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  1. I have heard from many online sources that state that Ayn Rand called William Edward Hickman brilliant, unusual and exceptional. Can anyone share citation about when and where she said this? i have found that she said he was intelligent. but that is a distinct difference from 'brilliant'.
  2. You can find various discussions done here on Hickman. https://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?/search/&q=hickman&quick=1 On a separate search I did using a no longer readily available Searchable CD delimits Hickman to her: Journals - Part 1: Early Projects 1 - The Hollywood Years It looks as if she uses "brilliant" as a quality of a character she was creating based on aspects of Hickman, and not applying it to Hickman himself.
  3. I would love to have some help refuting everything in this article. It is pretty hard hitting and many of my friends are asking me about it. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/1/2113850/-How-a-Child-Killer-Set-the-Stage-for-Today-s-Republicans-to-Revel-in-Cruelty I do have a refutation of the murder (Hickman) issue here https://aynrand.no/did-ayn-rand-admire-killer-william-hickman/
  4. An article I found. I am not trying to promote ideas contrary to Objectivism, however I am wondering what the response to this article would be. Is any of it true?
  5. "Hickman said 'I am like the state: what is good for me is right.' This is the boy's psychology. (The best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I ever heard). The model for the boy is Hickman. Very far from him, of course. The outside of Hickman, not the inside. Much deeper and much more. A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me." http://objectivistanswers.com/questions/3001/so-whats-the-truth-about-william-hickman
  6. It's important to understand that the journal entry in question was written in 1928, when Rand was 22 or 23 years old, and just two years after she escaped the collectivist hell of the Soviet Union. It's also important to note that Hickman's demeanor (both physical and in his writings) is what inspired Rand, and that she apparently shifts freely, in her journal notes, between her descriptions of Hickman and those of Renahan, the character she distilled from parts of Hickman's personality. When she fleshes out the fictional Renahan's character to be "a wonderful, free, light consciousness" Prescott implies that all of Renahan's characteristics are derived from Hickman, and that she therefore see Hickman this way. Similarly, when Rand describes Hickman's statement, "What is good for me is right," as "the best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I have heard," Prescott draws the conclusion that Hickman is therefore Rand's "epitome of a 'real man.'" No argument against Hickman's statement is given, just an ad hominem using Hickman to attack Rand's favorable opinion of that statement, which is quoted out of any context of Hickman's sociopathic nature. That all said, it is still more than a little disturbing that Rand would have idolized, even in limited context, a character such as Hickman. His behavior is so clearly and grotesquely at odds with Rand's philosophy that one is left with the inescapable conclusion that her philosophy developed over time as she matured from the state of a slave. Gasp!
  7. That is interesting. I have yet to read the Journals and was not aware of that entry and had never heard of William Hickman before. I think Maartin is very correct about the issue of context - and I am afraid that the necessary context is not going to be immediately obvious to someone who is not especially familiar with Ayn Rand's ideas and personal history and stumbles across that article. Perhaps there is more material in the Journal entries that the author of that piece did not include, but based on what he quoted, I would say the most relevant passage is the following: Had Ayn Rand written what was quoted for publication, I would absolutely agree with this. But it wasn't written for publication. It was written for Ayn Rand's own private journal - for her eyes only. Why would Ayn Rand take the time to write about the evils of kidnapping, murder, lawlessness, etc. in notes that are strictly for her? The author of that article cannot point to anything Ayn Rand has ever said or suggested to indicate that she was at all sympathetic or even merely indifferent towards murder and kidnapping. Indeed, it goes against the totality of everything she has ever written and stood for. For what purpose would Ayn Rand have taken the time and effort to write an explanation in her private journal about something ridiculously obvious such as why murdering children is morally despicable? Because she might become famous someday and people might end up reading the journal many decades in the future? If one were to hold such a standard with private journal entries, they would probably never be written. My guess from reading the quotes is that, at that time in her life, Ayn Rand was very focused on "people watching" i.e. observing behaviors of a wide variety of people, including types of people she had great difficulty relating to, in order to gain a better understanding of various personality types and psychological motivations. Such observation would have been crucial for any novelist - but especially for a young Russian immigrant seeking to understand the popular culture of a new and very different country in which she intended to write fiction to a large audience. In 1928, Ayn Rand's entire knowledge of the particulars of Hickman and the murder case would have been almost entirely through newspaper accounts. If the story received national attention, it is possible that there might have been some coverage by some of the early talking picture newsreels put out by a few of the major movie studios. But even assuming such coverage existed and Ayn Rand saw it, it would not have been less in-dept than the newspaper coverage and, at best, would have shown a only a few very brief film shots of Hickman. Radio was still in its infancy as was radio news coverage which would have been little more than an announcer reading wire reports. Remote, on-location microphone technology was very expensive and cumbersome and the odds of Hickman being actually interviewed on radio, assuming that Ayn Rand even had a radio set, which would have been an expensive purchase for a struggling writer, are extremely unlikely. The author of the article asks: Well, Ayn Rand would NOT have had any way of knowing that he was "brilliant, unusual or exceptional" or had a "brilliant mind, a romantic, adventurous, impatient soul and a straight, uncompromising, proud character." The ONLY way that Ayn Rand would have been able to come up with such descriptions was through PROJECTIONS based on the limited evidence available to her about Hickman and his situation: primarily newspaper accounts as well as her observation of the public reaction to those accounts. The relevant question is WHY would Ayn Rand fantasize such projections? The author of that article suggests that it was because Ayn Rand was a sociopath and considered it acceptable to create and walk across corpses in order to indulge in one's whims. But can it not be that Ayn Rand perhaps observed that, while following the Hickman case, she had unidentified feelings of sympathy for such an obvious monster and, rather than feeling guilty and banning the thought, she decided to ask herself WHY she felt such an obviously odd emotion and explore it deeper? Can it be that her journal entry on the subject is the result of such introspection? Can it not be that her subconscious isolated certain out-of-context statements by Hickman and by various voices of public opinion in reaction to the case and it was THAT which she was reacting to? Clearly Ayn Rand's description of Hickman as quoted in that article is highly romanticized to an almost ridiculous degree and massively drops huge amounts of context. But dropping context is entirely appropriate and, indeed, exactly what one does, when one isolates out a certain aspect of a situation and looks at it strictly on its own terms for purposes of analysis. Indeed, to demand