An OPAR Study Group With Study Guide Is The Way To Go

[Locke_and_Rand]

As mentioned in a previous post, for the past several months, I have been running an Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand book study group using the study guide by Gary Hull. The basic format of the group is for the participants to read OPAR, starting at the begning. Every other week, we meet on Sundays at a local coffee shop and answer the OPAR study guide questions as a group for that particular section of OPAR. This format has kept the discussion fairly on focus. There are a couple of people that are fairly new to Ayn Rand's philosophy, and they seem to be learning a lot, and there are also folks participating that have been studying her ideas for many years.

If you are trying to put together some sort of group on a budget this is the way to go. In the past 10 years, coffee shops have proliferated across America, so they make ideal meeting places, especially if you can find one that isn't that busy at the time of the day that your OPAR group meets. Use of the Internet (another thing that has grown a lot in the past 10 years) also makes it easy to keep group members updated on meeting times and locations. I recommend creating a yahoo groups page for your OPAR study group, as well as a blogspot. Both of these Internet services are free. I also recommend that you make the posts on the yahoo group's page available only to group members, this allows you to keep meeting times and locations somewhat secret, thereby helping to ensure that you can control who comes to the meetings. (This is important because you might otherwise get the occasional obnoxious individual who simply wants to disrupt the meetings, and doesn't have a sincere interest in learning about Ayn Rand's philosophy.) The only money costs involved are the costs of the book and the study guide, all of which can be had for under $20. The only other major cost involved is the need for the group to have an organizer, who has sufficient commitment to find the meeting locations, send out meeting announcements, and act as a "contact" for people that are interested in joining the discussion group. One other small outlay of money and time that I suggest you make is to print out some fliers describing the group, and giving contact information. Go to the local universities and community colleges and post them wherever you can. Interest in Ayn Rand's philosophy is going to be higher on college campuses than probably any other single place. You can also post these fliers at local bookstores and coffee shops.

I used to hear a left-wing environmentalist slogan that actually makes some sense when applied to spreading Objectivist ideas. It was something like: "Think globally, act locally." Similarly, I think that you can make a significant contribution to our "cause" by starting a local OPAR group like this.

You can check out my group's Internet presence at:

http://planoopar.blogspot.com/

[Dismuke]

Dean -

I think it is neat that the group has been a success. It is not really possible for me to participate in something like that because of the ongoing time commitment. Plus it takes me over an hour to drive from Fort Worth to Plano when there is no traffic. So between the trip there and back plus the meeting itself, that is pretty much a quarter of the weekend. That's one of the disadvantages of living in a metropolitan area so spread out, I guess.

Use of the Internet (another thing that has grown a lot in the past 10 years) also makes it easy to keep group members updated on meeting times and locations. I recommend creating a yahoo groups page for your OPAR study group, as well as a blogspot. Both of these Internet services are free.

The Internet is indeed wonderful for stuff like that.

Back in the 1990s, I and another local Objectivist basically inherited the local Objectivist club by way of attrition - and, when he became too busy, I ended up being the one reponsible for it. This was before the widespread availability of email. We advertised our meetings in the calendar section of the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Observer. The latter publication was the most effective in terms of generating turnout - but, as you can imagine, it sometimes brought in the occasional crazy person. One time when we were holding meetings in a not-so-nice recreation center, we had a surprisingly large turnout. We were going to present an audio tape of one of Dr. Peikoff's lectures. Before we started, people from the audience began to ask when Dr. Peikoff was going to show up. The Morning News edited our announcement and failed to mention that the lecture was recorded. Needless to say, the people who showed up expecting a chance to see Dr. Peikoff were not so impressed by our little club.

