[NOTE: For those who have been following "The Great Debate" this article is in response to Barbara Branden's disgraceful display, "Response to Regi Firehammer's Response to Chris Sciabarra's 'In Praise of Hijacking'" to my final article, "Response To 'In Praise of Hijacking.'" I was originally invited to this debate, knowing its purpose was to promote Chris Matthew Sciabarra's book, but its real purpose was to repudiate me and my stand against attempting to use Objectivism to promote homosexuality. When it was obvious that was not going to work, the duplicitous Barbara Branden and Lindsay Perigo arranged to ban me from their forum, which I addressed in my final "rejected" post to that forum, "My Confession and Apology."]

Barbara, you said, "I hardly know where to start to specify my disagreements with you." You didn't need to specify them at all, but I cannot tell you how delighted I am that you did.

You say, "One problem you must deal with is that Ayn Rand disagreed with you." I do not regard that a problem at all. Lots of people disagree with me. My statement that Objectivism is "a specific contribution made by a single individual who gave her contribution the name Objectivism," is merely a condensation of Ayn Rand's longer statement:

"If you wonder why I am so particular about protecting the integrity of the term 'Objectivism,' my reason is that 'Objectivism' is the name I have given to my philosophy—therefore, anyone using that name for some philosophical hodgepodge of his own, without my knowledge or consent, is guilty of the fraudulent presumption ... of trying to pass his thinking off as mine.... What is the proper policy on this issue? If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Objectivist; give proper authorship credit for the parts you agree with--and then indulge in any flights of fancy you wish, on your own." [Ayn Rand, "To the Readers of The Objectivist Forum,” The Objectivist Forum, Vol. 1, No. 1.]

Of course, you may disagree with that, as you have attempted to do.

The problem with your argument is a problem of identification. In the end, it is correct philosophy that matters, not the name one gives to it. By your principle, all correct philosophy ought to be called Aristotelianism. Objectivism is just Aristotelianism with "extended applications and implications and additional theories by other people," in which, when "we find a mistake in a collateral theory," we correct it. But that way is folly, and the problem is just what has resulted, endless debates about "is this Objectivism," or "is that Objectivism," while the real issues of philosophy are languishing.

"You wrote that: 'Her statement, "homosexuality" is a manifestation of psychological 'flaws, corruptions, errors, [and] unfortunate premises,' is hardly the way one expresses one's personal taste; it is the way one expresses an objective evaluation.' Yes, it is the way one should only express an objective evaluation."

Well, that is all I said. But you add:

"However, It is a fact that Rand had no basis on which to make such a statement."

Are we to suppose "reason" is no longer a sound basis?

"She had never read anything about homosexuality, she had no familiarity whatever with the scientific findings about it, she had never questioned a homosexual acquaintance about it,"

First of all, I cannot imagine how anyone could know any of these things as facts. How could you know everything Ayn Rand ever read. I have no idea everything my wife reads. (She reads at least three books a week, and I could just never keep up.) But even if Ayn Rand had read every book ever written about homosexuality, it is unlikely she would have learned much about it from them. If you go into any public library, and take out every book there is on homosexuality (leaving out all books with a religious flavor) you will only be presented with one side of the issue. If it is true she, "never read anything about homosexuality," it only means she was free to make her own objective evaluation.

After all, everything original that Ayn Rand wrote, she never read about ever, because it had never been written anywhere before.

As for the, "scientific findings," there aren't any. Chosen human behavior is not determined by the facts of science, else it wouldn't be chosen. I am also very curious about how you know the details of every private conversation she ever had.

As for, "she had only a feeling of repugnance (probably instilled by her rather traditional Russian background) toward the phenomenon," when I say anything like that around here, I am accused of "psychologizing." I wonder if I could get away with say, "the reason you feel the way you do about homosexuality is because of you liberal Jewish rearing," (which, of course, I do not believe for a minute and would never seriously say.) You see what's wrong with that, though, don't you?

"Further, she agreed with Nathaniel's concept of repression, ..." Well, as Linz says, "she made some mistakes."

[It has occurred to me since writing that, it is not the only mistake she made with Nathaniel Branden, and this, "repression," nonsense is not doubt part of the rationalization of that other mistake.]

"Regi, I think you do not understand the meaning of the subconscious or of 'a subconscious mental process.'"

You are absolutely correct. I do not understand it. I do not understand lots of such words, like transubstantiation, transcendental meditation, reincarnation. The reason I do not understand them is because they are all, subconscious included, mystic nonsense with nothing in them to understand.

Here is classic phsychobable: "It refers, in effect, to the integrating functions of the mind." Well, what are those functions? What exactly do they do? That word, "integration," has a very specific meaning. It means to organize in a non-contradictory way. Mental integration is a conscious function, not some mysterious something that causes percepts in some inexplicable way.

