If you wish to contact me privately, my email is primemover333@gmail.com. If you wish to know how I got three columns across the top of my blog but only two below ... if you're willing to pay, I'm willing to tell you (unless I really like you, then you don't have to pay).

I enjoy discussion both with people that agree with me and those that don't, so comment liberally if you so choose. However, don't expect me to pull punches if your comments are nonsense.

I believe I will be focusing, for the greater part, on the practical side of things. In other words, "less art, more substance;" how I apply Objectivism in my everyday life. There are enough blogs and other resources available that talk theory. I've provided links to a number of them here. For now, I prefer to focus on applying that theory to the nitty-gritty of everyday life instead of higher concepts. However, inevitably, there will probably by some conceptual posts as well; like any time something really gets my goat. Enjoy.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

The Missing Link

Thank you, Diana, for finally giving me the missing piece of the puzzle. In his book "Blink" Malcom Gladwell talks about rapid cognition; the way a person's subconscious will pick up certain clues based on that person's life experience (e.g. formal schooling, information acquired from exposure to different circumstances, et al) and feed a conclusion to the conscious mind. Often mistaken for revelation or instinctual knowledge, it is a person's reticular activating system identifying what is important in solving a particular problem and channelling the solution to the conscious mind, sometimes in the manner of "just a feeling."

I had "a feeling" about "third parties" and how they were ineffective where they weren't downright harmful, but I could never rationally explain why I had that feeling until Diana placed the above referenced post on an Objectivism Online forum. The comparison to the abolitionist movement was especially telling. It's always nice to have a historical example. I'd like to make the comparison, since we're in a war of ideas, to asymmetric warfare. When facing an enemy of great strength, never gather all in one place where you can be effectively wiped out; or in this case, summarily ignored in toto.

~Adam
Posted by Adam Ross Cooke at 2:13 PM
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