Re: *Boinks Ayn Rand*
Derek Wittorff via Alex Strekal
April 10 at 3:32pm
‎Boinks Ayn Rand
Charles W. Johnson
There are many different ways to respond to Ayn Rand and her legacy. I’m not sure necrophilia is the best.
April 10 at 3:32pm
Nick Ford
“I’m not sure necrophilia is the best.”
What?
April 10 at 3:33pm
Derek Wittorff
lol
April 10 at 3:33pm
Charles W. Johnson
“Boinks” is sometimes used as if it means the same thing as “Bonks.”
It doesn’t.
April 10 at 3:33pm
Daniel Patrick â’¶
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=boink
April 10 at 3:34pm
Nick Ford
Oh yeah, right I knew that but I’ve used it in the Strekelian sense so long I’d forgot about the other connotations.
April 10 at 3:35pm
Derek Wittorff
Its a great analysis.
April 10 at 3:41pm
Charles W. Johnson
I can’t say I agree. Most of the things that Alex finds troubling or flat wrong in Rand are also things that I find deeply troubling or flat wrong, but as far as the article goes, there’s not at lot of analysis there; mostly polemic. Some mention of conclusion, none of arguments, not even any quotes. If anything, what it reads most like is one of Rand’s own sweeping rhetorical assaults on, say, Kant or Plato. Those may or may not be correct on any given point, but they are certainly not the place to go to learn very much what Kant or Plato is about.
April 10 at 3:53pm
Daniel Patrick â’¶
It’s true. I have trouble being open to Kant due to exposure to Rand’s ideas at an impressionable age.
April 10 at 3:56pm
Charles W. Johnson
Utah had a story about alternative health in northern California around Nevada City: “You gotta be open to these things. If you don’t they’ll pry ya open.” Which is about how I felt about Kant after the second half of my 18th Century Philosophy course.
April 10 at 4:01pm
Derek Wittorff
‎”I can’t say I agree. Most of the things that Alex finds troubling or flat wrong in Rand are also things that I find deeply troubling or flat wrong, but as far as the article goes, there’s not at lot of analysis there; mostly polemic. Some mention of conclusion, none of arguments, not even any quotes. If anything, what it reads most like is one of Rand’s own sweeping rhetorical assaults on, say, Kant or Plato. Those may or may not be correct on any given point, but they are certainly not the place to go to learn very much what Kant or Plato is about.”
I can agree there, but it is a paper about Rand, not Kant or Plato.
April 10 at 4:09pm
Derek Wittorff
A little explanation could help, but it’s more than easy to get off track when you’re engaging in philosophical discourse.
April 10 at 4:12pm
Charles W. Johnson
This is an example of what I would take to count as an analysis of Rand and her philosophy (sometimes a good analysis, sometimes not as good, but always an analysis): http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand.htm. The article here is not an analysis or a philosophical discourse; it’s a denunciation. Which may very well be merited, but which is something different.
Why I’m not an objectivist
home.sprynet.com‎(2) One should always follow reason and never think or act contrary to reason. (I take this to be the meaning of “Reason is absolute.”)
April 10 at 4:12pm
Charles W. Johnson
‎Derek Wittorff: “it is a paper about Rand, not Kant or Plato.”
O.K., I’m not sure what you mean here. Is this a joke about slipping antecedents? Or do you mean to suggest there’s something about Rand that makes this kind of treatment of her more useful or less of an injustice than a similar treatment of Kant or Plato (e.g. that the latter are better or more sophisticated philosophers or something like that)? Or something else?
April 10 at 4:16pm
Derek Wittorff
I see, you think the analysis part is lacking, not the paper itself. I wouldn’t know where to start if I was gonna critique her whole philosophy.
April 10 at 4:27pm
Charles W. Johnson
I’m not sure I’m being clear. My view is that setting out to critique her whole philosophy is almost certainly the wrong goal. I think that if Rand is worth an analysis at all (and I happily leave that as an open question), then everyone involved would benefit more from a focused discussion of a single argument, from premises to conclusion, than from some kind of broadside against the totality of her thought.
April 10 at 4:34pm
Charles W. Johnson
The reason I linked the Huemer piece is because that’s a thing that he does — although he’s actually covering a fairly broad stretch of territory, at each stop he sets out specific arguments in detail and then tries to see, first, how they work on their own, and then, second, whether there’s something wrong with them and if so what a better alternative would be. That’s what I feel like I can recommend as “analysis” of a philosophical position. It is for good or for ill a different thing from assembling a hodgepodge of summaries of her conclusions, wrapping it up in a package, and denouncing that as destructive or poisonous. I mentioned the bit about Plato and Kant because Rand herself is constantly approaching other thinkers this way, and Objectivists tend to eat this stuff up, but whatever value that kind of thing may have, it’s not as analysis, because there isn’t any serious analysis of the philosopher’s arguments, only a denunciation of the perceived downstream consequences of those arguments. But to the extent that there isn’t any analysis of the philosopher’s arguments, there isn’t any analysis of the philosopher, either. Of course whether analysis is really what’s wanted in the first place, or whether something else is (denunciation, disavowal, parody, scurrilous satirical poetry, a sharp whack upside the head, whatever) is a separate question.
April 10 at 4:46pm
Anticopyright.