Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 So today we are going, Rob will be discussing schiz hematology. And from the description of why is the objectiveist movement? So famously fractious, why does it keep having bitter breaks and schisms? What can be done about this and, and how should we deal with our internal limits? Um, Rob, thank you for joining us before we get started. I'd like to ask everyone to please share the room and please, uh, raise your hand if you wanna join the stage. Um, I, I like that you're not shying away from the topic. Uh, I, I think I know, but, uh, what, uh, what do you mean by cytology?
Speaker 1 00:00:41 Okay, so that's kind of coin of my own cosmetology, but it's the idea that, you know, I, I, I sort of coined that because over the years, having watched all these schisms that happen in, in the objectives movement, I've kind of tried to develop a theory of schisms, a, an explanation for why does this happen? Um, what's driving it. How could we maybe change things? So it doesn't happen quite so much or so the schisms are less, are less brutal. Um, so I just sort of going that ology because, you know, there's a bit of a thing that's happened in the movement over the years, that there have been these schisms and purges and, you know, big falling outs where everything, uh, everything blows up over the years. And typically, and, and I don't think this is necessarily unique to the objectives movement. It's kind of a, a typical thing that when you have the schism, everybody says that that a lot of people think the attitude, well, it was just cuz you had this one person, this one person who caused a problem who, you know, got people, uh, all opposed to each other.
Speaker 1 00:01:42 And once that person is duly purged from the movement, then everything will be okay. And then, you know, you, that happens. And then a couple later, three years later, five years later, seven years later, you've got another big person who steps outta line and there's a purge and gives them and you say, well that one person and one sudden it'll all be over and you know, it keeps happening. So at some point you have to decide that, that the, the, um, urge of, of saying, you know, is person, you know, once it's over back to normal, it ignoring the fact that, you know, you do have to understand why does this keep happening? And that's why you need schism tology to understand why does this keep happening? What are the factors that, um, that, that, that, um, drive it and then what can we do about it?
Speaker 1 00:02:28 Cause here's the, and here's the motivation for, what can we do about it, which is your movement stands for reason, stands for, uh, uh, the idea that all conflicts should be by reason, all ideological, inte philosophical dis should be something where we can appeal to this common standard of reason. And we should actually be setting a better example of that in our own action. Um, so it's sort of like if you, you know, in, in star Trek terms, you don't like to, you have to have a star Trek reference practically every one of these BU hosts <laugh>, but, but in star Trek terms, you know, if you had the Vulcans talking about pure logic and then you found that they were just fighting like cats and dogs all the time over everything, it would kind of like give the lies to all their stuff about pure logic.
Speaker 1 00:03:15 Right? So I took objectives. Movement is a little bit like that. Sometimes that we talk about be so rational in solving your disagreements. And then we go around, you know, having purges and, and, and master appreciations and, and that kind of thing. So that's why I wanna study sch tology and what causes this. Um, so I'm gonna just give a brief blurb about that, but there's a lot more, you have a link here to an article I wrote, uh, which is the response to something that, that the iron Rand Institute put up. So they eventually put up their own sort of attempt to explain the phenomenon of objective schisms and to, uh, give a theory behind it, which is really the first thing that happens. You know, this happens occasionally people step back and say, okay, we have to have a theory for why it's okay to do all thes that we're having right now.
Speaker 1 00:04:05 And the last one we really had was one that helped give rise to the Atlas society. It was, uh, David Kelly back in the late eighties, early nineties. I was involved in that, on the other side as a, as a, as a, a college kid. Um, and so, uh, we haven't really discussed it though since then, it's been like 30 years and we haven't discussed it. There was a recent thing that Ari did some seminars, and then they put an article out trying to sort of rationalize or justify their approach to the issue of schisms. Um, and one of the reasons why it's so interesting is because I thought in this time around, uh, so last time around what they did is they came up with basically a justification for why, well, you know, ideological and philosophical disagreements are really have, have the great moral significance.
Speaker 1 00:04:56 So therefore there are also moral issues and it's okay to purge people, um, and, and to disassociate with them because you know, your, your are not just bad ideas. They're imoral. And so therefore it's okay. Now I think that in theory, the, somebody has, you know, really bad and dishonest ideas do have a moral component. It's also of course, a convenient excuse for saying that, you know, anybody who disagrees with me is evil, which as we seen today, you know, you go, go on the, go on, go on Twitter for a few minutes. And you'll find that that's sort of, you know, the conven, the, the, the story that every ideolog and every partisan likes to tell themselves. But the real thing that happened 30 years ago is that developed a theory about, uh, one that is sort of known as sanctioning the sanctions. This is where the whole thing began is the idea that, well, if you deem somebody to be, you know, I, so ideologic wrong that they're evil that you shouldn't say, and therefore you shouldn't sanction evil.
Speaker 1 00:06:01 You should. Now sanction is one of those weird words in the English language that can mean, uh, giving your approval or giving your disapproval <laugh> at the same time, you know, it's the same word can mean two totally opposite things. Um, but in this case, sanctioning here means, uh, giving your approval, sanctifying something, giving it your approval. So you shouldn't give your approval and support and help to people who are, who are doing destructive and immoral things. So therefore, if, you know, if you decide somebody's ideas are so wrong that their imoral, you should not sanction them. You should, uh, shun them, essentially. You should cut off all ties with them. But then what Peter Schwartz added 30 years ago was the extra twist of sanctioning the sanctions. So if somebody out there is cooperating with and supporting somebody who you, who has bad ideas, you then have to stop have, have you get to shun them.
Speaker 1 00:06:49 And then if somebody's, you know, the out logical extension, which people start work started working on pretty quickly was, well, what about sanctioning the ERs of the ERs? And what about sanctioning the sanctions of the ERs of the, you know, and it create, it became this engine of schisms, right? Because once one person is declared beyond the pale that everybody else has to make a decision about how, who, how do they associate with that one person? Do they associate to the, the people who associate with him and it became this six degrees of separation thing that was a great engine for taking the movement and breaking it into all these little SPLs. And every time there's a disagreement, suddenly you all have to break into two client camps. Each person has to declare what camp he's in, and you have to separate yourself off completely from the, from the other camp.
