Adding Functionalities To Help Organize Local Clubs?

Local Forums Local Forums Discussion
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We have been experimenting with using Meetup.com for organizing local gatherings in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area of Texas. We have started with meetings about every other weekend with 15-50 people for each meeting. Organizing these meetings would have been much more difficult without the tools offered by Meetup.com.

In connection with starting local forums here, would it be feasible to add to this forum some of the functionalities for organizing local meetings of the type that are available through Meetup.com? If so, this might make it possible to migrate the hosting of our local club (and others) over to ObjectivismOnline.Net.

To see how we have been able to use this service, see: http://aynrand.meetup.com/71/events/

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Another alternative is to use an email network. That is what we do. That way the invitation to the next meeting goes directly to the people you want to invite and only to them.

We operate by invitation-only. We interview potential members of the network – before adding them to the email list and before inviting them to a dinner meeting. That way we exclude the wackos who would otherwise drive away the good people.

For our qualification process, see: www.aristotleadventure.com/spon

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Another alternative is to use an email network. …

Yes, an e-mail network can work for a small club.

We operate by invitation-only. …

Meetup.com offers “by invitation-only” functionality, too.

… we exclude the wackos who would otherwise drive away the good people. …

Is it really that “the wackos would drive away the good people”? For myself, I think that having the opportunity to meet other people interested in Objectivism is worth some risk.

Ayn Rand’s books have sold tens of millions of copies over the years. In any large metro area, whether in Dallas (the buckle of the Bible Belt) or in Seattle, I extrapolate that there must be thousands of people interested in Objectivism.

Can we consider fostering the ability to meet in person?

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Is it really that “the wackos would drive away the good people”? For myself, I think that having the opportunity to meet other people interested in Objectivism is worth some risk.

I think things like this really depend on what type of function it is.

If the function is primarily social, I would think it is probably best to cast as wide a net as possible and advertise and extend an invitation to anyone who is interested. If any of them turn out to be wackos to such a degree that they are obnoxious or disruptive, they can always be asked to leave and to not come back.

On the other hand, if the function is devoted to something very specific such as a study group covering intermediate or advanced subject matter, it is probably best for everyone to have it by invitation only - including those who happen to not get invited.

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My experience in attending and organizing Objectivist groups locally leads me to a different conclusion. Get-togethers can be organized for any one of a variety of purposes. Three main ones are:

  • Evangelism: bringing together individuals who might be interested in learning more about Objectivism with individuals who are knowledgeable Objectivists and might explain it well enough to convince new people to become Objectivists.

  • Social-pleasure: bringing together individuals for the pleasure that comes from associating with like-minded individuals.

  • Study: bringing together individuals who will trade questions and answers about a particular text, in an effort to expand their knowledge of the philosophy.

Our local group (www.aristotleadventure.com/spon) originally met primarily for the third reason, study, but also for the second, to some extent. We all agreed from the start to eschew evangelism. We aren’t out to save the world.

In the last few years, most people entering our network are “philosophy for Rearden” individuals who don’t have much interest in advancing their knowledge of the philosophy. They are quite happy with what they know and with its effect on their lives.

What most people in our network (say, 15 out of 20) want is socializing with like-minded people. Overall, we have been very successful with this.

The only way I know of to gain pleasure from socializing with like-minded people is to socialize with like-minded people. If we were not highly selective about whom we invite, we would be flooded with libertarians, moral-tolerationists, “Christian Objectivists,” anarchists, conservatives, and others (including the “antis,” those strange people who are attracted to socializing with the very people whose philosophy they despise).

In summary, it would be a contradiction for us to want to socialize with like-minded people and then socialize with people who aren’t like-minded. Forty years of attending and fifteen years of organizing socials confirms my conclusion, for me.

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Hi Burgess,

My question was about the idea and possibility of adding to this forum some of the functionalities for organizing local clubs or socials.

For example, at least 9 people have already posted to our local Dallas/Ft. Worth forum, including Greedy Capitalist (our Web God), Dismuke, me, and others. I would like to meet the others in person.

Clearly, many of us have the desire to socialize with like-minded people. For example, you write that you have “… forty years of attending and fifteen years of organizing socials …”

Of course, organizing local Objectivist meetings, we have taken some risks, like you have, and we have met some “others.”

