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 | Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 1:10:37 mst
Comment ID: #1
Name: Rob
E-mail: ropoctl(at)gmail.com
I got an op-ed published in the student paper
http://www.ricethresher.org/media/storage/paper1290/news/2009/10/30 ... |
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| Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 5:24:57 mst
Comment ID: #2
Name: Andy
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/books/review/Kirsch-t.html?em
Isn't the New York Times supposed to be a newspaper? As in, a means of relaying facts from some people to others? Well, Adam Kirsh's rambling review of Ayn Rand's persona and ideology calls that into question. There are so many things ommitted, distorted, and just plain false that it's almost criminal.
The most glaring is his complete and utter evasion (or negligent ignorance, it really makes no difference) of Ayn Rand's role as a moral - not just a practical - defender of capitalism. He pulls out the fact that she agreed to take less money from the publisher of Atlas Shrugged in exchange for being able to keep part of it from being edited out as some sort of proof of her hypocritical advocacy of capitalism. However, all this shows is that Mr. Kirsh's understanding of capitalism - and specifically the take on it possessed by the woman he is supposed to be informing the rest of us about - is about as deep as a high school cheerleader's understanding of nuclear fission. Seriously, are the readers of this newspaper actually expected to believe that a capitalist is someone who's only value is money just because he says so? Mr. Kirsh does realize that the reason why people - capitalists - earn money is so they can spend it on things that they value, correct? It is absolutely dumbfounding that the nation's leading newspaper would publish a piece which is so flagrantly oblivious to the fact that money is not an end in itself, and that it doesn't come from thin air. That certain things - such as intellectual integrity - are required for those pieces of paper to have value. That without it, there is nothing to buy with them - or even if there still is, it can't be enjoyed. Even if this isn't known explicitly by most people, something other than the stupid contention that capitalists are people who value money above all else looms so large when you say that, it's amazing this guy thinks he can get away with doing so and still be a respected thinker.
Given this paper's philosophic slant, this sort of ignorance, as a matter of course might be understandable in a piece about another topic. But considering that it's the very notion the piece is trying to discredit, it's unbelieveably irresponsible. If you're going to attack Ayn Rand on an issue, at least understand fully what she said on the issue. |
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| Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 6:08:05 mst
Comment ID: #3
Name: Andrew Dalton
E-mail: andrew.s.dalton(at)gmail.com
URL: http://witchdoctorrepellent.blogspot.com
Yes, it's the old "Thou shalt maximize your pile of money at all costs" canard.
Even someone at National Review (!) pointed out this error:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDc4NTQ5Yjg0ODkxZDJiZTNiND ...=
What's frustrating isn't that critics like Kirsh misunderstand some subtle point about Objectivism, but rather that they base their arguments upon silly caricatures that are clearly false from a plain reading of what Ayn Rand wrote. (Here, the question of artistic integrity vs. money comes up in _The Fountainhead_ -- and Rand's hero takes the side of integrity.) |
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| Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 7:16:27 mst
Comment ID: #4
Name: Neil Parille
E-mail: neilparille(at)yahoo.com
URL: http://objectiblog.blogspot.com/
There's an excellent talk by Burns and Heller at Cato:
http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=6416 |
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| Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 8:34:46 mst
Comment ID: #5
Name: C Andrew
E-mail: ca4papen(at)mindspring.com
Former President Clinton unveils statue in Kosovo
By NEBI QENA (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
November 01, 2009 10:34 AM EST
PRISTINA, Kosovo - Thousands of ethnic Albanians braved low temperatures and a cold wind in Kosovo's capital Pristina to welcome former President Bill Clinton on Sunday as he attended the unveiling of an 11-foot (3.5-meter) statue of himself on a key boulevard that also bears his name.
Hillary is looking forward to her own bas-relief on a building facade in one of the alleys feeding Clinton Strasse... |
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| Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 12:21:56 mst
Comment ID: #6
Name: Robert
E-mail: hotento(at)gmail.com
Hi Diana,I first want to apologize for posting my question on facebook,instead of here,my bad.My question is, do we owe anybody mistakenly kidnapped by our CIA operatives,any form of monetary compensation.I am taking into account that during wartime some decisions are taken hastily and are not perfect. |
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| Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 12:27:07 mst
Comment ID: #7
Name: Jonathan Blaze
E-mail: jon(at)blaze.org
Great NY times article. Some choice cuts:
"Rand’s particular intellectual contribution, the thing that makes her so popular and so American, is the way she managed to mass market elitism â€" to convince so many people, especially young people, that they could be geniuses without being in any concrete way distinguished."
Mass-marketization of elitism...what a brilliant way to sum up Objectivism, an opiate disguised as a "philosophy", a rich man's religion where he deludes himself into thinking he is great. Objectivism is fueled by the existence of people to look down upon. It does not unite people, it thrives on sneering derision and exposes true ugliness of man.
"The very form of her novels makes the same point: they are as cartoonish and sexed-up as any best seller, yet they are constantly suggesting that the reader who appreciates them is one of the elect."
