I've already moved on James. Looking on the good side, any advertising is good advertising: your book has certainly moved up my purchase list :) 

I am sorry for being short with you here, and indeed this thread may be too much inside baseball to be a good learning tool, in any event.

Well that's frustrating.

I'd rather not dignify this thread with a serious discussion.

If some kind person would like to spend quarter of an hour reading through this thread and tell me what happened, I'd appreciate it, because I'm buggered if I know.

Onward and upward if we must.

I meant their "competition" within Germany.

And I was just trying to indicate what one might find in OP.

I'd rather not dignify this thread with a serious discussion, though. Why not start a new one on this topic?

I fully appreciate your position, and I am happy to discuss any of this with you, Michael. And you'll find that I won't even ask about who's "side" you're on, if any, when discussing a serious subject like this with me.

I've rather lazily used classical Liberalism and Humanitaranism as if they are interchangeable terms: they are not, the former refers to a political system and philosophy, the second to a culture, for lack of a better word, and a philosophy. I don't think this affects the sense of what I said, overly, as the philosophy component in both is the same philosophy, but it does mean I've not quite directly answered your 'is Liberalism viable' question, James.

I'll try to readdress this when I get some time, although, given I'm working through Christmas/New Year - supposed to be - time is what I haven't got at the moment. Soon.

Who were the Nazis' competition so vaguely mentioned here? Was liberalism viable? What was Nazism? Why were Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler (and FDR) all contemporaries?

Huh?

I'm not sure whether this was aimed at my post below it, or at Parille's original post, James, but just in case at mine, I shall answer to the best of my ability.

Nazis' competition

Freedom, at its broadest scope, in the times referred to, the liberal democracies that existed, such as the USA and such as England. Although I don't see really what you're getting at here?

Was liberalism viable

Not after the use of force and then Blitzkrieg of Fascism under the Nazis, and then from this, the emergence of a much strengthened Communist bloc whose presence in Europe post WWII led us onto the Cold War.

As I said, the point of the Nazis' was precisely to destroy the culture of European humanities which had its reach back to the eighteen century at least, and which ties directly into a Libertarian ethic carrying us forward. If a freedom movement doesn’t understand its history, and that such history is the classical liberal humanities, it must be doomed, for unlike science that destroys its past as it goes forward, the humanities are inextricably tied to the past if any type of conceptual understanding is to be had (this last notion is actually a borrowing from something I was reading this morning).

[Note, humanitarianism: a doctrine, attitude, or way of life centered on human interests or values; especially : a philosophy that usually rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual's dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason. (Merriam-Webster). Surely, we do not dispute our agreement on this?]

And I don't think the limited concept connoted by 'viable' quite captures anything useful does it? For the point is, the Nazis' did not destroy the classical liberal tradition, it continued on and still does as a fountain for us all to draw on and to inspire a movement toward freedom based on reason and the primacy of the individual. I'm not talking post-modernism, that is the enemy of the tradition, but the world is not just full of Post Modernists, the Romantics are still firmly here, carrying on the humanistic line - and right on SOLO, look at the works of Michael Newberry. Indeed, what is Ayn herself, if not part of the classic liberal tradition?

But again, in reference back to your questions, my answers are without theme, I fear, for I'm having trouble understanding the raison d'etat of your questions. Nevertheless, I shall plug on regardless.

What was Nazism?

The body of political and economic doctrines held and put into effect by the Nazis in Germany from 1933 to 1945 including the totalitarian principle of government, predominance of especially Germanic groups assumed to be racially superior, and supremacy of the führer - source: Merriam-Webster.

Note, in the definition, tying back to my first post made to this thread, the primary importance of the irrationality, and brutality, of racism in this creed.

Why were Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler (and FDR) all contemporaries.

Thinking on this. I've already tied in Stalin in my opening comments above, although, the context is not on all fours with your question. The obvious first past answer is totalitarian movements (leaving FDR out of it) fed on the nationalism of the time, which was another crucial theme, and anti-humanitarian (and which itself fed on, and by, anti-Semitism, vis a vis, my first post below.)

Thanks for the story should go to Peikoff, don't ya think? You might want to check out his whole "My Thirty Years With Ayn Rand: an Intellectual Memoir," the Epilogue to The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought.

As soon as I can get some time, I will certainly read this: I'm building up huge lists, many of the books on which are ones suggested in various lists you've kindly put up, James, and including certainly your own book.

But please note for future reference: I am relatively new to Objectivism, I’ve not even read ‘any’ Peikoff at this stage, albeit I’m still widely read in many fields in the humanities, but I have a huge amount yet to read, and this means, thankfully, I have at a very basic level a complete lack of comprehension of all the various parties involved in the internecine warfare that seems to rent the Objectivist community apart. No understanding of it, none at all, other than it is patently obvious such factions exist, and they tend to be vicious at times.

My position on this is, other than loyalties I will make, and have made, with people I trust, such as Linz who introduced me to Ayn Rand (and even with Linz, I will always assess issues in reference to the facts of reality as I am able to analyse them), I do not want to involve myself in the factionalising that goes on, just the ideas, and learning how Objectivist ethics can improve my life, at this stage of my life

And let's moon the mourners at Richard's funeral! (Shall we aim for the widow?)

I'll bring the wire-cutters to get us in.

