Why criticize ARI for rewrites?

[algernonsidney]

I think infighting is often a sign of movement health. And while it might look bad to some, I'd personally be a little creeped out if everyone got along.

It depends on the kind of infighting. It also depends on what you mean by "getting along."

[Robert Campbell]

The interest that historians and other scholars may have Rand's ideas differs from the interest of Objectivists and neo-Objectivists. No scholar worth his salt would accept heavily redacted transcripts of Rand's own words. And when such misleading transcripts are presented as "authorized" versions, the entire enterprise of scholarly investigation is undercut at its root.

Obviously, I agree with George about the lack of scholarly value in Harrimanized, Boeckmannized, Schwartzized, and Mayhewized Rand.

I only wish I'd realized how heavily Tore Boeckmann had edited Rand's lectures on fiction writing and Bob Mayhew had edited her lectures on nonfiction writing before I quoted them in print some years back. I would never quote their renditions in an article now.

By the way, some ARIan apologists have actually claimed that no scholar should use the rewrites put out by the Estate of Ayn Rand (for some examples, see the comment thread on Mayhew's complaint over at NoodelFood). No cause for alarm, they hasten to add, because any real scholar will be able to check the tapes and the transcripts in the Ayn Rand Archives.

Perhaps the value of the Estate-sponsored rewrites for these folks is precisely how they prevent any but the highly committed or the ideologically reliable from making scholarly use of this material.

In any case, I should think that the committed Objectivist or neo-Objectivist would also want to see Rand's previously unpublished material in unbowdlerized form. At least, that is, if the committed Objectivist values objectivity.

Robert Campbell

[algernonsidney]

Phil is engaged in trying to save the world in the name of Objectivism. He's a movement junkie. This means, to him, we are supposed to sweep the cult crap under the carpet, even--and especially--when it exists, because it looks bad to the fresh meat out there.

It does look bad to the "fresh meat out there." But a lot of that "meat" finds out about it anyway.

Years ago, when I worked for a Holiday Inn Express, I remember something that one Holiday Inn, Inc., guys told us. He told us that it costs "$50 to keep an old customer." He also told us that it costs $500 to get a new one.

There are probably more "former customers" of Objectivism than current ones. This stuff is the reason why. There is no point in attracting customers if you don't care about pissing them off once you have them. And the pissed-off customer is one you will almost never get back.

So many clubs and organizations have "marketing" and "recruiting" officers. I have never encountered one that has an officer whose job is focused on retention.

If somebody leaves your club, give them a call sometime. Tell them that they don't have to come back. But then ask them question likes this:

What was the source of your dissatisfaction?

What can we do better?

How can we make it right?

[Philip Coates]

> The interest that historians and other scholars may have Rand's ideas differs from the interest of Objectivists and neo-Objectivists. No scholar worth his salt would accept heavily redacted transcripts of Rand's own words.

I think Robert printing side by side comparisons between Rand's words and the editing of Mayhew or other authors is valuable...I noted long ago that it was irresponsible and stupid to heavily edit Rand's non-fiction writing and fiction writing tapes.

I'm one of the few people who has heard the original tapes -- much, much longer than the books.

But one should not make that -the- ONLY ISSUE wrt to these collections. Or with regard to whatever else the ARI editors and writers have to say.

Unless they were so grossly distorting Rand's views and their works had zero value. For example to the non-scholar.

Nor should one make this so much of a preoccupation that the actual ideas are neglected. Which is what I see happening all too often recently with Robert, with MSK, with Lindsay Perigo, with Diana Hsieh.

So single-mindedly trying to destroy each other, claim there are no values on the other side that it reaches a level of Hatfield-McCoy absurdity and gives ammunition to Objectivism's enemies.

They would LOVE nothing better than to have something else to talk about than the validity of the philosophy of Objectivism and how desperately it is needed today:

Please, please, please give us more scandals. Let's spend another twenty years talking about Rand's sexual affairs and then we can shift seemlessly into focusing primarily on how her intellectual heirs have scholarly lapses, have too shrill a speaking voice, have gone overboard in their own vendettas.

This is just the latest issue in the ongoing tong wars - it follows the issues relating to Rand's life and biographies.

