Contemporary History

The End of OCON 2005 (For Me)

I only signed up for the first week of OCON 2005, so I left San Diego yesterday.

The whole OCON 2005 experience was great fun.  Highlights directly from the conference included the talks I praised (Brook, Biddle, Lewis), and the USS Midway event.  On top of that, I stayed up pretty late every night chatting with people on various topics.  It's nice to know that no one is going to pull out the old line "but what about the poor (or minority group x or the lousewort or this layer of pond scum or Judges 19)" when discussing ethics or politics.

Actually, now that I think about it, most people I talk to day-to-day don't even get that specific.  If I say anything radical-sounding (e.g. "abolish Social Security"), most people just assert it can't be done, as if I proposed a perpetual motion machine or time travel.  How depressing that people treat majority opinion as an unshakeable law of physics.

But I digress.  Some of the conversations I was in focused on movies, relationships, parenting, how nice San Diego was, good and bad restaurants visited, and cartoons.  I heard a lot of opinions, strongly held and defended, every time.  Objectivist conferences are not the place to go if you are looking for milquetoast.  However, if you are looking to hang out with people who live life and value it, passionately, I'd make a point to attend.

From OCON 2005: Craig Biddle's Class

Elements of Thinking in Principles--Craig Biddle

The class is meant to give students an overview of what it takes to think in principles.  At this, it succeeds admirably.  The class covers the following topics: naming your primaries, excluding the middle, thinking in terms of essentials, minding your hierarchy of knowledge and values, and keeping context.

All of the topics are interesting, and well-integrated to the theme of thinking in principles.  For instance, take the section on excluding the middle.  He explains what the law of excluded middle--a restatement of the law of identity in terms of "either-or", i.e. either a principle is adhered to, or it is not--and its value for thinking in principles, the biggest of which (in my mind) is how it clarifies "degrees" of principle adherence.  Mr. Biddle's statement on that: the law of excluded middle tells you there are no "degrees" of adhering to a principle, only degrees of principle violation.  Living in a mixed economy?  Your rights are not being upheld (you either uphold a principle or not), they are just being violated less than in a communist dictatorship.

Also of note in that section is the discussion on slippery slopes.  I think anyone who hears it will learn something, and be well-armed against its abuse and overuse.

Other sections with new and extremely helpful insights are the ones on primaries and hierarchy.  Pay special attention to the parts on proximate fundamentals, and the integration of value hierarchy and knowledge hierarchy.

All sections are well-concretized, and not overly so.  And the pace was good for the material.  The only rough spots for me were a couple in the essentializing section where I got a bit lost, and there was one example in the talk that didn't resonate with me.

It should also be pointed out that this class is not meant as an introduction for a lay audience.  The class definitely assumes familiarity with the philosophy of Objectivism.

All in all, this class was stellar.  It and the John Lewis talk were the highlights of the conference for me.  Buy it the day it becomes available.

Another Review from OCON 2005

Ideas and the Fall of Rome--Dr. John Lewis

Ever since reading some of his articles online, I have had high expectations for John Lewis.  He did not disappoint in this lecture.

The purpose of the lecture was to give an overview of the philosophical causes of the fall of Rome, and to point out some parallels between that and the current political and philosophical situation in the United States. 

The two causes Dr. Lewis identifies are philosophical idealism, and the acceptance of duty in ethics.  To demonstrate this, he traces the philosophical development of Rome from about 200 BC, when Romans "imported" Greek culture, to the fall of Rome between 300 and 400 AD, when the Neo-Platonists were essentially powerless to defend Rome, intellectually, against Christian dogma.  The entire development is fascinating, the talk is well-paced, and Dr. Lewis analysis is spot on.

Most interesting are his thoughts on why Rome accepted the philosophical ideas they did.  Romans were not original philosophical thinkers, and they took the ideas that seemed to most justify their conception of the morally and politically good.  They were great doers in the world of law and politics, but had to get their philosophy from elsewhere.  This is where the parallels with the US are drawn, and they are illuminating.

Excellent all-around.  Highly recommended.  Buy it as soon as it becomes available.

OCON 2005: USS Midway Tour

I see my posts from OCON 2005 are generating some interest (here, too).  As some readers may know, one of the events at this year's conference was the tour of the aircraft carrier USS Midway, which concluded with dinner on the deck and a talk by Yaron Brook on the battle at Midway Island.  It was preceded by a lecture on the history of aircraft carriers by retired Captain Talbot Manvel.

