RoR: Forum

Well, it's about bloody time! Where the hell *have* you been? Getting soused, preening your pointy tail and sharpening your trident, I bet... :-)

Your homecoming article was certainly all I expected and more. But it *did* lack a few things... namely: petulant vindictiveness, puerile tantrum-throwing, & crass, backstabbing cheap-shots. A lesser man would not have been able to resist the temptation of such a brightly-lit stage as an opportunity to hurl vomit and invective at his detractors.

Well, you did, and without dousing that bubbling, seething crock-pot of righteous rationalism that fumes in your intellectual loins.

Salute, il Commendatore!

Ross

PS: if those prats at Prime can't use you during the election run-up and the ensuing debacle, then they need their heads read.

Post 21

Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - 5:16pm

L.P. is not an alcoholic - but he's too volatile.

)(*)(

Post 22

Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - 5:33pm

Welcome back, Lindsay! SOLO wouldn't be SOLO without your inimitable presence :-)!

Jim

Post 23

Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - 10:11pm

So many Americans are just pathetic sissies!

Mr. Perigo hooliganism it's typical British. You would never find it in America!

Your attitude has contaminated many people on this forum, especially the young.

Your anger it's not justified period. Ayn Rand never told any body Fuck you!

Your comparison to Ayn Rand seems little out of place.

You get sanctioned for your anger on this forum because it's your forum, and not because you are right.

By calling Americans sissies you have exposed clearly your opinion about Americans.

Barbara Branden read you well.

Ciro

Post 24

Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - 11:48pm

Ciro, you're wrong.

Lindsay loves Americans *almost* as much as I do.

Any great & inconceivably wealthy civilisation will have it's idiosyncrasies & peccadillos. After all, the Romans had vomitoriums (not to mention masturbatoriums--oops, I just did...) and the Greeks did strange things with olive oil and goats, but that didn't generally make them a force for good in the world.

Capiche?

Ross

Post 25

Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - 11:53pm

Thanks, all, for the "welcome back" messages in response to This Boy's Not For Turning. It was a pleasure to return to my own party without a sense of dread.

Now that we've hugged & kissed, I want to reiterate certain really important things to come out of this that I want everyone to contemplate very seriously.

First, the quote from Scott DeSalvo that I placed at the top of the article: "Beware of those who are oh-so-proper. They are hiding something. Themselves."

Second, my Goldwater paraphrase: "Civility in the face of evil is no virtue; rage in the face of nihilism is no vice."

Third, this, from my article: "As an aside, I have found myself wondering, these past two weeks, whether the knee-jerk recourse to flouncing off is a Pavlovian response wrought by years of Peikovian conditioning. Does it go like this: Dissent in the traditional ARI culture has inexorably meant excommunication ... but if a dissenter is not excommunicated, he feels impelled to self-excommunicate, because estrangement is the only possible outcome of disagreement??!! Is it possible that the folk who quail, wail and walk at the first sign of conflict are acting out, and thereby sanctioning, this Peikovian model, without realising it, simply because that’s all they’ve ever known?"

I'd like to see some serious analysis of this. Consider—a homosexual Objectivist comes to SOLO. He discovers here a monograph devoted to the dragging of Objectivist homophobia out of the closet & into oblivion. He finds the founder is as avid a devotee of his favourite singer, Mario Lanza, as he is. Moreover, he finds on SOLO an outlet for his writing talent that he didn't have before. He uses this outlet as a shoulder to cry on in times of personal trauma, & is enveloped in an outpouring of love & support from fellow-SOLOists that measurably helps him weather the storm. But on another level, there is conflict with the founder. So he leaves, defaming the founder as he does so. What sense does this make, other than as anticipation of the traditional outcome of internecine divisions within Objectivism? And if that's what it is, how sad is that?

Adam—I noted your comment about an influx of trolls in my absence. I don't see it. I assume the chief offender is Grammarian? Well, as you know I have no respect for people who post pseudonymously, but they are not necessarily trolls. This character (whom I rather hoped would turn out to be the underground Grammarian) has been posting very literately on the subject of Intelligent Design. I'm afraid these are arguments we are going to have to wage indefatigably. Calling him a troll is a form of throwing in the towel. Rome wasn't built in a day. It may seem incongruous for "hothead" Linz to be urging patience, but that is what he's doing. That's what the context calls for.

Linz

Post 26

Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 1:07am

Linz,

You write, "calling (a troll) a troll is throwing in the towel." That is false, especially when the troll is posting canned arguments at great length, canned arguments that have been refuted countless times already. Neither I, nor anyone, can be obliged to spend so much as one irreplaceable minute of his life shoveling their shit.

