(The context of undisputed facts in this issue is not repeated here.)
1. Dante’s phrase does not necessarily imply moral criticism, as Ayn Rand (who often used it) understood. It is merely an eloquent way of saying that in certain extremely negative situations—whether pertaining to poor behavior, poor penmanship, or a poor manicure —there is also a positive element, but that it is not enough to diminish the negative essence.
2. Since I was writing an extemporaneous, private email to two people with the same context of knowledge as mine, not a statement for the general public, I did not aim for objectivity by means of a running philosophic commentary replete with definitions, step-by-step proofs, and answers to possible objections. But when McCaskey asked me to allow him to make my unedited letter public, I had to agree, because I did not want to give him the opportunity to charge that I was engaged in a cover-up.
3. Because some people have turned the dispute into a moral issue, I should state the full truth, which is not stated in the letter: I have, for years, long before Harriman’s book, condemned McCaskey morally: I regard him as an obnoxious braggart as a person, and a pretentious ignoramus as an intellectual. Had I held a more positive estimate, I would have attempted first of all not to demand his resignation, but to discuss the book with him, understand his viewpoint, and see if together we could resolve and/or delimit his problems with it. But given my opinion of him, intellectual discussion was impossible to me.
4. Despite my view of McCaskey, I never expressed it publicly; it is not my goal to broadcast moral assessments without reason, or to issue blessing or excommunication to self-proclaimed Objectivists. But my goal is to judge the qualifications of those given leading positions of authority in running the Institute, and thus of power in guiding the course of the movement. My concern with this goal does not imply a lack of confidence in Yaron, who has done a splendid job. But the latter does not imply that he and I always agree on suitable Board members.
Ultimately, someone has to decide who is qualified to hold such positions and where the line is to be drawn. An organization devoted to spreading an ideology is not compatible with “freedom” for its leadership to contradict or undermine that ideology. In theory. the best judge of such contradiction would be the person(s) , if he exists, who best understands and upholds the ideology, as evidenced objectively by his lifelong intellectual consistency, philosophic attainments, and practical results. In practice, the best judge would be the person, if he is still alive, who founded the organization and defined its purpose, in this case as a step in carrying out a mandate given him by Ayn Rand. On both counts, only one individual qualifies: me. (I have retired from books, classes, and official position, but not from perception and evaluation.)
McCaskey is free to advocate in any medium whatever he wishes and even to regard himself as an Objectivist, which indeed he may in some form be, for all I know; I have no interest in finding out. My interest is not to ferret out disagreements with Ayn Rand, but to strip them of the imprimatur of the Institute, and thus to diminish the practical consequences of such viewpoints. In other words, my role in this connection is to remove from the existential center of the movement any influence which I evaluate as harmful in practice to the spread of Objectivism. To sneer in a public setting at an epochal Objectivist book qualifies, in my judgment, as harm.
When McCaskey was appointed to the Board, I said nothing, just as I have not objected to the fact that a few longtime Board members and I are on terms of personal enmity, and do not speak to each other. In all these cases my personal dislike was irrelevant. It is only when I perceived harm in practice that I have taken action. And I have set the requirements for such action high. In the 25 years of ARI’s existence, I have vetoed only two individuals prior to McCaskey.
If any of you believe that this makes me a dictatorial opponent of independence or free speech, then God help you, because reality obviously hasn’t. And if, as seems possible, my detractors in this issue represent a sizable faction within the Objectivist movement whose spokesmen include magazine founders and PhDs with podcasts– then God help Objectivism, too.
P.S. Ayn Rand would not have sought to defend herself against a similar attack. She would have regarded such an attack as contemptible, and an answer to it on her part as a moral sanction of the attackers, implying as it does that their charges are worthy of consideration.
I am not as strong as she was.
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Leikoff vs. a Bored ARI Member
November 5th, 2010
(The disputation of the undisputed contextual facts in this issue is repeated here)
1) I did not morally condemn John McCaskey. I was merely trying to point out that in the extremely negative situation his poor behavior created there was a positive element. Namely, the completely unrelated work he has done for the Institute and the Anthem Foundation. The distance between these two disparate things - his work and his criticisms of Harriman's and mine - should in no way be interpreted to mean a broad judgment of the man - but only a judgment of his particular actions in this instance.