The event was great fun.  Highlights include touring the 'island' (tower looking over the flight deck), with very knowledgeable docents describing its inner workings; looking at the various aircraft on the deck and in the hangar bay; and simply strolling around the flight deck and taking many, many photos. 

Both talks were interesting, informative, and inspiring.  I won't go into the details, mainly because I wasn't taking notes at either.  Hey, I'm on vacation.

This was a private event, but USS Midway is a floating museum open  to the public.  I'd highly recommend touring it if you are ever in San Diego.

More Lecture Reviews from OCON 2005

Ayn Rand's Philosophic Achievement--Harry Binswanger

In these two lectures, Dr. Binswanger presents what he sees as the top philosophical achievements of Ayn Rand (lecture 1), and what idea underlies all of these achievements (lecture 2).

If you are an Objectivist, there is not much, if any, new content in the lectures.  The six achievements, and Dr. Binswanger's description of them, will be familiar to you, even if you never thought of them in the context of 'greatest philosophical achievements of a great mind.'  They are: the primacy of existence, her theory of concepts, reason as volitional, man's life as the standard of morality, the moral basis of individual rights, and the psycho-epistemological basis of art.

The underlying idea Dr. Binswanger identifies is: objectivity.  Given the name of the philosophy in question, this insight seems underwhelming.

I will confirm this when I get home and check my library, but I am pretty sure that a lot of the content in this lecture was also in a series of articles Dr. Binswanger wrote in The Objectivist Forum, not too long after Ayn Rand's death.  Every issue of The Objectivist Forum can be bought as one hardcover edition at the Ayn Rand Bookstore, at a very reasonable price.  I'd recommend doing that over buying the tapes of these lectures.

Notes on OCON 2005

I am currently in San Diego, attending the 2005 Objectivist Conference (OCON 2005).  For Objectivists and other interested persons, I thought I'd give comments on lectures and events in the conference, when I have time. 

For my first attempt, I will start with comments on Yaron Brook's talk The Neo-Conservatives--Friend or Foe?

This lecture I liked quite a bit.  The talk starts off by giving a lot of the history and current policy positions of neo-conservatives.  Dr. Brook also explains why the neo-conservatives are gaining in influence: they make "morally toned pronouncements," unlike pragmatist Republicans and even more pragmatic (and loopy) liberals.  Even in today's America, moral confidence and certitude sell well.

I don't think I'm giving much away by saying Dr. Brook puts neocons squarely on the "foe" side.  He shows that the neocons are not friends of liberty (the quote from Gertrude Himmelfarb was especially frightening), but merely altruists who see America as the power that can bring order to a fractured world, by sacrificing American soldiers on all continents where there is unrest and strife.

Dr. Brooks more powerful statements definitely come in the last third of the talk.  A lot of what comes before is build-up that occasionally fails to engage.  But it is all useful information, and that last third is extremely worthwhile.

Let me put it this way: if you are an Objectivist, and you think neocons aren't so bad because they sound pro-American, buy the CD to disabuse yourself of that thought.  And if you know better, buy a copy to remind yourself, then buy a second copy to give to any friends who are having trouble understanding.

Live 8: Brain Dead

The past "solutions" to the abject poverty of Africa have been: foreign aid given to African governments, loans to  those same governments, then debt forgiveness when those loans change from "sound investment in Africa" to "crushing debt burden foisted on hapless Africa."  The result of this assistance has been continued abject poverty.

So, if you were to make a suggestion for the next round of solutions, would you suggest more aid and debt forgiveness?  Well, yes, you would, if you were Bob Geldof and the long list of rock stars involved in Live 8.

I think a quote from Ayn Rand is relevant here: "freedom is what the have-nots have not."  In other words, what African nations lack is a respect for individual rights.  And in this Washington Post article, you see that some in Africa have an inkling of this, when they talk about the uselessness of giving aid to "corrupt" governments.  Rising out of poverty requires that people build factories, expand farms, and pave roads--i.e., invest in the future.  But few if any people, will make that effort if it can be taken away on a whim by any petty bureaucrat.  Africa is a whole continent full of examples of the truth of this.

The problem with the 'solutions' demanded by Geldof et al. is that they do not fix what causes the problems in Africa.  What the continent needs are rights-respecting governments.  This is not something that can be handed to them, like food or a check.  It requires an intellectual movement demanding that rights be upheld, and would also probably require armed revolutions in many of the nations--Zimbabwe, for example.

To insist that a few more boxes of food and the tearing up of a loan statement will be helpful is to engage in fantasy.