The Most Important Books in My Life

At 67, I am beginning the last phase of my life. I am looking back, and one pattern I see is the role of books in my development. They awakened in me the possibility of a life worth living; they helped me solve personal problems that threatened my progress; and they provided the particular information I needed to achieve my four highest personal values: my work, my free-range lifestyle, my friendships, and my favorite leisure activity, reading fiction for happy endings.

The list that follows is a salute to the authors of the books that have enriched my life. The list may also remind those who labor to write books that your writings do have influence, even though you may never see the results.

The following list is organized by category, but the categories are roughly chronological in terms of their first appearance in my life. Not included are the earliest books and comics; none stand out to me now, though I remember reading them avidly for the action and for the exotic situations, as in the long series of Tarzan comics.

1. FICTION. At the age of 12. around 1956, I read Carey Rockwell's Stand by for Mars! (1952). This Tom Corbett Space Cadet Adventure, written for a juvenile audience, is a story of ambition, extraordinary circumstances, and success. It was one of many science fiction stories -- particularly of "future history" -- that I consumed in the following 20 years. (In junior high school, I was intrigued by history but could not make sense of it as a system.)

At about age 15, I began reading Conan Doyle's many Sherlock Holmes short stories. They introduced me to a logical mind, one that explicitly begins with sense-perceptible facts and proceeds to a conclusion that solves a problem -- all in exotic conditions uncovered in everyday life. What I yearned for at this time was a methodical way of dealing with life. I went through a period of near-suicidal depression.

Over the years, I learned that one question matters most in selecting fiction: Would I want to be alive in the world this storyteller has created? I can now answer "Yes!" for casual fiction writers such as Louis L'Amour (Utah Blaine), Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe series), Agatha Christie (Miss Marple series), Robert B. Parker (Spencer series and Randall series), Tolkien (Lord of the Rings trilogy only) and Keith Laumer. They are the writers whose stories I have collected, kept, and will read again and again until the end.

2. PHILOSOPHY. At the age of 17, in March of 1961, I watched a morning television show, an interview of Ayn Rand about her recently published book, For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Her book offered the elements of a framework for viewing my world and my life as a whole. The book, especially the title essay, introduced me not only to her philosophy, Objectivism, but also to the subject that would become the core of my life: the history of the lives of the philosophers. I soon read Ayn Rand's novels and -- by writing to the address printed at the end of Atlas Shrugged -- began obtaining the few, short, nonfiction works that were slowly emerging. I now had the framework I needed, but understanding it and applying it would require a long time. Fifty-one years after seeing that interview, I am still learning and applying.

3. HISTORY. In a Medieval History class at Tulane University, around 1964, I read sections of R. R. Bolgar's The Classical Heritage and Its Beneficiaries. It gave me details that showed that ideas cause history, as Ayn Rand had held. Since then I have purchased hundreds of books on history. A few admirable examples are: John Marenbon, Early Medieval Philosophy and Later Medieval Philosophy; Frederic C. Lane, Venice, a Maritime Republic; and Frederick C. Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte.

4. MONEY. When I began working my first professional job, as a writer in a marketing department of an electronics company, I followed the advice of a woman I met there; she was a refugee from the failed 1956 Hungarian Revolution: "Live on one paycheck, and invest the next one." I paid my debts from school and began to look for ways to invest for the future. I wanted to retire early. (The men in my family died young; so, I was told, I should expect the same.) That was around 1969. I read a variety of books on "Austrian" economics and a few on personal investment. The one book that best represents that stream of books is Harry Browne's much later Why the Best-Laid Investment Plans Usually Go Wrong: How You Can Find Safety and Profit in an Uncertain World. I retired at age 45. I have followed Browne's "permanent portfolio" idea for 35 years. (I generally ignored the other half of the book, on a "variable portfolio.")

5. HEALTH. I faced heart disease at the age of 30. A wise doctor gave me a choice: take drugs for the remainder of my life or change my lifestyle. I chose the latter. Among other books, I read Live Longer Now: The First 100 Years of Your Life (1974) by Nathan Pritikin and others. (I have not studied the current version of the Pritikin Program.) Within 15 months, by following its guidelines, I lost 75 pounds and banished my heart disease.

Fifteen years later, my long, cascading series of other medical problems accelerated. Two books, which I read around 2002, led me to solutions to many of the problems. The first, which I still use, is for posture correction: Pete Egoscue's Pain Free: A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain. The second did not solve my many inflammation problems directly, but it did lead me to a diagnostic tool (an elimination diet) and then to a dietary solution: The McDougall Program: 12 Days to Dynamic Health, by John A. McDougall, MD. Thanks to Egoscue and McDougall, years of physical misery were coming to an end.

Books have provided information and fuel, and thus they have helped me shape my life to be what I wanted it to be. Thank you, to all the writers who labored so long and hard.

Burgess Laughlin

Author, The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith

Bernstein to lead study group on capitalism's history

THE STUDY GROUP
For June 14 to July 25, Study Groups for Objectivists has scheduled a five-week study group examining the historical roots of capitalism. The study group leader will be prolific author, lecturer, and philosophy teacher Andrew Bernstein, PhD ( http://www.andrewbernstein.net ). The study text will be four chapters from his book, The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire. To allow for attendance at the 2010 Objectivist Conference, the study group skips the week of July 4. The fifth and last week of the study group will be a review week.

