Libertarianism vs Objectivism

[Grames]

When Grames starts referring to Leonard Peikoff as a “bittervet,” I’ll take that appellation seriously as applied to others.

Leonard Peikoff is also a bitter veteran of last century's feuds over Objectivism. Peikoff is on record (in one of his podcasts if I remember correctly) talking about his pessimism. He was so pessimistic that Yaron Brook and others and to perform an intervention to get him curb the statements he was making in public. Having cut away so many people who should be friends and allies can only have reinforced that attitude.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Grames

[Grames]

From the Objectivism, Libertarianism and Anarchism page of the ORC the top two items are good. I haven't read them all and there are definitely some essays there I would not recommend.

Libertarianism: A Reply to Peter Schwartz by Ari Armstrong

David and Leviathan by Robert Bidinotto

[softwareNerd]

Lots of people don't vote. In 2008 < 55% of the population voted in the election. What good has that done?

I think the better question is 'what do you have to gain by voting for a libertarian candidate?' It's really unfortunate, but the answer is 'nothing tangible,' as you will see in November. It's best summed up in this AR quote: "The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system." I didn't really put two and two together, but that's why Oist intellectuals always say that voting is not a good way to affect change- philosophy is really the primary cause she was talking about, isn't it? Our error is switching 'consequence' with 'primary cause' in AR's sentence.

Exactly right. Also, the bulk of people who don't vote are not actively protesting. If we had Australia's system of forcing them to go vote, we would not have a better outcome. For all we know, as a group, they are more populist and statist.

The basic fact is this: U.S. voters get the government they deserve. That is to say: it is a government that reflects their views. Of course voters disagree vehemently on some things. Still, if you take a random sample of Congressmen and a random sample of voters you will not have very different views on the fundamental issues: how statist we should be, how religious the government should be, and so on.

Edited October 7, 2012 by softwareNerd

[Ninth Doctor]

Is The Objective Standard still aligned, even loosely, with the Ayn Rand Institute?

I guess it depends on what you mean by “aligned”. During the McCaskey imbroglio Craig Biddle had his ARI sponsored speaking engagements canceled with virtually zero notice, obviously as a result of his public objection to what happenned. He’s not listed on the ARI speakers bureau as of this date.

Consider however, that this was a booting for actively speaking up, as opposed to what happened to Richard Sanford, who was booted for refusing to sign on to a condemnation without evidence.

http://web.archive.o...q/sos/sos1.html

At least now silence appears to be an available choice. This is progress!

Peikoff is on record (in one of his podcasts if I remember correctly) talking about his pessimism. He was so pessimistic that Yaron Brook and others and to perform an intervention to get him curb the statements he was making in public.

I don’t remember that at all. Any chance you could provide a citation?

[Grames]

I don’t remember that at all. Any chance you could provide a citation?

It was in the first years of the podcast, before his website started describing the questions covered. I can't be more precise than that, regrettably.

[Jonathan13]

Ok, let me be fair. Diana Hsieh's claims are just as non-objective from the perspective of uninvolved third party's. There is no reason for me or anyone believe she was correct in any of her denunciations without taking her word at face value on points that ought to be supported with evidence. A brief response pointing out her lack of support for her allegations and letting the record speak for itself is all the response merited. Gleefully participating in the tit-for-tat name calling is stupid, and utterly unprofessional of everyone involved. Robert Bidinotto called her a "guttersnipe", whatever the hell that is. He doesn't have a PhD, apparently something as sophisticated as 'Comrade Sonia' was out of his grasp.

Is it too much to ask for everyone to grow the hell up?

Why are you commenting on this subject? You don't want to inform yourself on the issues and disagreements involved, and yet you want to make judgments about how "stupid" and "unprofessional" others are being for making informed judgments. It's like if people were to call Hitler a murderous jackass, and then you'd come along and scold people for calling Hitler names, and you'd do so while refusing to listen to anything that the name-callers had to say about why they were calling him names. Your position seems to be something like: "I don't want to get involved, except to scold everyone else, and I don't want to understand or take the time to figure out who is right and who is wrong; I'm just here to irrationally assert that since I'm not interested in informing myself and deteremining who is right and who is wrong, therefore no one else should be interested either, and therefore you're all wrong and behaving like children."

How has it not occurred to you that in scolding everyone to grow up, you're scolding others for doing exactly what you're doing? Their point is that certain people need to grow up. Understand? Heh.