What if we could organize a local club or “society” having a membership of, say, 1,000 people? Suppose only 100 were “Objectivists for Ragnar,” 300 were “Objectivists for Rearden,” 300 were family members (spouses, children, etc.), and 300 were “others.” Suppose we had regular social meetings with a random 100 of these members, some regulars, some coming in and out occassionally. Would such meetings be of interest to you?

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Good question because it concretizes – in an imaginary way – the discussion. I don’t know what you mean by “Objectivists for Ragnar” and “Objectivists for Rearden.” So, I will set that aside until I find out.

A local club of 1000 people? Our local group in Portland (not speaking for the Seattle end of the axis) has accumulated about 10 members in the last eleven years. (In one manner or another, we have turned away about twice that many.) So, numbers like “1000” are initially hard to deal with. (Are all Texans exaggerators? If so, watch out, because I grew up in Houston.)

Not factoring in children, if 60 of the 100 monthly attendees were not Objectivists, I would probably attend one meeting, gather names of Objectivists and their email addresses, and then during the next week organize another group, a network only for Objectivists.

BTW, being an avowed Objectivist wouldn’t be the only requirement for entering the new network. There would be other requirements. Sanity, acceptable table manners, and high standards of personal hygiene would be three.

If I were spending time socializing with others I would want the time to be of the highest quality I could achieve. Going to a social where 60% of the attendees were not Objectivists would not be acceptable as an end in itself (which is the long-term purpose, for me: pleasure), but instead a contest to see if I could find the few jewels among all the gravel.

I suspect we will need to talk this over, back and forth, to find out what each other means by his terms, and what assumptions each is making. Your turn.

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Hi Burgess,

I wish I had time for a turn to discuss right now, but I will probably be up all night working on a project for work due tomorrow. Can I have a brief extension?

Meanwhile, I observed that you were the one who first used the terms “philosophers for Ragnar” and “philosophers for Rearden” in related postings, and I was a bit intrigued. So I thought I would entice you a bit using your words in my hypothetical question. I was hoping you would define the terms for me at some point.

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Meanwhile, I observed that you were the one who first used the terms “philosophers for Ragnar” and “philosophers for Rearden” in related postings, and I was a bit intrigued. So I thought I would entice you a bit using your words in my hypothetical question. I was hoping you would define the terms for me at some point.

I’ll take a crack at that. Rearden and Ragnar are references to the characters of those names in Atlas Shrugged. Rearden is an intelligent non-philosopher. Ragnar is (by the end of the book) a professional philosopher. Because philosophy is Ragnar’s career focus, he needs to understand it in a level of technical detail that is not relevant or necessary for Rearden.

For example, Ragnar would have to have a detailed understanding of how perception works and how to answer technical arguments that attempt to undermine the validity of the senses. He has to know about things like perceptual relativity, the concept of perceptual form, what theory-ladenness consists of and why it’s wrong, etc. Rearden doesn’t need to know any of these things, because his central goal in life isn’t built around philosophy. All Rearden needs to know is that the senses are valid, and he can go on from there to make Rearden Metal and be a great industrialist.

The term “philosophy for Rearden” thus refers to a grasp of philosophy at a lower level of detail that is appropriate for people whose career focus is not directly philosophical. “Philosophy for Ragnar” is a much more detailed and technical grasp of philosophy, necessary if one is pursuing a career as a professional intellectual (especially a professional philosopher).

There is sometimes an unfortunate tendency at Objectivist gatherings for people to get dragged into discussions of technical issues in philosophy. Some people enjoy this. Others just want to relax and socialize with people who don’t think altruism is a moral ideal and irrationalism the defining feature of human life.

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Hi KHaight,

Thanks for offering your explanation and definitions. I estimated that was what BurgessLau had been referring to, but I was not sure. I had substituted “Objectivists” for “philosophy” in each case, but had merely meant to focus, probably unnecessarily on this forum, that the philosophy I was speaking of was Objectivism.

I, too, have observed that there are differing expectations for Objectivist gatherings along the lines you described. One possible way to describe this difference in interest level could be the “philosophy for Ragnar” vs. “philosophy for Rearden” types. I don’t think these differences are bad, though, just a fact that makes organizing meetings more challenging, at least until more Objectivists can find one another.

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If I were spending time socializing with others I would want the time to be of the highest quality I could achieve. Going to a social where 60% of the attendees were not Objectivists would not be acceptable as an end in itself (which is the long-term purpose, for me: pleasure), but instead a contest to see if I could find the few jewels among all the gravel.