Why study this text? Dr. Bernstein says:

Capitalism is under attack. The intellectuals accuse it of crimes against humanity. Following the lead of the intellectuals, the politicians push America remorselessly into socialism. Now more than ever in America’s illustrious history, a capitalist manifesto is necessary -- a ringing moral endorsement of the principle of individual rights.

Most urgently, men must start by studying capitalism’s history. Socialist intellectuals have created a vast mythology, claiming capitalism exploited workers, exacerbated child labor, instigated imperialism, and spawned penury. This fabric of interlocking canards is taught to millions of students.

It is time for the antidote.

The antidote to that statist mythology is "Part One: History" in The Capitalist Manifesto.

THE BOOK
So far, I have finished reading the Introduction and Part One. The style is clear and direct, yet informal. The content is logically structured. The "joints" in the skeleton of the argument are evident because the author tells readers at each turn where the argument is headed next. The text is objective, that is, it supports each theme and subtheme with a flood of evidence.

This book is a one-stop source for anyone who has an active mind engaged in trying to decide what sort of political system is best for living fully on earth. Intellectual activists working for capitalism can recommend the book for such readers. Readers already supporting capitalism as an ideal will gain a wealth of information about the actual history of the rise of capitalism, its brief period of flowering, and the beginnings of its decline. The footnotes and annotated bibliography are doorways to further study. By assembling all of this information in one spot, Dr. Bernstein has spared readers from the vast investment of time required to sort through scattered scholarly material.

Capitalism has been an "unknown ideal," to use Ayn Rand's phrase. Her work and Dr. Bernstein's work are making it known.

Burgess Laughlin
Author, The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith

Weaving the Fabric of History

A culture (and the society that produces it) is akin to a broad fabric emerging from a loom. It is composed of numerous threads of various textures and colors. Following is a narrow historical example of the sort of spread of fundamental ideas that can change a culture, thread by thread:

1. In 1957, novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand published her greatest work, Atlas Shrugged. It presented the main elements of her philosophy, a philosophy of reason and therefore objectivity.

2. In 1989, philosopher Dr. Harry Binswanger, a student and then associate of Ayn Rand, wrote a brief essay proposing a sketch of the foundation of Philosophy of Law: "What is Objective Law?"

3. Later in 1989, an organization, The Association for Objective Law (TAFOL), published the essay. (It also appeared subsequently in The Intellectual Activist). The founder of TAFOL was lawyer Steve Plafker, PhD and JD, a long-term Objectivist.

4. In 2008, nearly 20 years later, a programmer and a retired marketing communications writer, intrigued by the application of philosophy to current events, created a website working with a few students of Objectivism in examining seminal texts, Study Groups for Objectivists.

5. In July of 2009, the year after its founding, SGO conducted a very brief study group to review the 1989 essay, thus spreading its ideas to a few individuals (most of whom are activists). The leader of the study group was Steve Plafker, the founder of TAFOL.

Thus, a primary philosopher's radical thinking published half a century ago led to a secondary philosopher's essay about thirty years later. Among the essay's other ripples, was its use in a study group, twenty years afterwards, for a close reading by a few active-minded individuals. This narrow historical chain of events has been one thread in a fabric of cultural change.

Such events are happening day by day across our society, often out of sight except to the immediate participants. A few individuals are waging a broader campaign through either general activism or in-line activism. The cumulative effect of this movement will be wide.

Burgess Laughlin
Author, The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith

Ludwig von Mises on the economic crisis?

Dr. Robert Garmong, guest writer

What if the greatest economist in history, Ludwig von Mises, could directly comment on the current financial crisis and tell you how to deal with it? Well, unfortunately that's not possible -- Mises died in 1973. However, his "Monetary Reconstruction" essay, the work we will be studying in a September study group, comes close.

In it, Mises analyzes the reasons why government manipulates the money supply, and he demonstrates the manner in which those manipulations must lead to economic boom/bust cycles. He shows how inflation stems from the statist desire for government control over the economy and in turn leads to further intervention. He offers both a frightening picture of "the trend toward all-round planning" and a plan for the return to sound money (a full gold standard).

The three-week Mises Study Group should interest anyone who wants to understand economics, business-cycle theory or the current financial crisis. No special knowledge of economics will be required, beyond the layman's knowledge of basic economic concepts. We should all come away with greater insight into the seemingly incomprehensible melt-down of the American financial system and indeed the world economy. Both on the level of political solutions and personal financial planning, we should be better equipped to cope with the situation.

Dr. Robert Garmong
Recorded Lectures: The Ayn Rand Bookstore
Weblog: Professor-in-Dalian

Guest writer Dr. Robert Garmong will lead the 3-week "Monetary Reconstruction" course which begins Sept. 14 on SGO. Dr. Garmong holds a B.A. degree in economics and political science from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Texas. He has studied both Austrian-School economics and mainstream contemporary economics. He is now a Professor in the School of International Business and Communication at Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, in Dalian, China.

