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The only sources given doesn't seem to match the criteria of WP:V. -- Pjacobi 09:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Since there's no citation saying that Kelley has gained a more "mainstream" audience, I'm deleting the last sentence. Two things about the sentence strike me as suspect: 1) What does "mainstream" mean? It seems like a weasel word. 2) Kelley certianly doesn't have a BIGGER audience; the Ayn Rand Institute is four or five times the size of the Objectivist Center. Further, ARI has many more media appearances, especially on the biggest media outlets, like CNN, FOX, CBS, etc. LaszloWalrus 08:31, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I've eliminated the statement saying that Peikoff believes that any conclusion not consistent with Objectivism is dishonest. He explicitly denies this in this essay: [1]. LaszloWalrus 23:41, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I know the term Objectivism is/was primarily used to reference the philosophy, but isn't/wasn't the most common term used to reference the movement itself also Objectivism? If so, shouldn't the name of this article be something like Objectivism (movement) or Objectivism (the movement) rather than Objectivist movement? -- Serge 05:43, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
This article needs lots of help, I tagged it as such, and will get to work on it when I get a chance. Crazynas 07:12, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
The lenght of some citations is way to long. Please summarize these citations, and include some footnoes if you must. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:22, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Unless there are any specific objections I will proceed with merging in a few days. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 02:31, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
So now we have a so-called admin edit-warring to protect Rand from charges of culthood. Gotta love it. Al 04:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure. Thank you so much for threatening to block me. I'm certain you can see how this increases my willingness to assume good faith. I'm equally certain that you want this article to be as NPOV as the one about your Maharaji. Al 04:56, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree with the above poster who said this page needs help. It does.
For one-- why is this article called "Objectivist movement" in the first place? It seems to discuss the controversy surrounding Objectivism and the responses to that criticism. That would lead me to expect a title like "Controversy over Objectivism" or "Objectivism: Support and Criticism" or even "Objectivism: Cult Accusations" or something like that. Setting aside the fact that the current contents of this article aren't well represented by the current title, "Objectivism movement" doesn't strike me as a very good title anyway-- why should the movement be a different article than Objectivism (Ayn Rand)? Normally we just incorporate the movement of supporters of a Philosophy into the article about the ideas Philosophy itself. Sure, we could make an argument that the IDEAS and the Movement are separate-- but it seems easier just to talk about the two in one article. In this case, however, all the current text is about the controversy-- there's really not a lot of "movement" text anyway. For the time being, I'd suggest moving most of the material here to a page named one of the other titles, so as to create a "Controversy and Responses" page. If you can put in enough stuff about the history of the Objectivism movement here, then keep it. If there's no objections, I may create the controversy page myself in a few days.
I notice that Responses to Objectivism duplicates some of the content in this page. The cult accusations part of that page should probably be merged over to the Controversy page. " The Ayn Rand Collective", " Ayn Rand Institute", " Nathaniel Branden", and " Leonard Peikoff" seem to have a lot of what I would expect to find in a page on the "Objectivist movement"-- so incorporate their text into this page as needed.
It doesn't seem to me that the Cult Accusations do a very good job of presenting its case. It mentions some people have called it a cult, but doesn't really explain their reasonings, etc. There have been whole books and websites about this-- I'm sure we could find some short concise discussions of why people feel it is a cult.
I also have to frown upon the text that compares Objectivism to Scientology or Satanism. Certainly, there are similarities, but there are also many extremely huge differences. It seems like the criticism of Objectivism should be about Objectivism itself. The current arguments go "Objectivism is like Scientology, and Scientology is bad, so Objectivism MUST be bad, right?" It would be much better to just talk about Objectivism itself, rather than liken it to other things. The Satanism "guilt by association" is particularly bad. "LeVay liked her, and he's a SATANIST!" That's a little like attacking Vegetarianism by pointing out Hitler was one-- it's just a lousy argument. I was tempted to delete the Scientology and Satanism sections outright, but, right now Wikipedia had Ten Bazillion articles about how wonderful Objectivism is, and only a few paragraphs calling it a cult, so... for the sake of balance, i won't just delete those parts-- but they probably should be replaced with something more substantial.
