RoR: Forum

Alec Mouhibian writes:

>>That "review of a review" is a self-parody of the highest order. It is truly laughable, a low-point in Rand's career, and I don't see how anyone can condone it.

This is, of course, putting the worst face on things. Tell me, how many scholars read Aristotle or Plato in the original Greek? Are their arguments and observations any less relevant because they rely on commentaries and translations, which may or may not be faithful transcriptions? Would you fault these scholars as well?

As to Rawl's theory of justice specifically, if you are grounded in Philosophy, as Rand was, upon knowing his basic premise she could easily predict the rest. One does not need to wade through garbage to know it is garbage. If her assessment of Rawls were incorrect, you would have an argument. Since it was not, and we have no indication from your post that you believe it was not, your distaste is merely posturing.
(Edited by Robert Davison on 2/27, 5:02pm)

Post 21

Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 12:03pm

Alec, et al, miss the point. Academics are constantly in a pissing contest about who can out footnote the other. Even if Ayn Rand had read everything Kant and Rawls wrote she'd still have been criticized. And, I bet the criticism would've been exactly the same: That she didn't know what she was talking about. She's not an academic so she's not qualified to say, etc. Who can honestly doubt that?

Post 22

Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 12:26pm

Bravo, Wayne! Thank you & Jeff & Peter & Robert for blasts of such fresh air.

There are three types of humans in the world: academics, spewing pomo rubbish; the groupies of academics, licking up the vomit & re-regurgitating it; and NEM.

Linz

BTW, "crow" refers to Rand's "crow epistemology." Look it up! :-)

Post 23

Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 12:30pm

Linz - I gotta disagree, but mainly in degree, not essence.

You wrote: "She was a polemicist who, once she had grasped the essence of something vile, sallied forth mightily against it."

OK. You don't need to waste a lot of time on boring research to engage in public controversy - and you could even be right while relying solely on second-hand information, deductions and hunches. Also, anyone who does not want to read Kant and Rawls sure has my sympathy. But everything happens in context.

Rand's whole posture was that she was the philosophical enlightenment providing a solid intellectual foundation for reason for the first time in history and that Kant and Plato shared the pedestal of Philosophical Enemy No. 1.

Well, she did the first part magnificently in an amazing body of work that presented a plethora of new radical constructive ideas clearly and dramatically.

It is in this context that I cannot agree with her method of using second-hand information to identify and refute the primary bad guys, and then bragging about it. To be fair, it does work as great dramatic effect - shock value. It gets your attention.

My contention is that Rand's constructive ideas are what is having such an impact nowadays, not her dragon-slaying. And to tell the truth, I look around and wonder if the TERRIBLE TWO should even be exalted to their ignominious position of the MAIN PERPETRATORS OF WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD TODAY. Marx, Engels, Hitler and company sure made a splash based on their ideas, but what about this Islam thing that is literally blowing up people?

Those guys are on a whole other trip entirely. Definitely not Kant and Plato. If you were someone who publically proclaimed yourself as THE WAY OUT and made a case against the Koran as being the major root of this particular evil, you sure better read it. That is, if you want to make a perceivable difference in your own lifetime. And don't forget that those people will literally try to kill you if you mouth off too much against what they hold as sacred.

Then there are the Oriental cultures - a whole other can of worms in terms of how they arrived at their principles of good and evil. They sure are not based on the foundations of Western philosophy.

As much as I admire Rand's work, and I do admire it mightily, I cannot raise second-hand information in establishing intellectual fundamentals to a virtue. In Rand it was a quirk. A quirk of a genius, maybe, but not a virtue. A quirk.

Michael

BTW - Thanks for that crow comment. There I go eating it again. Just can't seem to keep more than three "academic slayers" in my perception at one time...

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 2/27, 1:24pm)

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 2/27, 1:29pm)

Post 24

Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 2:26pm

Ok, not much time at hand, but one littel question.

I have seen the argument that even if you don't know the whole essay Newton has written, you can judge his work fraud or true. But Newton and Einstein had to work hard to persuade their contemporaries. And they even read the specific documents containing all formulas and experiments.
So, Einstein had to speak against his fellow men denouncing some of his work, although it (today) becomes ever more clear that he was right on many things.
So, if even those who read him had a hard time to decypher what was true and what not, then how can anybody who doesn't even read it can make any statement about it?

Kant could write two pages displaying the illusion of reality and refute it on the last page of his work and Rand would miss it, because she got an account by someone else, biased and subjective.