Hi BurgessLau,

I am having a hard time getting my mind around your statement.

Are the types of Objectivists you would like to meet so terribly difficult to separate from other people that a 40/60 ratio would be some kind of a “contest” to see if you could find them? To use your analogy, most people can separate jewels from gravel easily and, moreover, would be very glad to do so for much less than a 40/60 ratio.

On the other hand, you say that you would “probably attend one meeting, gather names of Objectivists and their email addresses, and then during the next week organize another group, a network only for Objectivists.”

So assuming we could manage to find other Objectivists in such a crowd, what would make going to a regular social where 40% of the attendees were Objectivists (and 60% were not) so unacceptable “as an end in itself”? Sure, we are all looking for “the highest quality we could achieve” in our socializations. But what is “the highest quality” alternative that we have achieved in an Objectivist context?

It seems to me most local Objectivist clubs around the country are somewhere between tiny, languishing, or dead. For many of us in most parts of the country, even big cities, all we have is a once-a-year nationwide gathering and the rest of the year sitting at home and “socializing” via a keyboard on this forum. Is this acceptable “as an end in itself”?

We excuse this by lamenting that Objectivists are “one-in-a-million.” B.S. Another excuse we make is that Objectivists are very busy and not socializing much. More B.S.

Objectivists are out there. And Objectivists are socializing – just not with each other. I think it is high time we faced it and try and find out why.

Can we consider fostering the ability for Objectivists to meet in person? Can we think of different ways of organizing meetings that might be more productive and give us all a better chance to meet one another?

I wasn’t exaggerating about a local club with 1,000 members. In eight months we have built a local club in which about 200 people have expressed interest, and over 100 people have actually attended various ones of our first 16 meetings so far. For example, our last meeting had 45 people, including 30 adults and 15 children. The ratio of participants is about as stated in my hypothetical question. I am glad to see that our first study subgroup composed of “philosophers for Ragnar” is beginning to form out of the club. I doubt they would not have started but for the broader “society” of the club and the opportunity it provided for them to meet each other. I think a local Objectivist club with 1,000 members is realistic for a big city, and we are going to try.

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Objectivists are out there. And Objectivists are socializing – just not with each other. I think it is high time we faced it and try and find out why.

Care to speculate why this is so? Is it simply a lack of someone to organize and “get things going”?

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Care to speculate why this is so? Is it simply a lack of someone to organize and “get things going”?

Hi softwareNerd,

Looking at other local clubs around the country, and considering the local efforts in my area over the years, I think that some people have made or are making efforts to get things going, but to little avail. But I think the efforts seem to have been limited by the following:

  1. The meetings are geared towards a study group;

  2. The meetings are held at sit-down venues;

  3. Irregular and infrequent meeting schedules; and

  4. Interested people have had a hard time finding each other.

Regarding the first, the study group format fails to address many social issues. For example, it seems to me that often one person in a romantic relationship is more interested as a “philosopher for Ragnar” than the other. In such a case, a study group is less interesting to the other, who may at best be a “philosopher for Rearden,” perhaps not even that interested, occasionally even actively disinterested. So a study group format competes for the couple’s social time. The competition for social time is even greater when a person has children, too. A social allows a broader range of social interactions, from light-hearted to serious discussion.

Regarding the second, meetings held at restaurants, etc. are often sit-down affairs where people end up adjacent to one-another by chance with little ability to move. So the social experience can limited, or worse, one of being trapped at one end of the table or room when a more interesting discussion or social interaction may be taking place out of reach. A social should also have a venue that allows the participants to mingle freely amongst one another and to find matching interests (and even to avoid mismatched interests).

Regarding the third, the meetings are so infrequent and irregular that the participants do not have enough time to build personal relationships with each other. For example, the most frequent meetings I see is about monthly. So imagine if a person goes to a first meeting and meets someone he might like to visit with again, then he has a conflict causing him to miss the next meeting, then a monthly meeting is cancelled, then the other person misses the following monthly meeting, etc. – the two people may have the chance to see each other only a couple times a year. The meetings should be much more frequent if we are to foster personal relationships or any sense of community.

