OCON 2011

We returned from this year’s Objectivist Conferences a few days ago, so here I will post a few notes about it. I had a really wonderful time. The conference somehow seemed a little more subdued than the last OCON we attended (Boston, 2009), an atmosphere Lynne marked even more than I did, but it was still very inspiring and informative for me.

Yaron Brook set the theme—actually two themes—in his opening lecture: Objectivism is both radical and hard. This is not news, of course, but the two adjectives, radical and hard, kept resurfacing during the lectures. Ayn Rand’s discoveries may seem like common sense—indeed, my reaction, when I first devoured the novels and the non-fiction almost thirty years ago, was that it all seemed so obvious—but in fact the material is difficult and takes years to fully integrate. (I am nowhere near having fully integrated the material myself.) Ayn Rand did all the heavy lifting, but good scholarship is needed today: books, speakers, university positions, etc. And because we are badly outnumbered by the bad guys (i.e. collectivists, statists, and mystics), we who fight for reason and freedom must be excellent. We need to be fighters, to have fire in the belly, to be unafraid.

My “takeaway” from the conference is this. To flourish in life, it is enough to be right in my personal life. However, if I am to participate in a change in the culture—if I am to assist in arresting and reversing the momentum of the civilized world as it hurtles toward statism—it is not enough to simply be right. I must be able to demonstrate and convey the rightness of reason and rational self-interest. The task is nothing short of reversing at least two thousand years of moral inertia. I’ve been living my life and working hard at my job, but I need to accomplish more on this change-the-culture front.

One conference attendee asked an interesting question. Paraphrasing, it went something like this: “It has been said that great ideas are first ignored, then ridiculed, then opposed, then accepted. Where in this progression are we [i.e. Objectivism] now?” It seems pretty clear to me that we are well past the “ignored” stage and have moved into the “ridiculed” stage, perhaps even to the “opposed” stage. An increasing portion of the attention Ayn Rand is getting is serious; her ideas are often disagreed with, but they are represented more or less correctly quite often. This is tremendous progress. Naturally, there still exists an enormous hostility to Rand among certain mentalities, both on the left and the right, who reserve their most revolting vitriol for the ideas that they seem to recognize are the greatest threat to their irrationality (indeed, they are correct on this count), but it has an increasing tone of desperation. 

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On Independence Day, John Ridpath did a moving reading of Thomas Jefferson’s last letter, which was written in June 1826. (If you’ve ever heard Ridpath speak, you know how dramatic his deep, sonorous voice is.) The ailing Jefferson was writing to regretfully decline an invitation to attend a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of signing of the Declaration of Independence. The whole letter is amazing, and it includes this gem: 

May it [i.e. the Declaration] be to the world, what I believe it will be . . . the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves . . . All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.[1]

Amazing.

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In his lecture, “Individual Rights and Health Care Reform: A Patient’s Perspective,” John David Lewis shared his personal experiences that he had with a team of doctors during a recent serious illness, linking his observations to the wider ideas of freedom and individual rights. It is no surprise that doctors generally exhibit an extraordinary orientation to reality, a “deeply and profoundly Aristotelian approach,” as Dr. Lewis put it. The subjugation of doctors, other health care professionals, and patients to Washington bureaucrats is an evil that is almost too monstrous to fathom. Government rules are placed between minds and reality; they are obstructions, thwarting men’s abilities to judge and act. Government intervention is nothing short of an attack on life itself.

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I believe the gem of the conference for me was Thomas Shoebotham’s wonderful set of lectures, “Bach and the 19^th Century.” Shoebotham covered Bach’s background and major influences, such as Buxtehude and Pachelbel, as well as the foreign influences from Italy (Corelli and Vivaldi) and France (Lully and Rameau). He reviewed some technical material—counterpoint and fugue, the chaconne, the passacaglia, and the German chorale—then traced the influence that Bach’s music had on other composers, from Beethoven and Mozart, to Mendelssohn (who almost single-handedly revived Bach’s music from popular obscurity), to Chopin, Brahms, and Wagner. He made a lot of fascinating connections, and it was thrilling and very instructive to hear Shoebotham play excerpts on piano and cello, both instruments of which he plays quite proficiently.

