Politics According To Krauthammer
I just finished Charles Krauthammer's last book, "Things That Matter." It is so brillian that I literally found over 100 topics to discuss in this forum. But I won't. At the very start of the book he makes the point that no matter how much effort he puts into writing about science,medicine, art, poetry,architecture, chess, space, sports, numbers, in the end they must "bow to the sovereignty of politics."In trying to move the spectre of politics off the table he got into the Voyager probes and whose voice narrated but Kurt Waldheim, a former NAZI. It prompted me to ask the Gulch one simple but extremely profound question: What one thing would you send on Voyager 1 and/or 2? Krauthammer finally winds up saying what biologist and philosopher Lewis Thomas proposed as evidence of human achievement ;the Complete works of Bach.(Personally, I would have chosen Beethoven). So, am asking this forum, if you were allowed to send only one item on Voyager 1 or 2, what would it be? Remember you are representing all of earth from fauna to flora, from philosophy to nonsense, from math to quantum. Just one thing. Music? Science? words? go for it.
There are a few other philosophers....are there not?
Once Trump leaves office, it will be occupied by true collectivists, and we will get medicaid for everyone, guaranteed income, a flood of uncontrolled immigration, and the loss of america's economic dominance and world power.
Despite Ayn Rand and her hope that AS would turn the tide, it hasnt at all.
A photo of Trump would be meaningless.
The photo of Trump was just an indication of when America woke up for the last time before the socialists took over and destroyed the country
Trump has no relation to that. Not only would a picture of Trump convey no meaning at all (and a picture is all there could be because there are no ideas to go with it), his election did not mean that America "woke up". Neither Trump nor the idolatry of the 'man on the white horse' show an awakening of reason and individualism, let alone the proper principles. Most of Trump's populist support, even in opposition to Hilary, is trying to have its cake and eat it too. The rejection of Clinton by a minority of the people, but enough to hold the electoral vote spread across the country between the dominant coasts, was much weaker than the rejection of George McGovern over 40 years ago both in numbers and in sense of life.
My point about the trump election was that it was the last stand for what’s left of American constitutional values. A weak stand I would agree. But just wait and see what follows him- a real horror show worse than obama
Trying to prevent the plot from coming true is what she told herself while she was writing it, to avoid lapsing into disabling pessimism as she saw the events she was projecting in fiction already coming to be. That was her purpose in tolerating the negativism.
Trump is not a last stand for what is left of American values; Trumpism is an emotional backlash following the 'man on the white horse' without understanding what American values have meant. Neither individualism nor the political implementation in the Constitution were ever about making "better deals" and emotional sales pitches to promote them. Don't project your values onto populism and conservative slogans.
I think people today range from an intellectually consistent individualist to emotionally derived socialists like Bernie Sanders- with a lot of people bring in the gray area in between.
The reason I characterize the trump support as a last stand of at least partial support for individualism is that they are standing up to the emotional appeals of collectivism, but without the benefit of a solid intellectual background. Hence, they will fail and be swept up in the coming Venezuelan - type funeral pyre when the USA wealth rubs out
Trumps policies will make our current situation last longer, but willl not affect the eventual outcome.
I don’t really know ARs motivations, but I say she did predict what’s going to happen
When it comes to serious negotiations I think trump is very serious and respectful so long as he gets respect in return
The establishment frantically wants to destroy him because he openly rejects them -- with visible disrespect -- rather than pander to them. They are accustomed to the pandering from their victims and enemies. Open challenging of the establishment, both intellectually and in refusing to grant a moral sanction, is what we do need, but Trump is unable to articulate rational explanation on any level; it's all highly public name-calling and loutish taunting -- even against his own appointees who work for him. That doesn't explain anything to anyone who does not already realize they are angry, and doesn't take his own followers beyond that. His enemies don't know what he thinks either, but are capitalizing on his own loutish slogans and lack of ideas.
That is not who we are or should be. His lack of intellectual leadership on any level is a self-defeating false alternative. It's the frustrated, emotional 'follow the man on the white horse' mentality that Ayn Rand warned of and feared when she was advocating for the necessity of an intellectual response challenging the establishment intellectuals at all levels.
I think a lot of his "attitude" is designed to defend and defuse nastiness thrown at him by the left. He should disrespect them, they are the real intellectualized trash. So he calls them names which, by the way, pretty accurately describe them- Lyin Ted, Crooked Hillary, Low Energy Bush, etc. He even exposed McCain for using his self sacrificing POW status to get sympathy that he milked for his entire career. After all, we would rather soldiers that DONT get caught than ones who stay in prison after being permitted freedom by his captors.
