This thread just keeps getting stranger and stranger; it's like a Twilight Zone episode for philosophy students. Michael may not be the most succinct writer on the planet, but he speaks english, does the whole say what ya mean, mean what ya say thing. The very notion of the guy "smuggling" altruism into Oism is contextually absurd, if not arbitrary--the context being Michael Stuart Kelly, the man, the atheist, the Ayn Rand afficionado of 35 years and counting, the newly promoted SOLO Psychology Leader and a guy who really never said all those things he claims he never said! What, are we to believe that he's some kind of sleeper cell for the International Christian Conspiracy newly activated to--to what, exactly? I'm asking.
I was thinking of posting after Linz attached that specious subtitle, but when Michael accepted the decision, rushing to his defense lost its urgency. Now, a week later, the anti-MSK crowd continues to slander his article. But it all started with Linz's invidious labelling of Michael's article, "A Personal View." It still pisses me off to see Linz “handling” MSK like a newbie (doesn't bode well for us actual newbies around here). First he blithely published the ARI woman’s underhanded personal swipe against Michael in the Daily Linz, and now he disingenuously marginalizes Michael’s contribution to this board.
Does anyone, anyone at all, see Linz’s day late damage-control of MSK’s article odd after his near total non-interference with the Reed/Pastema shit storm, for example? I realize this is an article and that embarrassing mess was just a flame war, but singling out Michael for what amounts to public humiliation seems a bit, well, “personal.”
“A Personal View?” This website is dedicated to perhaps the most individualistic philosophy the world has ever seen--so at first glance, “a personal view” is simply redundant--whose else’s would it be? So, what distinction is Linz's subtitle really making? If something is labeled distinctly personal it cannot be said to be objective, can it? There's a word around here for the distinctly personal: it begins with an “S.”
Ah, a subjective view then. In that context, calling Michael's article “personal” is just a weasely way of saying “wrong.” But the title “Understanding Is and Ought - the Wrong View” doesn’t sound nearly so fair-minded, does it (even though Michael’s ideas would still be “intact” in the body of the article)? It’s still not shutting Michael up, just changing the context; marginalizing his view into irrelevancy.
What is the title of a piece, if not the most immediate context the reader has?
Linz creates a context where Michael’s article is to be dismissed as non-objective, or simply, meaningless; not rational enough, i.e.: irrational. Why not come right out and rename the article “Understanding Is and Ought - a Subjectivist View?”
Seriously, do individuals need Linz’s pernicious subtitle, or can we think for ourselves? Isn’t the very foundation of Objectivism that rationality is available to us all? Shouldn’t we be expected to exercise rationality in evaluating any article or post we read on SOLOHQ?
That Objectivism cannot be expressed with equal validity by rational minds as mildly incompatible as Linz’s and MSK’s does not bode well for winning the hearts and minds of an entire world.
As to MSK’s point in both of his latest articles, it seems simple enough and engagingly expressed. To my mind he’s in the business of rehabilitating disreputable concepts. He manages even to bring one of the most disreputable altruist catch phrases in history to heel. A sizable contingent on this website seems vehemently opposed to the very idea, even though Ayn Rand enacted a similar and celebrated reclamation of the word “selfish.” To my mind, Michael’s is the most reasonable, passionately engaged, genuinely challenging and playful intellect on this forum--which is not to say that other folks don’t outstrip him in one or another category fairly regularly--some folks here would seem to have a much firmer grasp on “the party line” (thank you, Jody), and Rich is funnier (gotta admit)--but Michael’s contributions to this site consistently integrate the whole package and that to me is the essence of Sense Of Life Objectivism. Or should be.
-Kevin
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