Book Review: The Independent Scholar's Handbook

For many individuals, properly defining a central purpose in life is a difficult process of abstraction. Even with that accomplished, there is another hurdle: designing a path that makes that abstract purpose concrete. For those individuals who want to be scholars, either in the humanities or in one of the sciences, but do not want to be professors in a university, Ronald Gross has written The Independent Scholar's Handbook.[1]

"Serious intellectual work can be pursued outside of academe," says the author stating his theme.[2] This book is not a mere call to spend a lifetime in study, no matter how passionate. Gross writes not to dilettantes but to individuals who are eager to learn better methods of research, create new knowledge, and expect to produce something with their studies--a book, a series of lectures, or some other ultimately marketable product.[3]

The front cover, but not the title page, contains this subtitle: "How to turn your interest in any subject into expertise." Each of the ten chapters of the book covers one phase of independent scholarship. In Part One ("Starting Out"), one chapter covers "From 'Messy Beginnings' to Your First Fruits of Research." In Part Two ("The Practice of Independent Scholarship."), chapters cover selection of resources (such as finding specialized libraries and gaining access to data bases), the benefits of working with other scholars, maintaining a high level of scholarly craftsmanship, and seeking financial support. Last, in Part Three ("Independent Scholars in Action"), Gross displays the range of activities in which scholars can make use of their expertise: tutoring, nonacademic teaching, writing in various forms, and "intellectual activism."

"Independent scholars are pioneering in a new area I call 'intellectual activism'," says Gross. "By that," he notes, he means scholars "undertaking activities that are not in themselves scholarship or science. These activities do not [themselves] create new knowledge, but they make existing knowledge more accessible, understandable, useful, or enjoyable to others; . . . they do something which benefits . . . the general culture." Though his abstract description is somewhat unclear, his examples of "intellectual activism" show that he usually means activism for intellectualism, that is, activism encouraging others to live "the life of the mind."[4]

Nevertheless, readers familiar with philosopher Ayn Rand's idea of intellectual activism--intellectuals taking action to spread philosophical principles by applying them to current problems in society--will find plenty of instruction and inspiration in this handbook.[5] At the end of every chapter, Gross offers a case study of an independent scholar in action, often rising from obscure beginnings to public success in one form or another. An example is Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique, a book that launched a women's movement that brought early progress (by debunking Freudian views of women) and later regress (by advocating governmental controls on employment).[6] Gross very briefly describes numerous other examples throughout the chapters--for instance, Rachel Carson, a scientifically trained author whose book for general readers, Silent Spring was most responsible for starting the modern environmentalist mass movement.[7] Through his many examples of independent scholars, Gross unintentionally gives the serious student of modern history--particularly the intellectual activist trying to gain insights that will make his work more effective--historical examples of the many independent intellectuals who, in decades past, shaped our society today--its movements, its values, and its politics.

Thus there are three potential audiences for The Independent Scholar's Handbook: would-be independent scholars, acting professionally; intellectual activists, acting as advocates of a movement; and individuals integrating the two points, that is, those individuals who have chosen to be in-line activists, which means advocates of intellectual change within their own chosen profession.

Cautions: The author provides a flood of examples and particulars. Objective readers will need their skills in reading at varying levels of intensity because some sections will be much more valuable to some readers than to others. Readers will also need to be wary of the author's "philosophy," which is a mishmash of an implicit benevolent universe principle, genuine intellectual excitement, and vague, conventionally leftist solutions to social problems.[8] Also be aware that this first edition was written before the internet became widely available as a resource. This fact does not detract from the book's main value, which is not the specific resources Gross lists but the timeless methods and virtues required for success.

For the appropriate readers, The Independent Scholar's Handbook can be an informative and inspiring guide.

Burgess Laughlin
Author, The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith

[1] Ronald Gross, The Independent Scholar's Handbook, Reading (Massachusetts), Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1982. This is the first edition; the second, 1993, edition reportedly contains only minor improvements. Both are out of print. Inexpensive used copies are available from Amazon Books. [2] For the "outside of academe" quotation: p. xvi. [3] Ch. 1, "Risk-takers of the Spirit." [4] For the three quotations: p. 148. [5] For Ayn Rand's discussion of intellectual activism: Ayn Rand, "What Can One Do?" in Philosophy: Who Needs It, Ch. 17. See also discussions of intellectual activism on the website of The Ayn Rand Institute and The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, under the Participate/Activism tabs or search http://www.aynrand.org for "intellectual activism." [6] The case study of Betty Friedan appears on pp. 94-99. If my memory of 30 or 40 years ago serves me well, Ayn Rand wrote a book review of The Feminine Mystique, praising some of its insights, but I cannot identify the exact issue and periodical. [7] For mention of Rachel Carson: p. 94. [8] For the skill of choosing an appropriate level of reading depth: Edwin Locke, Study Methods and Motivation: A Practical Guide to Effective Study, at The Ayn Rand Bookstore. I wrote the review featured there.

What can historians study?

As a long-term student of history, I am fascinated with the many ways one can approach the subject. By "history" here I mean the total of all human events of the past. We can know those events through the historical record: blood-stained flint arrowheads; paintings on cave walls; relief sculpture on marble monuments; "holy scripture" on vellum; the weave of clothing on bodies buried in peat bogs; handwritten philosophical journals; and governmental records stored on sun-baked clay tablets, sheets of papyrus, or computer hard drives. History, as a field of productive work, is an inquiry (historia, in ancient Greek) into events of the past.

WHOLES. First of all, historians can draw inferences from these items to describe whole periods of history: the Roman Empire (27 BCE-c. 400 AD), the Gupta Empire of northern India (c. 320-550), the explosive expansion of Islam (c. 600-800), the Ming Dynasty in eastern China (1368-1644), the Renaissance (c. 1400-1550), and the spread of communism in the 20th Century.

INDIVIDUAL DIMENSIONS. Each type of evidence used by some historians to describe broad periods of the past can itself become an object of long-term study by other historians. For example, one can study the history of stone tools, as a section of the history of technology, itself a division of the history of culture, that is, all the products created by some individuals and passed to other individuals in their own society or in later generations.

