| | Dr. Diabolical Dialectical writes:
And let me state this for the hearing of the world: I have actually learned from Lindsay Perigo. Horrors! There is a distinctive difference between the style of my academic work, which enters into very technical scholarly debates over methodology and epistemology, since it is addressed to a very specific audience, and the style of my essays for The Free Radical, which is more accessible. Linz has helped me to tap into my Inner Pit Bull on many an occasion, in his editorial comments on my first or second drafts for TFR, pushing me toward far more colorful and effective communication in that context.
I have employed many ruses to draw out the Inner Pit Bull, all of them successful, but I fear my repertoire of wiles is exhausted. Probably just as well, since they're quite friendship-threatening. Actually, only a little bit of coaxing was ever required—Chris' prose, as long as he's not in Polish mode, is seamless, elegant & eloquent. Just occasionally I pressed for more "sizzle," more of him. In person he's a maniac & a lunatic, more so even than I. No one can do the infamous Brooklyn tour, a helpless hostage as Chris drives at a speed commensurate with his talking, & not realise he is in the presence of true insanity. I wanted to see a bit of that in his articles. :-)
But I stand by my ability to speak "Polish" (as Linz puts it) to the Poles because I believe that different contexts demand different approaches. They do not demand a compromise of the substance of my points. But they do demand that I take into account the interests, needs, and knowledge of the audience I'm addressing.
I have characterised "Polish" (the "Diabolical" part of "Diabolical Dialectical") in part as, "Why settle for one word when thirty will suffice? Why settle for a one-syllable word when there's a six-syllable synonym?" Chris says it's necessary to speak to academics in this way because Polish is their language. I retort that any audience that requires to be addressed in this manner is not worth addressing. The groves of academe are promenaded by poseurs who jerk off as they strut. Of what use are they to us? He & I'll never agree on this.
I've also told Chris what the title of his next book has to be. See, he's so busy in his existing works telling us what everybody else—& I mean everybody—has said that we still don't know where he is at. Someone else has raised this, if not on this thread then on the Ed Younkins one. I note that Chris anticipates the criticism in his concluding remarks in Total Freedom. That won't stop me repeating it here. I want the title of his next book to be, So Fucking What?! Yes, yes, yes, Rand said this, Rothbard said that, Hayek said the other thing, and so on, & on & on; yes, yes, yes, dialectical carryings-on in Rand, if that's what you want to call them—but where is this all leading us?! Get to the point, man!! What's YOUR take on it all?! What does CHRIS SCIABARRA say?!
Chris is a scholar & a gentleman; I am a crusader & a hooligan. By definition, I am by far the more impatient, and, I would argue, the more practical of the two of us. I tell him that in a tsunami he'd perish because he'd want to examine it from every angle before deciding the proper course of action was to run like hell. The last words he'd hear as he was swept up would be from me, shrieking abuse at him from a hilltop. That we remain so close should probably be written up in psychiatry somewhere. If he were an Objectivist, I'd say we were The Odd Couple of Objectivism. :-)
I've told him I'm working on a denunciation similar to the magnificent, terrifying excommunication scene in Becket. "Krakatoa" doesn't begin to describe what I have in mind for him! But every time I think such thoughts, I read his review of I'll Walk With God. I remember his out-of-control sobbing as we listened to that song together. And I know that no matter how exasperated I get with him, he's my soulmate for life. I believe it's the same for him. So, barring one or both of us being locked up for incurable madness, The Odd Couple will be a feature of SOLO for some time yet.
Linz
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