has a presence for decades to come. I wonder what Rand would have thought of the ARI. It’s more focused on day-to-day political and cultural issues than the finer points of Rand’s philosophy.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">iii. Peikoff helped cement the “cultish” side to Objectivism. Like Rand, he excommunicated lots of people. Some of his splits seem petty even by Rand’s standards. Most notably, </span><a href="https://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2010/09/mccaskey-objectischism.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">he broke with philosopher of science John McCaskey</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> because McCaskey refused to endorse a book that Peikoff had a role in (</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Logical Leap</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">). At the time, Peikoff proudly announced that he was not on speaking terms with half the members of the ARI’s board.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">iv. Peikoff allowed, and perhaps directed, the serial rewriting of Rand’s posthumously published material (most notably her </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Journals</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">) in typical cult of personality style.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">v. When Barbara Branden published her biography of Rand in 1986, Peikoff denounced it as one long arbitrary assertion. Not only that, but he supported (and perhaps helped edit) a dishonest hit piece </span><a href="https://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-parc-wars-revisited.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">on Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Contrary to what this book alleges, Rand’s “bad side” has been amply documented by numerous people who knew Rand, many of whom never broke with her. If the long-anticipated authorized biography of Rand is ever published, it will (if it’s honest) have to concede that Rand’s “critics” essentially got it right. Combined with number iv (above), I wonder if many ARI supporters will experience the kind of cognitive dissonance that Christian date-setters feel when their predictions go wrong.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">vi. Peikoff set the tone for hard core Objectivists by denouncing Open Objectivism and Libertarianism. While contemporary ARI supporters have softened their criticism of Libertarianism (ostensibly on the idea that it has become less associated with anarcho-capitalism) their contempt for Open Objectivism remains. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div></span><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-81622636443558513622023-10-02T10:12:00.000-07:002023-10-02T10:12:23.740-07:00Objectivist Roundup, October 2023<span id="docs-internal-guid-2b36b5e3-7fff-431d-bf03-e1e62be004c1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">1. The Ayn Rand Institute Press just published </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Russia-America-Guide-Homes-Sites/dp/B0CHDCW5C5/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3NG9Z6ROXFMUJ&keywords=ayn+rand+sites&qid=1696083403&sprefix=ayn+rand+sites%2Caps%2C128&sr=8-2" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0563c1; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Russia to America: A Guide to Ayn Rand Home and Sites</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. The book contains photos of places where Rand lived (interior and exterior), photos of places Rand visited, background information and maps. The book was enjoyable and filled in a few spots in Rand's biography. I'd mention that the book is $14.95 and while billed at 96 pages contains a fair amount of padding. The photos and text end at page 79, which are followed by a chronology of Rand's life and four blank pages which are included in the page count.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1d2228; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">2. Ayn Rand Institute supporters </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6zDR5GydR8" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">James Valliant and Robert Nasir had a podcast on moral perfection</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1d2228; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Valliant proudly announced that he and Nasir were "morally perfect." However, Valliant seems to think that moral perfection is "doing the best you can." He even said a non-Objectivist could be morally perfect. Valliant's discussion of the idea of sin and perfection in Christianity, Kant, etc. is, not surprisingly, somewhat caricatured. I'd recommend </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Perfectibility-Man-John-Passmore/dp/068412968X/ref=sr_1_1?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=0&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=0&qid=1696083817&refinements=p_27%3Apassmore%2Cp_28%3Aperfectibility&s=books&sr=1-1&unfiltered=1" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John Passmore's book on perfectibility</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1d2228; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> for a more balanced approach. Perfection didn't play a large role in Rand's </span><a href="http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/pride.html?fbclid=IwAR0spSMAhehpLyDP5rruqSjIUo3YgYmRkwZV2pEmfb8-Bfgoh4I94JnWnuY" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ethics, but see here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1d2228; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1d2228; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">3. Scott Schiff and William Swig </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgBXuOZ07K8" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">on the Ayn Rand Fan Club podcast had an insightful discussion </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1d2228; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">of what constitutes the Objectivist movement and whether it is growing. They focus on Yaron Brook who says interesting and perhaps contradictory things on this. Brook says that if you consider "small O Objectivism" then the movement is growing and seems pleased about it. Yet he also thinks the Objectivist movement is too broad. Brook is happy that Fox News is going to interview him on Objectivism, but isn't happy about the pseudo-Objectivists (presumably David Kelley, et al.). He says that he doesn't know how to define the Objectivist movement. I thought this was curious considering that the founder of Objectivism said, if I recall correctly, that definitions were the guardians of rationality. It's hard to square this with his hostility to Open Objectivism. He also said that it's hard to define what increasing influence might mean. But as Will and Scott note, one could just look at the number of academic philosophers and intellectuals in universities, which would appear to be the way Rand measured influence. By that metric, the Objectivist movement isn't growing and may well be stagnating. Brook concedes that the growth in his YouTube channel has stalled.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1d2228; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">4. A new book, </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ayn-Rand-Movies-Denise-Noe/dp/B0CH2B7F6H/ref=sr_1_2?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=37&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=18&qid=1696084088&refinements=p_28%3Aayn+rand&s=books&sr=1-2&unfiltered=1" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Ayn Rand at the Movies</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1d2228; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, will be released soon. It discusses movies that are based on her works, movies about her, and things related to Rand and films in general. As some have noted, it's interesting that Rand never had great success in the field of movies, which was in some sense her favorite medium.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><br /></span><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-16326346963625576742023-09-03T16:20:00.000-07:002023-09-03T16:20:23.134-07:00Objectivist Round up September 2023<span id="docs-internal-guid-eeb94dbc-7fff-2917-8e15-89cffacfa512"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">1.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Someone asked Yaron Brook when an authorized biography of Rand (presumably the long-awaited one by Shoshana Milgram Knapp) will be published. He said it was completed two years ago and will be coming out eventually but didn’t give a date other than it won’t take ten years. Milgram was on the </span><a href="https://newideal.aynrand.org/ayn-rands-distinctive-view-of-romantic-art/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">New Ideal podcast September 1</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> with Harry Binswanger to discuss Romantic Art. The host introduced her and said she has written about Rand but no mention of a biography, authorized or otherwise. (I listened to most of the podcast and it didn’t come up.) One can only speculate on the reason for the delay. Peikoff is up there in years and it’s hard to imagine him getting too interested in a biography at this stage in his life. On the other hand, Ayn Rand Institute members such as Yaron Brook, Harry Binswanger and </span><a href="https://theobjectivestandard.com/2009/11/ayn-rand-jennifer-burns/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Robert “Rewrite” Mayhew</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> have said the Branden accounts and the 2009 biographies by Anne Heller and Jennifer Burns are dishonest. Any competent biographer will have to admit that the Branden accounts and the 2009 biographies pretty much got things right.</span></p><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">2.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Yaron Brook will be debating Bryan Caplan </span><a href="https://www.thesohoforum.org/upcoming-events/2023/9/18/yaron-brook-vs-bryan-caplan" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">on whether anarcho-capitalism would be a disaster</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. The debate should be interesting. Not too long ago the official ARI view of anarcho-capitalism was that it is nihilistic. One wonders if those who ridiculed the idea of debating Open Objectivism will be similarly outraged.</span></span><a name='more'></a><div><span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">[Bear in mind: back in the nineties, after the David Kelley split, ARI Objectivists would routinely refuse to debate or have any relations whatsoever with "liberatarians" (which would of course include anarcho-capitalists), because, as Peikoff once put it, "libertarians are worse than communists." Then in 2012 John Allison, one of ARI's leading donors, became CEO of the CATO Institute, a position he held until 2015. That seems to have created a thaw of sorts in the relations between ARI Objectivists and libertarians. So in the last few years, Yaron Brook has been a guest on Micheal Malice's "Your Welcome" podcast and a co-guest with Malice on Lex Friedman's podcast. So there's nothing really all that new or shocking in this most recent debate with Bryan Caplan. --GN]</span></span></div>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-78769822040053363812023-07-31T14:03:00.000-07:002023-07-31T14:03:49.046-07:00Objectivist Roundup, August 2023<span id="docs-internal-guid-54012087-7fff-e5e0-b728-c50556eb6bb7"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">1.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In the early 1970’s, Leonard Peikoff gave two lecture series on the history of philosophy. (These are available on </span><a href="https://courses.aynrand.org/campus-courses/history-of-philosophy/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the ARI’s site for free</span></a> [as are many of the other older Peikoff lecture courses, such as "The Philosophy of Objectivism" and "Objective Communication," both of which feature Rand herself during Q&A sessions<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.] Now the second of these has been edited and published as </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Western-Philosophy-Thales-Hume-ebook/dp/B0C92SYXG2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1E7FJTJYJWXH9&keywords=peikoff+founders&qid=1690643191&sprefix=%2Caps%2C123&sr=8-1" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Founders of Western Philosophy: Thales to Hume</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Greg and I reviewed it on Amazon. I pointed out Peikoff’s misunderstanding of certain aspects of Christianity and Greg pointed out Peikoff’s eccentric views of various philosophers. (Shortly thereafter several brief five star reviews appeared.) Let’s just say that this book’s importance is limited to historians of Objectivism. I haven’t read any recent histories of Western philosophy, but for those who are interested in video lecture courses, </span><a href="https://www.wondrium.com/catalogsearch/result/?search_param=all&catid=&q=philosophy" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Wondrium (The Great Courses</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">) has many for a reasonable price.