Other elements of culture suitable for historical study include languages, customs, institutions, and ideas. In the latter domain, one may study individual ideas--such as the idea of progress, the idea of reform, or the idea of a particular metaphysical hierarchy; or one may study ideas as systems, as in the study of the history of a particular worldview (religion or philosophy). In one way, studying the history of a particular religion, such as Christianity, is narrow because it excludes many other religions; but in another way, in the number of objects subsumed, studying the history of a particular religion is an enormous task: from the past flows a river of ideas, customs, institutions, and the lives of millions of individuals, each with his own particular understanding of the religion.

Time is another dimension that partly defines a historian's object of study. One historian might study a particular subject either at one point in time (the culture of the Americas in 1491) or through a great length of time (the Church in the Middle Ages). Another historian might specialize in generalizations, so to speak. For instance, a historian who is fascinated with societies considered as wholes might compare cultures such as the Indus River Valley culture of c. 2000 BCE and the culture of the Mayans c. 500 CE.

Still other historians can work in the area that underlies history as a field of inquiry: the philosophy of history. These historians would address questions such as: What is history? What are the proper objects of study? What special cognitive problems arise in studying aspects of reality that no longer exist and can be known only by fragments from the past? What ethical problems, if any, arise for historians, knowing that their conclusions may influence views of the past and therefore affect not only contemporary politics but also the inferences of philosophers?

At the other end of the scale of abstractions, some historians, those fascinated with the manner in which particular individuals acted in the circumstances of their time, might turn to writing biographies. Or historians who are fascinated with examining history under a microscope might turn to a particular event (the Islamofascist attack on the USA on September 11, 2001), a particular institution (socialized medicine in Britain), or a particular movement (the movement to abolish slavery in the 19th Century). At this scale of work, the historian can observe particular individuals taking particular actions which had particular observable effects. Carrying this approach further, some historians might study an event while it is happening--as in the seemingly endless NATO "war" in Afghanistan against "terrorists."

In summary, a particular historian may choose for study any element of human action or culture at any particular time or place. His object of study may be ancient or contemporary, small- or large-scale, concrete or abstract, and particular or general in scope. The historian is limited only by his own purpose, the length of his productive life--and the facts of what individuals have actually done, as shown in the historical record.

EXAMPLES. Following are examples of historical studies from my library. (I am not making recommendations, only citing examples.) Together they illustrate the vast range of objects which historians can study.
- The Story of Maps, Lloyd A. Brown: a history of maps from the ancient world to c. 1950.
- The Great Chain of Being, Arthur O. Lovejoy: a history of an invalid but enormously influential idea, a metaphysical hierarchy ranging from God down to the lowest worm.
- The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950-1350, Robert Bartlett: a detailed examination of the extraordinary wellspring of Viking-French "nobles" spreading from their homeland in Normandy to the periphery of Europe, from England (in 1066) to Constantinople.
- Holy Entrepreneurs: Cistercians, Knights, and Economic Exchange in Twelfth-Century Burgundy, Constance Brittain Bouchard: a report about the dynamic this-worldly economic activities of Cistercian monasteries (which were officially devoted to poverty and separation from this world), based on the author's detailed study of monastic records surviving for 800 years.
-Clocks and Culture: 1300-1700, Carlo M. Cipolla: a study that is both narrow (looking at one mechanical invention, the clock) and broad (what the radical differences in design and use of clocks in Ming Dynasty China and Renaissance Europe reveal about the two cultures during the "period of the great divergence" of Eastern and Western culture).
-That Noble Dream: The 'Objectivity Question' and the American Historical Profession, Peter Novick: a study of the struggles over the issue of objectivity--myth or norm?--in the profession of history in the USA from c. 1880-1980.
-Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial, Richard J. Evans: a close look--written as an intellectual detective story--at Evans's own research into the Holocaust and at his objective testimony in a British civil trial, a trial in which Nazi-sympathizer David Irving sued an American writer for libel because she said Irving's historical writings were fraudulent (which they were).

To a beginning student of history who is wondering what to study, my suggestion is to follow your passionate interests, held within the context of your highest values, including your central purpose in life. Are you fascinated with the history of Pittsburgh, the evolution of stone tools, or the development of logic? Follow your love.

Burgess Laughlin
Author, The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith

In-line vs. off-line activism

[For this post, I assume my readers have studied Ayn Rand's most important philosophical work, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, especially Chs. 1-5.]

As a preliminary step toward clarifying the differences between in-line and off-line activism, consider five imaginary examples of intellectual activists--individuals taking action in society to disseminate philosophical principles as they apply to current social or political issues.

(1) A physicist, Dr. A, works for a nuclear power-plant management company. He works 8 am to 5 pm, five days per week. In his spare time, in the evenings and on weekends, he writes a long article for a popular magazine. In the article, Dr. A argues for liberation of the nuclear-power industry. In support of his theme, he offers ethical principles (e.g., the moral right to property), political principles (the only function of a proper government is protecting rights from aggression and fraud), and technical knowledge (nuclear power does not cause neighbors to glow in the dark). Dr. A also occasionally meets informally with investors, power-plant managers, and others to convey to them his philosophical and technical views. He hopes to give them the information they need to clamor for liberating the nuclear-power industry. Dr. A is a scientist, not a professional intellectual, that is, his central purpose in life is not in the area of the humanities.[1] Besides being a scientist, he is also an in-line intellectual activist.