Brilliant strategy, the same one used by cheezy motivational-speakers of today. "You came to this seminar because you want to be successful, and people who don't come to this seminar don't have what it takes to be successful!" The message being, HOORAY FOR YOU! YOU'RE SMARTER THAN THEM JUST FOR BEING HERE! Thus everyone in the seminar gets a smug little boost of self-esteem. This makes the brain release pleasure-inducing chemicals, and suddenly you crave it more and more.
How fitting that Ayn Rand, a woman with delusions of grandeur, starts a religion teaching other people how they too can have delusions of their own grandeur, thus turning her own delusions into reality.
But maybe she was right, maybe the true key to happiness is just to keep telling yourself how great you are. Cheaper than Prozac I reckon. |
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| Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 13:05:21 mst
Comment ID: #8
Name: Andy
Mr. "Blaze",
Objectivism has nothing to do with elitism (or any kind of comparative standard for that matter). If you understood it's metaphysics and not just it's ethics, you would understand that what Oism counsels is for each and every person to live up to their highest potential; whatever that potential may be. The fact that it might be lower than someone else's says nothing about one's moral status. All it requires for a man to be granted the status of "moral" is that he act as his nature requires; nothing more, nothing less. You're simply projecting your own second-handed, other-preoccupied psychological tendencies onto your betters. |
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| Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 13:45:06 mst
Comment ID: #9
Name: William H Stoddard
E-mail: whswhs(at)mindspring.com
URL: http://whswhs.livejournal.com/
Andy: Yes. In particular, Objectivism teaches that self-esteem is a fundamental human value, and pride is a fundamental human virtue . . . not just for a minority of brilliant people but for everyone. You don't justify self-esteem by outdoing other people, and still less by making them look inferior to you, or tearing them down; you justify it by making the most of your own life. The person who thinks that they can only value themself comparatively lacks the first clue about what real pride is. |
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| Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 13:56:30 mst
Comment ID: #10
Name: Eric V.
Here is an argument that a Christian used in discussion I had with him on Objectivism vs. Christianity. He gave me permission to post it here.
"First, I don't know that the distinctions between a legtimate religion/belief system and an illegitimate cult have been articulated. Of course in one sense of the word, all religions are cults. As Russell Kirk famously said, culture begins with cult, meaning with religion. But here obviously we're using cult in a narrower and more critical sense of a narrow belief system that takes one part of reeality and treats it as the whole, and demonizes all the rest. For example, Rand and many Randians say that only reason (Randian reason) is true, and that anyone who believes in God is an evil, life-hating "mystic of spirit." Such a view exemplifies an ideological cult.
Now you will probably say that Christianity is also a cult, since it demonizes non-members. In reality, Christianity has a highly articulated way of understanding non-Christian positions. It's not narrow, it's large. And it obvously takes in reason and uses philosophy among its tools, so it's not limited to one way of knowing. It has a highly articulated way of understanding where reason is appropriate, and where only revelation will avail. But in encountering viritually any Randian group one does not encounter that kind of capacity for dealing with different views and ways of knowing, but instead a fanatical narrowness that reduces truth to a couple of formulaic sentences. "I believe in reason, with the individual as the only value, and capitalism as the only economic system," etc. They repeat Rand's phrases like robots, and view all others as evil, anti-life enemies."
I would like help in exposing the flaws of this arument. Here are some flaws that I see:
* He uses the term "Randian reason". I take it he believes that there are other means to conceptual knowledge other than reason and logic.
* He says there are other ways of knowing. But there is only one way of knowing and that is reason. Faith and revelation are not means of knowledge. And while I believe it can be said that feelings give you information, that information has to be verified by a process of logic (am I right on that?).
* He uses the typical smear that Objectivists ("Randians" to him) are mindless robots and use Ayn Rand as an authority like the way Christians use Christ.
* Cites Russell Kirk, one of the worst influences on the Conservative movement as he totally based his defense of "freedom" on religion.
There are other things that are wrong with this. But what would be the best way to answer this Christian. I feel that I could introduce Rand to some fence-sitters who will be reading the debate so I want to make a good impression.
Thanks |
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| Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 14:14:23 mst
Comment ID: #11
Name: William H Stoddard
E-mail: whswhs(at)mindspring.com
URL: http://whswhs.livejournal.com/
Eric: I'm not going to try to analyze all the nuances of this. But one aspect is that Rand did not simply denounce all religious thinkers. See for example her often expressed admiration for Thomas Aquinas, and her statement that religion was an early form of philosophy. |
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| Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 15:45:31 mst
Comment ID: #12
Name: Andrew Dalton
E-mail: andrew.s.dalton(at)gmail.com
URL: http://witchdoctorrepellent.blogspot.com
Eric V. -
You should demand that he give specific evidence for his attacks against Objectivism, as well as evidence for his particular claims ("not limited to one way of knowing") that Objectivism rejects. What would a non-rational way of knowing look like, for example, and how would we validate it?
