| | Thanks for the feedback, gents.
I did want to say one thing in response to Elijah Lineberry, however; he is absolutely right on this. Just because Rand said it, doesn't make it so.
A biographical note: The very first book I read of Ayn Rand's was CAPITALISM: THE UNKNOWN IDEAL. To this day, I believe that anthology to be one of the finest ever published. What amazed me about it then, is what amazes me about it now: Rand's capacity to ~integrate~ the facts of reality in a manner that made visible the ~roots~ of social crisis, while pointing in the direction of a revolutionary resolution to that crisis.
IF you accept the essence of her critique, but not all of the details (and this description certainly fits my own approach to this), then you'd still need to come to grips with the fact that the essence of Rand's critique of foreign policy is bound up, inextricably, with her critique of domestic policy, with ~interventionism~ in general.
So even if we reject the specifics of that critique, we need to do a better job, as Objectivists, of coming to grips with its essentially ~radical~ character---and here, I mean "radical" in a methodological sense: Rand's search for roots and fundamentals, and her attempts to trace those forces within a remarkable network of interrelated factors.
~This~ is what is being dispensed with in most Objectivist commentary on the war and on the global crisis. And even if people disagree with what Rand said---or what I say (in the details)---they still need to spend a lot more time on the ~methods~ that Rand uses to understand ~any~ social problem---be it global, domestic, or something happening right in your neighborhood.
I'll have a lot more to say.
Cheers,
Chris
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http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/update.htm
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