WHERE IS SARAH HOUSE?

> The last two times Yoon and I attended ARI lectures, close to half the audience were women, mostly NOT as half of a couple but as singles or among university groups. [Adam]

Well, that's very encouraging. However, the problem is across time. The problem with women becoming less interested usually surfaces not after one or two non-"live" events such as listening to a lecture, but after a lot of interactive events...such as local clubs and discussion groups... or discussion websites like this one. And women, being somewhat more attuned to these issues (often having a better balance between intellectual and people interests, between reason and emotion, between pleasantness and abrasiveness) are merely the canary in the coal mine. [If you see any movement in which women are way less than fifty percent, that movement will decline over time.]

I've spoken here about civility, but the problem is far wider than that. It is a failure of personal development on anything other than the logic-chopping, syllogism-spouting level. With regard to pure discussion groups, I don't want to pick on Solo because this showed up on Owl and Atlantis as well. And I am not thinking of any one person or even five or six, but the entire incorrigible, arrogant Objectivist movement across decades.

The problem is with people who make so many multiple mistakes that they are caricatures or immature clowns rather than well-rounded, mature human beings -- mistakes not only in what Ashley called "aggressive communication styles", but in insensitivity, lack of benevolence, motormouthed inability to listen, inability to learn or change opinions, rationalism, and intrinsicism [subjectivism is seldom a problem among students of Objectivism.]

Ayn Rand and her individualism and often justified anger has given them license to be hyper-individualists. I'm going to do what I feel like among or interacting with other people or with regard to judging them:

Nietzscheanism.

Not Objectivism.

It's time to resurrect the phrase "student of Objectivism" because so few people have actually gone all the way through and integrated Objectivism and then returned to being a normal human being.

(Sorry for going off on a bit of a tangent...but the subject of people leaving or becoming less active is something I've seen over and over in Objectivist groups, so I thought it was important to go a bit wider.)

Too many Objectivists have the Nietzschean attitude: "I don't need no stinkin' rules." Or tact or self-restraint. Or to take the time to develop social skills. Or: "You're not my mother - who are you, smug and lecturing Phil Coates, to tell me what to do?" It's as if they were never socialized (in the good sense not in the collectivist sense) and they never graduated seventh grade.

(Edited by Philip Coates
on 11/27, 11:03am)

Post 21

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 10:52am

I don't think Sarah House was an objectivist after all. I remember her saying that she lives with a man who detests objectivism, and that she gets along with him just fine!
This is not Sarah's case but it seems to me that everybody wants to be a primadonna here!
CD

(Edited by Ciro D'Agostino on 11/27, 11:18am)

Post 22

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 11:12am

Ashley,

Thank you for the thoughtful post [#14] with many interesting points in it.

Phil

And thank you for pointing this out: "Phil, you didn't actually state what the reason *is* " which is why I wrote my most recent one :-)

Post 23

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 11:18am

I do need to qualify #20 to say there are Objectivists that don't do all of the things I decry (are they a minority?):

People who go to the summer conferences, a number of posters on this list, a number of Objectivist intellectuals. The problem is they are ill-served by the Nietzscheans who are tearing down as quickly as the better people are building up.

Phil

Post 24

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 11:28am

Thanks, Phil, for your post explaining what *it* was. I agree with you.

There is a commercial on television right now where the word "it" appears over and over, people are passing "it" around, building "it", etc. I don't know what "it" is. or what this is an advertisement for, but that was what I thought of after reading your previous post. Glad to know the answer now.

Post 25

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 11:35am

Hi Ciro:

I don't understand your post about Sarah not being an Objectivist. Are you saying that living with someone who wasn't means she isn't? Or something about her being a prima donna? I am unclear.

But in any case, I live with a beautiful, passionate, thinking, life-loving woman who hasn't the least bit of interest in Objectivism, and I get along with her well. I tried to give her a copy of "The Fountainhead" as a gift once soon after we met, and she laughed and put it under her drink.

I would suspect that many Objectivists are in a similar position, as there are not nearly enough good Objectivist women to go around.

Ash

Post 26

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 11:37am

Ashley,
"it" is anything you want ... the ad is for eBay.

Post 27

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 11:53am

Kudos for Ashley's #14 post. It's a pleasure to visit and find like-minded people with a handle on keeping it civil.

Post 28

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 11:55am

All,

Thank you for the kindness and concern expressed here. (And don't worry Adam, I saw Dean's comments as joking.)

