Blarman again gave no response but rotely rejects every one of my responses, regardless of their content, to his posts. Other posts of mine are also systematically 'downvoted' without regard to content, and with no response. In Blarman's personal feuding he has previously demanded that I not be permitted to respond to his posts -- on what is a public forum, and he tried to have me removed from the forum. This and his previous personal attacks are all from his own personal feuding for rejecting his anti-Ayn rand religious promotions.

Blarman's proposal of "saving" the country through "action" versus "Go Galt" remains an anti-intellectual false alternative.

Yes

Maybe she didn’t predict a total collapse in the USA in her book, but it’s heading that way more every day

How do u explain the situation in Venezuela. I would say it’s following the fictional story line in AS PRETTY CLOSELY

They haven't found any impeachable offense or managed to create a lasting public perception of any. It is all political, trying to manipulate perceptions to create controversy and a bandwagon effect they hope to do major damage. https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

Atlas Shrugged did not have the revolutionary impact Ayn Rand expected when it was published. The novels and her extensive non-fiction have had a major intellectual impact on how many think in this country, though not the establishment intellectuals. Her ideas have not stopped the trend towards collectivism and statism but have lead to intellectual resistance despite the impotence of conservativism. Whether or not the better ideas can spread fast enough now remains to be seen, but she did not predict a total collapse regardless of what the better people think and do.

A further decline in rational philosophy with its consequent loss of more freedom and of economic progress in comparison with what could have been is not the fictional complete "collapse" in Atlas Shrugged. The economy is far bigger today than 60 years ago in spite of government and the spread of the more overtly irrational cultural pressure groups. The growth of irrationalism is not good and is obviously causing problems that promise to increase, but it isn't the "collapse" in Atlas Shrugged.

They know that they have to present some important crime that he has done first. They have to get through the senate with 2/3 and thats not going to happen.

I noticed that Trump is walking a tightrope now to NOT give them any opportunity to do another impeachment. The dems already toyed with the Roger Stone thing, and now the coronavirus response to see if those rise to the level of impeachment. Not to say they wont find another impeachable offense.

But, even AR admitted that the book didnt result in an awakening and reduction in the speed of government control. In fact, it really didnt actually DO a lot. Collectivism is so strong a force that it has taken over more and more

ThereBut, the lack of rational thinking has indeed proceeded pretty much unabated over that 60 years, and thats why what you call "fictionalized" has been coming true- and will continue to come true as the lack of rational thinking takes greater hold. Technological change has reduced the ability of the government, at least temporarily, to control the economy (destroy it perhaps is a better word). But as the government people get smarter and more controlling, things will continue to decline.

Honestly, I would have to re-look at exactly where Peikoff stood on teaching the philosophy of Objectivism at the secondary level (I just can't recall at the moment) - but I was thinking he did promote teaching philosophy at that level. But irrespective, I think it can be - again especially with them being taught properly in the lower grades on how to think and learn. I have a higher level of confidence at what they can learn at what age. We taught things to our kids way earlier that what is considered to the norm. If the expectations are there and the proper education is there, kids are much more capable than they are given credit for. Then, also doing that in coordination with teaching other related subjects such as entrepreneurship, economics, politics, etc. and having them actually do - and not just theorize - can go a long way to give them the experience to help re-enforce the ideas being discussed. Note the Ayn Rand Institute has their scholarship programs heavily target at middle and high school age students as well as their book giveaways to teachers in middle school and up. And their focus on college age students. What experience do college students have to base their understanding on - especially when the public schools have not only indoctrinated them into collectivism - but have thrown business and entrepreneurship under the proverbial bus the whole time? My kids were raised running their own businesses from elementary school and on. My daughter managed to put away thousands to prepare to cover college costs in case she needed it. My son was learning basic algebra from us since 3rd or 4th grade. My daughter had nearly a year of college classes completed before graduating high school and earned her way into an Ivy League college with a full tuition scholarship. And I don't attribute this to genes - I attribute it to what we exposed them to and when. I know people at every age that don't get the deeper principles of Objectivism because their experiences haven't led them to a place where is makes sense to them - not fully. Because for their decades in the work force - they have never run a business and don't have any understanding of that side of things from the experience level. Experiences along with theory make all the difference.

So again - as I said - we would be following very closely with what Peikoff has suggested - but my life experiences and those of my wife with decades of teaching and our own children - and other observations and research - tell me that high expectations and given the proper means can take kids to the next level. I am a thinker and a doer and won't limit myself or my expectations because others don't think I can. My experiences tell me otherwise.

Nor does it make any sense to me that they be taught according to a philosophy that we for some reason need to hide from them. Indoctrination? I think not. If they have been properly educated in the lower grades to learn how to learn, to be rational thinkers, and the subjects are presented objectively and even tied to why they have been taught the way they have leading up to that point - this is a further example of how to show them the larger integrated picture of how it all ties together.