that one keep a wider context while engaging in such analysis is, itself, to drop context. Based on Ayn Rand's admission that she "idealized" Hickman and that he most likely wasn't the sort of person she described, my take on it is Ayn Rand discovered she had an out-of-context sympathy with a brutal murderer and, curious as to why, she introspectively identified and isolated (i.e. took outside of their normal context) the particular aspects of Hickman that evoked such an emotional reaction in the first place. Once she isolated those aspects of Hickman's statements and overall demeanor as well as the aspects of the public reaction that she found offensive, I think she then asked herself, what sort of premises would lead to Hickman making such statements and having such a demeanor and what sort of premises are behind such a public reaction. My take is that the journal entries quoted are nothing more than "creative fantasizing" a sort of mental "what if" exercise. To me, it is pretty obvious why such an exercise would be of great potential value to an aspiring novelist. It is also pretty obvious to me that, if, while engaging in such a mental exercise, one had to pretend that others were watching in and privy to one's thoughts thereby making it necessary to constantly explain and make the fantasy objective to other people's contexts.....well, if that were necessary, my guess is that very little "creative fantasizing" and daydreaming would ever take place. To summarize - that article drops several bits of very important context. 1. The fact that the journal entries were PRIVATE, not intended for publication and, therefore, the contents were not written for the purpose of being objective to any audience other than Ayn Rand's own eyes. 2. The entirety of Ayn Rand's explicit philosophy which was consistent across volumes of works written over the span of many decades - including her philosophy's contempt for those who initiate force. 3. The fact that Ayn Rand herself dismissed it all as probable "idealizing." 4. The fact that, Ayn Rand, unlike the author of the article, did not equate self-interest with "walking across corpses" and, therefore, did not regard an out-of-context admiration for certain attributes of a brutal murderer's statements and demeanor as having possible negative implications for a morality of self-interest worthy of giving serious consideration to in the mental exercise the journal entry documents. Now, if someone who was very familiar with the William Hickman case but had never heard of Ayn Rand before somehow stumbled across that particular journal entry, I can fully understand why he might properly conclude that Ayn Rand must have been some sort of strange, sociopathic kook not worthy of looking into further. But the author of that article very clearly IS familiar with the larger context of Ayn Rand's work and her personal history - so my conclusion is the article is nothing more than a cheap and sleazy "hit piece" designed to smear Objectivism. Don't be too surprised if it is embraced by the likes of David Kelley and Barbara Branden as more "proof" that Ayn Rand was indeed nothing more than a malevolent neurotic kook who somehow, nevertheless, managed to make a few good philosophical points here and there. If anyone has a copy of the Journals, I would be interested in knowing if the article represents the entries correctly or if it leaves important information out.
  8. At age 23, this is Rand’s first attempt at in English to plan a novel: David Harriamn describes it in The Journals of Ayn Rand as: She writes: Danny Renahan is a character in this story, who is, in part, modeled after William Hickman. She describes Danny in her notes. Some of the description: The setting, the context Little Street’s world in which Danny was in, Rand wrote in her journals about: “The world as it is.” “life at present” “Show them the real, one and only horror - the horror of mediocrity” “Show that the world is nothing but a little street. That this little street is its king and master, its essence and spirit. Show the little street and how it works.” Harriman wrote in regards to these notes of Rand’s “it seems likely that they were made over a short period when she was feeling particularly bitter towards the world”. One of several characters also in it, is a pastor: Rand writes that subconsciously he has: In the story, Danny: I haven’t seen an actual topic about The Little Street, most had to do with who she had modeled Danny in part after, William Hickman. I like studying Rand’s transition in her writing, from Danny, to first edition We The Living Kira, all the way up to Galt himself in Atlas Shrugged, the methods, actions, the setting/context in which the characters are all in. So, this thread is open discussion on anything and everything that has to do with her notes on The Little Street. In her notes about who Danny was, in part, modeled after, Hickman:
  9. First of all, you have bought into a misinterpretation of what Rand meant by the lack of an ability to consider others. In short, Roark is unable to consider the judgments of others, not the welfare of others. A major theme of the book is second-handedness, which essentially means living one's life according to the opinions and judgments of others. Keating, the ultimate incarnation of this phenomenon, makes all his decisions based on currying the favor of others or fulfilling their expectations, and finds that his life is empty and meaningless, because it is fundamentally selfless. Roark, on the other hand, is the antithesis of this, because he doesn't have "the ability to consider others," meaning he is unable to consider the judgments or opinions of others in living his life. Magazine reviews of his buildings have absolutely no impact on his opinion of his own work; he is completely secure in his own decisions. It is in this way that he is unable to consider others. It is demonstrably false that he is unable to consider the welfare of others, as shown by any number of actions that he takes (involving the woman he loves in his detonation of Cortlandt for the sake of saving the night watchman, for example). In every one of Rand's admirable characters, we see instances of benevolence and concern for the welfare of others; this is a result of their moral egoism. By contrast, the villains who practice altruism explicitly find that as a result they do not care for the welfare of others. Also, for the Hickman thing, if you carefully read that journal entry, you can see that she never refers to the adult, psychopathic Hickman as a "beautiful soul;" rather, she calls him a "degenerate" and a "monster." What's happening in that journal entry is that she is fantasizing a possible backstory for Hickman (as part of thinking about a short story) where a young Hickman comes into the world as a proud, independent, individualistic person who encounters a society completely inimical to these characteristics. This kind of society plays a major role in his becoming a monster, in her theoretical history. Look carefully; all positive references to Hickman are actually to this hypothetical young Hickman, pre-psychopath. References to the actual adult serial-killer Hickman are strongly negative. She would not commend an attitude of complete indifference towards the welfare of others, but she would certainly commend someone who defended the view that they can be a moral person without giving to charity. Giving to charity is a matter of personal values, and people can vary a great deal in those. Every time she addresses the subject of charity, you can see that her primary concern is not judging the act of charity itself but emphasizing that it is not the core of morality, that it is a matter of personal values, which must be laid upon a solid foundation of egoism. She was concerned with this issue of guilt as a symptom of the altruist ethics which pervades our modern world. It is this same altruistic ethics which acts to mire major regions of the world in poverty. The solution to poverty and suffering is not charity, but egoism, production, capitalism. The rich man's guilt for not helping others and poverty and suffering are not opposing concerns, but symptoms of the same phenomenon.
