| | My Dear George,
First of all, I would like to apologise for not having posted to you before this. I did not see your post for a few days after it "went to air", (I was looking for a posters email address), and personal issues and life pressures prevented me from replying immediately, as you deserved.
I would like to thankyou very much for your kind assessment of me. Believe me, nothing anyone has ever seen of me here is a facade. I have neither the inclination, nor time nor energy to either instigate nor maintain a facade. As I once posted here, I am as I am, my forthrightness has gotten me into a lot of trouble over the years, but it is the only way I know how to be.
A person can be "kind and gentle' in a particular set of circumstances, but also angry in another. (Wasn't it Margaret Mitchell who wrote of the "terrible anger of the gentle?").
George, I am typing so slowly. I'm trying very hard to get my point across, and not be offensive. Because I truly don't mean to be, nor want to be.
The thing is, none of the points you raised are at issue here for me - and that's my fault, for not making myself clear - because I was overly emotional, "losing the plot", and yes, angry.
You see, George, it isn't about Regi. I don't give a monkeys cuss that he's "not Linzs' favourite person". I don't give a damn that no-one here takes his philosphy seriously. I make my own mind up about a person, and I base it on what that person says directly to me. If this whole forum turned against you for a reason I did not accept, I would still care for you, and want to communicate with you.
It isn't simply because Linz, and many others use bad language. Hells Bells, I'm no saint. I've let fly and turned the air "blue" a few times myself. (It's a bit hard to live in Aus and not!!).
It goes deeper than that. It's what it truly means.
If I can backtrack a little. When I was living, (thankfully briefly) in NZ, I heard Linz on his radio talk back show. And I was "blown away". I mean, Christ, after years living as a pariah, in the wilderness of socialism, here was someone who "talked Objectivism". I rang up his show, and I wrote three articles for "The Free Radical". After I came back to Aus. I lost track, but on finding Solo, I was - literally - overjoyed. To have rediscovered, in a better form, the "libertyloop" (Linz can explain).
But, over time, my feelings changed. It began with a faint feeling of uneasiness. Something was wrong - I just couldn't put my finger on it. As I watched the increasing amounts of what you have referred as a "dysfunctional family", letting fly without restraint, because they had "the safety of net and screen" a feeling of distaste grew. Why?? I'm not not so precious as to be unable to sustain a few swear words.
If I can expand my thought process, (and I suspect I'm no different to anyone else in this regard), I read words, but in my mind, they make pictures. It wasn't Linz bad language, (hell if he chooses to ignore the brilliance of , as Terry Pratchett put it, "a people who had taken 26 symbols, and used them to write prose which seared the skies and mens souls, and rang down the years) that was his affair. It was the bullying I started to see behind it.
I watched in increasing horror as I saw some of the few people who had made such a good impression on me (you would have to know you are one of them), being pilloried and hounded. Bill Tingley, because he had once mentioned having been a Catholic, Regi, Matt, although he has chosen to return; and poor Orion, almost screaming in pain, being brought down by a pack. The sight of that vision made me ill. I wanted to say something to him, but just couldn't join in.
I have to work in an area where we are frequently abused by members of the public. Yes, they have a point - they are frustrated and angry. I nursed a young man last week admitted with severe facial fractures from a group who set on him. A few weeks ago, we lost a 17 year old, knifed after a suburban party because he upset an opposing group. George, do I really need to come here and see the same thing, differing only in degree? In the name of "intelligent people pushing each others' buttons". Because apparantly, this is a "method of intellectual growth"?
In one her essays, Ayn Rand ended by stating that whenever people open their mouths to speak, they show the world exactly who and what they are. "And so, gentle reader, do you". (Much of my library is still packaged in cartons, and I can't find the original, so this is from memory).
When some contributors chose to respond to my comments about Regi by not stating a fact, but "pouring a bucket of slime' over my comments, I don't care for myself, nor for Regi. Hell, Regi doesn't need me to defend him. When I post a summary of a brilliant movie, to see comments of such a trivial nature, I care because, if I am "offering the best I have in return for the best in others", and if this is their best, then it isn't enough and I just dont want it.
It isn't the language per se - it's the trivial mind it indicates that I can't be bothered with.
You know the "sense of life" I get from Solo? I feel as if I had strayed into a night club. The lights are flashing and garish, the music is noisy, and there's heaps of young people, pushing one another around, making silly pointless comments and generally having a "young peoples" good time. And I feel I just don't belong. I'm a fish out of water. A square peg. I'm a person who wants quiet after dinner conversation with a few good friends over a bottle of something good. Should I go complain to management, and demand they change the clientele? Of course not. Demand that the people present change their behaviour to suit me? Never. I just pick up my bag and leave.
You know, I think myself, Regi, Orion are what I am starting to call people who are "Kiplings' Cats" people.
"But, after the days' chores are over, and he has done his duty to humans, still he is the cat who walks by himself. And you can still see him, walking on the wild wet rooftops, waving his wild wild tail, and walking by his wild wild lone"
The "sense of life" I get from the Autonomist is of a few friends talking after dinner. And we don't all mirror each others' point of view. (Regi and I have just had a strong joust over alternative medicine - we disagree on some issues, but here's what I mean by growth - I had better prepare my philosophy and arguments carefully, for he'll attack at all points if I dont. He makes me think. Thats growth).
And why the "competition"? Whats' wrong with enjoying both?
I was preparing an essay in response to someone, I think called Jason who said, couldn't there be a way of formulating an Objectivist philosphy which could deal with intellingent non-humans . I note many young people who have leanings towards Objectivism have a problem with the fact that the philosophy doesn't address the issue of intelligent animals. I really worked on this, and in the end thought, I'm going to have to fight against a pack - not defend my ideas against reason, no-one should be afraid of that, but the sort of sophomoric unreason that so often posts here. And I just couldn't bring myself to do it. And that, in the end, told it's own story.
I have indeed come across some good minds and good people here
- you are most certainly chief among them. So, I guess what I'll do is, sometimes, when I'm passing, I'll drop into the nightclub, peer around through the smoke and lights, and see if anyone is here with something to say I would like to chat about. And sit and have a chat with them. And if not, I'll just pick up my bag and leave.
I saw this Irish prayer the other day. I changed the last line - not just to make it mine, but because I don't subscribe to mythical deities.
I offer to you George, and indeed, all
"May the road ever rise before you
May the wind ever be at your back
May the sun shine warm on your face,
And, until we meet again, may your mind know the golden light of joy".
Thankyou again for taking the trouble to write to me.
Very sincerely
Cass
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