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Well, at least she'll have a plane to remember her pre-Objectivist days. :-)

What good is inspiration? Why should one seek it out? I believe that inspiration is an excellent source of motivation. I would contend that there are two kinds of inspiration: direct and indirect. Direct motivation is where the inspiring story, person, or event is directly related to something in your life in which you lack motivation or need more: if I played basketball, Michael Jordan would be a source of inspiration on how to improve my game or keep at it. Indirect motivation would be where the relationship between the inspiring story, person, or event is not obvious: if I didn't play basketball, then Michael Jordan might inspire me to keep pursuing my goals. Being incapable of becoming an Olympic-class athlete closes off the possibility of direct motivation. I later noted that the indirect motivation was negligble to me. My point was that *I* didn't find the Olympics very inspiring and that the collectivistic underpinnings of both the coverage (and perhaps the games themselves) lessened their value further. My point about youth was strictly a response to your question "Do you think it's the case that the genetics of the competing athletes have just been getting steadily better somehow?" I'm going to guess that you didn't read my blog entry that precipitated the OP. I was commenting on Andrew Bernstein's panegyric on the Olympics. I do not deny their achievements nor do I argue that they're not fun to watch. If you love the Olympics, bully for you.

I don't disagree that physical achievements aren't inspiring. In fact, I pointed out how inspiring the X Games were in that regard. What I especially like about the X Games is that it largely removes the genetic component from the picture. The competitors have a wide continuum of athletic skills--it doesn't take much athletic ability to do a trick on a motorcycle. It does, however, take a huge amount of will and focus with incredible consequences if you lack either. As for new records at every Olympics, it's not a matter of genetics per se. What you have are relatively minute differences year to year. You never hear of an Olympic record being shattered by an order of magnitude any more--we're generally talking of milliseconds. Further, each year sees an influx of Olympic athletes who might have been too young previously to compete. The Olympics is by and large relegated to the young. And I don't think anyone's disputing that the Olympics are fun to watch. So is the World's Strongest Man competition, but they're both unreachable for me. I'm fine with that since I know A is A.

I knew that I would be misinterpreted that way. When did I, or anyone, say that athletes don't use their minds? I said that "They are essentially physical showcases" and I stand by that. There is certainly a mental component to any physical achievement--man is not a robot. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I suppose you would also agree that "there are no achievements of the mind." Does that even make any sense at all? Can you specify the physical component of Ayn Rand's discovery of her theory of concept formation? There is one, but it is mostly irrelevant.

I'll second that. I just couldn't figure out a way to suggest that either the Olympics or the X-Games were the exemplars of mental prowess. They are essentially physical showcases.

Whether you like Wal-Mart or not, you are affected by it nonetheless. The wholesale cost of consumer goods has decreased markedly thanks to Wal-Mart's demanding "exploitation" of its suppliers, who, of course, are free to not work with the giant retailer. Those who crow about Wal-Mart and pine for the mom-and-pop establishment would do well to remember the premiums garnered by limited choice of venue and limited selection. There's a reason why they do $250 billion in business annually and have consistent revenue growth: look beyond the numbers and you see millions of people voting their support with cash and debit card. Oh, and the 1.3 million employees suggest that maybe people want to work for them. In the end, I think a lot of the animosity towards Wal-Mart is pure envy. I love Wal-Mart and shop there as often as I can in addition to subscribing to their great DVD rental business.

As a new parent (two six-month old girls, one adopted, one not), I must agree wholeheartedly with Stephen about the joys of parenting. And second his admonition that there is no duty to have children. It is a grueling task to be ultimately responsible for another human being for eighteen years and doing it out of a sense of duty would drive one crazy and breed resentment. If you're ready for it, it's the greatest thing you'll ever have done.

I think you're making perfect sense. An Objectivist isn't someone who's almost got a book out on the philosophy, it's someone's who's integrated the philosophy into their lives. The person who is working on a book on Objectivism would obviously be held to a higher standard than the average Joe who's read VoS and C:UI plus Atlas Shrugged. Honest errors are still possible with the former, but they would indicate a cognitive laziness that doesn't speak well for them.