-- Alecmconroy 10:42, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
I just edited a reference to an article by Jim Peron, which previously called him "Jim Peron of the Objectivist Reference Center." As the owner of of that site, I can definitively say that no one is "of" it other than myself. Peron's article was published several years ago in an online magazine, and I have simply "reprinted" it on my site (with his permission). I have updated the mention and the associated footnote accordingly. Since I am making a change that relates to a reference to my own website, I wanted to explain fully. (I wish I had time to fix some of the other issues with this article. Perhaps in the future.) -- RL0919 19:26, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I removed the NPOV tag because there doesn't seem to be much discussion over this article anymore. --24.220.246.20
One way to think about the Objectivism phenomenon is to see it as a political ideology, though not only that. The discussion of political philosophy in this article makes it clear that Objectivists are, like many conservatives, pro-market, and elsewhere in the article, like many liberals, secularists. But one would never discover from this article that the preponderant majority of Objectivists, including the two main think tanks (ARI, TOS) are very hawkish on foreign policy, holding views analogous to many so-called neoconservatives. Since isolationism is such a prominent feature of the libertarian tradition, this feature needs to be addressed somehow. I hate to see the drafters of this article descend into yet more controversial topics, inviting more edit warring, but promoting the War on Terror has become a central feature of contemporary Objectivist culture, and this is not merely a "movement" issue. The Objectivist view is that governments which violate the natural rights of their own citizens have no legitimacy, and thus are "fair game" for military intervention. This view conflicts with a widely held view that governments cannot legitimately engage another country militarily unless it has been attacked itself, and is thus of philosophical interest. The War on Terror is of especial interest to Objectivists because of the convergence of issues (conflict with religion in the form of Islam, defense of capitalism, the legitimacy of pre-emptive military attack on rights-violating governments, etc.)
I haven't looked at all the Objectivism-related articles to see if there is a discussion in any of them, but I think that we should be talking about this here first. And perhaps people can direct me to discussions elsewhere in Wikipedia if such already exist. Agent Cooper 14:24, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
According to this, Shermer has recanted his cult accusations in the latest issue of The New Individualist. The most current issue online is from December. Does anyone have a copy of the latest issue to confirm, disconfirm or explain what Shermer says? If he has fully or substantially recanted his position, this article needs to be substantially re-written. Endlessmike 888 00:57, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Please merge any relevant content from Randroid per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Randroid. (If there is nothing to merge, just leave it as a redirect.) Thanks. — Quarl ( talk) 2007-02-26 08:49Z
This article has massive problems, that much is obvious. So I've re-written it. I still have a lot of references to gather, so the re-write is held on my user page. I've included a history of the Objectivist movement (which will be more heavily sourced in due course), since the topic of this article is 'the Objectivist movement', not 'why Objectivism is a cult.' You can look at what I've got so far here. If I've made any factual errors please correct them, and if you know some of the sources please include them. I'll post some suggestions on the talk page, since I think the article should include a few more things. Once it is fully sourced then we can take the next step. Endlessmike 888 21:45, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I was told by several other editors that my updates were excellent, plus I've corrected several of the main problems with the original. Lack of sources and total lack of info on the Objectivist movement, for example. My update preserves everything in the original, but now the article has a flow, rather than seeming like a splatter paint of random information about Objectivism. Endlessmike 888 02:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
The claims made in the sections dealing with NBI need sources, which can be found in back issues of The Objectivist Newsletter and The Objectivist. I won't have access to my back issues until Monday, so please fill those in if you have copies to find the refs. Endlessmike 888 02:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Compare the LaRouche movement article with the Objectivist movement article. Why is it ok that the LaRouche section on cult accusations is tiny, while prior to my revision this entire article was about cults? The LaRouche movment is widely known for encouraging kids to drop out of school, live in a group home, and raise money for LaRouche. Hence the cult accusation against LaRouche is timely, pertinent, and important. Yet the Objectivist movement does literally the opposite (encourages kids to get college educations, encourages them to not live in group homes, and gives them scholarships and free education). Moreso, this accusation against Objectivism is becoming more obscure as time goes on, and Objectivism is for some reason required to have extensive sections dealing with the cult accusation! Sense made = zero. I'd like to see some reasons why Objectivist related articles need such extensive discussion of this accusation, while an actual cult (or at least something more commonly agreed to be cult-like) does not . Endlessmike 888 08:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
the cult accussation needs to be treated neutrally, currently you present all the counter arguments much more significantly than the argument, that is likely because you support that side, and thus are not 'neutral' but try to give the claims their merits.--
Buridan
You didn't answer my question. Why is it acceptable to devote major space on cults in the Objectivist movement article, when the standard set by an actual cult (LaRouche) is much lower.