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">2.<span> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Ayn Rand Institute will soon be publishing select essays from Robert (“Rewrite”) Mayhew’s edited </span><a href="https://newideal.aynrand.org/soon-online-for-free-in-depth-essays-on-ayn-rands-novels/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">volumes on Ayn Rand’s four novels</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. I’ve read many of these essays. While not particularly critical, they are worth reading. The essays </span><a href="https://newideal.aynrand.org/the-fountainhead-from-notebook-to-novel-the-composition-of-ayn-rands-first-ideal-man-part-1/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">by Shoshana Milgram on the writing of Rand’s novels</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> fill in some details about Rand’s life. (While I have no reason to distrust these essays, the ARI doesn’t have a good track record matters related to Rand’s life.)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">3. Someone asked Yaron </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=gRRT5twax2s&t=2006s&fbclid=IwAR29KIRK9Y57f0iFw4BiTE6LKPl6oX45FSX8UhlkHbMpyhR68qr57YdrM3c" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Brook if Leonard Peikoff is morally perfect</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Brook was not amused.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 3pt 0pt 11pt 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 11pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRRT5twax2s&t=2006s&authuser=0" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 180px; overflow: hidden; width: 320px;"><img height="180" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/kCZvuEY2qIPMRJsD9NRJVLq1CE1YjlCmOQvPtaj7xLRu8wHKdQDHtFg6oMfeoJwdEv3_wvJWd81zyS-FW8avQJluZ48TPGE6rcLBkoF-_gpJw4T8gTV-4HozN1yd1ESkIQyFcSS8jSdw" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="320" /></span></span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 11pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRRT5twax2s&t=2006s&authuser=0" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 16px; overflow: hidden; width: 16px;"><img height="16" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/pNkhtg88rzg04W4KJaGjVt6cSuFb78NCXWSRNNd9smCIohxGuo7M4R1gFXyfmb7GYA2SU8es1P4AW7elMa9RAoR_RyX9iiASdcub6-FgBFvUIqvPouNyJGXMFPSb1iLDDqsZiYL3TNjz" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="16" /></span></span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.5999999999999999; margin-bottom: 11pt; margin-right: 24pt; margin-top: 17pt;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRRT5twax2s&t=2006s&authuser=0" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Ukraine War; Israel; Public Schools; Nationalism Backfires | YBS: News Roundup July 24</span></a></p><br /></span><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-57311568676318763442023-06-29T16:48:00.007-07:002023-07-02T14:19:56.843-07:00Objectivist Round-up, June-July 2023<span id="docs-internal-guid-259d6d5d-7fff-a0bc-c8f6-1fa73cff8636"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">1.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">James Valliant was on the </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkuOA-h4Oi8&t=3276s" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">History Valley podcast</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> recently to discuss The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics. While much of it was what you’d expect from Valliant (for example Rand wasn’t jealous </span><a href="http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2006/10/cringe-and-win-5-most-embarrassing.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">contrary to the notes in Valliant’s book</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">), I learned a few things. First, Rand was not just a great philosopher, but also a great psychologist as well -- she pioneered cognitive behavioral therapy. Second, Rand was morally perfect. She made mistakes but never acted contrary to her principles. I’d say that she largely lived up to her values, but for example denouncing Nathaniel Branden in 1968 as a thief without evidence was quite wrong. Michael Prescott reminded me of </span><a href="http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/romancing-the-stone-cold.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Rand’s praise for murderer and kidnapper William Hickman</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">2.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Long-time Objectivist writer Andy Bernstein has a </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C6NLC3VG?crid=1LVU23AZZMRQ3&keywords=The+Truth+About+Climate+Change+bernstein&qid=1685468098&sprefix=the+truth+about+climate+change+bernstein,aps,115&sr=8-1&linkCode=sl1&tag=amz06-20&linkId=4e79607488df49f655c3ed0c8cd991a5&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">new book on Global Warming</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> (he’s a skeptic). Bernstein was interviewed recently on the </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFprrFuM0pQ" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Ayn Rand Fans You Tube channel</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> about his book.</span></p><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">3.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Ayn Rand Institute COB Yaron Brook and ARI Chief Philosophy Officer Onkar Ghate </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybgCeJdd5es" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">critiqued the recent Craig Biddle/Steven Hicks</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> debate on Open versus Closed Objectivism. It’s two hours long, so I’ll summarize it: (1) Hicks is bad; (2) David Kelley is evil; (3) Biddle is a compromiser; and (4) Leonard Peikoff always gets things right. </span></span><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-34565025310355223082023-05-29T09:37:00.004-07:002023-05-29T09:37:51.676-07:00Objectivist Roundup, May 2023<span id="docs-internal-guid-78f5880f-7fff-3f99-9222-6731219e0639"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The debate on Open versus Closed Objectivism between Biddle and Hicks was posted. I analyzed it in the post below. There hasn’t been any discussion of this from the ARI side, but considering that James Valliant likened debating Open Objectivism to debating Holocaust denial or slavery, to discuss this debate would be even worse, I suppose. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><a href="https://events.aynrand.org/ocon/program/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Objectivist Conference 2023 will be held next month</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Shoshana Milgram will present a three-part “biographical mini-course” on Rand which utilizes new sources. According to the program, she’s working on a life of Rand up to 1957. No word on whether it will be authorized, when it will be published, and whether there will be a part two. It looks like she is working at a pace of 2.5 years of Rand’s life for every one year spent writing the book. </span></p><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Following Rand’s death, the Ayn Rand Institute began publishing a number of books using material in Rand’s archives. As long-time readers of this blog know, Jennifer Burns first revealed in 2009 what many suspected: much of this material has been so heavily edited as to be essentially worthless. Burns named two books “edited” by Robert Mayhew among them: Ayn Rand Answers and The Art of NonFiction. Mayhew also edited Ayn Rand’s Marginalia (jottings she wrote in the margins of books she read). While Burns doesn’t discuss this book, one has to wonder whether the book has been “Mayhewized.” In any event, this book doesn’t make Rand look good. She seems intent on misunderstanding what the authors say and her rantings (“God damn bastard,” “cheap driveling non-entity,” etc.) aren’t particularly edifying. </span><a href="https://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2005/07/the_importance_.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Michael Prescott also notes that Mayhew’s</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> summary of C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man is suspect. In light of the problems in the book, I was somewhat surprised to see the ARI’s publication </span><a href="https://newideal.aynrand.org/the-value-of-ayn-rands-marginalia/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The New Ideal praising the book</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> recently. Fortunately, the article links to the Amazon page where one can read the critical reviews of Neil Parille, Greg Nyquist and others.</span></span><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-92084300217697884382023-05-20T04:39:00.004-07:002023-05-20T04:39:54.285-07:00Neil Parille Breaks Down the Recent Debate Over Closed Versus Open Objectivism<p>The debate between Craig Biddle and Stephen Hicks concerning Open versus Close Objectivism took place last month in Belgrade, Serbia. Biddle took the Closed position and Hicks the Open position. I enjoyed the debate and thought each side presented his position well. There wasn’t the rancor that one might expect for what has often been a contentious issue. For background on the Open versus Closed controversy see here.</p><p>Biddle took a reasonable approach. Ayn Rand died in 1982 and the positions she set forth in her books and essays constitutes Objectivism. He conceded that there are philosophical topics that Rand didn’t discuss – such as propositions and the problem of induction – but what she did discuss constitutes Objectivism. Any extension of Objectivism outside of this is not part of Objectivism no matter how consistent it might be with Objectivism. He also said that if Objectivism were open, then one would never know what precisely Objectivism is. Is it Rand’s Objectivism plus Peikoff’s extensions or Objectivism plus Hicks’ extensions?</p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a> <p></p><p>Biddle, however, went on say that there were aspects of Rand’s thought that are incidental and shouldn’t be considered Objectivism, such as her opposition to homosexuality and a woman president. He even said that these positions are in effect contrary to Objectivism because a consistent application of Objectivism would lead to the opposite conclusions. This assumes that there are essential and non-essential parts to Objectivism.* Rand never said this, much less provided guidance on how one separates the essential from the non-essential. Consider taxation, which Rand considered immoral. Ideally, government should be funded by voluntary contributions. Is this incidental to Objectivism? One could make an Objectivist argument for taxation. Contrary to anarcho-capitalism, for Rand government is necessary. If government is necessary then shouldn’t it insist that citizens provide support via taxation (which in Rand’s view would be small)?*</p><p>Hicks compared Objectivism to a science, giving the example of Newtonian physics. Hicks said one could still call himself a Newtonian post Einstein because Einstein’s physics is at most a modification of Newton’s physics. He said one should look at Objectivism as a method for discovering philosophical truth. He asked whether some of Rand’s ideas might need to be revised in light of later science. He gave the example of Rand’s theory of concept formation which is potentially subject to revision because of recent findings in neuroscience. Rand, however, seemed to look at philosophy as in effect the master science. Taken to an extreme, this implies one can’t properly understand contemporary findings in science outside the interpretive lens of Objectivism.*** Hicks conceded that there is a core to Objectivism and one can only go so far in rejecting this or that teaching of Objectivism and still consider oneself an Objectivist. Unfortunately, the debate format – lengthy presentations from each side – didn’t allow for much back and forth on this question, which seems to be the essence of the controversy.</p><p><br />I’ll close with a few comments:</p><p>1. One factor not discussed is that Rand died in 1982. Not only that, but some of her most important members of the “Second Collective” are still alive such as Leonard Peikoff (Rand’s self-identified “intellectual heir”), Harry Binswanger and Peter “Don’t let the door hit you in the back” Schwartz. If Rand had died in 1882, the question of Open versus Closed Objectivism would probably be discussed no more than Kant’s contemporary followers discuss whether his system is open or closed.