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| Margie
Dennis, I hope you continue to post at RoR (or that you post to all of
the Online Objective-ish lists, or at least to the top four: SOLO,OL, RoR,OO**).¹ My favourite part was the entailments of your discussions in the workplace. My first question, being a HR Manager, is "Why were they arguing politics on company time?" Seriously, I have always posted to these places in quest of the "Ick Factor"² in Objectivishness. I make a distinction between Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism, the early adherents, the Objectivists -- and the latter day Rand-influenced. It is actually what Deng, the late chinese emperor, said, "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom," of which consequence you no doubt are fully aware. I get the impression that you find a bit of ick yourself. Is this a recent discovery? Who are you, and why should we think you are not, oh, Phil, in a mu-mu? Please announce your irrelevant personal details, that we may place you in the pecking order, and thence proceed to pecking. In any case, what can we do (presuming, like me, you are a critic, even if not an Objectivish person, nor even a Rand admirer) if there are longstanding structural issues, longstanding sensitivities, longstanding rifts and fissures in the 'movement' of the objective-ish? What can we do? What are we bound to do? What are you bound to do, Margie, bound as you are by your own ethic? My first ethical foray --into the garden of Deng's/Peikoff's Hundred Flowers of Objectivishness -- was an attempt to transcend the divisions by casting them in caricature†. This was one of my most popular online mutterings/posts ever, here at RoR, and was also posted to Objectivist Living and Solo Passion, with unpredictable results‡. I am of the opinion that thereare rather flimsy fences between the feuders, as the 'fences' between the active groups of O-ish folk online are easily crossed, as this is the internet age, and one can read, post, comment, and broadcast one's thoughts and reactions in a million places at once. So many purges and cleavings in the last few years, since I first took notice of this world within a world within a world. Once upon a time, all of these present factions jostled and poked at each other in the crowd right Here . . . this place had the largest and most well attended Agora! Now, yon Sparta and you Persia have their own agoras, and only occasionally break common waves together in their warfleets. The authorities in the first and best Agora expelled the radical libertarian-ish outgroup. The exelled Emperor commenced building of his little outpost, Heights of Passion Island Empire. ++++++++++++++++++ Similarly, once posted here a Florida lady who now builds a fairly-well read Objective-ish archive/forum. And her consort is a man who is moderated to the 'play pen' here (restricted to posting in Dissent threads alone), which eventuated from a banning of the Consort and the Lady from Passion Island. Of course now they occupy their own dual throne in their own principality cum empire. On her and her consort's own island they shelter the the Grand Dowager, who once was dubbed "Majesty" here,º in the pre-expulsion Sense of Life Objectivists, but who was expelled by Emperor Perigo before Emperor Rowlands expelled himand before Emperor Perigo expelled the Consort, then the Lady. (Which doesn't get into the minutiae of the varied emperors and empresses and various grand duchies and commonwealths and villages and empires-in-waiting, and their concurrent activities, and this doesn't get into the Hurricance of Denuciation, or the Storm of Moralist Victory, as happens when the Pope Himself utters a Bull or an Encyclical or other infallibility from the secret caves on Mount Ari- Long story short, we have watched this particular load of holy laundry though its cycle a few times already.) I agree with much of what you assert. Now what? Shall we all, as I did for myself, turn up the knob named entertainment, sitting back and pretending that Mexican Wressling is the first and foremost attraction of Objectivisciousness? See my earlier post here†. I may resurrect it in both places. What the hell, eh, Margie?§ WSS ** -- also known as SOLORoROLOO™, comprising Objectivism Online™, Sense of Life Objectivists (Passion™), Objectivist Living™, without mentions a lingthy list of other major posting sites for Today's Intellectual Warriors™ --from Ayn Rand MeetUp™ to THE FORUM™, NoodleFood™, MetabloggO™, ARCHN™, BedeeNaughty™, Phil Coates Monastic Order™, Meet/Couple-up/Marry Meat Mart for Rand-Lovers™, Etcetera and so on. 1. -- pronounced Solo Roar All Ooh. 2. -- where the Scriptures are secure in their secret caves, and in the Monastery of Oac (pronounced "Whack!"). º -- thankfully, "Majesty" is majestic, and wise, and so from her secure redoubt she continues her utterances and opinions and perspective. Her former Principal Toady, El Perigrosso, has been reduced to pimping James Valliant and his screed. † -- Universe of Evul, in which a one-eyed Empress Diana Mertz Hsieh wields boiling oil, and tallies beheadings. ‡ -- the refugees and boat people at Island of Passion did not wait for the Emperor to let Jester Scherk know what he was: "saturday night drunk," self-fart-lover, crazier-than-zantonovich, "idiot," "NOW-Banned Idiot," etcetera; the denizens of this place found it a hoot, but considered it ultimately in bad taste and not helpful. DMH missed the point by a Colorado mile. The latter events in which she purged herself and her own toadies from the Island of Passion supply additional irony. § -- If you haven't seen the movie Fargo, you won't understand how I take delight in hearing a Minnesota / Canucki voice saying, "Oh yeah, Margie." ! IMPERIAT EMPTOR!      |
