Intellectual Development - How Did Ayn Rand *Become* Ayn Rand?

Well, actually, I don't think you grasped Mike's point. He's saying Rand's identification (an advance even on Aristotle's) of the underlying reality of human nature has enabled us to realise what has driven human progress all along, including long before Ayn Rand was around. That is not true from one viewpoint & false from another; it's true, period. Some things are, you know! :-)

Linz

Post 61

Thursday, June 2, 2005 - 6:01am

Ooops! Clearly my last post was a response to Chris. Robert got in the way. :-)

Robert - I think you shouldn't fret about folks' inability to separate purported statements of fact from overt exercises in thinking aloud, speculatively, among friends. If anyone here, including you, hasn't wondered precisely the same things in the face of a certain amount of circumstantial evidence I'd be astonished. Doesn't mean we're all leaping to conclusions. Our understanding of sexual psychology, while still primitive, is much more advanced now than it was in Rand's day (and much more advanced than hers); there's nothing wrong with looking at her in the light of it.

Of course, some folk would have moral objections to certain hypotheses, whereas if Frank or Ayn had homo tendencies it wouldn't bother me at all. It *would* help to explain some bizarre features of their sex lives, however.

Linz

Post 62

Thursday, June 2, 2005 - 6:15am

"It *would* help to explain some bizarre features of their sex lives, however."

Well, by all means, explain yourself.

Ross

Post 63

Thursday, June 2, 2005 - 7:17am

Linz, I would agree with that point unequivocally. No ifs, ands, buts, or butts. My only concern was imputing something explicit to the past that was only recently developed, which comes perilously close to anachronism.

Post 64

Thursday, June 2, 2005 - 7:20am

Mr Chris,-

Rick asks: "We know what a philosopher believes, and why he claims to believe it, so why give a damn for who else besides ourselves believe it?"

In essence, if you want to change a society, you better care "who else besides ourselves believe it." :)

On the contrary sir, concerning human understanding there is only one judgement that matters and only one mind charged with the responsibility for that judgement- one's own.

Change a society or change a lightbulb but apprehend this task individually and to hell with who else besides ourselves may or may not apprehend. You are taking liberties with the subject, remember it is concerning human understanding itself, not the concretes to which it may be applied.

Now, you can get away with calling Romano a sissy---I don't agree with his article in general---but you're lucky you didn't call me one! I'm from Brooklyn. Enough said. :)

I come from Canterbury. How many times in a row has Brooklyn won the Super 12? :)

In truth, all that Romano says boils down to his conclusion: "When philosophers share the details of their lives, the impact extends to the reader." I do think that when we grasp the struggles of an Ayn Rand or the struggles of a Thomas Paine or the struggles of a Martin Luther King, Jr., it does help to contextualize "where they were coming from." And to that extent, at the very least, it does help us to appreciate where they may triumph, and where they may fail.

This appreciation will be for the living breathing person, not their ideas. I think Romano showed the affects of this knowledge to be an impediment to responding to intellectual ideas intellectually. Romano wanted his (her?) exampled criticism toned down, not because of intellectual considerations but because of emotional, empathetic ones. It's as if we wouldn't mind Stalin's political policy so much if he had some hard-bodied sex kittens selling it to us.

The only mercy I strive to give intellectually is based on what intelligence under examination deserves. Give me the arguments and give me the conclusions and to hell with the rest- to hell with how hard their life has been, how big their tits may be, how many cats she owned.

Objectivism is the birthright of all rational animals everywhere and everywhen who are 'big enough' to claim it.

Then why didn't people prior to 1957 grasp it? In the wide scheme of human history, were human beings in the dark prior to 1957?

'Big enough' to claim it, Chris.

Philosophy may seek truth, but it seeks it in an adversarial as well as in an investigative manner."

Adversity is mere stimulus, and stimulation is not grounds for any beliefs remotely like those held by they who champion or oppose the adversity.

