Letter From Jerry Kirkpatrick - To George Reisman And Edith Packer
Letter From Jerry Kirkpatrick - To George Reisman And Edith Packer
November 2, 1993
Edith Packer and George Reisman
Board of Advisors
The Ayn Rand Institute
Dear Edith and George:
As follow-up to my letter of October 26, I would like to make these additional comments on how ARI is planning to spend, and currently is spending, contributor money to train future intellectuals.
From day one of the Ayn Rand Institute, I have urged the Executive Director to offer seminars in the Objectivist epistemology to all doctoral students, not just to those in philosophy. From day one, right up to the present OGC proposal, the Institute has consistently ignored or diminished the value of other fields. Most often, the response I have gotten in return for my suggestion is: "We want to do it someday, but right now we don't have the money. Besides, we'll do the 'cognate' fields first." Or: "Non-philosophers can do a lot to help get Objectivism legitimized, but I don't see how they can do more or even as much as straight philosophy, given the fundamental nature of philosophy."
Now, given my knowledge of the power of philosophy, I have never quarreled with this last statement. Nevertheless, a considerable myopia is blinding the Institute's directors to other effective ways of spreading Objectivism, especially within academia. Because the two most prominent Objectivist philosophers today do not have, and apparently cannot obtain, academic positions, and because recent graduates in philosophy also are having considerable difficulty finding jobs, other avenues must be explored. And a key to understanding what these avenues are is George's suggestion (made at the opening banquet of TJS this summer) that three Objectivists at one university is all it would take to make a difference in changing a school's intellectual climate and in widening the path to philosophy departments. I can tell you with certainty that if there were two more Objectivists at Cal Poly – and I don't care whether their PhD degrees would be in physical education or Arabian horse breeding – if they really understood Objectivism and were willing to stand up for their ideas, the three of us within a few years could take over the Faculty Senate and turn the climate of Cal Poly around.
My evidence for this is my having been "P-C'd" (i.e., vilified for holding politically incorrect ideas) twice for the sake of Objectivism, the first time for the sake of Peter Schwartz; I won both times by standing firm and by appealing to the more rational Cal Poly faculty, many of whom seem to be waiting for someone to step forward to retake the universities in the name of sanity and rationality. The "retakers," it should be self-evident, do not have to be philosophers! The other Objectivist academics, however, do have to understand Objectivism thoroughly. This is where the Institute's teaching efforts are needed. Linda and I both have been approached by non-philosophy doctoral candidates about learning more about the Objectivist epistemology. If the Institute does not begin teaching these students, we will.
This brings me to the Institute's attitude toward its present graduate philosophy students. I was shocked recently to discover that some of these students have not taken all of Dr. Peikoff s taped lecture courses, and then I noticed that his history of philosophy courses and The Art of Thinking are not even available. Does the Institute ever ask these students what courses they have taken? And if they have not taken some courses, does the Institute urge them to do so immediately (they are, after all, in graduate school in philosophy) and make the tapes available to them at no cost? I hate to think just how much of the extant Objectivist literature these students have not read or studied. This, of course, ties in with George's comments in his October 26 memo that these students need content courses. What they need is systematically to go through the Objectivist literature, as well as such works as the Jones and Windelband histories, and the Ruby and Joseph logics.
If the students' writing skills need honing, make them write a precis of each article or chapter of whatever they read (but "precis" in the original meaning of the term). They'll not only learn to write by thinking in essentials; they'll also retain the content. (Having them condense each chapter of IOE to three paragraphs, for example, would certainly tweak their gray cells.) Or have them write detailed essay exams on the content of the taped courses and related readings, which is what Linda had two undergraduates do several years ago at the University of Redlands; the undergrads expressed amazement at how little of Objectivism they understood before attempting to answer Linda's questions. As future intellectuals representing Objectivism, the graduate students should expect to be drilled hard, both extensively and intensively. As for the students who are not located in southern California, what is wrong with correspondence courses, accompanied, perhaps, by an occasional telephone conversation? (Video-conferences are expensive and I cannot imagine what learning value there is in seeing each other's mug; the use of public fax machines would speed up the interchange of written materials, but I fail even to see the urgency of that in most teaching situations.) Has the Institute ever considered the thought that offering such courses to thirty or more graduate students around the Country in a variety of fields would be much more cost-effective and consistent with the Institute's stated goals than offering the proposed two OGC seminars on narrow content to six or seven students?
The Institute directors' attitude toward its graduate students in philosophy seems to be one of creating clones of themselves, not "New Intellectuals" as Ayn Rand described them. The message the Institute is giving these students is that broad-scale, in-depth knowledge is not necessary for an Objectivist intellectual; all you need to know, apparently, is a few basic principles of Objectivism, thoroughly chewed and digested, and then you can become an expert on everything. What the present proposal for OGC indicates is that the Institute directors' desire to make OGC an alternative to academia is just as strong as it was this past summer. As you know, Linda engaged in several discussions with the principals over this issue – of giving up, in effect, on academia. Their protestations to the contrary, I remain unconvinced that they see OGC as anything other than an alternative for themselves to academia; indeed, I see nothing but contempt for the idea that they are agents of the contributors, charged with spreading Objectivism for the least dollar contributed.
I have to conclude this letter by expressing puzzlement and dismay at the complaint, which I have heard more than once, that the efforts of the Institute are not appreciated by other people. I am shocked at such statements from Objectivists because I think Objectivists should know that just as good teachers do not give "A's" for effort, the marketplace does not pay entrepreneurs for how many hours per week they work; in both cases, it is the quality of results that determines the reward. As business writer Peter Drucker puts it, it is effectiveness that counts, not efficiency, or as he puts it colloquially: a good manager must do the right things, not just do things right. The former activity is the mark of a good entrepreneurial manager, the latter of a good bureaucrat. The Institute leadership exhibits all the earmarks of a bureaucracy – which I do not wish to finance.
Sincerely,
Jerry Kirkpatrick, PhD
Professor