I disagree that most people don't need an understanding of the technical aspects of Objectivism - even epistemology. It is to their advantage. When parents have kids - they have a lot to do with educating their kids - would it not be better ff they understood how people learn so as to consider that when teaching their children verses just doing whatever comes to them? Or to have a solid foundation in a study of philosophy to be able to help pass a rational, thinking, "learning to learn" structure on to their kids vs doing it arbitrarily? Not to mention the fact that I don't believe most people will consistently act objectively without understanding a structured philosophy of why they should. I have been lucky in that I have developed my own "philosophy" that lines up almost perfectly with Objectivism - without ever being taught Objectivism. But I think I am also rare. It was SO awesome when I found out about Ayn Rand and Objectivism to have much better confirmation of my philosophy and to take it to the much deeper level and highly clarified level that Rand did via Objectivism. And my philosophy was self created on my part. My family were left leaning, my schooling was left leaning, my college experiences were left leaning. Then my after college experiences turned more to right leaning - but I was atheist - so I had issues with them too - including areas where we didn't line up simply because their religious views took them in a direction that my rational atheist view did not - such as selfishness. I have always made the argument that it made no sense that me sacrificing to others for their needs and them in turn doing the same - was good, but taking care of our own interests and needs was bad. But I have for as long as I can remember - thought logically. But, I see most atheists of today being sucked into collectivism because they are not being taught to think rationally and are indoctrinated into collectivism and are anti-business and chose not to go into 'evil' business to learn otherwise. And even many of them that do, still carry that collectivist and altruistic "philosophy" and are guilty for being in business and still put it down.

I personally think that people in business who are tired of being thrown under the bus by the left and the right, who may not be particularly religious (or not at all) would be happy to send their kids to a school of this nature. To give their kids a better fighting chance by being rational thinkers that are taught how to learn and to be objective and to have a philosophical system on which to base it and their morals on - verses the public schools - again, I think it a no brainer. If I had the means to put my kids in a school like that - even when in my mid 20's with our kids - I would have jumped on it. I think. Again, my own life experiences well after that have changed my views - but even then I was atheist, pro-business, anti-altruism, and dissatisfied with the public school education I received.

And, at some point - if Objectivism is to succeed in the mainstream - people have to be confronted with the idea that the schools will not be upholding their religious and/or collectivist beliefs and actively teaching against them. If we hide the Objectivist basis of what we are teaching the kids - we are doing them a disservice. If the parents don't like that we would be teaching them them fundamentals of Objectivism - in a rational thinking approach while also considering it in relation to other philosophies then so be it. Don't put your kids in our schools. And, if we don't arm the kids with a good understanding of what Objectivism is - then they will encounter the typical anti-Objectivists in college and in society that are so prominent without the ability to judge what they are hearing based on their know knowledge and experience of the subject at hand - or lack thereof. Now, do I think we are going to turn these high school students into PhD Philosophers - no, of course not. But to have a strong working understanding that they can take with them in life and maybe because of the exposure - they may be inclined or interested to go into philosophy as a profession - great. The idea that not teaching philosophy to people, whether young, or old, due to their lack of experiences in life causing floating abstractions is not a reason to not teach them. I think you will find only a very few people that that have such diverse backgrounds that when teaching them Objectivism - that they would have no areas that could open them to the possibility of them having these floating abstractions. They have to be taught. Given examples. Show experience by others with the hope that they can take enough away from that to make the difference. Or, what - stop teaching them Objectivism until they go get personal experiences that could remedy one floating abstraction to then just move on to the next one? Experiences are very important in my opinion. So many times you can explain, bring up every point and example in the world - but until they have the experience themselves you just cannot convince them. This is very common place for students all the way through and a while after college - well for that matter all through life. So should the Ayn Rand Institute and others like myself give up on trying to teach anyone Objectivism until they are 30, 35, 40, or later until they have have the proper life experiences that their number of floating abstractions meet some arbitrary level? I don't think so.

Everyone, as also stated by Rand, has a philosophy - I think that allowing students - just by pure rational thinking alone - to simply derive their own philosophy without an education in philosophy and guidance is a poor approach. It's like teaching someone to swim by just throwing them in the water without any practical teaching of how to swim. They may learn to quickly dog paddle if they don't drown - or they could be taught properly and how to do it well. I don't think something as important as one's philosophy should be treated differently.

Trying to teach philosophy in secondary school is not part of Leonard Peikoff's methods. Even most adults have no need for the technical aspects of Objectivism, such as much of the epistemology. It is too abstract and depends on too much prior knowledge.

Some principles of Objectivism can be ultimately explained and many more applied in teaching children, but the technical philosophy can't be presented in such detail and compared with other philosophies that are not yet understood by the students. It turns into indoctrination with floating abstractions.