Again, give me the arguments only- nothing else can lend weight to the conclusions. So they arose from a pub brawl between David Hume and....but I don't want to know about that, don't try to bias me.

knowing something about it, and about the context in which she was born, and over which she triumphed, does help us to appreciate, I think, the depth and breadth of her accomplishment.

So you keep saying, "helps us appreciate appreciate appreciate". Yes of course it does, I don't need convincing of that. I'm always interested in the lives of the thinkers I study, even to teh extent that I draw stunning cartoon caricatures of all their faces to go with my notes! I appreciate the lives and personalities more than most.

But wouldn't you agree that there are different types of appreciation? And if you do then wouldn't you consider I may have an important point about divorcing philosophical appreciation from biographical appreciation?

I really really really think our appreciation for Ayn Rand's lesbianism is as orbiter as hell, with marmalade on top. There wont be any cartoon strips for that in my Objectivism notes.

And...hi there you.

Rick - why do I have a sense of deja vu here?

Praps because this isn't the first time, or the second time, you've left me to fend for myself when I've counted on your sticking up for me.

Post 65

Thursday, June 2, 2005 - 7:26am

Linz, there are innumerable possible antecedents to any given behavior pattern. As you know, a person can be introverted, extroverted, serious, funny, uptight, relaxed, etc., for a billion different reasons.

Speculating publicly about a particular reason for someone's personality style, in the absence of a single factual pebble for that speculation to sit on, strikes me as inappropriate and pointless at best. Public (as opposed to private) speculations concerning sexual identity or other intimate matters strike me as irresponsible.

And speculations posted on the Internet are never just "among friends."

Post 66

Thursday, June 2, 2005 - 8:11am

Chris,

"My only concern was imputing something explicit to the past that was only recently developed, which comes perilously close to anachronism."

But if you are talking about human nature, meaning that which existed in man "since men evolved to be men" then you are talking about things that existed before ANY modern cultures or philosophies existed, including Aristotle. It is the properties of this Human Nature that have allowed individuals to overcome the mistakes of whatever culture they are born into and advance human progress, at least in their own lives. Are we not inherently rational? How else can you explain the day to day survival of individuals living in cultures of mysticism throughout history? If a significant fraction of people actually tried to live according to the tenets of the mysticism of their own cultures [i.e.: communism], human life would be impossible, or reduced to bare subsistence.

Rick,

I agree that EVERYONE has their own life story, the good, the bad, the ugly. The interesting part about person is how well they reason things out. Their personal philosophy.

Post 67

Thursday, June 2, 2005 - 9:04am

Rick says: "On the contrary sir, concerning human understanding there is only one judgement that matters and only one mind charged with the responsibility for that judgement- one's own."

You'll get no argument from me about the need to rely on the judgment of one's own mind as a primary responsibility. But Objectivism is not solipsism. There's a world out there, and much injustice, as I'm sure you would agree. And that's a "concrete" that very much calls out for understanding, application, and alteration.

I think we're talking over each other's heads here on the issue of appreciating biography. I agree with you that the conclusions have a life of rightness or wrongness independent of the biography of the person who formed them. But ideas are not disembodied creations. And history is not the unfolding of a Hegelian Idea. It is made by real flesh and blood, thinking individuals. All I've said is that we can enrich our appreciation of an idea if we situate it within the context in which it was born, and to which it speaks. And on one level, this is a crucially important aspect of our analysis, because it will tell us if the idea is relevant only to that context, or if it can be celebrated for its universal character.

