'If enough secretaries and ditchdiggers did come forward then we would get cultural change, but it would only be incremental.'

Well that would be a good start, no?

There seems to be this thing within some Objectivist circles that every last person on earth has to be taught and accept every last Objectivist principle otherwise any positive change achieved will only be temporary. But then those same people withdraw into some bizzaro, dull, passionless world of their own without engaging anyone but like minds.

 Me? I'd take that incremental cultural change anytime and be mighty happy about it. It's a start. 

Objectivism doesn't so much need new ideas James, it needs marketing. KASS marketing of man as a heroic being. Now there's a message! KASS marketing that reaches and resonates with the ditch diggers, teachers and office workers. Because they have to be engaged sometime... otherwise it's all a fantasy.

But then marketing isn't intellectual and all...

"The ultimate result of shielding men from folly is to fill the world with fools."

-Herbert Spencer 

Robert wrote:

Given that there are objectivists who fear the on set of theocratic America, why are they not flooding the market with essays and books of equal passion?

Because they don't want to veer off the script and possibly get something wrong.

Jim

Phillip upon finishing Christopher Hitchens' God is not Great.
Given that there are objectivists who fear the on set of theocratic America, why are they not flooding the market with essays and books of equal passion?

Indeed, there is much to commend Hitchens (a leftie) and even Mark Steyn (a conservative IMHO) as essayists over those in the ARI. True, both hold views that Objectivists would take issue with. But I defy anyone to criticize their ability as wordsmiths and essayists.

I enjoy listening and reading Hitchens for his debating style alone. He has real passion like Rand. And like Rand, there are very few pre-cast objections to his ideas.

To counter him requires that you return to the study, don a smoking jacket, pick up a few references and actually begin to dissect his argument.

And like Rand, Hitchens wastes very few words. Unique ideas are promulgated with maximum impact from the least number of words and no concern for whom you might offend.

For example, for the ARI it is open season on Bush et al. (Good!) but that there are strict bag limits placed on the Democrats. It is good that they criticize Bush for attempting to make war on a strategy (War on Terrorism), but I have yet to read them acknowledge the fact that the principle road-block to expanding the war has been the Democrats.

Amongst all that KASS in Ronald Merrill's quotation, he did talk about radical originality and being on the cutting edge of new thought. Ayn Rand dared to do this. Few of her followers have.

If enough secretaries and ditchdiggers did come forward then we would get cultural change, but it would only be incremental. You really need to get the people who know the right levers to push. Those people don't like being around boring, unoriginal people.

I laughed when I first saw the title of James Watson's autobiography: Avoid Boring People. There's a lot of truth in that.

Jim

You are worthy of much ravishment!

emotionalists - especially when they're full. It's the empty emotionalists that are too tiresome for words and seem to get so much attention in today's culture.

Perhaps Dear Sandi, we should call that Objectomasochism.

than a well aimed slap across the face from objectivity and doesn't it feel so damned good!!

... there's a profound philosophical corruption that explains why so many Objectivist spokesthings are so boring. It's the equation of the personal with the subjective. Any show of personality is deemed to be a sign of subjectivism, so the perp (as they say in forensic programmes) repairs to morbid impersonalism. "Timid, stodgy and conservative." This would have been one of the themes of my second address at KASSless.

That was better than the original post.

If this means submerging our longing for acceptance and 'respectability,' so be it."

Ouch.

I knew you'd get what I was on about!

'They need to stop paying lip-service to "sense of life" and actually get one!' - Lindsay

Man, damn good one.

http://fawstin.blogspot.com/

Use an emotive word and the Randroids will call you an "emotionalist." Just as Mr. Cathcart, who seems to have swung from Sciabarrian Brandroid to Hsiekovian Randroid, called me last night. It's a travesty. Boy, am I proud to be an "emotionalist" next to all those anal-retentives on both sides of that phony divide. Objectivity requires nothing less.

And Heaps — Objectivists don't have to become multi-disciplinary geniuses. They need to stop paying lip-service to "sense of life" and actually get one!

I know little of the Ayn Rand Center-so maybe I am being unfair on them- but what is with those Press Releases? Timid. Stodgy. Conservative. Hardly a rallying cry for anything really.

 'Now the hard part is here: we really need physicists, chsmists, biologists, neurologists, psychologists, mathematicians, economists, lawyers and others to come in with their ideas whether they fit or not.'

 Nah, James,

What you really need are mechanics, ditch diggers, office workers, secretaries, teachers and traffic wardens.

And that requires KASS!  The simple expression of the ideas that already exist. The straightforward, no bullshit way of approaching things that you talk about, without the wank.

"The ultimate result of shielding men from folly is to fill the world with fools."

-Herbert Spencer 

Lindsay,

That quite is one my favorites. Ron had this straightforward, no bullshit way of approaching things.
There are a couple of problems as I see it.

One is that much of the progress being made at the cutting edge of thought is now interdisciplinary. The Objectivist system is going to have to shake free from its purist, circumscribed boundaries and reach into biology, psychology, physics, law, system dynamics and complexity theory and others and it's going to have to be receptive when these fields reach up into Objectivism.

Second is that the careful, delineated, induction and deduction which is the intellectual method taught to most Objectivists is a terrific way of validating ideas and a good way of running your life, but it really isn't how most discoveries are made. Think of the bold, innovative off the beaten track genius who is willing to blaze new trails with unborrowed vision. These guys brim with ideas of creative synthesis. Some ideas work, some don't but the important thing is that the new ideas are there.

In the 1990's IOS/TOC/TAS was the source of the new ideas. Now the hard part is here: we really need physicists, chsmists, biologists, neurologists, psychologists, mathematicians, economists, lawyers and others to come in with their ideas whether they fit or not. If they don't fit, the linear thinking taskmasters in the Objectivist movement will have no trouble shooting it down. However, if they can't shoot it down, we may have gold.

Jim

... there's a profound philosophical corruption that explains why so many Objectivist spokesthings are so boring. It's the equation of the personal with the subjective. Any show of personality is deemed to be a sign of subjectivism, so the perp (as they say in forensic programmes) repairs to morbid impersonalism. "Timid, stodgy and conservative." This would have been one of the themes of my second address at KASSless.