Objectivist Round-up for June 28, 2012

Welcome to the Objectivist Round-up for June 28, 2012.  This is my first time hosting the weekly carnival of articles on various topics by Objectivist bloggers, and I'm glad I got to play host before the carnival finally winds down in a few weeks.  I want to give a big shout out to Rational Jenn and a big thank you to her, for organizing and running the Round-up.

This is also the last Round-up before Independence Day. Even though it's nearly a week away, I'll take this opportunity to present a quote on the Founding Fathers and their unique achievement, from the book The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff, as quoted in the Ayn Rand Lexicon. This quote takes on a particular resonance given this morning's announcement of the Supreme Court upholding the Obamacare individual mandate, about which I'm sure there will be ample commentary in next week's carnival.

Throughout history the state had been regarded, implicitly or explicitly, as the ruler of the individual—as a sovereign authority (with or without supernatural mandate), an authority logically antecedent to the citizen and to which he must submit. The Founding Fathers challenged this primordial notion. They started with the premise of the primacy and sovereignty of the individual. The individual, they held, logically precedes the group or the institution of government. Whether or not any social organization exists, each man possesses certain individual rights. And “among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”—or, in the words of a New Hampshire state document, “among which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; and in a word, of seeking and obtaining happiness.”

And now, without further ado, I present this week's Objectivist Round-up:

Tim Cheadle presents Design Thinking - Tim Cheadle posted at Tim Cheadle, saying, "A brief recap of my design talk with Tori Press, along with the slides we presented."

Paul McKeever presents "Bully": the new "Nazi" posted at Paul McKeever, saying, "Prepare to see the "Bully" card played more an more frequently in a place near you."

Darius Cooper presents Country Shares of World GDP posted at Practice Good Theory, saying, "I present some graphs showing relative GDPs of various countries"

Diana Hsieh presents NoodleCast #143: Q&A Radio Podcast: Spanking, Parenting, Cheating, and More posted at Philosophy in Action, saying, "In Sunday's episode of Philosophy in Action Radio, I answered questions on corporal punishment of kids, parenting as a central purpose, compartmentalized cheating, something greater than yourself, and more."

Rachel Miner presents Lindamood Bell Experience posted at The Playful Spirit, saying, "Lindamood Bell is an individualized, intensive therapy that helps students with very specific language issues. In this post, I write about my experience using one of their programs. Due primarily to the high cost, it was a decision that took several years to make, but it was a positive experience that other parents may find valuable. They also work with adults."

Paul Hsieh presents Backdoor Euthanasia in the UK? posted at We Stand FIRM, saying, "A UK neurologist reports that British patients with treatable conditions are being pushed against their will into "care pathways" for the terminally ill."

Roberto B Sarrionandia presents Andrew Brown wins 1/9th of a free coffee posted at Roberto Sarrionandia, saying, "Is the Guardian giving out free coffee to journalists who smear Ayn Rand?"

John Drake presents Starting a Project with Zero Resources posted at Try Reason!, saying, "Even if you don't have the time or money, it is possible to start big projects. You just have to get REALLY creative."

Rational Jenn presents Tonight! posted at Rational Jenn, saying, "Kelly and I are appearing Wednesday evening on the Philosophy in Action radio show to discuss Parenting without Punishment. By the time the carnival appears, the radio show will already have happened. But if you missed it, you can catch the recording at the Philosophy in Action website."

Earl Parson presents Strange in a Good Way posted at Creatures of Prometheus, saying, "I've finally taken the plunge and rented a workspace outside my home. I'm now the resident architect at Strangeways Academy!"

That concludes this edition. The next edition of the Objectivist Round-up will be hosted over at Three Ring Binder. Submit your blog article to using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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Reflections on Randsday

Today we're celebrating Ayn Rand's birthday, here at Creatures of Prometheus.  Harry Binswanger has come up with a really great way of marking the occasion: the creation of a new holiday, Randsday.  