In addition, the adversarial process that you believe is mere stimulus has also compelled philosophers and scientists alike to "go back to the drawing board" because the process itself revealed certain weaknesses in the logical implications of their arguments. I don't see why we need to place the adversarial and investigative processes in mutually exclusive, hermetically sealed, containers. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

Mike, I agree with you completely that there are properties in "Human Nature that have allowed individuals to overcome the mistakes of whatever culture they are born into and advance human progress, at least in their own lives." No disagreement on this at all. My point is that it is illegitimate to impute "Objectivism"---which has very specific philosophical implications for metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics---to those people in the past who have exercised their rational faculties and, in so doing, have advanced human progress. I agree completely that there is an implicit pro-life standard entailed in their actions, and that pro-life standard has been apparent from the very earliest steps in the evolution of the human species. But that doesn't make those who exercised their rational faculties into "Objectivists" in the way that Rand identified it. These same people who thought and produced may not have relied on the tenets of mysticism to flourish, but many of them thanked the gods for bestowing such blessings. And even though they may have implicitly accepted a rational standard of value, they often embraced an explicitly irrational ethos of altruistic duty or service to justify their actions. One of Rand's achievements is that she checked the mixed premises at work, seeking to make apparent the contradictions of moral convention, so that she might overturn them once and for all.

Finally, and most importantly, to Rick: Brooklyn may not have won a Super 12, but it's only because uttering "Brooklyn" and "rugby" in the same sentence is an oxymoron.

Post 68

Thursday, June 2, 2005 - 10:14am

Chris, you wrote

There is evidence that Rand is gaining in popularity in the United States and maybe a few other countries (primarily in the West), but she is still primarily an American writer appealing to an American audience. I don't see her as being especially known or popular in, say, the Middle East or Russia or Asia or Africa, where, Lord knows, her influence is sorely needed.

I can state first hand that her influence in Brazil is very close to not at all. Both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged were published there with good translations and essentially nothing happened so far. Apparently she is doing well in Argentina, so this might bleed over a little, but I think it will be more from the traditional rivalry down there and not the force of her ideas. Not yet anyway. (If she had written on soccer, that might have helped.)

I have always had a problem with Rand's contention about Aristotle's influence, including the implication that he was THE ONE force behind human progress based on reason. After living in another culture for over 30 years, I have seen the force primitive ideas like African jungle religions can exercise and how they can instill intellectual blindness. The people that I have known who struggle to break free of the superstitions and Catholicism and socialist dogma that reins there do so without even knowing what a syllogism is.

I know this sounds superficial, because you can say that Aristotle's and Rand's influence on countries like the USA, whose influence on Brazil is large, indirectly brings them in. But this "discomfort" over the years was compounded by another personal experience. I was also married to an Arabian immigrant tribe for 5 years there (you don't marry an Arabian woman, you marry the whole damn tribe). Through this, I became aware of the advances in written language, medicine, trade and many other areas of rational human progress that Western man absolutely depends on from that culture that had no influence from Aristotle whatsoever - many key advances in these areas occurred before he even lived.

I don't even need to point out the different Oriental cultures in this context.

So while Aristotle was a bedrock on which Ayn Rand based her own (and our) philosophy, he certainly was not a driving influence in human progress in other cultures where he was not even known. As a matter of fact, his influence was completely overshadowed in the West after the barbaric invasion of Rome (even before, arguably) for centuries. It sort of all boils down to whether the people wanted rational human progress or not. When they did not, he was easily discarded. When they did, he set solid standards for reason and was a very strong fountainhead - but one only. Other cultures have had theirs also.

Rand's greatness in distilling basic premise ideas and tracing their influence is magnificent. What makes me uncomfortable at times is that her need for arriving at "one" cause flows over into a need to identify "one" man (Aristotle, Plato, Kant, etc., depending on what she is talking about).

Linz wrote a very interesting article on the influence of Rousseau in addition to Kant. This has sparked a desire in me to pursue this same line of historical analysis - tracing the ideas and not the men except where pertinent. Just because Rand said that Kant was THE EVIL ONE does not mean that he was alone - or that his influence was even felt many times. Core ideas without his jargon were, though. I am convinced that human history cannot be simplified as greatly as the "one man" view. To me, this tendency of attributing men with the sole authorship of basic ideas is something Objectivism needs to set aside and get on with the serious work of making this world a better place to live in through vibrant rational premises presented in a systematic format.