To his credit, however he did it, he trounced on the crooked Hillary and Bill Clinton foundation that was putting our government up for sale to foreign countries for the price of a contribution. He showed the liberals for what they really are, and he went farther than anyone else to stick a dagger in the heart of political correctness.
He isnt the intellectual that you woudl want, but no intellectual would EVER be elected currently until the liberal establishment is weakened.
Even when he does something right, he ties it to loutish, indefensible rhetoric, making it harder for more reasonable people to defend it as he drags all of it down into his playground bully mentality. His enemies are recording and archiving all of it for use in campaign ads against him. With that kind of material they don't need to defend their own positions or discuss anyone else's, including the ones he does not have himself and never understood.
Mc Cain milked his tortured pow story for 30 years of sympathy. War heroes save other soldiers, win battles and don’t get captured. Instead of being freed and live to fight again, he chooses torture and sympathy
The hatred of trump has little to with what he says it does. The hate the fact he is anti the crooked establishment and they fear his ability to get public support. The libs come after him no matter what he does. The facts are he is actually doing a better job than a lot of other presidents
I would postulate that the so called potential allies he might have had to help with his agenda but who were turned off. By his personality werent committed to his agenda anyway. ( like mc Cain for example)
We still have the destruction of the medical system with Obamacare, which I blame on Obama, and now the establishment who wants to "replace" it. I say REPEAL it period, but that does to show how much effect I have.
I just don’t see much of a future for the usa
Gore came very close to winning power after Clinton (and would have if the Senate had removed Clinton), and so did Kerry. The trend into Obama was only a matter of time, and that set new precedents paving the way for the mentality of Sanders and Warren. Trump on the white horse was a desperate anti-intellectual backlash against it, without being for the right principles, in a zig-zag downward trend.
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But except for AS, she didnt communicate with people where THEY lived. Branden, on the other hand did communicate that way. One could talk with Nathaniel, but not so much with Ayn Rand. She was more aloof. I agree that the movement stopped when Branden was excommunicated.
Almost no one was close to the Branden situation, and could not have been, but a minority of detractors of Ayn Rand with their own personal resentments and spurred on by the Brandens, circulated that kind of rhetoric, bitterly playing on false connotations, to spread it among people who did not know.
People could and did talk to Ayn Rand. They lined up out into the hallways every year after Ford Hall. She was very gracious and wanted people to understand. Branden had been known for his pompous attitude.
I suppose maybe I was put off during her lectures at Ford Hall where she appeared distant and demanding. One got the feeling that emotions were to be discounted and ignored with her, while Branden was more understanding where people actually lived day to day.
He was never pompous in my presence, however.
It is an intellectual movement. I wish it could relate more to people than only to the intellectuals. I understand the need for intellectual understanding, but not everyone can catch on to the heavy duty philosophical principles.
Branden was indeed excommunicated It was as if he never existed, and I never really heard good reasons from Ayn Rand like you are saying. It did seem more like a woman scorned....
Branden was dropped because of what he made of himself; and ignored from then on as no longer important to follow, let alone feud with. All the public battling came from the Branden side. The false 'woman scorned' line was perpetuated by Branden. It's too easy to accept as plausible by those who don't know what Ayn Rand was. Read James Valliant's The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics: The Case Against the Brandens (2005).
Ayn Rand was not "dishonest and irresponsible". One does not have to approve of their earlier strange and personally harmful personal choice in the affair to understand that.
Branden was thrown out in the late 1960s because of his dishonesty and irresponsibility, not as a rejected "sex slave". If anyone cares he can read the documented account in James Valliant's The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics: The Case Against the Brandens.
Branden's subsequent life, including a foray into New Age mysticism, demonstrates what he became, and it surely was not Objectivism. He was publicly known because of his prior association with Ayn Rand, which he exploited for the rest of his life in repeated attacks on her to bring attention to himself.
Let's boil away the relationships. Rand had a weekly sexual encounter with Branden whom she met as a youngster fresh out of high school.Like most of us, he adored her, as the brilliant writer who moved our minds and yes, our emotions. If she asked him to hang upside down from a flag pole he might have done it.I met him through my psychologist who was part of a small enclave of shrinks who were all "Randoids." Let's face it, she was no beauty. A somewhat dowdy lady with a brain that could melt ice at 50 feet.While I've read several bios of AR, I know what I witnessed and I can tell you that these were not deities but just people, with exceptional intellects.Look more closely at the Rand Branden affair. They kept their relationship a secret except to the inner circle. In that sense, weren't they lying to her followers? She was only perturbed about that when it looked as if he was lying to her. He on the other hand was filled with trepidation about her finding that a 3rd female was involved with him. His wife, a close friend, counted for zero as did her own husband. But none of this had changed the truth of a single thing she wrote.There's more but..... No more from me.
