The Crucible

How I’ve Changed – Part I, Personal Relationships

2009-10-10T10:23:00.001-05:00

It’s an overcast Saturday morning in Philadelphia. I’ve a cup of tea in hand; my dog is still lazily crashed out on the sofa. I’ve yet to build a desire to start my weekend chores so I’m banging out a post.

This post has been knocking around in my head for a couple of weeks now. The idea for it came from an exchange I had recently with a good friend who I haven’t seen in over a decade. He used to be a student employee of mine, and has since had a very successful career overseas and is still stationed in Hong Kong. I had sent him an example of some poetry I’d written (he was/is a poet as well and I thought he’d appreciate the note). The response he sent was a thoughtful mix of thanks, and regret for not staying in touch. And then he said this,

I know how much I've changed since those days -- some of the changes I'm glad for and some I'm not so sure about ..

And that’s what started it. I know I’ve changed in the past twenty years of adulthood; but how would I describe that change? If I had to boil it down into essentials, what would I say is different? I like thinking about that sort of thing; trying to see if I can look at this mass of data that is the last twenty years of my life and see if I can tease out some fundamental understanding from it. What I came up with interested me and so I decided to turn it into a series of posts (originally just to have been Facebook posts, but now deemed quality enough for The Crucible)

Starting to think on this topic, my mind wandered back to a facebook status update I’d made only a day before that seemed really fundamental to the tone of the change that the last twenty years of my life has taken. I wrote this,

There's no other place in the world I'd rather be right now than right here living this life.

That blurb was not some sort of self-talk, scripted phrase I was speaking to myself because I wanted to feel that way. No, at the moment I wrote it I was in the throes of a powerful emotional response to my life in general. I had just left work after a good day; it was a beautiful September day in Philadelphia, and I was headed home to a slate of activities that night around a whole set of goals I’d set for myself. I was feeling this incredible emotional high about my life. But instead of being a rare occurrence it is something I feel almost daily. While I don’t think that the feeling itself is a rare thing, I think the consistency, strength and level of integration of that emotion throughout my daily life is, well, rare.

That became my lead. I certainly couldn’t have said that about my life twenty years ago. Find the root of that change in my life, and I had this sense that I’d find some of the key things that have happened to me over the last two decades.

So I began noodling. I started by chronicling in my head data related to this idea. What other changes could I describe that in part lead to this feeling? Here are a few of the things that I noticed about myself that are very different from the me of twenty years ago (some of this will sound a bit “zen” to my Objectivist friends. Don’t worry, I didn’t leave it at that level of mystery, but instead try to look at the fundamental causes.) :

I find today a far greater integration of my head and my heart, of my thoughts and emotions. This yields a feeling of peace or centeredness or balance.
I think my daily emotional responses today are far less mixed, or clouded and as a result are much more intense, pure and powerful. I describe this to people as living in “technicolor.”
I seem to be able to stop and live purely in the moment, savoring even small pleasures and joys fully without the immediate weight of that adult list of goals, and tasks, and worries. Again, this lends an incredible feeling of intensity in the moment.
Yet, in contrast, today my goals are far more long range and far more complex than they’ve ever been, and I simultaneously feel incredibly effective and competent in my ability to plan and make decisions that will affect my life years out in the future.
I don’t feel a nostalgia for a “simpler, easier” time in my life. The simplest, easiest, most joyful time in my life is right now.
I find that my relationships with other people are far richer, deeper and stronger than they have ever been. This includes both my ability to strike up a rapport with new people I meet, my ability to develop deep lasting friendships with a wide variety of people, and my ability to hold those friendships even across time and distance (as with my friend.)

Now I look at this list and the first thing I feel is pride. I’m not suggesting perfection in describing these things, but when I think across a continuum, I am far more to this side of things than their less mature counterparts. And certainly after thinking about this list, I was highly motivated to ask the next question: How? How have these sorts of things come about in me? What were the key causal factors that led to these changes? Like my friend I wondered if they were changes I had made consciously or had simply happened to me. Where they mysterious or could they be traced back to certain actions and choices?

Of course, my Objectivist friends know what perspective I’ll start with as a default, that the things that others might see as “mysteries” in life are actually knowable, understandable, and actionable. That somewhere these changes are the result of choices conscious or unconscious in my life over the last twenty years. And that there is a causal aspects to them. This doesn’t make life less wondrous, but in fact (I think) even more wondrous and beautiful.

So after weeks of mulling things over, of taking examples from my life and testing out my ideas, I think I’ve boiled it down to 3 major things. Listed with most fundamental first they are:

The use of philosophy as a practical science for determining how to live one’s life, and more specifically a framework to understand what role value plays in one’s life. i.e. this is the science of ethics, what should man value, and how should he go about pursuing those values.
The development of a useful framework to be able to deal with and integrate my emotional responses.
The development of a useful framework to characterize and deal with my relations with other people.

So obviously these are three very broad and abstract ideas. I’ll try to deal with one each in a series of posts, beginning with what I viewed as the least fundamental but one of the most enriching, relationships.

_____________________________

The basic principles on relationships comes straight from Objectivism and Rand, but learning how to operationalize those principles has been a years long journey of steady progress. When I speak of relationships here I speak both of romantic love as well as the respect and admiration that form a friendship as I think that at the root, they are driven by the same sorts of guiding mechanisms. I’ll use the term “love” to denote all these forms in my discussion.

As an aside, I recently met Objectivist blogger Dan Edge, and over a brief dinner the topic of relationships, and specifically my ideas in this post came up. This is a big area of interest for Dan and he’s written extensively on the psycho-epistemology of relationships. He was extremely helpful in clarifying some of my ideas, and I’m sure he’ll have a few comments as well.

So here is my framework and a little bit of development of each of these guiding principles.

Love as the selfish expression of value for oneself and another.