This brings us to Rand herself. Sure, she put together a working framework for defending reason and packaged it emotionally and competently enough to gain a wide audience. Religion does that with faith. Her greatness lies in this packaging - not in being the SOLE AUTHORESS of all the ideas and integrations she wrote about. Many were hers but many were not. And her influence is starting to be felt more prominently now than when she was alive. As you stated, mankind did pretty darn well without her progress-wise before 1957 - and even after for a good bit.

I guess a subtext of all this is to take away the god and goddess in philosophers and focus on their ideas. That, by the way, is one of the reasons why a study of their lives - their struggles and triumphs and contexts and even thinking processes - is so vitally important. I have observed that for a bad idea to take hold in society, all you need is a proponent with charisma and off it goes. But for a good idea to go forth, much more is needed.

(In Brazil, they say if you get in a bad way and need to borrow money to eat on, people will not even answer the telephone a second time, but if you need to fuck somebody up real bad, they will show up in droves to help you - for free.)

So a case needs to be made for the absolute truth of a good idea that a bad one doesn't need. This seems to be based on something in the very nature of man. And when this case is restricted to one author alone, it usually falls to the wayside. The only way to divorce sole authorship of an idea from a charismatic proponent is to study his/her life and influences.

Apropos of this and with regards to the issue you were discussing with Mike, Objectivism is not THE WAY for rationality. It has not been an isolated system in discovering and elaborating rational principles and good ideas. But it is an extremely palatable and exciting way to package reason. There are others and they are just as valid when the logic holds. Truth does not bow down to Objectivism. It is Objectivism that must bow down to the truth. This is one of the major contributions I see in your own work - aligning Objectivism with truth, regardless of where this takes you - including studying where these ideas came from and the people who originated the main forms of propagating them.

On a personal note, I chose to be an Objectivist simply because I happen to like this flavor. That is the value I see in what you and Mike were discussing about "instant identification."

As one final remark, since Rand has been so outspoken on sexuality, and some of her opinions have become dogma to many, I would like to take Linz's heresy (and Brendan's) one step further in questioning her and her husband's sexuality. Since she was one who had no problem at all in projecting a public image that was completely at odds with what her private life was like, even while insinuating scathing condemnation of those who were doing precisely what she was practicing in private, I can see a crack open where same-sex attraction could have held a fascination for her that she would not talk about but do. This crack arises from her own behavior, not from blind speculation. Personally I find the possibility remote, but I think it is important to entertain - once again to separate the goddess from the genius. (Also, I just can't imagine Nathaniel Branden, after all he wrote and did on inner honesty, in bed with a man and not saying anything about it.)

Michael
(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 6/02, 11:14am)

Post 69

Thursday, June 2, 2005 - 10:34am

Michael, I think you make very good points. One of the things that has fascinated me in comparative politics or sociology is the study of how parallel ideas develop in cultures that, for the most part, have little or no contact with one another. I don't subscribe to a "Great Man" (or "Great Woman") theory of history---or the history of philosophy---even though I certainly recognize the "Atlases" who have made an impact on the development of Western ideas. But there is a lot more to the world than the west, and there are very interesting developments to trace in non-Western cultures. Anyway, again, thanks for some fine insights.

Post 70

Thursday, June 2, 2005 - 12:20pm

Chris wrote:
I agree completely that there is an implicit pro-life standard entailed in their actions, and that pro-life standard has been apparent from the very earliest steps in the evolution of the human species. But that doesn't make those who exercised their rational faculties into "Objectivists" in the way that Rand identified it. These same people who thought and produced may not have relied on the tenets of mysticism to flourish, but many of them thanked the gods for bestowing such blessings. And even though they may have implicitly accepted a rational standard of value, they often embraced an explicitly irrational ethos of altruistic duty or service to justify their actions. One of Rand's achievements is that she checked the mixed premises at work, seeking to make apparent the contradictions of moral convention, so that she might overturn them once and for all.

