| | Cass says "As far as I can see, from what your wrote, anything can be 'Objectivism'."
I don't see any reason to say that. I said that her words describe a philosophy, instead of the philosophy being her words. That's why other people could contribute. If the philosophy is objective in nature, not being just a compilation of her words, then other people can grasp it and identify it themselves.
Think of it this way. Imagine a mathematical function f(x)=x+3. You could describe it by giving examples, like where x is 2, f(x) is 5. You can do lots of descriptions. But the descriptions are not the function itself....they merely describe it. Since the function is objective in nature (you're not just making things up willy-nilly), other people can grasp it as well, and give further descriptions/examples.
The same can be said for Objectivism. Rand didn't just have a series of unconnected opinions. She had a number of integrated principles that together shape a philosophy. Describing that philosophy is an attempt to identify it, not a substitute for it. Just as a definition is not a concept, just a description of it. She had reasons for saying the things she did about the philosophy, and explained her reasons. If someone were to take her words as unfounded "truths" they needed to accept in order to call themselves an Objectivist, they would be missing the entire point of what she said. And tying this to my article, if you preach acceptance without understanding, the result would not be an Objectivist at all. Someone who accepts each sentence of hers as an unconnected statement taken on faith is not a real Objectivist, nor would they actually be accepting Objectivism qua philosophy.
Is this compatible with "anything goes"? Hell no! That's like saying just because the mathematical function is not just a set of examples, any other examples is okay. Since the philosophy has an objective nature, it can be identified. And that also means that things that are not compatible with the philosophy can be identified as such. Rand doesn't have to tell us that radical environmentalism, with its worship of nature and hatred of man, is incompatible with Objectivism. If we understand the philosophy which she describes, we can draw that conclusion ourselves.
Similarly, we can look at her various statements and see which ones are philosophical in nature (just because she wrote that she loved her husband, doesn't mean that loving her husband is a requisite part of Objectivism), and which are correctly tied to the philosophy. If in that function I gave above, I listed in my set of examples (100,102), you could correctly argue that I made a mistake. That's because the examples are not the function, only attempted applications of it. If you grasp the underlying premise of the function, you can check the applications of it yourself. Similarly with Objectivism. If Rand applied the philosophy but made a logical error along the way, or had accidently accepted an incorrect premise, we could identify it as such. Anyone who tries to equate her proper use of reason with her mistakes is trying to sever her ideas from reality and from each other, and leaving it all as a dogma.
And frankly, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and accept that they have no understanding of her philosophy and that they treat each conclusion as if it were an isolated, unconnected dogma.
Read Lindsay Perigo's "Fundamentals & Fidelity" on this site for more on the topic.
John, you're right that I don't think everything she said was Objectivism. Otherwise, Objectivism would be the collection of random whims of some woman. And as for whether I think it's open or closed, as Lindsay's article says, it really comes down to what you mean by a "closed" system.
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