Speaker 1 00:07:34 So this is sort of the theory behind schisms that was created 30 years ago. Now, the interesting thing about that is in contrast to what is putting out now, I find interesting is that, um, that they, uh, made no attempts to, they made no mention of the sanctioning of the sanction thing and no attempt to defend it at all. So that's been officially dropped from basically the theory of, uh, of how the movement works and how, uh, how people are supposed to cooperate with each other in the movement. And they did a number of other things that I thought were really, uh, interesting. Uh, uh, I sort of saw it as they made some major concessions and the biggest one is, and I quote from them, Ari does not regard itself as the leader of an organized objective movement. And it says here, uh, Ari seeks a movement only <inaudible> on the task of spreading ideas who cooperate when they find it mutually beneficial to do so and who otherwise go their separate ways. Well, now, you know, anybody who's been around this movement knows that that's not been the practice of things, but it's really good to have them sort of adopt that as the theory that we should all be independent intellectuals, uh, who cooperate or not. Um,
Speaker 1 00:08:58 And then the, uh, bigger, the other C I thought was interesting is they say it is entirely normal for quoting. Again, it is entirely normal for a movement that is engaged in bringing important new knowledge to the world, to have leaders who disagree off of vehemently about the meaning and application of that knowledge. All right. So that's really like a, actually that is normal to have people with different views of what objectiveism is and what it implies and how you get to, uh, how, how you connect that philosophical knowledge to current events or to specific issues. And, uh, that's the part that I find most interesting because it is true that you talk about setting cosmetology with regard to the objectives movement, but the objectives movement is not the only movement that has schisms and breaks and disagreements. It's actually totally normal out there in.
Speaker 1 00:09:49 And, and, you know, I've spent a fair bit of time in recent years in the conservative movement at exactly the time that Donald Trump has been rising up as, as the big influence in the movement. And you've had the nationalist conservatives who have been supplanting this sort of Reaganite conservatives. And so I've seen all of this happen with the conservatives. I've seen it happen with the libertarians, um, who are just as fractious in their own ways. It happens in every group and every movement. And that's what I think is interesting is I think regarding that as sort of a normal thing, that happens is a huge step, because if it's normal, then we should treat it like it's normal. We should treat it like it is normal that people disagree and then seek to find, um, civilized, calm, civilized, and rational ways in which they can express that disagreement and, you know, work with one another, or, uh, at least find a, a motive of event day to, to live together, uh, while recognizing that disagreement, if disagreement is normal, then it has, it can't be viewed as an athema as something to be stamped out.
Speaker 1 00:10:54 It should, it, it should just be viewed as this is the way the world works, that people will have agreements. All right. So, um, I think I've talked a little bit more before I'm gonna wrap up, but it, if just a few minutes, but I think I've talked a little bit more before about the one thing that I think is unique to objectiveness and movement that sort of produced some of the specific intensity of the, the, the schisms and the breaks and the, the disavows that, that, that have happened throughout in the movement over the years. And that is the unique uniqueness of our, and this is something that's not that somebody made a bad decision and cause this it's simply something that was the nature, the unique nature of the scope of her, of her genius as, as a philosopher and as an artist that as I, I think I've mentioned this a couple weeks ago, normally when you have an intellectual movement, you have three groups of people and each one of these is a group.
Speaker 1 00:11:50 The three groups are, you have, uh, you have the, the, the content of the ideas in the movement. Uh, and usually aside, I said, that's just one person. It's a school of thought, you have empiricist philosophers, and there are half dozen different empiricist philosophers, or you have natural rights, theorists, dozen natural rights theorists. It's usually, you know, different, a number of different people working on along the same lines. And then the second group is you have the popularizes, you have the people who take these, uh, abstract ideas, originated by the ideologues and translate them into more popular form, to more of a cultural product. You know, you translate them into art, translate to manifestos, or, uh, op-eds, whatever, you know, all the different ways that you can take a new idea and, and translate it out and convey it out to a mass audience. So those are the popularizes.
Speaker 1 00:12:49 And then the last group is the money guys. Uh, the, the funders, the people who raise the money or build the organization that allow the other two groups of people, the theorizes, and the popularizes allow them to have just end to, uh, you know, to sit down and write all day and not have to have a day job. And, and, and also build the, the mechanisms, the, the publications or the, the, the, the book publishing companies, whatever that brings that allow, that gives, that helps those people reach an audience with those ideas. So you, so <inaudible> these three groups of people, the, uh, ideolog originators, the popularizes and the money guys. Well, in the case of objectiveism, those all three were combined in one person at the beginning, which was iron rant, because she was the originator of almost all of the philosophy. There's a few ideas she, you know, got from other people, but it's almost all the philosophy.
Speaker 1 00:13:45 She was the one single originator of it. She was the person who popularized it in these be bestselling novels, reaching an audience of millions of people. And because we're bestselling novels that she had the good fortune to live in the era of modern copy, she made a fortune out of it. She made a, you know, it became a, a, a revenue stream, a source of money. So you had, you know, the money and the popularizing and the originated was all in one person. It was an unusually centralized mall centered on a single great person. And that's something that of course person is no longer there. So what you needed to do, what, you know, what the objectives movement needed to do after Iran's death about 40 years ago was to, uh, find a way to reorganize things, to recognize that no, this isn't all centered around one person anymore.
Speaker 1 00:14:40 It's centered around. It has to be a group of independent intellectuals, all equal to each other, sort of working along the same lines and, and cooperating together when they can. And that's not what we did. What we, what happened at first is that there was an attempt to recentralize it around one person Iran's self-proclaimed intellectual error. So the idea is that, you know, letter peak off was going to have basically that centralizing role, that centralizing authority over the ideas of the movement that she had. And that's basically sort of Ari kind of then filled into that gap too, is the one centralized organization. So I think what we're finally seeing though, is the, and that's what sort of created the basis for all these schisms. The idea, if you have one central authority, who's there, who, who speaks for objectiveism and you have one central movement that has most of the money, and most of the organization goes through them, then you have this, you know, this one prize, basically that that is everybody has to fight over is who gets to be the official voice of objectiveism, who gets to decide who's in the movement who gets to have a job who gets to reach the audience or not.