And, trust me, will be succeeded by something else, endlessly.

Edited May 7, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil,

I started to write something else about how your selective haunting of only schism parts of forums is not spiritually healthy, but fuggageddaboutit.

You're on a losing mission. At least with me. I will never pretend the bullying and cult-like intimidation of some of the people you mentioned is rational passion, defending Rand, yada yada yada.

I don't like bullies way before I even think about Objectivism. It's pre-rational.

Michael

[algernonsidney]

The more I think about this, the more I think it is not much different than the Vatican's attitude toward priests molesting kids. There is one group of people who simply want to pretend that it doesn't exist because it makes the church look bad. The other group of Catholics actually thinks that the Vatican should address the problem and do something about it.

[James Heaps-Nelson]

> The interest that historians and other scholars may have Rand's ideas differs from the interest of Objectivists and neo-Objectivists. No scholar worth his salt would accept heavily redacted transcripts of Rand's own words.

I think Robert printing side by side comparisons between Rand's words and the editing of Mayhew or other authors is valuable...I noted long ago that it was irresponsible and stupid to heavily edit Rand's non-fiction writing and fiction writing tapes.

I'm one of the few people who has heard the original tapes -- much, much longer than the books.

But one should not make that -the- ONLY ISSUE wrt to these collections. Or with regard to whatever else the ARI editors and writers have to say.

Unless they were so grossly distorting Rand's views and their works had zero value. For example to the non-scholar.

Nor should one make this so much of a preoccupation that the actual ideas are neglected. Which is what I see happening all too often recently with Robert, with MSK, with Lindsay Perigo, with Diana Hsieh.

So single-mindedly trying to destroy each other, claim there are no values on the other side that it reaches a level of Hatfield-McCoy absurdity and gives ammunition to Objectivism's enemies.

They would LOVE nothing better than to have something else to talk about than the validity of the philosophy of Objectivism and how desperately it is needed today:

Please, please, please give us more scandals. Let's spend another twenty years talking about Rand's sexual affairs and then we can shift seemlessly into focusing primarily on how her intellectual heirs have scholarly lapses, have too shrill a speaking voice, have gone overboard in their own vendettas.

This is just the latest issue in the ongoing tong wars - it follows the issues relating to Rand's life and biographies.

And, trust me, will be succeeded by something else, endlessly.

Phil,

If only ARI's blindness only extended to editorial license and prickly personalities it would be a godsend. However, the editorial license foible bespeaks a bigger problem. Can you really say with a straight face that Ominous Parallels or OPAR reaches the level of rigor of today's intellectual books for the layman like Hawkins' On Intelligence or Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan or Fooled by Randomness? In reading David Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom many years ago, I was struck by an idea that I thought was profound: it is an author's responsibility to bring up the strongest arguments against his thesis up front and without prodding. It shows an intellectual attitude of openness and engagement with ideas that is attractive to a serious student and it is good pedagogy when it comes to teaching people to remain objective.

There are places where it is vitally important to soldier through to get to the meat of why certain Peikoff and ARI formulations are important with regard to hierarchy of knowledge, conceptual economy and the importance of connectedness and integration in a philosophical framework. These subjects are crucially important and within a philosophical framework ARI gets those things right.

However, ARI scholars are too ignorant outside their areas of expertise and in some cases are unwilling to grant that they are unqualified to comment on those areas. These areas happen to very fruitful intellectually. Every time I'm tempted to go through Peikoff courses systematically, I find an important, well-written book by someone about an important area of knowledge about which I am almost completely ignorant.

There is an attitude which Objectivists should try to cultivate: it is vitally important to be aware of what you don't know and be intellectually ambitious enough to try to rectify that lack of knowledge. Part of the Objectivist tendency to refuse to do this is a lack of mathematical and scientific education and part of it is a desire to claim certainty beyond intellectual competence.

Jim

[Philip Coates]

> The more I think about this, the more I think it is not much different than the Vatican's attitude toward priests molesting kids. There is one group of people who simply want to pretend that it doesn't exist because it makes the church look bad. The other group of Catholics actually thinks that the Vatican should address the problem and do something about it. [Chris]

And then there are the people who think the basic problem is *the ideas* and that if you spend your time challenging the idea of religion itself - as opposed to the abuses of individual practitioners - you will be fighting the most important fight.