Regarding the fourth, where and how can we find each other? The largest Objectivist organization in the world, ARI, probably has built up over the years a mailing list of many thousands, including hundreds and hundreds in each of the major metro areas. But for reasons that I do not know, ARI will not help a local social club. That has been frustrating, but with the maturation of the internet and with persistence, we should be able to find each other.

Can we consider adding functionalities to ObjectivismOnline that would help those of us who would like to meet each other to organize and so more easily? We have been experimenting in Dallas with Meetup.com, and had some initial success. ObjectivismOnline is a focused subject matter forum, and the functionalities for organizing local meetings of the type that available through Meetup would seem to be a good addition here.

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To answer the simpler question:

Can we consider adding functionalities … functionalities for organizing local meetings of the type that available through Meetup would seem to be a good addition here.

The software we use is a package from Invision. Meetup.com offers the ability for members to sign up for a group, for events to be posted, and for follow-up to event postings (invitations and RSVPs). Member-lists on the forum and topics might be used for the first two. However, the current software doesn’t have anything that can be used for the event-management functionality. I suppose one could look for a separate piece of free software to do that. However, the issue will then be: integrating it with the Invision software. It might end up as a separate piece, functionally no different from setting it up in meetup.com.

Given the nature of this site, I’d say that any significant amount of custom-development won’t happen… unless someone wants to prove me wrong by volunteering?

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Meanwhile, I observed that you were the one who first used the terms “philosophers for Ragnar” and “philosophers for Rearden” in related postings, and I was a bit intrigued. So I thought I would entice you a bit using your words in my hypothetical question. I was hoping you would define the terms for me at some point.

No, what I have said is “philosophy for Rearden” and “philosophy for Ragnar.”

I learned that terminology from Betsy Speicher, in the online Objectivism Study Group many years ago. She developed the terms from a phrase Ayn Rand used in Ayn Rand’s notes for her projected book, Objectivism. Ayn Rand’s phrase was “Philosophy for Hank Rearden.” That phrase appears now on p. 700 of Journals of Ayn Rand. There it refers to her target audience for her planned book. She wanted to write about her philosophy to good men who have no explicit objective philosophy because they live in a time in which philosophy has died, and so she needed to start from the ground up.

For me, “philosophy for Rearden” refers to the basic principles that an already implicitly objective person is probably operating on, but he needs to have them presented explicitly and in systematic form. And that is what Rearden in Atlas Shrugged needed. Most of his philosophy was objective but implicit. Part of his philosophy – his view of sexuality, for example – was wrong and so he needed to be offered an explicit, objective abstraction to guide him. Thus, “philosophy for Rearden” refers to an objective philosophy at a basic level. (“Basic” doesn’t mean “elementary” here.) With that level of philosophy, anyone can live a happy productive life – in a rational culture.

“Philosophy for Ragnar,” by contrast, means to me the level of knowledge of philosophy that a professional philosopher – such as Ragnar in Atlas Shrugged – would seek: comprehensive and detailed. From that level of understanding of philosophy, a philosopher could begin to build foundations for the specialized sciences – philosophy of law and philosophy of mathematics, for example. That would be the start of building a new culture, one in which the Hank Reardens would thrive.

[Edit: I see now that Khaight has answered already, and exactly on target. Perhaps my additional explanation will supplement his.]

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I had substituted “Objectivists” for “philosophy” in each case, but had merely meant to focus, probably unnecessarily on this forum, that the philosophy I was speaking of was Objectivism.

Actually you substituted “philosophers” for “philosophy.”

One possible way to describe this difference in interest level could be the “philosophy for Ragnar” vs. “philosophy for Rearden” types. I don’t think these differences are bad, though, just a fact that makes organizing meetings more challenging, at least until more Objectivists can find one another.

Organizing special study groups, which apparently you have already done, is one solution. I have found another, partial solution. If the discussion involves everyone, supposedly, but one or two people insist on technical discussions, you might ask them how the issue would affect everyone’s life. Questions such as that sometimes help steer the discussion in a general direction – and, as a side benefit, squash rationalism if that is actually the problem, as it is among some individuals new to Objectivism.

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Are the types of Objectivists you would like to meet so terribly difficult to separate […]

Do you mean intellectually difficult or personally unpleasant? No, not intellectually difficult once one has identified objective criteria and gathered enough information about the other person. But the process can sometimes be quite unpleasant – which directly contradicts the point of the socializing in the first place, for me and most of the individuals in our local network.

