A few thoughts that relate to the above poem (tanka).

The late Erik Naggum was a controversial figure as a user of programming language Common Lisp and markup language SGML because he was often unreasonably and mercilessly unkind to people he regarded as stupid or people (often newbies) who were unwilling to educate themselves from resources he felt would rescue them from ignorance. I won't make apologies for that. It was beyond rude.

Nonetheless, he was brilliant thinker and I am not one to ignore useful thought because of its source. That is itself a controversial position but it's one I strongly hold to. To do otherwise puts important thought at risk by manufacturing truths or even discovering legit truth about any author. If you were told Homer or Shakespeare or Thomas Jefferson or Maya Angelou or Mark Twain or MLK or AOC or Bernie Sanders was morally flawed, are you then obliged to disclaim or remove their writing. Society would be forever hostage to reputation peddlers. I maintain that the goodness of writing must be judged by the words of the writing, not the author. It's an uncomfortable but necessary truth, as I see it.

Indeed, to read even the thoughts of Hitler or Ayn Rand, neither of whom I thonk well of, can be important. To understand the world and its history, it matters to hear all kinds of people [1].

As I undertand it, Naggum was originally an objectivist. That's how he seemed to present himself to me, as an ex-objectivist. At one time a fan of Ayn Rand and her philosophies. But at some point he had a falling out and came to be a very lucid critic [2], with the sharpness and clarity of one disillusioned by deep and contemplative thought.

His writing is blunt and sometimes intolerant but makes strong points. I found slogging past the unncomfortably phrased parts useful. There's a lot of interesting stuff there.

But one thing he, a Norwegian, once said to me was that he felt the really unique and valuable thing about the American capitalist system was its degree of forgiveness. Elsewhere, he said, if you make a mistake and, you are done, sacked with debt you cannot return from, and given no second chance. The American system of bankruptcy means people can recover and learn from mistakes.

Plainly some do not learn, as one of our co-presidents shows clearly. And you can still do horrible harm that you should not be forgiven for, a problem the other co-president is poster boy for. But there is a place for forgiveness and just tolerance.

Yet instead, having gotten into the treehouse, the co-presidents are not seeking to bring others along, just to pull up the ladder so that no one else can get in, at least not without paying dearly.

Naggum also speaks (and this much is in the referenced essay [2]) of the need to accomodate change and diversity and unfortunate circumstances, which he seems to assert is part of the fabric of society that bring intolerant people to sufficient success that they can start to build a society that espouses no need for such.

These things which are in stark contrast with the writings of Yarvin (the apparent philosophical leader of Vance and the Project 2025 crowd), who seems scarily comfortable with death and suffering [3] [4].

[1] https://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2009/05/freedom-to-hear.html

[2] https://www.nhplace.com/kent/Writing/OS/Naggum-on-Atlas-Shrugged.html (yes, it has some broken links but the important part is the long embedded quote from email he sent me)

[3] https://www.thenerdreich.com/curtis-yarvin-fears-his-authoritarian-fantasy-is-flopping/

[4] https://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2024/10/vance-notice.html

#objectivism #objectivist #AynRand #forgiveness #USPolitics