  10. J, I'd like to cite a source I have that says it was because of the crime, not the man commiting the crime.     (http://murderpedia.o...man-william.htm) So, where then, does Rand get that this mass hatred of Hickman had to do primarily 'because of the man who committed the crime and not because of the crime he committed.' That source cites otherwise. She may have even read some of the articles cited on that site. Some do mention him and society, etc. Let’s look at the brutal nature in which Marion had died. Hickman himself describes what he did to Marion: And another source describes the rest: So, what does that say about the mass hatred of Casey, who was not convicted on anything remotely near what Hickman was convicted on? How can Rand talk about a jury this way, in regards to Hickman’s jury? "Average, everyday, rather stupid looking citizens. Shabbily dressed, dried, worn looking little men. Fat, overdressed, very average, 'dignified' housewives. How can they decide the fate of that boy? Or anyone's fate?" Gosh, though I found Casey's prosecutor, Jeff ashton to be insulting of the jury at Casey's trial (http://forum.objecti...843#entry305221), it was at least not based primarily upon the way they dressed and looked or anything remotely like Rand on Hickman's. Wonder what she thinks of jury's to begin with.
  11. The only pathology in this story is Michael Prescott's, since he blatantly distorts Ayn Rand's journal entries concerning Hickman and seems to take obsessive (and entirely gratuitous) interest in the excrutiating details of the mutilation of one of Hickman's victims. Prescott is clearly on a mission (which has been going on for some years) and he will clearly use whatever means he thinks he can get away with to smear Ayn Rand and Objectivism. One important thing to note is that he never actually bothered to read AR's journal entries for himself. He bases his smear entirely on *another author's smear of Ayn Rand*. So, let's look at the *actual* comments in the book: First, from the editor's preparatory notes: "Hickman served as a model for Danny only in strictly limited respects, which AR names in her notes. Danny does commit a crime in the story, but it is nothing like Hickman's. To guard against any misinterpretation, I quote her own statement regarding the relationship between her hero and Hickman: [My hero is] very far from him, of course. The outside of Hickman, but not the inside. Much deeper and much more. A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me." However, it clearly doesn't really matter to Prescott what AR actually said. He is so virulently opposed to Objectivism that he will use the flimsiest, out-of-context comments (such as this one) to attack it. He is not the first and he won't be the last. Incidentally, for him as for most of the others, their primary objection to Objectivism is *its commitment to reason*. Prescott, for example, is an avowed mystic. Enough said.
  12. For Sunday's live Rationally Selfish Webcast, I'll answer questions on Ayn Rand and William Hickman, sustainable agriculture, product placements in art, young people and credit cards, and more. Come join the fun! What: Live Webcast on Practical Ethics Who: Diana Hsieh (Ph.D, Philosophy) and Greg Perkins When: Sunday, 09 October 2011 at 8 am PT / 9 am MT / 10 am CT / 11 am ET Where: www.RationallySelfish.com Here are this week's questions: Question 1: Ayn Rand and William Hickman: Did Ayn Rand draw inspiration from the serial-killer William Hickman? I ask due to this article on Alternet: "Ayn Rand, Hugely Popular Author and Inspiration to Right-Wing Leaders, Was a Big Admirer of Serial Killer" ( http://bit.ly/r4ST0e ). According to the article, Rand idolized the serial killer William Hickman and used him as inspiration for the leads male characters in her books, notably Howard Roark. Also, Rand is said to seek an environment in which sociopaths like Hickman can thrive. Are these claims true or not? If so, would they affect the validity of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism? Question 2: Sustainable Agriculture: Is "sustainable agriculture" a legitimate concept? Many advocates of a paleo diet also advocate "sustainable agriculture," including Robb Wolff and Mat Lelonde. Is sustainable agriculture a valid concept? What does (or should) it entail? Should consumers be concerned that their food producers practice "sustainable agriculture"? Question 3: Product Placements in Art: Is product placement in art a breach of artistic integrity? Given that an artist must select every aspect of an artistic work, does delegating some selection to the highest bidder breach the integrity of the work? Does the type of artwork matter? Would it be okay in movies and television but not paintings? Why? Question 4: Young People and Credit Cards: How can young adults learn to use credit cards responsibly? Some young adults (usually college students) seem to make terrible financial decisions, often getting themselves into serious and overwhelming credit card debt. Others seem to handle their new financial responsibilities just fine. How would you recommend that parents teach their teenage children to use credit cards wisely? What advice would you give to young people headed to college about managing their finances well? After that, we'll do a round of totally impromptu "Rapid Fire Questions." If you can't attend the live webcast, you can listen later to the audio-only podcasts. Visit NoodleCast to listen to past episodes or subscribe to the podcast feed. Also, you can submit your questions, as well as vote on your favorite questions from the ongoing queue. I hope to see you on Sunday morning!