The only way we had to notify people of meetings was by snail mail. At one point, we had a mailing list of over a couple of hundred people. Every month, the other Objectivist and I would publish and have printed a bunch of fliers which we would then have to fold, affix an address label, stamp and drop in the mail - and we paid for it all with our own money. It was a royal pain and a huge chore. To make matters worse, we would send out all those announcements and maybe generate one or two additional people at the meeting over our small group of hard core regulars. The newspaper announcements would always generate a few new people who would sign up for the mailing list - but the vast majority never showed back up for subsequent meetings. To keep costs low, we had to periodically drop people from the mailing list. But that was always a difficult thing to do because we had no way of knowing whether we did not hear from people due to a lack of interest or because they simply were busy with other things and could not attend the meetings.

What used to really tick me off when I was running the local Objectivist club was I would occasionally get a complainer who would moan and groan about how there really ought to be a study group or some other such activity. Such people, of course, never bothered to volunteer to head up such an effort themselves. I was supposed to magically provide it for them. I learned something from that - if you are going to gripe about how an all-volunteer group or project ought to be doing this or that, you had better be darned prepared to volunteer to do a good chunk of the doing yourself. My other suggestion is to pretty much ignore what other people want you to do and how they think you should run things. Run it in such a way that at least YOU derive value from the project - and if others do as well, they are free to join in. If YOU don't get enjoyment out of it, eventually you will burn out and lose interest.

I have yet to make it to any of the meetings that Todd A has been holding. What you say in your posting about it being more of an Ayn Rand fan club rather than a true Objectivist club is pretty obvious by simply looking at the member profiles listed on the Meetup Group. On the other hand, I cannot say that we got a mix of people a whole lot different in response to the newspaper announcements we ran back in the 1990s. Some of the people at our meetings were nice and friendly with pleasant senses of life - and occasionally we got some real kooks (including a fellow who thought that human discovery of agriculture was the source of all evil - and he refused to eat any agricultural products!! ). The reports about the number of people who have shown up for Todd's meetings certainly impressed me. We rarely had that many people show up regardless as to how knowledgeable about Objectivism they were. So long as people are not actively attacking Objectivists or trying to proselytize, I usually enjoy socializing with most people who are Ayn Rand fans but are not necessarily very knowledgeable about Objectivism. So one of these months, I will probably make it over to one of Todd's social gatherings. But I am also very glad that someone is also making an effort to hold events for people who are knowledgeable about Objectivism or are serious about becoming knowledgeable. I wish it were possible right now for me to offer more than mere moral support.

[Locke_and_Rand]

Thanks for letting me know about your own experiences in running a group. It certainly makes me appreciate the folks who invented the Internet even more (and I don't include Al Gore in that group). I understand about your not being able to make it, and I have had several other folks also say that they would like to come but can't due to distance of travel. In the future, after we have gone through OPAR once, I may start trying to do meetings at a more central location (or based on polling potential participants, so long as it isn't too far from where I live). I mostly chose Plano because it is where I live, and that makes it conveneient for me. I also chose Plano because I spent most of my youth here, and it is my little way of "giving back to the community". (I've joked with other O'ists before that they should all move to Plano so that we can take over the city council and school board, and turn it into PlanO.)

I also agree that people who complain don't have a right to complain if they aren't going to "step up to the plate" and do something about it. That's part of why I started the OPAR group, in light of my criticisms of the NTOS meetings on meetup.com.

Anyway, any time you can make it out, you are welcome to do so.

[Dismuke]

I mostly chose Plano because it is where I live, and that makes it conveneient for me. I also chose Plano because I spent most of my youth here, and it is my little way of "giving back to the community". (I've joked with other O'ists before that they should all move to Plano so that we can take over the city council and school board, and turn it into PlanO.)

Hmmmmm. You know, I have always kind of wondered what it would be like to be from Plano, Texas. I can imagine having a conversation along the following lines when on an out of state trip:

"Where are you from?"

"I'm from Plano, Texas."

"Well, gee. I wouldn't say that. I've been to Texas before. There's plenty of interesting things to do and see there. I wouldn't say it's so plain."

"No, that's not what I mean. I mean the city where I live. It's Plano, Texas."

"Well, gee. I'm sorry to hear that. Perhaps you ought to venture out more and explore other parts of the state which you find more appealing and consider to be not quite so plain."

Edited January 10, 2006 by Dismuke