To use your analogy, most people can separate jewels from gravel easily and, moreover, would be very glad to do so for much less than a 40/60 ratio.

When you say “most people,” perhaps you are speaking about the people you know and admire in your Objectivist network. Most of the people I know would not gladly spend any significant part of each evening separating jewels from gravel – especially if they thought the gravel would be returning to the next event.

[…] what would make going to a regular social where 40% of the attendees were Objectivists (and 60% were not) so unacceptable “as an end in itself”?

It wouldn’t be pure pleasure.

Sure, we are all looking for “the highest quality we could achieve” in our socializations. But what is “the highest quality” alternative that we have achieved in an Objectivist context?

I don’t understand your question. Who are “we”? Are you referring to your group in the Dallas-Fortworth area?

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It seems to me most local Objectivist clubs around the country are somewhere between tiny, languishing, or dead. For many of us in most parts of the country, even big cities, all we have is a once-a-year nationwide gathering and the rest of the year sitting at home and “socializing” via a keyboard on this forum. Is this acceptable “as an end in itself”?

Acceptable to whom? Not to me and the other Objectivist who, eleven years or so ago, organized the Portland Area Objectivists. But I reject as a false dichotomy the scenario you paint above (which is quite accurate) versus socials that are nearly half non-Objectivists. Is there no other solution, such as filtering first to ensure higher quality at the socials?

We excuse this by lamenting that Objectivists are “one-in-a-million.” B.S. Another excuse we make is that Objectivists are very busy and not socializing much. More B.S.

Who are “we”? (And I hope you aren’t including me in your charge of BS!)

I wasn’t exaggerating about a local club with 1,000 members. In eight months we have built a local club in which about 200 people have expressed interest, and over 100 people have actually attended various ones of our first 16 meetings so far. For example, our last meeting had 45 people, including 30 adults and 15 children. The ratio of participants is about as stated in my hypothetical question. […] I think a local Objectivist club with 1,000 members is realistic for a big city, and we are going to try.

If my shaky calculations are accurate, your last meeting drew 18 Objectivists. (Children, by definition, are nonphilosophical – but can be a delight to have around, as we know in our local group.) That’s quite good. That is what we draw for our quarterly dinners and socials. But isn’t 18 a long ways from 1000?

I wish you well. If you succeed I look forward to learning from you. You have already shown you have qualities required for success. Examples are: the virtue of ambition, the virtue of persistence, and (I assume) the wisdom to pace yourself for the long-term.

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A social allows a broader range of social interactions, from light-hearted to serious discussion.

Regarding the second, meetings held at restaurants, etc. are often sit-down affairs where people end up adjacent to one-another by chance with little ability to move. So the social experience can limited, or worse, one of being trapped at one end of the table or room when a more interesting discussion or social interaction may be taking place out of reach. A social should also have a venue that allows the participants to mingle freely amongst one another and to find matching interests (and even to avoid mismatched interests).

First, I would like to congratulate you on your perceptiveness. Your analysis is right on target. In our overall Seattle-Portland network, we have found that for large groups an “open” format works best, that is, a situation where people can mix and match at will. That usually means someone’s house. So, what we have often done for our quarterly meetings is move from one house to another (so as not to burn out any one host). When no one volunteers, then we hold the social in an appropriate restaurant and at an appropriate time – e.g., a Saturday afternoon or a Monday evening, which are usually off-hours for restaurants.

As for the sit-down limitations, we have found – in our Portland Area Objectivists network – a partial solution: Once the eating is done, half of the individuals get up and trade places. Not a total solution but it does help.

Some restaurants do have side rooms that allow both sit down and get-up and move around. The drawback is often the cost: In this area, the typical minimum is $300 (whether everyone shows up or not). That’s too risky for us, for now. But we have found a restaurant that allows us to sit, switch places, and talk for quite awhile. Most restaurants rightly want to move people on. Time of the week affects this too.

Here is something else that has happened – without any direction from the coordinators of the network: some members began socializing with each other on the side. Our group consists mostly of couples, so typically this means two couples getting together. (Some of our other members are married, but their spouses don’t attend.) The bonds have grown strong that way – spontaneously.

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Hi softwareNerd,

Thanks for the technical explanation. Although I do not have your technical expertise, I had expected this would be the case.

Meanwhile, I do recommend Meetup.com for organizing local clubs. It has been a big help to us in the North Texas area.