I don't say that she is wrong about Kant, I just want to show that you must read the whole work, or you cannot judge. She always said that you have to use all the facts available to judge someone and not just on a secondary account...

I have many problems with Kant, not only his believe in world-controlling governments like the UN, but also his pacifism and his definition of reason.
Rawls is a total different coin. He is a total socialist, whot tried to reconcile Capitalists with Socialist theory. He was almost as subtle as Naom Chomsky.
He neither had the elaborate thought-proof structre as Kant did it, nor was his theory fully worked out.

Post 25

Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 3:06pm

Peter,

"And further: if one offers endless definitions of non-concepts, anti-concepts, pseudo-concepts and dichotomies then one is not a 'definition-mongererer' at all�- to�offer so many definitions of nothing at all at�in the length and�prolixity that Kant did one is either an asshole, an idiot, or a man with a plan."

Straw man. That is not what Rand said. She talk about the "absence of definitions" in the CPR. Deal with the issue and quit the name calling. If you can.

Freddie the Kantinator

Post 26

Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 3:15pm

Michael,

T"here was another word I was not familiar with: screed. Ayn Rand wrote screeds? What the hell is that? So I looked it up. According to the American Heritage Dictionary - Second College Edition, it is: "1. A long, monotonous harangue or piece of writing.""

Good point. I guess I found the endless name calling a bit monotonous, but in the main I find Rand anything but "monotonous."

Fred

Post 27

Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 3:17pm

About the Crow epistemology. Linz said to "Look it up" and those that are interested can check ITOE pp. 62-63. It a nick name for unit economy.

Fred

Post 28

Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 3:27pm

Jeff,

"There is�evidence that not only did she read Kant in the original German, but that she read commentators. (Branden's comment, even if taken at face value, is beside the point.� By the time he met her she was already far old enough to have read all of Kant's work and then some and have had years to think about it.)"

I think you've got a point. I'm sure she read as much as she could stomach. After all, in "Causality versus Duty" she quote from the FMM twice, albeit all quotations never go beyond p. 19. That why I wrote the following:

But even if one doesn�t believe Branden, her statement that they are no definitions in the Critique of Pure Reason borders on the silly.

Now that is a claim anyone (except Peter) can check out for themselves.

Thanks

Fred

Post 29

Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 3:35pm

With all due respect to Prof. Seddon's qualifications, I believe it is not correct to call 'crow epistemology' a nickname for 'unit economy'. In fact, it is the opposite.

The metaphor refers to the fact that crows (as Rand gathered from some reading) are able to 'count' and mentally retain only a small number of perceptual instances (around five or fewer) of some object (say humans passing underneath a tree), but no more since they are unable to form number concepts enabling them to retain more. I.e. they can't, in fact, count in the sense that that term applies to humans.

(Edited to correct spelling of Prof. Seddon's name, with apologies.)

(Edited by Jeff Perren on 2/28, 12:23pm)

Post 30

Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 4:49pm

Linz et al.,

Of course, you all refused to answer my questions, and are once again resorting to pathetic relativism. "They would've hated her anyway, they suck, they have footnotes, they they they..." Goddammit, I don't give a shit what academics would've thought or not thought. I don't give a shit about pedantic, unreadable prose, and that's clearly not what any decent person would've wanted from Rand. I give a shit about meeting the right and proper intellectual standards -- regardless of however many additional people might be persuaded by it.

If you're going to engage in a topic, then you engage in it fairly and properly -- you don't write some half-assed "review of a review." Better things to do? Please. That's no excuse. Then stay out of it altogether.

The point here is intellectual quality. Persuasiveness is not necessarily measured by the number of idiots you persaude -- it's measured by the quality of your work and arguments, period. Rand's other works excelled and soared in intellectual quality -- that's why she is AYN RAND and not some anonymous person who was also right about the same topics. Academics who haughtily dismissed those works were wrong and unjustified, whereas they were justified in dismissing her low-points. And that's what matters. Not how many morons might've changed their minds had she dealt with Kant and Rawls properly.

Yet you guys are claiming that her work didn't have to be thorough, because no academics would've changed their mind anyway. Stop parading such poppycock and stick it back in your pants.

Alec

Post 31

Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 4:58pm

Robert,

upon knowing his basis premise she could easily predict the rest.

That is bullshit. Do you think other philosophers, upon knowing Rand's basic premise, could easily predict the rest?

If Rand was a fortune-teller, then your defense is justified. But she was a philosopher and a writer, and when there is a 200 page book that explains "the rest," it's her job to know it before analyzing it, not merely predict it.