Speaker 1 00:15:50 That's what I think was the engine, the specific engine for objectives of, of these kiss systems is you had all this fighting over this centralized role in the movement. I think what we're seeing now in this, this era, I think is a sign of that, that we're finally, finally, finally growing out of that, that the number, the existence of many independent intellectuals working along the same lines, not centralized together, that has become a fact that has to be recognized. There are just too many of us out there now who are working independently. And I think that's what I see as, as hopeful as, you know, there will always be disagreements and knock down, drag out arguments, but what's hopeful is we're getting rid of this idea of there's a central organization. There's a central person who is the arbiter of what is and what is not objectiveism. And that's what I hope will sort of Put the breaks on the engine of, of, of schisms and, and, and, uh, and, and, uh, and brakes and, uh, uh, you know, uh, tribal, uh, factionalism that we've had. So I wanna open it for discussion and, you know, everybody else, everybody who's has an interest in objectiveism has a certain perspective on this. They'd have experiences on this. I, I want people to sort of, uh, give their own perspective and their own reactions.
Speaker 0 00:17:09 Yeah, absolutely. Uh, if you raise your hand, uh, we'll bring you up. I've got plenty of questions, uh, about this. Um, you know, I, I'm sure you've heard of Jonathan hate. And, uh, one thing he talked about is how we often, uh, do what we want and then build principles around that. <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:17:29 And
Speaker 0 00:17:31 It seems like that sanctioning, the sanction is like a, it's almost a codification. I mean, I know grudge holders, you know, even in my family and, and once they get in a fight, they start trying to like turn friends or even family against that, that one person.
Speaker 1 00:17:47 Yeah. And I think one, the things, like I said, you know, the, uh, that's why the, the idea of everything being centralized in one organization, especially one negotiation that has the money that has access to the fund, you know, that has lots of fundraising. And they've got jobs to offer to people, you know, jobs to offer to intellectuals is a rare thing. <laugh>, uh, it is not a lucrative DEO, be a lucrative field. The old joke about academia that, um, the reason why, uh, academic, uh, is so vicious is because the stakes are so small. And I think that's, that applies to small movements as well, to some extent, because if you have a small movement, there's a limited number of jobs, a limited number of opportunities, a limited number of people who will help you get a book contractor or, or promote your book, uh, et cetera.
Speaker 1 00:18:37 And because of that, you get these vicious conflicts over who controls that. And, um, that's why I'm hoping that, and I think what happens is I've what I was getting back to what you said is what I think sometimes happens is there was that internal office politics of my faction has to have the leg up. We have to have control over the organization and your faction, or, or the person who some wayward individual who challenges our control over it. They have to be knocked down. And that was the real imperative, you know, oftentimes behind the supposed ideological issues, there was really, it was an internal, it was a fight in internal office politics. And, you know, people have observed this about wokeness too, by the way, that wokeness is sort of, uh, it it's, it's it's office politics, it's movement, office politics, masquerading as, you know, policing of thought, because, you know, the decision of who is a, who is a har, who is somebody who, uh, has simply stated a slightly different position that can be tolerated versus who is a heretic who has crossed over the line while oftentimes those determinations are based on who's in Myle versus who's outside of Myle and threatening Myle.
Speaker 1 00:19:48 And that happens all the time with, with wokeness and, you know, these, um, uh, you know, this sort of sensor that happens on social media. And I think it happened in the objective SOPA to some extent that there was really, there was an office politics battle underneath it all. And that determines what's a, what's an intriguing, uh, challenging new idea D from what's, what's a heretical idea that needs to be stamped out.
Speaker 0 00:20:14 Right. But no one wants to admit that, you know, it was a turf battle. So they couch it in moral terms.
Speaker 1 00:20:21 Yeah, exactly. Well, and you know, or, or to put it this way in a philosophical movement, the best, you know, what's what is going nuclear and it's, what's the ultimate way to win a turf battle. Well, you, this, you decide that, well, no, the person who's, he isn't just wrong is repudiating the whole essence of the philosophy. And I noticed that became, um, I mean, I used to do some of that myself when I was much younger, uh, that it became sort of like the game that you played to really win an argument. You had to add to the highest philosophical level to say, no, no, no, no, you don't just disagree with me on this. You, you actually disagree with the entire philosophy of objectiveism and therefore, you know, to, to maintain your position, you have to repudiate the philosophy itself. And that was like the way you would, you would escalate things. You'd take it up to 11 in order to win the argument. And I think that that was sort of one of the bad intellectual habits that came out of that, that era of the movement.
Speaker 0 00:21:21 Absolutely. And became an example for lots of intellectuals, uh, in their orbit. Yeah. Um, William, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3 00:21:32 Hello? Can you hear me?
Speaker 0 00:21:34 Yes.
Speaker 3 00:21:34 Oh, great. Uh, hi, Rob. Uh, thank you very much for that presentation. Um, I, my view is that
Speaker 1 00:21:44 You
Speaker 0 00:21:47 Now we're getting some distortion
Speaker 1 00:21:51 Droids for stores. Hello? Can
Speaker 0 00:21:56 You hear me? No. William, you kind of, uh, faded out a little bit. I don't know if you're able to, uh, adjust that or, well, I'm gonna give you a,
Speaker 3 00:22:12 Can you hear me now?
Speaker 0 00:22:14 Uh, there's some background noise.
Speaker 3 00:22:17 There's background noise. Sorry about that.
Speaker 0 00:22:19 Yeah. It's like a crunchiness or is like, you're stepping on,
Speaker 3 00:22:23 Is it, is it, is it gone now?
