An Objectivist Divorce

The Autonomist ^ | 2/21/04 | Reginald Firehammer

[Hank Kerchief]

 

An Objectivist Divorce

Yesterday, on her blog, NoodleFood, Diana Mertz Hsieh posted, "A Public Statement," announcing the end of her ten year association with The Objectivist Center (TOC).

In her formal letter to David Kelley, Founder and Executive Director of TOC, she briefly outlines the main reasons for her decision. Some of the points are personal ones to which we cannot speak, but she goes on to criticize TOC's commentaries, articles, and op-eds as "uninteresting" and "superficial," making specific criticisms of four specific TOC staff offerings, concluding with this:

"In order to ferret out any underlying philosophical causes of these systemic problems at TOC, I also re-read the founding document of TOC, David Kelley's Truth and Toleration, for the first time in 10 years. I was surprised to find myself in strong disagreement with critical elements of the arguments on almost every issue: moral judgment, tolerance, sanction, and Objectivism as an open system. ... I regard the last, that Objectivism is an "open system," as the most widely misunderstood, deeply flawed, and practically dangerous of the lot...."

We find this particularly interesting, because it is the essential point we made in your own recent article, "Objectivism Characterized", which was, ironically, a response to a criticism by Diana Mertz Hsieh of my, in her words, "characterization of Objectivism," in my book, The Hijacking of a Philosophy.

We regard this announcement by Diana both courageous and important, and we believe the results will be good. We only wish it had not taken her ten years to discover what the TOC is. My characterization of Objectivism may not the best one, but I saw through the mush of the TOC in three weeks, more than 10 years ago.

(Diana has promised a "a much longer, more thorough examination of the issues," she will be "circulating" in a few weeks.)

—Reginald Firehammer (2/21/04)

[Hank Kerchief]

This will mostly be of interest to Objectivists or anyone interested in the strange developments of the Objectivist philosophy and moverment.

I will post Diana's actual announcement after this, since it has some very interesting criticism's of The Objectivist Center.

Hank

[Hank Kerchief]

 

A Public Statement on The Objectivist Center

As many of you know, for the past ten years, I have actively been involved with and supportive of The Objectivist Center, formerly the Institute for Objectivist Studies. In that time, I attended every Summer Seminar. I recommended IOS/TOC to countless people. Early on, I often defended the ideas in Truth and Toleration in online debate and discussion. More recently, I lectured three times on ethics and twice gave the introductory course on Objectivism at the Summer Seminar. As part of my return to academic philosophy, I presented scholarly papers at the last two Advanced Seminars. My husband and I were also sponsors of TOC for many years.

With much sadness, I recently brought this era of my life to a close. A few days ago, I sent David Kelley a letter informing him that, due to a variety of significant practical and philosophical objections to TOC's basic approach to Objectivism, I could no longer support the Center.

For the sake of brevity, that letter did not delve into the details of my reasons for departure, but merely outlined the central points. This public statement is very much the same, as it is largely drawn from that letter. In a few weeks, I will be circulating a much longer, more thorough examination of the issues touched upon below.

As some of you know, I've been unhappy with TOC as both a student and sponsor for over a year. My discontent took root essentially because TOC failed to live up to my basic expectations as a graduate student committed to contributing quality scholarly work on Objectivism. I wanted and needed to understand Objectivism at a much deeper level, yet I found little help at TOC, not even a suggested curriculum of self-study. I wanted and needed to be encouraged, pushed, and challenged in my work from a strongly Objectivist perspective, but that rarely happened, not even in presenting papers at the Advanced Seminar. In my two conversations with David Kelley on the subject, he did not seem particularly interested in or committed to assisting developing Objectivist scholars in any substantial way.

So I realized that I would have to pull myself up by my philosophical bootstraps through an intensive solo study of the full Objectivist corpus. My preliminary work over the past year made my understanding of Objectivism more thorough, my approach to the philosophy more serious, and my commitment more strong. I also grew correspondingly aware of and frustrated by the weak, tepid, and not particularly Objectivist scholarly atmosphere of TOC. The uncharitable, uninformed, and unresearched interpretations and criticisms of Objectivism heard far too often from TOC students became increasingly disturbing -- and David Kelley's longstanding silent tolerance of such baffling. I wondered why he never demanded or even encouraged better from us students, particularly since such simple leadership could have made a tremendous difference to so many, myself included.