Once again, the biggest beef Rand's defenders properly have against her critics is that, usually, they never even read her! That beef loses all its fat once you start rationalizing double-standards.

No, it wasn't Rand's job to read every insignificant idiot. But just as Rand was significant enough to be read (for a number of reasons), so, unfortunately, were Rawls and Kant -- if for no other reason than their massive influence, which Rand was trying to undo. If she didn't care about their influence, it would be another thing; she'd have no reason to read them. But since she very much did care, she should've done all she could to help her own cause.

Alec

(Edited by Alec Mouhibian on 2/27, 5:01pm)

(Edited by Alec Mouhibian on 2/27, 5:02pm)

Post 32

Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 5:42pm

If someone is going to call Kant the most evil man in history, then its only fair to do this after one has read his work (and that of his followers to determine his influence).

Post 33

Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 5:20pm

Michael,

The basic premise is not deep, by the time you reach the word redistribution or fair distribution the rest is easy. If you were making the same argument about her not reading Kant, I would agree, but Rawls is an utter lightweight.

Whether or not Rand read Kant I don't know. N. Brandon says no, others say she read it in the original German.

Post 34

Sunday, February 27, 2005 - 8:18pm

The question is not whether Rand *read* Kant. The question is not even whether she *understood* Kant. Both those things are almost impossible to establish.

The one thing we can be certain of is that - with very rare exceptions - she does not *quote* him. So we have to ask: why not? Why is everything in paraphrase, and nothing verbatim? Is it really that hard to look up? Why, when trying the greatest criminal in man's history, does the chief prosecutor - self-appointed - consistently refuse to admit his actual testimony, and insist that only on her own restatement of his words be offered as damning evidence?

The question then becomes a helluva lot simpler: *what is a trial of this sort normally called*? And what sort of reaction should the jury - we readers - properly have to this type of prosecution?

Post 35

Monday, February 28, 2005 - 3:34am

Robert - Ms. Rand studied philosophy in college in Russia so she must have read some Kant. Where I have a problem is that she bragged about not reading it after proclaiming herself as an expert in the vileness of it.

The same goes for Rawls. He may be "utter lightweight," but he was heavy enough for Rand to write an essay about a New York Times book review of a book of his.

I see this procedure more in the light of a publicity stunt than reasoned discourse. She liked to set up bad guys and knock them down in order to present her positive ideas (like the virtue of reason and individualism) more dramatically. You don`t need to wade through a lot to set up a bad guy.

Sorry folks if this seems disrespectful. I love Rand. I love truth. Neither is very easy at times.

Michael

Post 36

Monday, February 28, 2005 - 9:51am

Michael,

I don't think that Rawls is a light-weight. I just want to say that he is miles away from anything as steadfast as Kant. And to write an article based on a review of one of Rawl's book is just not justified.

What if the review is BS? What if the reviewer is not good at all? What if the reviewer himself didn't read the whole book (that actually can happen!)?
There are so many variables that can destroy the truth of it. I don't say she was wrong on Rawls, because I read Rawls, but she was wrong on parts of Kant.

She might have read Kant during college, but obviously she didn't do it thouroughly or even considered on doing it on her own account. If she had done it, she'd be able to cite and quote passages and she would have done that.

I have seen reviews of Ayn Rand's books, where she got totally misunderstood and misrepresented(f.e. the NYTimes review...), but I didn't judge her on those reviews. Instead I read it by myself and I had to disagree with those reviews.
So, much to second-hand recounts of DIFFICULT readings.
She was right about a lot of things, but she should have read Kant before criticising him. She had so many right leads, she should have gone the other 40 % of the way on the basis of her own philosophy, with reason and truth.

I am here totally with Daniel Barnes, who challenged this topic as well.

Post 37

Monday, February 28, 2005 - 10:51am

Jeff,

First, It's Seddon, not Sneddon.

Second, I was merely reporting not prescribing. If you look at the Index to ITOE, 2nd ed. under "Crow epistemology" what you read there is "See Unit-economy." If you then go to "Unit economy" the first reference is to pp. 62-63, and if you go there you get her story about the crows. NB. I not saying this is right or wrong, I'm just referring to the index and what it says.

Fred

Post 38

Monday, February 28, 2005 - 11:09am

Linz,

"Fred, of course, is a Christian & a socialist ... but one should remember that Christ & Marx were pre-Randian Objectivists."

How can one not love Linz??

Post 39

Monday, February 28, 2005 - 11:12am