He is an activist because he is taking action in society to improve his world. He is an intellectual activist because he is applying philosophical principles to the culture in which he lives. (He is, in some measure perhaps, also a political activist if he takes steps to change his government in particular ways.) He is acting in-line because he is disseminating information that he has gained, directly or indirectly, through his efforts to achieve his central purpose in life, which is, in his particular case, "to facilitate the production of energy through nuclear power," or some similar statement of purpose.

(2) A second physicist, Dr. B, has essentially the same central purpose in life but is now retired from working for an income. She writes a series of articles, pamphlets, weblog posts, and books--some written to the general public and some to her scientific peers--calling for the deregulation of the nuclear-power industry. Capitalizing on the many contacts she made while working, she also occasionally meets with investors, power plant managers, and others to convey her philosophical and technical views, in hopes of giving these powerful individuals the ethical, political, and technical "ammunition" they need to fight for liberating the nuclear-power industry. She too is an in-line intellectual activist. Dr. B differs from Dr. A in that she can work full-time at her activism.

(3) A third physicist, Dr. C, has essentially the same central purpose in life as Drs. A and B, and he works for a nuclear power-plant management company 8 to 5, five days per week. In his spare time on one weekend, Dr. C writes a letter to the editor of the local, small-town newspaper. The subject of the letter is a protest against the local police department wasting time arresting prostitutes and heroin addicts in the town. Dr. C writes the letter in favor or abolishing victimeless-crime laws. He uses moral arguments (e.g., the right to liberty), political arguments (e.g., the proper function of government), and financial arguments (half the police budget goes for victimless crimes, while rapists and robbers run free). In this project, Dr. C is an off-line intellectual/political activist.

(4) Dr. D is a professional historian. Her particular central purpose in life is to "promote understanding of our past." She is a professional intellectual.[2] So far, her career has consisted mostly of publishing her own historical research and teaching in academia. She chooses to spend some of her weekends and evenings preparing philosophical arguments (e.g., about the nature of objectivity) and other arguments to persuade local public school board members to adopt more objective history texts for middle-school students. Dr. D is, in this respect, an in-line intellectual and political activist. If, instead, she chooses to devote some of her evenings and weekends to working with a local, ad hoc group trying to stop a proposed sales tax, then she is, in that respect, an off-line intellectual activist.

(5) Mr. E is a carpenter. His central purpose in life is to use wood--which he loves in all its many forms--for making things that improve life, such as houses, boats, conference tables, and model planes for the children of his friends. He is not a member of a carpenter's union, so he works only on nonunion jobs. On the side, he likes reading about and discussing basic philosophy. He has also invested some time into reading the laws of his city and state as they apply to unions. When he works as a carpenter, he works long hours. Between jobs he writes letters to the editors of newspapers and of magazines for carpenters. In these letters, Mr. E cites fundamental principles, stated in his own words, as support for a free market in labor. In particular, he opposes restrictions on immigration and laws that regulate relations between corporate management and laborers, particularly in the construction business. Mr. E is an in-line intellectual activist.

The preceding five examples illustrate this point: The defining characteristic of an in-line activist is the special relationship between his work (physics, history, or carpentry) and his intellectual activism: The two areas have the same general subject matter, at least in part. An in-line activist is an intellectual/political activist in his field, which is the field of his beloved central purpose in life.

An off-line activist, by contrast, is active in a field outside the field of his central purpose in life. Whether the off-line activist spends only a few minutes or 60 hours per week at his activism is not an issue here. What makes him off-line is the fact that the subject matter of his activism is outside ("off") the field of his beloved central purpose in life.

NONDEFINING CHARACTERISTICS. In defining ideas, the thinker should set aside nonessential characteristics. Examples of nonessential characteristics for in-line activism are: the amount of time the activist invests in his activism; whether the activist is a professional intellectual; whether or to what degree the activist needs to increase his communication skills; and how much (if any) research the activist needs to do for particular activist projects.

(1) In-line activism can be a full-time activity, as in the case of a retired person who maintains the same central purpose in life but perhaps in a different form, one not requiring that he work a regular job. Or in-line activism can be part-time. Likewise, off-line activism can be either full-time or part-time. How much time an activist spends on his activist projects is not an essential (causal, explanatory) characteristic. As in the formation of concepts generally, measurements are omitted in the formation of the idea of in-line activism.

(2) One need not be a professional intellectual in order to engage in intellectual activism, either in-line or off-line, just as one need not be a professional politician in order to engage in political activism, and one need not be a professional scientist in order to advocate that schools teach the scientific method. In the Objectivist movement, as Ayn Rand explains, the "New Intellectuals" are "those who will take the initiative and the responsibility [for applying Objectivism to life]: they will check their own philosophical premises, identify their convictions, integrate their ideas into coherence and consistency, then offer to the country a view of existence to which the wise and honest can repair."[3] The New Intellectuals of the Objectivist movement need not be professional intellectuals.[4]

(3) A need to improve one's skills in objective communication is common to both in-line activists and off-line activists--and even individuals who are not activists at all but who want to succeed in the advanced levels of their careers.[5] So the need to improve one's communication skills is not a characteristic that distinguishes in-line from off-line activists.

(4) Both types of activist may need to do additional research for some of their activist projects, but not for other projects (e.g., those projects that involve only a quick statement of position, backed up by a very simple argument). A need for research and a potential need to substantiate all assertions with citations are not distinguishing characteristics of either in-line or off-line activism.