  13. You don't think that it was an error for Rand to claim that everyone who expressed outrage at Hickman's kidnapping, murdering and mutilating a little girl had worse sins and crimes in their own lives? Look, Rand was very new to the country at the time of her statement. She didn't know our people and our culture. She had recently escaped a tyrannical nation. She was working on a novel and was in a creative mindset in which she apparently confused herself by romanticizing and isolating the heroic characteristics of a killer, and demonizing the villainy of society. In her creative "trance" or "zone," she blurred the line between fiction and reality, and made one unfortunate judgment. Just one. If you read the rest of her comments on Hickman and the story that she was writing, it's all quite rational. She actually judges Hickman to be a monster, and she clearly identifies the fact that she is not really writing about him, but only about what some of his outward characteristics suggest to her. It's too bad that she didn't say the same about the society that she was judging -- that in reality, society didn't have worse sins and crimes that Hickman's, but that aspects of its behavior inspired her to imagine a fictional society that did. J
  14. I'm going to post a big piece of text from the journals so people can see for themselves what a 23 year old Ayn Rand was up to. First a short comment from the editor David Harriman: These are Ayn Rand's words: The Little Street The world as it is. Show it all, calmly and indifferently, like an outsider who does not share humanity's feelings or prejudices and can see it all "from the side." Show all the filth, stupidity, and horror of the world, along with that which is supposed to atone for it. Show how insignificant, petty, and miserable the "good" in the world is, compared to the real horror it masks. Do not paint one side of the world, the polite side, and be silent about the rest; paint a real picture of the whole, good and bad at once, the "good" looking more horrid than the bad when seen together with the things it tolerates. Men see only one part of life at a time, the part they have before their eyes at the moment. Show them the whole. Show that humanity is petty. That it's small. That it's dumb, with the heavy, hopeless stupidity of a man born feeble-minded, who does not understand, because he cannot understand, because he hasn't the capacity to understand; like a man born blind, who cannot see, because he has no organ for seeing. Show that the world is monstrously hypocritical. That humanity has no convictions of any kind. That it does not know how to believe anything. That it has never believed consistently and does not know how to be true to any idea or ideal. That all the "high" words of the world are a monstrous lie. That nobody believes in anything "high" and nobody wants to believe. That one cannot believe one thing and do another, for such a belief isn't worth a nickel. And that's what humanity is doing. Show that humanity is utterly illogical, like an animal that cannot connect together the things it observes. Man realizes and connects much more than an animal, but who can declare that his ability to connect things is perfect? The future, higher type of man will have to perfect just this ability [to achieve] the clear vision. A clear mind sees things and the connections between them. Humanity is stumbling helplessly in a chaos of inconsistent ideas, actions, and feelings that can't be put together, without even realizing the contradictions between them or their ultimate logical results. A perfect, clear understanding also means a feeling. It isn't enough to realize a thing is true. The realization must be so clear that one feels this truth. For men act on feelings, not on thoughts. Every thought should be part of yourself, your body, your nature, and every part of your nature should be a thought. Every feeling—a thought, every thought—a feeling. [This is AR's earliest statement regarding the harmony, of reason and emotion that follows from a proper integration of mind and body.] Show the silent terror that is life at present, the silent terror that hangs over us, chokes us, that everybody feels and nobody can define, the nameless thing that is the atmosphere of humanity. Show that the mob determines life at present and show exactly who and what that mob is. Show the things it breaks, the precious enemies that it ruins. Show that all humanity and each little citizen is an octopus that consciously or unconsciously sucks the blood of the best on earth and strangles life with its cold, sticky tentacles. Show that the world is nothing but a little street. That this little street is its king and master, its essence and spirit. Show the little street and how it works. Religion: show what it means when thought out consistently; what it does to man; who needs it; who defends it with all the ferocious despotism of a small, ambitious nature. The great poison of mankind. Morals (as connected with religion) the real reason for all hypocrisy. The wrecking of man by teaching him ideals that are contrary to his nature; ideals he has to accept as his highest ambition, even though they are organically hateful and repulsive to him. And when he can't doubt them, he doubts himself. He becomes low, sinful, imperfect in his own eyes; he does not aspire to anything high, when he knows that the high is inaccessible and alien to him. Humanity's morals and ideals, its ideology, are the greatest of its crimes. ("Unselfishness" first of all.) Communism, democracy, socialism are the logical results of present-day humanity. The nameless horror of [these systems], both in their logical end and in the unconscious way that they already rule mankind. Family-life: the glorification of mediocrity. Elevating the "everyday" little man's existence into the highest ideal for mankind. Show that humanity has and wants to have: existence instead of life, satisfaction instead of joy, contentment instead of happiness, security instead of power, vanity instead of pride, attachment instead of love, wish instead of will, yearning instead of passion, a glow-worm instead of a fire. All the "realistic" books have shown the bad side of life and, as good, have shown the good of today. They have denounced that which is accepted as bad and set up as a relief or example that which is accepted as good. I want to show that there is no good at present, that the "good" as it is now understood is worse than the bad, that it is only the result, the skin over a rotten inside that rules and determines it. I want to show that all the conceptions of the "good," all the high ideals, have to be changed, for now they are nothing but puppets, slaves and accomplices to the horrible [stifling] of life. There are too many things that people just tolerate and don't talk about. Show them that it can't be tolerated, for all their life is a rotten swamp, a sewer, a dumping place for more filth than they can ever realize. Show that the real God behind all their high words and sentiments, the real omnipotent power behind their culture and civilization, is the little street, just a small, filthy, shabby, common little street, such as exist around the center of every town in the world. Show them the real, one and only horror—the horror of mediocrity. "Humanity's morals and ideals, its ideology, are the greatest of its crimes." From the bolded passage you can see she is already has a grasp of cause and effect in people's lives, that what people think is what causes them to do what they do. Here is more later about the fault she finds in too many people: Most people lack [the capacity for] reverence and " taking things seriously." They do not hold anything to be very serious or profound. There is nothing that is sacred or immensely important to them. There is nothing—no idea, object, work, or person—that can inspire them with a profound, intense, and all-absorbing passion that reaches to the roots of their souls. They do not know how to value or desire. They cannot give themselves entirely to anything. There is nothing absolute about them. They take all things lightly, easily, pleasantly—almost indifferently, in that they can have it or not, they do not claim it as their absolute necessity. Anything strong and intense, passionate and absolute, anything that can't be taken with a snickering little "sense of humor"—is too big, too hard, too uncomfortable for them. They are too small and weak to feel with all their soul—and they disapprove of such feelings. They are too small and low for a loyal, profound reverence—and they disapprove of all such reverence. They are too small and profane themselves to know what sacredness is—and they disapprove of anything being too sacred. The sum total of what Ayn Rand wrote about Hickman specifically is available here, at spanish language forum where the same smears are being made in response to the same Patterson creep. The poster there has helpfully underlined all the passages that make clear that she does in fact morally evaluate Hickman and condemns him. Her claim that Hickman's greatest crime is his anti-socialness confirmed my idea of the public's attitude in this case—and explains my involuntary, irresistible sympathy for him, which I cannot help feeling just because of this and in spite of everything else. Hickman said: "I am like the state: what is good for me is right." Even if he wasn't big enough to live by that attitude, he deserves credit for saying it so brilliantly. There is a lot that is purposelessly, senselessly horrible about him. But that does not interest me. I want to remember his actions and characteristics that will be useful for the boy in my story. So we see there are other people who also have opinions about "greater crimes" than murder, the causes of murder. The woman placing so much importance on the non-essential "anti-socialness" displays more about her own character than Hickman's.