If there is one idea that is the most pernicious today and that I hear repeated far too often with regard to relationships it is the idea that the essence, the fundamentality of love lies in its unconditionality. Yet, if the highest moral form of love is to love, without regard for ourselves or for the type of person whom we are to love, then the very concept of love is destroyed. And I would counter that if we look at the relationships that we have that we feel strongly about, that we get emotional about, that one would find that this response is not directed at those things that are common to every man including the cretin or mooch. But rather that these responses result from the unique, the highest in others. We respond to people because we admire them, because we respect them. And we respect them not because they are like every other man including the thief and the liar, but because they are different, because they are good, because they share the same sorts of ideals that we hold. When we admire, we must differentiate, and when we admire, we admire the best, the uncommon. And we admire those things because we share in them.

This is a profoundly selfish act. And it is causal. Love, respect and admiration are the things that we feel when we find in others the things that we hold to be the best within us. This, not selflessness or unconditionality is fundamental essence of love and friendship. Here is how Rand puts it.

“Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man’s character. Only a brute or an altruist would claim that the appreciation of another’s person’s virtues is an act of selflessness, that as far as one’s own selfish interest and pleasure are concerned, it makes no difference whether one deals with a genius or a fool, whether one meets a hero or a thug, whether one marries and ideal woman or a slut.” – The Objectivist Ethics

So this is a fundamental shift in my thinking over the last several decades. Coming from a Christian background I used to believe in the unconditionally principle, that love was a selfless thing and that its highest expression was to give of our selves to all people regardless of status, expecting nothing in return. I can’t begin to describe how destructive this idea was in my life, and it took years to weed out all of the places that it’s tentacles reached into my psyche.

So does unconditionally describe something that has merit. Yes, but only in a very limited contextual sense. When we evaluate a person we do so in a hierarchy of value. Some things are more important than others in a person’s character. To forgive someone a fault is a recognition of this hierarchy. We forgive the small things, but we do so because the more important things are good and valuable. We forgive a good husband the fact that he sometimes forgets to take out the trash, but we do so because he is a solid, good, and faithful husband. This is not an expression of true unconditionality, but rather a reflection of the fact that that love is based upon the virtues of another and that those virtues have a priority of importance. We do not ask the beaten wife to forgive her unrepentant, violent husband by virtue of the fact that he remembers steadfastly to take out the trash. That would be true unconditionality.

Now Dan Edge challenged me a bit on this idea, asking whether it is really always virtue that we identify and psychologically respond to. What of this notion of the idea of psychological “chemistry.” In his series “The Psycho-Epistemology of Sexuality” he discusses what he calls “individuating elements of self,” that we are also drawn to and have emotional responses to. If for instance you and someone else share a love of the baseball and specifically the Philadelphia Phillies, that this aspect could be a basis for having a shared emotional connection, and that this is also a fundamental part of a relationship. Doesn’t this fly in the face of a claim that virtue is what we really respond to? I agree with this in a qualified sense. A few years ago, as I was crystallizing the ideas in my head that would lead to my decision to divorce, I wrote to a friend on the topic of relationships. It’s still one of the best posts I’ve written on the topic. Here is what I said about chemistry.

“Character before chemistry (or make sure the chemistry you're attracted to is tied to character)…
I'm not saying that chemistry (i.e. all those behavior things that attract you to a person) isn't important. What we are really attracted to initially in a person is their "sense of life" [after all]. But some of what makes up chemistry is easily mutable, and some of it is more stable. The part that is more stable is more closely tied to values and virtues. If you can, ask yourself if you can tell that behaviors have value judgments behind them, or if they are value-less, or if they show contradictions. Find the chemistry that you believe flows out of character and that is the chemistry that is likely to be more stable. Additionally I think some elements of chemistry can be "learned", so even if you don't feel chemistry in a particular area look for character traits that are still there.”

So what has this change in perspective led to in terms of my relationships? What did my previous more self-less relationships look like? I think when you lose the idea of self, and it’s importance, two things happen. First, if respect and admiration are a reflection of value, one fails to know explicitly their own values, leaving ones responses to other people to be whatever your range of the moment emotional responses give you. In essence I didn’t know why I valued people so I found myself choosing based solely upon my emotional responses. Secondly, without this concept of value in a relationship, one completely fails to recognize and take into account why another person would want to reciprocate. That is, one fails to recognize that a relationship requires not only value on your end, but on the end of the other person. This leads to a very sort of immature conception of relationships, where one response to one’s own range of the moment emotional responses without focusing on either one’s own or the other’s needs in the relationship. Some people mislabel this as a “selfish” response. Dan calls it “self-centeredness” contrasting it with objective selfishness. I prefer to keep it distinct as a form of selflessness because I think at it’s heart that is what really drives is.

The substance of that value as a series of actions, as trades, or spiritual payments.

So what makes up the substance of a personal relationship with someone else? What does it consist of? Certainly we’ve talked about valuing and respecting another, and we’ve talked a bit about the emotional joy one takes in that esteem for another. But these are not enough. At its core a relationship is made up of a series of actions. In the Objectivist ethics, to value something is to act to keep and or gain it. What you think about something is important because it helps you decide what to value, but it is insufficient. The same is true of a friendship or love that you value. It is defined by the actions you choose. what is the nature of this set of actions? It has a unique set of characteristics. Back to Rand,

“Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man’s character.” – The Objectivist Ethics

We act out of respect, admiration or love because we have received pleasure or joy from another person, and if we are consciously explicit about it, that pleasure is derived from the best within them. In that sense the action is a payment or trade with another. Now I’ve heard some decry the idea of actions as trades or exchanges as a crude example of why conditionality is bad. “How can you force a claim on someone by giving to them with the expectation of some return.” My answer is that this is a mischaracterization of the trade. I am not making a payment with the expectation that I can now claim some reciprocation. It is not a quid pro quo, in that sense. I have already received my benefit! It is the joy I am already deriving from this relationship! My payment is not for future benefit, but for benefit already received. This is why Rand calls it a spiritual payment. Such actions say, “I’m doing this for you, because I admire/respect/love you, and the person you are today brings me great joy.” And that’s all. There is no claim on future returns. Accounts are already paid.

