A new direction needed at The Atlas Society

[Mike Renzulli]

Although I admire much of what is coming out of The Atlas Society (TAS) in terms of the ideas and philosophy and it is good that The New Individualist has won a prize since it is a very good magazine. However, I think that TAS falls short in terms of the actual growth of the organization.

I think TAS needs a new direction when it comes to spreading Objectivist ideas. Its good that it has a high quality magazine. However, I have to ask, is this and the Summer Seminars all that TAS has to show recently in terms of its success?

Unfortunately, it seems that the size of TAS, when it originally started out as the Institute for Objectivist Studies, has gone down dramatically and is lacking in terms of funding and growth.

Also, it seems like the Ayn Rand Institute has undergone a rebirth since Yaron Brook has taken the helm of Executive Director. According to the Orange County Register article Atlas Came to Irvine:

"When [Yaron Brook] took over in 2000, the institute's budget was less than $2 million. It just closed the books on the 2006-07 fiscal year at a stunning $6.7 million.

"More of that money is going into programs, and less into fundraising and administration. In 2004, 57.8 percent of the institute's spending was on programs. Last year, that shot up to 80.6 percent, according to financial information filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

It gives away Rand's books to high schools (some 700,000 to date). Runs an essay contest that annually attracts some 20,000 high school students. Supports college objectivist clubs, writes op-ed pieces, comments regularly on Fox News and CNBC. Next year it will open an office in Washington, D.C., to educate those in the capital on what America is really about."

And, as a special treat for locals, it holds public lectures in Orange County, delightfully poking its fingers in the eyes of conventional wisdom and the status quo."

If this is what it takes for TAS to be successful then by all means do it. From the outside looking in it seems TAS has internal problems that need fixing badly.

Since becoming an Objectivist last year, I have requested multiple times for my club to be listed at the club listing section of TAS's website since that time and, to this day, it is nowhere to be found. When asked why this is happening, I believe the TAS representative that took my call told me that there were employment issues or something to that affect.

The local clubs (like the one I head) are the lifeblood of a philosophical organization like TAS. Even organizing clubs at colleges and universities need to be done too since it is in the clubs and young people that will change the culture over time. Even posting videos done by TAS on YouTube would be a way to do so since it costs no money to put videos on there. Do we really want ARI to prevail in this? I know I certainly don't.

If TAS wants to remain competitive, it needs to shape up or, unfortunately, it will die a slow death due to the internal bureaucratic mumblings going on behind closed doors.

I hope changes are forthcoming.

Edited October 22, 2007 by Mike Renzulli

[Chris Grieb]

In discussions about TAS with friends I have made the comment that they have too many chiefs and no Indians. I have thought that they could better use of volunteers for some operations.

I must also add that the 50 Atlas event was the best Objectivist event I have ever attended and I repeat my praise for Ed Hudgins.

Hudgins in an excellent post listed some of his goals for the organization and I thought they were good.

Edited October 22, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Philip Coates]

> better use of volunteers

ARI and many ideological organizations with dedicated and passionate supporters do this successfully. You need to have thought of this in advance before you leased your office space and have enough desks and space to handle additional people, of course. I haven't visited TAS's offices but I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they were small and inexpensive or trading off cramped quarters for downtown-type convenience. (Of course, there is an answer to lack of space as well - having either volunteers or staff work from home certain days, for example, is a possibility that a small business or organization is aware of and has thought through. I know that Will Thomas, for example, works from Albany, N.Y.)

You can get in a vicious circle, where you lose money and support and thus lose the financial ability to rent a large enough space to have the staff you need to correct this situation which causes further losses. Or you can get in a virtuous circle if you can complete enough projects, encourage growth and networking which brings in more financial support which allows you to have the space to fit the staff in, keep your workflow up and projects on track and so forth.

Perhaps the biggest mistake made by IOS-TOC-TAS in the late nineties in undercutting enthusiasm and support is the failure to make the summer conferences grow rather than shrink. And that comes from the failure to listen to and implement a whole host of business and organizational and practical "Event Management" suggestions that I and many, many others made to them in the 90's before they started to shrink from 300 people at a summer conference to somewhere in the 100's.

And the loss of the young people, all the young grad students in philosophy I met over the years who have bailed out and vanished.

Being focused on and brought up dedicated to high-level or philosophical or intellectual issues, the principals in the mid and late nineties didn't grasp that nuts and bolts issues were vital and needed to be GOTTEN UNDER CONTROL FIRST and had an impact on membership and attendance. And that summer conferences and the face-to-face enthusiasm are the –personal experience and personal contact- motor of a movement.