To celebrate Randsday, you do something not done on any other holiday: you give yourself a present. Randsday is for getting that longed-for luxury you ordinarily would not buy for yourself. Or for doing that long-postponed, self-pampering activity you cannot seem to fit into your chore-packed schedule...On Randsday, if you do something that you ordinarily would think of as “fun,” you do it on a different premise and with a deeper meaning: that you need pleasure, you are entitled to it, and that the purpose and justification of your existence is: getting what you want—what you really want, with full consciousness and dedication.

Getting what you want, with full consciousness and dedication.  Getting what you really want, not just as a whim or an impulse, but, rather, getting what you really want out of your life.

Randsday is about pursuing your happiness. It's about recognizing that your life belongs to you, and only to you, and that you only get one, and it's short, and so you better get busy, because if you don't pursue your own happiness it's not like someone is just going to come around and hand you some.  You have to earn it.

So when you treat yourself to that special Randsday present (which, for me, is that Kindle Touch I've been wanting for weeks now), remember these words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.  

Your life belongs to you.  Go live it.

Feeling Like My Old Self Again

Last night I was up until 2:30.

Yesterday I spent most of the day working on a difficult writing project.  I'm having my website, as well as the blog here, completely redesigned from scratch.  When I started the project with John David, I didn't realize quite what I was in for.  Turns out, he's not just a web designer; he's a marketing guy too, and he's chock full of good ideas.  So he sent over this Creative Brief that was a few pages long, with lots of questions written out in italics having to do with my objectives, my audience, and their demographics, and some particularly difficult questions about brand character and the competition (!)

During our initial conversation about the Brief, I had to have him explain the concept of brand equity to me.  After a little simple math, I calculated my brand equity at about $1.95.  So, it turns out there's lots of room for improvement around here in the Online Personal Brand Development department -- and now I have a Pro on the case!  As we wrapped up the conversation, I thought he would be ready to get off and running, but he managed to turn the tables on me at the last minute.  "Why don't you take this document and write out your responses and send it back to me," he said.  It seemed like a completely reasonable request at the time, but in reality it was a challenging assignment, to say the least.

I've been working on it over the past few weeks, sort of off and on, when I haven't been sick with the pneumonia or drowning in student work to grade.  Yesterday was my self-imposed deadline for getting it done and back to JD.  This coming weekend is ATLOSCON, and I absolutely had to get the Creative Brief out of my hair before then, otherwise it would have been 2 more weeks of delay.

My writing-a-difficult-essay process works like this:  I write a bit, maybe for half an hour or so, then get hungry or thirsty.  So I allow myself to go to the kitchen and get some noms.  Then I come back and write some more.  Then I decide to put on some music, but usually have a hard time finding the right thing in my iTunes.  Sometimes I can write to music but  it usually has to be something I'm not that familiar with, or it will distract me too much.  The late Beethoven piano sonatas can be good to write by, as they are more contemplative, I think -- except for the Hammerklavier.  Then I write some more.  I have given up being bothered by my wandering mind's interruptions.  I think my subconscious just needs some breathing room sometimes, and it lets me know, when the flow of ideas gets interrupted.

After a bit more writing, I will have a sudden realization about a particular passage in a Beethoven piano sonata, and have to go look up the Wikipedia article to get an answer.  Yesterday's Beethoven distraction had to do with the structure of the second movement of his Piano Sonata #5 in C minor, Opus 10 No. 1. (Wikipedia describes the movement as having sonatina form - meaning a simplified sonata form with no development section.) I've been studying that sonata lately; it's an interesting one because it is an early work, and it foreshadows many of his future compositions in C minor, like the Grand Sonata Pathetique, the 5th Symphony, and his lesser-known 32 Variations in C minor (among others).  Now that I'm sitting here thinking about it, I've had to put on the Coriolan Overture (also in C minor) to see if I can find any similarities there.  (Coriolan always makes me feel like I'm in a spy movie.  It has a dramatic element that sounds like Jason Bourne doing parkour over the rooftops of Berlin, alternating with a tender, somewhat more romantic (but still dramatic) second theme.)

