Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!novavax!twwells!bill
From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: talk.philosophy.objectivism
Message-ID: <1990Jan14.155617.19822@twwells.com>
Date: 14 Jan 90 15:56:17 GMT
References: <8P1157Gxds8@ficc.uu.net>
Organization: None, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Lines: 47

In article <8P1157Gxds8@ficc.uu.net> jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) writes:
: I would prefer that the group be unmoderated,

For that matter, were things different, so would I.

However, there is a good reason for moderation. There are, of the
people concerned with Objectivism, several groups whose
interactions will result in flames. And more flames.

I expect that an unmoderated Objectivism group would quickly
become inhabited only by the flamers.

Though, if it comes down to it, I'd support an unmoderated group
before I'd support one moderated by one committed to orthodox
Objectivism. Submission to authority leads to sterility.

Objectivism, partly due to the ignorance or rhetorical style of
most of its proponents, and partly due to the dullness or
laziness of most of its opponents, is not well understood.
Anyway, some of its opponents are all too frequent flamers.

And then, of course, there are the Randroids. These are people
who tend to take Objectivism, including the errors made by certain
of its proponents, along with the character of Rand the person,
including *her* personal flaws, as gospel. This kind of thing can
lead to, for example, the perversion of taking certain
Objectivist-derived ideas and using them to support racism! No, I
didn't make that up. I was recently forwarded a posting from a
European newsgroup wherein one Randroid did just that. Ugh.

And finally, there is the "great Objectivism schism" :-)

There are, essentially, two different schools of Objectivist
thought, one, orthodox, holding that one defines Objectivism as
only what Ayn Rand said it is, and one saying that Objectivism is
a living school of philosophy, that starts with Ayn Rand, yet
must be continuously explored, added to and, if necessary,
corrected.

The former school is much given to moralizing and to damning
those who disagree with them; as such, they will flame. And,
naturally, some of those who are the targets of their flames will
respond in kind.

---
Bill                    { uunet | novavax | ankh } !twwells!bill
bill@twwells.com