Branden went on to do more work in psychology than in philosophy, and he did expose some quite dramatic psychological difficulties that Ayn Rand had. She was a bit hard to deal with, which I saw for myself, if you werent absolutely perfect in your application of Objectivism. She tolerated absolutely no deviations.
I lived through that period, and in fact had Branden come speak at Stanford while I was a student there after the famous breakup. I never heard him denigrating Objectivism or Ayn Rand personally. I think they each had their place.
Definition of edict : an official order or proclamation issued by a person in authority.
Used in a sentence, EWV often gives an edict and in his comment claims you were a groupie.
She did ask that people not take photos, saying that she was "too old for that".
Yes, she had had a hard life but was very determined. She also tended to appear 'formal' to some people. There is no doubt that some found her intimidating.
I can tell you it was a bit disturbing to see. Ayn rand could have just calmly reiterated her desire not to be photographed. Her reaction was excessive relative to whatever damage was done by a simple photograph, at least IMHO
It is disturbing to the audience (or used to be) any time a speaker becomes upset or there is a disruption in a serious public lecture with some kind of enforcement invoked.
That happened during one of Leonard Peikoff's lectures there in the 1990s. Some clown in the audience stood up and interrupted, angrily yelling his opposition incoherently. Everything ground to a halt while Leonard Peikoff expressed his justified displeasure, the clown refused to sit down and be quiet let alone wait for the question period, and the ushers eventually dragged him out. Some in the audience quietly complained that the 'protestor' had a right to speak, too, as if Leonard Peikoff had been in the wrong for not allowing the outburst interrupting his prepared lecture.
I never saw anyone be unruly and demanding. I certainly would have stuck up for the speaker, who I had paid to hear
I can understand rands prohibition against recording if she was selling the recordings. I have to admit that she covered so much ground that I would have wanted to record it so I could listen to it sgain
I don't remember an instance of her roughly directing the ushers, but I only attended her later appearances in the 1970s when I was just starting out. I can imagine her Russian accent coupled with being angry at a transgression sounding "rough"!
He didn't "expose dramatic psychological difficulties" after the break, he ruthlessly smeared her in a sustained personal attack while exploiting his former association. He spent the rest of his life doing that whether or not he included it at a lecture appearance at Stanford (and other such appearances) in the period shortly after the break. It took a few years, essentially until after she died, before he turned his obsession into a career.
Ayn Rand was very intent on people understanding when she spoke with them. She could sometimes be personally "difficult", as Leonard Peikoff called it, but she was focused on ideas, not personal hostility. The "deviance" she did not tolerate was people acting as if they understood and agreed, serving to keep an association going, only for her to find out later they did not.
Branden had a place before he self-destructed; not after. Those interested can still read and benefit from what he produced with Ayn Rand's agreement and encouragement, but that's it. His writing took a dramatic plunge after the break and he lost most of his following for good reason in both his work and his obsessive drive to undermine Ayn Rand both personally and in misrepresenting what she thought.
I didnt personally see any pompousness in Branden, although I wasnt around him a lot. He hardly talked about Rand, but was pretty involved in his psychology practice and writings.
I almost went to work for him actually, but I am an engineer and didnt want to leave engineering.
As you can tell from my ramblings, I am pretty interested in why objectivism has not caught on like I thought it would, and what would reverse that. I suspect it has to do with the fact most people have more allegiance to their feelings from an early age, and never realize that their feelings are the result of their thinking. I dont want this culture to crash and burn, but the way its going I dont see anything but that happening.
If you don't understand the importance of the right philosophic ideas, how to spread them, and how radically different they are from western intellectual tradition, and instead focus on emotions as a strategy, you won't see why they haven't caught on much more rapidly.
I didn’t really see the personal reactions of either rand or branden. Actually I wasn’t terribly interested in that. I would have preferred then to continue to work together, but it wasn’t up to mrr
Wasn’t he married to Barbara branden while he was involved with ayn rand, and then eventually dumped Barbara for another wife later?
You can find out more of what went on from the use of her diary in Valliant's The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics: The Case Against the Brandens, finally written, independently, in 2005 after years of diatribes from the Branden's.