See?  I'm doing it right now.  I'm trying to write this blog post, and Beethoven has me completely under his spell.  Anyway, I finally got through my writing project yesterday, reread and edited it, and sent it off.  Then I shifted gears around dinner time and took the dogs for a long-ish walk over in Echo Park.  We don't tend to go over there for walks, but I like that area, and my thoughts of moving out of this house have returned (along with recent reports from neighbors that the dog that attacked Paul and I last year has been seen loose in the neighborhood again).  So, you could say we were doing a bit of reconnaissance towards the idea of possibly moving, perhaps next year sometime.

All afternoon, I'd been hitting the coffee pretty hard. After our walk, I was pretty excited about all the good work I'd gotten done, and my brain was still snapping along pretty well, so I resumed working on my ATLOSCON talk.  This involved going back through old photos, deciding what images to re-scan, and realizing that I had my own new photographs of Louis Sullivan's Auditorium Building, as well as his Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room, which was installed at the Chicago Art Institute after the Stock Exchange was tragically torn down in the '60s or '70s.

I just worked right on through until about 1:45, and finally decided I really should go to bed if I wanted to be at all productive today.  By the time I finally got into bed and watched a couple of videos online to help my brain turn off, it was 2:30.  Somehow I woke up at 7 feeling good.  I was expecting to be completely dragged out and hungover feeling, but I'm surprisingly refreshed today.  I even tried going back to bed after feeding the dogs, but it just wasn't working for me.

Since I felt pretty good, I decided to started my day with a relatively light dumbbell workout, which I have done a few times over the past few weeks, now that my thumb has returned to mostly-normal after my surgery back in early February.  Working out first thing in the morning always gives me a tremendous sense of efficacy, and it really is the best way I can think of to start the day.  Perhaps today will mark the start of the return of that excellent habit.

Then I was checking out my Google Reader feed, and saw this excellent post from Trey, on the objectivist virtue of integrity.  It's really a solid, thoughtful bit of writing.  He observes,

The simplest possible definition or explanation of the virtue of integrity that I can offer is this: consistency.  Integrity is about always always always pursuing your values in the same way according to the same principles.

Reading it really helped me resolve a lot of the things I've been wrestling with over the past few months.  Basically, since the middle of January, I've felt completely down and out, first from the hand surgery and recovery, which was closely followed by the bout of pneumonia.  This has definitely been one of the most depressing periods of my life; I think it has rivaled 2004, which I refer to as my Dark Year.  At least this latest experience was relatively short-lived by comparison.

Towards the end, Trey sums up with, "Integrity is about serving your larger goals.  This is why when I stop to think about my career, I am always absolutely ruthless. "  This just completely hit home for me.  

I've had a clear sense over the past couple of weeks, as I've returned to work and seen some new opportunities opening up for me, that the clouds were parting and the sun was coming back out again.  But there were nagging doubts lingering in my mind, just like the cough lingers as your lungs work to get all the junk out after the pneumonia has cleared up.

But today is different.  I'm through indulging in any more self-doubt.  It really is an indulgence that I simply cannot afford any more of, and am no longer willing to engage in.

Today the sun is back out, and it's shining down on me.  And it's the same sun and same blue sky that shone down on Louis Henri Sullivan in Chicago the 1890s when he was at the height of his powers, and it's the same sun and blue sky that shone down on Ludwig van Beethoven in Vienna in the 1790s when he was writing that early C minor sonata that planted seeds for those future masterpieces.  

And now, I'm going to go out and be absolutely ruthless.



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5/24/11 Update:  Link added for John David

Tuesday Night OList Happy Hour: SnowCon, ATLOSCON, and OCON

2011 is shaping up to be an exciting year for Objectivist conferences.