So what sort of actions might we choose in this exchange? The answer to this question lies in the recognition that a relationship must be of value to the other person for them to want to continue it as well. And if relationships at their core are based upon admiration for the highest virtue and character in another, then that should be a component of what you return. If you derive joy from the best and the highest in another, then give of the best and the highest within yourself. Give what will be valued, in terms that the other person will see and value. Sounds awfully abstract. What does this mean?…

Dan challenged me again on this point over dinner, effectively saying “Come on Kendall, do you really think that every action we undertake in a relationship is somehow tied to our value of another? Every single little action?” My answer to that Dan is that it need not be. But in fact, to the extent that it is, to the extent that I hold those ideas explicitly in my mind, and act consistently on them, is the extent to which one is able to enrich and deepen connections with other people. It is the very illustration of the point I’m trying to make. For those of you who weren’t there, Dan stopped by Philly on his way north, and we had a brief dinner and conversation. Within about ten minutes of meeting we bonded. I don’t think that was an accident, and that it was our choices and actions that became a series of trades which ultimately led to a very intense discussion and a feeling of connection. I offered dinner and conversation because I know we both revel in ideas. I specifically chose to discuss this post because I know relationship theory is a particular interest for Dan. And he chose to engage me, to challenge my ideas where he saw gaps, because I’m sure he knew that if I was rational and honest, I would value such a frank discussion. To the extent that we held this framework consciously in our minds and acted upon it, I’m convinced helps explain why we bonded. That has been my experience.

I’ll give another example in a more romantic context. One of the best dates I can think of is cooking dinner for a woman. I am a huge lover of all things beautiful and sensual, of esthetics in general; art, music, food, flowers. On one level to prepare a meal with all the trimmings (music, flowers, candlelight) for a woman takes effort and skill. It is not an easy thing, and to do it in a sense requires the best of what you are. But on a sensual level it is an esthetic, spiritual gift. It says “I’m going to use all my effort and skill to surround you with things that are beautiful; that you can directly perceive as beautiful through your senses, and in doing so directly create for you the emotional response that you bring me.”

Look at how the nature of a relationship changes with this framework. One admires the best in people, gives of the best in themselves to express this admiration. One understand explicitly why one feels the way they do, and seeks to understand how they can provide value for value gained from the relationships. One does not seek to be loved in spite of their flaws but because of their virtues. The things that generate pride in me, generate admiration when I see them in others. When reciprocated in the same fashion it creates an almost electric spiral of connection whether a friendship or a romantic relationship. I can only describe relationships like these as heroic. This is what I feel so much more of today.

Love as a dually volitional

I think the final aspect of relationships that I’ve come to understand and appreciate much more deeply is the aspect of relationships as dually volitional. That is, both people must decide that they value and want to pursue a relationship. Unlike goals or values that we pursue individually, where only our own choice determines if we succeed or fail, one aspect of any relationship is forever out of our direct control: the choice of the other person.

The younger me had trouble sometimes differentiating this difference. I would take it personally when others chose not to pursue relationships with me. I would continue even after that to try to pursue such relationships, thinking somehow (as with all my own individual goals) that the force of my will would eventually persuade them that they really did value me.

I no longer take this personally, nor do I take responsibility for another’s choices. I am responsible only for my half of the equation. I hold myself responsible to know why I value people. There is no guarantee that I’ll be valued in the same way. I hold myself responsible to offer the best within me. There is no guarantee it will be reciprocated. I hold myself responsible because I want and pursue relationships because I value them, and derive selfish joy and pleasure from them. There is no guarantee that others view relationships in the same way.

Operationalizing it

So here are my four action rules that operationalize the principles listed above. I’m not going to expound on them too much as hopefully they will seem clear after the discussion.

Find people of the highest character you can. Seek out admirable people regardless of means, background, and all the other superfluous characteristics. Where chemistry is concerned, its ok to seek more optional factors, but seek out those that ultimately stem from character if you can determine them.
Know why you like them. Spend time to introspect and be explicit and concrete about why you like them. Yes, you have direct emotional responses to people. They are not magic or mysterious. They are causal. Know the causes. Doing this will help you become a better judge of people, and it will help you hold that admiration and respect much more strongly and clearly.
Seek to understand them. Understand what they value and how they value it. This will help you not only understand their character, but also help you craft actions that they will strongly value.
Act to express you admiration, respect and love. Remember, it’s not a relationship until you act to keep it. Do this by reflecting that respect and admiration, by offering of yourself in ways that give of the best of you, and in ways that the other person will value.

I believe these ideas are at the core of the relationships I have today. I believe they are the reasons that I have the strong connections with people that I do. And while there is no guarantee that everyone you approach will reciprocate, I can assure you that if you practice these ideals, that you will end up with an incredible rich and durable set of relationships in your life.

In my next post I’ll deal with the topic of emotions.

Published

2009-08-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

I am happy to announce that an op-ed I wrote on Carbon Cap and Trade policy was published in my (then) local newspaper, The Midland Daily News. It was published in its entirety and with no editing.

Sadly, the article is not available online, but I am providing a link to my copy of it. This article was also my final paper for my OAC Intro to Writing course. I’m very proud of the piece and while MDN is a small town paper, it was a valuable introduction into the submission process. Consider it a small indicator of bigger things to come.

Booting Up and Back Online

2009-08-14T22:31:00.001-05:00

It’s been a long almost 3 months since I was regularly blogging. A few posts from OCON in between and almost 10 weeks of silence. I stopped for good reason. I needed to focus on a series of changes in my life. If you missed me, great! Know that my life is getting settled after going through significant change, and the time off has enabled me to focus on the changes and come back to blogging that much more quickly. Hopefully my regular readers are still out there and glad at my return. I expect that posting will ramp up both on The Crucible and sCap from this point forward so stay tuned!

To explain the changes a bit, I’ve transferred to a new job within my company and moved to a new city, Philadelphia! This after a period of turmoil within my company as the financial crisis hit, and we attempted a large acquisition right in the middle of it. Most of my colleagues and I have spent the last nine months wondering if we’d even have a job at the end of it. I had friends who sadly lost theirs. Luckily, I not only have mine, but I have been afforded a wonderful opportunity to work in the acquired company and to completely change my lifestyle. In the last month I’ve picked up my life in a small town in the Midwest, sold my four bedroom house on a quiet comfortable street and am now living in downtown Philadelphia in a small apartment not a few blocks from Independence Hall. I love the adventure, and Moxie and I have settled right in and are reestablishing all the routines that help keep life in balance and allow me to begin to focus on longer range pursuits.