I wondered why my article, "Perception: A Mistake at the Heart of Objectivist Epistemology," was originally rejected, and why the resistance to it was so shrill. I wondered, because SOLO seemed to want to make philosophical progress, to explore new ground, but in the face of the first really new idea in objective philosophy in fifty years, it was rejected outright, and dismissed with as little possible discussion as possible.

You have no idea how much I appreciate your making me understand the nature of that objection. It was not, as I supposed, that the wording of the title suggested a repudiation of some aspect of Objectivism. It is not that at all. It sweeps away one of the last problems of Objectivist epistemology, grounding it in just the kind of objective understanding the nature of perception required. I assumed no one read it, and that it was rejected because of a misunderstanding.

You have opened my eyes to the real reason it was rejected. It was rejected because it eliminates the last vestiges of Kantian mysticism in Objectivism, that, "mysterious subconscious integration process," which substituted for an objective explanation of perception. By providing a simple and obvious explanation of the relationship between sensation and perception, eliminating the need for that inexplicable "magic" process that turned one thing into another (sensations into percepts, like transubstantiation, or psychological transmutation) by "some" means (what means? Blankout!), the last resort of those who claim they have feelings and desires for which they cannot account was wiped away.

It is just now that I see, it is all that is wrong with the idea of the, "subconscious," my article attacked. Thank you for helping me see that.

By the way, please do not bother arguing against my thesis on perception without reading it. You do not want to be accused of having a position on a subject you never read anything about.

[The brilliant Barbara Branden did not understand this allusion to her own criticism of Rand for having an opinion about homosexuality which, "she had never read anything about." She complained in an email to me that I was being sarcastic, which I readily admitted. Once I explained it to her, she appologized for her misinterpretation, which amused me even more.]

"For example, when you were writing your article, not every word you would use was present in your consciousness, nor even every argument; the words and ideas you required, and the connections among the ideas, were fed from your subconscious as as (sic) you thought and worked," you said. But this is just another example of what is wrong with the pseudo-concept subconscious. It lumps together several different disparate, fairly well understood concepts. It is a mish-mash that can only confuse. I could not write a single word without being conscious of it. Where do those words come from. They do not come from some mysterious dark hole called the subconscious, they come from memory. My 89 year old father has some trouble writing, because sometime the words won't come. If writing were as "automatic" as you suggest, it would not be necessary for him to be conscious of the words in order to write them.

"Regi, how did you discover that you were heterosexual?" What an absurd question. It is like asking, "how did you discover you are not a pyromaniac." Frankly, the question never came up, but if it had, the answer is simple: I looked at me, I looked at her, and said, "well its pretty obvious how that's supposed to work."

The one to ask that question of is the pyromaniac or homosexual. "How did you discover you were a pyromaniac?" or "how did you discover you were a homosexual?" We both already know the answer. They had a feeling, a desire, some passion that told them. In other words, they grant cognition to feelings. When I was a manager in various corporations, I was often sought out for help by people, even those who did not work for me, about problems they had, frequently with certain compulsions, for example. Maybe it was because they knew I never judged anyone except on actual performance.

One question I almost always asked was similar to yours, "how do you know this feeling you have which you cannot resist is telling you to ... (have drink, have an affair, take the drug, beat someone up, etc.) The answer was always, "they just knew?" or a look of bewilderment. It was obvious they had never asked themselves that question. I usually had to explain, "how do you know that feeling 'I must have drink' does not really mean, 'I must brush my teeth?'" By helping them understand they had to provide the "interpretation" or "meaning" of a feeling themselves, they were often able to see they were being controlled by the feeling, not their own choice. I do not know why this technique so often worked, but it did. I do know, so long as people believe their feelings actually tell them something (beyond the fact that they have the feeling), there is no hope of regaining rational control of one's life.

"Discovering that you had the desires of a heterosexual," was certainly never true of me. I discovered that sex was pleasurable and I discovered the nature of the difference between boys and girls and put two and two together. Once I figured that out, the desires followed. All desires are the result of what we think and are conscious of.

[NOTE: This business of, "desires of a heterosexual," is just another variation of, "sexual orientation," or "sexuality." These all "beg the question" of the nature of sex itself by assuming there is such a thing as "sexual orientation," that is, that one's sexual behavior is determined by genetics or development. The words themselves are a logical falacy, assuming the very thing that is in question.]

"You wrote: 'Sex just happens to be the means of reproduction with which human beings are endowed, just as eating is the means of nourishment with which humans beings are endowed.' Yes, and if God had intended man to fly, he would have given him wings."

Frankly, Barbara, this bit of disingenuousness is a bit surprising. You know that was not my point at all. I was merely pointing out the fact, if we happened to reproduce some other way, we would not have genitals at all. The fact that we have them, (instead of stamens, for example), is because we are the kind of beings we are. In my book I point out that we do not have to follow our natures, we can, for example, be fed through our noses (as is sometime done under extreme medical conditions), but it is not normal.

Regi