My book is finally in print

Posted by $ blarman 4 years, 4 months ago to Books
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My first philosophical work is finally available on Amazon! It's a logical derivation of the societal values which underpin a society dedicated to preserving and promoting the individual pursuit of purpose. Both Kindle and print versions are available. Thanks especially to all those here in the Gulch. Many of you are cited on the acknowledgements page and if you aren't it's probably because I was rushed at the last minute to get something to the editor! If you are interested in a signed copy, pm me with your address.
SOURCE URL: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1702791459/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1


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  • Posted by LibertyBelle 4 years, 4 months ago
    So what's the name of the book?
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    • Posted by $ 4 years, 4 months ago
      In Pursuit of Purpose. The idea is that value is derived from purpose.
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      • Posted by ewv 4 years, 4 months ago
        Ayn Rand explained value and purpose as objective, not subjective or intrinsic, in "The Objective Ethics". It precludes religious mysticism and the supernatural..
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        • Posted by $ 4 years, 3 months ago
          I didn't write this as a paean to Rand. It is my own derivation: the fruits of my own mind and thoughts.
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          • Posted by ewv 4 years, 3 months ago
            No one said it is a "paean" to Ayn Rand or that it should be. Your snide sarcasm and hostility do not cover for the fact that your subjective religious thinking is no improvement to Ayn Rand, who already successfully dealt with the subject. You don't add to that; you contradict what is already known. This is not the place for you to be promoting that.
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            • Posted by $ 4 years, 3 months ago
              Again, coming from someone who hasn't even read the book...
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              • Posted by ewv 4 years, 3 months ago
                You have been posting your anti-Ayn Rand subjectivist pronouncements. including mystical religion, here for years. The text viewable at amazon is no better. You have a reputation. Your continued personal attacks and hostility are not excused by demands to read an entire "book" of the same Blarman. Escalating your posts here into a computer file does not make you an accomplished writer or intellect. Your claim to be a "philosopher" is false. You are an emotional internet warrior militantly imposing yourself and demanding to be taken seriously.
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  • Posted by $ 25n56il4 4 years, 4 months ago
    Best Wishes! I have promised myself I will not read any new books until I finish the three I am working on and send them to the publisher. But, that doesn't stop me from buying one! Congratulations. Only another writer knows how much work goes into writing.
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  • Posted by dukem 4 years, 4 months ago
    Thanks for writing this; I now have it on my Kindle and will starting reading right away. Good for you.
    As it turns out, I'm about to publish via Amazon "My Journey Toward Peace" which has some overlapping themes. Congratulations! Writing my work has been the most challenging and satisfying work of my life - so far.
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    • Posted by dukem 4 years, 4 months ago
      If you do a Kindle search for In Pursuit of Purpose, you'll find two books, but only one has the full name as given. They are two different books, the other one being more religiously oriented.. I am starting to read the one with the full title as given here, and it is quite different.
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      • Posted by ewv 4 years, 4 months ago
        Blarman is "religiously oriented". He misconstrues reason as rationalism and falsely claims he got it from "the playbook of the Objectivist". He does not understand Ayn Rand's definition of reason.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 4 years, 4 months ago
    Thanks for the acknowledgement and Good luck, It's an exciting time when you publish your first book.
    I'll be getting the paper back version later this week.

    Liked the style and thought it was much more Human than Rand.

    PS, one complaint I had with Amazon is that they make a large portion of our books readable before purchase. No rhyme or reason to what pages they make available.
    Wish we had some say in that process.
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    • Posted by H2ungar123 4 years, 4 months ago
      More human than Rand?? How much more human are you to be?? She is one of the strongest females
      I have read about, but I don't think that makes her
      less human....
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      • Posted by $ 4 years, 4 months ago
        One of the critiques many gave of Rand is that she was dry and academic. Some enjoy that kind of writing while others don't. To each their own. Rand's style was Rand's style - a kind of authorship fingerprint which reflected the way she thought. Every author I've read has had their own particular style.

        Much of an author's appeal is their ability to convey a message according to the times. Try reading Shakespeare now - iambic pentameter isn't that popular in most English classes! Back in his time, however, Shakespeare was commonly read and his performances even drew the attention of nobility.