And so as this process begins to happen and the tide of stress recedes, I thought I’d take a blog post to take an accounting of the goals I set at the beginning of the year. Part of the process of living a goal directed life is to use those goals to steer by.That is, as one works toward them, and unexpected events occur, one needs to periodically step back take stock of current position, get new bearings and adjust plans. I need to decide what the lost time of the last three months means, and which of my goals may have become unattainable this year, and which are still attainable yet need modification to the action plans.

So here is that analysis on those goals which I shared at the beginning of the year. The original goals are shown in bold.

House - Remodel two bathrooms, repaint two bedrooms, install that steam shower, and put in a very large flower bed in my back yard. That assumes I stay in this house (but that is a story for another time).

Well, I don’t have a house anymore so this one is nixed. I did manage to remodel one of those bathrooms, and get the painting done. I highly regret never finishing the steam shower installation. I would so liked to have used it just once.

Health - Compete in at least 3 duathlons, two of which are Olympic distance - bettering my 2007 time.

This one must be changed, just for the time component required to prepare. The season is ending, and realistically is over in early October. That is eight weeks away, and that is almost too short. 3 races are impossible, and after searching for races in my area, Olympic distance is also out since one has to pick what’s available. That means this one, or this one, both Sprint distance.

I’ve gotten to a minimum level of stamina and endurance to be able to kick training into high gear, but that training has to be very structured and focused. I’ve decided that since I’m proficient in technique for the run and bike, and that the race is shorter, that I don’t need to spend long hours there to get into shape. Instead, I’m opting for the first 2 months of a modified P90X program, supplemented by 1 or 2 well-designed training rides/runs every couple of weeks. Rather than risk pushing too hard and overtraining in the specific sports I’ll need, I am hoping that more cross training, and overall strength and conditioning will get me fit, with less risk of injuring myself. A buddy had convinced me to try the P90X earlier in the year and the move was an opportune moment to get set up, since I wanted to supplement my riding/running with work I could do in a small apartment with a minimum of equipment.

Needless to say, training starts Monday. I’m not worried about my time, although I’d like it to be competitive (yeah, I get like that….). My last slightly-shorter-than-Olympic-distance du was a 2:06, but that was a hilly course and a trail run, and I was in great shape. Honestly, I don’t know what that would translate into for a sprint distance, and I doubt I’ll have a good sense of it given the low level of actual ride/run time I’ve planned. I’ll just have to take what I can get.

Education - Complete next two OAC classes. Get a better grade than I got on the first one! (so humbling that was for this over-achiever!)

This one is on track. 1st class finished in winter semester, and 2nd due to start with the beginning of 2nd year. I wish I knew what my grade was for the first class (grumble, grumble…) but I felt as though I was getting the hang of it.

Books - Read at least one work of good literary fiction per month (for a total of 12). Yes, this might not seem like many, but Anna Karenina is on the list. Definitely a stretch goal.

Ugh. I am plugging away at this one, but I’m on book three (Anna Karenina) in month eight. I suspect I will fall short. Five to six may be more realistic.

Writing - Increase blog readership to a steady 100 visits/day (or ~3000/month). That's going to require a whole lotta changes, and a commitment to more regular blogging.

Taking a break from blogging has been a setback for this goal so I’m going to have to backtrack here. I may be doing well to get my readership back to what it was in January. That’s ok though. It’s a worthy goal, and I don’t think regardless of how busy I am that I could ever stop blogging for good. I got some great tips from Diana at OCON, and hope to implement those as well.

Writing - By years end, I will author one article for the Objective Standard. Yup, this one scares me a bit.

Still on the drawing board. Still a bit scary. I had hoped to take my OAC final op-ed on Cap and Trade and turn it into a 5000-6000 word article, but with C&T already languishing in Congress, I may have to change subjects. I don’t have good inspiration for a new topic yet. Ideas welcome! In good news, I did have that op-ed published, but there’s another post about that coming!

Canine - Title Moxie in AKC Agility - Open Class - both Jumpers and Standard. I'm not a high volume trial attendee so this one is going to require some finesse.

This one is going to require more than finesse now. I have not trained, have not found a new training facility (which I must have since I don’t have a yard or equipment anymore), and trial schedules get thinner after summer. Like the du, this requires preparation time with Moxie, and I am not sure I have it. I suspect I’ll have to table this goal until next year.

That’s it, the rest of my year (mostly)…

OCON Final Days

2009-07-11T15:25:00.001-05:00

It’s been a long week.

Saturday afternoon, and my optional courses are completed. I’m going to crash the closing dance tonight, and then quickly pack as my flight out is early tomorrow. Not much to update but here are the remainders:

Peter Schwartz gave a great lecture on the role of the free unfettered mind as part of a free market. Peter is a marvelous speaker and specializes in analyzing key controversial topics such as multi-culturalism, and libertarianism. He did this topic justice, literally!
Harry Binswanger completed his two part series on the nature of objectivity. In this lecture he analyzes the subjectivism/intrisicism/objectivism trichotomy and then illustrated the disastrous effects effects of subjectivism and intrisicism and the redeeming value of objectivity in various fields including ethics, law, art, and politics. He offered to illustrate the same in baseball, but alas we didn’t get to hear it. Binswanger is a master of epistemological concepts, especially at showing their immediate relevance to real life actions and current events.

Social

Diana’s Obloggers dinner was a success, with such notable bloggers attending as C. August of Titanic Deck Chairs, the husband and wife duo of One Reality and 3 Ring Binder, Gus Van Horn, TOS’s Criag Biddle, and new blogger Rational Egoist’s Jason Crawford in addition to Paul (GeekPress) and Diana (Noodlefood). We burned the midnight oil back at the hotel discussing all sorts of topics!

Beyond that I’m exhausted, but in the good way. I’m looking forward to the flight back and a little bit of downtime before work on Monday. Also, next week is the week of my move so plenty of other excitement going on. Within a week or so I’ll be calling Philadelphia home.

Thanks to everyone I met! What a great time, filled with intellectual discussion, fun and food. See you Vegas next year!