SUMMARY. In understanding the idea of in-line (versus off-line) activism, it is very important not to define the idea by any characteristic other than the relationship between the activist's field of beloved work and the subject matter of his intellectual/political activism. The amount of time invested in an activity, one's professional status, one's skill in communication, and the amount of research required are all inessential and therefore nondefining characteristics of either form of activism.

The essential defining characteristic of in-line activism is the positive relationship of the activist's area of activism to the field of his central purpose in life. In-line activism means intellectual (or political) activism that is "in-line" with--drawn from, congruent with--the work he has done to fulfill his central purpose in life.

Burgess Laughlin
Author, The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith

[1] For central purpose in life: posts for May 20 and June 5, 2008. [2] For "professional intellectual," see: Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual, p. 25 (hardback) or 27 (paperback); or see "Intellectuals," The Ayn Rand Lexicon, first excerpt. [3] For a description of the New Intellectuals of the Objectivist movement: Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, p. 59 (hardback). [4] For the nature of a movement, see the July 5, 2008 post. [5] For a series of lectures and practical exercises (performed by audience members) on objective communication, suitable for anyone who communicates as the core of his work, but especially for the New Intellectuals: Leonard Peikoff, "Objective Communication," an audio recording of a long series of lectures, available from The Ayn Rand Bookstore.

The Cause of History: Ideas or Insults?

In the last few years, I have frequently examined many advocacy websites. One of my purposes was to identify the manner in which the authors made their points; their style in responding to comments, especially critical ones; and their effectiveness as intellectual or political activists.

In some weblogs, one element of style stands out: insults to opponents. These writers call their opponents names such as: nutbars, nutjobs, morons, cowards, idiots, goat herders, ragheads, and scum. They also use adjectives such as: moronic, idiotic, stupid, nuts, crazy, loony, insane, delusional, and childish.

Why do these writers use insults? Judging from their statements of purpose and the contents of their weblogs, these writers want the world around them to adopt certain views. Do these writers think that insulting their opponents will persuade their opponents to revise their values? I am not sure of the answer. I have only a "working hypothesis."

What I see in some weblogs--and also, I am sorry to say, in some of my own writing in various forums several years ago--is the use of language primarily to either express the writers' own emotions (typically anger) or to evoke emotions (typically anger) in their sympathetic readers and perhaps even in their targets. For such writers, emotions, usually expressed indirectly as insults, seem to be both the values to be achieved and the means for achieving them.

Such writers also seem to assume that emotions--especially those expressed by or triggered by insults--somehow cause history, that is, cause people to change their actions. The writers seem to assume the world is filled with human monads, each one radiating emotions, and the monads radiating most vibrantly win whatever struggle they have undertaken.

Most of the weblog writers who use insults also freely use hyperbole, for example: "This is absolutely and totally the world's foremost case of stupidity in all of recorded history." Perhaps such writers think hyperbolic language makes their emotional "vibrations" stronger. I suspect it is the equivalent of shouting in English when trying to communicate with a man who understands only Spanish. This is intrinsicism applied to communication.

My "working hypothesis" is plausible but unproven. Philosophically, I still wonder: What worldview underlies such insults? And, historically, I still wonder: What benefit have such insults secured in achieving any objective movement's goals for improving the lives of rational people here on earth?

Burgess Laughlin
Author, The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith

Feb. 17, 2012, P. S. -- Many of the individuals I have observed using terms such as "idiots" are conservatives and libertarians. However, the technique is not limited to them. There may be an underpinning epistemology shared by all such speakers. Stephen R. C. Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism, pp. 177-178, offers comments about postmodernists' use of language as a weapon to change the world. Since postmodernists reject reason (and reason's premise, the idea that everything in reality has a definite nature), they are free to use language any way they want. To change the world to match their nonobjective values (egalitarianism, polylogism, and so forth), postmodernists use language to attack, not persuade. Hicks notes (p. 178, 2nd edition): "The regular deployment of ad hominem, the setting up of straw men, and the regular attempts to silence opposing voices are all logical consequences of the postmodernist epistemology of language." (I have reviewed Hicks's book at: reasonversusmysticism.blogspot.com/2012/02/bkrev-explaining-postmodernism.html

What do historians owe to their audiences?

Having written the Jan. 2 and Jan. 10, 2008 posts as preliminary steps, I can now answer the title question in a straight-forward manner: Historians owe their audiences whatever their contracts require them to provide--and nothing more. If there is no contract, a historian owes his audience nothing. He is free to provide as much information as he chooses to offer.

1. OBJECTION: Doesn't a historian owe his listeners a complete proof of whatever assertions he makes?

No writer or speaker can provide a complete proof. The best that any historical writer or speaker can do is point the way and sketch the major steps of a proof. A complete proof of a complex assertion--e.g., the most fundamental cause of the U. S. Civil War was a radical and mutual opposition in the worldviews of the two sides--could require years of effort and its exact path would differ from one individual to the next according to their differences in knowledge of the subject matter.

2. OBJECTION: Doesn't every historian owe his audience some kind of substantiation for every conclusion he reaches?

No, unless his contract requires him to do so. Take an obvious example first: An editor of a magazine interviews 10 historians and asks them for their conclusions about the role of Aristotle's works on logic in advancing medieval culture toward the Renaissance. Each historian complies--by providing his conclusions and nothing more. The editor then collects the 10 conclusions and publishes them in an article on the diversity of views among historians. Some readers might be left with wanting more. Too bad. If they want more, and are willing to pay for it, in one way or another, then they should do so without complaining that the participating historians were being elitists of the Ivory Tower who won't address their audience on an equal level.

