Sep 172002
A spanking new Objectivist blog, run by Arthur Silber, who, unlike many Objectivists of my acquaintance, responds to good-faith critics calmly and reasonably. Chris Sciabarra, who wrote the reputedly excellent Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, which I am ashamed to admit I still haven’t read, also contributes. Check it out.
Oh, not to worry, Aaron, about one. He is responding, but will take a little longer than blogdom requires to do so. Expect an epic response, with no hard feelings (a la Nietzsche) and a lot of impassioned logic (a la Rand). Jason Epstein may want to tune in to this one, too, if he’s going about saying Rand is a Zarathustra rip-off. ;) I view Aristotle as the one who organized thought from chaos, Nietzsche as the man who clawed his way out of the cage of post-medievalism, and Rand as the one who reconciled both, with necessary and judicious dissociations from both. Her position was much more and subtly a part of the Western conversation in substance than any superficial footnote of hers might add, though she added it gladly from her first philosophical writings in 1934 and had no need or desire to be a poseur about it. It just wasn’t her style to be a rank hypocrite, and the record shows she wasn’t –that’s just a bum rap. Don’t think James (Mr. Valliant) has shrugged. In the words of John Wayne, that’ll be the day. ;)