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From: will.dockery@gmail.com (W.Dockery)
Newsgroups: alt.arts.poetry.comments,rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: The Psycho-epistemolgy of MMP
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2025 11:06:38 +0000
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On Mon, 3 Feb 2025 10:44:11 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:

> On Sun, 2 Feb 2025 23:08:34 +0000, Will-Dockery wrote:
>
>>> George J. Dance wrote:
>>> On Sun, 2 Feb 2025 2:28:41 +0000, W.Dockery wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sat, 1 Feb 2025 20:58:37 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, 17 Jan 2025 13:45:51 +0000, W.Dockery wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, 17 Jan 2025 4:07:04 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:
>>>>
>>>> moved from
>>>>
>> https://www.novabbs.com/arts/article-flat.php?id=254114&group=alt.arts.poe
>> try.comments#254114
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, 16 Jan 2025 0:20:56 +0000, W.Dockery wrote:
>>>>
>>>> That's Michael Pendragon, always the Peter Keating styled second hander.
>>>>
>>>> Essentially we're in agreement; but I have to raise two non-essential
>>>> points of disagreement. First, I would rather not refer to the subject
>>>> as "Pendragon." The subject's real name is unknown; "Michael
>> Pendragon"
>>>> is just one of his socks, albeit the most prolific one. I would prefer
>>>> to refer to him as "MMP" (which doesn't mean you have to, of
>> course, if
>>>> you disagree).
>>>>
>>>> Second, I don't think that Peter Keating is the best 'type' to describe
>>>> MMP in the novel. Both Keating and MMP are social metaphysicians - they
>>>> think that reality is whatever people believe it is, the
>> "consensus"
>>>> view of reality. But so do half the novel. Where those two are different
>>>> is that Keating is content to follow the consensus, while MMP believes
>>>> he can actually control reality by controlling others' beliefs. That
>>>> makes him more like two of Rand's other protagonists from that novel,
>>>> Gail Wynand and Ellsworth Toohey. Which of those matches him best is
>>>> still an open question.
>>>>
>>>> Why does Michael Pendragon lie and misrepresent so much?
>>>>
>>>> MMP has told us he was abused as a boy, and I think that fact is key.
>>>> Lying is one tactic children usually try at some point to escape
>>>> punishment, and an abused child has all the more reason to keep at it ad
>>>> learn how to do it successfully. Since MMP comes across as clever (at
>>>> least 120 IQ), it is also fair to think that he was able to learn to lie
>>>> successfully. So it is fair to conclude that he did learn to lie
>>>> successfully, and escape punishment, more than once.
>>>>
>>>> While no one can blame a child in that position for lying, his doing so
>>>> successfully would be giving him the wrong feedback, making him think
>>>> that he actually was changing reality by changing his parents' beliefs -
>>>> telling him that in fact reality was whatever one wanted it to be, and
>>>> that he could be that one.
>>>>
>>>> More later, but I wanted to get these two points on record quickly.
>>>>
>>>> Interesting, I'm starting to think both Harry Lime and Jim Senetto were
>>>> actually projecting in their critiques of "My Father's House."
>>>>
>>>> I can imagine that for the Lime sock (MMP). As far as his Chimp, though,
>>>> I don't want to leap to that conclusion for him. Remember, he is the
>>>> less intelligent of the two, and in consequence he just believes and
>>>> says whatever MMP tells him to. That could be all he was doing in those
>>>> threads as well.
>>>>
>>>> It seems that Senetto took the lead in attempting to drive Stephan
>>>> Pickering from the newsgroup though, but that may have been fueled by
>>>> Senetto's obvious Antisemitism.
>>>
>>> Thanks for reminding me. It was actually MMP who did that by bringing
>>> NAMBLA to the group. That triggered Jim, just the way MFH triggered him
>>> after he was told that it was really about child molesting.
>>
>>
>> I'm drawing a blank on MFH myself
>>
>> Who is that?
>
> MFH = "My Father's House".

Oh, of course!

I was feeling like Joe Biden or Jim Senetto for a moment there, I just
couldn't figure out those initials.

😏