Once your competence, your interest, your effort in mastering and implementing the small things is in question, you will have great difficulty getting people to pay you to do the large things. Most potential supporters live in the business world, not on charity, and they expect that others are businesslike and practical and will not misshandle administrative and organizational and timeliness details if they want to be successful.

(Don't even get me started on the level of administrative savvy involved in the failure to book air-conditioned rooms for events taking place during a weeklong east coast or midwest midsummer with humidity and temperatures rising into the nineties.)

[jordanz]

IOS-TOC-TAS has been a disappointment to some because it isn't what they want it to be. Many people in the Oist community don't like ARI for various reasons. The only alternative is TAS. When TAS doesn't do a thing X that is the reason that person Y dislikes ARI, person Y is disappointed with TAS. To that I say, go start your own organization to do X.

Of course, TAS has made many mistakes. But the mistakes pale in comparison to the slings and arrows it must defend against. A short list:

* The constant dismissals and accusations of ARI affiliated Objectivists

* Defections (for various reasons) from within the TAS community (Diana Hseh, Lindsay Perrigo, Bill Perry, et al)

* The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics book (while an attack on the Brandens it was also an indirect attack on David Kelley)

When I first got involved with IOS, it was decently funded and successful. After the DOT COM bust, they lost a lot of funding and have taken a long time recovering. The 50th Anniversary of Atlas was a great success as is TNI. With the Atlas Movie coming out, the prospects seem bright for TAS. I will continue to support them and I hope that they survive and flourish.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Although I admire much of what is coming out of The Atlas Society (TAS) in terms of the ideas and philosophy and it is good that The New Individualist has won a prize since it is a very good magazine. However, I think that TAS falls short in terms of the actual growth of the organization.

I think TAS needs a new direction when it comes to spreading Objectivist ideas. Its good that it has a high quality magazine. However, I have to ask, is this and the Summer Seminars all that TAS has to show recently in terms of its success?

. . .

If TAS wants to remain competitive, it needs to shape up or, unfortunately, it will die a slow death due to the internal bureaucratic mumblings going on behind closed doors.

I hope changes are forthcoming.

Mike,

Well, it did do this.

btw - Website maintenance and organization has never been one of TAS's strong points. I am sure they know this at TAS and have it on their list of things to improve. Right now, they are concentrating on other priorities, but I have no doubt they will get around to it.

Michael

[Bidinotto]

Thank you, Jordan and Michael.

Personally, I would like to point out an interesting phenomenon.

Observe that certain people criticize TAS for what it supposedly hasn't done or isn't doing or isn't doing well.

Then, as this past year indicates, we accomplish all sorts of impressive things:

* laying down a high-profile challenge to the leadership of the conservative movement about their basic philosophical premises, right at their own major annual conference, with huge success in terms of media and public notice (e.g., newspapers in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis, national talk shows such as "Air America," etc.)

* helping to bring Rand's Atlas Shrugged to the big screen by giving consulting assistance to the production

* building a once-tiny, in-house publication into a significant, nationally circulated Objectivist consumer magazine that, in less than two years, took home the magazine industry's top award...for an article endorsing Objectivism as the alternative to conservatism (!)

* hosting a high-visibility conference in Washington, DC, attended by leading members of the media and public-policy groups, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Atlas Shrugged

* generating attention to Rand and her novel with articles in such major media outlets as The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, The Conference Board Review, and (for nearly five hours) on nationwide TV via C-SPAN.

So what happens?

Objectivists continue to criticize us for not doing enough.

I can only hope that we continue this record of "failure" in 2008.

[Philip Coates]

Robert,

I have praised TAS for things it has done, including your magazine. Should I only offer praise and no criticism?

(A separate issue open to discussion is whether my criticisms are valid.)

[jordanz]

I think people should criticize TAS as they see fit to. It seems to me, though, that TAS becomes the container for all the hopes and dreams of disaffected Objectivists and seems to suffer more criticism than is justified.

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Robert B,

I definitely think that TAS got it right this year culmunating in the Atlas 50th Anniversary event. If the new speakers and topics at this year's Summer Seminar were also part of the same outreach strategy I heartily applaud. I saw at least David Mayer and Doug Rasmussen chairing panels and Bill Kline asking a question from the audience in the sessions at the C-SPAN website.

One thing that I think Mike R does hit on the head is the need for a coherent local clubs strategy. In the 90's TAS had enough student activists to put together a loose IOS-aligned club network. That network seems weaker now partly because ARI has a fairly robust student club network. Perhaps TAS could start by offering to supply materials to club leaders at discounted rates or some items free and publicize this in TNI. This might spur interested club leaders out there to register with TAS when starting a club.