2) John McCaskey cannot be trusted to honor a request for a brief period of silence while a proper clarification of my reasons for demanding his expulsion from the Institute is prepared for public dissemination. Again, this in no way implies that I hold Mr. McCaskey to be an immoral person. That I expected a particular type of behavior from him in yet another disparate situation does not suggest an evaluation on my part of his past behavior, and a conclusion that he is generally untrustworthy.
3) Even though this dispute is not a moral issue, since some people view it that way - even though they are completely wrong - I will address their completely baseless premise as though it were valid. Here is my moral evaluation of John P. McCaskey: he is immoral. Again, my moral evaluation of him in no way influenced my reaction to his criticism's of David Harriman's book. Even though I would not have immediately demanded his resignation, and instead attempted to speak with him, had I held a higher moral evaluation of him, again, my moral evaluation of him had nothing to do with my decision to demand his resignation rather than to speak with him.
4) My long-held conclusion that Mr. McCaskey is immoral does not mean that I believe that any of his behavior - which has caused me to hold this conclusion - had anything to do with his behavior towards Harriman's and my work. His criticisms there stemmed from a non-volitional - and thus morally-excusable - disagreement with us. He simply lacked knowledge. He was unaware of the fact that to criticize Harriman's and my work (regardless of the manner or venue in which he did so) reveals an individual's lack of ability to hold a leading position of authority in the Ayn Rand Institute, and thus the Objectivist movement. The purpose of the Institute and movement is to promote Objectivism, and even though Harriman's book was not written by Ayn Rand and thus (according to my well-documented position) is not part of the philosophy of Objectivism, to criticize it is to criticize Objectivism. This is because I regard Mr. McCaskey's criticism as contradicting and undermining the ideology the Institute is devoted to spreading. Because I, uniquely, have attained the most practical results for it's spread since Ayn Rand's death, and because I best understand and uphold the ideology, I alone am capable of understanding how this claim I am making right now does not blatantly contradict the point, which I have been making for twenty years, that Objectivism is only the works of Ayn Rand. Mr. McCaskey simply does not realize that, unlike myself who is qualified and capable, he is not qualified and capable of discerning which non-Rand-authored works are a part of Objectivism; and thus he is incapable of refraining from offering criticism of said works when they become part of Objectivism (a process that only I, because of my unique position and my mandate from Ayn Rand herself, am capable of understanding). Yaron Brook, for his part, is simply unaware of this qualitative shortcoming of Mr. McCaskey's. Also, again, this does not make John McCaskey immoral. I want to reiterate so that I am not misunderstood: John McCaskey is not immoral for trying to undermine Objectivism and being reasonable expected to attempt to extort from me an unedited public statement under threat of slander. That is only a particular, as I said, extremely negative situation. Rather, he is only immoral in the broad, overall, general, and comprehensive sense.
Even though John McCaskey's criticism of Harriman's and my work may or may not constitute disagreement with Ayn Rand/Objectivism (depending upon how I understand the issue on any given day), and even though in three different places above I have made it clear that I do not regard his criticisms as a moral issue, I want to state on not uncertain terms that Mr. McCaskey's criticism's clearly constitute disagreement with Ayn Rand, and for the sake of the Institute I demanded his resignation (even though, as I made clear, this is not a moral issue and had I held him in higher moral esteem I would have instead spoken with him about this).
If, simply because I am uniquely qualified to determine who is and is not qualified to promote the ideology via the Institute and movement, which is because I am uniquely qualified to understand what criticisms do and do not constitute disagreement with the ideology, which is because I am uniquely qualified to ascertain which works are and which are not part of Objectivism, you believe that these qualifications are dictatorial in nature, you do not understand what a dictator looks like in reality.
P.S. My answering this controversy here does not imply that I believe it deserves answering. I am only doing it to demonstrate that I am not as intrinsically capable of rational action as Ayn Rand was (which in no way disqualifies me from having a leading position of authority in the Institute and movement - even though it does disqualify John McCaskey).
John McCaskey is not as strong as I am.
Bravo. A wonderful parody.
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