Criminal? Umm, IANAL, but I don't think it'd go that far. Immoral? Hmm, it's a betrayal of trust I suppose. If it were a single incident, then I would say that they'd made an honest mistake because they were on the defensive. Oh, and I would want to know how they feel about the mistake. I don't know that I'd elevate the Reismans to evil people because they disclosed something that was advantageous to their position after a heated dispute. People say and do things in the heat of the moment that they may regret later—I know I have. After things have calmed down a bit, objectivity may cast your decisions in a much different light. If I remember correctly, the Brandens did a similar thing after Ayn Rand disassociated herself from them. If you want something kept private, keep it in your head or verbalize it. Tacking on distribution instructions to private correspondence is woefully unreliable. I always assume that something I write will be read by others. That's the safest approach.

You are exactly right. This is a case of several people who didn't like working with each other. They curiously got a friend (Peikoff) in the middle and demanded that he decide between them. For some reason, he did that and ended all professional association with the Reismans. It's a shame because both of the Reismans are excellent writers and original thinkers. That's all fine and good. There's no reason why people should have to work together. But to pretend that their scholarship doesn't exist and that they have nothing to contribute is absurd and repellant. I can't count the number of Objectivists I have met that I find personally distasteful, including some very prominent ones. Would that influence my suggesting to someone to read their work? No way. My beefs are ones of temperament and manner, not philosophy. I was quite active with ARI and the movement when this split happened and I remember hanging on every scrap of information I could accumulate because I felt like I had to choose between them. Thankfully, time has shown that such a choice wasn't necessary.

Read a smattering of popular self-help books (especially Dr. Phil) and you'll see that they don't really grok self-esteem. Most people have a conception of self-esteem as feeling good about what you do. Bullies feel good about themselves because they seize on the emotional rush that accompanies power over others, even though it is ultimately empty, temporary, and completely decimated once they encounter someone more powerful or unconvinced of their superiority. The only people that I've found that understand self-esteem have been cognitive psychologists of various persuasions and Objectivists, though they don't necessarily possess the clinical understanding of the latter.

Buzz is an important factor in selling books. When Peikoff ever finishes his induction book, it will sell comparatively well because he's gotten people to ask him about it at every opportunity for the last five or more years. Well, that and his name recognition. Bernstein doesn't have Peikoff's cachet, so he's got to stir up some anticipation.

I've had two Dalmatians in my life and I've never had either get mammary cancer. I guess my girls are beating the odds. Dot lived to be 11 and Molly's pushing 7 right now. Oh and they do have bad temperaments, if you think that hyperactivity is bad. You get used to it pretty quickly and it helps to have enough income to replace the stuff they destroy.

Did you perhaps misread the title? The front page of his site makes it quite clear that the free book is intentionally crippled so that you would buy either the CD-ROM version for $39.95 or the hardcover version for $66.50. I think the book is worth either price. If it's not worth it to you, then you will have to abide by his wishes and read it at your computer. Property rights are a bitch, huh?

Thanks, that's where I had read it.

I agree more or less with your assessment of A Bug's Life (and more so with its ancestors The Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven--less so with Three Amigos. I think that it deals with a common theme in literature: the individual versus the collective. This is not native or original with Objectivism and Ayn Rand, so it's only natural that it should be made the subject of a movie. People struggle with it all the time and history is full of examples. Monsters, Inc. had an interesting premise that they really never fulfilled. It reminded me a lot of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Toy Story where we got a peek into a fictional world that was very intriguing. I found myself wishing they had spent more time in Toontown or had more toys to play with, but I'm the kind of guy who enjoyed Myst and SimCity so I'm probably not the normal viewer. I also think that GreedyCapitalist is reading way too much into things (his facts aren't correct on some of the plot points and movie details, either).

All I can say is that I hope that they don't get to it.

Her college transcripts are available somewhere and I seem to remember that someone correlated them with classes and teachers given at the time. She herself made only some oblique references to her studies, noting that she read extensively in Aristotle and trudged through Kant for some book review. She had a history degree from a Russian or Soviet college (I can't remember the exact year that she graduated but it was probably Soviet given that she would have been 12 at the time of the revolution.) She also noted that she was a voracious reader, so I wouldn't doubt that she'd read a lot of philosophy given her obvious interest in the subject.