</p><p>2. The Ayn Rand Institute – which has the support of Peikoff and which will inherit the rights to her books – is well-funded. The ARI has staked out a claim that it is the expert on Rand’s thought and its contemporary application. Not surprisingly, the ARI is the leading advocate of the Closed position. (However, the ARI has no problem claiming that Rand would have despised Donald Trump or serially rewriting Rand’s posthumously published material.) In fairness to Biddle, he is not on good terms with the ARI so no one should question his sincerity.</p><p><br />3. I don’t know what Rand would have thought about this; however she was rather zealous in guarding her thought. As Nathaniel Branden wrote pre-split, “In the future, when Objectivism has become an intellectual and cultural movement on a wider scale, when a variety of authors have written books dealing with some aspect of the Objectivist philosophy – it could be appropriate for those in agreement to describe themselves as ‘Objectivists.’ However, at present, when the name is so intimately associated with Rand and me, it is not. At present, a person who is in agreement with our philosophy should describe himself, not as an Objectivist, but as a student or supporter of Objectivism.”<br />____________<br />*I am indebted to Scott Schiff for this and other insights.<br />**Rand seemed to concede as much. In “Government Financing in a Free Society,” she suggested that the state could impose a “voluntary” surcharge on contracts which parties would not be forced to pay. However, if they didn’t pay, the government would not enforce the contract. This sounds as voluntary as paying the Mafia protection money.<br />***Hence the perhaps apocryphal statement attributed to Peikoff: “Philosophy has a veto over physics.” Note that Peikoff opposes Big Bang cosmology because it was first developed by a Catholic priest and has, at least to some, theistic implications.<br /><br /></p>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-68427146921041467032023-04-30T11:05:00.002-07:002023-04-30T11:05:18.201-07:00Objectivist Round-Up, April 20231. The Great Debate on Open versus Close Objectivism took place in mid-April at the Ayn Rand Centre Europe between Craig Biddle and Steven Hicks. I’ve been shaking the trees but can’t find why the video hasn’t been posted.<div><br />2. Ayn Rand Institute Objectivists are glad that Tucker Carlson was fired by FOX. See here (James Valliant) and here (Yaron Brook). Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I find it curios that the ARI seems to have an odd dislike of right-wing populists such as Trump and Carlson. They don’t get so worked up over the main stream left wing media. <a name='more'></a></div>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-41629947443542222672023-04-10T13:18:00.005-07:002023-04-10T13:33:22.924-07:00Why Did Rand Dislike Joseph Conrad?<span id="docs-internal-guid-1ccd3282-7fff-00cb-f29c-568c8b4b0ff0"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ayn Rand, during one of her Q&A’s, made the following remark about Joseph Conrad, the Polish born English novelist:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><blockquote>Joseph Conrad also called himself a Romantic Realist. I don’t like him, but I think he is correct in so labeling himself. He treats his novels realistically, but not naturalistically. So even though my values are quite different from his, I agree with that designation. He expressed his values, and in that sense he was a romantic—only his settings and character are much more realistic than I’d ever select. But he was not a naturalist. [NFW 69]</blockquote></span><p></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As far as I know, this is the only recorded instance of Rand mentioning Conrad. She says nothing about him in the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Romantic Manifesto</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and she made no reference to him, as far as anyone knows, in her long interview with Barbara Branden. Now given the fact that (1) Rand regarded herself as a “romantic realist,” and (2) that Conrad the is one of the few authors she also regarded as a “romantic realist,”—why then did Rand make no mention of Conrad when she introduced her theory of Romanticism in the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Romantic Manifesto</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? She mentions other important romantic authors, such as Victor Hugo, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Schiller, and Edmond Rostand. Didn’t Conrad at least deserve a mention as well? But no, she ignores him entirely. How do we account for this curious anomaly?</span></p><div><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The most plausible explanation for Rand ignoring Conrad in the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Romantic Manifesto</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is, as she herself admits, she just didn’t like him. While it is true that she makes no effort to elucidate </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">why</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> she didn’t like him, given how many authors she actively disliked (often on trivial or incorrect grounds), we should not find her dislike of Conrad at all surprising. With a few notable exceptions, Rand simply did not care for most of what passes for the great cultural legacy of Western Civilization. She had little interest in the best that has been said or written down through ages, because most of what had been thought before her she regarded as being in some ways tainted by “mysticism” and/or hatred for “man.” </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Regarding her view of Conrad, we can only speculate why she disliked the author of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lord Jim</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. She leaves us but the merest of hints for her displeasure. Conrad’s values, she makes a point of insisting, are “quite different” from hers?. Quite different, we may ask, in what way? Even more to the point, what did she imagine Conrad’s values might be? Let’s face it: she wasn’t always very good at determining the views of people she rather carelessly decided were different from her own. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We might speculate that she disliked Conrad on account of his “pessimism”—although it’s not clear why one’s general outlook on life should be regarded as a value. Perhaps a most fruitful way of proceeding would be to imagine what Rand would have thought of one of Conrad’s novels if she had taken the trouble to read it. The fact that Rand could argue that Conrad deserved to be regarded as a romantic realist suggests she must have read <i>something</i> from his oeuvre. More likely than not, she would have read one of his more popular works, among which </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lord Jim</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, along with </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Heart of Darkness</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, would rank at the very top. Let us assume as a kind of thought experiment that she had in fact read </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lord Jim</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. What would she have made of its values, and why would she conclude that they were “quite different” from her own? Different in what way?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What exactly are the values of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lord Jim</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? The novel actually explores a theme that a more superficial observer of Rand might think would resonate with her. The story delves into the challenges of learning a heroic life. Rand admired heroes, so wouldn’t this be right up her alley? Well, given Rand’s rather odd notions of what constitutes the heroic, possibly not. The titular character of Conrad’s novels dreams of performing heroic deeds once he reaches manhood, but the first time he’s tested (as first-mate of the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Patnua</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) he lets himself get talked into abandoning the ship with all its passengers on board. This act of betrayal so haunts him that some years later, when he is indirectly the cause of the death of the son of an important Malay worthy, he decides to take responsibility for the death and willingly gives himself up to face the vengeance of the dead man’s father. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So in what way might Rand have found this story contrary to her values? Perhaps she would have objected to Jim’s willingness to surrender his life on a mere point of honor. After all, for Rand, a man’s life has to be his “ultimate value.” This implies that you shouldn’t surrender your life to any other value. To be sure, Rand, later on in her ethics, backs away from that extreme position, but we’ll ignore that for the purposes of our thought experiment. We’ll instead assume that it is eminently plausible that Rand may have objected to Lord Jim’s “sacrifice” of his life to satisfy the blood guilt of a vengeful old man. And if we assume that Conrad approves of this “sacrifice,” then this would suggest that Conrad’s values are, if not “quite different,” from Rand’s, then different enough. In his hierarchy of values, Conrad regards honor as more important than mere survival, while Rand likely has a different view. Carrying out our thought experiment to the very end, we might speculate that at least one of the reasons why Rand considered her values as “quite different” from Conrad’s is precisely this difference over the question of a man’s honor. Assuming this to be true, it would constitute a revealing insight into a potential shortcoming in Rand’s ethical outlook—at least from the point of view of leading a genuinely heroic life. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The social component of Rand’s Objectivist Ethics is based on the trader’s principle: </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The symbol of all relationships among men, the moral symbol of respect for human beings, is the trader. We, who live by values, not by loot, are traders, both in matter and in spirit. A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved. A trader does not ask to be paid for his failures, nor does he ask to be loved for his flaws. A trader does not squander his body as fodder or his soul as alms. Just as he does not give his work except in trade for material values, so he does not give the values of his spirit—his love, his friendship, his esteem—except in payment and in trade for human virtues, in payment for his own selfish pleasure, which he receives from men he can respect. [</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the New Intellectual</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, 133]</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><p></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although there is nothing necessarily wrong with Rand’s trader principle, it cannot, in all honesty, be regarded as fully compatible with such aristocratic values of dignity, honor, and chivalry. Despite all the fine noise Rand made on behalf of her heroes and her “ideal man,” the ethics she promulgated is in reality hopelessly plebeian and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">un</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">heroic. It is the morality of shopkeepers and family farmers—all very fine, or course, within the circumscribed limits of a commercial or agrarian life, but of limited use within the more strenuous domains of family life, litigation, politics, medicine, or war. Rand’s values, in short, are hardly values of the heroic type. Nor should this come as a shock. The commercial life is hardly of a heroic cast. “The stock exchange,” as Schumpeter trenchantly observed, “is a poor substitute for the Holy Grail.” Rand would like to convince us that the lives of entrepreneurs, capitalists, and inventors can in fact be heroic. But as everyone with any sense knows, the so-called heroes who populate <i>Atlas Shrugged</i> are little more than cardboard figures spouting Randian slogans. They convince nobody but the hopelessly naive and credulous. Rand is clearly guilty of having adopted, in both her philosophy and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Atlas Shrugged</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a false ideal of heroism. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">John Galt, Rand’s most wearisomely perfect “hero,” may be many things that even the skeptics among us can admire. Galt is (1) intellectually brilliant, (2) scrupulously and unimpeachably “rational,” (3) level-headed under pressure,(4) thoroughly fearless, and (5) almost god-like in his carriage and handsomeness. These are all perfectly decent qualities deserving their fair share of admiration. But there’s one thing Galt is most definitely not: he is no gentleman. I provide, as evidence for this statement, Galt’s speech, which no man of dignity and aristocratic pretensions would ever condescend to utter. Galt’s long philosophical harangue which defaces seventy close-type pages in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Atlas Shrugged</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> positively bristles with a kind of unhinged plebeian indignation—the sort of thing one might expect of a hell and brimstone fundamentalist religious fanatic or a hysterical radical feminist, but not from any man who seeks to present himself to the world as someone to be upheld and revered as a true gentleman.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Using Galt as her mouthpiece, Rand gives free reign to her delight in denouncing her enemies and expressing the depth of her hatred and contempt for them. Galt’s speech is anything but persuasive. Rather, it is an exercise in settling grudges. Galt goes out of his way at every opportunity to insult his audience. Here are some samples of the demeaning rhetoric which he indiscriminately flings, like a monkey throwing his own feces, at his unfortunate listeners: </span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You moral cannibals.” … “Yes, you are bearing punishment for your evil.” … “The most depraved sentence you can now utter is to ask: </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whose</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> reason?” … “You that prattle that morality is social.” … “You who are worshippers of zero.” … “Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with free will, but with a ‘tendency’ to evil.” … “Are you thinking, in some foggy stupor, that it’s only </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">material</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> values that your morality requires to sacrifice?” … “You who have no standard of self-esteem, accept the guilt and dare not ask the questions.” … “The answer you evade, the monstrous answer is…” … “You fear the man who has a dollar less than you.” … “The justification of sacrifice, that your morality proprounds, is more corrupt than the corruption it purports to justify.” … “You—who leap like a savage out of the jungle of your feelings…” … “You who are depraved enough to believe that you could adjust yourself to a mystic’s dictatorship.” … “You who’ve never grasped the nature of evil.” … “This idol of your cult of zero-worship.” … “What blank-out permitted you to hope that you could get away with this muck of contradictions and plan it as an ideal society.” … “You, who scramble like vultures for plundered pennies.” … “You will not sneak by with the rest of your lifespan.” … “No matter what dishonorable compromise you’ve made with your impracticable creed.” … “Since childhood, you have been running from the terror of a choice you have never dared to fully identify.” … “Do you wonder why you live without dignity?” … “You reject your tool of perception—your mind.” … “You, who are half-rational, half-coward, have been playing a con game with reality.” … “At the end of your road of successive betrayals.” … “You blank it out and cling to your hypocrisy of ‘faith.’” … “The </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">self</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> you have betrayed…” etc. etc. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No true gentleman, no man keen on his own self-dignity or honor, would soil his mouth with such phrases. A gentleman is, among other things, the soul of courtesy. He doesn’t “punch down.” As a man of the world, he understands the frailties of human nature and does not wish to rub the infirmities of lesser men in their faces. Such behavior is uncomely, unsportsmanlike, and unchivalrous. Even if we grant that Galt is speaking to an audience of thoroughly deplorable villains, his rhetoric is as unmanly as it is absurd. For what can possibly be the point of abusing villains to their face? Since when did expressing contempt for any person, let alone one whom we have reason to regard as morally depraved, ever change that individual’s mind? Galt is merely engaged in the vain exercise of virtue signaling—moral preening on behalf of Rand and the Objectivist faithful. Far from being heroic, such behavior is that of a moral prig—which is to say, of a rather low and even mean kind of person.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So perhaps Rand was on to something when she described her values as quite different to those of Joseph Conrad. Rand’s values are those of the shopkeeper, exaggerated to the point of distortion by the careless gobs of faux-heroism in which she attempted to embalm them. If stripped of all their gaudy pretentiousness, Rand’s trader principle values are largely unobjectionable—provided they remain within their narrow sphere. But outside their sphere they can easily prove inadequate. No mother would apply Rand’s trader principle to raising an infant. Nor would Rand’s ethical ideals be of much use in the treacherous world limned in Conrad’s novels, a world requiring harder men governed by more strenuous values.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><!--more--><span><!--more--></span><span><!--more--></span><span><!--more--></span>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-66762679897113058972023-03-12T10:34:00.004-07:002023-03-12T10:49:06.372-07:00Objectivist Roundup, March 2023<span id="docs-internal-guid-be4d9157-7fff-ddac-5607-a5a2fd762aef"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The big news is that Craig Biddle and Stephen Hicks will be debating Open Objectivism at next month’s </span><a href="https://aynrandcentereurope.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ayn Rand Europe’s</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Belgrade conference. Hicks, who is associated with David Kelley’s </span><a href="https://www.atlassociety.org/staff-trustees-and-authors/stephen-hicks" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Atlas Society</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, will be taking the Open Objectivism position. The push-back by the Closed position advocates has been intense, see </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfZex0QUhbs&t=2890s" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BVpLFn2Fd8&t=2530s" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. James Valliant was particularly irate, arguing that Open Objectivism is dishonest, an anti-concept, a repudiation of Ayn Rand, etc. He says that to debate Hicks on the topic is equivalent to debating a Holocaust denier, a flat earther, and an advocate of slavery. Valliant’s anger toward The Atlas Society apparently goes back to 1986 when Kelley allegedly said that there should be a debate over Barbara Branden’s just-published </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Passion-Ayn-Rand-Barbara-Branden/dp/038524388X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=27UKE798GFWK1&keywords=branden+passion&qid=1678545122&s=books&sprefix=branden+passion%2Cstripbooks%2C128&sr=1-1" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">biography of Rand</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Valliant is upset that when he published </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Passion-Ayn-Rands-Critics-Brandens/dp/1930754671" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in 2005, Kelley refused to debate. Perhaps Kelley changed his mind in the intervening 29 years or concluded that it wasn’t worth his time to debate the author of a </span><a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/9421651/The-Passion-of-James-Valliant-s-Criticism" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">book who considers throwing surprise parties immoral</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For background on the Open Objectivism controversy see </span><a href="https://peikoff.com/essays_and_articles/fact-and-value/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><a href="https://archive.atlassociety.org/sites/default/files/The_Contested_Legacy_of_Ayn_Rand.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The debate seems to be mostly about the amount of judgment and condemnation that Objectivists should have toward non-Objectivists (particularly leftist academics) and group rivalries than about the essentials of Rand’s philosophy. For example, Closed Objectivists don’t get worked up over the Ayn Rand Institute purporting to know </span><a href="https://ari.aynrand.org/listen-now-the-anti-intellectuality-of-donald-trump-why-ayn-rand-would-have-despised-a-president-trump/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">what Rand would have thought about Donald Trump</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Contributed by Niel Parille.]</span></p><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-70955286221691734602023-03-06T10:08:00.002-08:002023-03-20T10:30:54.085-07:00The mRNA Vaccine Controversy and "Reason"<div><br /></div><div>Ben Bayer, "director of content" over at ARI, <a href="https://newideal.aynrand.org/many-vaccine-refusers-dont-care-about-their-self-interest/">wrote</a> an article back in May of 2022 arguing that "vaccine refusers" (i.e., people who refused to take the mRNA vaccines) should not be criticized for being "selfish," that on the contrary, getting vaccinated is very much in the individuals rational self-interest. Bayer of course takes it for granted that the mRNA vaccine's are "safe and effective":</div><div><br /></div><div><blockquote>While some people have good medical reasons not to get vaccinated [writes Bayer], others are disproportionately worried about rare side effects. Of these, far too many are irrationally allowing themselves to be taken in by quackery and conspiracism.</blockquote></div><div><br /></div><div>Now Bayer believes he has come to this conclusion by the use of his "reason." This means he has evaluated all the relevant facts and, through "logic" and valid concept formation, has arrived at a correct (and "certain") conclusion. But here's the problem. He actually hasn't done any of that. He undoubtedly thinks he has, but he's deluded. His conclusion, far from being based on all the relevant facts and/or logic, is instead derived from an <i>argument from authority</i> (which is technically a logical fallacy). Because the medical and scientific establishments have claimed that the mRNA vaccines are "safe and effective," he has decided that's good enough for him. However, there's a potential contradiction here. How can Bayer be certain that these establishments are in all respects trustworthy? After all, can Bayer truthfully contend that he <i>always</i> accepts the conclusions of the scientific establishment, regardless of what they might be? Would he, for example, accept the scientific establishment's views on climate change and global warming? If not, why not? If he accepts one and not the other, isn't that an example of cherry picking the evidence?</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps the primary "reason" why both Bayer and ARI accepted the pro-establishment view of the vaccines is that these therapeutics were developed by private corporations---in other words, by "capitalism." The unstated argument here is that we can all trust Big Pharma because it's not in their self-interest to put out a product that would harm thousands, if not millions of people. But what if a corporation such has Pfizer has no legal liability for a specific product (like vaccines, for example), is allowed to <a href="https://euroweeklynews.com/2022/03/08/fda-pfizer-vaccine-data/" target="_blank">seal their data derived from their clinical trials</a> from public scrutiny for seventy-five years, and has a long track record of criminally negligent behavior, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/05/19/fact-check-resolved-lawsuits-against-pfizer-alleged-marketing-fraud/4857499001/" target="_blank">having paid</a> close to $3 billion in criminal fines and settlement fees over the last two decades? In light of such behavior, how is it rational to assume that Pfizer might not be lying about the mRNA vaccines? From 1998 to 2016, Big Pharma (i.e., the world’s largest publicly traded pharmaceutical companies) <a href="https://www.drugwatch.com/manufacturers/" target="_blank">spent</a> nearly $3.5 billion on lobbying expenses — which is more than any other industry. For every $1 spent on “basic research,” Big Pharma spends $19 on promotions and advertising. Are these companies really the exemplars of capitalism and heroic scientific achievement that Objectivists such as Bayer seem to think? And if not, why are Objectivist so predisposed to trust them? And what about the FDA? Do Objectivists, with their uncompromising support of laisssez-faire capitalism, even believe that FDA, which is tasked with regulating the pharmaceutical corporation, should exist? </div><div><br /></div><div>The uncompromising support of the mRNA vaccines by orthodox Objectivists is rich in ironies. When these vaccines were first released, the only evidence on their behalf consisted of very large randomized clinical trials run by the Pharmaceutical companies. Although the data from these trials was not made available to the public, it was nonetheless reviewed, at least in part, by both the FDA and the CDC. On the basis of this review, these government agencies declared that the vaccines were "safe and effective." So the question then becomes: can these government agencies be trusted? If we evaluate the evidence, it's not clear that they can be. According to <a href="https://ethics.harvard.edu/blog/risky-drugs-why-fda-cannot-be-trusted" target="_blank">an article</a> published by Harvard University's Center for Ethics in 2013, it would appear that the FDA may in fact be a compromised institution:</div><div><br /></div><div><blockquote>This evidence indicates why we can no longer trust the FDA to carry out its historic mission to protect the public from harmful and ineffective drugs. Strong public demand that government “do something” about periodic drug disasters has played a central role in developing the FDA. Yet close, constant contact by companies with FDA staff and officials has contributed to vague, minimal criteria of what “safe” and “effective” mean. The FDA routinely approves scores of new minor variations each year, with minimal evidence about risks of harm. Then very effective mass marketing takes over, and the FDA devotes only a small percent of its budget to protect physicians or patients from receiving biased or untruthful information. The further corruption of medical knowledge through company-funded teams that craft the published literature to overstate benefits and understate harms, unmonitored by the FDA, leaves good physicians with corrupted knowledge. Patients are the innocent victims.