Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pasteur!ames!ncar!tank!rwt1 From: rwt1@tank.uchicago.edu (Robert Tracinski) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Re: SCI.philosophy.objectivism Summary: Some opposition is appropriate, some not. Keywords: *philosophical* discussions, not lame autobiographical ramblings Message-ID: <7450@tank.uchicago.edu> Date: 3 Feb 90 23:54:09 GMT References: <11909@goofy.megatest.UUCP> <7434@tank.uchicago.edu> <7821@pt.cs.cmu.edu> Followup-To: somewhere else Organization: University of Chicago Lines: 51 In article <7821@pt.cs.cmu.edu> spok@gs6.sp.cs.cmu.edu (John Ockerbloom) writes: >In <7434@tank.uchicago.edu> rwt1@tank.uchicago.edu (Robert Tracinski) writes: >>they [should] only post if they are willing to be serious about the issues and >>consider what the Objectivists have to say. >This reply bothered me a lot. Mr. Jones above simply states that he would >enjoy discussing some of the problems he sees with Objectivism; whereupon >Mr. Tracinski replies that such posts would be inappropriate to the >sci.philosophy.objectivism group, implying that Mr. Jones would not be >"serious" about the issues or be willing to listen to Objectivists. > >Now, how did Mr. Tracinski jump to this conclusion, might I ask? By the general phrasing of the message, which indicated that Mr. Jones was only interested in posting on SPO in order to attack Objectivism rather than out of any serious desire to understand Objectivist arguments. That is, his purpose seemed to be merely negative--to attack Objectivism--not positive--to gain a further understanding of Objectivism. This is not to say that SPO is only for those who agree with Objectivism, but that its purpose is of a positive nature. It's purpose is to study and discuss the philosophy of Objectivism, not to post junk about how "I was an Objectivist once and boy was I screwed up". But this was precisely the attitude that I saw in Mr. Jones' original posting, and his subsequent postings (which, by the way, are entirely irrelevant to the news.groups discussion) have vindicated my judgment. I don't go to Democratic Socialists' meetings to heckle them. I don't ask hostile questions at lectures by Kantian professors. I don't write articles about "how neurotic I was when I was a Platonist" (actually, I was never either). Such behavior would be rude and obnoxious. I don't see why the readers of SPO should be expected to like being subjected to the same kind of behavior from anti-Objectivists. That's one reason I support placement in the sci hierarchy--it would enable us to point to the charter, as well as to the general nature of the sci groups in order to establish that such postings are inappropriate. (To head off one possible objection, I will point out that I have vigorously opposed moderation for the group from the beginning and continue to do so. Every reader is capable of judging for himself what are and are not appropriate postings.) >John Ockerbloom -Robert Tracinski -- Robert Tracinski | "A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is | a contradiction in terms: before it could Student of Philosophy | identify itself as consciousness, it had to be University of Chicago | conscious of something."-Ayn Rand,_Atlas_Shrugged_