  15. Unless you're suggesting Rand found Hickman's crime or criminality worthy of interest and praise, I don't see the connection. It sounds like you're making an argument by association: Hickman was interesting, and he was a criminal, therefor other criminals are also interesting. But Rand did not find Hickman interesting because he killed some kid, so there's no logical connection to other criminals. Don't get me wrong, if Einstein flew a plane into a building, I'd still be very interested in him, his final act wouldn't change that. But Einstein didn't, some guy with a blog did. If you would've asked me to read some blog by a guy who seems to rant against big government and business, but can't quite articulate any political principles to replace them with, I would've dismissed it with a "What for?". The murder he committed doesn't change that. It changes my reaction to the suggestion though, since yesterday I wouldn't have bothered to respond in such a thread. But people going out of their way to defend a murderer, on an Objectivist website, warrants attention and a response. Rand's interest in Hickman is not a valid argument for looking into this guy's manifesto and life story. Nor is the fact that he murdered someone, neither is his suicide, plenty of people do both. So what's next, does anyone have any reasons why this guy's special? I doubt Rand ever blamed Hickman's crimes on society's damage. Why don't you back that up with a quote?
  16. By way of introduction, I read a number of Ayn Rand's fiction and nonfiction books some years ago. Saw the movie, last night, enjoyed it very much, and have started rereading Atlas Shrugged. I think she got a lot of things right, but I wonder about empathy (which I hold as quite different from altruism). =========== "You don't really care about helping the underprivileged, do you?" Philip asked--and Rearden heard, unable to believe it, that the tone of his voice was reproachful. "No, Phil, I don't care about it at all. I only wanted you to be happy." "But that money is not for me. I am not collecting it for any personal motive. I have no selfish interest in the matter at all." His voice was cold, with a note of self-conscious virtue. =========== Now, as I read the above quote, Philip is a bit pathetic. He seems to feel that he needs to suffer to help others. He gets no joy in it. I can see part of why an Objectivist would have no respect for Philip. On the other hand, I can't relate to Rearden not caring whatsoever about "the underprivileged." Let's take a very concrete example. Millions of people die every year from malaria. It's not a pleasant death. Moreover, the vast majority of them are suffering for no fault of their own but happening to have been born in a particular time and place where there is a lot of susceptibility to the disease. Someone like Rearden (or Bill Gates) is in a position to help -- perhaps a solution can be found: a cure, or eradicating mosquitoes, or a vaccine, or whatever. Maybe there's no solution, but it seems much more likely that there is one, given enough research. That costs money. I can understand the idea that Rearden shouldn't be guilt-tripped into contributing to the solution. On the other hand, I can't relate to him not caring at ALL about the unnecessary suffering. I can't relate to him being in his position and not being interested in taking joy in helping solve the problem. I think Bill Gates has it exactly right -- he was fairly ruthless as a businessman, did extremely well for himself, but now feels more joy in helping out than in not doing so. I think this is why Objectivism has such a bad name with so many people. It seems, to them, to be a synonym of psychopathy. Of course, in reality an Objectivist doesn't take pleasure in causing needless suffering, so that's a major distinguishing point. On the other hand, the technical definition of psychopathy stresses the total lack of empathy, ultimately, according to recent research with MRI's, based on physical brain differences -- the part of the brain responsible for empathy just isn't lit up. Rand seems to like the idea of that part of the brain simply not being there from birth. She said of Roark, "He was born without the ability to consider others." And in the last few days, I've read some of her notes praising William Hickman, saying he had a "genuinely beautiful soul." Hickman had kidnapped and dismembered a 12-year-old girl, and said he thought she was awake when the dismembering occurred. Having read several books on psychopathy, and having regularly discussed psychopathy with my sister who is a psychologist who works professionally with diagnosed psychopaths, in my personal judgment Hickman was a classic psychopath. Now, I'm pretty sure that Rand didn't generally think highly of people who go around torturing 12-year-old girls. Those were her private notes, so I expect she wasn't taking a lot of care to be sure she wouldn't be misinterpreted. On the other hand, it all makes me wonder. She really doesn't seem to think other people's underserved suffering is something to be interested in or concerned about. If I understand her ideas correctly (which I certainly may not), she approved of helping someone if the helper honestly felt joy in doing so. On the other hand, if somebody had many billions of dollars, and could help many people suffering terribly, who simply happened to have been born in the wrong time and place, and he didn't feel like doing so, it doesn't seem like Rand would have any problem with that person at all. To the extent this unconcern was due to being "born without the ability to consider others," it appears that she would think it was commendable. And my take on it is that she would think it was morally wrong for him to be guilt-tripped about his indifference. I personally feel that one person's unpleasant experience of guilt is a less important matter than a large number of people suffering horribly and dying unnecessarily. As I read Rand, she wouldn't agree with me on that. Getting back to Philip, I think he is pathetic because he takes no joy in helping, and does it only because he doesn't feel like he has right to live except by virtue of helping others. But, other than that, I don't think he would be wrong in trying to convince Rearden that his total lack of concern for "the underpriviliged" might not really reflect the highest good. I'd be very interested in any reflections anyone in this forum might care to share regarding the thoughts above. Gary
  17. It's possible that she thought that, and if so, that would be a grievous mistake and misjudgment of society on her part. However, if you follow the link Grames posted and read the journal entry in its entirety, I think you can get a better idea of what she was saying with that quote. The most relevant part of the journal entry seems to me to be the following: Now note that Rand did not actually know anything about how Hickman grew up or his development before his crimes. She is fantasizing a possible backstory (which she admits later), one that seems plausible to her. In this backstory, the only choice society seemed to offer to a young, brilliant, proud boy is either a life of compromise and begging for favors or breaking from society completely and becoming a monster. This seems to me to be an early recognition by hers of the false dichotomy which altruism presents, between sacrificing oneself to others and sacrificing others to oneself. If society tells you that you must live by giving and receiving unearned favors, by serving and begging rather than by trading, then it sets up a choice: you can either do the bloodsucking or be sucked dry. This was one of the central arguments in Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand herself presents a third option, which begins by rejecting this dichotomy, as we all (presumably) know. Here, she seems to be simply noting to herself this false dilemma presented by society could be the root cause of a brilliant boy becoming a remorseless murderer. This discussion reminds me of the flak that Ayn Rand gets for describing Kant as "the most evil man in mankind’s history." Now, obviously there are many dictators and mass murderers who have committed numerous acts of pure evil which Kant would have rightly been horrified with. Meanwhile, Kant himself performed no such acts. The reason that Rand describes him as more evil than any of these dictators is that she thought it was his ideas which enabled collectivism to take hold in societies. He advocated an entirely selfless, duty-for-duty's-sake form of morality, and it is exactly this kind of self-sacrificial service to a higher power that philosophically fueled movements like Nazism and Communism. Thus, she identified the philosophical root of these ideologies as more "evil" than the actual people involved in carrying out the atrocities that these ideologies demanded. While this is a definition of evil that differs from the common understanding of what the word means, this is the definition she often operated under. With that in mind, the statement of hers under discussion here seems of a similar vein. In the case of Hickman, Rand perceived that he grew up in a society where one can only get ahead by begging and asking for favors, rather than earning one's place in the world. In other words, the society of the time demanded that man live by altruism. Some people accept this as given, while people like Hickman would react by rejecting society's moral code completely and becoming a "purposeless monster," as she called him. She would later articulate clearly a solution to this false dilemma, but to her the root cause of people like Hickman was the fact that society as a whole lived by a sacrificial moral code. Under this interpretation, "worse sins and crimes" doesn't mean that most people directly committed acts that are more deplorable than murder, in the same way that Rand wasn't claiming that Kant was a mass murderer. Rather, it means that most people lived by and advocated a moral code which was at the root of creating such monsters.