J

Edited October 7, 2012 by Jonathan13

[Grames]

How has it not occurred to you that in scolding everyone to grow up, you're scolding others for doing exactly what you're doing?

If it is supposed to be a scolding, it is a failure at scolding because it is participating in the same kinds of behavior that should be targeted by scolding. The refutation to a failure of conduct in someone's profession is to be better than that, not to mimic the behavior.

[Robert Campbell]

Grames,

If you are willing to call Leonard Peikoff a bittervet, then it's a term that may find an objective application.

The DIM Hypothesis is an extremely pessimistic book. Leonard Peikoff no longer predicts, as he did in 1982, that the United States will fall into the hands of neo-fascists; he now predicts a takeover, within 50 years, by enviro-Christian theocrats.

Maybe Yaron Brook tried another intervention, and it didn't work this time.

Robert Campbell

[Jonathan13]

If it is supposed to be a scolding, it is a failure at scolding because it is participating in the same kinds of behavior that should be targeted by scolding. The refutation to a failure of conduct in someone's profession is to be better than that, not to mimic the behavior.

No one is behaving unprofessionally in comparing Hsieh to Comrade Sonia, or in laughing at others' bad behavior. There's nothing unprofessional or childish about it. What would be childish and unprofessional would be if people took your Rodney King approach of demanding that everyone just get along. It really is odd that you're so intent on inserting yourself as judge and jury while being adamantly opposed to learning anything about what you're judging.

J

[Grames]

What would be childish and unprofessional would be if people took your Rodney King approach of demanding that everyone just get along.

Strawman. Advocating normative standards for professional in-fighting is not advocating no fighting.

[Jonathan13]

Strawman. Advocating normative standards for professional in-fighting is not advocating no fighting.

It's not "professional in-fighting." Why do you insist on falsely labeling it as such while refusing to discover what it actually is?

J

[Grames]

It's not "professional in-fighting." Why do you insist on falsely labeling it as such while refusing to discover what it actually is?

Another laughable comment. It is all about Phd's and grad students bitching about each other's writing as it appeared in JARS or books, and then bitching about the bitching, and a person changing affiliation from TOC to ARI being cast as a betrayal of personal loyalties. These aren't butchers, bakers and candlestick makers having a flame war over the internet about Objectivism (not that they would be excused either), but people who publish as part of their professional productivity and should know better. It is petty office politics and professional in-fighting.

[Jonathan13]

Another laughable comment. It is all about Phd's and grad students bitching about each other's writing as it appeared in JARS or books, and then bitching about the bitching...

Just a minor technical point, but wouldn't all of those involved have to be actually employed in the profession in order for the dispute to be labeled "professional in-fighting"?

...and a person changing affiliation from TOC to ARI being cast as a betrayal of personal loyalties.

It's not an issue of betraying "personal loyalties." You've taken a side without knowing the facts.

These aren't butchers, bakers and candlestick makers having a flame war over the internet about Objectivism (not that they would be excused either), but people who publish as part of their professional productivity and should know better. It is petty office politics and professional in-fighting.

Again, why are you "bitching" about it if you're opposed to the "bitching"? When person Y identifies person X as behaving poorly and concludes that she should know better, and then you come along and give your opinion on the dispute without knowing the details, why is that you imagine that you're being virtuous for being critical of Y's behavior while you imagine that he is not being virtuous for being critical of X's behavior? On what grounds do you think that your commenting on an issue that has nothing to do with you is not "petty office politics"?

J

[Robert Campbell]

It is all about Phd's and grad students bitching about each other's writing as it appeared in JARS or books, and then bitching about the bitching, and a person changing affiliation from TOC to ARI being cast as a betrayal of personal loyalties.

Grames,

If you don't want to inform yourself about the particular history here, there's no need for you to do so.

But if you have acted on that preference, you should refrain from loud public judgments concerning the matters you prefer not to investigate.

I've worked in industry as well as academia and seen infighting in both settings. Psychology has its share of factional conflicts, and no particular institution holds a monopoly on bad management or on administrative intrigue.

Here's I've never seen in 30 years in or around academic psychology:

I haven't seen a graduate student move from one theoretical framework to another, or from one faction to another—and in the process consider herself called upon to issue serial public denunciations.