You have lost your temper time and again with people who have a solid track record of valuable contributions. Then a troll comes into your web site, vomiting and shitting crap that has already been refuted beyond counting. Shitting over everyone who actually develops primacy-of-reality ideas here on SOLO. And now you advise patience.

The only way to kill trolls is to starve them. So patience, HELL - I'll be doing what I can to starve them to death. My advice to you is the same as for every genuine primacy-of-reality participant in SOLO: Please don't feed the trolls. Or they will shit and vomit on you.

(Edited by Adam Reed
on 8/18, 1:09am)

Post 27

Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 1:43am

More exciting now that you're back, Lindsay. You wrote:

So he leaves, defaming the founder as he does so. What sense does this make, other than as anticipation of the traditional outcome of internecine divisions within Objectivism? And if that's what it is, how sad is that?

I had the impression that James genuinely believes that by staying at Solo he would be helping you to pretend that you don't have a serious drinking problem, and thereby enabling you in your addiction. (Of course I'm not personally saying you have an addiction; that would be absurd because I hardly know you. But I think that's the main reason James left.) Also, I don't believe he considered the "Drooling Beast" article to be "defaming" you; he probably just thought it would help you by forcing you to confront the issue. Since he knows at least one great person who's an alcoholic, he probably doesn't even consider it to be some kind of bad thing to be an alcoholic; he probably sees it as a neutral thing, literally a disease that someone might have.

Here's a quote from "Drooling Beast" :

I know something else about addicts. The worst thing you can do for an addict is to help him pretend he doesn’t have a problem. People who do this are called “enablers,” and they only delay the inevitable conclusion that the alcoholic needs to reach. Their lives also become misery, because they spend half their time trying to help the alcoholic pretend he is not an alcoholic, and the other half cleaning up after him.

Lindsay, you may not be all there is to SOLO, but you are its central spirit. SOLO and its well-meaning members are your enablers. I am neither an enabler, nor a victim, so I must leave SOLO. My staying just delays the inevitable, and makes the final tragedy probably even more tragic.

"The worst thing you can do for an addict is to help him pretend he doesn't have a problem." I think that sentence is the reason James thought it made sense to leave Solo and to submit the article.

(Edited by Daniel O'Connor on 8/18, 1:44am)

Post 28

Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 1:45am

Adam—hold still while I pat your pate! Now listen:

Our battle is but young. You are the one who always counsels context-keeping. Ontological arguments for the existence of God have been around for millennia. That fact, & the fact that they've been refuted, doesn't mean we can just dismiss anyone who advances them. You may, but you're going beyond that. You're asking me to ban anyone who advances them. I won't. You're free to ignore such a one. Others are free to engage him if they choose. Looks to me as though others enjoy the exercise. So be it. Personally, I can't be bothered. (Especially when I see Objectivists themselves falling into the trap of treating space & time as metaphysical entities.) But if others want to be bothered, I'm certainly not going to forbid it in SOLOHQ.

I seem to remember that at the time of the Jeanine Ring controversy you applauded SOLO's openness to the most contentious of debates. I'd ask you to remember it yourself! (Pat, pat! :-))

Linz

Post 29

Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 3:01am

Lindsay, it's good to have you back! (Kinda odd to be saying that to one's host, but anyway ...)

I seem to remember that at the time of the Jeanine Ring controversy

I wondered where she'd gone. Seems she took exception to SOLOists who took a dim view of prostitutes & prostitution, and left in a huff. Oh well.

Possibly it's most of a bottle of Shiraz talking (2002 Wyndam Estate Bin 555, smooth & spicy), but I've got a serious case of the warm fuzzies right now. SOLO is back in order, my dogs are lying around calmly chewing on rawhide treats, and my beautiful wife is happy, relaxed and radiant.

Life is good.

Post 30

Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 4:35am

He uses this outlet as a shoulder to cry on in times of personal trauma, & is enveloped in an outpouring of love & support from fellow-SOLOists that measurably helps him weather the storm. But on another level, there is conflict with the founder. So he leaves, defaming the founder as he does so.

James and Barbara, I suspect, always had a fundamental disagreement with the way you did things.

They sidelined the significance of that disagreement when it suited them, but when things soured between you, they brought it to the fore and made it the most important value to them.

I think it was their hierarchy of values. They valued friendship more highly, but when they found the friendship to have soured, they reasoned that this "fundamental problem" they had was the cause of all evil.

Is that a type of scapegoatism? Yes it is. Is it destructive? Yes it is.

I suspect most of us have done this ourselves at one time or another and have paid the price for it.

In such a case, neither diplomacy nor appeasement will work. They had their prides at stake.