</blockquote></div><div><br /></div><div>Now merely because there are viable reasons for mistrusting the FDA (and by implication the CDC), this in itself does not <i>conclusively</i> prove that those institutions were peddling misinformation about the mRNA vaccines. But it does raise serious suspicions that provide reasons for doubt. When the vaccines were introduced to the broader public in 2021, the American public was placed in a difficult position. Each and everyone of us was forced to make an educated guess based on inadequate and perhaps compromised datasets as to whether to succumb to vaccination.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now an Objectivist might claim that "reason" is the only tool that will enable us to figure out whether the mRNA vaccines were "safe and effective." Very well then. What would "reason" have told us to do in relation to the vaccines? The fact of the matter, Objectivist "reason" would not be capable of telling us a thing. Without a sufficient data set, "reason" is blind. Unfortunately, our intrepid Objectivist columnist doesn't seem to understand this. He clings fast to his delusion that "reason" whispered in his ear that the vaccines were heroic achievements of capitalism and "the Science" and that they were therefore mandatory for all rational individuals. </div><div><br /></div><div>It would seem that an important aspect of Objectivist "reason" is not doing one's homework; for this is hardly the first time we have run across an example of an Objectivist reaching conclusions based on insufficient evidence. The entire Objectivist so-called "Philosophy of History" consists of little more than vague speculations on an absurdly abbreviated, cliff-notes version of history. Their epistemological speculations are not much better, sadly lacking, as is so evidently the case, in data drawn from cognitive science.</div><div><br /></div><div>But perhaps it was for the best that Bayer chose to follow the bent of his ideological proclivities rather than "reason," because it must be admitted that on the few occasions where he actually makes an attempt at ratiocination, he often makes a mess of it. At one point in his article, Bayer accuses "vaccine refusers" of "recklessly letting their guard down against a serious threat." But was the Covid-19 virus a "serious threat" against everyone? Since when? To be sure, the virus could be deadly against the elderly and individuals with co-morbidities. But against healthy young people it posed very minimal risks. So how did Bayer, a presumably "rational" thinker who always follows "reason," get this so wrong? Inquiring minds what to know.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-70179314291593436832023-02-12T09:56:00.000-08:002023-02-12T09:56:30.222-08:00Objectivist Roundup, February 2023<p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">1.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In 1983 Leonard Peikoff released his long-awaited book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ominous-Parallels-End-Freedom-America/dp/0452011175/ref=sr_1_1?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=0&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=0&qid=1676125183&refinements=p_27:peikoff,p_28:ominous&s=books&sr=1-1&unfiltered=1"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America</span></a>. Peikoff argued that the United States was on the same road as Germany during the Weimar Republic's descent into Nazi madness. Two-thirds of the book consisted of a discussion of the rise of Nazism, which Peikoff viewed as caused by irrationalist philosophy, particularly that of Immanuel Kant. The remainder of the book was an overview of American history and thought, arguing that the United States, thanks to its Kantian-influenced philosophers, was on the same path as Germany in the 1920s and 30s.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">Libertarian philosopher David Gordon gave the book a scathing review in 1983.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Forty years <a href="https://mises.org/wire/ominous-parallels-reconsidered"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">later he revisits it here</span></a>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I’ll make a couple additional points:</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; text-indent: 36px;">i.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>At Michael Berliner's suggestion, Peikoff decided to publish the chapters concerning Germany as a stand-alone book in 2013, <i>The Cause of Hitler’s Germany</i>. Based on Peikoff's new introduction, I get the impression that he thinks this is the more important part of <i>The Ominous Parallels</i> and didn't get the attention it deserved. The text of these chapters is identical to the original, with the exception of changing a few sentences that refer to the omitted chapters. That's a problem since <i>The Ominous Parallels</i> contained numerous mistakes in intellectual history. One of the biggest problems is Peikoff's repeated references to Rauschning's <i>Hitler Speaks</i> (aka <i>The Voice of Destruction</i>), a book of largely manufactured discussions with Hitler. While the fraudulent nature of Rauschning's book wasn’t known until after <i>The Ominous Parallels</i> was published, it widely known by 2013.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>A friend of mine told me that when he first read <i>The Ominous Parallels,</i> he thought some of the quotes (for example, “the age of reason is over”) were “too good to be true.”</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px; text-indent: 36px;">ii.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Peikoff references all number of (in his view) anti-rationalist writers and thinkers such as Emil Brunner, Karl Barth, Thomas Mann, Sigmund Freud, Ernst Cassirer, etc. but hardly ever mentions that these people were anti-Nazi.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Of course Peikoff could argue that they didn’t draw the conclusions to Kant’s work that a consistent Kantian would, but an author should take into account possible objections to his thesis.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">2.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Timothy Sandefur recently published <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Freedoms-Furies-Paterson-Liberty-Darkness-ebook/dp/B0BHM5VCN6?ref_=ast_author_dp"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">The Furies: How Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand Found Liberty in an Age of Darkness</span></a>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It’s an account of the friendship of these foundresses of modern libertarianism in the context of the politics of their time.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I have only skimmed it, but it looks outstanding.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I was naturally interested in the sources Sandefur would use for Rand’s life.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>He says he relies principally on the late Anne Heller’s 2009, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ayn-Rand-World-She-Made/dp/0385513992/ref=pd_lpo_1?pd_rd_w=nXWKJ&content-id=amzn1.sym.116f529c-aa4d-4763-b2b6-4d614ec7dc00&pf_rd_p=116f529c-aa4d-4763-b2b6-4d614ec7dc00&pf_rd_r=2CFRCPT81TBR8R13S5A1&pd_rd_wg=yjEPv&pd_rd_r=27004d3a-6c6e-4a19-b9d2-9ed560aa1b69&pd_rd_i=0385513992&psc=1"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">Ayn Rand and the World She Made</span></a>, while noting that Rand’s followers view this and other (unnamed) biographies differently.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>He doesn’t cite Barbara Branden’s 1986 biography, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Passion-Ayn-Rand-Barbara-Branden-ebook/dp/B00G3IL0ZW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3PVANXPP1MXJ1&keywords=passion+of+ayn+rand&qid=1676126857&s=digital-text&sprefix=p,digital-text,1784&sr=1-1"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;"><i>The Passion of Ayn Rand</i></span></a> (or mention her at all) much less a <a href="http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-parc-wars-revisited.html"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">certain critic of the Branden biography</span></a>.</p><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-60308232843229819882023-01-17T11:37:00.001-08:002023-01-17T11:37:19.028-08:00Objectivist Roundup, January 2023<blockquote style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; text-size-adjust: auto;" type="cite"><div class="" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 10pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><div class=""><span class="" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not much happening. The Ayn Rand Institute just released<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a class="" href="https://issuu.com/aynrandinstitute/docs/ari-annual-report-2022">their 2022 repor</a>t. It contains a previously unanthologized essay by Rand about the Spanish painter Jose Manuel Capuletti. The ARI reports that it is currently digitizing the Ayn Rand Archives. For those of us who would like to see the unbowlderized Rand Journals and other material, don't expect to see them anytime soon. It will be a "multi-year project."</span></div></div></blockquote><p><br /></p><p> </p><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-49301563717594523952022-12-15T16:44:00.001-08:002022-12-15T16:44:03.103-08:00Objectivist Roundup, December 2022<p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">1. The big event last month was The Daily Wire’s purchasing the rights to <i>Atlas Shrugged</i>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2022/11/daily-wire-secures-exclusive-rights-to.html#more"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">Greg Nyquist has the low down</span></a>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Here is the video where <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjGH-MJgTeo"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">James Valliant expresses his terror</span></a>.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">2. In 2009, Jennifer Burns came out with her biography of Ayn Rand, <i>Goddess of the Market</i>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I just came across <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R241HECCWMXKXX/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B002SAUBVS"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">this 2010 Amazon review by Jan Schulman</span></a>, who knew Rand.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It is quite insightful about the nature of the movement in its heyday. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"></p><blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">AR [Ayn Rand] was a brilliant, angry, disturbed, troubled woman. i loved her and loathed her. most especially, i loathed 'the movement' and all that it represented. a great example: one time i had worked for NB [Nathaniel Branden] doing secretarial services for him (after the break) in l.a. i had typed up a letter he dictated, signed the letter (he was out of town) and mailed it. he came to our house the following saturday morning when my husband and i were having breakfast and still in our robes. he sat down, had coffee and then expressed his extreme displeasure with me. "You used an exclamation point in the letter!" he practically screamed at me. "What?" I responded, stunned and confused. "You used an exclamation point! Do you know what an exclamation point is?" "Well, it signifies an important statement, one that is strongly felt." "It's a scream!" he barked at me. "And that tells me something about YOUR psycho-epistomology."</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">I looked at him like he was crazy. (i actually thought he was.) "But you said you had never been so happy in your entire life. i thought it was deserving of an exclamation point." i said. "it was a strong statement and it was about your feelings and it was an exclamation." he went on to state that he was horrified and embarrassed beyond belief that that letter was sent with that piece of punctuation in it. that was when i realized, fully and clearly, as if a light went on in my head, that he and AR and everyone around them, were so full of their own self-worth (actually so full of crap) that they had lost sight of everything rational. that was when i became not only an ex-objectivist, but practically an anti-objectivist. i let NB know what i thought of his opinion and especially his nerve in blustering his way into our apartment only to insult me, while drinking my coffee (feel free to laugh). (i made really good coffee...smiles...) a few days later he apologized to me, but by then, i didn't care what he thought.</p></blockquote><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"></p><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-91565358178468779722022-11-25T05:17:00.006-08:002022-11-25T05:17:33.588-08:00Daily Wire Secures Exclusive Rights to Atlas Shrugged<p>The conservative internet news site and media company the DailyWire has announced that it has secured the exclusive rights to Ayn Rand's controversial best selling novel <i>Atlas Shrugged</i>. Daily Wire co-CEO Jeremy Boreing indicated plans for creating a series based on Rand's novel that would be streamed on the subscription-based DailyWire+. As Boering explained,</p><p></p><blockquote>When we [i.e., the DailyWire] decided in 2020 to launch into entertainment, my vision at that time was to bring Ayn Rand’s seminal work on the creative power of economic freedom and the terrible consequences of its loss to the screen as a premium series. The obvious problem, we thought, is that we would never be able to get the rights to such a culturally ubiquitous work. I was wrong.”</blockquote><p></p><p>I suspect Boering was not alone in believing that he would never get the rights to <i>Atlas. </i>So how did he pull it off? As far as can be made out, a deal was negotiated between Leonard Peikoff's and the DailyWire's lawyers, which strongly suggests that Peikoff himself must have signed off on the deal. As the DailyWire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dailywire-secures-exclusive-film-tv-rights-to-classic-novel-atlas-shrugged" target="_blank">explained</a>:<br /></p><p></p><blockquote>The deal was negotiated by Sonnier and general counsel Joshua Herr on behalf of DailyWire+, Roger Arar and Kaslow on behalf of Atlas Distribution Company, and Tim Knowlton of Curtis Brown Ltd. on behalf of the Peikoff Family Partnership and the Estate of Ayn Rand.</blockquote>Some orthodox Objectivists (James Valliant for instance) have declared themselves "terrified" by this news. They fear the DailyWire smuggle "conservative" notions into <i>Atlas</i>, particularly religious tropes. Jeremy Beoring insisted that the DailyWire+' version of <i>Atlas</i> would be true to the book’s message, plot, and character archetypes. I suspect being "true" to Rand's novel was part of the deal with Peikoff, although what exactly that will mean in practice remains to be seen. Bear in mind that those in the Objectivist world who wish to see a well-made version of <i>Atlas</i> don't exactly have a lot of choices when it comes to getting <i>Atlas</i> on screen. Hollywood would never deign to make such a series and the DailyWire is about the only film company in the world with first-rate production values willing to take on such a quixotic venture.<p></p><p>Of course it goes without saying that, even with high production values, <i>Atlas</i> remains essentially an unfilmable novel. It will be interesting to see who Boering enlists as the screenwriter for the project. Will Andrew Klavan be asked to try his hand at the business? And who's going to direct and act in this thing? Most Hollywood actors wouldn't dare involve themselves in a DailyWire+ project—let alone one involving the Ayn Rand. Is everyone ready for Gina Carano as Dagny Taggart and Laurence Fox as Hank Rearden? There's a decent chance both those actors, each of whom has suffered cancellation for their political views, will star in the series. Perhaps they can also find a part for James Woods.<br /></p><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-50310409961567528002022-11-14T12:22:00.000-08:002022-11-14T12:22:25.259-08:00Objectivist Roundup, November 2022<p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">1. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Anne Heller, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ayn-Rand-World-She-Made/dp/1400078938"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">Ayn Rand and the World She Made</span></a>, passed away recently at the age of 71.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Heller’s biography of Rand, which was published in 2009, was excellent but probably didn’t get the attention it deserved.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>A few months before it came out, Jennifer Burns published her biography of Rand, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Goddess-Market-Rand-American-Right-ebook/dp/B002SAUBVS/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1G3NVOZ80T7XP&keywords=burns+goddess+market&qid=1668434158&s=books&sprefix=burns+goddess+mareket,stripbooks,131&sr=1-1"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right</span></a>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Goddess of the Market</i> was the first biography of Rand since Barbara Branden’s 1986 <i>The Passion of Ayn Rand</i>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Burns had almost complete access to the Ayn Rand Archives and revealed, for the first time, that six of Rand’s posthumously published books – most notably <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Journals-Ayn-Rand/dp/0525943706/ref=sr_1_2?qid=1668434415&refinements=p_27:David+Harriman&s=books&sr=1-2&text=David+Harriman"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">Rand’s Journals</span></a> - were so heavily edited as to be practically worthless.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>So Heller’s book was perhaps bound to be overshadowed (she was not allowed access to the Archives).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Chris Sciabarra <a href="https://notablog.net/archives/3130"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">has a tribute</span></a>.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">2.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Long time Objectivist writer Andrew Bernstein recently publish a book on US education: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Johnny-Still-Cant-Write-Understand/dp/1637584334"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">Why Johnny Still Can’t Read or Wright or Understand Math</span></a>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I haven’t read the book, but the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFSmE6W-BNA&t=3074s"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">Ayn Rand Fan Club recently interviewed him</span></a>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Bernstein makes some good points but seems to think students would do significantly better on average with improved teaching methods, which is an implication of Rand’s view of intelligence, <a href="https://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2022/11/orthodox-objectivisms-struggle-with.html"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">which I discussed recently</span></a>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-56532374608473513282022-11-13T08:45:00.012-08:002022-11-13T09:10:54.970-08:00Orthodox Objectivism's Struggle with the Inheritability of Intelligence<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-96fb3756-7fff-d5ab-b56a-6a7c5a8e26b6" style="line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri,sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400;">[Introductory Note: the following is an important article by ARCHNBlog contributor Neil Parille. One thing to bear in mind in relation to the subject of intelligence is that the correlation between measured intelligence (i.e., IQ) and societal outcome success is one of the highest correlations ever measured by social science. The persisting skepticism of intelligence in orthodox Objectivist circles constitutes, as Neil explains in this essay, the legacy of Rand's blank slatism.]</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that Objectivists are, like apparently a fair percentage of the population, skeptical of intelligence tests (which I’ll call IQ tests).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>A while ago I heard Ayn Rand Institute president Yaron Brook claim that IQ tests are “B.S.” (he didn’t use the abbreviation). Perhaps less surprising is that Objectivists are generally skeptical of the contention that intelligence is a highly heritable (put colloquially, genetic) trait.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">As I’ve <a href="http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2022/03/taking-ideas-seriously.html"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">mentioned before</span></a>, there is quite a disconnect between what psychologists know about intelligence and what the average person believes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Here is what probably close to 100% of experts in the field of intelligence research believe:</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">1.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There is such a thing as intelligence.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Some people are better at math, have a bigger vocabulary and are better at solving problems of all kinds.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">2.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>IQ tests reliably measure what we consider intelligence.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">3.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Intelligence is a highly heritable trait, probably in the 50 to 80% range.*</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">4.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>IQ correlates to a variety of life outcomes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Higher IQ people on average commit less crime, have less illegitimacy, have lower rates of drug use, etc.</p><p class="p2" style="color: #0b4cb4; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><span class="s2" style="color: black;">If you don’t believe me, here are <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/5/18/15655638/charles-murray-race-iq-sam-harris-science-free-speech"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">three prominent left wing intelligence researchers</span></a>.</span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #0b4cb4; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><span class="s2" style="color: black;">Here is </span><span class="s3" style="text-decoration-line: underline;">Rand’s definition of intelligence</span><span class="s2" style="color: black;">:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">“Intelligence is the ability to deal with a broad range of abstractions. Whatever a child’s natural endowment, the use of intelligence is an acquired skill. It has to be acquired by a child’s own effort and automatized by his own mind, but adults can help or hinder him in this crucial process.”</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">It is occasionally said by Objectivists and others that there are kinds of intelligence or aspects of intelligence that aren’t captured or measured by IQ tests.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>This idea was made popular by Harvard University’s Howard Gardner in his book Multiple Intelligences.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Gardner listed among other types of purported intelligence musical ability and athletic ability.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Most would consider these things skills.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In any event, this dubious theory doesn’t undercut the consensus view of intelligence.