        I think that Rand wrote for the 1960's and that times have changed. It's like MacGuyver in the third season right after the Berlin Wall came down - suddenly the show had to do a major pivot and become a lot less about spying and the Cold War and more about just a resourceful guy out helping people.
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        • Posted by exceller 4 years, 4 months ago
          "I think that Rand wrote for the 1960's"

          No, she did not. She was prophetic in the sense that she foresaw the trajectory of where communist dictatorship led to.

          Her genius is playing out now, as we see the gradual encroachment of communist doctrine in our lives, more than half century after publishing her novels.
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          • Posted by ewv 4 years, 4 months ago
            Ayn Rand's fiction and nonfiction from the 1930s to the 1980s invoked timeless values and principles. There is far more to her work than predicting what communist dictators do.
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            • Posted by CircuitGuy 4 years, 3 months ago
              "There is far more to her work than predicting what communist dictators do."
              I would like the user downvoting this write an alternate view, e.g. "actually if you look at Rand's predictions about not just communist dictators but also..." I'm making that up. We'll never know what you think if you just vote.
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              • Posted by ewv 4 years, 3 months ago
                There are a couple of angry conservative militants here on a crusade who systematically 'downvote' my posts regardless of content. The 'downvoters' aren't even voting in any intellectual sense -- just mechanically lashing out by rote in a personal vendetta.

                They don't respond because they have no coherent answer, only a contempt for Ayn Rand's ideas (and me) that conflict with their conservative politics and religion. Lashing out in anger is all they have, whether by 'downvoting', or those like Blarman and Ashinoff who occasionally erupt in angry outbursts of snide personal attacks with false accusations, then receding again into sullen silence as they dramatically announce that they ignore what I post.

                Too many conservatives have no idea what Ayn Rand's ideas are and don't care. They were attracted to some aspect of a novel or something she said in a video and treat it, falsely, as an endorsement of, and somehow compatible with, their own contradictory beliefs.

                Ayn Rand was an intellectual who consistently and systematically organized her principles in a coherent philosophical whole making sense of the world and human thought and action. Recognizing the importance of ideas, ideas were here life and career., which made Atlas Shrugged and the rest possible. To like Ayn Rand is to like her thinking.

                But the worst of the conservatives seem to regard her philosophy as some kind of secondary adjunct that is optional. They want some of the emotional results of Ayn Rand's thinking without the cause that makes it possible.
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        • Posted by ewv 4 years, 4 months ago
          Ayn Rand did not "write for the 1960s" and was not "dry and academic". What does that even mean? Who are the "many critics" Blarman claims to echo in his pseudo expertise?

          But "times have changed" and "Rand's style was Rand's style", Captain Obvious tells us. This is all so typical of his pompous, vacuous pronouncements.

          The plot and characters in Ayn Rand's 1930s novel dramatically showing the oppression in the Soviet Union was "dry and academic" and "for the 1960s"? The 1943 psychological best seller The Fountainhead was "dry and academic" for the 1960s in 1943? Atlas Shrugged, a novel with timeless values and a gripping plot that still appeals to millions is "dry and academic" and "for the 1960s"? All the essays and lectures of the 1960s through the early 80s that brought people to their feet with excitement and applause? What is he talking about?

          If that is what Blarman believes then what is he doing on this forum other than as an unethical militant internet warrior thumbing his nose at the purpose of this forum as he promotes his anti-Ayn Rand religious conservativism, grandiosely claiming to "combat trolls on the pages of social media, attempting to bring sanity and rational thought to the Internet!" His Platonist speculations, pretentious floating abstractions, and ignorance of Ayn Rand are anything but "sanity and rational thought".
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        • Posted by H2ungar123 4 years, 4 months ago
          Your thoughts re: writing for the 60's and changing
          times erases my feelings over OUC's thinking of her
          as somewhat less human than others, with a "cold and hard personality". Your comments have educated me!! and I cannot thank you enough!
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          • Posted by ewv 4 years, 4 months ago
            Blarman's "thoughts" that Ayn Rand "wrote for the 1960s" are not only false, but bizarre. His speculations are misleading people, not educating.
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            • Posted by mccannon01 4 years, 4 months ago
              IMHO, It seems to me the 1960s provided a lot of fuel for Rand's "American" fire in her non fiction works like "For the New Intellectual" (1961), "The Virtue Of Selfishness" (1964), "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" (1966), "The Romantic Manifesto" (1969), and for good measure you could throw in "The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution" (1971). The novel "Atlas Shrugged" (1957) sure saw a lot of what the 1960s set up for things to come we are experiencing now. Although Objectivism as put forth by Rand is timeless, the '60s in America (and the rest of the world for that matter) was rich for the harvesting for Ayn Rand to use as living examples of her work - both good and bad.
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                Posted by ewv 4 years, 4 months ago
                In the 1930s and 40s those years also provided living examples when she was fighting for individualist politics allied with some conservatives and exposing the Soviet Union. Likewise for the 70s and 80s when she was providing analysis of contemporary trends then.

                She always provided unique philosophical analysis whatever the examples and time period, and did not like to revisit the same analysis for another example of it later. She expected her readers to learn it the first time without her having to repeat.

                Many of her articles did not pertain to contemporary examples at all, such as the Objectivist Ethics and other theoretical ethical and political essays, and the whole Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

                The notion that she "wrote for the 1960s" is truly bizarre and shows a real ignorance in his swaggering spouting off the top of his head.
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          • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 4 years, 4 months ago
            I am glad Blair explained it better than I but I have to laugh because you thought I was accusing Rand of not being human. It's an expression of how some people do not express mutuality, empathy or kindness toward others as easily as most of us do.
            I might have said, instead, her lacking expression of humanity.
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            • Posted by H2ungar123 4 years, 4 months ago
              Caro Carlo: I did not think you were accusing Rand of not being human. I said you compared her of being LESS human than others.....Still human, only less so.....Yes, Blair got to me...Miss you Carlo!!
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      • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 4 years, 4 months ago
        She was a very cold and hard personality. We can all understand why, but just the same, that is the way she comes off.
        Blair also understands and expresses that Life, especially human life did not just happen randomly...something Rand prefers not to address.
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        • Posted by exceller 4 years, 4 months ago
          No, she was not.

          A cold and hard personality would never have been able to write "The Fountainhead", let alone "Atlas Shrugged".

          Where are you getting this idea? It is totally off the page.
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          • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 4 years, 4 months ago
            When she discusses Objectivism in every interview I've have ever seen she seemed hard and cold to me.
            I don't notice that with others when philosophy is being discussed.
            As stated, "we can understand why"...meaning, she invented the thing, she is defining and defending her work, we also might add, her experiences that lead her there.

            Of course, as you state, a more human personality emerges in her writings and I am sure that showed with others in private as well.
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            • Posted by exceller 4 years, 4 months ago
              She was attacked from left and right on Objectivism.

              Many "experts" simply ignored and denied her.

              If you look up other authors who were trailblazers and how did they react to the negative environment, her style was not unusual.

              " more human personality emerges in her writings and I am sure that showed with others in private as well. "

              There is no such thing as "cold and hard" and "more human in her writing".

              It is the very same individual.
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              • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 4 years, 4 months ago
                Sure there can be, many people are very different in public than they are in private.

                Just look at Trump, for example. Many say he is totally different in private or one on one, and here, we can also understand why.
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                • Posted by exceller 4 years, 4 months ago
                  Then you may want to modify your original statement that sounds quite dismissive.

                  I never found her cold and hard, but passionate, straight to the point, intelligent and informative. Combative as well, with reason, considering the many stupid and attacking questions volleyed at her.
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                  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 4 years, 4 months ago
                    I guess it's My definition of "Human" that gets everyone confused. I see "human" to be much more than a species, much more than conscious of not or just having mutuality. My definition includes the behaviors and the use of emotions that categorize the concept of Humanity.

                    Not the best definition right now but I am working on it. I am sure I'll get a lot of feedback on that one too.

                    I also see that when discussing a philosophy it can be viewed as a waving finger at you. This is it, it's definitive and don't question it. Not everyone is like that but that's the impression I get from Rand.
                    Funny thing is that Objectivism is probably more humanly relatable than many other philosophies if it was never tainted by the extreme left's viewless point.
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                    • Posted by exceller 4 years, 4 months ago
                      " I see "human" to be much more than a species, much more than conscious of not or just having mutuality. My definition includes the behaviors and the use of emotions that categorize the concept of Humanity."

                      Carl, I think the more you are trying to specify what you mean by "human" the more you are getting stuck.

                      Maybe you want to provide a few examples how a "Human" should come across?

                      "I also see that when discussing a philosophy it can be viewed as a waving finger at you. This is it, it's definitive and don't question it. Not everyone is like that but that's the impression I get from Rand."

                      That is, again, is totally off the page. Rand was one of the geniuses who based her philosophy on facts. Not all of them do, in fact, most philosophers live in the highest levels of the thought process, bringing forward theories that have nothing to do with reality.

                      As you are saying it yourself in closing, Objectivism is a most humanly relatable philosophy, contradicting your statement made just a sentence before.
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                      • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 4 years, 4 months ago
                        There is no contradiction. Genius or not, facts or not, reality or not, it's the way inwhich she presents herself, presents the objectivist philosophy.

                        You and others may not view her as dry, academic or cold but I did and still do. I also stated possible reasons as to why that is...just look what she had to endure in those times.

                        I view her that way, that is my impression and you and other do not, that's ok and especially ok because we value her work.
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                    • Posted by ewv 4 years, 4 months ago
                      Ayn Rand's philosophical analysis did not "wave a finger" at anyone. She gave rational explanations with objective standards. So do competent scientists and engineers, but not the alt-science,speculation, and conspiracy mongering that some here promote. Subjectivists who demand an exemption from thinking and communicating with objectivity and rationality smear it as "cruel", "cold and hard", and "waving a finger".
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            • Posted by ewv 4 years, 4 months ago
              In her public interviews she was typically very engaging. The same person she was in private. Old Ugly confuses focused and intelligent with "cold and hard"
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        • Posted by ewv 4 years, 4 months ago
          Ayn Rand was not "very cold and hard personally". That is not what those who knew her believed. See Scott McConnell's 100 Voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand. OldUgly did not know her and is spreading malicious gossip.

          Ayn Rand did not say anything "just happens randomly". Nor did she "prefer not to address" religious mysticism. She did address it, with devastation, as irrational.
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    • Posted by $ servo75 4 years, 4 months ago
      Well I'm glad they make a portion of the books readable, I've made yes/no decisions based on the sample I see, sometimes I just don't know enough about the topic, style, etc., of course I buy books on an enormous range of subjects from history to politics to my "day job" of computer programming. I find those previews very valuable in making my purchase decision.

      I saw some of the comments about Rand and "more human" but I understand what you mean. When I "read" (actually listened to) Atlas Shrugged, the voice actor doing the narration was very good, but some of the roles like Rearden and Galt were delivered in a rather deadpan manner and my only criticism of those characters, along with Roark in Fountainhead (again, audio book narration) was that they sometimes seemed flat, emotionless, like for a character to be likeable for me, they have to show a certain range of human emotion, in my opinion that makes it more effective and their speech more effective. It seemed to me, and perhaps this was merely the artistic license of the narrator and/or my imagination, that the antagonists were given livelier voices than the heroes. Of course there's some literary license at work here, too. I doubt that any audience, in 1957 or 2019 would listen to a three hour radio speech, I don't care what the topic is :). Again Rand was a philosopher, so one could criticize these long conversations and soliloquies as being too deeply philosophical. To each his/her own, but that is kind of the point.

      I do look forward to checking out the book, even if for no other reason than to get a fresh look at some of these philosophies.
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      • Posted by ewv 4 years, 4 months ago
        Ayn Rand was primarily a novelist. She had to become a philosopher in addition in order to develop the principles for her idea of the ideal man. She formulated the "speeches" in the novel as part of the dialog that fit the fictional context.

        The manner in which audio books were recorded are unrelated to the emotional impact in her writing. You should read the books as they were written.

        Blarman's book will not give you a fresh look at these philosophies". Contrary to his claim he is not a philosopher, and is quite ignorant of the field. He didn't even get the meaning of Descartes' 'cogito ergo sum' right, and was completely wrong in equating it with Ayn Rand, whom he also gets wrong.
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        • Posted by $ servo75 4 years, 4 months ago
          "Contrary to his claim he is not a philosopher, and is quite ignorant of the field. He didn't even get the meaning of Descartes' 'cogito ergo sum' right"

          I hardly think I'd notice the difference! Hahahaha. :D
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          • Posted by ewv 4 years, 4 months ago
            You won't if you try to get it out of his book. Descartes' so-called "cogito" is his famous "I think therefore I am". He tried to derive reality out of his head as a subjectivist and rationalist. Ayn Rand starts with reality, with consciousness as awareness of reality, not something that can exist by itself. Basically Aristotelian, she rejects the Platonist tradition of subjectivism, of which Descartes is a famous and prominent member..

            Blarman not only misrepresents Descartes, being an avowed fan of Plato he confuses existence with his own speculations and equates Descartes with Ayn Rand, which are in fact opposites. He doesn't understand either.

            If you decide to pursue understanding Ayn Rand's philosophy you will see the significance of all this.
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        • Posted by $ 4 years, 4 months ago
          You've not even read the book, yet you feel compelled to pass judgement on it because of your personal animus toward me. But I guess when you live in the ivory tower of your own mind, you have nothing else to do but stare at your mirror and tell yourself how perfect you are and how erudite everyone else is because they don't accept you as king.

          It is very easy to criticize others for perceived faults and seek to tear down. It is much more difficult to realize that value and economy come from mutual cooperation and that life is not a zero sum game. It requires taking people for who they are and what they have to offer rather than who you want them to be. It requires understanding and accepting that it is the differences in people which make an economy possible in the first place - that if we were all clones there would be no competitive advantage, no new ideas, no alternative products/services.

          Go ahead and criticize. You bring nothing of value to the table.
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          • Posted by ewv 4 years, 4 months ago
            Stop your personal attacks and false accusations. I respond based on what you have written, both here and in the text at amazon, not "personal animus". It is you are filled with personal animus in your repeated personal attacks and false accusations ignoring the content of what I write.
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  • Posted by exceller 4 years, 4 months ago
    Congratulations, Blair!

    Now I know your last name is Christensen.

    I would never have guessed that ewv was instrumental in your developing your thought process but the mind works in curious ways.
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    • Posted by ewv 4 years, 4 months ago
      I was not "instrumental" in his "developing his thought process". His assertion "Thanks to all those who have helped me to hone my critical thinking and reasoning, especially those of Galt's Gulch such as ewv, ..." is disingenuous.

      Blarman responded to me by evasively going off on tangents, often laced with baseless and gratuitous false personal accusations. He never acknowledged his mistatements and often later repeated them as if nothing had been said. He demanded that I not respond to his public posts and tried to get me banned from the forum, then dramatically announced that he was not reading what I posted. He does not engage in "critical thinking", has not "honed" his reasoning, and I have nothing to do with his book.
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      • Posted by $ 4 years, 4 months ago
        Who is or is not instrumental in the writing of my book is up to me and for my own reasons. (Even negativity and condescension can be learned from as examples of adverse behaviors.)

        You can not read my mind and the real dishonesty is in pretending you can understand my motives or my mind - especially since you have never asked me anything honestly seeking the truth. You're too busy misrepresenting others' statements and impugning their character. I even address honesty in the book as the second core virtue - right after equality. I'd suggest you try giving either (preferably both) of those values a try. It's what I advocate everyone do because if everyone did that, we'd have a better world in every way.
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        • Posted by ewv 4 years, 4 months ago
          Rejecting the nonsense in Blarman's writing is a positive, not "negativity and condescension", especially when he promotes it on an Ayn Rand forum contrary to the forum's purpose. I give reasons and explanation when rejecting his evasive floating abstractions, not "mind reading", in contrast with his emotional outbursts.

          Whatever he claims as his motives, his published assertion that I "helped" him is false. I have nothing to do with his book, and his own public reactions through false accusations, personal attacks, and lack of improvement in his subjective writing show that he gained nothing positive from me even indirectly. His own evasions and rationalizations as he reformulates the same fallacies to try to 'better' put them over are not any kind of "help" from me, and I have no interest in whatever contortions his mind went through in deciding what to write which he thinks are "instrumental". No one is "reading his mind", only observing what he writes and does.

          Blarman should cease his snide personal attacks and false accusations here as he presumptuously gives sarcastic "suggestions" and pretentiously wraps himself in "honesty" while gratuitously and falsely accusing rejection of his thoughts and actions as "dishonest". His constant personal attacks and false subjective accusations are no defense of what he is doing.
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    • Posted by $ 4 years, 4 months ago
      Debate always goes both ways. If you haven't taken a good look at both sides, you're potentially missing out on tremendous opportunities for learning.
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      • Posted by exceller 4 years, 4 months ago
        Sure enough.

        However, I found that there are people you can't learn anything from because you went through those periods they are in a long time ago.

        But everyone learns differently.
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