Edited May 9, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

> However, ARI scholars are too ignorant outside their areas of expertise and in some cases are unwilling to grant that they are unqualified to comment on those areas. [Jim]

I agree, but that shifts the topic slightly. That would be something fundamental worth criticizing them for.

But don't limit it to ARI thinkers. Too many ARI and TAS thinkers (and garden-variety Oists) 'shoot from the philosophical hip'. They try to deduce everything from philosophy rather than having a detailed enough knowledge of a field. In fact, I've posted on this many times.

Moral: (1) Criticize freely, but (2) choose something major and not a 'nit' or an internal squabble. And (3) make sure you understand - and can offer - the details.

Example: When I criticized the ARI op eds advocating 'nuking Tehran', that's something major and I tried to offer not just the ethics, but a bit of context on war-fighting and the disastrous effects of such a policy.

Edited May 9, 2010 by Philip Coates

[algernonsidney]

> The more I think about this, the more I think it is not much different than the Vatican's attitude toward priests molesting kids. There is one group of people who simply want to pretend that it doesn't exist because it makes the church look bad. The other group of Catholics actually thinks that the Vatican should address the problem and do something about it. [Chris]

And then there are the people who think the basic problem is *the ideas* and that if you spend your time challenging the idea of religion itself - as opposed to the abuses of individual practitioners - you will be fighting the most important fight.

Are you implying that the ideas are the problem with Objectivism, Phil? Do you mean that the ideas of Objectivism naturally cause all the disgusting behavior that one sees from the alleged leaders of the movement?

Edited May 9, 2010 by Chris Baker

[Barbara Branden]

Phil: "It takes at least ten years of thorough study - including taking most of the basic courses - then, even harder, you have to integrate it with your life, integrate it with other subjects of study (history, psychology, life skills, communication skills, etc.) "

If that is so, Rand's first and fatal mistake was in writing fiction. Clearly, she expected her readers to understand her -- without taking ten years from their lives. and attending courses that did not yet exist. She would have been the first person to vehemently dispute your concept of the complexity and difficulties of Objectivism.

Barbara

[BaalChatzaf]

F.W.I.W I have a theory (or a hunch) on what is wrong with "extreme Objectivism". I think it is the Convert Syndrome. It goes like this. The convert to a new religion or doctrine has shed his Old Way of Thinking. He has Seen The Light. In this burst of enthusiasm he condemns and curses everything about the Old Way. This happens in religions like Christianity and Islam. It happens with political movements. A new convert to Communism is more Marxist than Marx; more Leninist than Lenin. It happens to some extent with philosophical conversion. A new born empiricist curses his former idealism etc. I think it is a fundamental problem with people, regardless of the philosophy or religion in question. Enthusiasm can be a curse.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited May 10, 2010 by BaalChatzaf

[Philip Coates]

> writing fiction...Clearly, she expected her readers to understand her -- without taking ten years from their lives. and attending courses that did not yet exist. She would have been the first person to vehemently dispute your concept of the complexity and difficulties of Objectivism.

Barbara, understanding or at least appreciating fiction is one thing, but the second step - digesting the philosophy - is quite another. Millions do the first, a small fraction do the second. The third step, integrating and applying the philosophy is the really difficult and complex part.

These later steps require a certain ability to think abstractly, to address and see the connection across an enormous range and complexity of concrete issues. Also, they are contrary to the ideas and attitudes one has internalized and which have permeated the culture across one's whole previous life. And, perhaps most importantly, another hurdle: change is hard and requires many kinds of effort on many fronts.

Yes, Rand would have disagreed with me:

It was the mistake of Rand and your initial circle around her of thinking this was all easy that led to the idea that if a hundred thousand? [i forget the number] read Atlas, the culture was doomed. And then, when that didn't happen, the bitter disillusionment, the idea that people who read it and then didn't become Objectivists was because of evasion, moral failings.

After all, if it's easy + obvious to completely become an Objectivist, people would have by now become Objectivists in much greater numbers - if they were honest and earnest and conscientious.