But you are right that far more important is the content and application of the ideas. It only comes up now when one of a handful still harboring bitter resentment starts gratuitously pushing the personal attacks.
Ayn Rand's explanation that had been on the record since 1968 was more than enough to not grant a general moral approval of Branden, but it took years to see the subsequent course of the Branden's careers and nature of their writing. His first book, The Psychology of Self Esteem was essentially the same as how it had appeared serialized in The Objectivist so I continued to follow him, still wondering what had happened to him, then in his subsequent books noticing a big decline in the quality of his writing so I lost interest.
But the later growing, constant attacks from the Brandens, especially after Ayn Rand died, including misrepresentations and obvious hatred and personal vindictiveness toward her, along with the change of direction and progressive decline in their work (including his New Age mysticism!) told me a lot more: I saw that I didn't need more details of the break to know who was worth following and who was not -- as a waste of time and repugnantly obnoxious at best. By the time Valliant's book was published I had long known what I needed to, but the book explained a lot.
But there are some glaring holes in the constitution that led to the excesses of today that are bringing the country down. Also, one can see in the years after its passage that the government of the USA was not so high and mightly when it came to stealing lands from the Indians who lived here, Marching them off to reservations, running the mormons out of town after town, and then the most monstrous of all things- the destruction of the south because it wanted OUT of the union.
I say, the constitution was nice, but not often did the founding fathers actually go along with it. They did what they needed to do to take over the whole land from sea to shining sea.
Plus now, there is really no sanctity of private property, and this country is more fascist than capitalist. You can own things, but you dont control them.
Obama did us a great disservice by ruining healthcare. Not only did he raise the insurance rates, he made the deductibles so high people cant affort to use it after they pay the high rates.
To boot, he made medicare the ONLY insurance us old folks can get, and made it so complicated and unprofitable that the really good hospitals like Mayo wont even take new patients.
I did find a program at mayo that costs $500 a month- like a concierge service- that lets medicare people get some access
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me- my mamma used to say.
His mind and writing talent are being missed not and will be missed by all who knew him either directly or indirectly through his wor.
I've thought of many things, books, movies, even a DVD of an orchestra playing Beethoven. But, perhaps a painting by Dan O'brien. A painting that shows the best of our architecture, our transportation, our pets, our dreams and our humanity.
https://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_web...
NO fight...just curious.
I was surprised near his end when I saw he was paralyzed. That was hidden a lot, just like it was with FDR. I wouldnt have changed my opinion of him had I seen him paralyzed, in fact probably would have thought more highly of him for overcoming what most of us dont have to battle.
"Toccata and Fugue" vs "Ode to Joy"? Tough call. I'd probably sent both, along with Mozart's "Requiem", Tchaikovski's ballet "The Nutcracker", Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" (now there's a lengthy one for you), and Wagner's "Ring". And probably John Williams' theme from "Jurassic Park". Just because I love the bass line. ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqk4b...
Many times I've listened to this as the sun goes down behind the Wind River Mountains.........
I would send a picture of the Moai of Easter Island and ask them WTF.
https://www.google.com/search?q=moai+...
Just think...you'd be Universally Renown!
your fan, Carl
can you imagine whit it will do to the aliens living in a giant Jupiter-like planet breathing methane? Even our music would sound pretty weird to them what with the heavy gravity and strange gases emanating from winds.
We should not think whoever finds the Voyager is endowed by the same qualities/traits as we humans. That species, whatever it'll be is unlikely to be human and as such will honor totally different standards as we do in technology, arts, science, etc.
We should not anthropomorphize space.
We'll never know. More's the pity.
I would not, as a rational egoist, have the least interest in "representing all of earth," but only man at his finest.
If I can't have both the books sent, I guess I'd have to choose Atlas Shrugged and hope they have someone ingenious enough to deduce the Epistemology of John Galt (the DNA of his Speech, as it were).
This very real friend of mine engraved my copy of his book: "Jae -- For a true brother -- a second self . . . Yours -- Always -- Jim Valliant, 5-31-2017"
It was he who finally woke me up. I also have a transcript of a video (VHS) interview he conducted with Dr. Leonard Peikoff in 1995. I will love it if ARI ever releases it (e.g., on Youtube).
We are living atlas shrugged right now. Even without a Galt, the motor of the world is being stopped a little st a time. I don’t make medical equipment anymore because iof FDA regulations, and I am only one example
There are plenty of the other characters in the book present in our society right now.
The next big recession will probably spawn directive 10-289.
