| | Robert,
Sure. The expansion of knowledge is a never-ending pursuit. And you, in the face of reality, are in charge. And you are responsible for the results. As I am.
As you say, sometimes you just have to make a decision, because the input never ends if you let it. So you look at the situation, you consider the input that you've got, and you make a decision. If you're rational, and new information warrants, you change.
On the other side, it should not be automatically assumed that because someone believes that they have "new information" or are outraged at a decision that someone else made (and is clearly willing to live with) that they have "standing" with the person. Ayn Rand was acutely aware of this issue, I believe appropriately.
I remember one story that made the rounds many years back about someone who managed to get her phone number and called her about writing an opera, I think on the Icarus legend. I believe she was quoted as saying, "and what do I need you for?" making it clear that she did not want people riding on her name and reputation. This was the issue in NBI's decision to stop endorsing artistic events. And for good reason, if the dance recital I witnessed at Little Carnagie was any indication. It was, I believe, the premise behind NBIs insistence on the right to screen NBI reps or close down attempts to "teach Objectivism" by people they didn't know. This was not an issue of "party line" or "official doctrine" as some have tried to make it out, but of "standing." For all NBI or Miss Rand knew the people who were teaching these courses might have done a better job than Mr. Branden. But they had no standing. They had no business attracting students using Ayn Rand's name and reputation without Ayn Rand's permission.
How does one loose standing? Well, here again, it depends on the standing you had; the more you have, the harder it is to loose. The Brandens had enormous standing with Ayn Rand based on a close relationship that developed over many years. And from all accounts, including Barbara Branden's, it was not thrown over lightly, in a day. The same principle is true of David Kelley, George Reisman, Edith Packer, Linda Reardan, and Jerry Kirkpatrick on the one hand and of Mike Berliner, Peter Schwartz, John Ridpath, Gary Null, and Harry Binswanger on the other.
I think -- this is pure speculation, mind you -- that Dr. Peikoff sees this issue of standing in moral terms. This is only partially a matter of "authority" (although that is, properly, I believe, part of the context), it is a matter of what a person has earned the right to say and do in the context of the established relationship.
To give an example at a lower level. No one on this forum has the standing with me to question my honesty or my commitment to reason. As I do not have that right toward them. It wouldn't take very much for me to stop talking to someone on this panel who talked to me in a way that assumed or stated that I was dishonest or lacked a commitment to reason. My wife, my sister, my best friend are "safer" in their relationship with me if they did the very same thing. And it has nothing to do with the "truth" of the issue. I can't listen to everyone, issues are not a matter of majority vote, they are, like everything, a matter of established context -- ALL the context -- and I can't take forever to make a decision.
Another issue that needs to be discussed -- and which I think is lurking in the background -- is that of "airing ones dirty laundry in public." Here again, I think Peikoff sees this issue in moral terms. (Perhaps this is behind Thomas Knapp's objection to James Valliant's book, though I'd want to know if there is a double standard at work). And along with that is "the very idea" that anyone would question his right to keep some internal issues "under wraps."
Personally, I think he's right. But that can wait for another thread.
Tom
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