Jim

[James Heaps-Nelson]

I think people should criticize TAS as they see fit to. It seems to me, though, that TAS becomes the container for all the hopes and dreams of disaffected Objectivists and seems to suffer more criticism than is justified.

I think what Jordan says is true. I've been through the same process with both ARI and TAS. The difficulty with Objectivism is that adherents often have to do double-duty as students of the philosophy and activists. Sometimes that's hard to fit into your life at any given point in time.

Jim

[Chris Grieb]

Robert; Your list of TAS accomplishments makes my and other complaints look like piss on a rock.

It is worth noting that at least two more panels could have been done with people in the audience.

Phil; Have you watched the parts of the 50th that were on Book TV?

Edited October 22, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Barbara Branden]

Quantity counts, but surely so does quality. I agree with Robert Bidinotto's post about the remarkable achievements of TAS during the last year, and I want to add that at its conferences I am constantly struck with the rationality and good will of the people attending. Such people are walking advertisements for TAS and for Objectivism -- as many visitors to conferences have attested. .

ARI certainly does some good work, particularly through its policy of giving Rand's books to schools and of sponsoring essay contests. But is also has its Craig Biddles advocating nuking Teheran's mosques and schools; it has Peikoff predicting the imminence of theocracy in America and demanding that we all vote for Hillary; it has Tara Smith crediting the Objectivist work on self-esteem to Leonard Peikoff; it has Robert Mayhew editing a shockingly bowlderdized collection of Rand's answers to questions following her lectures; it has archives open only to true believers, thus denying informatiom about Rand and Objectivism to anyone not in its good graces; it has a bookstore that does not list George Reiusman's Capitalism or the work of Tibor Machan, of Nathaniel Branden, of David Kelley, of Chris Sciabarra, and of other important contributors to Objectivist thought; it regularly "excommunicates" people whom its principals personally dislike; and it deifies Rand with what can only be termed a religious fervor. In these respects, ARI constitutes a major detriment to the academic and popular acceptance of Objectivism.and does inestimable damage to Rand's legacy.

Barbara

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Quantity counts, but surely so does quality. I agree with Robert Bidinotto's post about the remarkable achievements of TAS during the last year, and I want to add that at its conferences I am constantly struck with the rationality and good will of the people attending. Such people are walking advertisements for TAS and for Objectivism -- as many visitors to conferences have attested. .

ARI certainly does some good work, particularly through its policy of giving Rand's books to schools and of sponsoring essay contests. But is also has its Craig Biddles advocating nuking Teheran's mosques and schools; it has Peikoff predicting the imminence of theocracy in America and demanding that we all vote for Hillary; it has Tara Smith crediting the Objectivist work on self-esteem to Leonard Peikoff; it has Robert Mayhew editing a shockingly bowlderdized collection of Rand's answers to questions following her lectures; it has archives open only to true believers, thus denying informatiom about Rand and Objectivism to anyone not in its good graces; it has a bookstore that does not list George Reiusman's Capitalism or the work of Tibor Machan, of Nathaniel Branden, of David Kelley, of Chris Sciabarra, and of other important contributors to Objectivist thought; it regularly "excommunicates" people whom its principals personally dislike; and it deifies Rand with what can only be termed a religious fervor. In these respects, ARI constitutes a major detriment to the academic and popular acceptance of Objectivism.and does inestimable damage to Rand's legacy.

Barbara

I agree in the main with Barbara's post above. In the mid to late 1990's, Objectivism was finally waking up out of a dark chapter in its history and to a large degree TAS made that happen. For all of the things she cites ARI doing, it used to be much worse and the excommunications more frequent. In many ways TAS acts as the independent thinking conscience of the Objectivist movement. Marching in lockstep can be very effective. It can also be stultifying and conformist.

In this phase of the development of the Objectivist movement we are learning that the best thinking is often not enough. In the business world and in Objectivism, executive ability often determines who wins and who loses. It is a precious commodity. The only one more precious is the creator. In the world of ideas, like business, you have to have both creative types and the executive types. It is encouraging to me that TAS is putting their Board of Trustees front and center. Folks like Ed Snider and John Aglialoro know how to get things done. In this phase of Objectivism's development, having many top-flight business leaders speak at the Atlas 50th Celebration is a hopeful sign.

Jim

[Neil Parille]

Barbara,

I agree that the ARI is a problem for the advancement of Objectivism. Yet, I get the impression that it has become a bit more flexible in recent years concerning access to the archives and the like. At some point in the future, the policies of the ARI will be no more relevant to Objectivism than the policies of the keeper of the Heidegger archives are to the advancement of Heideggerianism (of course, I'm not comparing the two and in fact haven't read Dr. H in years).