Edited May 10, 2010 by Philip Coates

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Phil,

I think a big part of the problem is looking at the brain's pattern recognition engine as flawed. Yes, the brain also has a natural capacity for logic, but there are lots of honest, productive people who simply let their pattern recognition engine run wild.

Our brain operates with almost 2 distinct information processing modes: pattern recognition and logical operation. Gerald Edelman, in his book Second Nature calls these brain-based epistemology and traditional epistemology. Philosophy deals mostly with the latter. Psychology and neuroscience deal mostly with the former. Getting these two operational modes of the brain to work harmoniously and accurately in tandem is not an easy task. Rand saw problems in doing this as either a failure of logic or a psychological vice such as envy or dishonesty. The possibilities for error are much richer and complex than that.

Jim

Edited May 10, 2010 by James Heaps-Nelson

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil,

There is a huge difference between "becoming an Objectivist" and understanding Objectivist principles.

I personally don't ever want to "become an Objectivist" like people "become a Baptist" or "become a Muslim."

If "becoming an Objectivist" means living an "Objectivist" life piously, somewhat in the manner a Franciscan monk does, I agree that might take some time and study to force-fit your soul into a mold not really suited to free and independent human beings.

Other than that, I find it really quirky that you think Rand was wrong about understanding and applying her own philosophy. It's a shame she never consulted you so she could get it right...

btw - I think most people don't "become Objectivists" for several reasons. The main ones I see are (1) in order to be good, they want taking care of helpless people on the table as a moral fundamental to some extent--in other words they want duty along with rights for being good, not just rights, and (2) they look at the way the more cult-like Objectivists behave and many of them run or hit the reject button real hard and real quick.

As to Rand's influence, Rand's ideas are spreading constantly and steadily. She did a good job. Her sales figures prove it.

Notice that she did a good job at injecting ideas into the culture. She did not do a good job at making a secularized religion. Thank goodness she didn't, too.

The ideas? Hell, those ideas are easy to understand for her readers. You might think that this is incredible, but it is entirely possible for a good decent intelligent productive human being to understand Objectivism really well and disagree with some of it. He doesn't need your 10 years, either. In fact, that happens often, especially where religion is concerned--even despite some high-profile misrepresentations by dishonest or misguided folks in the media.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Our brain operates with almost 2 distinct information processing modes: pattern recognition and logical operation.

Jim,

I find even that dichotomy too limited in scope for the human brain. Take a look at this article that just came out on studies of the moral compass of six month old babies:

Babies know the difference between good and evil at six months, study reveals

By David Derbyshire

10th May 2010

Daily Mail

From the article:

At the age of six months babies can barely sit up - let along take their first tottering steps, crawl or talk.

But, according to psychologists, they have already developed a sense of moral code - and can tell the difference between good and evil.

The significance experiments that are reported can be disputed, but it is clear that this goes deeper than just logic or pattern recognition.

The infants make a normative choice for one kind of behavior over another, and they choose the good guy.

So it seems that moral capacity is like talent. It is hard-wired and will develop on its own up to a certain extent, but can be honed like any skill. That may not be 100% proven yet, but I find it the most reasonable explanation to date.

Michael

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Our brain operates with almost 2 distinct information processing modes: pattern recognition and logical operation.

Jim,

I find even that dichotomy too limited in scope for the human brain. Take a look at this article that just came out on studies of the moral compass of six month old babies:

Babies know the difference between good and evil at six months, study reveals

By David Derbyshire

10th May 2010

Daily Mail

From the article:

At the age of six months babies can barely sit up - let along take their first tottering steps, crawl or talk.

But, according to psychologists, they have already developed a sense of moral code - and can tell the difference between good and evil.

The significance experiments that are reported can be disputed, but it is clear that this goes deeper than just logic or pattern recognition.

The infants make a normative choice for one kind of behavior over another, and they choose the good guy.

So it seems that moral capacity is like talent. It is hard-wired and will develop on its own up to a certain extent, but can be honed like any skill. That may not be 100% proven yet, but I find it the most reasonable explanation to date.