You might compare Chris's argument above with Ayn Rand's statement, in "The Objectivist", March 1967, in "An Answer to Readers(About the Horror File)": "There are many statements, actions, and out-of-context virtues in people , which an Objectivist might agree with, approve of or admire. This does not make them examples of Objectivism. Most men hold mixed premises; most schools of thought are full of contradictions. One may find elements of value, truth and rationality in many people and schools. This does not make them Objectivist."

Elsewhere in the same article she insists that "Objectivism is a philosophical system. One cannot regard any single, out-of-context statement or action as an "example" of a philosophical system....Examples of Objectivism before it was defined or formulated?"

Post 71

Thursday, June 2, 2005 - 8:04pm

Mike - you write, "Through this, I became aware of the advances in written language, medicine, trade and many other areas of rational human progress that Western man absolutely depends on from that (Arabic) culture that had no influence from Aristotle whatsoever..."

Not so fast. Arabia was part of the Hellenistic world, and after the Christians had burned every Classical library in Europe and around the Mediterranean, down through Alexandria, Arabia was the only place where Greek manuscripts, including Aristotle, survived. It was only in Arabic Spain that the Christian world discovered Aristotle again - Thomas Aquinas read Aristotle, and earlier Aristotelians such as Maimonides, in Arabic.

In time, the less educated classes in the Arab world forgot where the lost greatness of their former civilization had come from. But let's keep the facts right.

Post 72

Thursday, June 2, 2005 - 9:09pm

Adam,

I probably should have said, "advent of written language and advances in medicine, trade and many other areas..."

My point was not to talk about the development of the Arabian language, but to stress that the "rational" invention of written language did not depend on Aristotle - or even the Hellenistic culture circa 3000 BCE in Mesopotamia (Sumerian, then Akkadian, and so on and on).

It was another ball game when that happened. To tell the truth, this observation of mine did not come from research. If you hang out with Arabs in Brazil, you find out that the word "Arab" means a wide range of nationalities (and they even call each other "Turks"). All the ones I met are very proud of the Arabian contribution to mankind of written language.

This has also been a complaint I have heard on more than one occasion. A typical statement as a call to rise by one "patr�cio" to the others - say at the start of a lecture on getting some project or other moving or complaining about underdevelopment and US involvement in "Arabian" countires - would be, "The Arabian culture gave mankind marvelous gifts like the written language and medicine. Then it did nothing else."

But thanks for the information. You are right. Facts are important.

Michael

Post 73

Friday, June 3, 2005 - 12:19am

Greetings&Salutations Sciabarra,-

Finally, and most importantly, to Rick: Brooklyn may not have won a Super 12, but it's only because uttering "Brooklyn" and "rugby" in the same sentence is an oxymoron

Maybe that's why our provincial pride, as the team takes the field, is stired by the anthem of Vangelis' Conquest Of Paradise while yours is boppin' to Jennifer Lopez. Enough said. ;)

I agree with you that the conclusions have a life of rightness or wrongness independent of the biography of the person who formed them.
All I've said is that we can enrich our appreciation of an idea if we situate it within the context in which it was born, and to which it speaks.

As long as you don't think you're enriching the syllogisms and arguments by pertaking in these peripheral activities we're square.

'What Ayn Rand really believed' is a nice diversion which has its place with me, but 'what Ayn Rand claims' and 'how she claims it' are primary and apart from the former.

It is said that of all the great philosophers Leibniz and Wittgenstien are distinguished for producing two 'philosophical systems' a piece, but I don't agree. I believe we all have at least two a piece: what we say we are and what we really are. If Ayn engaged in homoerotic sexual entanglements then there's your proof. Our only legitimate interest as philosophers, and therefore as Objectivists, is not in lifestyles and habits for these things are not arguments but mere furnishings. Expending one's attention on Ayn's biography is something apart from being a thinker, something a little bit nearer to diciple-hood.

I think we're talking over each other's heads here on the issue of appreciating biography

I don't. Not if you're giving philosophical value to biography, as I understand you do...

this is a crucially important aspect of our analysis, because it will tell us if the idea is relevant only to that context, or if it can be celebrated for its universal character.