Speaker 0 00:22:25 Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:22:26 It's gone now. You're
Speaker 3 00:22:27 Running over my, okay. Sorry about that. Okay. Um, okay. So I agree that I think Ari has given up the argument, um, the San, this sanction argument, but I think there's still holding onto the open closed debate. And, you know, that's probably the sticking point. I think if we don't figure out, uh, how to define objectiveism, you know, is it Iran's philosophy or is it, um, you know, our own philosophy that we're interpreting from Iran? Um, or, you know, if we solve, if we don't solve the open, closed question, we're probably still going to have this schism, you know, going on between the two groups and then we won't get funding for the dissenters who have disagreements with the, uh, the, the mainstream objectives.
Speaker 1 00:23:24 Yeah, the <inaudible>, I think is interesting because I do think that that's one that has all been sort of conceded without recognizing that they've conceded it, which is that there have been several attempts by that wing of the movement, uh, to add new ideas to objectiveism. I mean, you know, Leonard, Poff had a whole, uh, theory about induction, inductive reasoning that he introduced to the philosophy and, and, uh, he has ideas on philosophy history that he's introduced to the philosophy, the things that were not stated just by iron Rand that were his own developments. And more to the point that's gonna become inevitable and necessary because, you know, iron Rand was one person she could not possibly have developed all valid and, and interesting and important philosophical ideas. Um, so there's going to have to be new things that are added new refinements. I would even say, you know, the whole issue of objectives and being closed was itself a refinement added by the people who came after her.
Speaker 1 00:24:25 She never developed a theory about her philosophy being closed because during her lifetime, it was still open. She kept adding stuff, right. <laugh> um, so she never came up with this. You know, if you were to say, she never came up with a list of, here are the essential ideas of the philosophy that, that, that you have to agree with to be an objective. She never came up with a list like that. She never came up with a list of here's what's closed in the philosophy and here's, what's open here's what can be added. And here's what can't be added, all discussion about objectives and being a closed philosophy. And what is in that closed philosophy, all of that stuff was created ironically, by opening up the philosophy to add new things to it. And new things thought up by the people who came after iron Rand.
Speaker 1 00:25:08 So that's something that's the basic contradiction, but I see the that's the basic contradiction, but the, the more important thing I see, we're going to add, we're gonna want to add, we're gonna have valuable new ideas that are come along, going to come along. That we're going to want to add to the philosophy that are consistent with the philosophy that if you say, oh, it's closed, you can only call objectiveism. You know, the things that iron Rand wrote are the only thing that our objectiveism then eventually the term objectiveism would have to have too many valid and interesting new ideas that are added on to that, that you're going to want to use that you, then, if you have to come up with a new name for each of those things, you'd end up having to use one of those new names for your philosophy, for the, for, for the philosophy that you're using and not objectiveism. So I, but, you know, but that's also kind of a crazy way to do it anyway. Cause
Speaker 3 00:25:59 Isn't that kinda how it's done in other philosophies, like in, you know, Aristotle's philosophy or Platos philosophy they have like Neoplatonists and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 00:26:09 Yeah. Well, I was gonna say plain English ways to do this, right. So, uh, one of the things is that you, you know, in, in, um, we were talking about Aristotle or Plato, you would often say, well, there's, there's Aristotle and Plato, there's their ideas as it works. And then there's Aristotelian, which is broader than that. It's it's anything done by their students and their followers. It's it's, you know, all the different commentators who come afterwards, who add to the sum of analysis of Aristotelian is so you have these sort of fairly well established ways of referring to the difference between what the philosopher came up with. And then what is the larger school thought that emerged? Um, so I would say, you know, you, and in, in now in an objectiveism, it's, it's more difficult because the ism is not, it's not Rand, right?
Speaker 1 00:27:07 You don't have well there's and then there's Rand, you have there's iron Randa there's objectiveism. But I think you can, there's still some very plain English and simple ways that are not too complicated to refer to this. You can say, you know, I Rand's theory of concepts was such and such to, if you want to imply specifically that this is what I Rand's view was. And then you could say, well, you know, an object object, an objective philosopher developed this objective theory, and you could talk about an objective theory versus the objective theory, right? So the objective theory implies that greater officialness it implies more that this is grounded directly in what E Rand said. Whereas an objective theory implies that, well, there might be several theories developed by objectives to explain philosophy of history or to explain the role of, uh, the, the nature of inductive reasoning.
Speaker 1 00:28:01 So I think there's lots of great plain English ways of doing it, but we have to be, you know, open to the idea that this is something that is worth describing. And, and, and we have to embrace that idea that this philosophy to grow and prosper and, and be useful over a period of centuries, you know, we're coming up on, you know, it's, it's been more well more than 50 year, the philosophy, how would you date the, I guess you'd have to date it to ATLA short. So it's been like 60 years or so. Um, over 60 years, since this philosophy originated, this philosophy should, is going to need to last centuries. And so in order to have it grow and be vibrant over those centuries, you have to broaden that meaning to say, okay, objectiveism becomes the school of thought that follows from this original person. And, you know, there's lots of ways to keep that straight in your mind without having to, uh, uh, to freeze yourself up on it.
Speaker 4 00:28:57 If I might. And I don't know if you're prepared to do it and please, excuse me if I'm asking too much, but I, while I I've read, I feel like I'm ignorant in kind of a grammar school kind of a way about the broad outlines or the divided schools of thought the different schemes within libertarian philosophies and perhaps a little overview of that. Yeah. We can get a feel for the, the edges of the argument here.
Speaker 1 00:29:30 Yeah. Well, so a, a libertarian philosophy. I mean, the big difference is libertarian philosophy is a way broader term than objectives. Philosophy. You know, objectiveism is a very specific philosophy and it's not just a specific philosophy about individual rights. It is a specific philosophy about lots of fields that have nothing directly to do with politics. So I'm doing tomorrow night, I think I'm doing a, uh, something with Stephen Hicks on the nature of art, right? So objectiveism has a whole theory about what is art, what is our need for art? What, what should we be, what should we be looking for in art? How do we understand it? Um, which has, you know, is not a political issue. So there's, it's, it's a much, much broad in, so in a way, objectiveism is much, much broader than libertarianism, uh, in a way it's also narrower because it is a specific view of how do you ground the principle of individual rights?
