What an honor.
I just got elected secretary of the Libertarian Party of Atlanta. Yay!!

--------------Tom Blackstone

http://tomsphilosophy.tripod.com

Diana Hsieh and ARI
Over the past few days I've been discussing Diana Hsieh's defection from
The Objectivist Center to the the Ayn Rand Institute. I have been wanting to write an essay on this issue for a long time but have been waiting for Diana to write her "detailed commentary". Nevertheless, I made a few preliminary arguments on Diana Hsieh's blog, which can be found here (clicks on "noodles" under the Sunday, August 1, 2004 post).

-------------Tom Blackstone

http://www.tomsphilosophy.tripod.com

FORum, SOLO discussions, and my love-hate relationship with TOC.
I was supposed to go to the Fellowship of Reasons monthly "FORum" today (despite my disagreements with them, I still find their meetings valuable), but I awoke to find that my extremely forgetful roommate who was supposed to be giving me a ride was not here. Oh well, I suppose there is always next month. I have been spending alot of time lately on the SOLO forum, and have participated in some interesting conversations. One of the people I've managed to meet is Luke Setzer, the founder of Solo Florida. Luke shares my interest in building a grassroots Objectivist movement, and we have had an enlightening discussion about how to accomplish such a thing. At this point, I am in the process of reading books to try to get the knowledge I need to start the organization, as I have realized it's going to be quite an ordeal just to get it going. Some other interesting discussions I've had are on the NIIF principle in libertarianism (found here) and the Big Bang Theory (found here). In other news, I am beginning to really have a love/hate relationship with The Objectivist Center. I have signed up for Will Thomas' "Objectivism From the Source" course that is to be given this fall, and am looking forward to the class. However, I was appalled to find a "Report From The Front" article delivered to my e-mail in regards to John Kerry's nomination acceptance speech in which Ed Hudgins is unbelievably sympathetic to the Bush administration. Hudgins states "In some cases Kerry seemed to be making jokes that he assumed his audience, with self-induced attention deficit disorder, would never pick up on. For example, he began by stating that President Bush misled us into war -- despite the fact that Kerry, Clinton and everyone else believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, based on the same now-known-to-be-flawed intelligence. Then in this speech that he began by calling Bush a liar, he ended by asking Bush to run a civil campaign: 'Let's respect one another.' Very funny, John!" For such an article to be written at all is bad enough, but for it to be put out by an organization which purports to promote Objectivism is just terrible. ------------------Tom Blackstone http://tomsphilosophy.tripod.com

An Objectivist Society?
I recently posted this to Objectivism@wetheliving.com . Unfortunately something went wrong and it didn't get through. I also posted it to humanities.philosophy.objectivism and the SOLO forum.

From: Tom Blackstone
To: objectivism@wetheliving.com
Subject: An Objectivist Society?
Sent: Wednesday, July 7, 2004 5:09 PM
Allright,
This topic is going to be very different from most of the topics that are discussed on this list. Nevertheless, it is important and needs to be discussed.
I have been concerned for some time with the lack of success that I see in Objectivists' attempts to spread their philosophy. In particular, I have noticed that there are very few city-level Objectivist organizations in the United States. On the Objectivist Center's website, there are only about 50 "local clubs" listed, and many of these have very few members. Compare that to the Libertarian Party, which has 50 "county" organizations in Georgia and Florida alone (that's not even counting the state parties and the college clubs), and which engage in hundreds of meetings every year. It is no wonder that "libertarianism" has become a term spattered throughout popular culture while the term "Objectivism" is practically unknown.
This is a big concern to me, because I think that what Objectivism has to say is important and should have more influence on our culture.
I have been wondering what the cause of this stagnation in the movement is, and have come to one conclusion: the Objectivist movement is not organized the way it should be.
In essence, the Objectivist movement has adopted what I would call the "trickle-down" theory of philosophical advocacy. Since the time of NBI, Objectivism has always been represented by "think-tanks" who attempt to change the culture by doing academic research, giving "courses" on Objectivism, and publishing "op-eds". The idea behind all of this is to get Objectivist ideas into the Universities and allow them to be absorbed by osmosis into the rest of the culture.
I think this is a terrible way to spread philosophical ideas. If the apostle Paul had tried to spread Christianity this way, I think most Americans would be worshipping Jupiter right now.
Instead, Paul concentrated on converting massive amounts of people to his ideas. Eventually, some of those people went on to become "prophets" and "theologians" and the "academic" side straightened itself out on it's own.
I think this is the strategy that Objectivists should employ, and I have some idea of how it should be done.
First of all, the best thing Objectivism has going for it is it's local clubs. Just as Paul spread Christianity by building churches throughout the Roman Empire, we can best succeed by building local clubs throughout the U.S. and the world.
The problem that we have however, is that the clubs are not working together to promote the Objectivist movement as a whole. Instead, they are each kind of trying to make do on their own. Again, I make the analogy with the Libertarian Party. I doubt it would be nearly as successful if there was no national LP.
Another problem that we have is that the local clubs' meetings tend to have a kind of "study group" atmosphere that is appealing to some but many people find boring (or at least that has been my experience here in Georgia).
For awhile I thought that maybe the "Fellowship of Reason" (www.fellowshipofreason.com) would turn out to solve all of those problems. But after recently moving to Atlanta, I have found out that FOR has been hijacked by non-Objectivists and is now hopelessly beyond repair.
It looks like there is no organization around today that is suitable for what I'm talking about doing.
So at this point I'm considering the idea of forming a new Objectivist organization, tentatively called "The Objectivist Society" who's sole purpose is to convert large amounts of people to Objectivism. This will be done by forming "moral communities" that will participate in "celebrations" of Objectivist ideas as well as the traditional "study groups". It will also include purely social activities like "Pub night", "Movie Night", and holiday parties.
I am thinking of something very similar to The Fellowship of Reason but without the wishy-washiness.
The organization would be governed by a "national committee" elected by the members at a convention every two years. The national committee's job would be to advertise the organization on a national level and to do things like print flyers explaining Objectivist philosophy which could be distributed at the local level. It would also be in charge of printing the national newsletter, "Objectivist News" which would be mailed to all dues-paying members and would include enlightening philosophical essays and news on things that were happening in the movement.
The dues would probabely be around $25, half of which would go to the local club nearest the member and half of which would go to the national organization.
Eventually, a short, easy-to-read, non-fiction book is going to have to be written explaining the philosophy of Objectivism to those people who have never heard of it and informing them of how to get involved with the group.
I think if we were to do these things, within about 25 years we should have enough members to rival some of the smaller religious movements, and would be well on our way to creating a much more rational society.
What do you guys think? I am eager to hear your comments on my ideas - pro or con.