Michael

Michael,

Sure, it is true that moral reasoning seems to be more "modular" brainwise than epistemology and information processing. ADHD resulting from prefrontal cortex deficit often makes moral reasoning harder for children and often represents a difficult developmental challenge.

Jim

Edited May 10, 2010 by James Heaps-Nelson

[Brant Gaede]

> writing fiction...Clearly, she expected her readers to understand her -- without taking ten years from their lives. and attending courses that did not yet exist. She would have been the first person to vehemently dispute your concept of the complexity and difficulties of Objectivism.

Barbara, understanding or at least appreciating fiction is one thing, but the second step - digesting the philosophy - is quite another. Millions do the first, a small fraction do the second. The third step, integrating and applying the philosophy is the really difficult and complex part.

These later steps require a certain ability to think abstractly, to address and see the connection across an enormous range and complexity of concrete issues. Also, they are contrary to the ideas and attitudes one has internalized and which have permeated the culture across one's whole previous life. And, perhaps most importantly, another hurdle: change is hard and requires many kinds of effort on many fronts.

Yes, Rand would have disagreed with me:

It was the mistake of Rand and your initial circle around her of thinking this was all easy that led to the idea that if a hundred thousand? [i forget the number] read Atlas, the culture was doomed. And then, when that didn't happen, the bitter disillusionment, the idea that people who read it and then didn't become Objectivists was because of evasion, moral failings.

After all, if it's easy + obvious to completely become an Objectivist, people would have by now become Objectivists in much greater numbers - if they were honest and earnest and conscientious.

It was 50,000 copies of Atlas sold would doom the present culture (1950s) and it was from Nathaniel Branden who was counselling Leonard Peikoff on his too optimistic outlook.

Why would the "circle around" Rand think "this was all easy" when they saw her sweating bullets for two years writing Galt's speech?

Whose "bitter disillusionment" about what? If you are talking about Rand's depression there is all sorts of conjecture about that. Regardless, she was up and running again by 1962. But Barbara does think she never regained a lot of her pre-publication energy, outlook and verve.

The more you "become an Objectivist" in the way you seem to mean, the less you will be you. Even Rand herself could never have been an Objectivist before she wrote Galt's speech, at the least. So, what they heck was she before then?

I understand Peikoff's attitude on this which seems to be yours. That's where the money is after all--for him, not you. He also got to be the Pope! Your naivete about Objectivism being a power trip for some people--not real education--is astounding. You are useful to them, though, even if you are frightening away many people who would rather keep their time, money and lives for other things than learning and being dominated by a catechism dressed out as right philosophy.

--Brant

[Alfonso Jones]

> writing fiction...Clearly, she expected her readers to understand her -- without taking ten years from their lives. and attending courses that did not yet exist. She would have been the first person to vehemently dispute your concept of the complexity and difficulties of Objectivism.

Barbara, understanding or at least appreciating fiction is one thing, but the second step - digesting the philosophy - is quite another. Millions do the first, a small fraction do the second. The third step, integrating and applying the philosophy is the really difficult and complex part.

These later steps require a certain ability to think abstractly, to address and see the connection across an enormous range and complexity of concrete issues. Also, they are contrary to the ideas and attitudes one has internalized and which have permeated the culture across one's whole previous life. And, perhaps most importantly, another hurdle: change is hard and requires many kinds of effort on many fronts.

Yes, Rand would have disagreed with me:

It was the mistake of Rand and your initial circle around her of thinking this was all easy that led to the idea that if a hundred thousand? [i forget the number] read Atlas, the culture was doomed. And then, when that didn't happen, the bitter disillusionment, the idea that people who read it and then didn't become Objectivists was because of evasion, moral failings.

After all, if it's easy + obvious to completely become an Objectivist, people would have by now become Objectivists in much greater numbers - if they were honest and earnest and conscientious.

Philip -

It (Objectivism) is not that hard to understand. I think you are thinking of being catechized. That is a totally different proposition, and one which runs counter to the most basic principles of Objectivism.

Bill P

[Robert Campbell]

Jim,

Take a look at this article that just came out on studies of the moral compass of six month old babies:

Babies know the difference between good and evil at six months, study reveals

By David Derbyshire

10th May 2010

Daily Mail

From the article:

At the age of six months babies can barely sit up - let along take their first tottering steps, crawl or talk.

