| | I usually attend the local ARI freebie public lectures, and they are usually worthwhile, if only to provoke thought on my part. One interesting and valuable feature of these events is that the Q & A typically lasts about as long as the presentation, and that the speakers are not afraid of hostile or complex questions or objections.
When the local Libertarian Pary meets, they get a few dozen attendees at best, unless it is a state or national convention. I think that the same activists are generally running things as ten, twenty or thirty years ago, with few new additions. The ARI lectures, on the other hand, sometimes have close to a thousand attendees, by my estimate, and include in the audience a high proportion of college-aged people.
I think that a lot of people come in order to challenge objectivism or specific controversial positions taken by ARI, such as support of military actions by the U.S. government. I suggest that this is a good thing, as I find that very few venues even offer the option for dissent and argumentation.
Usually, all you hear is the party line of whatever group is in charge, and dissenters are silenced, ignored and in general not taken seriously. (Try asking LP members what their theory of children's rights is, and what power parents should have over their children, or how original property rights come about... Watch how quickly they find an excuse to walk away. Notice that since the founding of the LP, there has been virtually no intellectual advance in terms of libertarian theory or strategy.)
ARI offers that opportunity and this is one of their chief draws, as the exchanges between Yaron or Leonard and questioners from the audience can be quite entertaining as well as occasionally informative. One leaves with the sense of having grappled with real and important issues. And it is this sense of the reality and grounding of convictions that draws people back, again and again, much like good art.
I bring this up in connection with the current thread as an encouragement for dissent and argument at RoR. However infuriating the posts by "dissenters" or trolls may be, they serve as a refresh routine for our consciously held principles. They force us to think about WHY a particular post is so obnoxious or stupid, and, in the process refresh the connections and logic of why it is that we hold particular beliefs.
The noise level in this process can be quite high and distracting, as Yaron and Leonard pointed out. It can also serve as a focusing incentive, forcing us to take the time and expend the energy to cut through the BS and identify the heart of an issue, as that is necessary in order to effectively communicate our positions. I suggest that this is one of the chief values of a site such as RoR.
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