In light of my pressing concerns about TOC's academic work, I began to wonder about the state of TOC's push for cultural change. At that time, I already knew that little had been accomplished in the years since the change of name and mission, including in the flush years of the dot-com boom. No new books were published. Media appearances were relatively rare. The Atlas Society closed down for lack of interest. The circulation of and attention to the few TOC articles and op-eds published was limited. The 1998 Stossel "Greed" special was trotted out time and again for fundraising purposes. (Sadly, all of that still holds true today.) However, I had only occasionally perused TOC's cultural commentaries, as I often found what I did read to be uninteresting and superficial. So over Christmas break, I surveyed a host of previously-neglected op-eds and Navigator articles to attempt to gauge their quality. All too often, I was dismayed by the arguments offered and ideas advocated in these writings. A few examples, all from TOC staff, are worth briefly mentioning:

• Russ La Valle's February 2000 review of The Art of Fiction is repeatedly hostile towards and denigrating of Ayn Rand, failing even basic standards of charitable interpretation and context-keeping. To treat a philosophic opponent in such a fashion would be bad enough, but to do so to the originator of Objectivism in the magazine of "The Objectivist Center" is mind-boggling.

• Tim Richmond's defense of the group recitation of the modern "under God" Pledge of Allegiance in government schools in his July 2002 op-ed "One Nation Under ?" does not merely offer bad arguments; it bears no discernable relationship to Objectivism, either in substance or method. For example, the critical fact that such constitutional conflicts over religion are only possible only within the context of government control over education is ignored.

• In David Kelley's November 2003 Navigator essay "The Party of Modernity," Ayn Rand is presented as just another defender of modernist values, as simply "the most articulate" of the bunch. (Surely, Ayn Rand's writing style is not the only reason for her superiority over other modernists like Milton Friedman and John Searle!) More disturbingly, the closing paragraph of that article implies a pragmatic and superficial approach to political advocacy in which "allies and converts" to the cause of freedom need not be philosophically grounded in the modernist worldview.

• Ed Hudgins' Christmas 2003 op-ed "The Human Spirit of Christmas" repeatedly appeals to Christian ideas in such a way that a person unfamiliar with Objectivism would never guess that the philosophy is atheistic, let alone that it wholly rejects the Christian moral ideal. The basic approach to ideas in the op-ed is not only misleading and condescending, but also contrary to the Objectivist rejection of appeasement.

  My survey of these and other articles showed me that TOC's vision of and approach to Objectivism is fundamentally at odds with mine. Although I've never been directly involved with TOC's cultural activism, my very public involvement with and support of TOC over the years connects me to it, much to my all-too-frequent embarrassment and dismay.

  In order to ferret out any underlying philosophical causes of these systemic problems at TOC, I also re-read the founding document of TOC, David Kelley's Truth and Toleration, for the first time in 10 years. I was surprised to find myself in strong disagreement with critical elements of the arguments on almost every issue: moral judgment, tolerance, sanction, and Objectivism as an open system. None of my disagreements are minor. All seem to bear upon TOC's disturbing trajectory over the years. But I regard the last, that Objectivism is an "open system," as the most widely misunderstood, deeply flawed, and practically dangerous of the lot -- and as the basic source of my own unhappiness at TOC.

  In the open system view, Objectivism is only limited by the principles Kelley cites as fundamental to the system. All the rest may be debated, refined, altered, reorganized, and even outright rejected within the bounds of Objectivism so long as a person "defends his view by reference to the basic principles" (T&T 69). The open system thus minimizes the importance of the wide range of insights, applications, principles, methods, arguments, and logical connections found in the full and rich system of philosophy developed by Ayn Rand. It downplays the necessity of a deep and thorough study of that system, promotes casual and superficial criticisms of it, and trivializes Rand's tremendous philosophic achievement. Such is why I do not regard the persistent problems at TOC as fundamentally due to poor management, insufficient funds, meager talent pool, or whatnot. Instead, I see them as the natural, practical consequences of TOC's view of Objectivism as an open system.

  Some of you may wonder why I am disassociating myself from TOC in such a public fashion, rather than merely drifting away in private discontent like so many others over the years. One reason is that my disagreements are not merely practical, but also deeply philosophical. Also, my involvement with and support of TOC over the years has been so public that a similarly public departure is warranted for the sake of clarity. And finally, since my philosophical life is lived very openly through my blog and web site, it would be very strange not to mention and explain a change of this magnitude.