No. Reason, philosophy, will tell us that and no further means are required or desired.

the adversarial process that you believe is mere stimulus has also compelled philosophers and scientists alike to "go back to the drawing board" because

Compulsion, like adversity, is also mere stimulus and stimulation is not grounds for any beliefs remotely like those held by they who champion or oppose the compulsion.

I don't see why we need to place the adversarial and investigative processes in mutually exclusive, hermetically sealed, containers.

Sex sells Chris! Sex sells because people don't separate their purchasing judgement from their intellectual judgement. One moment you're flirting with a honey with your fist full of dollars and the next thing you know she's dropped you cold, taken your money and left you with an Abdominizer 2000 and a set of ginzu steak knives you never wanted.

De ya ken? I can go on....political propaganda confounds public opinion this way....folks fall for Scientology because it has Tom Cruise appeal....people go to Greenland thinking it's going to be green....I have endless examples (which have led me to a theory about interior decoration, if you're interested).

To sum up, we qua Objectivists are wasting our time studying Ayn Rand. We should be studying Objectivism instead.

Rick Out

Post 74

Friday, June 3, 2005 - 4:54am

A couple of points in reply:

1. To Michael Montagna: Precisely. Rand says it and said it better than I ever could.

2. Adam is, of course, entirely correct about the Hellenistic impact on the Arab world --- the impact of Averroes and Avicenna, and others --- a lost legacy in many ways, I'm afraid.

3. Rick Out: J Lo is from Da BRONX. NOT Brooklyn. Some good things come from the Bronx... like, say, the New York Yankees, the winningest sports franchise in history. But we've had many other stars born in Brooklyn and the vast bulk of Americans who trace their lineage to immigration---trace their lineage to Brooklyn. So have some respect for Brooklyn, or I'll have to do my De Niro impression!

As for this larger issue: It's not a question of giving philosophical value to biography. It's all a question of placing ideas in a larger context, which is not merely biographical, but historical. It's just another vantage point from which to understand the relevance of an idea. For example, there are all sorts of things that are utterly illogical in the Bible. But Bible studies don't begin and end with the illogic of its text. Now, you might say: "Oh, yes it does." Fine. But we do have an intellectual division of labor; nobody is holding a gun to your head to delve more deeply into history. Those of us who find it interesting, however, pursue it. The Bible can be understood as an extension of a certain culture, and studying its teachings in that context gives us important clues into the nature of that culture and the possible relevance of those ideas to that culture.

As a student of history, Rand herself understood this without falling into the abyss of cultural relativism. For example, in her essay "Requiem for Man," she quotes the anti-wealth views of Saint Ambrose. She concludes: "St. Ambrose lived in the fourth century, when such views of property could conceivably have been explicable, if not justifiable. From the nineteenth century on, they can be neither." In terms of the pure logic of Ambrose's argument, Rand most assuredly would have dismissed it. But she chose, instead, to place Ambrose in an historical and cultural context to help explain the origin and relevance of his ideas.

I've done the same for Ayn Rand in Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. But in Russian Radical, there are 13 chapters. Exactly one chapter (Ch. 4) centers on Rand's biography, but that chapter is in the four-chapter arc of Part I---which focuses more generally on the historical and cultural context within which Rand was born and which had an impact on her early intellectual development. Part II moves away from historical exposition into a structured exposition of Objectivism as an integrated whole. Part III focuses on Rand's radical social critique. So, clearly, even for a student of history like myself, biography plays a part in the formulation of an idea, but it is quite apart from an exploration of the inner logic of the ideas themselves.

Biography can be hagiography but it doesn't have to be. Biography can be focused on prurient interests, and the study of Rand's sex life is no aberration (you mention Wittgenstein, Rick... nowadays, Queer Wittgenstein studies are almost as voluminous as studies of his philosophy proper). And cultural studies can be reduced to "determinism," but they don't have to be.