I'm going to say that anything from Ayn Rand would probably work for the best Objectivist books in any category since she's the preeminent author on those subjects. As for the other categories, there are seminal works in most of them that were not written by Objectivists and are just as valid as anything an Objectivist might write. For example, I don't even know what an Objectivist mathematics tract would look like. There might be a mathematical work written by an Objectivist, but it would be remiss to act as if Objectivism had some singular contribution to make to the subject beyond laying down a rational foundation for all knowledge. If you're looking for the seminal works that I've mentioned, then I think we could have an interesting discussion. Especially if you further specialize your categories since mathematics is an immense topic as are the other ones.

Basically, Alex asked about good books on writing. The only responses were Ayn Rand's books and that Tracinski was working on a book. I felt like it would be a disservice to leave it at that. If the person asked "What did Ayn Rand write on the subject of writing?" then those would be sufficient. Not every question is an opportunity to proselytize. No need to get bent out of shape. I was just noting that there are some really good books on writing that were not written by Ayn Rand. The books by her were cribbed from taped lectures she gave and were probably not even accurately transcribed—the editors both talk about how they reorganized for clarity and that some sections were redacted because they were repetitive or unnecessary.

Umm, guys, Ayn Rand is a great writer but there's plenty of other great writers out there and other people have a lot of advice for the new writer as well. In other words, the sun does not rise and set on Ayn Rand. My favorite book on writing has to be Joseph Williams' Style. It's not about writing per se, but more about editing to make your style better. It is replete with excellent advice. Going down the list, I would recommend Zinsser's On Writing Well and the book Clear and Simple As the Truth, which I haven't quite finished reading yet but has a philosophic bent that I really like. Beyond that, the key to good writing is clarity and that means you've got to get really tight with grammar. There's tons of good grammar books out there (you generally can't go wrong with them), but my favorite is called Sentences and Thinking by Norman Foerster because it attempts to connect the unit of grammar (the sentence) with cognition and does so quite successfully. I'm pretty sure it's completely out of print in that version (mine's copyrighted like 1916 or something) but there's a newer edition out with a different name entitled Grammar and Thinking or Words and Thinking—I don't recall which. I could go on and on, but I'm a little constrained right now with a new baby so I don't have a lot of time to write about writing. My suggestion is to look around the field: there are better writers than Ayn Rand (though there aren't any better thinkers in my opinion).

You are exactly right in distinguishing metaphysical from epistemological relationships. You can't say show me "furniture" or "love" or "Objectivism" because these things don't exist per se as entities. They are abstractions based on aspects, characteristics, or entities in reality after a variable-sized chain of reasoning. "Time" is another concept that abstracts a relationship that definitely exists in reality. The concept itself, though, is decidedly not metaphysical—Einstein to the contrary. If you talk about a day being 24 hours, the amount of time it takes the Earth to rotate on its axis, then we know that such a measurement would be too short for a day on Jupiter. If a Jupiterian met a Terran and spoke of a day, the two would be talking about vastly different periods of time. It's possible that the Jupiterian may not even base his measurement of time on the rotation of Jupiter along its axis. He may instead choose to base it on the spinning of an atom of cesium. That's what's so utterly laughable about people devoting thoughts to time travel. It's bizarre on the face of it. That's the black hole that Einstein's theory of relativity ultimately takes cosmologists down and it's rather pathetic. I'm not prepared to scrap Einstein's theories totally—since I'm not a phyisicist by any stretch—but the notion of space-time strikes me as ludicrous.

Counterpoint: "The Real Iraq"

Also, I have an essay on the subject of abortion available at my site. It's a PDF because I can't find the original source file to convert it to HTML.

1) I like to think of it as "not a sovereign human being" rather than part of the mother's body. I think that's an analogy that only goes so far. Otherwise, you get into weird contortions like you mention. 2) And that is exactly what the concept of sovereignty obviates. The baby, once removed from the womb, is obviously and self-evidently metaphysically separate from the mother. Also, why would you do (or even contemplate) killing a baby so late in the game. It's kind of a wacko, extreme perspective that seems horrible even if you believe the counterpoint. Come back a little earlier and then your examples are debatable. 3) The way you interpret the Objectivist ethics is patently false. Rand specifically stated that children are the obligation of their parents. I'm not anywhere near the Lexicon to find a citation, but I can do it if you require. The justification is that the parents have brought the child into existence and are responsible for it until it can support itself. In no other relationship is such a situation extant and in no other relationship is such an obligation involved.