But, according to psychologists, they have already developed a sense of moral code - and can tell the difference between good and evil.

Michael,

I'll need to look up the original publications here. But the studies are part of a long line of experiments conducted by psychologists with a strong attachment to Chomskyan nativism or "massive modularity."

And like all such experiments with babies, the results are subject to multiple interpretations, many of them less exciting than those promoted by the researchers who conducted them.

The article is actually a very good piece of mass media reporting of psychological research; for instance, it quotes another infant development researcher pointing out some obvious counterinterpretations.

I'm not questioning that the roots of morality go way back in human development, just inviting some skepticism about Paul Bloom's take on the matter.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Can you really say with a straight face that Ominous Parallels or OPAR reaches the level of rigor of today's intellectual books for the layman like Hawkins' On Intelligence or Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan or Fooled by Randomness? In reading David Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom many years ago, I was struck by an idea that I thought was profound: it is an author's responsibility to bring up the strongest arguments against his thesis up front and without prodding. It shows an intellectual attitude of openness and engagement with ideas that is attractive to a serious student and it is good pedagogy when it comes to teaching people to remain objective.

Jim,

Clearly Leonard Peikoff's books don't begin to measure up to Hawkins' or Taleb's.

There are many errors and absurdities in The Ominous Parallels. In my piece on "the arbitrary," I quote what Peikoff said in Ominous Parallels about Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem and asked whether, by his own stated criteria, it counts as an arbitrary assertion.

As for Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, any reader who exercises moderate diligence should be able to find an obvious contradiction between Chapter 1 and Chapter 5, and further contradictions in the body Chapter 5 (the most extreme being a case in which Peikoff contradicts himself within a single paragraph).

Robert Campbell

[Brant Gaede]

Can you really say with a straight face that Ominous Parallels or OPAR reaches the level of rigor of today's intellectual books for the layman like Hawkins' On Intelligence or Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan or Fooled by Randomness? In reading David Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom many years ago, I was struck by an idea that I thought was profound: it is an author's responsibility to bring up the strongest arguments against his thesis up front and without prodding. It shows an intellectual attitude of openness and engagement with ideas that is attractive to a serious student and it is good pedagogy when it comes to teaching people to remain objective.

Jim,

Clearly Leonard Peikoff's books don't begin to measure up to Hawkins' or Taleb's.

There are many errors and absurdities in The Ominous Parallels. In my piece on "the arbitrary," I quote what Peikoff said in Ominous Parallels about Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem and asked whether, by his own stated criteria, it counts as an arbitrary assertion.

As for Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, any reader who exercises moderate diligence should be able to find an obvious contradiction between Chapter 1 and Chapter 5, and further contradictions in the body Chapter 5 (the most extreme being a case in which Peikoff contradicts himself within a single paragraph).

Robert Campbell

Nathaniel Branden once commented on The Ominous Parallels to the effect that it didn't account for what might have been if Hitler had been run over by a horse cart (or truck) when he was a kid. (Consider what might have happened if Winston Churchill had been killed by that NYC taxi in the early 1930s or if Coolidge's son hadn't died of blood poisoning and he had been President instead of Hoover when the stock market crashed. Hoover did more damage consequent with his policies to the whole world than any other President has ever done.)

The style of writing was pretty bad. NB commented on it years before the book itself was published (excerpts were published in The Objectivist and, I think, The Ayn Rand Letter). He was "disappointed." It had a lot in common in that sense with the lead essay in For the New Intellectual without Rand's polemical power and verve. I got the impression that early Objectivists were too much influenced by the editorial style of The New York Times, which I could hardly stand--this speaking from on high. The editorial style, not the content, of The Washington Post is much more to my personal liking--assuming it hasn't changed in the last 20 years.

--Brant

[Robert Campbell]

I think Robert printing side by side comparisons between Rand's words and the editing of Mayhew or other authors is valuable...I noted long ago that it was irresponsible and stupid to heavily edit Rand's non-fiction writing and fiction writing tapes.

I'm one of the few people who has heard the original tapes -- much, much longer than the books.