  18. I would argue that he was not to be portrayed or thought of as a loose cannon, but that perhaps his actions and behavior was a result of the society/humanity in which he was subjected to. She wrote about Hickman in that way, let me find the quote, but Hickman was not crazy. She writes that society transformed Hickman into a monster basically:
  19. I think it's even more simple, actually. I think that there are within Rand's corpus certain essential positions -- and agreement with those positions (which does not include a specific stand re: modern art) is what makes one an Objectivist. I agree. The need to keep Rand's work distinct from other contributors is, as I'd put it in my initial contribution to this thread, more "a matter of record keeping, or footnoting," or as you say, the province of a historian. I don't think such work is valueless, exactly, but it's not my first interest, or my second. Let me answer the last question first. I don't particularly care about the label, qua label. Indeed, in most contexts, describing myself as an Objectivist is quite more trouble than it seems to be worth. I would have been perfectly happy, if I could have discussed philosophy over the length of my life without having had to descend to discussions about William Hickman or who slept with whom. I've had to learn so much that I did not ever care to know. And what wouldn't I give, not to be associated with the many assholes who go around calling themselves Objectivist, and who routinely leave such a powerful negative impression on all and sundry. When I choose to describe myself as Objectivist to someone new, I always hope against hope that they have not yet encountered one in the wild -- because if they have, I am nauseatingly confident in the reaction I'm bound to receive, and all of the false assumptions I will have to strive to overcome. But I take on the label as I do because I think it accurate, and there are contexts in which that accuracy serves me: "mostly for the sake of communication or community," as I'd said earlier. In short, I identify as Objectivist for the same reason I identify as male or human: because I think it is apt. (Whether others agree or not is their own prerogative, as with every other matter.) The reason why I discuss labeling in this specific manner, in this thread, laying out the criteria I employ and my reasons for doing so, and especially with respect to the open/closed system debate, is because there is a history here to consider. A cultural context. In other circumstances, I might not care whether I was considered aristocrat or peasant, but if the guillotine is deployed, then I suppose I should give the matter a moment's thought, so that I know whether to send for the Pimpernel. And I was dragged into the open/closed debate, as with so many other petty controversies, initially as a (surprised and depressed) witness to bickering and ostracizations and denunciations and the like, and then charting the course of essay to counter-essay to counter-counter-essay, trying to sift the remains of a seemingly personal history. Over time, the conclusion that I've reached is that this is one of those things that has diluted the potential impact of Objectivism on the culture and world, more generally; an impediment towards the better tomorrow I'd ideally like to witness, but probably must resolve myself to bequeathing to my descendants. So as to why I care about the label (apart from the minor point, again, of simple accuracy), my answer is two-fold: 1) if it's true that one side is the Evil Empire and the other side the plucky Rebel Alliance -- as is sometimes suggested -- or if one side are the guardians of the pure and uncorrupted, and the other side are the poison, the cancer, the wolves in sheep's clothing -- as is sometimes suggested -- then in all cases, I should like to align myself with the forces of good, truth and right; and 2) I would like to work towards the restoration of the Objectivist community such that the meager resources it possesses can be devoted towards the improvement of the world, for the sake of myself, my daughter, and later generations. I'd like to find a way to put this silly business behind us all, because I think it does little good yet much harm, and I suspect that the only way eventually out is through. As for the rest, I have no particular position about modern art: I'm more questions than resolutions on that point, really. But Jonathan13 has a distinct and forceful position on modern art and it probably is quite opposed to KyaryPamyu's, but for my money, both are (or potentially might be, at least) Objectivists. Which of their positions represents the Objectivist position? More telling than one's answer to that question, imo, is the methodology employed to resolve it: I do not think it is, "Who agrees with Ayn Rand?" but "Which position best accords with the essential Objectivist principles?" and most centrally, with reason and reality. To say more than that would be to argue the subject of modern art, which, as I've said, I'm not interested in doing here and now. I did not say that it was a "primary," I said that it was philosophy. Insofar as it is philosophy, and (properly understood as) the "Objectivist solution" to a philosophical problem (even if you disagree that the "problem" is problematic; even if the purported "solution" avows that the "problem" is not a problem at all), it is a part of Objectivism. If Rand had written similarly, I don't expect you would disagree that Rand's writings on induction were properly considered a part of the philosophy: so I think it's not the source of the matter between us that you consider the subject "derivative," or outside the bounds of some metaphorical encyclopedia, but the authorship. Earlier, you'd set the terms of the "closed system" as excluding those ideas "not part of what Rand actually left in writing or publicly endorsed," but I think that's the wrong place to draw the line (and it has the potentially unfortunate consequence of leaving Peikoff's work out). It is not "that which Rand left in writing" that constitutes the body of philosophy which is Objectivism, but that philosophy which is consonant with the fundamental principles of Objectivism. And with that -- and because one of the great lessons this forum has taught me is to strictly control the extent of my participation, for the sake of my greater well-being -- I will thank you gentlemen for the discussion. Perhaps I'll pick it up again in the future.