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>For example, if you consider playing baseball a form of intelligence, it is still the case that given two equally gifted baseball players the one with the higher IQ will tend to be a better player.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Put differently, nothing has been identified as a form of intelligence which inversely correlates to IQ.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">Leonard Peikoff <a href="https://peikoff.com/2016/08/01/what-was-ayn-rands-iq/"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">was asked in 2016 what Ayn Rand’s IQ</span></a> might have been.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>He responded that he didn’t have any idea because IQ was not a topic in the Objectivist community during Rand’s life.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>He said that he didn’t know whether IQ tests were valid.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I recall, but can’t find the podcast, where Peikoff was asked if Rand believed intelligence had a genetic basis.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>His response was that Rand didn’t think it mattered because we don’t use all of our brain power (or words to that effect).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>This is a common claim but, if one thinks about it, is untrue.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>If someone has an accident and loses twenty percent of his cognitive functioning, he is unlikely to increase his mental ability to his pre-injury level by more effort.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">It does seem that Objectivists who are informed on these issues accept the consensus.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Edwin Locke is a prominent Objectivist psychologist and an expert in the field of motivational psychology.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In his 2017 book, The Illusion of Determinism, he accepts that intelligence is genetic in the 50 to 80% range. He sees egalitarianism behind the multiple intelligences theory, e.g., “we are all equally smart, just in different ways.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In his 2020 Objectivist Conference talk he discussed IQ tests and accepted their validity.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Harry Binswanger said in a couple podcasts that he thinks IQ tests measure intelligence and intelligence is at least moderately heritable.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">I imagine that many Objectivists have a hard time accepting the high heritability of intelligence for a few reasons:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">First, it conflicts with their blank slate view of human nature.*<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>As Rand famously said, man is a “being of self-made soul.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In her essay “Racism,” Rand defined racism as “the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Taken to the extreme this means that every person is born with the potential to be a Newton since Newton’s genius must have been unrelated to his “body chemistry.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(But note that in her definition of intelligence Rand referenced a child’s natural endowment.) <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Yet if intelligence is highly heritable then nature places a limit on human ability.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The average IQ is 100.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It takes an IQ of 115 to be an accountant and an IQ of 130 to be a Ph.D. research scientist.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It follows then that the average person will not be able to become an accountant and the average accountant won’t be able to become a physicist.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">Second, an additional reason is the correlation between intelligence and desirable life outcomes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Put differently, people with an average IQ of 110 will have an easier time navigating the difficulties of life than people with an average IQ of 90.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Some people are just born to be more successful than others. Although high IQ people can make a mess of their life, the Bernie Madoffs of the world are the exception.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">Third, Objectivists, like Rand, contend that achievement is largely a question of proper epistemology.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Rand considered the world’s problems to be largely caused by an inability to solve “the problem of universals” (which she considered to be synonymous with a theory of concept formation). <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I’d rather have a good theory of concept formation than a bad one, but there is no evidence to believe that Objectivists develop scientific breakthroughs at a higher rate than others.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">Fourth, if intelligence is highly heritable, then what about other traits such as political beliefs, personal honesty or industriousness?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Evidence shows that there is at least a moderate genetic component to these as acknowledged by up and coming<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326839224_Nurturing_Our_Better_Nature_A_Proposal_for_Cognitive_Integrity_as_a_Foundation_for_Autonomous_Living"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">Objectivist psychologist Gena Gorlin</span></a>.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">_______________________</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">*This is established by studies of identical twins separated at birth and adopted into families with different socio-economic status.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The IQ of an adopted child correlates to the IQ of the biological parents than the adopting parents. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">**I’ve heard Objectivists say that Rand’s view of man being a blank slate is limited to the rejection of innate knowledge and isn’t necessarily related to the nature/nurture debate.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>On the other hand, I’ve corresponded with at least a couple prominent Objectivists who claim that males are not innately more aggressive than females notwithstanding that this is observed everywhere and persists even when attempts are made to raise boys and girls equally.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>See James Q. Wilson’s Crime and Human Nature.</p>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-65255895227449438292022-10-16T16:03:00.003-07:002022-10-16T16:03:39.120-07:00Objectivist Roundup, October 2022<p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Not much happening in the world of Objectivism in the last month or two.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">The only thing of note is <a href="https://carlbarney.com/2022/09/19/schisms-and-aris-need-of-a-dispute-resolution-process/"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">Carl Barney’s response</span></a> the ARI’s strange <a href="https://newideal.aynrand.org/of-schisms-public-and-private/"><span class="s1" style="color: #0b4cb4;">piece on schisms</span></a>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Barney makes several good points and it’s also interesting to see his version of the events that led to his break with the ARI.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Some money quotes:</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">My break with Yaron (and it was fundamentally with Yaron rather than with ARI) came about when I was giving him about $4 million a year and he wanted more. I said I would give him more, but I wanted to know his strategy for ARI and Objectivism. After painfully frustrating and failed strategic planning meetings, Yaron, in order to persuade me to continue funding ARI, agreed to promote and deliver Leonard’s courses. This was really important to me. But he didn’t keep his word....</span></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span></span></span></p><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">My efforts regarding the dispute resolution process go back to 2015. I said to Yaron and some ARI Board members, “I have a lot of money invested in the success of ARI. Another disruptive conflict, such as the McCaskey affair, could severely damage ARI and my investment as the McCaskey affair did. So, would you agree to a dispute resolution process to head off any further disputes?"</span></blockquote><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 8px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Yaron agreed and said he would make it happen. (This was a condition of my giving him more money.) Over the next few years, I met with two lawyers who were also involved with ARI, Steve Simpson and Larry Salzman (Larry was on ARI’s Board). We met for many hours, attempting to draft a process that would be approved by Yaron. The lawyers and I met, discussed details, drafted versions, critiqued them, and edited them over and over. But ultimately, Yaron and Onkar would not approve them. I tried and tried, for about four years, working with Steve, Larry, Yaron, and others to establish a dispute resolution process. I spent probably between 100 and 200 hours. But nothing came of it.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br />One might cynically point out that the most rational people on earth shouldn’t need a highfalutin conflict resolution process, but $4 million a year is a lot of money.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And if Brook is half as arrogant and condescending in private as he is in public, I can’t blame Barney.</span><p></p><a name='more'></a>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-65682349203784997732022-09-27T13:39:00.003-07:002022-09-29T13:28:39.134-07:00An Epistemological Quandry<p>Harry Binswanger has come out with a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVMq-flS5y0" target="_blank">video</a> on Ayn Rand's break-up with philosopher John Hospers. Binswanger attended the notorious meeting for the American Society for Aesthetics that led Rand to terminate her friendship with Hospers. Against the advice of his colleagues, Hospers had invited Rand to present a paper on aesthetics. Rand read one of her essays on her concept of a "sense of life." Afterwards, Hospers offered some criticisms of Rand's theories, to which Rand then offered a replied. </p><p>Now according to Binswanger, Hospers criticism was "unhelpful," amounting to something of a philosophical put-down. "He didn't give her respect," he would later recall. When Rand delivered her responses, she was "so nice and so gentle." But when she looked in Hospers direction, to perhaps gauge his reaction, he not even paying any attention to her. </p><p>Hospers delivers a remarkable different account of the event:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>By tradition, commentators make criticisms. Mine, I thought, were mild as criticisms go. I wondered publicly about whether every work of art (even mediocre ones) carries with it a sense of life; I mentioned Ayn’s own example of Dinesen (fine writing, but an awful sense of life); I speculated about whether to any extent what we say about sense of life depends on the language we use to characterize it ("emotive meaning" again).<br /></p><p>I saw something wrong when I noticed that her remarks in response were icy, sarcastic, even insulting. I never discovered what there was about my remarks that made her "go ballistic." Apparently I had betrayed her, and I had done so publicly, when an academic audience already presumed critical of her might have been turned her way. There was no doubt that she felt deeply hurt. At the party in her room afterward, she would not speak to me, nor would anyone else: word had gone out that I was to be "shunned." I never saw her again.</p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>So the epistemological question that confronts us is <i>How can we know which account is the right one? </i>Presumably, almost everyone who participated and witnessed the event in question is dead. A few members of the audience who, like Binswanger, were mere students may still be around. But finding them would be difficult and verifying that they were actually in attendance at the meeting close to impossible. So it really is Binswanger's word versus that of Hospers (who is no longer with us). How are we to determine which, if either, is telling the truth? Does Rand's own epistemology provide us any insights on solving this quandry?</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>The irony is that most people will decide this question on the basis of their general view of Ayn Rand. Those who think highly of Ayn Rand and regard Objectivism as an important philosophy will likely side with Binswanger, while those who have a more guarded or even negative view of Rand and hold Objectivism to be a sad tissue of error will likely side with Hospers. But of course, one's opinion of Rand and Objectivism can hardly be regarded as a reliable principle for determining the truth or falsity of what went on at that meeting.