And his claim that Christianity is less exclusive than Objectivism takes a lot of chutzpah. If a "cult" in the pejorative sense is defined by exclusivity, then Christianity is surely the biggest cult of them all. If you don't have faith in Jesus, then it doesn't matter if you believe in the supernatural, or even in the God of Abraham -- Satan's still gonna bugger you in Hell with his red-hot pitchfork for all eternity. |
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| Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 18:59:18 mst
Comment ID: #13
Name: C Andrew
E-mail: ca4papen(at)mindspring.com
An interesting intersection between groundwater rights and mineral exploitation rights. Looks like epistemological issues as well as political (property rights) issues here...
Colorado county copes with methane mystery
By JUDITH KOHLER (AP) â€" 7 hours ago
WALSENBURG, Colo. â€" Bernice and Jerry Angely like to show visitors the singed T-shirt a friend was wearing when their water well exploded and shot flames 30 feet high.
The friend wasn't hurt. But that and an explosion at another home weeks earlier forced Colorado to suspend natural gas drilling around this southern plains town until someone could find out why dangerous levels of methane were getting into the groundwater.
Two years later, Walsenburg and surrounding Huerfano County are still waiting, its residents caught in a collision between two of the West's vital resources: Water and natural gas.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jyEsD9ktg-heQaUo4 ... |
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| Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 22:18:12 mst
Comment ID: #14
Name: John Donohue
E-mail: john(at)jrdonohue.com
URL: http://jrdonohue.com
"Christianity has a highly articulated way of understanding non-Christian positions. "
hmmm......
Ask him how long Christianity has been around. 2000 years. How long have they had this "inclusive" view? Maybe for the last few hundred, since the Enlightenment humiliated and tamed them. Ask him to characterize the prior 1800 years when they were burning non-christians at the stake, formulating religious war, sending thousands of children alone over mountains on a "Crusade" to perish, and most importantly binding the greater population of Europe into phsycic bondage by the threat of eternal damnation for not being in the Cult of Christ (still doing that in South America and Poland*.)
You can tone that down if you want. I'm the Rude Objectivist so that might seem strident. However, I pulled my punches in the above paragraph.
Also, ask him if he'd like to exchange nicknames. He can call you a Randian and you can call him a Jesus Freak.
*Theocracy in Poland:
http://www.socinian.org/totalitarian.html
"The emerging [Church] totalitarianism [since 1989] is far more vicious and dangerous than communist rule because it destroys the will, initiative, intellect, moral sensitivity, human dignity and makes out of a free and intelligent being an automaton reacting to the commands of the church. " |
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| Monday, November 2, 2009 at 10:13:21 mst
Comment ID: #15
Name: Eric V.
Thanks to all who responded. The responses were helpful. |
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| Monday, November 2, 2009 at 10:20:51 mst
Comment ID: #16
Name: Eric V.
BTW, the conversation picks up at this blog site:
http://www.amnation.com /vfr/archives/014647.html
Just piece them together. Carol R. is my sister and she is engaging this Christian who links that Objectivism is a cult and Christianity is not. |
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| Monday, November 2, 2009 at 13:39:19 mst
Comment ID: #17
Name: C Andrew
E-mail: ca4papen(at)mindspring.com
Since when does their free speech rights trump my right of (dis)association?
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/11/02/us/AP-US-Abortion-Speech ...
Court rejects Pa. buffer law on abortion clinics
By JOE MANDAK (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
November 02, 2009 3:28 PM EST
PITTSBURGH - A federal appeals court has struck down an ordinance that created two types of buffer zones around medical facilities after a Christian legal group challenged the law on behalf of a nurse who protests abortions.
In a ruling issued Friday, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the 2005 Pittsburgh ordinance unduly restricted protesters from passing out leaflets and participating in other forms of free speech. The Pittsburgh law bans protesters from standing within 15 feet of entrances but also makes them stand 8 feet from clients in a 100-foot buffer around entrances
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But, combined, the appeals court found the zones violate the free speech rights of the protesters who find it difficult to hand leaflets to clinic clients. |
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| Monday, November 2, 2009 at 13:41:37 mst
Comment ID: #18
Name: C Andrew
E-mail: ca4papen(at)mindspring.com
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i-hoZz-4vwk9HYJUF ...
Sorry, the associated press story is above. The NY Times piece is the same but I originally found it on AP. If you read further in the article it talks about victory for pro-life speech, etc. Sounds like a kind of poly-logical idea to me. |
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| Monday, November 2, 2009 at 19:29:15 mst
Comment ID: #19
Name: Sajid
Paul Hsieh's recently published article from pajamasmedia can be found here:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obamacare-a-national-version-of-romneycare/
However, it is also in the lead headlines on the popular conservative blog hotair.com
See it over here: www.hotair.com, before it is phased out.
I didn't know if you guys already knew about it (the Hotair plug) so thought I would post. |
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