How -Not- to Pronounce Moral Judgement

Hong wrote:

"How precise. The only thing is that the way you project yourself onto Mike indeed tells a lot about yourself, but not Mike."

You've got projection wrong, Hong. I was clarifying the distinction between vile people, and vile actions. Nothing more.

"That's basically how I viewed those moral judgements pronounced left and right - it largely reflected the pronouncer's character than whomever they tried to judge."

You do realize that you've just projected onto and morally judged me? :)

Why did you ask me about the Brandens, Hong, when until that point the discussion was about the method of Phils critique, rather than the subject? You are mischeivous!

regards

John

(Edited by John Newnham
on 3/27, 10:28am)

Post 61

Monday, March 27, 2006 - 11:13am

"You do realize that you've just... morally judged me? :)"

Yes, I most certainly did.

"Why did you ask me about the Brandens,"

No, I didn't ask you about the Brandens. I asked about you.

Post 62

Monday, March 27, 2006 - 11:40am

I have to tell you Hong, this tone of yours with me....

I'm digging it.

Post 63

Monday, March 27, 2006 - 12:02pm

AAARGH!

Monday, March 27, 2006 - 12:17pm

Phil I just sent you a RoRmail. Given the problems with the system, please let me know if you do not get it, and I will re-send to your email address if that is ok with you.

Post 65

Monday, March 27, 2006 - 12:17pm

Andre Z-- Thanks for your kind words. We at TOC/TAS indeed try to get the best speakers we can for an open and honest discussion of ideas. It is unfortunate that Linz chose not to speak at the Summer Seminar this time around. But when honest individuals in an open and tolerant environment discuss and debate ideas, the truth does win out in the end. Thus we as Objectivists will continue to provide such an environment and will continue to encourage the civil exchange of ideas.

Post 66

Monday, March 27, 2006 - 1:01pm

It has been my experience for many years that thinking readers with an interest in Rand's philosophic ideas also have an interest in my scholarship in her philosophy and in my further developments of its layers I think correct. I am delighted you participate here.

You've actually said what I've thought about and am interested in-- the process of learning; my own and others'. I am as interested in how I learn about Oism and how others learn; from what I've gathered, learning is a process in which what is ultimately called knowledge or, better yet, wisdom, occurs through not losing sight of reality, and through not losing sight of one's own self. Likewise, it also occurs through not losing sight of others' individuality and what that entails.

I realize that through this Nathaniel/Barbara discussion that if I want to read their books, and any other interpretations of either Rand's works or her life, that each book is a kind of autobiography of someone else's process. It is a book by someone else-- their physical interactions, their mental interactions-- their lives, not mine; and thus if I am interested in others' pathways, I must consider that to read NB, BB, HB, LP, or any others, that I am not reading myself, but reading someone else's take and that they may be factually wrong but not autobiographically wrong. This helps me in acknowledging that no matter what NB, BB, HB, LP, etc. wrote, that I am and have to be, true to myself. That whatever *I* write of my Oism learning process, it is, in part, an autobiography. I write this post, and others, thinking this. Likewise, I read others' words, thinking this.

Hell, I could be lambasted right and left for my not caring one whit what Rand's favorite drink was; but how does that affect my life, since I cannot drink much anyway? I think whether an issue *really* makes personal impact upon the rest of my life.

In any case, I make a large distinction between myself and others. It is not a divisionary tactic of me vs. everyone else, but I mean it in the sense of "to self-preserve, to possess one's own self", because after all, egoistic self-interest must entail such discriminations.
(Edited by Jenna W
on 3/27, 1:03pm)

Post 67

Monday, March 27, 2006 - 2:54pm

> Phil I just sent you a RoRmail. [John]

Hi John, I just got it thanks! I can't send via this email...so yes, my personal email is the way to send something to me...else I can reply and people will think I'm ignoring them, or consider them evil, or something weird .... :-)

Post 68

Monday, March 27, 2006 - 4:07pm

I've moved the post that was here to its own thread --"Diana Misstates the Truth about Academic Marxists" -- because the topics of honest error, how much academics know and when they are 'evaders', who's more evil the intellectual of the dictator, what constitutes a Marxist, are very important, and worth "chewing" and having their own thread, since this one is...evidently due to that saboteur, the Hongster, dammit :-) and her shameless baiting of JohnnyNewny... apparently turning into just one more thread about the Brandens.

And we certainly needed another thread or sixty on that!!

Phil

(Edited by Philip Coates
on 3/27, 7:17pm)

Post 69

Monday, March 27, 2006 - 4:48pm

"...until individuals take responsibility for their own life experience, or at least their experience of their experience, little deep change is possible. The challenge, when you are dealing with larger-scale human systems, is that collectively people have to take some responsibility. I think it�s a perfect parallel to that therapeutic axiom that a person can see awful things that have happened to them in their life, but until they see their own part, they can never escape a victimology mindset, and a victim mind certainly cannot generate any real creative energies for change." --Peter Senge

By change he means positive, forward-thinking change. Senge is one of those people who thinks at both the individual level and the cooperative level and how they interact. He is also an integration-type; a systems thinker. He also notices divisionary trends in modern society and strives to form integrative approaches to learning, at the individual and at the cooperative level. I'm not as about the Buddhism and Zen he is (so far I don't think he's personally belief-oriented), but he's got some good points that I can stand to learn and grow from.

Other quotes:
"Organizations learn only through individuals who learn. Individual learning does not guarantee organizational learning. But without it no organizational learning occurs (Senge 1990: 139). Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively."