  20. From Journals of Ayn Rand: David Harriman (editor) gives a lengthy explanation/defense of Rand, but I'll let her speak for herself: "[My hero is] very far from him, of course. The outside of Hickman, but not the inside. Much deeper and much more. A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me." p. 22
  21. *** Mod's note: Merged thread with an earlier thread. - sN *** I just got this crazy comment on one of my online debates and I'm not sure what to make of it... What the hell is he talking about? Not that his argument is anything but intimidation. "So what happened to the William Hickman/Ayn Rand link I posted on your page? Did you have a hard time RATIONALizing why the Holy Rand called a sociopathic child murderer a "beautiful soul"? It's all fun and games to poke and prod at people's beliefs until your OWN come into question? For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about: Corey's hero/leader Ayn Rand wrote about and idolized a kidnapper & vicious murderer of a 12 year old girl named William Hickman. Here's a link to the article...(which Corey deleted from his profile without comment) http://michaelprescott.net/hickman.htm A very interesting read, it gives a lot of insight into the private mind of Ayn Rand...and, through Hickman, it illustrates the danger inherent in her "what is good for me, is right" philosophy. Everything is broken. A follower is a follower...bicker away..."
  22. <p> </p> <p>What is that place about? What does FSTDT an acronym of?</p> <p> </p> <p>I read the thread. The Hickman thing has several people there in a tizzy. You need to stop attempting to persuade people and post the full exact word-for-word journal entry written by Rand about Hickman. Only then can you point out that she wasn't even focused on Hickman, but the crowd and its reaction the dramatic possibilities she is looking for. You did point out that she was only 23, but left unstated the tremendous intellectual distance she travelled between then and the mature Ayn Rand that explicitly rejected Neitchze. She actually retroactively edited <em>We the Living</em> to remove Neitchzean elements. In permitting this to be published David Harriman screwed up big time, and Peikoff is to blame too. That fucker Prescott has done some real damage in smearing Rand's reputation with that private journal entry which never should have been published. </p> <p> </p> <p>But I don't know why you even try. </p> <p> </p> <p>A <a href="http://fstdt.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=gotopost&amp;board=rp&amp;thread=9946&amp;post=340310"><u>moderator</u> posts</a>:</p> <div> </div> <div> </div> <div>When a moderator writes like that it sets the tone of the &quot;discussion&quot;, don't you think? It is open season on you, no one needs to be logical, reasonable or even polite.</div> <div> </div> <div>From the same page:</div> <div> <div> </div> <div> </div> <div>Poor selection of your battlefield.</div> <div> </div> <div>Also, as a newbie to that board they have no idea who you are or how you think. Naturally they will think the worst. You need to establish a reputation for common sense on a variety of ordinary issues before trying to enter into so abstract a discussion. That would also give you an opportunity to learn whether a real discussion is even possible.</div> <div> </div> <div> </div> </div>
  23. Tanaka repeats his assertion that Ayn Rand wrote an essay on Hickman, dishonestly abusing the meaning of “essay” in the process. I think what I wrote about perfect makes sense in the full post. I’m not going to write about details of AR and Hickman. The subject is disgusting and doesn’t interest me that much. It’s inconceivable that AR – later in her mature years when she better understood English and Americans – would either defend any aspect of Hickman or denounce his detractors for hating him as an egoist rather than a creepshow killer. Tanaka – he of the private disorganized and rambling diary “essay” – may have the last word, I shall not reply.
  24. Regarding Zoid’s last post ... 1. AR made a mistake in her evaluation of Hickman. She made a mistake in her evaluation of many, perhaps most, of the journalists condemning him (e.g. Edgar Rice Burroughs). Two private mistakes. 2. Reread Zoid’s earlier statement: “ ... since sociopathy is characterized by a habitual disregard for the rights of others, and since rights are central to Rand’s philosophic thought, it’s clear that she would never have deemed such psychological illness ‘a gift.’” It’s a fallacious, rationalistic argument. What she said in the 1920s is what she said. She could have made a mistake despite whatever is central to her current -- or later -- philosophic thought. In fact, just from reading the journal, no rationalistic or otherwise argument is necessary: she did not say psychological illness is a gift. However she did admire Hickman for seeming to have been born without the ability to care what others think. She makes it clear that she’s purposely taking this out of context. On the other hand she condemns the journalists for not taking this out of context. She doesn’t put it that way, but that’s what it amounts to. My theory is that she projected her experience of Russians onto the hapless journalists. I think this accounts for her last entry, evidently written after she had cooled down, where she says to herself, in so many words, take it easy AR. Dreamspirit: “... it is a little upsetting to hear that the person you admire greatly once viewed something you think is monstrous with positive emotions.” Indeed. How to explain it? AR was good at separating one aspect of something from another aspect, focusing on just one. In the case of Hickman she blundered, privately (and very early in her career), but better examples come to mind. She praised the Marxists, not for their ideology, but for their method of spreading it. She once praised Chomsky – I’m not making this up – for his reasoned denunciation of Skinner. She opposed U.S. entry into WW II, not because she loved the Nazis but because she loved America. Later when asked to write a screenplay praising Oppenheimer et al for their work on the Manhattan Project, she was willing to do it in order that the Project not be praised as a triumph of government science. She focused solely on the fact that it got done. (Fortunately that movie never made it past preliminary planning. Later she used Oppenheimer -- perhaps along with Millikan, who was much in the news at the time promoting government science -- as part of the basis for the character Stadler.) A detractor could misrepresent all this: she was a Marxist, she loved Chomsky, she hated the America Firsters, she thought government science was great, etc.