OCON Day 6 & 7

2009-07-09T15:09:00.001-05:00

It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m parked at the Seaport enjoying some downtime between classes. I find that, as an introvert, I get drained by continued interactions with others and have to recharge my batteries periodically, so I’ve got the iPod plugged into my brain and thought I’d post another entry. These are discussions of Session 2 courses

Academic

Greg Salmieri gave his first OCON general session presentation. His talk focused on the role of man’s mind in Atlas Shrugged. Specifically he focused on two classes of action, productiveness and valuing. Excellent talk. While most people could easily point to Atlas as an example of productiveness in action, the act of valuing, at least in Rand’s conception of it is harder. I think her conception of valuing is a very unique perspective, specifically as active rather than contemplative
John Allison, former CEO of BB&T, gave a rousing talk detailing how philosophy enters into the core values of BB&T and how BB&T operationalizes those values. It’s stunning to see the success that BB&T has had over Allison’s 20 year tenure and the operationalization of these values is certainly one driver of that success.
I’m taking two history courses this session. The first is Eric Daniels “History of Religion in America” which examines what the role of religion has been in America both prior to and after the founding. The second is John Lewis’ “History of Archaic Greece” which looks at the period of Greece’s infancy, prior to the Classical Period. both are excellent courses, and I think that Daniel’s course contains analysis relevant to today, while Lewis’ course is a bit more enjoyment and part of a larger series on Greek history.
I’m taking Ellen Kenner’s course on psychological visibility in relationships and in Atlas Shrugged. I think that this principle is a fundamental principle for evaluating and enhancing personal relationships, and this course is excellent. If you’ve not been exposed to the thinking here, I highly recommend it.
Finally, last night was the academic panel where key Objectivist academics discussing their activities in academia. I twittered this even heavily and it’s worth looking at the detailed points if you want to build your enthusiasm. Three years ago, academics were talking about trying to place Objectivist philosophers in academia and scratching to get a seat at the table. Today, there are several Objectivist philosophers at key universities, and active dialogue with non-Objectivist philosophers on Rand’s ideas.

Social

Tonight is Diana Hsieh’s Obloggers dinner, and I’m looking forward to seeing many of my fellow bloggers!

OCON Days 3,4 & 5

2009-07-08T14:34:00.001-05:00

Session 1 is over. Session 2 began this morning. I’m going to limit my comments to the material in session 1, and pick up session 2 in a few days. My crow is overloaded and I’m blogging on break so I’ve got to unload now, as there’ll be more coming right behind.

Coursework

Biddle course on Rights and Metaphysical law: still superb, still highly recommended
Tara Smith followed up her first General session presentation with a second one on the significant threat of Non-Objective Law. This course was more technical in nature and paralleled her talk last year on the menace of Pragmatism. Bottom line is that non-Objective Law is a danger, not simply because it fails to provide for the protection of individual rights, but that it enables and activates their destruction.
Harry Binswanger is the king of teasing out the intricacies of epistemology and highlighting the absolute necessity for good epistemology on downstream ethics. His lecture dealing with the nature of Objectivity is no exception.

Social / Personal

I’ve met several fellow Obloggers and OAC students, many of whom I’ve only known virtually up until now. This includes Reasonpharm’s Stella Daily, Titanic Deck Chair’s C August, the husband and wife team of One Reality and Three Ring Binder. The OAC students met up at a mixer a few nights ago which also served as graduation ceremony for 4th year students.
I’d have mentioned Galileo Blogs’ Ray Niles in the above, but he deserves a note of his own as he’s also my roommate and a significant source of intellectual discussion.
Due to my lighter schedule in Session 1 I had 2 afternoons entirely free so I availed myself of the hotel facilities and obtained a massage, steam bath, and an hour or so by the pool reading Tolstoy. Yesterday I went over to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and spent a very enjoyable afternoon exploring. Highlights include Leighton’s Painter’s Honeymoon, John Singer Sargent’s Daughters of E.D. Boit, and Monteverde’s Columbus as a Boy.
Just a side note, I decided to use my netbook for taking notes, and it has surpassed all my expectations. I can take notes very effectively, and with roaming wireless access from the hotel Twitter in real time. Battery life is exceptional as long as I cut processor speed and screen brightness, and the weight of my briefcase is significantly less. The only downside is that my fountain pens which I dearly love using are seeing little use.
Finally, I’ve had a large number of conversations both light, and technical with various persons throughout the conference. Highlights include a discussion with Prof. Doug Altner regarding the status of Objectivist economists, and more coaching from Diana Hsieh on blogging and her experience running a multi-contributor blog.

OCON – Day 1 & 2

2009-07-05T13:09:00.001-05:00

It’s lunch time on Day two of 2009 Objectivist Conference. I had intended to blog daily but alas, yesterday was so full, I’ve not gotten to the post until today. In essence that is the theme concretized. This is my third conference and what always amazes me is the level of intellectual stimulation, through presentations, dinners, and the casual side conversations that arise spontaneously.

Highlights from the first few days of Session #1

Lectures

Craig Biddle’s course on Metaphysical Law and Moral Rights. This is a phenomenal course. Biddle essentially develops Rand’s basis for individual rights, as contrasted with the Founders. In essence day 1 he analyzed the philosophical basis behind the lines in the Declaration of Independence, “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights…” Self-evidency and endowment by their creator are not accidents. They trace back to Locke in his ideas of “natural law” and Jefferson’s conception of “moral sense.” Starting with Day 2 he masterfully develops Rand’s contrasting basis for rights from the facts of reality. Biddle’s case is clear and well presented, and I highly recommend this course.
Dr. Tara Smith’s lecture on Atlas Shrugged, entitled No Room for Ceasar: Good and Evil in Atlas Shrugged examines the either / or nature of key hero’s decisions in Atlas Shrugged. It is a powerful look at how the facts of reality give rise to absolute decisions, and how one cannot shirk from making those types of decisions in leading a fulfilling life.
Finally, today Dr. Onkar Ghate presents a tremendous analysis of the philosophical basis of the “separation between church and state” essentially articulating what is meant by the term, and tracing it’s roots back to Locke’s proper conception of rights, and the role of government and the church. He then illustrates how both today’s religionists (“freedom of religion”), and secularists (“freedom from religion”)make incorrect and unfounded arguments for the meaning of this separation. Dr. Ghate is brilliant and this lecture shows it. Highly recommended!