- This week is SnowCon, the much-anticipated Objectivist mini-conference hosted by Front Range Objectivism in Denver.  I will be there for the weekend, but will miss the skiing/snowshoeing/other outdoor activities during the week.  I'm very excited to see my FRO friends, as well as other friends who are flying in.  Plus, I will get to meet some internet friends for the first time in real life, which I'm quite looking forward to, as well.

- Coming up over Memorial Day weekend, will be ATLOSCON, the second mini-conference to be put on by the Atlanta Objectivist Society.  I'm scheduled to speak at that one, so naturally I'm quite excited about it!  Their 2010 MiniCon was a great success, by all accounts.

- ARI has just posted the info and registration page for OCON 2011, which will be held in Ft. Lauderdale next summer, around July 4th.  Last summer, I attended my first OCON, and it was an amazing experience.

- I thought I had seen information on at least one other regional conference later in the year, but can't seem to find any official information to which to link.  If anyone knows about something I don't, please contact me and I'll be happy to add it.
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UPDATE 3/8:  I received the following email from David Maltby over at Chicago Objectivists:

Indeed, there is a Chicago MiniCon in the works for Labor Day weekend (September 4 & 5) 2011, and we are currently gathering proposals for presentations. I've added a link from our home page to the proposal submission form, which was previously circulated to our members via email: http://www.chicagoobjectivists.org/minicon-2011-proposals/. Please feel free to direct others to that page. The deadline for submissions is April 1st, and those selected will be notified by the end of April.

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I'm excited about all of these, although it's still uncertain whether or not I'll be able to attend OCON.  I probably won't know until around mid or late May.

This week's happy hour will be all about the conferences.

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Tonight's Menu:

Appetizer:  Are you attending or considering any of the conferences being offered this year?  If so, what are you most looking forward to?

Drink Special:  What Objectivist conferences have you attended in the past?  What were your favorite things, either specifically or generally, about it/them?

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Happy Hour takes place in the OList Chatroom, every Tuesday night, from 9-10 p.m. Eastern and 6-7 p.m. Pacific.

Point your browser to www.olist.com/chat.  You will be asked for a login and password - check your OList email for these.

You will see the chat window that looks like this:

On the right is the list of users participating; on the left is the chat itself.  At the bottom, you have the option of logging in through your facebook account, or as a guest.  If you log in through facebook, it will pull your profile picture into the list next to your name, which is a nice feature.

For general information on the OLists Socials, check out the OList Events page here.

Your hosts for the OList Socials are @DianaHsieh, @laforgetm (aka William Green) and myself, @Earl3d

Tuesday Night OLists Happy Hour: Why Paleo?

Tonight's Happy Hour Chat covers a topic of general interest for those on the OEvolve list, and perhaps those lurking therein, and was submitted to the Google Moderator by none other than the OList OWner, Diana Hsieh:

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Tonight's Menu:

Appetizer:  What made you start eating paleo (or paleo-ish)?

Drink Special:  What other eating strategies have you tried?  What were their drawbacks and/or benefits?

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Happy Hour takes place in the OList Chatroom, every Tuesday night, from 9-10 p.m. Eastern and 6-7 p.m. Pacific.

Point your browser to www.olist.com/chat.  You will be asked for a login and password - check your OList email for these.

You will see the chat window that looks like this:

On the right is the list of users participating; on the left is the chat itself.  At the bottom, you have the option of logging in through your facebook account, or as a guest.  If you log in through facebook, it will pull your profile picture into the list next to your name, which is a nice feature.

For general information on the OLists Socials, check out the OList Events page here.

Your hosts for the OList Socials are @DianaHsieh, @laforgetm (aka William Green) and myself, @Earl3d

Tuesday Night OLists Happy Hour: Travel

There are two travel-themed topic suggestions on the Google Moderator we set up for Happy Hour suggestions, "Which city has the most Objectivist-like culture?" and "Countries each of us has traveled to, and what's better or worse there compared to the USA."  Thanks and a big OLists Shout Out to Adam Thompson for suggesting them.