You would also have a harder time finding parents who would want to send their children to such a school that comes packaged with what they see as a kind of new 'catechism' they don't even understand themselves.

There is more than enough for you to do in presenting a rational education emphasizing independent thought and understanding (as Leonard Peikoff described).

There are elements of similarity because the plot of Atlas Shrugged was a fictionalized, accelerated version of the effects of withdrawing the mind, as Ayn Rand described in "Is Atlas Shrugging?" in 1964. Productive people have always -- largely silently, and without organization -- cut back or dropped out of productive activities for which they are punished.

She said that as she was writing the novel and seeing similarities all around her she kept telling herself that she was writing to prevent such an end. "Is Atlas Shrugging" concluded with “Atlas Shrugged s not a prophecy of our unavoidable destruction, but a manifesto of our power to avoid it, if we choose to change our course.” And she has made a difference through her intellectual influence.

The last 50 years have not been a collapse like in the plot. In many ways there have been enormous technological improvements despite government controls. The end of the Trump presidency, whoever follows him, does not mean "following the AS fictional path". Similar false predictions were made for Obama's election.

Trump has done enough damage himself, though not like a Clinton, and is a futile Pragmatist consequence, not an initiator of a fundamental difference. That is omitted from the discussion emphasizing Trump idolatry versus Never Trump emotionalism.

After Trump we will have the same problems, to varying degrees, which can only be reversed by intellectual means. Preaching imminent doom to 'get it over with' is not a rational response to the problems we face.

As I said earlier - we would be following very close with the methods and patterns discussed by Peikoff. So no, we would not be trying to teach philsophical subjects to kindergarten kids, but using Objectivist epistemology and a blend on Montessori methods in teaching them how to think properly and with proper integrations - with a focus on the core subjects only. However, by middle school for sure and maybe a little earlier the beginnings of philosophical discussion can begin at basic simple levels and during the high school years they surely can get into the depths of the philosophy - but, in my opinion, not as a single class on philosophy but as a class on Objectivism that would span all four years of high school for a very in depth study - covering all of her books, comparing and contrasting other philosophies, etc... Especially with a proper educatiin in the lower grades they would be able to handle this. And of course - other courses - english (grammer, reading, writing, editing, etc), mathematics, sciences, computer science courses, economics, finance, history, entrepreneurship, politics, etc...still relatively limited compared to the barrage of BS taught at many large public schools - but with greater depth.

She may not have said that the scenario in AS WILL happen, but over the course of the last 50 years, that scenario has been pretty much spot on for the most part. If trump gets re elected in 2020, we get a slowdown in collectivist advances for another 4 years, but if he doesnt get re elected in 2020, we will see a sharp turn into socialism and follow the AS fictional path.

With that kind of a contrast there is a lot you could do without even mentioning Objectivism, and philosophy can't be taught to school children, especially the lowest grade levels, at all. As LibertyBelle put it: " you can't very well start by teaching explicit philosophy to children, but should start my teaching them the rational method of thought."

My wife is a public school teacher and we just had our last of two graduate from high school. So we have seen it recently from the perspective of parents as well as from the teacher side. It is abysmal! Too much politics, too much concern about handing out grades to those who haven't earned them, appeasing administration and parents that don't like real teaching and having to accept personal responsibility (meaning the kids primarily). It's the home of the trophy for existing society. Now, some places are better than others and some schools are better than others, and so on and so on to include boards of ed, admin, teachers, etc. My wife has been in a fight much of her teaching career trying to uphold high standards - and the idea of trying to tie philosophy - especially something like Objectivism either directly or indirectly in math and science courses would be slapped down in a heart beat! Yet they finagle their common core collectivist leftist ideology everywhere they can.

A few years ago my wife left the regular public school to teach at a Juvenile Detention Center where the focus was on trying to really rahab the best students they could find in the other detention centers is the state - and I think even surrounding states. But that has now went to the wayside and the priority is filling beds - so now they have murderers, rapists, violent, and a group that is in the process of being detoxed. But for years - and these are high school kids mind you - in math she frequently has to literally revert to 2nd grade level math of bring them up from there as far as she can before they leave the facility. Similar issues with reading levels. And she had to fight with admin for years to stop trying to give them credit for normal level high school math classes like algebra 1 & 2, geometry, trig and analytic, and such when they could barely do 3rd or 4th grade level math. She has finally gotten that mostly stopped and they are getting credit for math classes that represent what they are actually capable of. And so on. It's it very frustrating - she deals with it directly - but I keep very involved and have her to talk with me about everything so she doesn't bottle it up.

To see the end result is probably not going to happen in our lifetime - but if we could at least help start the process that get's us there that would be awesome - and we do have our own kids that will hopefully be the beneficiaries of it as well.