Where am I? I'm... taking a walk. There was an awful lot of pointless anger flying around which I didn't like and so I took Linz' (indirect) advice and "fuck[ed] off." There's not much more to my initial decision than that, honestly.

Sarah

Post 29

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 12:05pm

Ashley, I never understood how a person can live and be romantic in love with someone who has a different sense of life .

I personally don't know Sarah, and I wasn't referring to her when I said that many on this forum would like to be the primadonna.
What I wanted to say is that many have left the forum because they don't have the balls, like for example MSK, who has been offended many many times and he didn't mind a bit because he wants to show the world what he is made of! He believes in himself and no one can offend him,they can use whatever language they want; he is here fighting like a beast, fighting for what he believes.He doesn't give a fuck about those who want to stop him. Bravo Michael!
Many who have left this forum have only proved to be crying babies that's all.
One more thing, you are a great girl, you have balls:-))
Ciro

Post 30

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 12:32pm

Half the women who were posting on SOLO last year left

Mr Coates, since I became a member of this forum I have noticed that every time there is something negative to report
you are always the first in line.
Since I started posting on this forum you never, ever, took the time to answer any of my posts .Is this what you consider to be civil? or maybe you thought that I didn't deserve to be answered because I didn't have a collage degree?
If this were your forum I would have left it long time ago!
Ciro

Post 31

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 12:49pm

Sarah,

:-)

gw

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 12:50pm

Sarah,

I'm very happy to see you here again. I hope that you will stay.

Post 33

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 1:04pm

Sarah,

Please consider the following as a personal request.

Please do not "fuck off."

You are missed. I miss you. Many here miss you.

Michael

Post 34

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 1:23pm

Big hug from me too! We missed ya.

Kat

Post 35

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 1:34pm

Thanks, but it's really too early to say whether or not I'll stay. Adam, Jeff, and Phil are definitely hitting on some important issues for SOLO and Objectivism as a movement. There comes a point when, as much as I enjoy conversing with most people here, sifting through what, to an outsider, appear to be thought-minimized, chest-beating responses becomes more trouble than it's worth.

Sarah

Post 36

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 2:39pm

I was wondering if Sarah had left, and I was going to ask. She's one of the posters whose posts I always look for when I periodically check to see what's happening on SOLO. (I don't keep up with SOLO on a regular basis.)

Sarah, if you're reading this: I wish you all the best in your chosen profession. My husband is a physicist, and I've met a great many physicists in the 37 years of his and my relationship. I think that you exhibit the sort of skill at scientific thought which could lead to a distinguished career in physics. And, more generally, you seem to me a very intellectually honest and searching person, and one with a fine mind. Good wishes to you.

Ellen Stuttle

Post 37

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 2:44pm

Ciro, you said:

"Ashley, I never understood how a person can live and be romantic in love with someone who has a different sense of life."

Ayn Rand said, in The Romantic Manifesto:

"Love is a response to values. It is with a person's sense of life that one falls in love - with that essential sum, that fundamental stand or way of facing existence, which is the essence of a personality. One falls in love with the embodiment of the values that formed a person's character, which are reflected in his widest goals or smallest gestures, which create the style of his soul - the individual style of a unique, unrepeatable, irreplaceable consciousness. It is one's own sense of life that acts as the selector, and responds to what it recognizes as one's own basic values in the person of another. It is not a matter of professed convictions (though these are not irrelevant); it is a matter of much more profound, conscious and subconscious harmony"

Ciro, I agree that I would not fall in love with someone who did not share my sense of life. However, I don't think that necessarily means that they will be an "Objectivist," or even know who or what Ayn Rand is. As has been discussed in the rest of the thread, some people are introduced to "Objectivism" and are extremely turned off by it - and I think that is by the people they meet, not the philosophy. Since it is a rational philosophy, I think that many other naturally think in this way without labeling it, which is the "of course" feeling many of us had when first reading Rand. I am attracted to a person's "way of facing existence," "style of his soul," and "profound, conscious, and subconscious harmony." I don't care what he calls himself. As long as he has a mind, knows his mind, and uses his mind, I find it attractive, even though we may naturally find some areas of fierce disagreement.

Edited to add: Ciro, I missed your saying I have balls before! Thanks! I think I do, too, but I also definitely prefer civility. Write it down: I'm the president of the Glenn Lamont, King of Benevolence fan club.
(Edited by Ashley Frazier
on 11/27, 2:49pm)

Post 38

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 2:46pm

Lysandra, I couldn't agree more. See ya around Sarah, I hope the best for you (for my benifit) (so selfish!).

Post 39

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 2:55pm