------------------------------------Tom Blackstone

http://tomsphilosophy.tripod.com

Posted by tomsphilosophy at 8:55 PM EDT

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Been a long time.
Whew,
It has been a long time since I've written in this blog. In the past year my philosophical studies have been interrupted quite extensively. Having moved from Savannah, back to Brunswick, then to Athens, then to Atlanta, then back to Brunswick, then finally getting settled in Atlanta, this has not been a very productive year.
But all of that is over now. I am entering Georgia Perimeter College in August, and as soon as I get my computer shipped over here I will be back doing research and writing essays as usual.
In other news, I am thinking of joining "The Fellowship of Reason" (FOR), a group that describes itself as "A Rational Moral Community for the 21st Century". (http://fellowshipofreason.com) The groups beliefs are identical to those of Objectivists. In addition, they are concerned with building a "community" of rational people. In other words, they are a "grassroots" movement.
I have been convinced for a long time that a "grassroots" movement is exactly what is needed right now and was delighted to find this group operating in Atlanta.
Unfortunately though, the group refuses to admit that it is an Objectivist organization, calling it's philosophy "eudaimonism" instead. This simply will not do. The term "Objectivism" has been in use for over 50 years as the name of this type of philosophy, and it's use is not likely to go away simply because FOR calls it something different. However, what is likely to happen is that changing the name will cause confusion amongst exactly the group of people that FOR is trying to reach.
In any event, FOR is still the only group I know of that is dedicated to building a grassroots Objectivist movement and so I have decided to support them despite their flaws.
One more thing before I finish off this post. A terrible thing has happened: Diana Hsieh, (www.dianahsieh.com), one of the most brilliant up-and-coming Objectivist philosophers around, has left the Objectivist Center and seems to be supporting the Ayn Rand Institute. This is a serious mistake. A person with such original ideas as her should not waste her talent by supporting an organization that repudiates the value of independent judgement and sets up a guru as an "official" interpreter of the philosophy it espouses. I will likely have more to say about this later, but for the time being I must go. :)

----------------Tom Blackstone
http://tomsphilosophy.tripod.com

My first blog post - the Wiccan religion
Ahhhh, the first post to my very own blog. Well here's something new I've been thinking about:

I have noticed lately that the religion of Wicca is gaining in popularity. It seems that wherever I turn there are people who tell me they are witches, and try to convince me that their religion is far better than Christianity. Of course, nearly any philosophy is better than one that preaches masochism as a moral ideal. As such, being better than Christianity is not something to brag about.

However, a cursory glance at the doctrines of Wicca will provide one with plenty of reasons to reject the religion, despite it's adherents' confident claims.

A recent copy of "Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft", known by Wiccan's affectionately as "Uncle Bucky's Big Blue Book" or just "Big Blue", gives a thourough explanation of the central principles of the Old Religion.

The book is filled with extroardinary claims, such as that one can gain telepathic information about an object by touching it, that one can get the answer to any yes or no question by hovering a pendelum over a piece of paper, or that one can heal a person of blood disorders by manipulating his "aura". All of these claims are made with absolutely no argument to support them. We are simply supposed to accept whatever Buckland tells us is true, very much like the way Christians accept what they are told by the Bible or by their church leaders.

The passage on "Protection" is especially illuminating. In it, Buckland claims that one can get protection from one's enemies by making a "Witch's bottle" that will magically keep them from harming you:

" To make a Witch's bottle, take a regular jar such as a 6-ounce instant-coffee jar. Half fill it with sharp objects: broken glass, old razor blades, rusty nails and screws, pins, needles, etc. When the jar is half filled with these objects, urinate in it to fill it. If a woman is preparing her bottle, she should also try to get some menstrual blood into it. Now put the top on the jar and seal it with tape. It should then be buried in the ground, at least twelve inches deep, in an isolated spot where it can remain undisturbed. If you live in a city, then it will be worth a trip out of town to find some remote spot to bury it."

" So long as the bottle remains buried and unbroken, it will protect you from any evil directed against you. This applies whether the evil is directed by an individual or by a group of people."

Which is worse: believing in self-sacrifice or believing that urinating in a jar will protect you from evil? I must admit that I find the comparison to be nowhere near as simple as the Wiccans do.

For now, I'll stick to rational philosophy. :)

-------------Tom Blackstone