But one should not make that -the- ONLY ISSUE wrt to these collections. Or with regard to whatever else the ARI editors and writers have to say.

Unless they were so grossly distorting Rand's views and their works had zero value. For example to the non-scholar.

Nor should one make this so much of a preoccupation that the actual ideas are neglected. Which is what I see happening all too often recently with Robert, with MSK, with Lindsay Perigo, with Diana Hsieh.

So single-mindedly trying to destroy each other, claim there are no values on the other side that it reaches a level of Hatfield-McCoy absurdity and gives ammunition to Objectivism's enemies.

They would LOVE nothing better than to have something else to talk about than the validity of the philosophy of Objectivism and how desperately it is needed today:

Please, please, please give us more scandals. Let's spend another twenty years talking about Rand's sexual affairs and then we can shift seemlessly into focusing primarily on how her intellectual heirs have scholarly lapses, have too shrill a speaking voice, have gone overboard in their own vendettas.

Phil,

Mayhewizing doesn't make Ayn Rand Answers worth zero for the nonscholar. A reader can, as George said, get a rough idea from it of Ayn Rand's views on many of the subjects it covers.

But the Mayhewized volume is not worth nearly as much for the nonscholar as it could have been.

In the same amount of time, very probably at reduced expense, a collection of Rand's answers could have been produced that was more comprehensive, avoided cutting out details that happened to displease Leonard Peikoff, was better documented (and, when necessary, annotated), and was in Ayn Rand's own words.

How much of the cost of putting out Ayn Rand Answers took the form of payments to Bob Mayhew to rewrite it? Talk about money ill spent...

Therefore, Bob Mayhew's rewriting is fair game for critics. And which will get any aspect of Objectivism a more favorable reception from the public: Ayn Rand in her own words, or Ayn Rand as rewritten by Bob Mayhew?

Given your acceptance of the notion of an "intellectual heir," shouldn't you be effusively praising the rewriting of Ayn Rand's words? It was all done with the approval of Leonard Peikoff, who says he is Rand's intellectual heir. Come to think of it, Bob Mayhew also identifies Peikoff as her intellectual heir...

And, whatever you are doing here, you need to get past your conceit that Michael Stuart Kelly and I are the moral equivalents of Lindsay Perigo and Diana Hsieh.

The day is long past when Lindsay Perigo had any positive contributions to make, so far as Ayn Rand's ideas are concerned. These days, there is scarcely a cause you could name that would not have a greater likelihood of winning out were Lindsay Perigo not perceived as one of its champions.

Diana Hsieh is more of a mixed case. She has done some good in the past and may, despite what she vainly imagines to be her best instincts, do some in the future. But her realignment with the Ayn Rand Institute has greatly magnified her adverse impact while not noticeably increasing any of her positive contributions.

Do you have such judgments to state about MSK and me? If you do, you need to back them up with specifics, not casually slime us as you have been doing.

Robert Campbell

PS. I am neither bent on destroying Bob Mayhew, nor equipped to succeed in that mission. Dr. Mayhew is in no position to destroy me, either, but the piece he recently published over at NoodleFood does little if anything to rule out intent. Note, for instance, that I never deny the existence of genuine accomplishments by Bob Mayhew, whereas he is less punctilious in my case.

[Brant Gaede]

The problem is not schism but the ARI and its minions. Implicitly, at least, they are claiming an effective monopoly on her ideas to the public consciousness which is paralyzing intellectually to a serious mind. For Ayn Rand then, it's their way or the highway. This is the logical legacy of Rand to them. As Rand herself, with some help, was an intellectual chockstone, so are they--automatic Objectivist authority figures by dint of their association not intellectual work. Ayn Rand is either food or a hunk of lead. Personally, I eat the entire corpus: her ideas, her career, her work, her personal life--everything, and I have no interest in her as a wax figure that might be seated behind her desk in California.

--Brant

[Reidy]

I once attended an LA Objectivist Network event at which Tibor Machan was the guest of honor. He said that these pissy internal disputes and schisms are quite common among academics. The possibility occurs to me that they are positively helping Objectivism's marketability by showing that Objectivists indeed behave like regular academics.