Speaker 1 00:30:23 How do you, uh, how do you explain and define the role of the proper role of government? And it has a very specific answer to that. Uh, I would say the main differentiation between objective and libertarians is that objectiveism is a philosophy. Whereas libertarianism is a political position and there are one of the sort of, uh, one of the sort of bones of contention. Uh, I don't know how much that's true today, but one of the old bones of contention between libertarians and objectives was that objectives would assist. You actually need a philosophical foundation. You need to have a philosophy that explains individual rights and defends individual rights. And the old libertarian view is, well, you don't need any one philosophy. We can have many different philosophies, we need to have a big tent. And so we can bring in people very different philosophies. I think they're paying for that a little bit right now.
Speaker 1 00:31:13 I've got, um, I'm been in touch with someone who's been following some of the conflicts in the libertarian party recently, where there's basically an alt-right takeover of the libertarian party, where I think especially the New Hampshire libertarian party, where you get a bunch of these sort of, uh, alt-right great replacement, uh, Neo racist, uh, theorists who have decided they're gonna, you know, I think it's basically because libertarianism is a small movement. So if you have a really committed group of people, it's really easy to take over a small movement. And so they've been trying to sort of, you know, take over and, and, uh, use that organization and that movement for their own purposes. At least this is for the libertarian party, uh, which is narrower than libertarianism itself. But I think they're paying a little bit for that idea of, we don't need a specific philosophy because I remember what's Walter block. I think one of the libertarians from years ago, oh, we should be able to welcome neoNazis, you know, as long as they agree to the non initiation principal, you can be an Nazi all you'll like, and of course it makes no sense at all. Right. And so I think we're sort of paying for that, um, that idea of, of not wanting to have a specific philosophy behind libertarianism, uh, that that's a ticket that's coming home to roost. I don't know if that answers your question.
Speaker 4 00:32:25 Well, uh, more, I mean, you mentioned block, um, how about the, the Mees and the Austrians? What are the main cleavages between them and theists?
Speaker 1 00:32:39 Oh, that's a good question. I am not a big expert on the libertarian movement and, and, uh, the different ideas in there. Would it say, I think there is a more of a, um, a pragmatist philosophy involved in some of those, especially in some of the free market, you know, the people who come to it through free economics, it's more of, this is the system that works better and here are all the practical explanations for why it works better, which is not wrong. <laugh>, you know, it's, they're correct about all that, but it's more sort of, we're, we're not commit to the moral issues of individual, right. Issues of, uh, uh, you know, what, what ought people to be doing in their lives. We're gonna come and give an explanation economically. This is the thing that works the best
Speaker 4 00:33:26 I tend to think of. Uh, I'm sorry, go ahead, Jen. Sure.
Speaker 1 00:33:29 No, go ahead.
Speaker 5 00:33:30 Yeah, no, I'd just add on that. You know, specifically, if you'd look at Hayek versus Rand that she, uh, took issue with Hayek, essentially ascribing two collectivists, lofty moral ambitions, and Rand, uh, was unique in, um, challenging collectivists on their moral high ground and, and saying, in fact that, uh, their motivations were, um, more likely sinister, uh, and kind of, uh, Ave for, for power lust. And I think that Rand also felt that high a, in some cases went a little too far in, um, or at least let his critique of the, uh, rational central planning bleed over into a criticism of, of, uh, reason itself.
Speaker 1 00:34:28 Yeah. That's
Speaker 4 00:34:30 Yeah. And, and I've tended to think though, and, and I'm probably wrong. I, I tend to Sy anonymize, uh, rational self-interest in the Randy and sense with purposeful human action being the Austrian sense. I look at the two and I say, well, what's really the difference operationally between the two.
Speaker 1 00:34:52 Well, I think there's huge overlap, uh, in, in those ideas. Uh, but again, you know, it's, it's often ties with, with the Austrians as, as, as, as Ja was pointing out that you have them making concessions philosophically to the collectivist outlook. And, you know, basically saying we're all there, here to achieve the public good. And the, you know, the greatest good for the greatest number or whatever the form is. And we're just using economics as a way to figure out how to do that as opposed to challenging some of the, some of the premises. So I think there's a lot of overlap between Austria and economics and objectives, a lot of connections there, but oftentimes the Austrian Austrian conducts themselves were very conventional philosophically and, and didn't draw those connections.
Speaker 4 00:35:36 And what about the origin of rights, uh, being natural rights based or purely rational based or, um, um, God given or, um, coming out of, uh, biology and sociobiology and related fields,
Speaker 1 00:35:57 Huge number of different theories on that. And like I said, that explains the difference between objective of libertarianism that, and I think, you know, part of the thing that at least came up in the, in the libertarian movement, there was this idea that, well, we don't have to a specific view of what the origin of rights is. It could be anything, we have all these different theories. Let's, let's make a big tent, but philosophically some of those theories are going to be way better than others, uh, and, uh, lead to lead to more consistent results. So that's, that's, that's sort of the difference between the objectives and the libertarians. Now that's no excuse by the way. And doesn't have, the main thing I was talking about today is not only are objectives fighting against libertarians <laugh>, but now we're also fighting. We we've also spent a lot of time fighting with each other too. So, you know, my, my idea is I think that in addition to modeling better behavior in terms of how we deal with our disagreements with each, amongst each other, that that will also help us to adopt better standards and better approaches to how we deal with our disagreements. Other Liber, you know, with Arians who have, uh, uh, viewpoints that we disagree with, or, uh, philosophical ideas that we disagree with, it'll help us to take a more measured and, uh, persuasive approach to, to dealing with those disagreements.
Speaker 4 00:37:19 Thank you, Rob.
Speaker 0 00:37:21 That's good stuff. We wanna invite anyone, uh, that wants to come up. I've still got, uh, you know, I, I wanna gently push back on your optimism about their change of heart. I feel like, uh, some of what, uh, has happened, it, them saying they're not the leader of an organized objectiveist movement. That's become almost like a, a fallback position because they didn't wanna have to like, defend that responsibility anymore.