I learned from Ayn Rand the importance of context to everything. I have applied those lessons to the study of the development of Rand's ideas in one quarter of Russian Radical. But my book and my work didn't begin and end with that development. The bulk of the book is, in fact, a study of the ideas themselves. And in the end, the essence of my work is methodological: an exploration of what I take to be the "dialectical" (context-keeping) methods at work in Rand's philosophy, and in classical liberalism and libertarianism more generally.

Post 75

Friday, June 3, 2005 - 9:54am

Chris,

Sometimes I sit back and read something unfold in a daze of pure amazement.

We all, of course, can post on anything we want, but I see you keep defending the value of putting ideas into historical context and studying/writing biographies, as if doing these things had negative connotations.

They don't. They are very important to mankind's intellectual heritage. You are an expert and brilliant at doing them. Please do more.

I am particularly irritated at the insinuation that studying a philosopher's life and social/historical/personal context means that a person does not appreciate the ideas themselves or thinks that the ideas are not important. Studying both ideas and philosophers' lives/contexts are not mutually exclusive and they do overlap in places.

Also, when people like something - anything - but especially an idea, they are curious about things connected with it - that is unless they are dilettantes and such liking is just a passing whim or fad.

This is so obvious to me that stating it is almost the same as stating that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Do we then need to dissect that fact that it is not the sun that rises, but that the earth that is turning, that nothing is really rising, just gradual exposure and withdrawal to and from the emanation of light rays from the sun, etc.?

What amazes me is not that there are dimwitted aspirants to the title of genius who will say almost anything to get attention, including dismissing whole areas of human intellectual endeavor - these knuckleheaded creatures pop up from time to time - but that you even take this crap seriously.

Your answers are gems of erudition, but I can't help the feeling that I am witnessing a radiant academic sage of Rand scholarship playing tic-tac-toe - with beautifully drawn x's and o's.

Do you really think that you need to seriously defend the very nature of what you so brilliantly do, or are you just doodling?

(No disrespect intended - seriously. If you like doing that sort of thing, well... go for it. Hell, I don't know... Have a ball...)

Michael

Post 76

Friday, June 3, 2005 - 2:49pm

Michael, thanks very much for your comments.

In all truth, I am currently working on many articles (and giving a few interviews as well) dealing with the tenth anniversary of Russian Radical and Marx, Hayek, and Utopia, which both came out in the same week of August 1995. If I had been preoccupied with work not connected to the current thread, I probably would have made one or two comments and left it at that. But this thread has had its utility because it got me into "1995 Mode" once again... perfectly in sync with the essays and interviews I'm currently involved with. So, in a way, it's been a bit refreshing revisiting some of the controversies that surrounded the publication of my books back then.

At this stage, with all honesty, I think the interlocutors here will probably have to agree to disagree. :) I'm sure we'll revisit some of these themes again soon enough.

All the best,
Chris

Post 77

Friday, June 3, 2005 - 3:10pm

Dayamm Chris!

You mean we have been posting in a 10 year time warp?

//;-)

Seriously - if all this discussion has been useful to you as sort of warm-up exercises for your own work, then I am honored to have been a part of it.

Shine on.

Michael

Post 78

Friday, June 3, 2005 - 4:52pm

3. Rick Out: J Lo is from Da BRONX. NOT Brooklyn.

You say tomato, I say tomato.

Some good things come from the Bronx... like, say, the New York Yankees, the winningest sports franchise in history. But we've had many other stars born in Brooklyn and the vast bulk of Americans who trace their lineage to immigration---trace their lineage to Brooklyn.

Nice list though there be no a name on it not better replaced by a New Zealand equivalent, most often from the Canterbury plains!

So have some respect for Brooklyn, or I'll have to do my De Niro impression!

I would have if this prospect hadn't peeked my interest.

At this stage, with all honesty, I think the interlocutors here will probably have to agree to disagree. :)

That we do.

Give Alissa Milano a kiss for me.

Rick Out

Post 79

Friday, June 3, 2005 - 10:21pm