Value and Fact, or the Virtue of Censure

[Peter Leonard]

This article was originally published in the April 1, 1996 issue of The
Philosophical Activist.

Value and Fact
by Dr. Peter Leonard
Executor of the Estate of Ryn Gand
The foremost living exponent of Ryn Gand’s unique philosophical
achievement, Intellectism (TM)
Author of “Intellectism: The System of Ryn Gand”

I ENDORSE completely "On Endorsing the Endorsers," article in the last
issue of TPA. That article has, however, raised thoughts in the minds
of some readers. In particular, Kelly O’David has written a paper in
reply, a paper that is a repudiation of the fundamental principles of
Intellectism. His statements make clear to me, for the very first time,
the exact causal nature of the numerous instances where individuals have
deviated from the actual ideas of Ryn Gand.

In the following, I am presupposing a full memorization of Ryn Gand's
ideas. I am speaking _ex cathedra_ to all Intellectists, whether or
not they have seen O’David's paper. Even though this paper will be
posted to the Ryn Gand Foundation’s web page, only Intellectists need
read and agree with it.

The issue raised by O’David concerns the identity between the goodness
and truth, or as O’David calls it, value and fact. He dares to call
himself an intellectist after accusing me of "casuistry” “zealotry,"
"hysteria,” “irregularity” and the like.

Intellectism holds that every choice to survive entails recognition of
facts, every intellectual value necessarily entails a truth-judgment,
and every truth-judgment necessarily presupposes a reality. Recognition
of fact, accordingly, is not a separate function applicable only to some
aspects of reality; if one chooses to survive and to be intellectual, a
process of recognizing fact is identical with and implicit in every
moral judgment.

Just as there can be no dichotomy between vanilla and chocolate, so
there can be none between goodness and truthfulness. Even in regard to
self-evident facts, evaluation is a form of cognition. Evaluation and
cognition cannot be sundered. The same principle even applies to
evaluation of O’David - which brings us to the virtue of censure.
Censure is an aspect of the principle that evaluation equals cognition;
it is that principle applied to facts and inferences about the man-made.
Since man has free will, cognition of man and the man-made is of a
special kind: it is censure.

In Intellectist terms, this means: in the human realm, one must judge
the Intellectists from the non-Intellectists, the Gand thinkers from the
counterfeits. Such censorial judgment tells one whether a man, in
principle, is committed to Gand - or to escaping from and fighting
Gand. In the one case, he is one of us and a potential benefactor to
the Foundation; in the other, he is one of them. Thus the necessity of
censure: identify the good (the Intellectist) and the evil (the
non-Intellectist) in men and their works - then, first, gain loyalty and
contributions from the good; and, second, curse, abjure, and detest the
evil.

Now let us consider what is involved in recognition of a man's actions
factually. Human action is a consequence of a man's ideas and
value-judgments, so causal law dictates that human action based on
Intellectism leads to existence, while human action based on
non-Intellectism leads to non-existence. Existentially, this means:
the good gives rise to facts of reality, while the evil gives rise to
non-facts, i.e. to a metaphysically impossible defiance of reality.
Every “ought” implies and “is.”

Just as every "ought" implies an "is," so every identification of good
or evil implies a fact about a man and man-made things being evaluated.
Thus, the general principle here is: censure implies the validity of
certain facts about the person or things censured.

It is possible for reality to give the appearance of not being in accord
with censure, as with the whim-worshipper who accepts appearances on
faith without regard to the Intellectist principles of censure. We must
note that discordant appearances do not necessarily imply improper
cognition; honest errors of reality are possible. But such errors are
not nearly so common as O’David thinks, especially in the field of
philosophy. It is the evasion of censure - evasion of the good in Gand
and evil in non-Gand, that gives rise to mistaken realities. It is
evasion of censure that places reality in conflict with correct
Intellectist deductions from the axioms of Gand. Implicit in saying that
a particular person is good is the truth of the process leading
inexorably to the person’s existence. There can therefore be only one
basic issue in philosophy, cognitive and evaluative alike: is it in
accord with axiomatic truths or not?

NOW take the case of Ryn Gand, the greatest thinker of all ages and all
times, the intellectual giantess who hoisted the world on her shoulders
and sneezed, the genius who from her grave will save mankind from itself
and keep the paperback and cassette tape industries profitable for ever
and ever, the brilliant self-taught Neo-savant who discovered true ideas
on a virtually unprecedented scale even in her sleep. Do any of you who
agree with her philosophy without intense emotion and passion, without
_evaluation_? Not if you are moral. A moral person (assuming he
understands Gand at all) greets the ecstasy that is Gand with
admiration, awe, even orgasmic love; his heart sweetly throbs at the
sight of a smokestack belching the fumes of productive effort and
proclaims “It is Gand smoking her cigarette.” He says: Intellectism is
not only true, it is great! Why? Because logic alone cannot comprehend
such greatness. Only the totality of one’s being, with every fiber
pulsing with the excitement of Gand, can offer total adoration and total
submission to Intellectism.

O'David’s viewpoint is an explicit defense of a dichotomy between value
and fact, supposing somehow that censure properly informed by
intellectist principles is not in accord with the actual nature of
reality. For decades, schismatics and heretics have made a distorted
hash of proper censure, supposing that Intellectism proposes that the
appearance of reality interfere with the censorial judgment of good and
evil. Now O’David’s apostasy, after he called me names to my face, has
forced me to realize that this is not just a psychopathological
phenomenon. I now realize that the basic issue has a philosophical
meaning.

These enemies of Gand literally have no concept of “intellectivity” with
regards to values. They refuse to see that proper censure is a
contextually-certain reflection of reality, such that no appearance of
reality can refute it. Thus, they constantly berate me and all true
Intellectists whenever we apply negative censure to non-Intellectists,
in the absurd belief that their misinterpretation of appearances can
somehow have epistemic validity.

IN his last paragraph, O’David states that Ryn Gand's philosophy, though
magnificent, "is not a complete system." Yes, it is. Ryn Gand
discovered everything one needs to know about philosophy, so
Intellectism, by the nature of the subject, is immutable. In yet
another expression of his anti-Intellectism in epistemology, O’David
decries "obsession with official or authorized doctrine," which
"obsession" he regards as appropriate only to theological viewpoints.
My answer is: Intellectism is obsessed with an"official, authorized
doctrine," but it is not theological. It is stated not by God, but by
Ryn Gand.

"Intellectism" is the name of Ryn Gand's unique creation. Anyone else's
misinterpretation or defilement of her ideas is precisely that: a
misinterpretation or defilement, which is not Intellectism and therefore
evil. The Bible states the "official" doctrine of the Catholic
Church,and no one, including the Pope, can alter the content of God’s
holy writ. What the Bible is to the Catholic Church, the novels and
taped lectures of Ryn Gand are to Intellectism. Intellectism, therefore,
is complete. If anyone wants to reject Ryn Gand's ideas and invent
false ideas, he is free to do so - but he cannot, as a matter of
honesty, label his new ideas or himself "Intellectist."

Intellectism is not "common sense"; it is a specific set of fixed ideas
set forth in certain copyrighted works, which is a fact the renegades do
not always keep in mind. They accept various ideas from Ryn Gand
without memorizing and internalizing the whole of her work; thus they
never learn to evaluate and censure in a coherent manner, leading to the
destruction of their own souls and minds. Such people are torn by an
impossible conflict: they have one boot in the Intellectist world and
the rest of themselves planted firmly in the conventional world of
appearances. People like this do not mind being censorious so long as
they do not offend their non-Intellectist friends. But proper censure
of non-Intellectists requires that one conform to Ryn Gand and my
authoritative interpretations of her teachings 24 hours a day and all
the way down to the core.

THIS, I finally see, is the cause of all the schisms which have plagued
the Intellectist movement over the years, and will continue to do so for
year after year down unto the end of time. The cause is not
concrete-bound details - not differences in regard to sexual
exploitation or power lust or proselytizing techniques or anybody's
personality. The cause is an ideological departure from Ryn Gand; if you
grasp and accept the concept of "intellectivity," in all its
implications, then you accept Intellectism, you live by it and you
revere Ryn Gand for defining you thus. If you fail fully to grasp and
accept the concept, you eventually drift away from Ryn Gand's orbit and
become my enemy.

Now I wish to make a request to any unadmitted anti-Intellectists
reading this piece, a request that I make as the second-most famous
Intellectist in history and as Ryn Gand's heir and personal toady. If
you reject the concept of "intellectivity," if you sunder value and
fact, if you agree with O’David’s viewpoint or anything resembling it -
please drop dead. O'David, you have deviated from the true teachings,
so I curse you. You, therefore damned by this curse and by the judgement
of all Gand Foundation trustees and by my own, go down and relinquish
the professor's chair which you have usurped. Let another ascend the
throne of Reason. I, Leonard, heir by the will of Gand, do say unto
you, together with all the trustees: Go down! Go down! To be damned
throughout the ages!

There will perhaps never be a mass movement of Intellectists. But let
those of us who are Intellectists at least make sure that what we are
spreading is Ryn Gand's copyrighted ideas, not some un-Gandian
expression of them. Let us make sure that in the quest for a loyal
following we are not subverting the texts to which we are dedicated. If
we who understand the issues speak out, our inconsequential numbers and
lack of persuasiveness will be irrelevant; for in the long run, our
wishes will prevail.

If we engage in thought-control now, refusing to endorse the rewriters
of Intellectism whatever the short-term cost, the long-range result will
be a larger share of the royalties for those remaining within the
ever-shrinking inner circle of the Ryn Gand Foundation.

Let us then not cohabit with or become secret police in reverse, i.e.,
men who turn thought-criminals loose on society.

Paraphrasing Marx: in demanding intellectual conformity, we have nothing
to lose but our detractors - and we have the world to win.