Themes

A few themes I see in this year’s conference

Several courses are analyzing Locke’s influence on philosophy. Biddle examines Locke’s incorrect conceptions of natural law, and the divine basis for rights, while Dr. Ghate examines his very well formulated concept of the separation between church and state.
The courses are increasingly presented in a way that does not require a background in Objectivism to be clear. Biddle’s development of Rand’s idea of rights is inductively based and relies at each step upon observations of the facts of reality.
The passion exuded by both speakers and the attendees gives on a sense of how importantly ideas are taken, and how clearly and powerfully those ideas are presented. Whether its Tara Smith forcefully entreating us to commit to live our own lives, or Craig Biddle beginning to tear up as he relates the story of an 11 year-old girl whom the FDA restricted from obtaining experimental cancer drugs, as a way to show that force is anti-life, you see real concrete evidence of the power of ideas and philosophy in living on earth.

Social

Opening Banquet. I always go to this, as it’s a great chance to meet everyone at the start of the conference, and to meet new people as well. I had a great dinner with Paul and Diana Hsieh, and fellow OAC classmate Brian Olive. Paul and I continued a discussion we’d started via email on methods and tips to help get some of my newly written op-eds published.
Dinners. I had dinner last night with my roomy Ray Niles, Richard and Lisa Salsman, and John Lewis and his wife. It was fantastic! Good food, good wine and certainly fantastic intellectual conversation.
I’ve gotten the opportunity to meet several objectivists who I knew only online or who were fellow OAC students. It’s always a pleasure to meet people who I’ve only known electronically, and finally put a personality to the ideas we’ve exchanged.

Communications

Just a quick reminder that there should be several bloggers posting on Ocon as well. I saw Paul Hsieh writing a post in lecture just this morning so Noodlefood should have something new. Also, multiple OCON attendees including myself are Twittering their activities at OCON. You can follow them all if you look for the #OCON tag.

OCON

2009-07-03T16:11:00.001-05:00

Quick note for those of you who’ve missed me. I’m at the 2009 Objectivist Conference in Boston, and plan to blog some highlights from it during the conference. Stay tuned!

The Bostonians

2009-06-02T21:46:00.001-05:00

The 2nd book in my reading goal is completed. Reading this one was painful, and while I now have Anna Karenina on my nightstand, I’m convinced that it will be a far easier task than plowing my way through Henry James’ The Bostonians.

Published in 1886, The Bostonians tells the story of Boston feminist Olive Chancellor, and her rivalry with Southern lawyer and cousin Basil Ransom. At stake in this rivalry is the allegiance of young Verena Tarrant, a young Bostonian woman, whom Olive has recruited as a protégé in the feminist movement. Verena is a capable public speaker and Olive hopes that she will use those skills in the interest of advancing women’s independence. Basil’s interest in Verena is purely romantic; however, he is a Southern conservative and disagrees with her feminist views entirely.

The plot of the novel chronicles the interactions of these three characters and revolves around Verena’s choices as a result of the influence exerted on her by Ransom and Olive Chancellor. The plot concept has potential and James could have taken it in several interesting directions. However, the book falls flat due to several key aspects.

First, James prose is stiltingly dull and tiresome. I am used to the long extended sentences prevalent during the period, but his descriptions are lifeless and far too abstract. Second, James characterizations do not add to the plot or help explain the characters actions. In fact, the key plot turn centers around Verena’s final decision. To explain this decision he does not expose us to the arguments that Basil uses to effect her change of heart. Even more egregious, he misleads the reader in regards to Verena’s character, effectively saying that her final decision reflects the fact that her actual character is nothing like what he has described throughout the entire book! This is the equivalent to the pulp crime mystery whose final attribution is explained by the revelation of critical knowledge heretofore unavailable to the reader.

I have been told that The American is James’ best novel, but unfortunately, it’ll be a while before I can muster the courage to plunge back into a book by this author.

Oh, did I say that posting would be light?

2009-06-01T20:43:00.001-05:00

It’s been a few months since I’ve posted. I learned a couple of months ago that I was being transferred to a new job in a new city. The past weeks have been spent learning the job, preparing my house for sale, and miscellaneous “stuff which I hadn’t considered, but that keeps sucking up my time.”

The new job is in Philadelphia, and I’m terribly excited both for the work and for the chance to live in a large city and nearer to my sister. If anyone is in the area, please zip me an email. I’d love to build a network of Objectivists in the area.

I’ve got my head above water for the present so a few posts will probably come out. I’d like to think that I’ll be able to stay with it, but not knowing the things that will tug at me I can’t promise anything. When I do post it will be with the level of quality that keeps all five of you coming back.

Oh, my latest is up on simply Capitalism. It was my first paper for my OAC Intro to Writing class, which is one of the best writing classes I’ve taken. Also a great post by Doug on the backdoor money presses our states are trying to create.

Tweenbots

2009-04-12T08:53:00.001-05:00

There is an idea that I’ve heard repeated at various times in my life, that there is not enough charitable feeling in naturally “self-centered” man to be of meaningful help to those in need. When I respond that there is ample benevolence in man, and in a capitalist society, ample surplus of productive resource (time, money, etc) that we should not make it a forced duty to be charitable, but rather allow man’s natural benevolence to take its course, most people tell me that resources have to be aggregated and centrally directed to be effective.

Here at least a is small demonstration that this thinking is completely wrong.

Saturday Round-up #7

2009-04-11T09:27:00.001-05:00

My puppy is being groomed this morning so I have a few extra minutes in the coffee shop.

1. Paul Volker, Reagan’s FED chairman and the engineer of Reagan’s economic recovery in the early 80’s, continues to be marginalized in the Obama administration. One wonders if the messages he’s delivering don’t jive with the desired policy direction. Of the top advisors Obama has, I thought he was the best hope for reasonable policy.

2. For those of you following the development of e-books, things are heating up. Kindle is working on a larger screen version. I’m still on the sidelines waiting for the right time to jump in. Until then, my netbook will suffice.