"People with a high level of personal mastery live in a continual learning mode. They never �arrive�. Sometimes, language, such as the term �personal mastery� creates a misleading sense of definiteness, of black and white. But personal mastery is not something you possess. It is a process. It is a lifelong discipline. People with a high level of personal mastery are acutely aware of their ignorance, their incompetence, their growth areas. And they are deeply self-confident. Paradoxical? Only for those who do not see the �journey is the reward�. (Senge 1990: 142"

I apply such organizational/systems thinking to ARI, TOC, forums, websites, and myself. The results are descriptive of the approach.

Post 70

Monday, March 27, 2006 - 5:54pm

John N. wrote in post #50: "I suspect the publication of [Rand's] major works would have taken place without [the Brandens] don't you think?"

What do you classify as her "major works"? I'd surmise that *Atlas Shrugged* would have been finished had Nathaniel Branden never written her a fan letter, and had none of the rest of the subsequent history of his relationship with her, and the relationships with her of all those who met her (including Leonard Peikoff) as a result of his meeting her, happened. But as to what, if anything, she might have written after *Atlas Shrugged*..., I consider that very questionable. She herself makes reference in her Journal entries to her post-Atlas crisis, and she spoke in taped interviews of NB's role in helping then. She hadn't even named her philosophy as of the time of writing Atlas. (She only called it "my philosophy" in the postscript.) It was Nathaniel who put together the first attempt at a systematic course. And would there have been anything remotely like *The Objectivist Newsletter* and then *The Objectivist* where she could publish her ideas, had there not been her relationship with the Brandens? And reinforcing the point about Leonard Peikoff, he met her through Barbara. Would he ever have met her via a different route? Would OPAR have been written, and LP's courses on philosophy?

In sum, it might have turned out that all the world would ever know of "her philosophy" would have been what's contained in Galt's Speech, had her meeting Nathaniel Branden never happened. And if so, then you wouldn't have available to read what I'd consider her "major works" from a philosophic standpoint.

Ellen

___

Post 71

Monday, March 27, 2006 - 6:02pm

Ah, reading further...

In post #53, John N. writes: "As long as there is a copy of AS, or VOS, or The Fountainhead around, the rest can disappear today and I would still be educated, enthralled, impassioned, FREED. That is my point. "

The Fountainhead you'd definitely have -- it was the draw through which she met the Brandens. Atlas I expect you'd have (with a few minor differences). VOS...I really doubt the essays in that book would have been written. (Impossible to say for sure, since the way the history developed is the way it went.)

Ellen

___

Post 72

Monday, March 27, 2006 - 8:48pm

Phil wrote,

Hi John, I just got it thanks! I can't send via this email...so yes, my personal email is the way to send something to me...else I can reply and people will think I'm ignoring them, or consider them evil, or something weird .... :-)

Phil, download Netscape. It's not the greatest browser in the world, but at least you should be able to send RoR email from it. You're using Safari, right?

- Bill

Post 73

Monday, March 27, 2006 - 10:50pm

Hi Bill.

Yes, I'm using Safari, but I'm comfortable with it and would need a stronger reason to switch. Did you have the same problem with Safari and were unable to get it to work?

Post 74

Tuesday, March 28, 2006 - 4:22pm

Phil,

From Post 19 on this thread, you wrote:

[This doesn't apply to so much to DH, because she has (at least) conferenced with the major people she is criticizing. I'm addressing a wider group of people].

Without trying to undercut your point, I know two major people she criticizes with whom she did not conference: (1) Barbara (whose contact was restricted to a brief exchange on her blog and one email - I was informed this by Barbara as I expressed interest) and (2) me (with no individual contact whatsoever). If we go through her blog, we probably can come up with a few others.

For the sake of precision, I would include the adjective "several" in your statement to read as follows: "... she has (at least) conferenced with several of the the major people she is criticizing."

Conferencing with a person is not really an indication of character in this case, instead it is merely a result of having lived in an environment.

Michael

Post 75

Tuesday, March 28, 2006 - 4:43pm

Unlike some of the people that Diana disses on her blog, I was not banned or threatened with banishment. I just got fed up with her authoritarianism and her unwillingness to enforce her rules even-handedly, told her so, got lame replies from her, told her I was leaving, and left. Some day, when she gets over her acute case of "moral condemnitis" and turns her focus away from movement politics and toward ideas, I may try to return to her blog. But not without an apology first for the way she has mistreated me and so many others.

In the meantime, I'm not holding my breath or pining away. I'm preparing a concert of Romantic and Jazz misic with my pianist for the evening of July 4 at the Summer Seminar of The Objectivist Center. Also, I'm working on two books (one on genealogy and the other on epistemology) and a CD of ballads featuring my trombone playing with orchestral accompaniment. Nothing like turning one's attention toward the challenge and joy of creating and producing positive value to distract one from the pointless squabbling in the intellectual pig-sties. (And that's being charitable, as well as insulting to pigs.)

REB

Post 76

Tuesday, March 28, 2006 - 9:40pm

Phil, you wrote,

Hi Bill.

Yes, I'm using Safari, but I'm comfortable with it and would need a stronger reason to switch. Did you have the same problem with Safari and were unable to get it to work?

Yes, I had the same problem. But you can limit your use of Netscape to sending RoR emails, and use Safari for everything else. That's what I had in mind, and that's what I do. Also having an extra browser that you switch to when needed adds a measure of convenience.

- Bill

Post 77

Wednesday, March 29, 2006 - 3:54am