  25. Completely understandable. It's... possibly a tangential issue, but on this subject, I have to say: While it's a given that Rand was necessarily the person she had to be in order to write Atlas Shrugged, and develop Objectivism (and for my money, ITOE is Rand's highest achievement), I don't believe that necessarily expresses every aspect of her character or constitutes a blanket response to any conceivable criticism of her character. (Which, to be clear, is not what I'm saying you're in the process of doing, but it's the point I'd like to make on this subject.) When I write fiction, or even non-fiction that is more considered than my posts here, I know that I am presenting certain aspects of myself -- but not necessarily all of them. My writing, and especially that which I seek to publish, is edited and considered and reconsidered. I don't expect that those who read my writings, for instance, will necessarily have any great insight into my bedroom proclivities, or my relationship with my parents, or if I'm sociable just after waking, or so on. Human beings are often complicated. I know that's true of me, at least. And I have found myself to be multifaceted, and not necessarily expressed in total in my written work, even across my lifetime (let alone in any one piece). Without knowing, and without being able to make a claim one way or the other, I think it at least possible that a person could write Atlas Shrugged and yet have a terrible temper in certain situations, or whatever else it might be that constitutes the "questions of character" a person may have regarding Rand. I would not, for instance, take Atlas Shrugged as proof that Rand must have always acted morally in her romantic life. I understand what you're saying. I've heard stories about Rachmaninoff (though as I remember them, they concern others seeming to change their own aesthetic evaluations of artists to better match Rand's), but to me they're largely just stories. I guess that I don't have the same kind of... attachment(?) to any particular image of Rand, where it's important to me to know what she was "really like," or whether these stories are true or not? I don't think I have much in the way of a personal regard for Rand, whether positive or negative, apart from what I'm about to say. I respect her as a thinker to the utmost degree, and regard her works as genius. And all of that constitutes "hero" enough for me; I don't know that I require much more, or entertain "heroes" outside of this admittedly rather narrow way. But, for all of the esteem I have for Rand's writings... I don't know whether I would want her over for tea. (I also don't know that I wouldn't. I would love to have met Rand, and to have had the chance to form such an impression.) I... don't know how to approach this subject any differently. But it's like, when I watch a great movie or something, I don't find that I develop any particular attachment to the actors or directors or writers, as people. I may love their art, their craft, but I don't carry that affection over to them in the way that I have affection for my friends or my family. (I am only really disappointed when they later make a poor film, just as my disappointments with Rand concern those small areas where I find I disagree with her, philosophically.) Since we're here, on Hickman, my personal view has been that, regardless of her purpose for making those comments in her journal, or what she might have meant by them, she was young at the time. Whatever my view of Rand amounts to, it is not that of some static, unchanging figure, born with Objectivism in her brain. I believe that Rand grew over time, probably made mistakes along the way, and if it was a mistake to have some particular fascination with Hickman or whatever at that point in time, I don't think it a much worse mistake than nearly all people make as they mature. As little as it speaks to Objectivism qua philosophy, in my view, so too does it say about Rand in later years. (Further, I might add that I do not believe that people plateau at any given age/place, and then remain static thereafter. I think it again at least possible that a person could write Atlas Shrugged at one point in their life, but later change, for better or worse.) I agree with you. In her novels and in her non-fiction, I find a deep benevolence and an incredible respect for the intelligence of the reader. Arguments on philosophy aside it is deeply appealing on that level alone. And here I feel I should say that I think there's nothing wrong with your position. I was chaffing primarily against the seeming claim that, as an Objectivist, I should feel compelled to take up the cause of defending Ayn Rand's personal honor. If I overstepped and said that nobody should do so, I'd like to retract that, because I think it's fine for those who have the necessary information and the desire to have those conversations, to do so, in the name of defending someone personally important to you, or for the sake of historical accuracy. I respect your choice to investigate your hero and defend her, when appropriate. That said, I maintain my reservations with respect to the rhetorical value of these conversations (i.e. defending Objectivism via a defense of Rand's actions or personal life), and my fear that to engage in them lends them... a certain power they wouldn't (and ought not) otherwise have. With respect, the situation you're describing sounds to me like a battle that cannot be won. I'm trying to imagine the person who won't investigate Rand's philosophy on the basis of rumors and gossip on her private life, and... I tell such a person that, per Rand's view, her actions were all quite ethical, and that convinces them that Rand's worth listening to? Again -- and maybe we're at an impasse here -- I think that if I could convince them of the ethical nature of Rand's actions (which would rely upon a bit of foundational matter, I think), then I could far more easily convince them of the irrelevance of the entire question. And if I cannot convince them of such irrelevance -- if they reject the principles that stand behind ad hominem; i.e. logical reasoning -- then how are they going to follow me on those principles of Objectivist Ethics that potentially justify an affair that runs so contrary to so many peoples' expectations/biases/beliefs? (Oh. And since we're getting deeper and deeper into this conversation, I suppose that I should stipulate that I believe that there is nothing necessarily wrong with having such an affair. Though I do not feel confident in defending all of Rand's actions, and neither do I wish to investigate them to the point such that I could, I at least believe that they are defensible, in theory.) On the subject of bystanders, I hold my position to be the same. I would rather the bystander be witness to a conversation where the person who seeks to discredit Objectivism by slandering Rand be told that his methods are poor, and not to the point, and have nothing to do with Objectivism, which is a philosophy, rather than witness a (seemingly neverending) debate about the details of the historical record, and dispute on whether Barbara Branden is a trustworthy source, or etc. Putting myself in those shoes, as a bystander, initially ignorant to Rand and Objectivism, I can't think of anything that would have turned me off more quickly than a debate over the particulars of her personal life. I don't know whether my experience speaks to your point of view, or mine, or both (or neither), but my first impression was through my mother, who recommended The Fountainhead to me as being her favorite novel growing up. (Though my mother herself is far from being an Objectivist.) And I did love The Fountainhead when I read it. But it wasn't until much later on that I approached Rand as a philosopher, and I only did that after being told some of her philosophical positions in a very negative (and distorted) light -- from people who were contemptuous of her claims, and dismissive. I figured that anyone that could provoke such an intense reaction should be investigated at least, and that's where I allow myself to say that "the rest was, of course, history." Oh, no, I well understood your use of the word "toleration" as referring to Kelley. But just as I've mostly only taken on those details on Rand's love life which have been thrust upon me in the course of these sorts of conversations, or reading threads, and articles, and generally being sensitive to discussions on Objectivism, I only know as little as about the Peikoff/Kelley split (and resulting factions) as I can get away with. Some of the philosophical questions that have been raised do interest me, and I've read Fact and Value and Truth and Toleration and so forth, but I'm very uncomfortable with the idea that there are two warring sides composed of rigid "cultists," one representing the good guys and the other, the villains (those labels switchable, depending on whether or not you've been recently "purged"). I find it utterly distasteful when folks try to consign others to those roles, and in my personal experience, I've known people who seem to respect Kelley's views, and I've known actual people who have worked at ARI, and I've yet to damn either side to Hell. I don't expect to denounce anyone in the near future. (Though I recognize that this might make me susceptible to such damnation/denunciation, in the opinion of some. I just can't bring myself to care.) In short, though I expect you and I could have an interesting conversation on the "closed system," just as I hope we're having an interesting conversation right now, I am far from believing that you are anything other than rational and thoughtful. Your conduct in this very thread speaks highly of you, I believe, and I thank you for your discussion.
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