Denunciations, not just of leaders of her former faction, but of persons she used to claim were friends.

Just as I've experienced both sides of the editorial process at psychology journals, and I've never heard of calls to boycott a journal, or public acts of penance for having published in a journal.

I've run across all of these things in Dr. Hsieh's case.

Robert Campbell

Edited October 14, 2012 by Robert Campbell

[Boydstun]

Grames,

If you don't want to inform yourself about the particular history here, there's no need for you to do so.

But if you have acted on that preference, you should refrain from loud public judgments concerning the matters you prefer not to investigate.

. . .

Robert Campbell

In other words, in a professor-superior tone: shut up.

Grammes, you are exactly right. But you just don't fit the agenda of running down Objectivism by continual belittlement of its exponents and continual publicity of personal infighting among Objectivist types.

Edited October 14, 2012 by Boydstun

[Spiral Architect]

[quote name='Grames' timestamp='1349570379' post='298331

Libertarianism: A Reply to Peter Schwartz by Ari Armstrong

Good column and I was glad to see a review of the truths mixed with some of the more obvious gaffs from Shwartz. Things like the libertarian vs. Objectivist positions will never get sorted out in a without honest dissection of the ideas. It was also good to see he exposed specific errors that resulted from such gaffs, like the contradiction inherent in Kelly getting booted for defending freedom from a moral perspective (Objectivism) to a possibly hostile audience (libertarian event) much like Rand use to do with the Ford Hall speeches (modern liberal audience). I have yet to figure out how a contradiction that laughable manages to stand.

Thanks for posting it Grames. I’ll check out the others later.

[Ninth Doctor]

In other words, in a professor-superior tone: shut up.

I think his recent comment "Criticism is valuable—when it's informed" is a more accurate summing up.

[Jonathan13]

In other words, in a professor-superior tone: shut up.

That's not the "in other words" meaning that I took from Robert's posts. I took it to mean that those who refuse to become informed on a subject should avoid making impassioned judgments about it, and also that Robert's specific life experiences inform his opinion that there's something more involved here than mere "office politics" or "professional in-fighting."

Grammes, you are exactly right.

You think that he's right to judge before knowing the facts? He's right to judge others as childish for having judged others as childish while refusing to learn why they judged them as childish?

But you just don't fit the agenda of running down Objectivism...

Is that what you image that critics of Hsieh's (and others') behavior have as an agenda? You've convinced yourself that they hate Objectivism, and that they've decided to destroy it by trying to tear down its greatest exponents?

...by continual belittlement of its exponents and continual publicity of personal infighting among Objectivist types.

In other words, in a professor-superior tone: Shut up. Do not criticize the behavior of Objectivism's Exponents. Do not challenge the errors of Objectivism's Exponents. Dare not claim that you've identified contradictions, mistakes, moral lapses or vices in the ideas or actions of Objectivism's Exponents.

Given the choice between 1) criticizing the bad ideas and behaviors of Objectivism's Exponents so as to remove the bad ideas and behaviors from Objectivism, and 2) keeping quiet about the bad ideas and behaviors of Objectivism's Exponents so as not to draw public attention to them, I'd think that 1 would be the Objectivist option. You seem to think otherwise.

How might I become an official Objectivist Exponent and therefore achieve the status of being above criticism? Where do I submit my application?

And how is it that your posting on the subject doesn't count as belittling Objectivism by getting involved in the personal infighting? Aren't you just dragging your own personal hostility toward Robert from OL over here? Aren't you just upset with the fact that Robert has effectively -- and very professionally -- criticized certain ideas, and that you can't effectively answer his criticisms? Why are you practicing the "continual publicity of personal infighting among Objectivist types"?

J

[Ninth Doctor]

It is petty office politics and professional in-fighting.

Someone on OL this morning said he saw James Randi in the new movie, which led to me looking around for any reference to Rand from him. I didn't find any, but I did see an article that has some relevance here, from TAS.

http://www.atlassociety.org/tni/amongst-believers

It's a critique of PZ Myers, as follows:

So far, so typical. But there is worse, and that is Myers’s willingness to subordinate proper scientific method to political aims. Twice he has accused Bjorn Lomborg (author of

The Skeptical Environmentalist

) of scientific dishonesty on no other evidence than two magazine pieces, one of which was nothing more than a review of a third party’s attack on Lomborg’s work. If it matters, I have checked the references in both articles and can say that they are not merely mistaken, but completely wrong, to the extent that almost every charge they level is false, but that is not the point. Dr. Myers had not read Lomborg’s own work. He had not read the research Lomborg cites. He had not even read the original criticism of Lomborg. He had simply read someone else’s review of the criticism,

and he thought that this was sufficient ground to charge someone with scientific dishonesty.