Why did they think they got nothing further from SOLO? Because they let the "disagreement" trump all else that they had valued. The value that created that disagreement now topped all others and became an object of essential defence to them.

Post 31

Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 5:55am

I agree with L.P. on so-called ''trolls'' - the use of this term here is rather dunderheaded.

)(*)(

Post 32

Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 6:47am

Adam,

You gave me the first long bellylaugh I have had this week. You wrote:

My advice to you is the same as for every genuine primacy-of-reality participant in SOLO: Please don't feed the trolls. Or they will shit and vomit on you.

LOLOLOLOL...

How true.

I haven't even read yet the thread Linz discussed. Now I am curious. (Something in the my genes, I guess, attracts me to where shit's flying... story of my life...)

I want to address one side of the Barbara/James and Linz issue that I deem to be extremely important. That is mischaracterization.

Neither is a troll but there is something in the wind - and there has been for a long time - that would mischaracterize one side or the other as such.

I see the difference between them, especially as illustrated in this flare-up, as one of style and not one of substance. Each has his/her reasons for living according to a chosen lifestyle and it suits each well.

It is still inconceivable to me that either of them would deny the value of the other. They are all achievers.

I have not addressed Linz's feeding habits simply because I don't know what to say. So I say nothing. (This comes from one who has far too intimate knowledge of the topic.)

I am reminded at times of a former charismatic Brazilian president, Janio Quadros, who liked to imbibe in strong spirits even as President. When asked why he drank, he replied that it was because it was liquid. If it were solid, he would eat it.

But back to Barbara and James. One issue I want to leave clear. I care about them - deeply (love, really). Barbara is one of the founders of Objectivism who wrote a book that helped me through one of the worst moments of my life. James is a budding author and political commentator whose views I was beginning to enjoy tremendously.

(He also is actively involved in the recovery-from-addiction experience that I know inside and out, but from the standpoint of one who loves a recovering junkie - not as that junkie himself like I was. I have so much I wish to share with him.)

Both James and Barbara have been called honest, holders of integrity and so many more positive good things by so many posters here on Solo. They have been called all that for a long time. All of a sudden I feel the rumble of the good appraisals dissipating as if they never existed. Well let me be one to mention a reminder. They are honest. They are holders of integrity. And they are so much more. No just my words. The words of many fine minds on and off Solo. Repeatedly.

My feelings toward Linz are well known. I have made them about as clear as one can. But to repeat, I care deeply about him and hold an extremely high opinion of him (love, really).

One characteristic of evil is that it can destroy in an instant what a lifetime of good created. I could go on about all the the negative differences, but dayaamm!, I've read enough about all that. I'll keep the good.

I do not (and did not ever) feel that there was (is) malice or spite towards Linz in either of Barbara's or Jame's attitudes. Just as I do not feel that there was (is) malice or spite towards them from Linz. They sure have one Homeric difference of opinion about style of living and style of public discourse, however.

I have been called a fence-sitter by both sides because of my views on this, but I refuse to ignore the evidence of my own eyes and the judgment of my own mind.

I will not let anyone forget Linz's integrity, devotion to rational values and sincerity - all of which I have observed time after time - and start bashing him because of an outburst. I will step up. But the same goes for Barbara and James. I cannot do otherwise. They all have made magnificent contributions to Objectivism - even more - to enhancing rational human life on earth. And that "human life" includes me.

Let potential bashers and ignorers of achievement be forewarned. I will defend Linz and Barbara and James (and other high achievers) against defamation. Let them work this thing out - or not - as their hearts and minds dictate. They have their own styles and pride and compatibilities/incompatibilities. That gets me stuck when they blow up at each other.

But they are still giants to me, not trolls. They are my heroes and I will hold no sympathy for those who would degrade them. Especially those who would use a conflict between them as an excuse to bash one or the other.

They can forget the mountains of good things each has done in the heat of the moment. (I know they will remember after the dust settles - their minds are too great to do otherwise.) Others can forget all the good of one side or the other as the political winds blow.

I will not forget. That bears repeating loudly.

I WILL NOT FORGET.

I am grateful to all of them for what they have done.

Michael
(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 8/18, 6:55am)

Post 33

Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 7:37am

Michael,

No one here referred to James and Barbara as trolls, nor has anyone (apart from one or two anti-Branden posters that popped up) been publicly bashing them.

To disagree with them or to try to understand their actions is not bashing them.

Post 34

Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 8:28am

Marcus,

Agreed (despite an uneasy bit of premonition on my part). My post was not an oblique reference to you - or to anybody specifically so far.

Just trying to keep the focus on the good at this moment. Over time, the bad, of course, will wither up, die off and go to where all bad eventually goes. The good will remain - including the good things these wonderful people did.

