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What are the factions within Objectivism?

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lucien

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I don't want to start anything like rumors or gossip but There are many branches in Objectivism and I would have like to know what is going on right now. I think that the reaon why people left the ARI (or were thrown out of it) was because of diferences in personnality, but I would like to know a little bit more about it.

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I don't want to start anything like rumors or gossip but There are many branches in Objectivism and I would have like to know what is going on right now. I think that the reaon why people left the ARI (or were thrown out of it) was because of diferences in personnality, but I would like to know a little bit more about it.

The essential issue is what defines Objectivism, and a related question is whether you see Objectivism as a mass movement. If you do, then you have to expand the boundaries of Objectivism to make it appeal to a wider audience (so that people who are a little bit predisposed to Objectivism might be a little bit more predisposed to Objectivism, and you can get more people into the tent). I think the whole thing reduces to different positions on compromise: TOC fans seem to hold that compromise is good and ARI fans seem to hold that it isn't.

Neither ARI nor TOC existed when I first got into Objectivism, and when I came back, this was all rather confusing. If you're interested to get more of a flavor of TOCism you might check this list. I assume you know how to find ARI's web page. The Objectivist Reference Center is an excellent repository of information.

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I was wondering if it would be a big deal to talk about the many factions whithin the Objectist philosophy or if we could sort it out for those, like me who don't really know what's going in on.

There are no factions within Objectivism, the philosophy which Ayn Rand created.

If you think there are, then the onus of proof is on you.

Also, what is the purpose of the title you chose for this thread?

P. S. -- Please proofread your messages carefully to correct spelling and grammatical errors. Because of those errors, your message is hard to read. See the Forum Rules.

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There are no factions within Objectivism, the philosophy which Ayn Rand created.

If you think there are, then the onus of proof is on you.

Also, what is the purpose of the title you chose for this thread?

P. S. -- Please proofread your messages carefully to correct spelling and grammatical errors. Because of those errors, your message is hard to read. See the Forum Rules.

I'm not exactly certain how you are defining "faction" Burgess, but there are clearly at least two different organizations promoting Objectivism, each with a different understanding of the philosophy and different approaches. There is also another upstart Objectivist organization, namely SoloHQ. There is also an "independent" "Randian scholar" in Chris Sciabbarra (complete with his own philosophical journal, The Journal Of Ayn Rand Studies). Now for my part, as interesting (and amusing) as some of these non-ARI entities can be, ARI is far superior both in their grasp of the philosophy and in their strategy for promoting it. [see Diannah Hessiah's writing on her blog concerning her reasons for leaving TOC.] But that being said, both these organizations are legitimate institutions with an underlying support base. A support base that for the most part does not respect (to put it mildly in some cases) each other. In fact, I think if you put Leanord Peikoff, Nathaniel Branden, David Kelly, Chriss Sciabbarra, and Lindsey Perigio in the same room, there might be a mercy killing :D

In my opinion, I would say if they aren't factions, they are pretty close.

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I'm not exactly certain how you are defining "faction" Burgess, but there are clearly at least two different organizations promoting Objectivism, each with a different understanding of the philosophy and different approaches.

Ah, but you see the "factions" concept would be perfectly understandable if it was the Hegalian school of thought which could splinter into 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.234 factions causing nary a one to bat an eye.

If there is a philosophy out there that has a definite identity, it is Objectivism (something TOC might argue!), one side promotes it, the other does not. There are no factions. I am not saying that if you are not ARI, then you are outside of Objectivism, but I am saying that the ones you mentioned are.

I find this whole "different understanding" and approach stuff dubious (on their part, not yours for mentioning it argive). Ayn Rand's writing were not unclear.

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I'd put it this way: there are a growing number of groups and individuals who claim to promote Objectivism. However, as the meaning of that term is disagreed upon, they can't really be said to be promoting the same thing.

For instance, some assert that "Objectivism" is a proper noun (i.e., ARI, who hold it is the name of Ayn Rand's philosophy) while others hold that it is somehow both a concept (in that it is open to revision without end) and a noun.

