Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uflorida!novavax!twwells!bill
From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: sci.philosophy.objectivism
Keywords: sci.philosophy.objectivism, misrepresentation
Message-ID: <1990Feb7.222855.9291@twwells.com>
Date: 7 Feb 90 22:28:55 GMT
References: <8P1157Gxds8@ficc.uu.net. <1990Jan14.155617.19822@twwells.com. <1915@osc.COM> <26240@cup.portal.com> <1660@skye.ed.ac.uk> <7394@tank.uchicago.edu> <1682@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: None, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Lines: 41

In article <1682@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes:
: >>>    David Kelley (a former official Objectivist, author of Evidence of the
: >>>Senses, written shortly before he was purged from the ranks by Peikoff):
:
: >>How does Peikoff get to do this?
:
: >   In response, Peikoff wrote an article ("Fact and Value") which argued
: >that Kelley's views were not consistent with Objectivism but opposed
: >to it, and said that he no longer considers Kelley to be an Objectivist.
:
: It still seems strange to me that a philosophical, much less a
: scientific, disagreement would be conducted in those terms.  It
: sounds more like a religious disagreement to me.

It sounds like a religious disagreement to any rational person.
Peikoff and company want to enforce an Objectivist dogma and do
not permit any significant disagreement.

To put it bluntly: they want to dictate what Objectivism is, and,
by logical extension, what is to be considered true by
Objectivists.

If that doesn't sound like a cult leader, I'm unable to find a
better description. Peikoff is chief of the Randroid cult. And he
and his cult members demonstrate the lack of independence that is
characteristic of all cultists. As an Objectivist, I'm revolted
by such tribalism and reject it utterly.

Every movement has its lunatics, its virulent fanatics, its
mindless adherents. They just have to be put up with and, when
necessary, sat upon. It is unfortunate for Objectivism that the
person who *should* stand for reason and independence instead
stands for dogma and dependence.

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

	"We never make assertions, Miss Taggart. That is the moral
	crime peculiar to our enemies. We do not tell -- we *show*. We
	do not claim -- we *prove*." -- Hugh Akston in _Atlas Shrugged_