[Jonathan]

Quantity counts, but surely so does quality. I agree with Robert Bidinotto's post about the remarkable achievements of TAS during the last year, and I want to add that at its conferences I am constantly struck with the rationality and good will of the people attending. Such people are walking advertisements for TAS and for Objectivism -- as many visitors to conferences have attested. .

ARI certainly does some good work, particularly through its policy of giving Rand's books to schools and of sponsoring essay contests. But...

A few non-Objectivist/non-libertarian friends of mine have told me that they've seen Ed Hudgins, Yaron Brook and Leonard Peikoff on TV. They think that Ed is an intelligent, informative person who behaves as if he is normal and sane. They think that Brook seems bright, but can be a little too arrogant and a little creepy. They think that Peikoff probably invented creepy and has very little sense of reality, and they could easily see him killing himself and a room full of acolytes in order to follow a comet or beam up to the mothership or something.

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Marching in lockstep can be very effective.

Jim,

For whom?

(I couldn't resist... To be fair, I used to play in a marching band in high school. Lockstep was good for a parade and a halftime show.)

Michael

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Marching in lockstep can be very effective.

Jim,

For whom?

(I couldn't resist... To be fair, I used to play in a marching band in high school. Lockstep was good for a parade and a halftime show.)

Michael

I'll use a business analogy. Intel is far more conformist than IBM or AMD, but much more effective and much more profitable. Intel picks a single strategy and executes.

Jim

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'll use a business analogy. Intel is far more conformist than IBM or AMD, but much more effective and much more profitable. Intel picks a single strategy and executes.

Jim,

Does Intel deify the founder and loyalty to him as a primary, or does it merely foster good teamwork and loyalty to the company's business goals? It would be a crying shame to call both lockstep.

Michael

[James Heaps-Nelson]

I'll use a business analogy. Intel is far more conformist than IBM or AMD, but much more effective and much more profitable. Intel picks a single strategy and executes.

Jim,

Does Intel deify the founder and loyalty to him as a primary, or does it merely foster good teamwork and loyalty to the company's business goals? It would be a crying shame to call both lockstep.

Michael

Michael,

Intel doesn't deify its founders, but everyone knows who Bob Noyce, Gordon Moore and Andy Grove are. There was a time in company history when you didn't dare cross Andy Grove.

I'll give you an idea of what I mean by conformism:

In Intel, everybody by and large uses a common set of presentation templates, they bring up every new process with the same methodology, Every new change has to go through the same whitepaper approval process. For Intel's particular business model it works because semiconductor systems are so complex that every change has to be documented and assessed statistically for chip yield implications.

And yes, in many cases it does feel like lockstep. I always get to voice my individual opinion. Most disagreements are handled by a process called disagree and commit. Suppose I disagree with something, but it's not worth the time and energy to convince people, I simply go on record as having disagreed and then I implement the strategy whether I agree with it or not. Others reciprocate. Many times locally suboptimal solutions are implemented because no one has time to statistically qualify a new process.

Jim

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jim,

Did you understand my question? It sounds like you did not.

Michael

[James Heaps-Nelson]

I'll use a business analogy. Intel is far more conformist than IBM or AMD, but much more effective and much more profitable. Intel picks a single strategy and executes.

Jim,

Does Intel deify the founder and loyalty to him as a primary, or does it merely foster good teamwork and loyalty to the company's business goals? It would be a crying shame to call both lockstep.

Michael

Michael, I'll concede the point. Intel does excel at teamwork and instilling loyalty to business goals. I am, however, trying to illustrate the point that in business and social situations, it's not always intuitively obvious which arrangement works best and which works poorly.

Jim

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jim,

Sure.

But the way I see it is when conformity to business goals are promoted, the company prospers. When conformity to dumb rules or personalities are implemented as a primary value, the company does not prosper.

Using your own term "locally suboptimal solutions," this does not sound like conformity to business goals, but instead conformity to a bureaucratic procedure, and it sounds like the business goals are attained despite the measure, not because of it.

In short, I see a HUGE difference between lockstep and teamwork. I see both present in most organizations, although there is a tilt in one direction or another.

Unless ARI rids itself of its focus on lockstep and starts valuing teamwork more, I foresee it losing a lot of ground or stagnating as Objectivism spreads, especially after the old generation passes away and even more so when Rand's works enter the public domain.