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I'm not exactly certain how you are defining "faction" Burgess, but there are clearly at least two different organizations promoting Objectivism, each with a different understanding of the philosophy and different approaches. There is also another upstart Objectivist organization, namely SoloHQ. There is also an "independent" "Randian scholar" in Chris Sciabbarra (complete with his own philosophical journal, The Journal Of Ayn Rand Studies). Now for my part, as interesting (and amusing) as some of these non-ARI entities can be, ARI is far superior both in their grasp of the philosophy and in their strategy for promoting it. [see Diannah Hessiah's writing on her blog concerning her reasons for leaving TOC.] But that being said, both these organizations are legitimate institutions with an underlying support base. A support base that for the most part does not respect (to put it mildly in some cases) each other. In fact, I think if you put Leanord Peikoff, Nathaniel Branden, David Kelly, Chriss Sciabbarra, and Lindsey Perigio in the same room, there might be a mercy killing  :D

In my opinion, I would say if they aren't factions, they are pretty close.

So, you are saying that what Kelley, Sciabarra, and Perigo write about is Objectivism?

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I'm not exactly certain how you are defining "faction" Burgess, but there are clearly at least two different organizations promoting Objectivism, each with a different understanding of the philosophy and different approaches.

Sometimes I slip up, but I do try to write carefully. I write to objective readers -- that is, those who read carefully, considering the referents of the idea named by each word.

What I said is that there are no factions within Objectivism.

Objectivism is a particular philosophy, which is a set of abstractions. Will you explain to me how you manage to believe that there exist two organizations of living, flesh-and-blood human beings in an abstraction?

Or are you trying to say that you believe there are two factions within the Objectivist movement, which is a social existent just as organizations are social existents?

P. S. -- To Lucien or anyone else, again I ask: What is the purpose of the title of this thread? Who is Chris Wolf, and what is the relevance of it to the subject of this thread? Silence on this question and the nature of the initial post raise my suspicion that we are being trolled.

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Sometimes I slip up, but I do try to write carefully. I write to objective readers -- that is, those who read carefully, considering the referents of the idea named by each word.

What I said is that there are no factions within Objectivism.

Objectivism is a particular philosophy, which is a set of abstractions. Will you explain to me how you manage to believe that there exist two organizations of living, flesh-and-blood human beings in an abstraction?

Or are you trying to say that you believe there are two factions within the Objectivist movement, which is a social existent just as organizations are social existents?

P. S. -- To Lucien or anyone else, again I ask: What is the purpose of the title of this thread? Who is Chris Wolf, and what is the relevance of it to the subject of this thread? Silence on this question and the nature of the initial post raise my suspicion that we are being trolled.

I see what you mean and I agree. There are no factions within the Objectivist philosophy. There is the philosophy as Ayn Rand left it and there are those that understand it and those that don't. What I was trying to get at is that there are factions within the Objectivist movement. Allthough you could argue that TOC and the others are not spreading Objectivism but a bastardized version of it and thus are not in the business of spreading Objectivism.

But what I was really trying to show is that there are a group of people who are making their living off of Ayn Rand's name and they usually share animosity towards each other and constantly attach each other's work. Actually let me be specific about that: all the ersatz Objectivists are constantly attacking ARI and there associates and proclaiming that they (ARI) are abandoning the true legacy of Ayn Rand. For example, here are some links to Chriss Sciabbarra's negative commentary on Peter Schwartz's book of foriegn policy:

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/notablog/

You will find the same thing on Solo's site and Branden has made a career of pointing out the "failures" of Objectivism. My point is to show that there are hostilities to be found in this intellectual movement although I wish there weren't. Chriss Wolf is one such example. He is a TOCer who has a site somewhere dedicated to a bunch of articles attacking Leonard Peikoff.

From what I understand about the history of intellectual movements, this is natural. But that being said, I can't help but wonder if Objectivism wouldn't have been farther along if it weren't constantly plagued by those who want to rewrite the philosophy.

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