Also, I deleted the addition of the Randroid section. I already covered BOTH the term Randroid, and Rothbard's paper. There was no need to repeat the exact same thing again. Endlessmike 888 19:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
There are a few citations I need help with. First, the Brandens dispute Valliants claims. But they've only done so on web forums. I assume that a web forum would count as their own testimony and therefore be okay to cite? Second, Buridan you asked for a cite to justify Laissez-Faire Books as a libertarian bookstore. Their parent organization is The Center for Libertarian Thought. I added that but just wanted to double check that it was satisfactory. Endlessmike 888 19:35, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
The comment is cited. Plus it is a stupid criticism. (Analytic philosophy claims to be based on logic. So I guess analytic philosophy is similar to Scientology in some important respect). I say keep it. Endlessmike 888 02:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
My edits were all in good faith. I suggest you look at them. I requested citations, put in NPOV where appropriate, and made good faith changes to make the rest of the article fit. I started editing it because people deleted the one bit of text from it that there was a consensus in afd to preserve. Then i edited the npov out of the header so it conformed to that standard, then i went through and asked for citations for any fact that was unreferenced or likely opinion. In short, I made this article a better article by wikipedia standards. Deleting the books, as the books were not related to the objectivist movement, but just imports that belong more appropriately on other pages, was the only bit that is really debatable. -- Buridan 17:13, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
You requests for citations were reasonable. I filled most of them, though a few more remain. I should have them filled by the end of the day. Also I found a cite for the lack of an Objectivist organization, so I retract my claim that such citation would be impossible.
About the books, limit the list to both of Peikoff's books, Kelley's Contested Legacy, and Smith's recent book. Those are the ones relevent to the movement. Then just link to the bibliography. That's my two cents. Endlessmike 888 19:16, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Randroid is a pejorative term for some or all followers of Ayn Rand's Objectivism. It is a portmanteau of Rand's name with the word android.
Murray N. Rothbard considered Objectivism to be cult-like. [1] Libertarian writer Justin Raimondo has referred to Objectivism as a "death cult", [2] due to the foreign policy positions advocated by Leonard Peikoff and Yaron Brook.