Like Myers, you're passing judgement on something you're ignorant of. But you're admitting your ignorance almost as if it qualifies you to pass the judgement you're pronouncing. This whole thing is awfully peculiar.

[Dániel Boros]

Good old PZ Myers. He should run for office.

[Robert Campbell]

But you just don't fit the agenda of running down Objectivism by continual belittlement of its exponents and continual publicity of personal infighting among Objectivist types.

It is evident that I have not been complying with Mr. Boydstun's agenda.

Mr. Boydstun wants nothing to do with any substantive criticism of Objectivist writings, unless he was the author of it. Except for Mr. Boydstun, no one engages in substantive criticism; everyone is merely "belittling" and "running down."

Mr. Boydstun further wants to pretend, in the face of considerable contrary evidence, that infighting in Rand-land proceeds no differently from infighting in most other places. He would like us all to believe that the infighters do no harm; only those who call them out on their behavior could do harm to Objectivism.

Robert Campbell

[Plasmatic]

Im just thinking aloud here...Im not sure why but this bickering always seems like a distraction from persuing my goal of understanding my consciousness and it's relation to my enviornment so as to live well.(the non polemical approach to philosophy) This tends to make me think that others are wasting their time doing it but I suppose its because I havent been involved in the war, that I see the two sides contempt as silly. It must be difficult to persue integration for ones self interest alone while being condemned for doing it. I know judging others virtue is relevant to ones own values.......Im gonna go back to what interest me now...

Edited October 16, 2012 by Plasmatic

[Jonathan13]

It is evident that I have not been complying with Mr. Boydstun's agenda.

Mr. Boydstun wants nothing to do with any substantive criticism of Objectivist writings, unless he was the author of it. Except for Mr. Boydstun, no one engages in substantive criticism; everyone is merely "belittling" and "running down."

Mr. Boydstun further wants to pretend, in the face of considerable contrary evidence, that infighting in Rand-land proceeds no differently from infighting in most other places. He would like us all to believe that the infighters do no harm; only those who call them out on their behavior could do harm to Objectivism.

Robert Campbell

Robert, let's just declare ourselves to be Objectivist Exponents! Here, I'll do it for us: I hereby appoint myself to the official position of untouchable Objectivist Exponent, and I hereby appoint Robert to the position as well. There! We're now above criticism!

J (O.E.)

[Spiral Architect]

Sometime bickering and discussion is good since you get opposing ideas to digest and consider. Sometimes it is concerning since it goes off the path. For a philosophy that extols the lack of conflict between rational men we certainly do produce our fair share of conflict.

Sometimes people just need to get sent to a back room with a bottle of tequila along with two shot glasses and instructions not to leave until it is empty. Sometimes emptying of the air and honest discussion afterwards can do wonders to remove baggage we should never carry around.

And I say this with nothing but respect since I enjoy both party’s writings.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Spiral Architect

[Jonathan13]

Sometime bickering and discussion is good since you get opposing ideas to digest and consider. Sometimes it is concerning since it goes off the path. For a philosophy that extols the lack of conflict between rational men we certainly do produce our fair share of conflict.

Logically, the conflicts could be taken as an indicator that all involve are not "rational men."

Sometimes people just need to get sent to a back room with a bottle of tequila along with two shot glasses and instructions not to leave until it is empty. Sometimes emptying of the air and honest discussion afterwards can do wonders to remove baggage we should never carry around.

And I say this with nothing but respect since I enjoy both party’s writings.

I agree that a back room with a bottle of tequila (or two) would probably be a very good solution. Hashing, or even thrashing, it out can do wonders. Unfortunately, you'll notice that there's usually a type of personality involved which isolates itself from open and honest discussion. It bans, moderates or otherwise impedes frank exchanges. It refuses to answer questions and announces that it will have nothing to do with those who ask them. And all that that does is give the issue a much longer life. On the other side, there are those of us who actively seek interaction with anyone and everyone, and are eager to face any challenges, no matter from whom.

J