The first suggestion of the two has a link to this essay, where Paul Graham makes some pretty interesting observations about cities.

As of this writing, Cambridge seems to be the intellectual capital of the world. I realize that seems a preposterous claim. What makes it true is that it's more preposterous to claim about anywhere else ... Cambridge as a result feels like a town whose main industry is ideas, while New York's is finance and Silicon Valley's is startups.

Tuesday Night OLists Happy Hour: Winter Reads

I'm not someone who reads all that much.  Lately, I've been trying to figure out why this is, and make an effort to read more.

In addition to introspecting, I have also consolidated my library into one section of my bedroom, where I have set up both a desk and a comfy reading chair, in an effort to make the whole experience as pleasurable as possible (although the comfy chair can be counter-productive, especially with the close proximity of my bed. Get me too comfy and I want to stretch out.)

I think one reason I have a hard time making the time to read, is that it doesn't really seem like productive activity.  Why sit and read when you could be doing something?!  I realize that this is a complete fallacy, and there is tremendous practical value to be gained from reading.  Part of my new reading effort involves reminding myself of this practical value, and then carefully choosing my titles accordingly.

Last night I made a new discovery about my reading habits, as I was trying, yet again, to get through Tara Smith's Viable Values: A Study of Life as the Root and Reward of Morality.  I was surprised to find a few dogeared pages in the first couple chapters, and realized that I had gotten farther than I had remembered, in my first attempt with this book a few years ago.  Last night was actually the second night in a row with Viable Values and the comfy chair.  The previous night had ended with me stretching out on the bed after being overcome with The Sleepy.  When I saw things headed that same direction last night, I realized I needed to take a different approach.  I stepped metaphorically back and examined what was going on.

The first 3 chapters of this book are very technical (for me, at least) descriptions and refutations of the failure of traditional philosophical underpinnings of the subject of morality.  While I'm sure this material is extremely important from the point of view of scholarship and such, and needs to be there for the book to be taken seriously in academic circles, I'm really mainly interested in the later parts: Chapter 4: Morality's Roots in Life, Chapter 5: Morality's Reward: Flourishing, and Chapter 6: Principled Egoism: The Only Way to Live.

I realized that the only way I was going to get to those chapters was to give myself permission to skip the boring parts.  This idea is somewhat revolutionary for me, and I have a feeling it will end up being very helpful in the long run.  After all, should I discover I've missed some vital concept, I can always go back and read it later.  The words will still be there on the page, that's the beauty of books!

After making this realization, I decided I had put in enough effort and it was ok to stretch out on the bed.

I'll try again with Chapter 4 tonight, and I'll sit at my desk rather than in the comfy chair.

My quest for developing reading as a habit makes me curious of the reading habits of others.  Thus, tonight's topic.

This Week's Menu:

Appetizer:  What are your reading habits?  Meaning: how often do you pick up a book and read, and for how long at a time?  How many different titles do you have going at once?  Do you use an ebook reader or Kindle?  Where do you learn about new books that interest you?

Drink Special:  What titles are you reading now, what have you recently finished, and what is on your reading list?  What stands out that you would recommend?  What do you not recommend?

Happy Hour Mechanics:

Happy Hour takes place in the OList Chatroom, every Tuesday night, from 9-10 p.m. Eastern and 6-7 p.m. Pacific.

Point your browser to www.olist.com/chat.  You will be asked for a login and password - check your OList email for these.

You will see the chat window that looks like this:

On the right is the list of users participating; on the left is the chat itself.  At the bottom, you have the option of logging in through your facebook account, or as a guest.  If you log in through facebook, it will pull your profile picture into the list next to your name, which is a nice feature.

For general information on the OLists Socials, check out the OList Events page here.

