| | An Inordinant Fondness for Evils
or the Malleus Randianorum
 Leonard Peikoff's declared position is that one must vote for the entire Democratic slate, regardless of the individual merits of individual candidates, so that the Democrats gain a majority in the Congress. This is because, while the Democrats are statists, the Republicans are "this close" [my words] to establishing a theocratic dictatorship. Others have argued elsewhere that if this were a well thought out and principled stand of Peikoff's, he could have announced it long ago when there was still time to agitate (write, protest, make meaningful campaign contributions) for the cause which he has all of a sudden decided to champion. Peikoff's belated 11th hour pronunciation has nothing to do with what is right, and everything to do with him, his position, and the control - the authority - that he wishes to exercise and which he feels it is his right to exercise as Mr. Objectivism® Inc.
So far as any sympathy for Peikoff, well sympathy is a strange word in this context. Peikoff should be judged on the invaluable nature of the great corpus of work which he has produced. Peikoff has had a free meal ticket for almost 25 years, during which, given his guaranteed income, one might have expected him to double Rand's philosophical output - if he were capable of it. Instead, we have gotten his uninspiring Objectivism, the Philosophy of Ayn Rand and little else but essays justifying his excommunication of others, for reasons sundry and various, over the last two decades.
So far as I am aware, Peikoff's significant original corpus over the last few decades has included:
Ominous Parallels - an analysis of the evil of Nazism
The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy - a useful (but not unique) analysis of the fallacy
Fact and Value - an Objectivist Malleus Maleficarum
The DIM Hypothesis [forthcoming] another book on fallacies as they are embodied in systems
Note that each one of these works deals with evil, unreason and vice as its subject matter. The first, his longest entirely original work, is dedicated to dissecting Nazism and arguing, pre-Reagan, that a right-wing fundamentalist dictatorship is just around the corner in this country. It was strident and laughable in its warnings when it was published, and deserves the oblivion into which it has sunken. Fact and Value was nothing more than a rationalization for removing from his circle what he saw as a threat from those who are, so far as I have been able to judge, his intellectual superiors, and hence threats to his self-proclaimed authority. Why the concentration on evil? On dictatorship? On fallacy? On vice and on systematic evil? Pointing out evil as evil is much more easy than explaining something which has not yet been explained. Explanation requires induction and integration. It is hard. It is why we value Rand so much, for her unique innovations, If she had only written either her Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, she would be immortal. If she had only written the Virtue of Selfishness, or her posthumous works as released in her Journals, she would have been immortal. Had she only published The Romantic Manifesto, she would have been immortal. And she will be immortal, so long as one copy of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology remains on this Earth. Can any of Peikoff's works be called immortal? Or best-selling? Or value-oriented? Or invaluable? Had Peikoff's works not been written, would something vital be lacking from the Objectivist corpus?
Leonard Peikoff is a flailing irrelevance. The man can quote Rand just as good as the best of them. But remember that the Devil quotes scripture too. Whatever happens during the 2006 U.S. mid-term elections, Bush will remain as President. Last minute declarations on a subject which will be of little consequence in the long term, couched in what are actually hysterical hyperbole - if one listens to them - throw little light on politics of the Federal kind but show plenty of light on the inner politics of the Objectivist community, on the wisdom of Rand's endowment of Peikoff (or any heir) and on the motivations of the man who has made those hysterical declarations.
Ted Keer, 31 October, 2006, NYC
Let me disclose that although I have read him, and heard him speak, I have never spoken with or met Leonard Peikoff. My sole interaction with the ARI was through a short-term subscription in the mid 1980's and by attending a speech by Harry Binswanger. I am not affiliated with TOC, TAS, the Knights Templar, or any other formal organization.
(Edited by Ted Keer
on 10/31, 4:21pm)
(Edited by Ted Keer
on 10/31, 4:34pm)
(Edited by Ted Keer
on 10/31, 7:02pm)
(Edited by Ted Keer
on 11/01, 12:47am)
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