It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand...
Hi. I'm Mike.
You may think you know me. I don't care what you saw - that wasn't me in that video.
More importantly, you may think you know something about me. Well, that's not very likely, as I usually don't talk plainly or at length about serious topics. I've tended more toward the "oh, let's see what happens when I say this" school of conversation, which I find has consequences not advertised in the infomercial that convinced me to enroll. I may, in fact, spend what seems to you to be an inordinate amount of time discussing topics and people who serve(d) as examples leading me down that Dark Path. You'll just have to learn to deal with it - and I mean that in the nicest way.
Yes, it does usually begin with Ayn Rand, and this case is no exception. First, I am an Objectivist. Yes, a "big-O Objectivist". I don't really know what that's supposed to mean, other than the fact that I agree with everything that was part of the philosophy developed by Ayn Rand. I make very clear distinctions betwen what is and isn't part of her philosophy, primarily by asking whether her various observations and opinions were in fact philosophical or were subjects of more specialized fields of knowledge. I have no great love for any of the current crop of Objectivist intellectuals, but no resentment of them either. In my experience, those who take great pride in or make the most ostentatious show out of their "independence" from and "rebellion" against the ARI / Peikoff crowd are, in general, freakish and/or simply incompetent. I believe that the Nathaniel Branden Institute probably was run as a cult, and if so, that it was Branden's fault. I am frustrated by Objectivists, in the main, frightened of semi-jectivists, and pity post- and non-jectivists.
I don't believe that I'm some sort of genius, and the fact that I'm not means that other people have no excuse for being so foolish. Being honest just isn't difficult, and it takes far less work than believing the ridiculous - or ignoring the obvious.
When I get depressed, I can start to sound like Mark Twain on a downswing - but bitter.
I have been accused of being distant and uncaring, but usually by people who make love a pretense and don't know there is a difference.
I see what you're hiding. I hear more than you say, and see more than you do. I heard what you didn't say, too. I see the fall of the last domino in the flick of the finger that fells the first.
I know that was alliteration, and I try to avoid it when possible.
I will continue this later.
You may think you know me. I don't care what you saw - that wasn't me in that video.
More importantly, you may think you know something about me. Well, that's not very likely, as I usually don't talk plainly or at length about serious topics. I've tended more toward the "oh, let's see what happens when I say this" school of conversation, which I find has consequences not advertised in the infomercial that convinced me to enroll. I may, in fact, spend what seems to you to be an inordinate amount of time discussing topics and people who serve(d) as examples leading me down that Dark Path. You'll just have to learn to deal with it - and I mean that in the nicest way.
Yes, it does usually begin with Ayn Rand, and this case is no exception. First, I am an Objectivist. Yes, a "big-O Objectivist". I don't really know what that's supposed to mean, other than the fact that I agree with everything that was part of the philosophy developed by Ayn Rand. I make very clear distinctions betwen what is and isn't part of her philosophy, primarily by asking whether her various observations and opinions were in fact philosophical or were subjects of more specialized fields of knowledge. I have no great love for any of the current crop of Objectivist intellectuals, but no resentment of them either. In my experience, those who take great pride in or make the most ostentatious show out of their "independence" from and "rebellion" against the ARI / Peikoff crowd are, in general, freakish and/or simply incompetent. I believe that the Nathaniel Branden Institute probably was run as a cult, and if so, that it was Branden's fault. I am frustrated by Objectivists, in the main, frightened of semi-jectivists, and pity post- and non-jectivists.
I don't believe that I'm some sort of genius, and the fact that I'm not means that other people have no excuse for being so foolish. Being honest just isn't difficult, and it takes far less work than believing the ridiculous - or ignoring the obvious.
When I get depressed, I can start to sound like Mark Twain on a downswing - but bitter.
I have been accused of being distant and uncaring, but usually by people who make love a pretense and don't know there is a difference.
I see what you're hiding. I hear more than you say, and see more than you do. I heard what you didn't say, too. I see the fall of the last domino in the flick of the finger that fells the first.
I know that was alliteration, and I try to avoid it when possible.
I will continue this later.