Michael

Post 35

Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 9:02am

I was much too harsh about James Kilbourne and Barbara Branden in my post # 1 on this thread and used some language I shouldn't have and I apologize to them.

My basic objection to what James did was that if he thought Linz was an alcoholic and wanted to help him out of friendship and benevolence he should have done it privately. He made a public posting but did not give us any evidence.

I was going to make another post on "Drooling Beast" to clear up some things, but let's let that thread die.

Barbara Branden has told me that she assumed that since Linz allowed James' article to be published that he agreed he was an alcoholic and was acknowledging he needed help, and that that was why she wrote what she did in her post #3 on the "Drooling Beast" thread congratulating him for letting James' article onto SOLO. I told her she had been naive about someone as complicated as Linz. I also told her that her basic mistake was trying to change Linz as opposed to asking for a change on SOLO that would preclude Linz from attacking people and then apologizing as his wont, a priviledge that only he and Joe (who has quite a different temperament) have on SOLO as owners of this site. If I did some of what Linz has done on SOLO, I would be placed under moderation, as others have been.

I don't blame Barbara and James for leaving, all considered. Linz being Linz drove them out. I do object to the way they left. I now think they thought they were doing or trying to do good, but forgot they were in the middle of at least a month's long conflict with him, so it actually looked very bad. The basic source of that conflict, though, was trying to change Linz as a solution to the perceived problem leaving Linz on the high ground and they at a fatal disadvantage. Linz has a right to be Linz. Linz has a right to be an alcoholic--if he is, which I seriously doubt.

Addressing the larger picture of a month's long conflict between Linz, James and Barbara, in justice I took and still take Linz's side in regard to efforts to change him. I don't see any villainy on anyone's part, just some bad choices.

--Brant

Post 36

Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 9:27am

Still support L.P. on 'trolls.' Those called that recently here seem to be just people with deeply thought out (yet wrong) ideas who are very bright and good writers.

I have learned mcuh from sharp rebuttal to what I think should be obvious!

If you cannot stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!! Usually I don't go in, myself - yet. But if you must try to convince, don't be lazy - and know when to give up. Don't imprecisely say Troll! instead of seeing to the other's context.

Current poster Next Level is no troll - I'll give him that - neither are his supporters. He just needs things explained to him in a way he can understand----to assume this is possible. I admire Ed Thompson's stance in patiently answering everything Level and the supporters have been putting forth.

Such things are a test of your grasp of Oism, and it bespeaks a shallow hold on the ideas to not plumb its depths for such a noble purpose as world change!

)(*)(

P.S. I have appropriated this symbol from a amazingly literate, namedropping dunderhead of another type that I have encountered in the archives. I like it.

(Edited by I. N. Rand on 8/18, 9:35am)

(Edited by I. N. Rand on 8/18, 9:53am)

Post 37

Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 10:33am

Ross: Greeks did strange things with olive oil and goats

Ross,talking of olive oil and goats, and after reading your profile, my cooking art kicked in.

In your profile you said that you like tomatoes with toasted bread, let me give a tip how to make your bruschetta taste better; instead of toasting the bread, fry it in a non stick pan with a tea spoon of olive oil, pay attention not to burn the bread, let the bread cool down for 5 minutes, then add the tomatoes, better if marinated in oil, garlic, and basil, and then the goat cheese as final topping.

If you like the bread to taste smoked, You can toast the bread on the grill splashing it couple of times with a mixture of vinegar, chopped basil, and olive oil, and instead of cheese you can add prosciutto at the end, or both.

Now, let me tell you; were not only the Greeks who did strange things with the goats, but the Irish too.

Once was asked an Irish man if he ever had sex with a ghost? He answered...huuuuum yes sir I have! You have? Replied the man, you had sex ... with a ghost? The Irish man with his bovine eyes full of embarrassment said oh! I am sorry...sir you said ghost? ... I thought you said goat!

I hope you liked the joke.

Now ,I repeat for the last time is not capiche? But capisci? Only when you talk to a friend, you say capisci? But to a stranger is more polite to say;Lei ha capito? using the third person is a more respectuful way to talk to someone you just met.

President Clinton loved my pizza; I give you the recipe next time

Best Ciro

(Edited by Ciro D'Agostino on 8/18, 12:55pm)

Post 38

Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 11:45am

Hey Linz -- Welcome back! Julia Brent has organized a SOLO drinks-and-dinner social for Friday night, August 19th here in DC and I've invited all local TOC folks. I don't know if the drinking controversy will still be a topic for discussion in SOLO but we'll be doing some field experiments, trying to get to the objective reality of such issues!

Post 39

Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 12:19pm