Saturday, December 15, 2007

Everyone's a little bit Objectivist

I might sometimes post stuff not directly or obviously related to Objectivism. After all, a cute co-ed talking about her kinky Randian sexual exploits would logically draw the crowds, right?

In the Objectivist party game
Concepts in a Hat slips of paper with concepts central to objectivism written on them are placed in a hat (and now, lets face it, what words or concepts exist hat are not indelibly linked to the greatest philosophical system ever conceived). Each player draws out 2 slips of paper and tries to make the Objectivist connection between them.

At first i thought this was a parody, but no, it's for real. Both Nate Branden and Peikoff actually played this game on a regular basis.

Page 223 of The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics says:
"Branden reports that in 1966 he took Rand to see his - still secret - new mistress, an actress, perform in a play. Rand later complimented her performance by saying that she had "applied" the philosophy of Objectivism to the art of acting. Branden reports Patrecia's response with sympathy: "What has Objectivism got to do with this?"


But, in a certain sense, philosophy, as any actual Objectivist knows, has to do with everything, it is "the master integration" of our knowledge. Philosophy is precisely the field of broadest abstractions which covers the most ground...."

Valliant goes on for a few more paragraphs essentially saying the same thing a few more times, and concluding that Branden was never a "true" Objectivist since he did not allow the philosophy of Objectivism to permeate his entire brain and take over his life, and ergo he was not Rand-worthy.


So if you think something is off topic, remember: Everything is related to Objectivism!

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