[edit.: Not that it should matter, of course, but that was the year my father won an Academy Award. He is a brilliant electronics and computer engineer with a number of awards and patents to his credit. I was only a small child, but I can remember how much trouble my mother took to get ready for that evening -- the dress, the hair, etc. But my folks could handle it better than most -- they went to see Hair around the same time, as I recall...]

Nothing like uncorking a raspberry during Richard's kissing of the bride for a good belly laugh. If the bride objects, tell her to pull the stick out of her ass. No room for dignity on this planet, especially when people are supposedly "honoring" something.

Remind the Best Man to pass wind -- as loudly and with as much overt intent as possible -- in the middle of Richard's wedding.

Remind me not to watch the Academy Awards with Ayn Rand.

Who were the Nazis' competition so vaguely mentioned here? Was liberalism viable? What was Nazism? Why were Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler (and FDR) all contemporaries?

Thanks for the story should go to Peikoff, don't ya think? You might want to check out his whole "My Thirty Years With Ayn Rand: an Intellectual Memoir," the Epilogue to The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought.

Like Michael, I enjoyed this 'tidbit' about Rand, and would love to see others from anyone.

However, I can't agree with your last paragraph.

It is more likely that a number of philosophical trends converged in 1933 which, when combined with the German public's frustration over the economy and the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles, resulted in the Nazi takeover. As Greg Nyquist argues in his book, if Hitler's adversaries had adopted a better strategy, it is possible that the Nazis might not have seized power.

What brought the Nazis to power: the state of the economy, Versailles, or even more fanciful, the strategies of Hitler's adversaries in the form of other liberal democracies ...?

None of these reasons, well, certainly not primarily, explain, nor make inevitable, the nihilism that enveloped Europe under Fascism.

The American economy was in just as big a mess, as was the UK, this was the period, after all, following the great depression, and those populations never took a serious look at fascism. So why the Nazis? My own belief is you can't rationally try and attribute this to such logical causes as just economic, etc. At the heart of the Nazis was the wholesale desire to destroy the classic liberal tradition, the humanities, culture itself, that had so thrived in Vienna in the very period leading up to the Brownshirts, and this for that most irrational of reasons: hatred, vis a vis, anti-Semitism. The great European humanities explosion in Vienna in the early and mid 1930's, which cannot be separated from a love for freedom, was almost exclusively led by Jewish immigrants who, denied academic or State careers, given the anti-Semitic sentiment prevailing, had instead found its concentrated expression through of all things café culture, and what can best be termed the then popular culture, with so many otherwise academics, intellectuals, artists, forced to work in the journalistic fields, making them so visible. It was this blossoming of Europe's greatest hope (I would have loved to have been living in Vienna 1930 through 1933) coming up against one of the darkest most irrational forces of the time, or all times, racism: that's what put the Nazis in. And that was the true nihilism of those times, so laying the advent of the Nazis at the hands of the strategy of the classic liberal democracies of the time, misses the point entirely.

But this is somewhat of an aside, although, it is for similar reasons, the irrationality of the belief system itself, I do not believe that the rise of Islam, and the terrorism therefrom, can be put at the hands of Its liberal democracy adversaries. (Although in this sentence I'm sadly not using 'liberal' in the classical sense anymore, but in the, 'I believe in everything and every ideal' and thus nothing and no ideals modern, corrupted sense - which another thread had helped me put the timeline on, post 1950's.)

 Neil,

I really enjoyed this tibit of an insight into Rand's thinking. 

You concluded: [Damn, I can't cut and past with Firefox!!!] anyway that she was a rationalist.

I don't think you understand. All Rand did was to clarify the context, whether the streaker understood it or not.  After she did that, it is easier to see the essential meaning behind his actions, again, whether he understood it or not. 

You also mentioned that the streaker only was getting maxium exposeur on the televised event--one which he was not invited to, did not create, did not pay for, nor supported in any positive way--he used everyone involved to express is own agenda. Like graffitti on a newly painted wall of a business. Fuck him.  

Michael 

http://www.MichaelNewberry.com

A blog submission from Neil that isn't about me?!

This is a first -- and a real moment for me... (sniff, sniff)

As we might have expected, there is literally nothing to respond to here. Neil doesn't begin to address even the basics of the Objectivist case for any of the issues he takes on. He almost concedes that he doesn't have a clue what "rationalism" means, and he fails to consider any of the important sources where the idea is to be found, its development, its integrated place in Rand's thought, etc. He doesn't even know how to define it -- and all he needed for that was a book I know he possesses, PARC. (As with the rest of the book's substance, it's something Neil will not even consider.) He dismisses Rand's excellent point about nihilism so childishly and with such a complete ignorance of her thought that he leaves no doubt as to the severe limits on his grasp of her philosophy. (And so much so that his ignorance almost seems to impute the standard conservative view of nudity to Rand and Peikoff -- and Libertarians can always get a good laugh outta that, right?) His "counter-example" (the circumstantial failure of Hitler's adversaries) to Peikoff is a still more obvious demonstration of his total failure to understand the first thing about Peikoff's view of history. The very example says it all. I suspect that Neil could no more address the substance of OP than he could PARC's.

Calling this "superficial" would insult the shallow.

But he did create a non-PARC Blog entry here -- a hole that had been recently noted elsewhere...

Some popsicle sticks, a little Elmer's glue, a few staples, and, Viola! Obsession fixed.

Leonid
Excellent example of total inability of the contemporary intellectual to distinguish between essential and trivial.That what phiolosophers,like Rand and Peikoff usually do.