Your hosts for the OList Socials are @DianaHsieh, @laforgetm (aka William Green) and myself, @Earl3d

Tuesday Night OLists Happy Hour: Habits of Excellence

"We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence then is not an act but a habit." - Aristotle

Tonight in OLists Happy Hour, we are going to discuss Habits of Excellence, inspired by this quote from Aristotle.

Tuesday Night OLists Happy Hour: Household Productivity

During last week's Happy Hour, while we were discussing goals and projects for the new year, a side conversation came up between some parents in the group.  It had to do with trying to be productive with repetitive household tasks and such, in order to leave more time for various projects and things that really matter.


There was some discussion of the Getting Things Done system, and then Rose remarked, "...I was wondering if support for organizing housework should be some threads on OProducers..or OGrownups...kind of an overlap."


That was when the lightbulb upstairs went on, alerting me that whenever there is talk of overlap between Olist groups, it's a topic that should be developed, dissected, and discussed in detail at Happy Hour.

Tuesday Night OLists Happy Hour: Completing Projects & Setting Goals for 2011

Last week at the OLists Happy Hour, we had a rousing and fun discussion of everyone's achievements, looking back over 2010. 

In fact, it was so much fun, that I want to open this week's discussion to anyone who didn't get the opportunity last week. Feel free to join in and tell your achievements alongside our discussion of goals for the New Year.  Read about last weeks menu here.

For those who had their fill of retrospectivity last week, let's look ahead to next year:

Tuesday Night OLists Happy Hour: The Gift of Achievement

As Christmas fast approaches, and many of us are busy preparing to celebrate with family and friends this weekend, a specific observation occurs to me.

In discussing Christmas, in 1976, Ayn Rand observed:

The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: “Merry Christmas”—not “Weep and Repent.” And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form—by giving presents to one’s friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance...

Years earlier, she wrote this passage in Atlas Shrugged, when Dagny is about to run the first train on the John Galt line:

She looked at the crowd and she felt...a sense of fitness that they should be here, that they should want to see it, because the sight of an achievement was the greatest gift a human being could offer to others.

As we approach the end of the year, I think there is real value in looking back on our individual achievements from the past year, both as a source of spiritual fuel, and as a means of checking one's bearings in contemplation of goals to set for the new year.

Tuesday Night OLists Happy Hour: Is College Worth It?

(Note:  This question has been suggested for Diana Hsieh's next Rationally Selfish Webcast, where she discusses various questions related to practical ethics, each Sunday morning.  If you find this topic of interest, check out her webcast info page here.  She suggested the topic for Happy Hour, and I think its a good one!)

Something that seems essentially taken for granted these days is the importance of a college diploma.  But is college really worth it?  As education costs continue to rise, and students/graduates find themselves saddled with huge amounts of student loan debt, one can easily see from the point of view of cost-benefit analysis that the question is not trivial.

Tuesday Night OLists Happy Hour: Optional Values 2.0

A few weeks ago we had a scheduled topic of Optional Values for the Happy Hour.  I was particularly excited about that topic, but we happened to have very light attendance that week.

This week, let's give it a try again with Optional Values:

Tuesday Night OLists Happy Hour: Art

I have seen some really good thinking about, and references to, Art in the blogs over the past couple weeks.  I'm talking about big, wide, fundamental-concept-level discussions about Art.

The first one I noticed was the entry, Questions about Aesthetics and Art over at Shea's Blog.  It's a quick read.  As the title suggests, he raises more questions than he answers, and have wanted to sit down with his questions myself and give them a go, but Thanksgiving got in the way.  I still would like to do that, hopefully later this week. (I noticed, in writing this, that some comments have been added that were not there when I read this post initially.  I hope to follow up on those as well.)

In the comments on Shea's post, architect Peter Cresswell links to a blog post he wrote last January, Who Needs Great Art? at his blog, Not PC.  This longer post is very much worth the read, and the comments as well.  He does a great job of describing how art serves to present a condensed worldview that affirms one's own consciously and/or subconsciously held beliefs, complete with examples.  (I hope that's an accurate micro-summary.)