Michael

[Mike Renzulli]

Impressive indeed! Thanks for clarifying, Mssr Bidinotto. Perhaps its safe to say that TAS tends to work on things 'behind the scenes' unlike ARI which is working out outward in terms of evangelism in places like the college campuses.

However, if what one poster said is true about TAS having too many chiefs and not enough indians, then it might be a good idea to look at trying to emulate ARI in this regard.

With all of the people ARI has kicked out, at least TAS could be the place for them to call home if not could be an open counter-balance to ARI on the campuses.

For myself, I am going to look into organizing an Objectivist chapter at Arizona State University as I know someone who works on staff there. While he cannot participate in the club leadership as per his employment contract, he can point me in the direction of the right people to enable a professor to sponsor a club let alone get me the right paperwork to register one with the school.

ARI lists a club at ASU. However, it does not look like they are active.

Thank you, Jordan and Michael.

Personally, I would like to point out an interesting phenomenon.

Observe that certain people criticize TAS for what it supposedly hasn't done or isn't doing or isn't doing well.

Then, as this past year indicates, we accomplish all sorts of impressive things:

* laying down a high-profile challenge to the leadership of the conservative movement about their basic philosophical premises, right at their own major annual conference, with huge success in terms of media and public notice (e.g., newspapers in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis, national talk shows such as "Air America," etc.)

* helping to bring Rand's Atlas Shrugged to the big screen by giving consulting assistance to the production

* building a once-tiny, in-house publication into a significant, nationally circulated Objectivist consumer magazine that, in less than two years, took home the magazine industry's top award...for an article endorsing Objectivism as the alternative to conservatism (!)

* hosting a high-visibility conference in Washington, DC, attended by leading members of the media and public-policy groups, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Atlas Shrugged

* generating attention to Rand and her novel with articles in such major media outlets as The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, The Conference Board Review, and (for nearly five hours) on nationwide TV via C-SPAN.

So what happens?

Objectivists continue to criticize us for not doing enough.

I can only hope that we continue this record of "failure" in 2008.

[Mike Renzulli]

Yes indeed, Ma'am. You are quite correct. Please allow me to compliment you on the work you have done also and I hope it will continue. If ARI is still up to its old tricks of kicking people out who are not in lock-step with them, then in the long run they most surely will fail.

I do apologize to you all if came across as a bit harsh or uninformed in my post.

So I suppose if I were "the king" of TAS, I would encourage the work mssrs Bidinotto, Machan, Branden, et all (Barbara too) to continue while spreading Objectivist ideas on campus via the methods ARI is using while drastically reducing the overhead (if any) to make the organization more effective than it is now.

I am sure Ed Hudgins and the crew in DC are doing the best they can. But I suppose (like many others) I would like to see them do more. At least in a more visible manner than they are now.

Quantity counts, but surely so does quality. I agree with Robert Bidinotto's post about the remarkable achievements of TAS during the last year, and I want to add that at its conferences I am constantly struck with the rationality and good will of the people attending. Such people are walking advertisements for TAS and for Objectivism -- as many visitors to conferences have attested.

ARI certainly does some good work, particularly through its policy of giving Rand's books to schools and of sponsoring essay contests. But is also has its Craig Biddles advocating nuking Teheran's mosques and schools; it has Peikoff predicting the imminence of theocracy in America and demanding that we all vote for Hillary; it has Tara Smith crediting the Objectivist work on self-esteem to Leonard Peikoff; it has Robert Mayhew editing a shockingly bowlderdized collection of Rand's answers to questions following her lectures; it has archives open only to true believers, thus denying informatiom about Rand and Objectivism to anyone not in its good graces; it has a bookstore that does not list George Reiusman's Capitalism or the work of Tibor Machan, of Nathaniel Branden, of David Kelley, of Chris Sciabarra, and of other important contributors to Objectivist thought; it regularly "excommunicates" people whom its principals personally dislike; and it deifies Rand with what can only be termed a religious fervor. In these respects, ARI constitutes a major detriment to the academic and popular acceptance of Objectivism and does inestimable damage to Rand's legacy.

Barbara

Edited October 25, 2007 by Mike Renzulli

[Bidinotto]

Dear Mike R,

I appreciate your clarification about this, Mike.

Look, I would be the LAST to declare either that TAS has been without flaw, or that ARI has been without virtue. We have done some things very poorly, and ARI has done some things exceedingly well.

But the reverse has been the case, too.

I just ask that people exercise a bit of proportion. We're making major efforts to improve in areas where we've been weak, and I think the results of those efforts are visibly manifesting themselves. In this, we welcome constructive criticism and offers to help, which we'll accept in a spirit of good will.