Raidroid, using that language, down to the word "portmanteau," is discussed in the first paragraph of the criticism section. Murray Rothbard's criticism is discussed in the immediately following paragraph. Raimondo's criticism isn't about the Objectivist movement, nor does it contain the word "randroid," so it is irrelevent to this article. Endlessmike 888 22:48, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
There are two categories listing this article as not citing sources. This is no longer the case. How are those categories removed? Endlessmike 888 04:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
LazloWalrus deleted a number of links, and ordinarily I'd agree with him that Wikipedia often collects way too many links. But this case is very different. Those links ARE a key part of the Objectivist movement - they are kind of the grass roots connection of the people to the movement and each other. They are the best representation of the differences in groups that make up the Objectivist movement. These links are where they get their news of what is happening in the movement. They are where informal articles are stored. They are where events in the Objectivist's world are advertised and discussed. They are where new ideas are put forth. Steve 18:14, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Steve, I disagree with what you added to the article. While it is true that Barbara Branden, Tibor Machan, Chris Sciabarra, and Ed Hudgins participate in Rebirth of Reason and Objectivist Living, none of the others publish anything online (except on the webpages of ARI and TAS). I'm unaware of Peikoff, Gotthelf, Binswanger, Brook, or Kelley using webforums in any notable way, or in any way at all. Endlessmike 888 18:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
I removed the see also section - all the links were embedded in the body text, so there's no need to duplicate them in a separate section. WLU 13:57, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I tried to find proper citations for the journals cited in the academia section, I've removed all the forthcoming ones; since they are forthcoming, they aren't out and until they're published, they don't really exist. Several of the ones that were supposed to exist I could only find as books, so they aren't really journals either. Here's the paragraph that was left iwth the forthcoming articles:
Articles on Rand’s ethical and epistemological views have appeared in journals such as Social Philosophy and Policy, [3] American Philosophic Quarterly, [4] and The Review of Metaphysics. [5]
Seems like discussion on this article died down 6 months ago; clearly, much debate is still needed.
On a "random article" search, I happened upon this one. Reading through the entire article, I was astounded by the unmistakable slant towards Objectivist standpoints. Every paragraph in the "Criticism" section ends with a refutation or marginalization of the critique. The entire tone of the article is defensive, as if the point of the entry is to defend the attacks against the so-called "movement". This poorly made article is yet another crate of ammunition in the anti-Wikipedia camp's arsenal.
This last quotation of Peron is too out of context to be properly meaningful, especially to non-Objectivists. I believe the entire discussion of the cult label deals in non-essentials and fails as an argument.
Objectivists are no more cult followers of Objectivism, than are readers and proponents of Adam Smith's economic views. Some understand them properly, some don't. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.71.136.147 ( talk) 18:31, 23 May 2008
An objectivist group is canvassing its members to edit Ayn Rand related articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Turnsmoney ( talk • contribs) 18:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
In accordance with BLP policy I removed unsourced material commenting on private lives of living persons. KD Tries Again ( talk) 03:44, 7 April 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Objectivist movement's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "rothbard":
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 08:12, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
He does not appear to be a reliable source, and frankly unless his allegations against Rothbard are rather more substantially backed up I don't think they should stay. TallNapoleon ( talk) 06:55, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) I would have to see the context in which he was cited. That said, no, I don't think we should bring it back. TallNapoleon ( talk) 19:54, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
I removed material from the subsection on responses to cult accusations, because the only source for it is an individual's website. I'm not aware of a source for these particular arguments that meets Wikipedia reliability standards, but if someone has one they can reintroduce with a proper citation. The cut material:
A specific analysis of Shermer's claim on an Objectivist-influenced site argues that:
- Objectivism does not meet most of his own list of what makes a cult, such as "inerrancy of the leader", "omniscience of the leader", "hidden agendas" and "financial and/or sexual exploitation", and
- Shermer's fundamental objection to Objectivism seems to be its certainty, especially in the area of morality, and Shermer's own Skepticism leads him to make certainty per se the fundamental criterion of a cult. Thus rather than arguing against Objectivism's reasons for claiming certainty, Shermer merely equates it to the faith-based certainty of cults."
The citation was: Craig, Robin.
"The Rand Cult".
I know that the material is preserved in the archives anyway, but I also know that changes related to a sensitive area like accusations of cultism can lead to ugly disputes, so I wanted to have the details on the talk page. --
RL0919 (
talk)
14:02, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
ARIwatch.com is missing from External Links. ARI Watch exposes the worst of the so-called Ayn Rand Institute. -- Mark
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |