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Float Time

By on January 15, 2010 2

boat floating in water but appearing to float in airA lot of Randians seem to think that the phrase and concept “floating abstraction” is specific to Rand; but in fact the term “floating abstraction” (or, more commonly, “free-floating abstraction”), often (though not always) meaning something actually fairly close to what Rand meant by it, is quite common in Continental and leftist thought, showing up in Marxist, feminist, phenomenological, and postmodernist discourse.

I don’t know whether this is a coincidence or whether there was influence – or, if so, in which direction. It would be interesting to know which came first, but I’m not sure how old either version is. The oldest use I could find online for “free-floating abstraction” was from Kathleen Nott in 1969 (but I didn’t search at much length); Rand was already using “floating abstraction” at least as early as 1961 (in For the New Intellectual) and probably earlier. (It’s also in Branden’s Principles lectures (as transcribed in The Vision of Ayn Rand), the earliest version of which was recorded in 1958, but I don’t know which year the text in Vision comes from; and Atlas Shrugged seems to be working toward the concept in Galt’s reference to “the words with rubber meanings, the terms left floating in midstream.”)

Life on Mars

By on January 12, 2010 33

Arizona or Barsoom?I’m back from the Phoenix conference (schedule here) – my first ISIL event since the glorious 1997 Rome conference. It was a good conference, and I enjoyed the chance to catch up with old friends and meet new ones (as well as meeting folks in person that I’d previously known only online, whichever category that falls under). Plus I got to do my left-libertarian shtick.

Flying in, I caught a glimpse of a canal flowing through the reddish desert and was irresistibly reminded of my days on Mars. (Oh wait, I’m not supposed to talk about that ….)

Nathaniel BrandenThe keynote event of the conference was an award for Nathaniel Branden, coinciding with the long-awaited release of his original NBI lectures in print form. I’ll have more to say about Branden’s session in a future post, but for now I’ll just note that when I asked him about the claim in Jennifer Burns’ Rand bio that Leonard Peikoff was the originator of Rand’s thesis that Kant was the most evil force in history, Branden replied: “I don’t remember [when and how she formed that idea], but [Burns’ claim] sounds very implausible to me; Rand was a grand master at determining who were the good and evil people in history – she didn’t require any pipsqueak assistance.”

Sky Harbor AirportBeing in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area was a bit frustrating, since it’s one of my hometowns but the all-day schedule meant we never got out of the hotel to see anything. (I had to fly back before the Taliesin tour, since classes start this week.) Still, there weren’t any sessions I would want to have missed; and at least I could see Camelback and Papago from my hotel window. (We also had a good meal at the Golden Buddha – better Chinese food than one can find in Auburn, anyway.)

Incidentally, I think it’s cool and edgy for Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport to feature, as a decoration, a plane crashing into the terminal.

Belated Austro-Athenian Plug

By on January 5, 2010 11

This news is nearly a year old now, but Geoff Plauché’s excellent dissertation is online. It combines Aristotelean eudaimonism, Austrian praxeology, dialectical libertarianism, Ayn Rand, New Left anti-corporatism, and free-market anarchism. (So, nothing that would interest any readers of this blog ….)

Retreat!

By on December 23, 2009 1

The schedule for next month’s ISIL conference/retreat in Phoenix is gloriously online. I’m doing an equality dance and a Rand/class-conflict dance.

I’m In an Infinitely Reproducible New York State of Mind

By on December 18, 2009 2

Image removed under threat of state violence

The papers for the Molinari Society’s upcoming IP symposium at the APA are now online. (For those planning to attend, I’ll announce the session location here as soon as I can wrest the information from the APA’s bony fingers at registration.)

I notice that the Ayn Rand Society session at the APA is also devoted to intellectual property. So hours of libertarian IP debate await us in New York! (Well, using “us” loosely; something else I’m committed to conflicts with the Randian meeting, so I will have to miss it. But, y’know, them us.)

Addendum, 9-30-2010:

Ironically, this very post announcing our panel opposing the form of censorship known as “copyright” has today been victimsed by the form of censorship known as “copyright.”

The Change I’d Be Tempted to Make …

By on December 15, 2009 12

mystery man

… if I were rewriting Atlas Shrugged, or adapting it to movie form.

Sacrilege, I know. But here’s the idea: “John Galt” is just a pseudonym for Francisco d’Anconia.

Advantages:

  • It switches out a character that readers find hard to relate to and switches in a character that most readers love.
     
  • It doesn’t require us to suddenly transfer so much of our emotional investment to a character that isn’t introduced until the third act.
     
  • It simplifies the love quadrangle to a love triangle.
     
  • It gives added tension to Francisco’s friendship with Rearden.
     
  • By having Dagny end up with Francisco, it makes Francisco’s story less sad.

A disadvantage, from a left-libertarian standpoint, is that now the revolution is being run by two aristocrats (Francisco and Ragnar) rather than by the proletarian Galt. But maybe that problem could be ameliorated by boosting the role of the Brakeman, making him one of the triumvirate, and giving him some minor bits of Galt’s role. Who better to help stop the motor of the world than a brakeman, anyway?

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