Take another example: An online forum consults a history professor as an (unpaid) expert on the religiosity of John Locke. The professor responds with a very brief answer. His unstated, private purpose is simply to keep his name visible among individuals who might buy his books or attend his for-fee lectures. He promises nothing more. He adjusts the length of his answer to fit his purposes, not the generally unknowable individual purposes of an anonymous audience.

3. OBJECTION: Isn't a historian being arrogant or even arbitrary if all he provides is a terse answer to a question, a question that the asker wants to discuss further or even debate?

This is an issue that comes up especially in formal lectures. For example, listen to the Q&A periods for the first few lectures in Dr. Leonard Peikoff's 2007 discussion of "The DIM Hypothesis" (available through the Ayn Rand Bookstore). In each case, Dr. Peikoff finishes a session (which was typically a walkthrough* of his upcoming book, rather than a formal, self-contained lecture) and then calls for questions.

A few of the questioners do not merely ask a question. Instead, after Dr. Peikoff's answer, they persist in trying to discuss or even debate his answer. The error here is an instance of context-dropping. In particular it is dropping the law of identity as applied to the Q&A sessions. A question-and-answer period is a question-and-answer period. A question-and-answer period is not a discussion period. A question-and-answer period is not a debate forum. Dr. Peikoff rightly refuses to allow individuals in the audience to draw him into either discussion or debate.

If an advertisement for a lecture promises a Q&A session, but makes no other specification, the lecturer is not obligated to turn questions (even if they are pertinent and properly worded) into discussions or debates. If an audience member pays to hear an expert, and the expert speaks, then the audience has heard him. If audience members think the answers are wrong or insufficient for their needs, then the audience members can in the future take their business elsewhere--or, better yet, they can offer a superior product of their own.

In summary, I would say that, in the absence of any contractual requirements to the contrary, no historian has an obligation to provide any particular amount of elaboration or proof of his assertions.

Burgess Laughlin
Author, The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith

* A "walkthrough" is a form of communication I witnessed in the electronics industry several decades ago. It was a form used by designers of electronic instrumentation, especially the sofware and firmware aspects. A software designer, for example, would address a small group of other designers, as well as manufacturing and marketing engineers. He would "walk through" his partially completed design, describing its intended functions step by step. In some steps, he could display code that he had written. In other steps, he could show only a block-diagram of what he intended the operation of the software to be when finished. His purpose was to present enough information that his audience could (1) have a general idea of what the design is; and (2) offer informed criticism (that is, pointing out possible errors and offering superior alternatives).

In Dr. Peikoff's 2004 DIM Hypothesis sessions, which are no longer available, he was fully engaged in a walkthrough. He explained the provisional nature of his hypothesis at that time; and he invited criticism. By contrast, Dr. Peikoff's 2007 walkthroughs are, I infer, much more oriented toward presenting his conclusions as a test of his ability to present them and his audience's ability to understand them, as presented, than of their correctness.

How much proof must a historian offer?

PROBLEM: In communicating his ideas to others, how much proof must a historian offer?

IMAGINARY EXAMPLE: Let's say historian Dr. A writes an essay whose purpose is to persuade readers to adopt a certain idea. His publisher, the Journal of the Intellectual History of France in the Central Middle Ages, sets a length limit at only 2000 words. Within that limit, the historian must present and prove his thesis: Siger of Brabant--a teacher of liberal arts in the university at Paris, c. 1265--was the first academic to try to establish philosophy as an autonomous discipline, that is, a field of university study that is independent of the demands of the "science" of theology (the mistress whose handmaiden is philosophy).

Given the circumstances (for example, the brevity of the essay and the fact that an essay allows no question-and-answer process for clarification or elaboration), Dr. A realizes that he must hold modest expectations of success. He intends only to sketch the basic points of a line of proof for his theme.

In Dr. A's essay, a single sentence states his theme. Directly or indirectly, the other sentences (all statements about past reality) are elements of his proof of his theme. By citing primary and secondary sources in medieval and modern texts, the essay's footnotes elaborate some of the proofs or at least lead readers to further information and argumentation. By citing examples at various stages of his argument, he is connecting his theme to (past) reality, even if he is not offering a full, explicit chain of proof back to sense-perceptible reality.

Dr. A's essay is completely objective (that is, the conclusions follow logically from facts of reality) and yet it contains not even one self-evident statement. A proof is one form of validation, the form in which a thinker connects evidence (ultimately, sense-perceptible) step by logical step to his conclusion, the one to be proven.

In the chain of Dr. A's proof, reaching back from the theme to sense-perceptible reality, there is a "gap" between the lowest links in the chain of his proof and the sense-perceptible reality subsumed by his theme. This gap often appears in historical writing, wherein the "reality" of the past consists in a few artifacts--such as a thousand-year-old manuscript or an inscription chiseled on a stone monument--surviving from past times; such evidence must be interpreted and is not self-evident.

What an objective writer ultimately relies on to connect his theme to sense-perceptible reality, besides the immediate and necessarily abbreviated argument (proof) he presents, is the fact of shared context. In our example essay, Dr. A defines his intended audience as being at least graduate students in the field of medieval French history, specializing in 13th Century philosophical transmission.