Speaker 1 00:37:50 Well, yeah, I think, like I said, they're, they're acquiescing to the reality of what's happening, which is, there are too many different objectives groups now, too many different, uh, organizations, you know, Carl Barney has who, who used to be major donor to Ari has split off and made done has his own, and we've got the outlet society and we've got people like me, who've been out independently on our own doing things for a long time. Um, so they were sort of, I, I, I think that they, the interesting thing about this recent thing that Ari did is I think they give ground on all the theory, but they cling like, like crazy to the specifics of each of the individual schisms of saying, well, no, no, no, no. When we broke with, with David Kelly or Robert Tru Sinski or Craig Biddle or whoever it was, that was totally justified.
Speaker 1 00:38:36 So they wanted, they clinged to the details while, while giving ground on the principles. But, you know, as a good objectiveist, I have to look at that and say, well, if they've given, if they've given ground on the principles, then they've given the really important ground. So I'm, I'm sort of choosing to take the optimistic view that by giving ground on those wider issues, they're basically cutting out the, the basis for, uh, being able to maintain the intensity of these schisms. Cuz you know, if it's a, if, if the schisms are all about the he shed, he said, she, well, we made an agreement, but this guy broke the agreement. It becomes uninteresting to the bystanders, right? Cause you know, well this is a labor dispute. You know, this is a dispute between, you know, what you guys said you do. And, and did the person follow through on his commitments or not?
Speaker 1 00:39:25 It's too detailed. It's not interesting for the, like I said, the old way of, of winning the argument was you had to take everything up to become a, a massive philosophical disagreement. Well, without the ability to do that anymore, to make every personal disagreement, a philosophical disagreement, you lose the interest of the audience, cuz not, not that much is at stake and like, okay, you, you, you two over there, you, you hash out your differences on, uh, on your little personal agreements, but it doesn't really matter that much to anybody else. And so I think that's why that giving ground on those, on the, on the big philosophical issues is so important.
Speaker 0 00:40:02 Yeah. My concern is they're just paying lip service to it. Like, you know, they say it's normal for movements to have leaders disagree, but they're still calling everyone else immoral. Even, you know, Carl Barney
Speaker 1 00:40:14 <laugh> yeah. They say it's normal, then treat it like it's abnormal. I think that's true. But you know, again, when they concede the principle, they give you the grounds and say, okay, then that implies, you know, you have to behave differently. So I think they are going to try to sort of say one thing in principle and then do another thing in practice. Uh, by the way that thing about leaders, uh, you know, disagree between leaders being normal, that I love the example they cite of Adams and Jefferson, you know, Thomas, uh, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were, you know, inseparable pals, uh, helped make the revolution together. And then of course they had this falling out in the, in the 1790s and so much so that, you know, Adams refused to show up for Jefferson inauguration and uh, refused to speak with him. And there's very, very bitter, but here's the thing within 10 years of that within 10 years, they made the first steps towards the reconciliation.
Speaker 1 00:41:06 Uh, they started sort of putting out feelers at Benjamin Rush, a mutual friend of theirs who was one of the, you know, one of the, uh, important figures in the American revolution. He was, he was sending letters back and forth, you know, with Thomas Jefferson and which was, and sort of feeling them both out and pushing them to say, come on, you should talk to. And so eventually, you know, it was took a couple years after they, they put the first feelers out to say, well, maybe we will. And it took a couple of years after that, but really about within about 10 years of this extremely bitter and angry disagreement between them, they were starting to make the first, you know, steps toward direct reconciliation. And that's a lightning fast pace compared to what tends to happen at the objectives movement, right? Where you have these knockdown Drager arguments that people don't talk to each other for 30 years. Uh, so I wish we had more, uh, Adams and Jefferson, uh, and, and, uh, you know, less of sort of, I dunno, Stalin versus Troskey <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:42:03 Yeah, I think, um, what do you think about the idea that there's, um, you know, the, the context of how powerful and big the group is can play a role in whether schisms happen? Like the Protestant reformation was when the Catholic church was at a height of power and, and corruption and, uh, you know, to some extent, I think what happened within objectiveism is there was this kind of view that, you know, just 50 to a hundred years, the new philosophy takes hold in the culture and it's gonna happen, you know, almost a, a deterministic certainty. And, uh, as a result, they felt like they just could get rid of anyone. And as if, you know, there's no effect on these schisms and, and what happens long term, and that people get turned off without writing an angry letter.
Speaker 1 00:42:55 Yeah. Oh, I, I see what you mean this interesting theory, intriguing theory that it was the confidence in the inevitable triumph of objectiveism that then made it seem like, well, therefore we could, we could afford to get rid of this supporter here and that intellectual over here. Um, because you know, the they'll all just be left behind and the great surge forward to these amazing new ideas and not realizing that you're actually taking the wind out of the, the movement and of, of the, uh, the progress of the ideas by getting rid of these people. Uh, I think there's something to that. And I also think there was something to the fact that how would I put it, see for me personally, the thing that strikes me the most is that there's a bunch of us who, you know, came to this philosophy first through these novels.
Speaker 1 00:43:39 And the, you know, when we were, uh, um, inspired by the characters in the novel, and if you're inspired by say the character of Howard Rourke, you know, my work, my way, the totally independent man who doesn't, uh, doesn't, uh, join any clique or faction and, and doesn't, uh, care about whether people disapprove of him or not. And then you end up at a movement where it's like, well, you know, there's, you have to make sure you, you don't say this and you don't say that, and you don't criticize this person and you do criticize another person in order to say, people's good graces. You know, if you are, it's like the very thing that draws people into the movement, this vision of Howard rour was so opposite to the way the movement was actually conducted that. I think a lot of people said to heck with that, you know, what, how, you know, if, if I'm drawn in by a vision of an independent individual, and I see a bunch of people forming cliques and factions, I'm gonna walk the other way. And I think that is really it's the, and like you said, it's the people who just, um, never joined the movement, never get evolved, who are the sort of hidden costs that, you know, that you don't see that cost because they never arrive there. They never show up. Right. And they go off and do their own thing. And I think that's been, uh, a major thing that has sort of taken the wind outta the sales of the movement.