:)

Of course I am for free-enterprise and capitalism, and you certainly should expect to make a profit; but also, there is the angle that the more people who are educated rationally, the better chance you, personally, have to live eventually in a free country, where you can better have your own personal benefit, too
--And, of course, you can't very well start by teaching explicit philosophy to children, but should start my teaching them the rational method of thought. but oh, how much better you could do it than is being done by public schools nowadays!---(According to reports, that is; I don't generally visit in any school classrooms.)

Ayn Rand showed in fictional form what happens when the mind is withdrawn, and she otherwise showed what happens generally when rationality and individualism wither as a cultural force.

She didn't predict 'The Collapse' as it occurred in fictional form in Atlas Shrugged. There are many possibilities for degrees of degradation over time along with some forms of "collapse" in some areas -- while some individuals or segments of society succeed to some extent in some realms in spite of the rest That is an alternative to a literal collapse of everything into a new Dark Age.

While that extreme could happen to the U.S., too, perhaps helped along with some catastrophe like nuclear war, there are with many other possibilities. One possibility is that better ideas gradually begin to spread while they still can, before the country is disabled and sinks into dictatorship such as a Soviet Union or Venezuela. We should not think in terms of an inevitable grand "collapse".

I won’t live to see the collapse most likely. But the collapse is surely coming. AR predicted it pretty accurately.

Agreed!

I agree. I have been thinking for a while - what is the best place to focus on (for me) to have the most impact and help to get people on board with an Objectivist philosophy. And we settled on the idea that it was in education. With my wife having the time in education she has - it is also clear to us that it can't be done through the public schools (VERY simplified statement here). And then after reading Peikoff's book 'Teaching Johnny to Think' it confirmed and re-iterated much of what we had been thinking.

The public schools are expecting to graduate 3.7 million kids this year. With probably 95% of them having successfully been indoctrinated into collectivism, socialism, and not being trained to think rationally - having a school even the size of Lisa VanDamme's in a needle in a haystack - in a field full of haystacks! We need volume. My personal opinion is that franchising the VanDamme Academy is the way to go and it is a shame that she has decided to not do so. A few dozen graduates per year simply cannot compete against 3.7 million - especially as those 3.7 million are adding to the voting base to elect collectivists and would be anti-Objectivists. We need thousands of private schools like the VanDamme Academy. If she won't do it - then others must. I hope to be one of them. And my goal is to do that. My intent in the long term is to develop the curriculum, start a model school, adjust the curriculum as needed after putting it in production, and then franchising.

I also want more covered in terms of Objectivism itself. I have approached an organization that offer grants for promoting Objectivist ideas - an interestingly enough was shot down cold as they think the idea of teaching actual Objectivism in a school using Objectivist epistemological methods for all the subjects involved is a unethical pedagogically! What a shame. I mean - if that was all the school did was teach Objectivism at the expense of the core subjects (like the 3 R's) - I could see the point - but teaching it along with the cores and other electives later on seems totally appropriate to me.

Anyway, I have contacted Lisa - I don't want to get into too many details but I did get an response that seemed very positive - and then after one reply where I gave more information about where we are in the process - no more response. I will follow up more - maybe it is as simple as my email got thrown in the junk mail folder and she didn't see - but... I don't really think that is the case. Maybe she thinks at this stage it would be too time consuming for her to get involved. But she has already answered the questions (for her own school) to some of the logistical issues I would like to know the answers to before repeating those mistakes or to understand why she has made some of the decisions she has verses other routes I am considering. She has a wealth of practical knowledge that could help others considering this path that would be invaluable to startups. So I hope it is not that she doesn't want to get involved in the early stages as that means that information will not be passed along. Of course, that is her prerogative and she would gain nothing from it other than personal satisfaction and knowing she is helping to open more minds to a proper education - but maybe that is not a high enough value to overcome other things she needs her time for. Who knows.

Irrespective - I/We will move forward - maybe. Like I said, we are studying this idea well before we jump in. We have a lot to lose and are not spring chickens anymore - we have one shot I think - so it's do it right and run with it - or let the idea die.

They agree with the premises, but not all the policies that follow from them. "Me too but slower."

There is a lot to criticize Trump for, but it is mostly what he is as a consequence of the culture, not something he initiated himself, and one doesn't have to be a Trump fan, let alone a Trump idolizer, to see what the Democrats are doing.

That's a good way to have an influence. Ayn Rand envisioned that professionals who agreed with her ideas would apply them in their own professions.

The independent school you envisage would not have to be large, as long as it were financially feasible for you. Philosophical influence is one mind at a time, and you never know how much influence even one good individual will have.

The Van Damme Academy has been very successful. Lisa Van Damme has said that she has been asked to franchise it but doesn't want to because she wants to devote her efforts to a single school she can direct and be responsible for. Maybe she would be willing to discuss your plans with you to help out.