3. Steve Forbes is probably the one public figure rationally advocating for a gold standard or at least a dollar peg to gold. I am seeing this sort of argument being made more and more. Very good editorial by him here. In the same issue publisher Rich Kaarlgard, who I normally love, get the “Biggest Letdown by a Headline” Award. Reading the title “Failure of Morality, Not Capitalism” I was hoping that maybe a reasonable philosophical argument was coming next. Alas, the moral problem is not altruism, but “man’s animal side.” His prescriptions for what to do next reflect of a hash of mixed premises, with government playing the role of keeping man’s animal nature from hurting itself.

4. I follow a whole bunch of conservative and/or libertarian blogs. Mostly, I want to get a sense of what sort of intellectual discourse is going on these days in an attempt to remake the right into something that will have political clout, (and hopefully more philosophically grounded). David Frum’s NewMajority.com has become for me a huge disappointment in that area and a continued reflection of how the lack of philosophical grounding leads to terrible mix of ideas. It is what I would expect from a “moderate” website; mostly an amalgam of issues borrowed from the left and right, all toned down so as to appear more palatable to a greater majority of Americans, and almost all compromising any sense of principle. It is in essence borrowing the worst of all worlds. I especially was incensed at this article “God’s Climate Plan” which blends religion and environmentalism together in what Onkar Ghate forecasted at last year’s OCON would be a real warning sign of the continued dominance of religion: the coming together of religious mystics and environmental mystics.

My Latest on Simply Capitalism

2009-04-10T11:14:00.001-05:00

… can be read here.

Even the Smallest Action

2009-04-03T23:35:00.002-05:00

I’m back. I’ve learned not feel guilty when I take a hiatus from blogging, so I won’t apologize, but I will explain. First, I’ve been working on a few of my other goals, specifically remodeling one of those bathrooms. It’s good at times to get concrete, immediate tasks in your radar screen, but jobs like these become all consuming else they take too long. Second, my company is not immune from the economic crisis and good friends have been losing their jobs in the last few months. It’s not over yet, but hopefully will be soon. Third, there is so much in the news these days that is infuriating, I find myself not only struggling to keep up with the other things going on, but also quickly enraged. I’ve learned that while a rant is good for my own psyche, it makes for particularly poor writing quality and I am more keenly aware of my blogging efforts as efforts to communicate something rather than simply unload my frustration. So I’ve refrained from writing until I felt I could be a little be more controlled in what I wanted to say. In that sense, not writing is actually practicing better writing.

I’m almost finished reading The Aristotle Adventure, Burgess Laughlin’s great book detailing the historical fate of Aristotle’s philosophical ideas through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. For those who believe that ideas drive the course of history moreso than extraneous physical factors, and who know the fundamentality of Aristotle’s ideas about reason recognize that it was the rise of religious mysticism and the repression of the study of philosophical ideas that led to the destruction of the classical world and ushered in the aptly named Dark Ages. For a millennium, Aristotle’s ideas hung by a very thin thread until they were rediscovered by Christian scholastics in the twelfth century. The Aristotle Adventure recounts the route by which those ideas survived. It is a detailed account of the various scholars throughout the various cultures who preserved and transmitted those ideas. It started out to me as a somewhat encyclopedic account of these scholars, but somewhere in the middle it became for me a fascinating look at the mechanisms by which ideas are translated. By examining specific actions, and their results in the successful transmission of ideas, Burgess paints a picture of what is fundamentally necessary to advance ideas. Here are some big “take-away’s” for me.

1. Battle of Reason vs. Mysticism. This whole era is dominated fundamentally by a battle between advocate of religious mysticism (early Christians and Muslim) and advocates of reason, with mystics having the upper hand. Unlike the Hellenistic period, where free inquiry was generally accepted and which had a strong tradition of intellectual inquiry, the Dark Ages see advocates of reason generally suppressed and persecuted. Books were destroyed; philosophers were constantly being denounced as heretics. When reason itself is on the defensive, it becomes terribly difficult to keep an intellectual tradition going.

2. Value, i.e. human imparted meaning as a key to transmission. A book can molder on a shelf or in a cellar, the ideas it expresses languishing in the culture. It is only when people internalize and hold those ideas as a value and then act upon that value that ideas are disseminated. That is a powerful lesson to any advocate of reason today. Unless you know what ideas to value and then you act upon those values, nothing changes. Ideas don’t change the world. People acting on them do.

3. The value of books. This was a fascinating sideline to me. At this time, “books” were not mass produced, but rather generated as single volumes, often by the author himself. When you realize the value of the ideas contained within them, and that many times during this era that the transmission of ideas from one generation to the next relied upon a few texts surviving into the next generation, you get a sense of the value that scholars must have place on particular volumes. When you read of Spanish scholastics travelling to Babylon in the Arab world, in search of books (!) it makes you consider the ubiquitousness of ideas today, and the knowledge available within a few clicks on Amazon.com in a whole new light.

4. Role that even small actions play in advancing or preserving ideas. Sometimes the difference between the loss of ideas and their preservation consisted of nothing more than hiding volumes from those who would burn them, or maybe a copyist replicating a key text so that it would survive into the next generation for some scholar to find and make use of, or maybe simply teaching others the ideas so that they could pass them on as well. At times it did not matter if these persons even understood the ideas they were transmitting (although ultimately that is critical). Again another lesson of intellectual activists. There is plenty of work to do. And sometimes that work consists of even the littlest things.

I had a friend today express personal dissatisfaction with some of the things he was doing, searching for more “meaningful” objectives in his life. I look back upon the lessons of Burgess’s book, of the various factors required for success: valuing, understanding ideas, small steps in disseminating them. I look back at a millennium of struggle for reason, and then I think of my friend’s frustration. So here he is at a protest he led outside the G20 this week, a pro-capitalist protest in the face of all the anti-capitalist protests that abounded there. I think about the fact that he’s valuing ideas, disseminating those ideas, the right ideas, with an understanding of what he is saying. And I realize that he’s standing on the shoulders of giants, and yet in his own way, reaching just that little bit higher. Meaningless? Hardly. Thanks to Burgess for writing his book, and nice job, Rory.

“Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.” Ayn Rand.