Speaker 0 00:44:57 Good stuff. Thank you. Uh, Patrick, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 6 00:45:02 Hey yeah. Cool guys. Um, I had a couple thoughts,
Speaker 1 00:45:06 You know,
Speaker 6 00:45:08 Um, one, it seems like these schisms are something that happened to almost any ideology or movement, um, with an ideology it's asking the question, what is true? A movement is generally, well, Hey, we want to get a whole bunch of people on board <laugh> so you can see how well I want to get a whole bunch of people on board versus I want to know what's true are two different things. And, uh, so in some ways, like if you're sort of pursuing truth and others are pursuing it with you, then maybe you are less concerned that a bunch of people agree with you. And in fact, it would, it's nice when you're coming from the same space, because then you're gonna focus your questions. I don't wanna sit and argue about the existence of God every single day. I would kinda like to move on, uh, you know, to a deeper question or a different question.
Speaker 6 00:46:05 Uh, you know, so we're thinking we're exploring and we're creating. So in some ways Iran was creating a philosophy. So my question would be Rob, it seems to me the attitude of the Atlas society and open objectiveism and David, uh, was very much like, well, we're sort of, you know, creating, you know, we're asking new questions, we're discovering new answers. This may change past views or expand new views, but I'm not really aware of any schism out of like the objective of center or Atlas society. Maybe there's been some, I just don't know about them, but it, I just wonder, like, is that approach itself kind of like evolution from an evolutionary standpoint, you know, kind of a little bit like protected against schisms and so more likely to, you know, have less schisms and acquire more people because it, you know, it's a, it's an open approach. That's less concerned about defining who is in and who is out.
Speaker 1 00:47:05 Yeah. Yeah. I, I like the idea of that when you define it, as we're here to, we're here to find the truth together and less as we're here to create this movement, going to control things. Right. <laugh> yeah. It's funny that you think a wider movement, uh, on the one hand, a wider movement seems like it would be less dogmatic or less ideally rigid because that you'd have a big tent. You'd wanna get as many different people who agree with you as possible. But at the same time, if you, if the, if you have a movement where the purpose of the movement is to achieve some result, to get some sort of, you know, to, to control an institution or to, uh, achieve a certain agenda, then that could become itself a source of conflict that, well, you know, uh, we have to have a fight over what the agenda is.
Speaker 1 00:47:54 I mean, the democratic party is notorious for this. Uh, remember seeing, I think it was, uh, Chris Matthews talking about how every democratic party convention, you know, the, the real battle isn't Democrats versus Republicans, it's the radicals versus the establishment inside the democratic party. Right. <laugh> so, and, and we can see that result right now that, you know, all the, the, um, the far left often will pursue an agenda insist on an agenda that you can, you, you can't say this, and you have to say that, uh, that prevents them from getting a big tent and from getting elected and from getting a lot of their agenda, because the real goal is, well, no, no. The real goal isn't that the movement succeeds, the real goal is that the right people have control over the movement. So that's one of the paradoxes you get of a movement that on the one hand is supposed to be a big tent thing, but on the other hand becomes a battle over who controls, uh, who gets to dictate the agenda of this movement. But that's why I think that that looking at this as a philosophical movement should be not about who has, who controls the agenda. It shouldn't be about who controls institutions. It should be about, we are seeking truths together. And I think that's the, that's the attitude you have to have, uh, to, to get it, to work the right way,
Speaker 6 00:49:11 A quick follow up. Do you think iron Rand in some ways caused this problem? Because as I've read about, uh, Russian intellectualism and Russian intellectual history prior, you know, to the context in which she arose, I mean, in the, even when you look at the communist, it was like schism, schism, schism, well, why is there a schism? Well, they're fighting over the control of the state. Yeah. You know, that's, what's at stake. It isn't like, you know, it's the, you know, it's the people's Republic of ju or the Judi's people's front, you know, it's like, literally they're trying to get the control of the state.
Speaker 1 00:49:45 Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:49:45 I love that by the way. Yeah. And so
Speaker 1 00:49:47 That's the thing you're referring to.
Speaker 6 00:49:49 So, so when, to me it's like, well, if objectiveism is a way of being, you know, life on earth, and it's like, if it's a way of, you know, it's a collection of ideas in a way of asking questions in a way of understanding, then that's not necessarily, we're concerned about getting control of the state, you know, but I feel like I, Rand unconsciously pulls in this, you know, um, this thing of like, we have to get control of the state and, and, you know, if people are splitters and they're going off doing their own thing, well, that damages, you know, our goal of getting, getting in control of the state, what do you think of that?
Speaker 1 00:50:30 That's intriguing that it would come from that, that it would come from that very Russian context. I've been long, had the theory though, that there's also a European context for this, which is that the, the older European model for how intellectual works and how intellectual movement works is the salon. And the salon is the idea that you have a, uh, well originally you had a, a, um, an aristocratic patron who was the anchor of the salon and the aristocratic patron served that goal of being the person who would get jobs, who would get commissions. And who'd be a source of income for all the people in the, all the intellectuals and artists gathered in the, that they gather collected together. And their, so the patron would be the person who was the source of jobs and income for them. And so organized around the, uh, the, the sort of one central person, the, the, the aristocratic patron.
Speaker 1 00:51:25 And as you got into the 19th century, and there was more money, there was more, you know, cuz of capitalism, there was more money, there was more independence there. You didn't need the aristocratic patron anymore. What 10, if you look at the 19th century, I'm like Paris, what you get are the salons. The, the, the salon system sort of remains, but it's not by an aristocratic patron, but by a single great artist, somebody with a great reputation and a big name who then gathers people around them. And they, they formed this little school around this one great person. And I've kind of thought that that might be what iron Rand sort of had an unspoken mental model for how a movement would work. Cuz that's basically what she created. She created, you know, the collective that she had in, in New York city, uh, in the sixties, that was the, that was her salon.