Then, yesterday, via Facebook, I learned of 2 additional offerings on Art.

Frederick Gibson, another deep-thinking Objectivist architect, posted What is Art? From Denis Dutton's "Art Instinct" over at the brand new site Lifestyle Dimensions.  This brief review of The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution is the first installment of a series on different chapters from the book, and gives some very interesting insights on the internal process one goes through in the 'consumption' of a work of art.

Finally, Diana Hsieh posted Ready for the Day at NoodleFood, wherein she describes a print she had recently purchased and just taken delivery of.  I love how she describes why she chose this particular work, and what it means to her.  It is a great concretization of the descriptions of Art from the other posts.

My art form of choice these days is typically classical music, specifically, Beethoven.  To me, his works are the presentation of a world that is perfect, uncompromised, and heroic.  Some of his works are tragic, but many more of them are loving, uplifting, and benevolent, if not grand and triumphant.

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For tonight's menu, let's discuss Art.

Appetizer: What is your art form of choice?  (You may have more than one.)  How does your favorite art speak to you? What are your favorite specific works of art?

Drink Special:  What was the last art event that you attended, or a special event that made a lasting impression? (Concert, museum, theatre, etc.)  Think about your enjoyment of that event.  How did it make you feel?  What did you get out of it?

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Happy Hour will take place from 9-10 p.m. Eastern and 6-7 p.m. Pacific, at the new OList Chatroom.  Check your OList email for the login and password.

For more info on the OLists, check out the OList Events page here.

Your hosts for the OList Socials are @DianaHsieh, @laforgetm (aka William Green) and myself, @Earl3d

OLists Socials Venue Change

The OLists Social Committee is excited to announce a venue change for the future of the weekly #OLists Twitter Socials.  Our Sunday Brunch and Tuesday night Happy Hour will no longer be held on Twitter, but on a special chat client, located at:

http://www.olist.com/chat/

The page is password protected, and the login and password will be announced on the OLists.  You can log in really easily through Facebook, and the chatroom that Diana has set up is really easy to use.

And, the OLists chat room is open 24/7, so should you wander in there at any time during the week, you might find some other OList friends there to chat with.

Not subscribed to any of the OLists?  Want more info?  Check out http://www.olist.com/ for descriptions of all the lists.  Many of the lists are open to non-Objectivist lurkers, and lurkers are welcome to participate in the weekly socials.

See you Sunday morning on the chat!

Tuesday Night OLists Happy Hour: Optional Values

Reepicheep's Coracle had another interesting post this week, which was part of the Objectivist Blog Carnival.  The topic was optional values, and the post was Why Reading Medieval Latin is Central to the Purpose of the Atlanta Objectivist Society.  

My favorite quotes from the post:

A lot of times, the focus of an Objectivist club ends up on philosophy. Lectures, book discussion groups, and political arguments are par for the course. And there is nothing wrong with those things, of course. But if these clubs are going to be a real social network for the members (kinda like the social network of a church is my goal), there must be room for people to do optional values together... Basically, our idea is that if you are gonna watch movies or conjugate verbs, why not do them with like-minded people?

...as we all know, once you have read the Bible together and cracked jokes about Tolkein and South Park based on Latin, you have really forged a bond.

But don't take my word for it, go read the whole post! (after you finish reading this, of course.)

So, tonight's menu is about Optional Values:

Appetizer:  Optional Values include hobbies, side interests, and the like.  What are your optional values?  How do they support your primary or fundamental values?  What is it that draws you to a particular interest that you have?  Is it intellectual?  Physical (like a sport) or other?

Drink Special:  Are your optional values primarily social or are they more solitary?  What outlets do you have for participating in them?  Do you belong to a club or group for it/them?