<br /></p><p>One way to solve this dilemma might be to acknowledge that it is impossible to know for sure what exactly happened but that we might make an educated guess. We could do what is often done in such situations---that is, try to pick up reputational information about Hospers and Binswanger with the aim of determining who is likely to be the most reliable witness. Even here we run into various epistemological quagmires. Binswanger, for example, to the extent that he is known at all, is something of a controversial figure. He has both admirers and detractors. Who among these two groups are we supposed to believe?</p><p>Another way to explain these varying accounts of Rand's behavior is to presume that Binswanger and Hospers perceived the entire event through the veil of their assumptions and prejudices. Binswanger perceived Rand as being "so nice and so gentle" because he was favorably disposed toward her, while Hospers regarded her as sarcastic, icy, and insulting because he was the target of her criticism. But perhaps her behavior was far more neutral and hence open to radically different interpretations.<br /></p><p>One last method of settling this question, and the one I tend to favor, is to ask which account of Rand's behavior is consistent with other evidence we have of her general mode of conduct. Rand is well known for being ultra-sensitive to slights and breaking with people on trivial pretexts. As Hospers himself notes, </p><p></p><blockquote>Rumors persisted ... of how she would "excommunicate" people: they would say or do something that seemed trivial to others, and she would be done with them forever. Some of them were quite good friends, such as Edith Efron, who cared a great deal for Ayn but who was also cut off. None of this would have happened, theynsaid, ten years before, but with the years she had become more suspicious, testy, impatient—no one was sure why. Quite a few people, it seemed, were suddenly out of her life.</blockquote><p></p><p>These rumors that Hospers talks about have been verified by a wide number of sources, as has been documented in Anne Heller's <i>Ayn Rand and the World She Made</i>. Therefore if we are to ask which account of what happened at that meeting of the American Society of Aesthetics is most in keeping with Rand's general conduct during that period of her life, it has to be Hospers' version. It fits with what scores of other people have testified. Binswanger in comparison comes off as special pleading about someone he would never dare to criticize.<br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><!--more--><p></p>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-82447879864419139382022-09-25T08:12:00.005-07:002022-09-25T08:51:55.099-07:00Review of Simon Lemieux's Book on Rand<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-8dcfb6b0-7fff-7ff7-036d-0d447385e4bb" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Who the Hell is Ayn Rand?</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was recently published. It is written by Simon Lemieux who teaches at Portsmouth Grammar School in England. It’s a volume in a new series of brief introductions to ancient and contemporary thinkers. It’s a good overview of Rand’s life and philosophy from a somewhat left-wing perspective. In particular, I like how Lemieux lets Rand speak for herself, letting the reader judge for himself if Rand’s ideas are correct or practical. In this respect it’s quite unique in the world of Randian criticism. In lieu of a formal book review, I’ll summarize each chapter and make some comments.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Introduction</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The introduction points out that Ayn Rand continues to be controversial. Lemieux also notes that Rand has been misrepresented and “wasn’t a fully-fledged libertarian or a reckless libertine.” He makes the interesting observation that Randianism is something of a combination of Nietzscheanism and can-do American individualism.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rand’s Life Story</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lemieux discusses Rand’s life from her birth in Russia in 1905 until her death in New York City in 1982. One thing I found interesting is that he doesn’t dwell on the “negative” side of Rand’s personality, such as her temper and her tendency to break with people for reasons that many would consider petty. Also interesting is that his main sources for Rand’s life are Jennifer Burns’s 2009 biography, </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Goddess of the Market</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and Anne Heller’s 2009 biography, </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ayn Rand and the World She Made</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Lemieux discusses Rand’s involvement with Nathaniel and Barbara Branden and her break with them in 1968, but nowhere mentions that Barbara wrote a biography of Rand (</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Passion of Ayn Rand</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) and Nathaniel two memoirs (</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Judgment Day</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My Years with Ayn Rand</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). These works helped cement the idea of Rand of a brilliant, if highly flawed, person. Rand’s followers associated with the Ayn Rand Institute continue to attack them as nasty and self-serving. If Lemieux believes that the Branden books have largely been superseded by the 2009 biographies then I’d agree; however, the controversy over Rand’s life (at least as some of her fans see it) is something readers of an introduction should be made aware of.*</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Influences on Rand’s Thinking</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lemieux relies in part on Chris Sciabarra’s </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Russian Radical</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Lemieux discusses the influence of Aristotle on Rand and notes that her interpretation of Aristotle and other thinkers is controversial. He sees similarities with others such as her teacher Nicholas Lossky and various authors in the libertarian and conservative traditions.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Philosophy of Objectivism</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He reviews Rand’s views on politics, ethics, metaphysics and epistemology. Unfortunately, he doesn’t mention Rand’s </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. This is the one book that Rand wrote that resembles a traditional work of philosophy. In it, Rand purported to solve “the problem of universals” via an elaborate description of how the mind forms concepts. While this work hasn’t made much of an influence in the world of professional philosophy, her acolytes consider it her greatest achievement. As Alan Gotthelf once told Rand, “you’ve done for consciousness what Aristotle did for existence,” to which Rand replied “I have.”** The best aspect of this chapter is how Lemieux integrates Rand’s philosophy with characters in her novels. He notes that Rand’s characters, however, tend to be rather one dimensional.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Individualism and Morality</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lemieux discusses the Randian view of selfishness and altruism. He is quite fair to Rand by observing that Rand doesn’t mean by this that being uncaring about others is a virtue. She didn’t even oppose private charity. I think he’s correct that Rand’s “transactional” approach to ethics does make ethical decisions somewhat sterile. Most of us would consider being compassionate and friendly good in themselves, not just good in the “go along to get along” sense.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Capitalism and Politics</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lemieux observes that for Rand, Capitalism was not only an economic system, but a political system where individuals were free to live their lives without governmental or societal interference. Capitalism is derivative of her view of human beings as rational creatures. He disagrees with Rand that monopolies can only be sustained by governmental interference. He points out that Amazon, Facebook and other companies have an advantage because the costs of competing with them are quite high and the technological advantage they possess because of copyrighted software and the like.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He notes that Rand received Social Security and Medicare in her later years. He doesn’t accuse Rand of being a hypocrite because she wrote in “The Question of Scholarships” that it’s reasonable for a person to “take back” what the government has, in her view, stolen. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lemieux has a brief discussion of Rand’s view of property rights and notes that Rand wasn’t a racist. She didn’t approve of private discrimination against non-Whites but thought that boycotts and social pressure was the appropriate manner to fight racial discrimination. He sees as somewhat contradictory her support for Israel, noting that it was based in part on a rather stereotypical and almost collectivist view of Arabs.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Conclusion</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lemieux finishes the book with the enduring influence of Rand on American and European life. He names some of the people that are influenced by Rand. He claims, correctly I think, that Rand, as a “big picture” thinker, asked all sorts of important questions about life, politics and morality. “To all those questions, Rand provides some interesting answers. One may well disagree with much of the overarching nature of Objectivist philosophy or see it unrealistic in practice . . .” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="border-bottom: 1.5pt solid rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 1pt;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*Likewise, Lemieux doesn’t mention James Valliant’s 2005 hit piece, </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which argues that the Branden books are lies from beginning to end.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> **Not to be outdone, Leonard Peikoff claims that with his theory of induction (</span><a href="https://estore.aynrand.org/collections/leonard-peikoff/products/induction-in-physics-and-philosophy-mp3-download" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">given as taped lectures</span></a><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) “the validation of reason has now been accomplished.”</span></p>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-33761706040466454512022-09-07T07:49:00.001-07:002022-09-07T07:49:50.293-07:00Objectivist Round-up, September 2022<p>1. <span style="color: #0563c1;"><u><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Who-Hell-Ayn-Rand-theories/dp/1915177030/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1Y7BWWKL3RBQ1&keywords=who+the+hell+is+ayn+rand&qid=1662554758&sprefix=who+the+hell+is+ayn+rand%2Caps%2C123&sr=8-1" style="color: #0563c1;">Who the Hell is Ayn Rand? </a></u></span>was recently published by Simon Lemieux. It’s a volume in <span style="color: #0563c1;"><u><a href="https://www.whothehellis.co.uk/" style="color: #0563c1;">a new series</a></u></span> that provides brief introductions to ancient and contemporary thinkers. It’s a good overview of Rand’s life and philosophy from a somewhat left-wing perspective. I hope to review it in a week or two.</p><p>2. <span style="color: #0563c1;"><u><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr271BJABJA" style="color: #0563c1;">Ayn Rand Fan Club interviewed Michael Stuart Kelly</a></u></span> of the Objectivist Living website. I enjoyed the discussion of his friendship with Barbara Branden, his involvement in The PARC Wars, and the rise and fall of Objectivist forums.</p><p>3. <span style="color: #0563c1;"><u><a href="https://notablog.net/archives/3010" style="color: #0563c1;">Chris Sciabarra</a></u></span> just announced that the final issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies will come out in 2023. JARS published numerous significant articles on Rand and related issues. Chris also published two important essays on Rand’s college transcripts based on archival research. I will always be grateful to Chris for printing three book reviews I wrote. JARS was first published in 1999.</p><p></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>gregnyquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13653516868316854941noreply@blogger.com4