Objectivist Round Up

2009-03-06T18:00:00.000-05:00

Tito has it this week. Check it out!

Saturday round-up #6

2009-02-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

The Swedish model of bank nationalization has been pointed too as a possible model. It wasn’t actually a nationalization. Detail here.
The Obama budget has been analyzed in multiple posts (Mankiw, Mankiw 2, RCM, EconLog, Cafe Hayek). Bottom line: rosy growth projections bolstering huge deficits beyond the recession. Credit for “fiscal discipline” to use worst year of the recession as the benchmark. Lots of spin, lots of ‘redistribution’, little financial discipline.
ARI has posted the video of John Allison’s talk on the causes of the financial crisis. It is a very insightful talk from an industry insider with many concrete examples. Invaluable.
For a near daily dose of examples of entrepreneurs, and businessmen who have changed the way we live, I subscribe to the Heroes of Capitalism blog. Headed up by Dr. Eric Daniels of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism. Great histories of capitalists from the last two centuries!

Follow up

2009-02-27T12:57:00.001-05:00

And a follow-up to my last from Will on private vs. public education.

The international evidence shows that private provision of education is often better but never worse than public provision. That there is so little private provision — not just in the U.S., but anywhere – can seem like a puzzle if you happen to think policy will tend to reflect the preferences of a benevolent technocrat. As Carney’s piece below shows, powerful entrenched interests may have a stake in making sure private provision stays crowded out.

Want to know who has an interest in keeping school socialized? Read on.

Control of Education

2009-02-27T12:50:00.001-05:00

Will Wilkinson has a great post on the absolute size and power of the public teacher’s union lobby in Washington. Think that big corporations are the ones with political pull. Guess again.

Saturday Round-up #5

2009-02-21T21:30:00.001-05:00

Interesting article over at Forbes.com. “The Social Democratic Moment” asserts that political system that has come out on top over the course of the 20th century is “social democracy” rather than any sort of laissez faire liberalism. I’m interested in this and large scale economic/political/cultural trends since I’m involved in advocating for ideas I believe in. It certainly is not lost on me that most modern states have some variant of welfare statism, and I have to wonder if this trend is reversible.
Over at simply Capitalism, my fellow blogger RealistTheorist, examines a variant of the “broken window” hypothesis, namely that war is somehow good for economies.
Watch out for the N word (Nationalization) to become more prevalent in the discussion around the financial crisis. I feel another simply Capitalism post coming on.

Round-up

2009-02-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

Latest O Round-up. Rule of Reason. Check it out!

Epstein on Obamanomics

2009-02-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

Over at VOICES for REASON, Alex Epstein has a great post recounting how Obama in eschewing the “same ideas that got us here” is actually embracing them.

Inflation at sCap

2009-02-18T17:00:00.000-05:00

Over at simply Capitalism, I’ve just posted discussing the drivers of potential use of inflation as monetary policy during this crisis.

Greenspan on the Free Market

2009-02-18T09:00:00.000-05:00

It’s gotten to the point that whenever I read about any of Alan Greenspan’s new commentary on the economy, I’m sure to be unable to finish the article without disgust. I’ve been working on a small op-ed for my OAC class regarding the mortgage crisis and as a result I’ve had to read some of Greenspan’s commentary over the last few years. What I’ve come to understand is that in any given context, it’s not what he says that is so crucial it’s what he fails to say. Take his commentary last night at a New York Economic Club dinner regarding the recent crisis, from a WSJ blog entry. [bold mine]

In comments at a New York Economic Club dinner late Tuesday, the retired Fed chairman steered clear of much self-reflection on his role in the credit boom. But he did take a new swipe at the market’s self-correcting tendencies and bowed his head to a new period of increased regulation.

“All of the sophisticated mathematics and computer wizardry essentially rested on one central premise: that enlightened self interest of owners and managers of financial institutions would lead them to maintain a sufficient buffer against insolvency by actively monitoring and managing their firms’ capital and risk positions,” the Fed chairman said. The premise failed in the summer of 2007, he said, leaving him “deeply dismayed.”

Self-regulation is still a first-line of defense, Mr. Greenspan said. But after the financial collapse of 2007 and 2008, “I see no alternative to a set of heightened federal regulatory rules of behavior for banks and other financial institutions.” He said hoped hoped it would come in the form of tougher capital requirements for banks.

The glaring omission of course is that if sophisticated mathematics and wizardry did not allow bankers to see [past the distorted economic policy he himself was implementing – but I digress] the future then by what method will a regulator be able to a priori prevent the same thing from happening? This is the key omission when anyone clamors for central planning or regulation. Anyone can apply regulations in hind sight, which only guarantees that the next financial crisis will occur somewhere else that was also unforeseen.

Controls will not prevent financial crises. They will only breed more controls.

Follow up to my last post

2009-02-17T17:00:00.000-05:00

About 10 minutes after my last came out, I saw a similar blog post come out of VOICES of REASON. Part 2 of a 2 Part series entitled “The Czars Come to America”, author Onkar Ghate discusses the growing role of regulators in running of the economy. Part I is here.

Great posts. Definitely check them out!

Wither Wesley Mouch

2009-02-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

Just a follow-up note to RealistTheorist’s post over at simply Capitalism on economic bureaucrat Larry Summers and the concern over what his influence on the Obama administration might mean. Yves Smith at naked capitalism has a great post on the consolidation of power by Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Paul Volker has already been marginalized in his role. Here’s Yves take:

For the record, we have never been happy about the prominent roles Geithner and Summers are playing. Both played significant roles in creating and maintaining the system that lead to our financial mess. They are simply unable to see beyond their ideological blinkers. And as proteges of Robert Rubin, they are epitomes of what Willem Buiter calls "cognitive regulatory capture".

It seems Realist’s concern expressed in his original post is founded. Here’s a quote from Wikipedia describing Wesley Mouch, the character in Atlas Shrugged who ends up becoming the nation’s economic Czar:

Eventually he becomes the most powerful Looter, and the country's economic dictator, thereby illustrating Rand's belief that a government-run economy places too much power in the hands of incompetent bureaucrats who would never have positions of similar influence in a private sector business.

Atlas is becoming more prophetic every day.