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In “The Culture of ‘Package-Dealing’,” Peter Schwartz lectured upon the topic of anti-concepts, which are conceptual “package deals” that have the purpose of destroying legitimate concepts. They function by the implicit substitution of essentials by non-essentials. Classification by non-essential properties paralyses an unwitting mind, obstructing his ability to distinguish the proper referents to a concept from improper ones, and crucially, impairing his ability to identify what ought to be regarded as essential. 

A few examples that were given in the lecture will illustrate the idea. The term “judgmentalism,” for instance, obliterates rational judgment; all judgment, including that which is warranted and rational, is condemned under the sweeping rule that “one must not judge.” The concept of a “stakeholder” destroys that of a shareholder, diluting ownership—actual property rights—with the idea that many others have claims to “a piece of the pie.” The word “simplistic” obliterates principled thinking; the practice of integrating information and identifying fundamentals, as opposed to holding all facts as isolated and unrelated, is thus derided as unjustified over-simplification. The term “divisive” silences principled arguments against mainstream irrational ideas (e.g. multiculturalism).

And of course, the archetype of package deals is selfishness. In this case, a new word was not coined, but a new meaning supplanted the proper one. Selfishness should mean a rational and moral concern for one’s own life and values; it is a virtue. But today, selfishness has come to mean “a pursuit of desires at the expense of others.” This is a disastrous package deal. It lumps together the honest man who works for a living with the thug who picks pockets in a crowd. It blurs the distinction between the entrepreneur who opens a bottle of champagne to celebrate a success and the junkie who shoot heroin to temporarily satisfy an urge to escape his miserable existence. The life-sustaining virtue of long range self-interest is thus replaced by the notion that selfishness is hedonistic or predatory, which serves the purpose of destroying the virtue.

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Perhaps the most challenging and rewarding class I took was Jason Rheins course, “The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant (part 2): Kant’s Moral Philosophy.” Rheins pointed out that it is Kant more than anybody else who in his ethics has influenced subsequent intellectuals. Rheins did an excellent job covering a lot of difficult material in only three sessions: Kant’s distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge and the epistemological division of the numenal and the phenomenal; the derivation of morality from “practical reason”; a contrast of Kant’s deontological (duty-based) ethics with axiological (value-based) ethics; the concepts of acting from duty as opposed to in accordance with duty, and the resulting moral significance of each; the distinction between moral imperatives that Kant called “hypothetical” from those he called “categorical”; and the “formula for humanity,” the “highest good.” I had had a basic idea of some of this material before, but this course provided a lot of clarification and depth.

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The one optional class that Lynne and I took together was John David Lewis’ course, “The History of Ancient Greece: The Early Fourth Century.” (We love Dr. Lewis. He is one of the most brilliant, impassioned, and courageous intellectuals alive today—a hero worthy of the Greeks that he knows so thoroughly. He greeted us warmly even though he hadn’t seen us in two years.) The material he covered was quite interesting—I know a fair amount about the 5^th century BC, but I was inclined to regard the 4^th century as nothing but a decline for Greece, which is a rather conventional viewpoint. Dr. Lewis sees this as a profound mistake, saying he can “make a good case that the 4^th century has it hands down over the 5^th!” When the facts are integrated properly, a few important ideas emerge. For one thing, Athens recovered rapidly after the Peloponnesian War, returning to prosperity—and crucially, when it constructed a second Athenian League, it faced and solved many of the problems that had plagued its first attempt with the Delian League in the previous century. (The Athenians did not have the concept of individual rights, of course, but many of their considerations struck remarkably close to a respect for freedom.) This period also saw the decline of statist Sparta, as its façade of invincibility—the “Spartan mirage”—crumbled to expose a rotten core. The Spartan decline corresponded to an ascendancy of Thebes, the great general Epaminondas, and the dramatic liberation of Messenia in 369 BC.

