IAmMetaphysical

I wasn't kidding, but I accept this explanation. However, I'm still waiting to read why this is about philosophy, and how we got from philosophical disagreement to fire and brimstone moral condemnation.




No, that's an assertion which I will not accept on faith. A reason requires an explanation. The people who supposedly have that explanation were rightly afforded the benefit of the doubt when this began. But that benefit is a perishable good.




I thought that figure of speech was clear, but I see I'll have to elaborate. Only Rand gets to say, "It's part of my philosophy because I say so." She created it, she can do that. Peikoff needs to explain how new additions ideas are consistent with her philosophy. It is entirely possible that Peikoff argued McCaskey to the grave and he didn't see fit to make his argument public. But please concede that it is also possible that he didn't feel like presenting a convincing argument because leveraging copyrights is easier. If that is the case, he didn't flex his mind.




Come, now. You know there was cooperation at every level in making this public; from McCaskey, to Peikoff to ARI. If Peikoff cared about privacy, I probably wouldn't even know who McCaskey is right now.

Iran invading us is not ridiculous? The suggestion that our American government would just sit on its ass up until the point when Iranian soldiers (bahahah)are knocking on our neighbors front doors is not ridiculous? The airliner being flown into a building in a major American city was not ridiculous. That is why we had scenarios for it. We have precidence for terrorist attacks on American soil. We have precedence for a thing called blow-back.



You're right, fuck context completely. Fuck all of it. Lets just round up every brown assed American in the country, bring him into a dim lighted room, and make him tell us if he is a Muslim and make him tell us if he has had even the slightest inkling to interpret his book in a slightly radical way. The ones that say they did, lets just chop their heads off.

You are in the wrong country friend. In THIS country we need EVIDENCE before we can do shit to people. Rand must be seizurically convulsing in her grave. jesus.

Of course you will be disappointed if you are looking for more out of the experience than is to be expected.
A person who you are having sex with is still a person, who you will connect with (or not) in one way or another. Almost no (sane) person wants to have sex with total strangers. It would be almost like having sex with nothing. You have to either know something about the person, or project in some way (the latter not being recommended since it is likely a fib), since sex is between two people with minds each. This also shows that no sex is meaningless, for good or bad, and it also implies that one has to judge the other person in some way. But it does not indicate what judgements are going to lead to (morally) good sex (and good sex itself).

The falsehood here is the dichotomy: the most meaningful sex imaginable between two lifelong lovers (who have presumably spent a very long time together already in order to achieve this kind of sexual fulfillment), or the worst, most deplorable sexual encounter, such as vengeance-sex with someone you already hold in contempt as a way to destroy a third party (or one's self). There is many-a-kind of sex, and the "only proper sex" is not just the former scenario.

To Krattle: Quoting Rand is not an argument. How do you explain the countless positive sexual encounters people have with those who are not, or do not turn out to be, "highest value" lifelong mates?

This would be the base of all disagreements between Objectivists about sex. You're just making an assertion here. Since you haven't yet had any sex yourself, I'm not sure how you're drawing this sweeping conclusion.
I have noticed that the loudest mouths on the "sex only with One-And-Only/Lifelong-Spouse/Single-Lover" side of the sex debates are those who have not even tried the other side! Those who live the other side tend to argue that sex is a response to values, not just a person's highest values.

What you advocate, if applied consistently, would mean the abolition of all religions.

Fallacy of reification:



Just because some of the people holding an evil idea are acting on it, it does not mean you may wage war against all of the people holding that idea, including the ones who are not acting on it. You said it yourself, the crime is acting on the idea, not holding or speaking it.

Trying to circumvent the requirement of establishing whether someone is or isn't guilty of acting on those beliefs, by relying on the fallacy of reification and pretending the idea itself is literally waging war against us is illogical.

According to Peikoff's ultimatum, McCaskey has fundamental disagreements with "the philosophic principles at issue." He states that disagreement with the ideas presented in the book is disagreement with Objectivism. Then he equivocates disagreement with "denouncement." The only evidence of McCaskey's criticism we have is McCaskey's review, which does not disagree with the philosophic ideas of the book at all, but questions the historical claims.

My conclusions:

On the issue of the factual errors in the book: McCaskey is very likely correct here, given his credentials and reputation. Anyway, this issue is a red herring, since disagreement on the factual claims of the book is not mentioned in Peikoff's letter - it is the philosophical ideas that Peikoff claims were attacked.

On the nature of McCaskey's "denouncing" Peikoff/Harriman:

Of course, it's possible that McCaskey denounced Peikoff and Harriman in private. This would be grounds for Peikoff to make a personal judgment about McCaskey. But to demand that a public organization to take his claims on faith, while refusing (as he does in the letter) to discuss them is irrational and unjust.

Furthermore, disagreement with some of a person's ideas is course not the same as denouncing that person.

Finally, this kind of behavior seems to be a pattern with Peikoff. I have had conversations with some of the people Peikoff denounced, and whatever their flaws, his characterization of their views and character are obviously false.

To conclude, Peikoff is acting irrationally on this matter, and ARI should kick him out and ask McCaskey to return. While it's premature to conclude that ARI is a "corrupt" organization, I would not expect much intellectual progress to come from ARI affiliated intellectuals as long as people like Peikoff dominate their policy. Their intolerance for disagreement is incompatible with intellectual innovation.