Bantering back and forth in rational discussions can only help to find out what is really true, and to learn from what happened. The book you recommended isn’t on kindle unfortunately to make it easy for me to read. In the absence of reading that, I can say that there obviously were two sides to their split up which unfortunately for both if them wasn’t something they could resolve. What I do have to accept is that they did stop working together and that was that. One would have thought that two people could get to the bottom of disagreement and either settle them or just calmly agree to split up without hating each other. But apparently that didn’t happen, as it happens a lot in real life.
One thing I respect about trump is he can call you rocket man at one time but change his tone and negotiate without animus later. At least trump wears his thoughts and feelings in his sleeve for all to see. No hidden agendas
He had seen people like Kim and immediately ignored the nonsense and saw kin for what he is. Basically Kim saw this too, felt at ease, enabling them to talk. Same with Putin and China. Trump tells u where he is at, accepts where the other party is at, and then looks for common ground. It’s actually cool to watch
If anything will result in peace and cooperation, this us it. Would there have been peace and cooperation with hitler- I doubt it. But trumo would have recognized that far earlier than England did
Many copies of the Valliant book for under $10 at https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?au... but I don't know of any ebooks or pdfs.
I knew branden and rand split and to be honest I kind of figured rand expected branden had very high standards that he didn’t meet and that was that
I got "into" the epistemology by the second year of taking her seriously because it was helpful in understanding math and science. It still is and I have come a long way since then in applying it. I also found that it shed a lot of light on other kinds of knowledge, including the rest of her philosophy.
I have some very old issues of Reason from when I ordered back copies. I met Lanny Friedlander but was unimpressed with his emphasis on unphilosophical politics alone, and if I remember correctly, anarchism.
I would hope congress people and Supreme Court justices would by guided by high level objectivist principles
Did you have favorite characters in atlas shrugged?
Not many on this forum show an interest in Ayn Rand's ideas. It used to be that interest in an Ayn Rand novel led to all kinds of enthusiastic questions and discussion -- not repetitious conservative politics and axes to grind.
As for the characters: Dagny, and Hank Rearden are at the top for me. There were many others that are admirable but don't have the personal connection for me. And John Galt was more abstract, being introduced in personal action only near the end where there wasn't much space left for the more personal character development showing what he was like in the way we saw with the others.
I learned a lot from rand and then learned a lot from branden about dealing with emotions He used to have weekly group therapy workshops in LA where I lived. He never talked about breakup with rand at all, just concentrated on integrating objectivist thinking with pre existing emotional problems. I have to say it helped me a lot to be more comfortable and integrated. I took away what I was ready to learn I guess and then moved on to exploit my creativity in business in the 70’s and beyond. I am happy and grateful I was exposed to the work both of them did
1). Reversing the course of a nation of 300 million people is a massive task involving its citizens for the most part to change their whole philosophy if life
2). Such a reversal will take many many years, maybe if the order of several generations
3) The lives of most people alive today in the USA would be over before that happened
4) For people alive today who already embraced individualism to live in country that embraced individualism , it would need to be a new “gulch” that was self sufficient and very well defended indeed.
5) The main reason America made the successful split from England was geography and self sufficiency. Those elements are harder to come by today unless the gulch had a very low level of creature comforts
By the time the country was formed, many compromises were made, and in subsequent years many “rights” were trampled in the desire to expand the country. It was kind of far from an strict intellectually consistent country
He did what he had to do to survive. Just as the country did what it had to do to survive. When it came down to it, sticking to principles wasn’t paramount
Much of that attitude, to a lesser degree, carried forward until at least the 1950s, especially in the south. "Darkies" were porters carrying luggage at the train station because that was all they could do, etc. They even "talked funny". They were not seen as normal people, and it wasn't recognized that they appeared that way because they had been kept down, not by inherent limits on potential. Attributing economic motives as making principles irrelevant, as if everyone otherwise recognized blacks as equals, is a Marxist argument.
Since I am against censorship, I have, to date, refused to block your posts on my topic. Your posts have roamed far afield from the original subject and are no longer relevant. If you wish to continue this seemingly endless string, please set up your own discussion and refrain from posting anything more to this discussion.
That said, I always thought it best to find people who can do what I do on an equal or better basis. That gives me the time to learn new things
Corporate mud level bosses are quite protectionist and fearful of underlings. Too bad really
See?
Once the understanding of living in freedom with the American sense of life with its self-confidence and self-reliance is lost it's very difficult to get it back.
I get along with animals. I think because of this inner peace. I can’t imagine being some politician worrying what people think of me all the time
The animals depend on which type: You mean the ones that are value seekers in accordance with their own nature, not the ones who become politicians.
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