  For many years now, my relationship with TOC has largely been sustained by Will Thomas' enthusiastic interest in and steadfast support of my work in philosophy. I would have drifted away from TOC years ago were it not for him. Sadly, my conflicts with TOC now go beyond even his capacity to mend. For these and other reasons, I am pained by the end of my ten year relationship with IOS/TOC. However, my decision was not undertaken quickly, easily, or lightly, but rather painfully determined to be the only right course of action after many months of hard deliberation. That decision was made almost two months ago. My letter to David Kelley made it official. This public statement makes it known.

  Diana Mertz Hsieh
  20 February 2004

[Hank Kerchief]

This will mostly be of interest to Objectivists or anyone interested in the strange developments of the Objectivist philosophy and moverment.

PHILOSOPHY PING

(If you want on or off this list please freepmail me.)

Hank

[ffusco]

Objectivism: seductive, self-centered, perfectionist, neo-fascism?
or is it

Social darwinism?

or is it just insight into the mind of an artist or dictator?

[Mr.Atos]

Thank you for the ping and a bump for later.

Atos

[ffusco]

BUMP for vague star trek reference

[Mr.Atos]

...just stick with you're neo-fascist analogy. It will keep you busy for years.

You won't need time travel.

Atos

[Nateman]

The funny thing about all this is that David Kelly himself is an outsider according to Leonard Piekoff, the fellow Ayn Rand herself picked as her intellectual heir.Since a central tenant of Objectivism is that you must think for yourself and let nobody else make moral decisions for you , the very idea of being "in the group" (or not) is rather silly.

[Hank Kerchief]

the very idea of being "in the group" (or not) is rather silly

Yes, it is one criticism I have of organizations in general, but for Objectivists to be carried away with this "collectivist" temptation, "to belong to something," is very strange. One of the hallmarks of Objectivism is individualism. Maybe they forgot.

Hank

[CatoRenasci]

Hmmm. Objectivism as practiced is: atheist. collectivist. materialist. I wonder what that sounds like....

[cyborg]

Communist?

[Mr. Jeeves]

It's funny how objectivism has interesting ideas, but Objectivists are a group of flakes; libertarianism has interesting ideas, but Libertarians are a bunch of flakes; constitutionists have interesting ideas, but Constitution Party members are a bunch of flakes...somehow there has to be a way to meld the best ideas from these schools of thought into a coherent philosophy and political movement that isn't thickly populated with Junior Varsity Napoleon Bonapartes.

[ffusco]

You disagree with the (not mine) theory I presume. Mind you that I was a hard core Rand fanatic about 15 years ago.

[ffusco]

I actually dated an architect major who had a picture of N B on her dresser. All artists are born dictators.

[cyborg]

Really? Should I bother reading Atlas Shrugged?

[kesg]

Yes, it is one criticism I have of organizations in general, but for Objectivists to be carried away with this "collectivist" temptation, "to belong to something," is very strange. One of the hallmarks of Objectivism is individualism. Maybe they forgot.

I second these remarks (no pun intended!).

[ffusco]

Absolutely! It is a great book, but also just another utopian vision of an ideal world. It is a world populated by Greek gods, not mortal men. It is romantic, often inciteful and very inspirational at times. Also you are probably not as impressionable now as I was when I was 18 when I read it.

[CatoRenasci]

Yes, you should read Rand's two major novels: The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

Unlike ffusco, I have never been a Randite, but think her ideas are worth thinking about and reading. I think there is a profound cri d' cour in her work against any sort of enforced collectivism and for liberty. To me, that explains the appeal of Rand's work to so many over the past half-century or so. Whether she has been successful in translating that impulse and insight into a coherent philosophy (or philosophical system, which is another thing altogether) is a different question; one which most serious thinkers answer in the negative.

[CatoRenasci]

I think the difficulty you note says a great deal about the difficulty of philosophy generally and modern man's dilemma with respect to the loss of religious faith. Most of the people who become followers of any modern system of belief, be it marxism-leninism, modern liberalism, objectivism, fascism, libertarianism, like those who gravitate to the most rigid forms of Christianity or the various Eastern religions, do so in order to find a comfortable certainty around which to order their lives and world view. Actual thinking is damned hard work, and accepting uncertainty and developing a moral or philosophical perspective in the face of the uncertainty that has existed since the Enlightenment is probably beyond most people's abilities.

[cyborg]

Thanks. I've been reading The Virtue of Selfishness, a very interesting book.