Speaker 1 00:52:15 Right. And whereas the more sort of individualist capitalist American model for this is more like the media, you know, it's like a newspaper, right? Uh, <laugh> where you have a whole bunch of different people producing work independently and, you know, publishing it here and publishing it there that you'd have a network of different publications representing different outlooks and different, um, uh, different, different takes or angles on the same idea that is as much more individualist capitalist model for how, uh, how it, how a, an intellectual movement should work. And I think she had though mentally, she had this sort of European model of the salon with the great, uh, intellectual or great artist at the center of it. And that's sort of what she built around herself. So I think she may have had, you know, simply not, I, I think the other thing about iron Rand is she was not.
Speaker 1 00:53:09 And by her own ambition, she was not an organizer. She was not somebody who wanted to be a figure of a movement. She was, and she was, I think she wasn't somebody who was temperament included to it. You know, she was a temperamental artist. I don't, but personality wise, I would describe her that way, you know, she's famous for, you know, being angry and blowing up and, and, and she was, she was, had more of the, the temperament of a per of a temperamental artist than of a, uh, a movement organizer, a popularizer. Yeah. But, you know, so I think that her, her, her, her outlook and her way of dealing with people was not the sort of thing you would ideally look for and the person who's gonna order organize and, and, and coordinate a movement of a bunch of independent intellectuals. So, you know, I think that, uh, we needed somebody to take on that role at some point. And I think we're finally, like I said, we're finally getting to that point where there's just going to be, there's gonna be somebody who's had a publication over there. Somebody has a thing tank over here. There's a guy off writing books. There's a guy writing columns for various publications. That's me and, and various other people doing things. You know, there's an artist here. Uh, we're gonna finally get to that point of having, uh, a whole bunch of independent people doing their own work and then, you know, coordinated together when their interests coincide.
Speaker 0 00:54:29 Good stuff. Thank you. Uh, Allison, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 7 00:54:35 Hi. Yeah. Thanks. Um, I just wanted to in, um, put some optimism here to say that I'm kind of encouraged by how much I see her ideas influencing people, and I don't know what the measure would be and how, and if you guys ever kind of tried to, to come up with an objective measure for how much she is having an influence. But I mean, I see even going back to Reagan, who said, you know, he was influenced by her and obviously in those kind of circles in Hollywood, and then you have, um, I mean, I think even Donald Trump said he, he was a fan and that was his favorite book. And I mean, I just meet people on the street. I had an AC repairman here the other day, and he was, um, son of an, an Iranian immigrant. And he and I had this conversation about, you know, the socialism on the rise and how we need to fight it. And I don't know, I, I just think that I, I think people are influenced by her, even though we kind of lost the academic fight. But now that we have social media, we have access to other channels um, do you, are, do you, do you, where do you feel we are on the battle? Do you feel like we're completely behind and it'll take a hundred years to catch up or are we doing fairly okay.
Speaker 1 00:55:43 You know, it, it, it is a real interesting question of how do you measure it by one measure? I would say, um, I think the, the growth in the number of active objective intellectuals has not been what I would've hoped it to be. And I think that's the thing that's been held back by the schisms and this, you know, and, and this, this constant battles is that I know a lot of people who are influenced by objectiveism are interested in objectivism. Some of them go into academia, but they lay low. They don't really get active as, uh, promoting the philosophy or getting involved in the philosophical movement because it's too much office politics for them. And there's too much of the, you have to be one camp or the other kind of thing. So I see that, I think that puts a damper on it.
Speaker 1 00:56:29 And I think it also, again, as we were saying earlier, can turn people off who are interested in getting involved. Uh, so I think in terms of the number of active working intellectuals, it hasn't grown in that sort of geometric way that I would like to see it happen. Uh, that said, I think you, she, iron Rand has had an enormous cultural influence that goes way beyond people who even just, you know, not PE if you count just people who totally agree with her philosophy, there's beyond that. There's a vast influence that she's had of people who are partially influenced by her philosophy and who have gotten something of value out of. And you hear occasionally of some Hollywood celebrity who, uh, who says, oh, I read the Fountainhead. And I thought it was great. Now sometimes I wanna take that with a grain of salt <laugh> cause I see their work and I'm like, really, but, uh <laugh> um, but you know, it, it does have that appeal, even people who don't agree with her politics, people who don't agree with all with certain aspects of the philosophy, there are parts of it that are valuable enough that they, that they are influenced by that.
Speaker 1 00:57:31 And it emboldens them. That's what I see as, as one of the major grounds for optimism is I think that's growing.
Speaker 5 00:57:39 Yeah. Allison I'd say, I agree with you. And, um, over the course of my professional life, uh, having gone from a, a mention of iron Rand, I've always had iron Rand as my license plate, uh, drawing SCOs and hostility to a long period of it drawing kind of blank stares, um, which I actually took as an opportunity to reintroduce iron Rand on our own terms in new creative ways. Uh, and now actually I'd say even in the past three years, starting to get, uh, more recognition and in a positive way. And I also think that, um, broadening our content internationally is, is helping with that. So,
Speaker 1 00:58:25 Um, oh, I, I should mention that. Yes. There's way more stuff going on internationally than, than I remember ever having, uh, in this, in the movement, way more stuff in Eastern Europe, it used to be, I mean, objectiveism was an American movement basically, and there was very little going now there's a society add at loss there's, uh, there's, you know, a lot going on in south America, in Brazil and Argentina and a lot of stuff going on in Eastern Europe. That is I think a huge, uh, jump forward from, from, from what I remember when I first came into the movement in, you know, circa 1987.
Speaker 0 00:59:00 Yeah. I've seen, uh, uh, India be a, a country with a lot of interest as well. Well, this has been a great topic, Rob. Um, the ATLA society has some more great events this week. Uh, tomorrow Rob and professor Steven Hicks are doing discussing art and manifestos at PM Eastern. Then back here on clubhouse Thursday, Richard Salzman will be doing and asking me anything at 4:00 PM Eastern and Friday at 5:30 PM. Jason Hill will be here with part two of a moral defense of elite and meritocracy. So lots of chances to interact with the scholars this week. I plan to take advantage of, uh, anyway, thanks again, Rob. And, uh, we'll see you tomorrow at, uh, 5:00 PM. Thanks everyone.