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SPECIAL NOTE:

Starting with Sunday's OLists Brunch, we will be moving the OLists Socials away from Twitter and onto a new, password-protected chat space.  Watch your respective OLists for more information!

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Happy Hour will take place from 9-10 p.m. Eastern and 6-7 p.m. Pacific, on Twitter.

For more info on the OLists, check out the OList Events page here.

New to Twitter and not sure how it works?  A simple tutorial on getting started can be found here.  

Your hosts for the Twitter OList Socials are @DianaHsieh, @laforgetm (aka William Green) and @Earl3d (that's me!)

Want to lurk and follow along with the discussion, without joining Twitter?  You can do that here.

The Role of Ideas in Architecture

I am thrilled to announce that I will be speaking in Denver, at FROST, on Saturday, November 6th.  What's FROST?  It stands for Front Range Objectivism Supper Talks.  You can read the official announcement on their website, here.

This subject is one that I have been wrestling with for over 20 years, going all the way back to when I was in architecture school at Washington University in St. Louis.  Very little of what I was told to read, under the heading of 'architectural theory', ever made any sense to me.  It was the same in graduate school, when I was at SCI-Arc in the mid/late '90s.  The history more or less made sense, because it was along the lines of 'so and so built this building here on this date' and it was relatively well rooted in reality.  Plus, the history classes at SCI-Arc at that time were taught by Margaret Crawford, and she was not only a superb instructor with a passion for history, but she made it fun.

The theory, however, rarely seemed to bear any relationship to reality.  Occasionally there would be good articles or essays, or a chapter of something that was mildly interesting or inspiring, but they were the exception.

I got out of school and started working, and could pretty much forget about the (theoretical) academic side of the profession for a while (although I remained a fan of architectural history, and still am.)  Over the years, I accepted the occasional teaching gig, mainly teaching drawing, photography, and the like.

Then a couple of things happened almost simultaneously, that, broadly speaking, altered my relationship to theory (or philosophy) as such.  I started taking piano lessons, and I started reading Ayn Rand.

The piano studies fascinated me because, the deeper I delved into them, the more I could see that the music theory bore an absolutely direct relationship to the notes on the paper and the playing of the instrument.  It was as though the theory was actually the element that bridged the gap, if you will, between the notes on paper and the playing.  It was the complete opposite of any architectural theory I had ever read.

This was around the same time that I was reading Atlas Shrugged for the first time.  I had read The Fountainhead years before, but had never explored Ayn Rand's works further, and was completely unaware of any of her non-fiction.  After Atlas, when I read some of her non-fiction, like Philosophy, Who Needs It and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, I became convinced that, here, like with music theory, was a series of ideas based on the strict observation of reality.

Why couldn't this exist for architecture?  This has been my frustration all these years.  It pretty much seems like Louis Sullivan pronounced 'form follows function' and that was the end, and no one else really took it anywhere from there.  Then all the architects forgot all about Sullivan anyway, and he just became that guy who designed those flowery buildings in Chicago.  'Form follows function' became a kind of quaint, old-fashioned notion at best.  I've even heard it mis-attributed to Mies van der Rhoe.

And so, I give up.  I have finally decided to quit resisting and take it on.  It's time for all this stuff to get dusted off and re-evaluated.

In this presentation, I will take a step back from Sullivan, and start with Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, the French architect and theorist, whose Lectures on Architecture from the mid-1800s were a big influence on Sullivan and the Chicago School.

Sullivan's greatest pupil was, of course, Frank Lloyd Wright, who unquestionably left a great legacy behind, although I'm not at all convinced he was the theoretician Sullivan was.

These three men will be the subject matter that we will address on the 6th.  In due course, I intend to examine more fully the larger picture of the development of modern architecture through the 20th century, and its demise.  I suspect there were some good principles at work that were lost, likely due to poor philosophical underpinning.

I am particularly appreciative of FRO, Kelly Valenzuela, and Diana Hsieh for their encouragement and support.  See y'all on the 6th!