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Apr 18, 2023Liked by Classical Wisdom

If you’re talking about Objectivism, then I don’t see it as a “blind spot” personally. It’s certainly an eyesore. I’m intrigued and hope to catch the recording post event.

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Was mildly interested to see who was on the Ayn Rand side and found this “gem” from Aaron Smith who is on the panel. https://newideal.aynrand.org/the-false-promise-of-stoicism/

Not surprised to see him continuing the Randian practice of straw men. I find it funny that the majority of his article calls stoicism deterministic to an extreme degree such that we have categorically no control over our lives (never mind that stoicism is filled with literal practices that you would indeed have to choose to carry out) but also quotes the Serenity Prayer as though it’s meaningless. This really brings up what is so nauseating about Rand and her followers, the emphasis on “reality” while completely ignoring it. It’s hard to take these folks seriously enough to get past a “blind spot”, especially since “objectivism” is supposed to cut through perception and arrive at the objective truth. And yet they can’t objectively take the philosophy at face value when they say they are not determinists.

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Yet it is a blindspot to think that of all those thinkiers it is only her with her personality that evokes such strong response. I think it is because of the congruence of her personality with her ugly message. I was started on the road to eventual conversion to Catholicism by her ugly unfair stupid over-the-top "For the New Intellectual". The argument was so ugly I knew she mustn't be a nice person.

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