What is so AWESOME about the gulch
Hi Scott,
I want to tell you what is so amazing about the gulch. It is not only about giving people a voice. However, it may take me a bit of history to explain.
At the end of Rand’s life she was tired of arguing with fools, as were many geniuses including Newton and Gauss (both refused to publish for this reason). This encouraged a fortress mentality, which is perhaps best exemplified by the debate between open and closed Objectivism. Unfortunately, this resulted in a retrenchment much like the pythagoreans. As a result, Objectivists withdrew to their ivory tower and refused to engage with anyone who was not anointed by the denizens of O land. This excluded and intimidated many who were interested in Objectivism and many people who could advance the study of Objectivism. As a result, Objectivism has stalled. Overall Objectivism has not made the progress it should have in the last 20 years, either in scholarship or in attracting people to its principles.
You have created a site that bridges, the academic and the “real world”, you have created a site that opens scholarship to those that are not anointed, you have created the breakthrough that will allow objectivism to advance in the world. That is amazing and will earn you a place in the history of philosophical scholarship. Unfortunately, this will require tolerating a lot of conservatives, libertarians, and some socialists, who do not understand or want to undermine Objectivism. However, your site allows the wheat to sift through the chaff.
Your journey has included trying to convert the most complex, intellectual novel into a movie. You have received unwarranted criticism from both the ivory tower O’s and the socialists. Unfortunately, the criticism from both sides was expected. Despite this you and JA and Harmon and my daughter brought tens of thousands if not millions to the ideas of Rand. These people are not O’s, but many are willing or interested in learning.
In order to complete your journey you and us will have to deal with many on the left and the religious right and we will not always agree, however the value of staying the course will be enormous for both Objectivism, the world, and your place in history.
I want to tell you what is so amazing about the gulch. It is not only about giving people a voice. However, it may take me a bit of history to explain.
At the end of Rand’s life she was tired of arguing with fools, as were many geniuses including Newton and Gauss (both refused to publish for this reason). This encouraged a fortress mentality, which is perhaps best exemplified by the debate between open and closed Objectivism. Unfortunately, this resulted in a retrenchment much like the pythagoreans. As a result, Objectivists withdrew to their ivory tower and refused to engage with anyone who was not anointed by the denizens of O land. This excluded and intimidated many who were interested in Objectivism and many people who could advance the study of Objectivism. As a result, Objectivism has stalled. Overall Objectivism has not made the progress it should have in the last 20 years, either in scholarship or in attracting people to its principles.
You have created a site that bridges, the academic and the “real world”, you have created a site that opens scholarship to those that are not anointed, you have created the breakthrough that will allow objectivism to advance in the world. That is amazing and will earn you a place in the history of philosophical scholarship. Unfortunately, this will require tolerating a lot of conservatives, libertarians, and some socialists, who do not understand or want to undermine Objectivism. However, your site allows the wheat to sift through the chaff.
Your journey has included trying to convert the most complex, intellectual novel into a movie. You have received unwarranted criticism from both the ivory tower O’s and the socialists. Unfortunately, the criticism from both sides was expected. Despite this you and JA and Harmon and my daughter brought tens of thousands if not millions to the ideas of Rand. These people are not O’s, but many are willing or interested in learning.
In order to complete your journey you and us will have to deal with many on the left and the religious right and we will not always agree, however the value of staying the course will be enormous for both Objectivism, the world, and your place in history.
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+1 for "oral podiatry"
dbhalling said the rest.
The "flaw" in the gulch you're talking about is the division of labor and/or the specialization of labor. When people specialize in specific categories of labor it allows one to be far more productive than he can by working at all the separate needs for day to day living. I believe it is touched on in the "money speech" and probably in Galt's speech but it is more of an economics subject.
While being as self sufficient as possible is looking more and more important as the days go by, it is very inefficient compared to living among a society that properly rewards the highly productive specialized labor. The subject is waaaayyy more involved than that but very worth even a minimal amount of study.
And please be careful using the words "collective" and "gulch" in the same sentence around here. "Them's fightin words".
I began my quest a few years before wondering what sort of philosophy I should live my life being not a religious, or we'll educates person. So I looked to Plato first and read the Republic. I learned a lot but not a philosophy I liked even Plato stated a few times it was not how he felt but it was how to build a perfect society. Now that I've found AR everything fits how I feel and has answered questions I had trouble with in religion.
I have found a flaw in the Gulch it seems everyone had a special job. When I left the cities I wanted to become as self sufficient as I possibly could and not have to rely on any one for my basic needs I don't see this in the Gulch. I know in the future I will have to trade for speciality items however I feel man must be able to care for his and his family over a collective which I seen there was still in the Gulch. I plan to re read AS. I would welcome anyone else to give me their insight.
Euclidean geometry is a logical system in which advances are still being made today. If it was closed in the sense that there was nothing to add, it would not be nearly as powerful today, but it is not open in that to be part of Euclidean Geometry any scholarship has to be consistent with the underlying axioms.
Any research that is consistent with the basic premises of objectivism should be considered part of objectivism If not Objectivism is dead.
The closed thing with the complete standoffishness of ARI historically have stunted scholarship. This is work to be done in the arts, in economics, in law, in physics, etc in apply objectivism and expanding its understanding. Rand often would say I have laid out the fundamentals, but it is for an expert in law or economics to take this further.
I also asked to give a talk to a big ARI group in Colorado based on my new first non-fiction book, telling them I was and objectivist. They said no, because I was not anointed.
So the facts that I am aware do not support your point of view.
There can be no such thing as a "closed" system of thought in an ever evolving and growing world. That would be a totalitarian dead end. Universal truths are not a closed system--they are the all-encompassing reality. Rand's great contribution was her emphasis on "values", that objective values are derived from what a rational animal needs for life and happiness.
Objective values can be embraced without contradiction. If you don't like the word "subjectively", substitute "personally" or "individually". Rand was the arch-individualist who never claimed to have a monopoly on truth. She stated that any rational mind could discover and make it its own. What Rand gave the world was a framework of an integrated philosophy that was able to derive an ethics for living from the facts of existence... the integration of "is" and "should".
ARI is in the unfortunate position of not really completely understanding the full extent of that integration and thus having to stick to dogma as best they know it, clinging to the core doctrine without knowing how to apply it to a wider context, sort of like the infallible Pope persisting in Dark-Ages dicta.
ARI is doing nothing to counteract the antipathy in the culture that their portrayal of Ayn Rand has perpetuated. Perhaps that will change in time. But pronouncements by Yaron Brook to the effect that we were right to torture prisoners and that we didn't torture them enough is not likely to endear him or the philosophy he professes to love and propound to the larger society.
ARI's all-or-nothing attitude toward others does not leave even a sliver of an opening for a newcomer to approach and learn about the philosophy if he or she is not already compliant with the expected dogma.
The producers of the A.S. movies and the minds at the Atlas Society are far more effective in ipromoting Objectivism (the "open" version) as a living philosophy for today's cultures.
The big sticking point is that altruism and benevolence are not synonymous though many people conflate them. Without benevolence there can be no resolution of wars, and without peace we will have a failed civilization, no ethics, no justice, no rational resolution of conflicts. We merely drive other cultures to the deeper ends of despair and resistance and destruction.
Rational values cannot be imparted with a gun, only by example and persuasion. Volitional consciousness is not automatic; it is learned. Ayn Rand was a great teacher, but she expected everyone to be like her already, and short of that they were to be held in contempt. Yet it takes a spark of received insight and a long process of thought to arrive at a stage of enlightenment and reason. We are what we digest, intellectually as well as physically. A philosophy of reason has never been more needed in the world than now, nor more fiercely resisted.
Thank you, Scott, and thank you, DB, for all you've done to bring the message of reason and individualism to the world.
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