By defining his audience in this narrow way, he is trying to ensure that he and his target readers have the same context--that is, the same set of relevant knowledge outside the immediate content of his essay. Presumably the writer and his readers can then, on demand, connect that shared context to sense-perceptible reality. For instance, given his theme and his definition of audience, Dr. A does not need to prove that a university existed in Paris in 1265. What he does need to prove, to some contextually-determined degree, is that Siger held and advocated the idea of autonomy for philosophy as a field of study in the university.

Especially outside the field of philosophy, objective writers seldom need to prove their themes down to the level of explicit self-evidencies. The writers and their intended audiences share a context of knowledge which, in turn, presumably they can, on demand, connect to sense-perceptible reality.

CONCLUSION. A writer needs to offer enough proof of his theme to achieve his purpose for the audience he is addressing in the chosen circumstances. All three factors--the writer's purpose, his intended audience, and his circumstances--set the context that drives the writer's decision to provide such-and-such amount of proof for his theme.

Burgess Laughlin
Author, The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith

P. S. 1 -- Corollary: Criticizing an author, in a particular piece of writing, for "failing" to prove his case down to sense-perceptible reality is to expect the impossible. An author need only provide as much proof as his purpose, audience, and circumstances demand. In certain contexts, he can rightly assume that his audience can take the remaining steps on a path to a complete proof.

P. S. 2 -- My January 2, 2008 article on self-evidency was preliminary to this article on amount of proof. This article on amount of proof, in turn, is preliminary to another problem I have been wrestling with: What is the proper relationship between an intellectual and his audience? What do they owe each other, if anything? Originally these various subjects were a single cognitive traffic-jam. At least I have now sorted them onto three--interconnecting--roads. I am making progress.

What is a story?

In her essay "Art and Sense of Life," Ayn Rand differentiates "a real-life news story and a fiction story."[1] Her comments and my own interest in history lead me to wonder about stories in general, regardless of type. Following is my personal--not philosophical--definition. What I seek is (1) improvement on the basic approach of understanding a commonly-used but often ill-defined concept, and (2) comments on the basic nature of stories.

EXAMPLES. Stories may be short or long; fictional or factual; vast or minute in scope; and fast or slow in pace. Stories may be told from memory to a single listener, read aloud to a large audience, or read silently alone. Excluding borderline cases, a range of examples from my experience includes: (1) Short stories like the Br'er Rabbit tales, written for children, about imaginary, anthropomorphized animal heroes and villains. (2) Lloyd A. Brown's The Story of Maps (with 86 illustrations and hundreds of endnotes), describing 2000 years of the art and science of map-making. (3) Stories, true or false, that a person tells to explain a fading scar or why he was late for work this morning. (4) Stephen Ambrose's D-Day, a story of the causes and effects of the events happening on one day in one place: the Allied invasion of Normandy in World War II. (5) Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, an 1168-page novel that has the widest of all possible themes, a metaphysical one: the relationship between consciousness and reality.

DEFINITION. What essential, distinguishing characteristics do all these stories have in common? In other words, what makes a story--a story? I don't yet have a completely satisfactory definition. I can suggest an approach. After collecting a range of examples from personal experience, an early step in defining an idea is deciding what kind of thing it refers to. This is the genus in the definition.

A story is a kind of accounting for things, that is, a story combines (1) identification, (2) explanation, and (3) evaluation of events. A story identifies a series of human events (or natural events important to people, such as a story of the rise and fall of dinosaurs); explains their relation to each other; and evaluates their significance, within the context set by a certain purpose valuable to the storyteller and listener. For example, if a man and his young son are walking through their neighborhood, and the young boy asks why a certain house they pass is decrepit and abandoned, the father might tell a story of how the house came to be that way.

The storyteller chooses which events will be the beginning and end of the story, based on the story's purpose, which may be implicit or explicit. The coherence resulting from an essential purpose distinguishes a story from a mere chronology or random collection of events.

Stories tell a sequence of events that lead causally to an end. The storyteller selects the events. A novelist creates from his imagination the events which will concretize his theme. A historian, as storyteller, picks those events which show the essentials of what happened, why it happened, and why it is important.

USES OF STORIES. I have seen people of all ages -- from toddlers to elders -- enthralled by stories. Why is there nearly universal interest in stories, in one form or another? A storyteller chooses a few events from a multitude of events, ties them together, and offers them as an explanation of something. For example, Leonard Peikoff's Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America, tells two stories from history, in parallel: the philosophical slide from the age of enlightenment to the age of nihilism, first in Germany and then, increasingly, in the United States.

For the reader, Ominous Parallels will, says Ayn Rand, "bring order into the chaos of today's events."[2] I think that stories serve a function analogous to the unit-economy function of concepts.[3] In daily life we encounter a myriad of events. They may be large or small, nearby or distant, known through our own experiences or described by distant reporters. Stories help us make sense of those events.

The function of stories is both epistemological (in connecting disparate events) and psychological (in confirming that the world is intelligible). That is true of all stories. Certain stories--the "stand up and cheer" stories, whether they are fact or fiction--can be refueling as well.

SUMMARY. A story is a selective account of logically connected events, told for some purpose that offers values to the storyteller and audience. Stories confirm that events are causally connected, that we can make sense of them, and that--like all facts--they have value implications.

Burgess Laughlin
Author, The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith

Notes: [1] The essay "Art and Sense of Life" appears in The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature, and the quote comes from the hardback edition, pp. 47-48. [2] Ayn Rand's comment about a use of Ominous Parallels comes from her Introduction to Leonard Peikoff, Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America, p. ix (hb). [3] See Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Ch. 7, for unit economy of concepts.