The tale is ultimately tragic, however. The Greeks never quite solved the federalist problem; that is, they never quite resolved the desire for autonomia—autonomy and independence for the polis—with the practical benefits of a joint defense for all of Greece. This left them vulnerable for what was to come: the rise of Macedonia.

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Lynne and I both really enjoyed the unexpected surprise of meeting Luc Travers, a teacher at Van Damme Academy, and author of the book, Touching the Art. (Lynne has already read the book, and I have now moved it closer to the top of my pile!) Travers is infectiously enthusiastic, and he generously invited our daughters to his brief presentation (which turned into a standing-room-only performance) of his approach to art, which we all enjoyed.

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John Allison, who is one of the indefatigable champions of Objectivism and former chairman and CEO of BB&T, presented a lecture on “Teamwork and Independence,” which presented a view that is undoubtedly unconventional in the business world. In essence, Allison refuted the pat expression, “there is no ‘I’ in ‘team’.” (Those are my words, not Allison’s.) His system is meritorious, rewarding independent thinking, honesty, and productivity.

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Another important point for me to keep in mind, which came out in a lecture Dr. Brook and Don Watkins presented called “”The End of Big Government,” is that it is essential to differentiate capitalism from the mixed economy we have today. It is obvious to Objectivists that the mixed economy is not capitalism, but the general public is likely to believe it is, particularly since that is what they are told by their teachers and the news media.

It is thus crucial to demonstrate the win-win nature of unfettered capitalism and the trader principle. And of course, the deeper message is the morality of capitalism; at its root is the protection of individual rights, the elimination of initiated physical force in human relationships, the selfish pursuit of happiness for every person. After all, as Dr. Brook said, “We are the heirs of the Enlightenment.”

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I took Harry Binswanger’s class, “Principles,” which had a lot of challenging material that it will take me a while to mentally “chew” on. The basic issue regarding principled thinking is that of fundamentality, which is established from the perspective of hierarchical causal (and, I believe, logical) dependencies. Principles are vital tools of cognition; they offer a condensed view of all consequences to particular actions, and thus permit long-range thinking.

I would guess that much of Dr. Binswanger’s presentation is based upon material from his forthcoming book, which is still in the editing stage, so I am very much looking forward to its appearance. 

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One final note on the conference: I would be remiss not to mention the great time we had meeting some old friends and some new friends. On every morning but one, Lynne and I hit the hotel gym at oh-six-hundred hours, where we met two or three friends to do some CrossFit training. We had the pleasure of making some new acquaintances at an HBL get-together, had some nice conversations while milling about in the hotel lobby, and were thrilled to have lunch and dinner with some friends that we had previously only known online. We even went salsa dancing with a few friends one evening, which ended with a limousine ride back to the hotel. (I had fun, though I admit the deepest conceivable incompetence in salsa dancing, not to mention an utter inability to hear a single word of conversation in the din.)

NOTES

1. “Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Roger C. Weightman,” Monticello, June 24, 1826, Library of Congress, “http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/rcwltr.html”.

OCON Update - July 10 and 11, 2009

John Lewis concluded his course on “The History of Ancient Greece: The Archaic Period.”  I think it was my very favorite of the optional courses, which is saying quite a lot.  Naturally, his time was very limited in this short course, but Dr. Lewis managed to paint a wonderfully rich sketch of this amazing infancy of western civilization, and to demonstrate its significance as it leads to the classical period of Greek history.  LB and I came away from the course with a much better understanding of the archaic period, and we are both excited to explore some of the poetry and writings that Dr. Lewis introduced in the class.

I took copious notes in Elan Journo’s course, “Understanding the Arab-Israeli Conflict.”  He managed to cover an enormous amount of material, and interestingly, even though he was presenting this at OCON, I think his approach would be very suitable for a general audience.  (That is likely the intent, for it was being filmed.)  His was a systematic approach: a chronological, objective unfolding of facts with little or no evaluation.  It is true that a rational person could come to only one conclusion faced with these facts, but Mr. Journo left the conclusions to the listener.

In a general lecture called “Free Minds and Free Markets,” Peter Schwartz pointed out the inextricable connection of liberty and capitalism.  As Ayn Rand put it, “A free mind and a free market are corollaries.”  Mr. Schwartz elaborated upon this with his typical brilliance and intensity, and he illustrated his points with many examples, including some execrable quotes from Nicholas Kristof, David Brooks, and Cass Sunstein.

Wayne Fortun, the CEO of Hutchinson Technology, presented an inspiring lecture called “Objectivist Corporate Culture Is a Durable Competitive Advantage.”  The published and practiced values of his extraordinarily successful company incorporate Objectivist principles with consistency.  It is not a surprise to see this success, of course, but it is nice to observe the practical manifestations of implementing reason, and of establishing the virtues that derive from reason. 

Finally, Harry Binswanger presented the conclusion to his lecture, “The Objective vs. the Intrinsic and the Subjective.”  In this, he pointed out the false dichotomy of subjectivism versus intrinsicism, and showed how reality actually supports a trichotomy.  It is the objective view of ethics, politics, law, etc. that is proper, as against the subjective and the intrinsic.  Though there is a clear distinction between the subjective and intrinsic views, they often have a surprising amount in common... and of course are invariably wrong.  There is a wealth of material here, including some very powerful concepts that tie in with Leonard Peikoff’s DIM Hypothesis, so I plan to return to my notes frequently in order to “chew” on the ideas.  I would say that of all the general lectures at the conference - and that includes the ones by superstars like Tara Smith, Onkar Ghate, and Peter Schwartz - the most valuable ones for me were the pair by Dr. Binswanger.

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It would be hard to overstate the spiritual lift that these days at OCON have provided.  (Naturally, I use the word “spiritual” here in an utterly non-mystical sense!)  I came into the conference feeling a bit overworked and discouraged about the state of America and the world.  I feel completely recharged now and armed for battle, as it were.

If I have a regret, it is that LB and I had not come to OCON before.  I had attended one by myself back in 1992, but now I rue missing the conferences of the intervening years (though we had legitimate obstacles - it is difficult for us to leave for a week or two on a vacation that does not include the kids).  I don’t know when we will be able to return, but tentatively, we are regarding the Fort Lauderdale conference in 2011 as our next opportunity.  In the meantime, I am determined to improve my thinking and writing, and to fight a fight worth making: to make the world a better place... for me.

OCON Update - July 7 through 9, 2009

Lisa Van Damme concluded her course “Ibsen the Iconoclast” with an analysis of The Wild Duck.  While preparing the material for the course, Miss Van Damme had a dramatic transformation in her own thinking of the work - and indeed, of Ibsen’s work more generally - but I’m not going to reveal the nature of that transformation.  To find out, you’ll just have to purchase the recording, which will be available at some point at Ayn Rand Bookstore!

Yaron Brook finished with his course on “The Financial Crisis: What Happened And Why,”  He did an exceptionally good job of encapsulating and reducing to essentials an enormous amount of material in just over four hours of lecture time.  Similarly, Elan Journo has the challenge of condensing a complex succession of events in his course “Understanding the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” which began on Wednesday.  And last but not least, LB and I are together taking John Lewis’ course, “The History of Ancient Greece: The Archaic Period,” in which Dr. Lewis will establish the historical context for the Classical Period in Greece.  The depth of his knowledge is impressive and his enthusiasm infectious; he is clearly thrilled to be teaching a positive topic for a change, considering how he has lately been concentrating on the Islamist war on America.

LB and I have also attended all the general lectures.  Tara Smith gave her second lecture at the conference, entitled, “Humanity’s Darkest Evil: The Lethal Destructiveness of Non-Objective Law.”  In this, she demonstrates that for the very reason that the purpose of government sets the standard for objective law, a government that adopts or gradually accepts non-objective law becomes an unparalleled menace to human life.

Harry Binswanger’s lecture, “The Objective vs. the Intrinsic and the Subjective,” contained many profound ideas about objectivity in general.  One point in particular was something of a new perspective for me: that objectivity consists of the self-conscious, deliberate use of logic.  Note that both the self-conscious and deliberate components are required, something that I had not quite fully identified before.  It is not enough to use logic, but one must also know one is using logic in order to be truly objective.  Dr. Binswanger made another point that I regard as profound: he speculated that one of the troubles with the culture today is that people hold moral premises (ones that they have invariably absorbed uncritically from various sources) as if they were metaphysically-given percepts.  I think this is a brilliant insight, and it explains much of the overwhelming passivity - the non-thinking - exhibited by America and the West.

Greg Salmieri presented a lecture called “Atlas Shrugged on the Role of the Mind in Man’s Existence.”  In this he explored the theme of Atlas Shrugged from a philosophical perspective, including Ayn Rand’s unique position on reason, consciousness, and the false dichotomy of the soul and body.

Finally, John Allison, the heroic former CEO of BB&T, made a very inspiring speech called “Principled Leadership.”

On Thursday night, LB And I had a great time going out to dinner with many OBloggers whom we had never met before.  Of course, we already knew C. August from Titanic Deck Chairs, but we also got to meet Diana and Paul Hsieh from NoodleFood, Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn, Kendall J from The Crucible, Jason from The Rational Egoist, Shea Levy from Cogito’s Thoughts, Craig Biddle from The Objective Standard, Mark from Randex, and special guest Trey from Flibbertigibbet!   

OCON Update - July 4 through 6, 2009

Tara Smith, one of my favorite Objectivist speakers, presented a very interesting lecture called “No Tributes to Caesar: Good and Evil in Atlas Shrugged.”  Upon a re-reading of Atlas Shrugged, Dr. Smith was struck anew by the “either/or”-ness of the novel - that is, that there is no refuge from the absolutism of the basic alternative of life or death.  Objectivists are naturally familiar with the axiom of non-contradiction - that something cannot be both A and non-A in the same respect.  But here, Dr. Smith is emphasizing a less common, but crucial perspective: the law of excluded middle.  Something must be either A or non-A; it cannot fall somewhere in between.  Dr. Smith illustrated the point with several examples from Ayn Rand’s novels.

Allan Gotthelf presented his lecture “Hallmarks of Objectivism: The Benevolent Universe Premise and the Heroic View of Man.”  I found this material to be quite fascinating.  It included many interesting facets of Ayn Rand’s thinking, including a description of how she developed her heroic view of man.  One idea in particular was new to me and struck me as quite profound.  At one point, Ayn Rand realized that it is not necessary to defend mankind as a species; indeed, this might be difficult or impossible to do without inventing some sort of deterministic “original virtue” to contrast with the “original sin” posited by Christians, which of course would be an unjustifiable departure from reality.  All that is needed to see man as heroic is to see what an individual is capable of.  This alone   (I hope I’ve gotten this right.  While Dr. Gotthelf was making the point, my mind started racing on the implications, but I believe I’ve captured his point faithfully.)

Onkar Ghate had an excellent lecture on the topic of “The Separation of Church and State.”  He pointed out how the three main arguments addressing the “wall of separation” today - namely, those of the religionists, the secularists, and the compromisers - are all mistaken, and none have a proper view of the role of the state with respect to individuals.  Dr. Ghate then presented the proper, principled defense of the separation of state and church (and for that matter, of the separation of state and economics). 

Beyond these general lectures, I am enjoying some of the optional courses.  In “Ibsen the Iconoclast,” Lisa VanDamme is analyzing three masterpieces of the Norwegian playwright.  We’ve already competed the remarkable Brand and have moved onto A Doll’s House.  In “The Financial Crisis: What Happened And Why,” Yaron Brook is debunking the preposterous popular account that pins the financial crisis on the free market by presenting the real underpinnings of the current recession.  

LB is taking a couple of interesting courses as well: Craig Biddle’s “Moral Rights and Metaphysical Law” and Thomas Bowden’s “Property Rights - and Wrongs.”  Hopefully, she is taking good notes because I want to get the essence of both of those topics!  From what she has told me so far, both classes have been of great value to her.

Overall, we are having a great time.  It has been very inspiring.  We have met some old friends (in particular some former Massachusetts friends that I had not seen for many years), some new friends, and have met many people whose writings we like and in many cases greatly admire.